You might ask why I’m sending out a YTD report on December 1st.
I’ve had a year only Warren Buffett could wish for. It’s been such a great year I’ve decided to curtail my trading for the month of December. I will be at my computer as normal looking for great opportunities, but I will not make a trade unless I feel it’s a definite winner. As I mentioned in my last post I have 2 trades set to expire next Friday. I have a Covered Call with Jabil (JBL) and a Naked Call with Square (SQ). Clearly these are not the only positions I’m holding. In fact, I’m holding enough where if December is a pullback month it will hurt my year ending results. I own large stock positions (at least 500 shares) in MU, INSG, MRVL, JBL and FINV. I also own Calls in PYPL, SQ, DISH, MRVL, MDR, X and PAGS. MDR expires in January, which will be a loser. The rest are out until June or further. I also have the Roll Out with AMD still working. If it wasn’t for Main Street beats Wall Street I’d probably get out with a loss, but I want to teach the readers how to make a losing trade a winner with a Roll Out. It might take a month or 2 but I will make money on this trade.
OK, let’s take a look at my Year To Date (YTD). YTD is my results from January 1, 2019 to today. In the first 11 months of 2019 my account has a Rate of Return of 94.26%. This is the best year I ever had, and I don’t think there are to many investors with a return like this for there entire account. We all have individual positions that did that, but an entire account? Not to many!
Below is a snap shot of my results off my brokerage account results page.
Click on image to make larger
I included 3 time periods. The Last 3 months, YTD, and the One Year results. The One Year is from Dec 1st 2018 to Dec 1st 2019.
If you look at the YTD you will see my “Beginning Value” for 2019 was $77,968.74. I wasn’t trading as much because I was coaching basketball. My “Beginning Value” for the “One Year” was $83,994.40. That was on Dec1st, 2018. From Dec 1st, 2018 to Jan 1st, 2019 my account was down about $6000. This was because December was not a good month in 2018, and I took $4000 as a salary. I was taking money out last year. Now that I have the account up and I’m not coaching, I’ll start drawing a monthly salary again in January. Probably start with $1000 and work my way up if things are going well.
Let’s take a look at the YTD. Again, the account started the year at $77,968.74. My “Net Contribution” was $10,000. I took that money out of another account to give me a little more to trade with. I might do the same thing at the end of December to give me a nice 2020 starting value. Look at the “Change In Value,” it’s $77,121.95. This does NOT includes the $10,000 so my account actually grew by $77,121.95. The “Ending Value” is $165,090.69. The “Beginning Value” of $77,968.74 plus the “Change In Value” of $77,121.95, is $155,090.69. Add this to the “Net Contribution” of $10,000 and you have the “Ending Value” of $165,090.69.
The “Change In Value” of $77,121.95 is a “Portfolio Return” of 94.26%. You can also look at my “Last 3 Months” and my “One Year” stats. The last 3 months I’m up 53.85% and for the full year I’m up 80.32%. If I can get my account up another $1000 by the end of the year my “Portfolio Return” will be over 100%. This will pretty much be out of my hands because of the amount of positions I’m holding. If the market goes up in December my positions will go up, and I’ll hit the 100% mark. If it’s a bad December my results will go down. Either way I won’t be trading much until January.
I hope this post helps you realize the potential of being a trader. Both with emails and in person I get the question, “how much money do I need to get started?” I really try to be totally transparent with my trades, but I don’t talk too much about the value of my account. I decided to let you know so you can see the potential. $77 grand really isn’t that much money if you want to be a trader. Being able to grow an account of this size to almost double also shows the power of working on margin.
Today’s post shows you the potential of being a trader. It also let’s you know what you can do with relatively a small amount of money. Now I know for many $77,000 is a lot of money, but there are traders with accounts in the millions. I hope this puts it in perspective so you can decide if a venture of being a trader is in your future.
Keep studying. Stay disciplined. And if you take the road of “slow and steady, steady and slow” you will be making extra money very soon.
Watch for my Wealth Builder section. I think this will be great for the ones who don’t have the time to be a trader but want to invest and have there hard earned money work for them.
If you have any questions on today’s post please send me an email.
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Successful trading,
Steve
The Options Coach