It's been a while

Hello!  It's been a while since I posted here.  Seems like I still get some visits from time to time on this little old blog I've neglected for a few months.  I've been discouraged since the beginning of 2016 in my ability to trade.  But I'm still alive and kicking.

I haven't been tracking my trades or my dividends since the beginning of year.  I've been adjusting and now I have 38% cash in my IB margin account.  I am not as trigger happy as I used to be.  But I will get back into the game once I see an opportunity.

My YTD results sucks as you can see below (March 3rd results), but all in all, I'm still keeping treading above waters.

Above $100k!

I would like to document this day as my non-registered account at Interactive Brokers hit over $100k today!  To be realistic, this may be wiped away any given day.  

What a wild ride this past month has been as shown in the graph below:

The market has been quite bullish for the most part.  Cracks are starting to appear on certain days, but market has come back roaring after each set back.  There are the naysayers calling for a market correction in these conditions.  They will be hailed for calling it "right", but how many opportunities will they miss by standing on the sidelines?  

No one has the magic ball to tell the future, or else, everyone will be filthy rich.  There will be winners as there will be losers on the other end.  I choose to be on the winning side on the most part!!

Interactive Brokers Nickle & Diming Me Again

I have 10 shares of Alibaba from their IPO @ $98!!  My fingers got itchy going into the hype and placed an order.

Anyways, I noticed in my IB account that there's a "fee" for holding $BABA:

2015-05-11

BABA(01609W102) ADR Fee 0.02000000 USD per Share

-0.18

What the hell does that mean?

_________________________________________________________________________________

An update from my Interactive Brokers Reports post, they decided to take it back with multiple confusing transactions.  So I owe money now?

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.  

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.

February Option Performance

February 2015 marks my sixth month anniversary since I opened my Interactive Brokers account (IB)!  So how am I doing thus far?  Well check out my results in the graph below:

This month, I ended up realizing $1,125.43 in option premiums, but I spent $81.21 in commissions!  Not bad for a side gig eh?  The fruits of my labour is starting to sprout in full force.

IB is my starter account to see how successful I would be at trading options. Month after month, I've been growing this account with limited funds.  I am quite surprised with my results.  A cumulative gain of 23.44% since inception!

Finally on February 24th, I decided to move my Virtual Brokers (VB) account over to IB.  Hopefully by early March, I'd be at full trading power.

Take that Dividend bloggers!  

Option Performance Since Inception

Shifting my focus to growing and trading options in my Interactive Brokers (IB), I will showcase my performance to date since inception.  Each month, I will post my Cumulative Performance Statistics to keep me in line.  

Since opening my IB account, I have deposited $15,000.00 CAD into the account.  I have also transferred over two stock positions from Scotia Itrade.  Their book value are $6,212.00.  Both of these stocks have not been realized at a gain and their market value at the time of the transfer are reflected in the "deposit" total.  Do you get what I mean?!  So complicated, I know.

IB has a lot of great features like generating a bunch of in depth reports about the performance of your account!  There are so many different options you can choose from.  IB is truly a real interactive full blown brokerage.  It is still a little foreign to me, but eventually, I will get around to learning their interface to the full advantage.

I never really kept track of my overall performance.  Seriously, I lost track of how much of my own money put into my margin accounts..  I've switched from TDW -> Investorline -> Itrade -> Questrade -> Virtual Brokers.  I do not have a detailed account history report from all of my brokerages.

Moral of my story:  Be organized and keep track of your performance!  Do not lose years like I did.  

Interactive Brokers - Cost you a pretty penny!

ONCE, you hit SUBMIT on INTERACTIVE BROKERS (IB), there is no second guessing your trade.  If you do decide to CANCEL your trade, IB will nickle and dime (just an expression) you for hitting the SUBMIT button.  But YES, they will charge you a pretty penny for each cancelled transaction trade you make.

Since September 2014, I've been charged three times @ $0.01:  

USD
2014-09-12	Order Cancellation Fee for Sep 2014	-0.01
2014-12-26	Order Cancellation Fee for Dec 2014	-0.01
2015-01-02	Order Cancellation Fee for Jan 2015	-0.01
Total		-0.03

IB is great for their overall low option and stock trading commissions.  However, there is pressure to keep up with your commission cost to avoid data fees that you subscribe to.  If you don't meet their minimum requirement in trading fees, you will be charged for data fees for the exchanges you subscribe to.  In the month of November, I did not meet their quota and was charged $11.27. 

CAD
2014-10-01	US Options Level I Non-Professional for Sep 2014	1.68
2014-10-01	US Options Level I Non-Professional for Sep 2014	-1.68
2014-10-01	US Security and Commodity Exchanges for Sep 2014	11.20
2014-10-01	US Security and Commodity Exchanges for Sep 2014	-11.20
2014-11-05	US Options Level I Non-Professional for Oct 2014	1.69
2014-11-05	US Options Level I Non-Professional for Oct 2014	-1.69
2014-11-05	US Security and Commodity Exchanges for Oct 2014	-11.27
2014-12-03	US Options Level I Non-Professional for Nov 2014	1.71
2014-12-03	US Options Level I Non-Professional for Nov 2014	-1.71
2014-12-03	US Security and Commodity Exchanges for Nov 2014	11.41
2014-12-03	US Security and Commodity Exchanges for Nov 2014	-11.41
Total		-11.27

IB offers the cheapest commission for option trading by far in Canada. But I would like to point out the "hidden" costs behind IB from a real honest review.

Disclosure:  To date, I have paid $112.51 in commissions @ IB for 72 contracts.