Set to Expire: May 1, 2015

Friday is fast approaching.  We can almost say goodbye to April!  Originally, I thought I would end up realizing $678.84 for the month, but I closed a position early and bumped that figure up to $1,019.30!  

Yesterday, I closed my Bull Put Spread (BPS) of $115/$110 for $AAPL set to expire May 15, 2015 early.  I captured 87.96% in 67 days out of the 84 days held.  I realized a profit of  $340.46 after commissions out of $387.07.  I could have let my BPS expire worthless in 17 days for full 100% capture, but I rather close up shop early and move onto the next profitable trade. 

Lately, I've been trying to sell more puts to generate weekly cash flow.  It's riskier but can be rewarding.  Just have to access your risk tolerance.

The following are set to expire on May 1, 2015:

Option	Position	Days Held
FB 01MAY2015 70 P	5	17
FB 01MAY2015 75 P	-5	17
KO 01MAY2015 38.5 P	-1	21
MA 01MAY2015 80 P	-1	25
PEP 01MAY2015 93 P	-1	4
V 01MAY2015 63.5 P	-2	7
XOP 01MAY2015 51 P	-2	7

The only concern of the pile up there is Pepsi.  Today, $PEP took a 1% hit on the stock market and is currently trading 43 cents above my strike price.  With 2 days left, I treading in deep waters looking for a life line.  If $PEP trades in the money, I will roll out my current option to later strike date for a credit.

If all goes well... I will let all my positions expire worthless and keep my premiums collected to total of $333.72.

Not a lot of people understand the power of options.  I'm just here to share my journey to trading options for a profit.  You can too if you take the time to learn it or have the guts to do it.

Interactive Brokers Reports

UPDATE APRIL 30th-  I inquired IB about selling GOOG of a fraction and here is their response by email:

Interactive Brokers does not allow its clients to hold fractional shares of stock received from a Corporate Action. IB automatically converts the fractional shares to the cash equivalent. More information is available at: 

ibkb.interactiv ebrokers.com/article/2121 

GOOG had a stock dividend Ex-Date 4-27-2015 of 0.275 % or an adjustment factor of 1.0027455. This account held a long GOOG stock position at the close on 4-24-2015 of 25 GOOG shares. The account received a fractional GOOG stock amount of 0.0686 shares. 

As IB does not allow holding fractional shares of stock in an account, it converts the fractional share to the cash equivalent. You will see this listed in the "Trades" section of your April 27, 2015 Activity Statement. This conversion is done automatically without any orders entered by the account holder. 


Are Interactive Brokers accurate in their reports?

I question this as I was looking up my trade confirmations for the day and ran a report.  I noticed there was a partial sell for a trade that I did not make.  Could this be error in reporting?  Or are they trying to skim off my Google shares!

Below is the evidence:

Also, I noticed they've made several revisions to my T3s & T5s after posting the forms on their website.  If I didn't have to wait for my other T3s from Virtual Brokers, I would have reported the wrong amounts to CRA.

Anyways, sometimes best to keep in mind, brokerages are not always correct and I need to check on their work.  If this "sell" transaction keeps on showing up on my report, I will inquire about this "phantom" trade to IB.

I checked my shares for GOOG and they are still intact unless they rounded it up and are deceiving me!!!!  

Now, I'll have to open up my TWS to check on this.  I will investigate.

My TFSA Journey

Every year since 2009, I have always tried to max out my TFSA till 2014.  I have contributed a total of $31,000.  

When I first started, I opened up a TFSA savings account earning less than 2%.  I treated it as a regular savings account depositing/withdrawing then depositing some more back and I got penalized for "over" contributing for the year.  (I never had more than $5,000 in the account)  So my first year for TFSA was actually a lost cause.  I ended up paying a penalty that was more than what I earned in interest for the year!  Sad, but true.

Lesson learned:  I can not deposit the amount withdrawn for the year back into my TFSA.  I would have to wait till the next year to deposit the amount withdrawn + the contribution limit.

The following year, I decided to open up a brokerage TFSA account with Questrade to buy stocks.  I've made quite a few critical errors in my early trading days as I got impatient with my slow going stocks... I do regret my impulsiveness.  

After all the mistakes and bad trades I made over the years, my TFSA now stands at $47,169.83 +52.16%.  My rate of return is decent, but it could have been better in all respect.

