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.

TD.TO - stock/option trade

I have some cash sitting around... basically earning next to nothing in my Interactive Brokers account.  When I am bored, I tend to trade more recklessly than not.  My methods are not recommended to the average investor by any means.

This is an example of what I do to try to make a few bucks.  Risking $5135.00 to make only $50 in 4 days by buying 100 shares of $TD.TO and selling a covered call.  

The only reason I can make this trade is the beauty of no assignment fees at Interactive Brokers.  My commissions were $2.50.  My net profit is $47.50 resulting 1% gain.  

Showing Less in Public

Personal finance is indeed personal.  Perhaps, I was over sharing my detailed progress line by line.  No one really cares except for me.  It is my money to be made, not yours.

In my Progress Tab, I've taken off my detailed dividends, detailed option trades, detailed stock trades and detailed trading expenses.  Now it's just a summary of my monthly activity in my overall stock/option portfolio. 

I will still continue to live tweet my trades and talk about my option/stock trades.  But now, it leaves more to the imagination.  I won't lay it all out as before.

Anyways, I'm at full trading power at Interactive Brokers.  Time to really put the money to work.  

Covered Calls on my Horizons

The more I dive into the world of options, the more I want to learn and grow as an option trader.  Finally, I deployed the $5000 cash sitting in my RRSP since early January 2015.  This is very unusual for me to just leave a significant amount of cash sitting in a trading account.  But I was stumped.  The markets are at all time highs and every time I pick a stock to buy, it goes down.  

Last Tuesday, I finally took a leap and bought NA.TO for 111 shares @ $48.10 in my Questrade RRSP account.  Unfortunately, I wasn't set up for option level two trading.  So I couldn't do a covered call (CC) for my newly bought shares right away.  

Once set up, I entered in my CC for Jan 2016 strike @ $50 looking to collect a $2.80 premium.  But my good till cancel (GTC) order was in queue and it didn't fill.  Of course, banks took a tumble for the next few days.  The premiums were getting lower and lower.  But I stood my ground, I didn't want to sell for less than $2.80.

Today, NA.TO jumped back up to my buy in price once again and my CC order got filled.  Patience is key.  Set your limits and play within it.  Haha, I know I'm stealing the casino slogan sort to speak.

I am quite attached to my stocks.  The reason why I never sold covered calls is that I don't want to lose my shares and option commissions in QT ain't cheap.  But I am starting to realize that I need to be less emotional and try to milk as much as I can from my stocks.  

For years, I've been holding a few hundred shares of BMO.TO and IPL.TO in my QT RSSP just DRIPing and collecting dividends.  I think it's time for me to deploy some CC on them to generate more income!  But I would hate to get them assigned though.  To be continued...

Comments within Portfolio

Alibaba Group Holding announced disappointing numbers and the market has turned its back on them. They have since retreated back to $90/share from a high of $120/share.  Is this an opportunity to pick up more shares? 

Chipotle Mexican Grill missed guidance in their earnings report.  Share price dropped dramatically from its highs of $728 to $673 (-6%).  I opened a bull put spread earlier this week for $655/$650 expiring Friday, Feb 6th.  If CMG holds above $655, I will stand to profit $140 less commission.  I am trying close this earlier to avoid any surprises for tomorrow. Update:  Closed position for 20c debit @ Feb 5th.

Costco announced a special one time dividend payout of $5 per share.  Stock is up 8% since announcement from Jan 30th and holding.

Disney also reported earning this week with great magical numbers.  Stock jumped 7% last couple days.

Oil is up from last week boosting my overall stock portfolio.