Oh man. November was…not great for the markets in general. October’s rise in volatility hasn’t settled down at all. Will we get a “Santa Rally” or will Mr. Market keep puking on his shoes? Hard to say. In the meantime, let’s review the month of November. Portfolio Summary Metric End of November 2018 End of… Read More Month in Review – November 2018
Well that was fun! Someone spiked Mr. Market’s coffee and he kinda lost it. The VIX jumped into the 20s and the FANG stocks absolutely shit the bed. While pretty much everything felt the pinch of “Red October”, the pain was focused in the high flying momo stocks, which is fine by me. Arguably this… Read More Month in Review – October 2018
Mrs Wizard and I use Capital One 360 for our joint checking and savings accounts. They pay a slightly above average APY (0.2% for checking, 1.0% for savings). That’s better than most of the big banks, but it is not all that great compared to some of the higher yield options out there. Now that… Read More How To Turn Any Bank Account Into a “High Yield” Savings Account
The market continued to be pretty boring in September. Fortunately Elon Musk has fallen on the sword for all of us and is providing plenty of entertainment. I’ve never been so captivated by a stock that I have no position in. We put a little bit of cash to work this month, but overall I… Read More Month in Review – September 2018
Once per quarter Mrs. Wizard and I check in on our ROTH accounts and compare them on three metrics: Total Account Value Total Quarterly Return Total Return Whoever wins two out of three metrics wins the quarter. The loser has to clean the fish tank for the next three months. I started out $1,650 behind… Read More Day of Reckoning – ROTH Competition Update
This trade was actually executed on Thursday 09/06/18. I didn’t get a chance to write about it until today. Please visit the core philosophies article on my investment thesis process for a deeper explanation of the components of this article. Additionally you might find my rules for trading options helpful in understanding the parameters of the trade. In… Read More Sold Cash Secured Put + Investment Thesis – Entravision Communications Corporation (EVC) – $5.00 strike – SEPT 21 Expiration
Well if you were hoping for an uptick in volatility like I was, you were probably a little disappointed with August. Mr. Market continues to languish along in the summer doldrums. I feel like it’s going to get exciting soon though. Here’s hoping. While my options trading strategy certainly does a lot better when volatility picks… Read More Month in Review – August 2018
And that quickly July is gone. Right when the market indexes had almost made up all the ground they lost in February, some big tech names stumbled. It was interesting to see a little bit of divergence emerge; staples and industrials, etc. were relatively unphased, but the “tech” sector was pretty wild. Personally I don’t… Read More Month in Review – July 2018
With the end of June we come to the end of the first half of the year. It feels like the summer doldrums are settling in and the market could be getting a little complacent. Although the volatility jitters from February haven’t completely dissipated either. I’m interested to see what happens in the second half,… Read More Month in Review – June 2018
Exactly one year ago, we put my traditional IRA account (which represents just under 10% of our liquid assets) into a “lazy portfolio” consisting of just four ETFs. It was part experiment and part demonstration that investing isn’t really that hard if you don’t want it to be. The experiment is a year old now and we… Read More Update: Lazy Portfolio Experiment