Currently, I only have four stocks in my TFSA:

500 shares of FN.TO -1.02%
217 shares of D.UN.TO -4.75%
148 shares of V +58.92%
150 shares of MA  +33.51%

But for 2015, I am debating if I want to contribute the full $10,000 maximum allowed or not.  What is a decent Canadian stock trading these days?  I am finding the markets over valued with the bull run we've had in recent years.  Buying American stock is out of the question since the Canadian dollar has fallen so much in the past year against the American dollar.

Another reason I've held back contributing this year is I have been working on my non-registered account deriving monthly income on a consistent basis from option trading.  I would be taking away my buying power within that account if I were to take out $10,000.  Below are my results from trading options alone:

REALIZED PROFITS THROUGH OPTION TRADING
AUG 2014	$0
SEP 2014	$98.96
OCT 2014	$0
NOV 2014	$1,588.24
DEC 2014	$683.54
JAN 2015	$847.75
FEB 2015	$1,125.43
MAR 2015	$1,464.44
APR 2015	$678.84
TOTAL	$6,487.20

Yes, I can move money around.  But do I really want to buy a lacklustre stock in my TFSA.  This market is unpredictable... but with trading options, I am putting money into my pocket each month instead of watching gains or losses on paper.

Plus I have other commitments and obligations to attend my money to.  It is also hard to save when I'm in the lower middle income earner category.

Set to Expire: April 24th

This Friday of expiration is tricky as most companies are reporting earnings!  It can go in your favour or not!  Unfortunately for me, Chipolte Mexican Grill has dropped a whopping $51.28 per share (7.4%) as their same store sales were down.  Sniff sniff, I am holding 2 shares, but I'm still up 25% overall.  Luckily, I don't have option play on $CMG.

I closed a couple positions early to lock in my gains, but if I had held on, Visa and Under Armour would have expired worthless and I would have collected my full premiums.  Sometimes, it's better to be safer than sorry.  I ended up collecting $265.72 of $403.18, representing 66% capture overall.    

Below are my options set to expire:

Option	Position	Days Held
FB 24APR2015 71 P	-2	16
MCD 24APR2015 91 P	-1	3
PEP 24APR2015 91 P	-1	24
PG 24APR2015 77.5 P	-1	18
SBUX 24APR2015 46 P	-2	8
XOP 24APR2015 52 P	-1	3

Most of my options will expire worthless in the next couple days.  I will be monitoring them.  But I have no major concerns at the moment.  If all goes according to plan, I will keep $214.35 that I collected from day 1!

April has been a slower month for me as I have been selling more PUTS in small quantities here and there than doing my regular bull put spreads.  With my increased buying power, I am divided between selling PUTs and bull put spreads.  Selling PUTs are easier to manage than bull put spreads.

After all said and done, hopefully I'll end up realizing $678.84 in gains from doing options for the month of April.

Set to expire: April 17th

Thank goodness it's "almost" Friday!  This has become my favorite day of the week.  Options expires on Fridays and that's when I can see if they expire worthless or not... it's all about playing chicken!

Option	Position	Days Held
MDLZ 17APR2015 34 P	-1	21
TXRH 17APR2015 35 P	-1	17

$MDLZ will expire worthless tomorrow unless we have a market crash on our hands.  No action on my part.  I get to keep $21.91 collected when I sold the PUT option.

$TXRH on the other hand is trading close to $35/share currently.  I will have to keep an eye on this one to see if I want to roll this out to a later month or get assigned.  If TXRH stays above $35/share, I will get to keep $21.75 collected when I sold the PUT option.

These are small plays with minimal buying power.  Worse that can happen is I end up getting assigned with 100 shares of the stock.  My next exit strategy would be selling covered calls on the stock. 

Landlord Reflections #2

A month ago, I received a call regarding my current tenant and I gave my tenant a good reference.  Shortly after, my tenant gave me a month's notice that she will be moving out of my rental unit.  Even though she liked my unit, it was becoming too small for her and growing toddler.  She offered to let me show the unit while she was out of town.  

 For over a year, I did not check up on her.  Yes, I am a very passive and trusting landlord as long as my tenant pays up.  I had no idea what condition the unit would be in.  To my surprise, she has really good taste décor sense and the rustic furniture pieces fit perfectly in the unit.

