Well guys, status update. I have been trading my and my mom's account in very different fashions. Lots of the same stuff but less leverage in her account (except for when things crashed a few weeks back). My account, I take modestly quick losses. Her account, on trades from my own account, I stay with them if they are more conviction type trades. I take quick bad losses on newsletter trades that usually come back - but have less "ownership" so first to go. I had much more cushion with her account, but even then came close to margin issues when everything went bad at once.
Gains in account went from north of 20% down to 10% and now back north of 25% - lots of short calls (BKS (also short puts), JRCC (also a short put)) and 2 very good longs (ITMN short puts and MAKO short puts) saved the account this week. Short calls in IDCC and FSLR and short puts in IOC and GDP have hurt modestly.
In terms of overall profitability, the biggest single loser has been short calls on BKS at 2% of portfolio size and short puts on BKS is the biggest single gainer at 4% of portfolio size. Two other offsetting positions in BKS way way way OTM have added 1%. This is a name which cost me in my own account as I covered the short calls horribly wrong.
At 3% of portfolio gains, short ITMN puts have also helped. Minor offsetting short calls have been breakeven (were up a bit until today).
JRCC has two gainers (one put series and one call series) and two losers (puts). It is up about 2-3% of portfolio. Others: MAKO only in puts has added 2%, LCC puts have added 1-2% (closed LCC's probably make up more than 1/3 of realized gains which are about 10% of portfolio), QCOR (very small) puts make up 1%, CIE strangle makes up almost 2% (out of order as each gainer is less than biggest gainers from above), and GDOT has helped slightly as has DAL.
Z, GDP, FSLR, a stock I am too ashamed to divulge, and IDCC (net gain of 3% offset by 2 losers totalling 4%) are the only losers at this time. Lots of losses have been realized but much less than in own portfolio.
Own account hit highs on the open Wednesday as the JRCC short minted $. It has since been dragged down hard by IDCC (both calls and puts elevated and I mis-managed position size there), Z, SKUL, and most importantly, GDP, along with one un-named embarassment which killed me. Big helpers have included STX puts and strangles, FSLR strangles, MAKO puts and strangles (mis-managed exits costing myself 1/2% of portfolio size), BKS strangles and puts, and an AAPL long stock which I exited on the gap Monday (let short puts deliver stock as my experience has been AAPL usually gaps up after big down Fridays - not sure I will let that happen this week). Other hurts have included ANR short puts (hedge to JRCC) and JRCC short puts (hedges). I cannot over-emphasize how hurt I was by GDP (Wednesday), Z (last week and some this week), one stock to be un-named, IDCC short calls (with puts barely helping) and SKUL short puts (with offsets barely denting the losses). ITMN, MAKO, BKS and JRCC have been saviors - all except for MAKO have been big losers at various points and MAKO only was not a hindrance because of good first entry into short puts (but I gave up big gains for a while).
Just two cents on my accounts. May give some names to think about or to AVOID more likely. Also shows one guy's struggles. I feel like I am badly losing money in my account but truth is mistakes and wins are offsetting. Account has under-performed my admittedly tough requirements for it and now looks likely to fall short for year as some newer losses and stock moves imperil some automatic gains I expected, but is up pretty solidly, and I have moved to mitigate losses in the un-named stock, a stock I could have removed for 60% less cost 2 weeks ago when I first got queasy on the name. Ugghh!! I did not listen to gut (which was driven by awful tape).
My mom's account is killing it. It is probably a bit inflated currently but in 35-40% of the time with less overall risk (although not by as much as I would have hoped given it got close to a margin call), it has performed very close to my own account. It and my own account have probably been very similar since mid July with both having ups and downs - looked worse in mom's account since it had fewer banked gains at that point.
One last point - drawdowns. Biggest drawdown in my own account was BIG on ATPG screw-ups in May/June. Probably approximated 15-20% on close of trade accounting with bigger intra-day on one particular day. Managing to avoid this again has probably cost me performance since. I do have 3-4 positions that if they move in concert could re-create such again. I had drawdowns of approximately 5-10% in late March/April, again in May, again in late July and again a few weeks back. My mom had a 5-8% draw in recent weeks until this week got it all +10% back as almost every position worked at the same time. Funny how these things work.
Jon |
