This felt like the week to be watching as US markets eked out new highs, inflation reports jumped and crypto currency crabbed sideways. Did some selling to raise cash was the trade action and some late grabs at altcoins
Portfolio News
In a week where S&P 500 rose 3.82% to touch an all time high, my pension portfolio rose a more modest 2.76%. The good news is the move higher in markets overall took the pressure off the naked puts.
The headlines remain about inflation.
This feels like a weird time with inflation making a 40 year high and markets also making all time highs. The commentary is something of a tussle between demand side and supply side economists. There is a lot of fiscal and monetary stimulus pumping the demand side and there are oil prices and supply issues crimping the supply side. I am leaning to seeing interest rates rising - BUT I have been wrong a long time on that score. There is a clue in one of he big movers below - maybe the yield curve is inverting.
Big movers of the week were Stroud Resources Ltd. (SDR.V) (+25%), Centrus Energy (LEU) (+19.7%), Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation III (DCRC) (+19.2%), Unicredito Milano (UCG.MI) (+15.7%), Helmerich & Payne (HP) (+15.5%), NOV Inc (NOV) (+15.3%), Casino, Guichard-Perrachon (CO.PA) (+15.4%), Harvest One Cannabis Inc. (HVT.V) (+14.3%), Lifeist Wellness (LFST.V) (+14.3%), Nordic American Tankers Limited (NAT) (+11.7%), Direxion Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bear 3X Shares (TMV) (+10.9%), Apple (AAPL) (+10.9%)
The notable moves in here are UniCredit SPA finally making progress on cost reductions and the spike in TMV - this is a short Treasuries ETF which has been languishing for ages. Yields are rising. The rest are consistent with my major themes - alternate energy, shipping, medicinal marijuana, oil services
Crypto booms
Bitcoin price consolidated all week with a peak to trough move of only 9.3% and finished 2.3% higher than the open.
Most of the altcoins looked the same - consolidating in a range. Biggest mover in my portfolios was GALA up 25% on the week
The biggest open to peak move was MATIC at 35%
Bought
No stock buys
Sold
Needed to raise some cash to cover the likelihood of being assigned on a few naked puts in one portfolio. I worked through the list and picked some profit taking opportunities especially on holdings where I could not write covered calls (no options or not enough stock)
iShares STOXX Europe 600 Technology (0MOL.IL): Europe Technology. 82% profit since December 2017. This position was started to invest in European tech stocks which seemed to lag US tech stocks (See TIB152 for the rationale). I did a comparative chart in that post - here is an update starting from the date of the initial trade entry
Europe tech stocks (EXV3.DE) did outperform the European broad based index (DX2X.DE - blue line) by more than double. However, the better investment was to be invested in US tech socks (XLK - yellow line)
X-trackers - Stoxx Europe 600 Banks UCITS ETF (XS7R.L): Europe Financials. 16% profit since March 2016. The European Debt Crisis and negative interest rates destroyed bank investments - this feels like a luck escape earning 3% a year = better than inflation
McKesson Corporation (MCK): US Pharmaceuticals. Closed half holding for 33% profit since November 2020. No writeup of the initial entry as that happened during the 2020 stay away from looking at markets - trade idea was a Jim Cramer idea is my recall
iShares Gold CHF Hedged ETF (CSGOLD.SW): Gold. 37% profit since August 2017. Good to see a hedging trade make a profit. The bad news is the ETF did not perform as well as a direct long holding of Gold would have done.
Of note is in the same time the US Dollar dropped 3.55% against the Swiss Franc - that was part of the hedging idea to hedge the US Dollar risk as well.
Star Bulk Carriers Corp (SBLK): Bulk Shipping. Assigned early on a covered call for 7.5% profit since September 2021. This was half the holding and someone wanted to collect the $1.25 dividend. I remain exposed to the stock and had split the strike prices for the covered calls. I did consider buying back the call at $1.50 premium and then write covered calls again to reclaim the $0.25 loss vs dividend. As I pay taxes on dividends and not on capital gains I chose not to and I figured price would drop by more than the dividend - it closed at $21.09 on Friday which is below the sold strike.
Shorts
No trades
Cryptocurrency
NEAR Protocol (NEARBTC): NEAR Protocol is a collective, a foundation, and a development platform built on a new layer-one blockchain. Their words - means not a lot to me but it looks like it wants to compete with Ethereum. This was on the New Rising 10 list I created a few months ago. Price has been crabbing along downwards and then seem to break the downtrend with divergence on MACD - I added the standard $200 position
Ripple (XRPBTC): My holding in Binance account was below the standard size for the coins I bought in my Top 10 portfolio (though OI do also hold it in Bittrex). I topped up the holding as he chart looked like breaking up. I have been holding off on XRP while the SEC suit is running in court - this looks like it will drag and the SEC will not win.
Income Trades
Only one income trade with covered call on Star Bulk Carriers (SBLK) assigned. Since May 2021, income trades on SBLK have generated 180% more profit than capital trades. This is the value of running income trades on stocks with high implied volatility. Of note, naked puts was only 10% of the income trade profits.
Cautions: This is not financial advice. You need to consider your own financial position and take your own advice before you follow any of my ideas
Images: I own the rights to use and edit the Buy Sell image. News headlines come from Google Search. All other images are created using my various trading and charting platforms. They are all my own work
Tickers: I monitor my portfolios using Yahoo Finance. The ticker symbols used are Yahoo Finance tickers. Crypto tickers come from TradingView
Charts: http://mymark.mx/TradingView - this is a free charting package. I have a Pro subscription to get access to real time forex prices
Trading: Binance offers a wide range of coins to trade, tight spreads and low fees if you use BNB to pay https://mymark.mx/Binance
Kucoin offers a wider range of altcoins than many of the other exchanges. I do like to diversify my holdings in case an exchange gets knocked over. Check it out and grab 15% discount on your trades http://mclnks.com/kucoin15
Tracking: Keeping track of your crypto trades is a whole lot easier with CoinTracking.info. Get 10% off all your account upgrades https://mymark.mx/CoinTracking
December 6-10, 2021