After listing my unit for rent on Craigslist, I got a number of replies and scheduled showings for the span of two hours in one night.  To my relief, a lot of good potential tenants were interested in my unit and I was able to secure a single tenant in five days.  

Maybe my rent is on the lower side for a newer condominium that garnered so much interest.  But I was able to raise my monthly rent by $100.  Now I am break even in terms of rent coming in and mortgage/strata going out.  Of course, this doesn't account to other expenses like insurance, property taxes, repairs and so forth.

I will be losing out on half month's rent in this process, but I was able to increase the rent and sign another one year lease with my new tenant.  Not really looking forward to cleaning up the apartment though. 

Location is key to finding a tenant quickly.  My condo unit is in the suburbs of greater Vancouver area.  It has shops and restaurants and public transit within walking distance.  Hopefully over the years, I will get a decent return on my investment property.  I have no idea if I am going to keep or not.  Time will only tell.

How it all began...

From an early age, I knew my potential was limited due to the fact I didn't really give a crap about school.  In this day and age, practically everyone has a degree of some sort to add to their resumes to land their high paying dream job.

I went to a technical school for accounting and flunked out of the program by 2%.  For the next few years, I was in/out of school and worked on the side.  

While I was working at a retail store, a former classmate came into the store and we exchanged a few pleasantries.  She graduated and was now working for a reputable company nearby in her field of study.  A pang of guilt stabbed at my heart.  If only, I studied for my finals that day.  I wouldn't be in this situation.

Determined, I started looking for a full time office position.  I sent out a ton of resumes, but I hardly got any call backs due to my lack of experience.  Eventually, I landed an accounting clerk position that paid $10 per hour at a small company.  My commute was an hour each way and my days were long.  But I was happy to be making money on a consistent basis.  I worked hard for the next three years, yet I did not get a raise at all.  They took advantage of me and I was ready to move on.

For the next 8 years, I have slowly climbed my way out of minimum wage.  In 2008, I took on a part time job to supplement my income working an extra 16 hours per week on the side.  Yes, I still have my part time job to this day but on a very scaled basis.

As you can see, I never made a lot of money from my day job.  I struggled to save money in every way I can.  I knew from the beginning, I was never going to get far with just the salary I make from my day job.

In order to grow my wealth, I need to make money work for itself and that's what I have done for the past decade in the stock market.  It is not an easy ride up, there have been many hiccups and bumps along the road.  But I have learned over the years to adapt and deploy new strategies to improve my overall performance in the stock market. 

All it takes is making that one step!  

Portfolio Figures: Quarterly Update

This blog is to track my progress in my stocks & options account. In general, I haven't really been keeping a good track record of my overall portfolio. I've switched in and out of many discount brokerages. Currently, I have two brokerages for CASH/MARGIN/OPTION, TFSA and RRSP.  

QUESTRADE TFSA (Combined CAD)
Total Contribution:  $31,000.00
Current Equity:  $45,573.05 (+749.91)

QUESTRADE RRSP (Combined CAD)
Total Contribution:  $40,000.00 + $8,000.00 = $48,000.00
Current Equity:  $73,116.86 (-1,651.03)

INTERACTIVE BROKERS CASH/MARGIN/OPTION (Combined CAD)
Total Contribution:  $59,242.46 + $4000.00 = $63,242.86
Current Equity:  $93,612.99 (+3,429.24)

BALANCE TRANSFER @ 0.99% GOOD TILL OCT 2015
Current Loan:  -$13,521.20

TOTAL PORTFOLIO VALUE AS OF MAR 31, 2015:  $198,781.70

I am quite pleased with the performance of my overall stock portfolio.  My gain is 49.75% from my original investment.  

Early March, I transferred my account in kind from Virtual Brokers to Interactive Brokers.  With this consolidation, I can concentrate more on option trading with increased margin and buying power to work with.

I have not contributed $5,500 to my TFSA for 2015.  Right now, I am focusing on saving up cash to repay my balance transfer loan by October 2015.  I do not wish to take money out of my stock portfolio.  Plus, I need to account for other upcoming expenses such as car insurance, property taxes, and wedding!

My goal of reaching $200k is within reach now.  I will reset my goal for the end of the 2015:  $225,000!