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fissiddeni
02-23-2016,
Greetings fellow Stockaholics!

My inability to plan ahead caused me to miss the boat on archiving my old journal -- so here we are starting anew! Probably for the best, as my HSM journal experienced several face lifts & adaptations along the way. Having learned my formatting and general 'flow' lessons there, my hope is that this journal will be much 'cleaner.'

A basic premise to what this journal is all about... Primarily, I trade/sell monthly credit spreads which are deeply OTM. This strategy accounts for 67% of my portfolio, with the remaining 33% dedicated to what I consider to be value-based investments...well, for the most part...some sheer gambles reside in that section of my portfolio, but do not amount to a significant %. Those value investments are exactly that, investments...think buy-n-hold. Surrounding these core holdings, I place short term vanilla option plays (when conditions are right) in an effort to reduce my basis (or risk). That about sums up what I am all about as a trader & investor.

Along the way, I post my trades as near to real time as I can...though admittedly most of the time I'm off by a day or two (or ten). I post my original logic / thought process for each trade or investment, and then any subsequent updates to that trade are posted exactly as that...updates to the original post. Point being that if you find a trade or investment you're interested in, check the original thread from time to time for updates...if you like! After each month's Expiration Day, I post my monthly roll-up which covers how I did (or as of late, how I didn't do!), along with some rambling reflection.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by, hope to see ya around! I really am excited about this new chapter -- so thanks for the opportunity!

GerardoTes
02-24-2016,
The main item on my plate for Monday deals with my position in JCP. I currently have $10 Covered Calls, which as of Friday's close are 0.02 ITM...so this could go either way! If my shares are called away @ $10, then this investment will have yielded a 119% return, annualized to 52% since I've held for over two years. I'm a little late to this party, as JCP seems to have turned a corner and showing a more bearish pattern, but it is what it is. I'm looking to see if I can extend the winnings further by rolling the 15Apr options to Aug or Nov...or beyond. Here is a breakdown of what various scenarios would look like. Each scenario assumes that the shares are called away, hence the stated Return // Annualized Return:

Call Value // New Basis // Total Return // Annualized Return

fxaqeoc
02-24-2016,
Today's CHK rocket ship cemented my $3.5 puts deeply OTM with 3x trading days left to expiration date. If CHK can get follow through tomorrow to the upside, I should be able to roll my $8 20May Calls to a further expiration, further reducing basis & increasing returns. However, today's spike stopped exactly at the 200 MA on the Daily, which coincides perfectly with CHK's floor from Fall 2015...so anything can happen. As it stands, if my shares are called away @ $8 on May 20th, it equates to a total return of 316.67% // 543% annualized..not a bad gamble. Still, with 1.92 per share in risk still on the table, if I can further reduce that, I'd be more than happy to. Here are how the expiration date scenarios flesh out:

gluntedgiluts
02-26-2016,
AGCO had a nice pop into its 20 MA on the Daily, as well as its resistance TL. My bet is that we're seeing another lower high set in -- hence my rolling the Apr15 CCs to May before they expire ITM. If I'm wrong, I will look to roll again to the $55 short strike -- there just wasn't the premium or liquidity there today to do so, otherwise I would have obviously. Still, the roll resulted in a whooping $1.32 in basis reduction, showing a lot of positive bias consider the stock isn't even close to that amount over $50 right now.

fitepudavi
02-29-2016,
SUMMARY:
I wanted to continue to hold this investment, but I am in the process of buying a home and the capital from this investment is required for that now. We are about a month out from closing, so in an effort to let gold's surge play out as long as it could, I set up a trailing stop of 3% following GDX's most recent surge on Tuesday. The next-day-pullback on Wednesday triggered the stop and resulted in the sale. I hope to get back into GDX and/or Gold as soon as the dust settles from this home purchase -- I think there is still huge potential here...way more upside to come IMHO.


LESSONS LEARNED:
1. WAY Too Early Entry -- this is a systemic problem of mine which I hope I'm slowly walking away from and leaving in the past, but only time will tell. Most, if not all, of my investment positions are from 2014 or earlier...and back then I definitely was not being as analytical as I am now with how I do things, so I feel like my Lessons Learned section is going to contact "Early Entry" for a long time coming. Definitely hurts to see my Entry @ 22 vs GDX's spiral down into the 12s...ugh...learn from it.

2. Separate Put Sales -- I sold 2x rounds of puts in a single month...why? My intent was good, a phased/systematic build up of my position, but my execution was terrible. I nibbled at GDX initially, but then piled in with those 2x put sales as they were assigned. That significantly restricted by ability to react to GDX's fall into the low teens. Had I NOT piled in by selling back-to-back put expirations, I would have been able to sell a round of puts, or just flat out bought shares, of GDX this past fall. Obviously my ROI/AROI would be significantly different had I done that.

Overall, I realized a nice gain on a significant portion of my portfolio (for me, anyway)...so I can't beat myself up too bad. But there is definitely room for improvement and I am confident my trading is/will improve, as I'm being much more diligent & thoughtful now than I used to be!