Friday, May 1, 2015

April Option/Stock Performance

Stock fluctuation is one of the biggest factor to the performance of my Interactive Brokers (IB) account.  I am fully funded now, but I am not taking full advantage of my buying power as I am little cautious.  My option performance have been minuscule in this composition and will be lump inside this trading account.  

On the last trading day of April, my stocks took a hit and wiped away any gains I had for the month.  I ended up with a negative performance of -0.62%.


In April, I ended up realizing $1,019.30 in net option premiums, but I spent $60.58 in commissions.  I let 8 positions expire worthless, and I closed 4 positions early.

IB sold a fraction of my $GOOG shares for 0.0686 @ $563.5126 = $38.69 USD.  This is a stock dividend that I received on April 27, 2015.  IB does not allow any fractions so they sold the shares automatically on my behalf.  I might consider lessening my load of  $GOOG & $GOOGL shares in the next few months as I have significant money tied to this stock that does not pay out any dividend.  They have been stagnant and bouncing between $500-$600.  I would like to make an exit around $600/share mark.  Nothing is set in stone, if I do sell I will have to worry about capital gains for tax reporting.

Liquid from Freedom35Blog reminded me on Twitter recently that my goal for 2015 is to "Create more income through option trading: $5000!"  I am very close to meeting my goal by the end of May 2015!  

 My first love is stocks, but options is really creeping up on me.  With the combination, I can have the best of both worlds.  


2 comments:

  1. I think it's great that you are doing well with options. I still have not jumped on board that train yet but it does interest me. I'm guessing you are selling covered call or selling puts? Would love to learn more about your strategy.

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    1. I think a lot of people are turned off by options due to high commissions on the little premiums you collect from selling puts or selling covered calls. But find the right brokerage and you can run away with more $ in your pockets. I sell very out of the money PUTS and pocket the premium. You use up your buying power but no capital is used to secure this contract which is advantageous as you keep the premiums right from the beginning . simple concept really.

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