Gyroscopic Investing

dualstow wrote:I have considered buying puts, but I have never made use of my options application, even to sell covered calls.

I just don't like the idea of options expiring worthless.

ochotona wrote:

dualstow wrote:I have considered buying puts, but I have never made use of my options application, even to sell covered calls.

I just don't like the idea of options expiring worthless.

Me neither, unless I'm selling covered calls.
Better to just have the right, i.e. comfortable, pp/vp stock allocation.

dualstow wrote:

ochotona wrote:

dualstow wrote:I have considered buying puts, but I have never made use of my options application, even to sell covered calls.

I just don't like the idea of options expiring worthless.

Me neither, unless I'm selling covered calls.
Better to just have the right, i.e. comfortable, pp/vp stock allocation.

Even trend-followers need a "sleep well at night" allocation, because you're possibly one calendar month away from the exit, and lots of sh** can happen in a month.

ochotona wrote:

dualstow wrote:

ochotona wrote:
I just don't like the idea of options expiring worthless.

Me neither, unless I'm selling covered calls.
Better to just have the right, i.e. comfortable, pp/vp stock allocation.

Even trend-followers need a "sleep well at night" allocation, because you're possibly one calendar month away from the exit, and lots of sh** can happen in a month.

The above is why running separate tranches of the same portfolio is a good idea if you can...some of your stuff will be out immediately and you slowly unwind as well as dial back in. But the biggest benefit is it reduces start day/timing risk which can be amazingly high for some systems.

there really may not be a sleep well allocation for most folks .

losing money is losing money and even conservative portfolio's show no better results when the crap hits the fan as far as folks not exhibiting bad investor behavior .

do you really think if someone was looking for a nice sleep easy portfolio after brexit and bought in to the pp that they would not be pressured to flee when they were possibly down almost double digits by years end ?

study after study has shown as a group investors do just as badly compared to what the fund got whether it is a balanced fund or growth fund .

some balanced funds showed worse behavior because it is the more skittish folks who are in them in the first place. i can tell you dollar wise sometimes the gb makes moves on par with about 70% stocks when you get those days where all assets move up or down together . especially because a small cap value fund moves like it is leveraged at 2 to 3x the s&p moves .

dualstow wrote:I have considered buying puts, but I have never made use of my options application, even to sell covered calls.

If ONLY I never made use of my options application 20+ years ago, I would be so much better off financially. Don't do it! My opinion.

Even the "safe" covered calls. The minute you sell those, your stock will either rocket up, putting you in a much smaller gain position and losing your underlying, or it will fall drastically, putting you in a nervous position of writing calls at strikes below what you paid.

I hear you. My friends enjoy it, (selling calls that expire), but I've always just held the investment.

I don't think they ever did what you wrote in your last line, but they may have bought their own calls back at times.

dualstow wrote:I hear you. My friends enjoy it, (selling calls that expire), but I've always just held the investment.

I don't think they ever did what you wrote in your last line, but they may have bought their own calls back at times.

Oh, yeah, I did that too. Buy the call back, at a higher price, because I didn't want to lose the underlying.

I started writing calls before 2008. Went great for ~ a year. Then the crash. All my underlyings were underwater significantly. Trying to write a $21 strike call that paid out a measly $200 on a stock I paid $30 for that was now at $18 was impossible. Everything was so volatile, the premiums were reasonably high, but more often than not, I'd either keep the premium, because my stock was getting killed even more, or the stock would rise so much I'd buy the call back because I didn't want the underlying called at a loss. It was a terrible time for me.

I barely look at my holdings 2x a week now with the PP. What a relief.

regardless of your allocations you should not look at your investments to frequently .

but most of us with an interest do

All I can say about today is WOW. They love The Drumpf!

Quite an amazing honeymoon considering it sounds like all he is going to do is put the US into even more debt than before.

That would have been my confirmation bias answer if I were not in the market and still only in gold and miners. Now that I am diversified in the PP, I don't care. Bring it on. Dow 25k. High inflation. Trade wars. Interest rate hikes. Crazy PE ratios. Whatever.

Cortopassi wrote:Quite an amazing honeymoon considering it sounds like all he is going to do is put the US into even more debt than before.

That would have been my confirmation bias answer if I were not in the market and still only in gold and miners. Now that I am diversified in the PP, I don't care. Bring it on. Dow 25k. High inflation. Trade wars. Interest rate hikes. Crazy PE ratios. Whatever.

here here!

I would also take it on 6% interest.

I got a fun little alert email today... "PSQ has outperformed NASDAQ over the last two weeks". PSQ is the short NASQAQ ETF.