Happy New Year!
Finally, 2020 is behind us. Good riddance to 2020! But going into 2021 I’m not sure the misery of the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us. We can only be hopeful there’s light coming soon in this very dark tunnel we’re in.
In this crazy 2020 I’m sure all of you had your share of pain and heartbreaks, as I did. I guess it’s all a part of life. Some years are worse than others, this being the worst! We must keep plugging away, make adjustments and continue living.
Hopefully, you also had your share of joy, as I did. Overall, 2020 has been a bittersweet year for me, which I spoke about in my last post. We all had family members or friends get sick, and even pass away. We all lived through the most insane election in American history. We all realize how crooked and hateful our political leaders are. We all realized we cannot trust the media. The worst thing is we now know how vulnerable we are to diseases and viruses, not knowing if governments are developing these killing agents by accident, or worse, intentionally. COVID changed us forever, I hope and pray through this painful year you were able to have some joyful and happy moments.
One thing we must realize is that you must not rely on the government. You must take care of yourself and your family. I always say “health is wealth” but if health fails we better have some financial wealth to get us back on the healthy track.
I would like to welcome the new readers who joined us this year. I do not advertise for new readers; I do not know how you found us, but welcome aboard!
I think we all learned a lot from COVID. And one thing is, we must learn how to make money on our own. People are romancing the idea of not having to leave home to make money. As a result of COVID I no longer own a business. I live a very nice life and it all comes from my trading.
When I sit with students some ask, “why do you put your results on your site, everyone knows your finances?” I feel it’s the best way to motivate and inspire anyone who wants to learn. Anyone can make up trades and teach how options work, but there’s nothing like seeing the trade for yourself. There’s a lot of people and companies out there taking in a lot of subscription money, and they show you nothing! I show you real trades as I make them. Completely free! Look at my results! You can do this!
Let me start this report with some facts. This is not only a 2020 report. Since Main Street beats Wall Street just completed it’s 5th year we’ll look to see how I did. I will look at the starting account values for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and what I’ll start 2021 with. In the beginning I always wanted to start the year with an account in the area of $100,000. At the end of each year I would withdraw money to get my account in this area. I also took money to make a better life during the year. This $100,000 is not an exorbitant amount of money. I know it’s a lot of money but the point is I started with a very modest amount. And it’s doable for a lot of people. I think some new readers might think I make good money because I’m a millionaire. This is not the case. These numbers should be inspirational to you. Even if you start with a bit less.
You can look back at old post with the search bar. I started 2017 with $110,00.
2017 Starting Account – $110,000
Some of you long time readers might remember this is the year I had my “2017 Challenge.” I finished the year with $176,000. I did take monthly money but the $176,000 is the money I started with and my total profit for the year. My return for 2017 was 60%.
At the end of 2017 I withdrew money and started 2018 with $120,000.
2018 Starting Account – $120,000
2018 and 2019 were strange years because I was committed and dedicated to coaching high school basketball. I went periods without making a trade. At one point from Nov 2018 to Feb 2019 I didn’t make a trade in about 4 months. I know I did well in 2018, but I don’t have enough posts and records to give you numbers. You can look at my Trade History 2018 to see the trades I made and the money I made. At the end of 2018 I took out a bunch of money to pay down bills. However, the last quarter of 2018 was not good for some of my stock holdings. Between my stock holdings going down late in 2018 and the money I needed to live and pay bills I started 2019 with $77,968.
2019 Starting Account – $77,968
2019 started with me still very involved in coaching basketball. My first post of 2019 wasn’t until Jan 16th. In fact that’s the only post of Jan 2019. My next post was Feb 8th, 2019. I was in the middle of the NYC playoffs and in a run for the NYC championship in the A playoffs. In Feb I only made 3 posts. March came around and basketball was over. It was time to concentrate on my trading. And I didn’t return to coaching in the fall of 2019. 2019 was the start of great things! And what a result I had. I wrote a Year to Date (YTD) Report on Dec 1st, 2019. On Dec 1st, 2019 I was up 94.26%. And my 1st trade of the year wasn’t until March 4th, 2019 because of the end of the 2018 basketball season in March of 2019. I ended 2019 with a return of 101%. This is the biggest year of my life, and I started late!
I started 2019 with $77,968 and ended the year with $156,791. This is an increase of $78,823 for a return of 101%.
After this result I wanted to dedicate 100% of my time to trading and teaching trading. With coaching basketball behind me I concentrate on one thing, Trading! I decided to deposit an additional $50,000 into my account to see how I could do in 2020. I started 2020 with an account of $207,842.
2020 Starting Account – $207,842
So, here we are. Today is January 2nd, 2021 and I’m about to give you my results of the COVID year. With no basketball, and a little larger account, I work hard. By February I was up 12%.
Then COVID hit!
February 20th the market started going down. And down FAST! It hit bottom on March 20, 2020. The first week of March I started making adjustments. It was going down so fast I wanted to balance my positions with Long and Short positions. No one knew how low it would go so I was just trying to stop the bleeding. I felt if I could balance my positions to where my account didn’t move much whether the market went up or down, I could think more clearly. When the market hit bottom on March 20th my account was down 35%. This means I lost my gain of 12% and my account was down 35% from my starting balance.
The Recovery
In the sidebar of Main Street beats Wall Street, if you want to put in the time, you can read all the posts of March & April 2020. You can see every move I made. I know it’s a lot of work and reading, but do you want to learn and make money? You’ll never make money in this field if you don’t put in the work.
I worked hard and started my recovery. The market started to go up! If you read my posts you will see I changed my yearly goal. Last year, 2019, I did 101%. Since I was down 35% I placed my year end goal for 2020 at 65%. I thought in this COVID year this would be a great goal to hit.
Between the market going up and me sticking to my plan I was back to even in the 3rd week of May. It was time to work on gains! The market never looked back and neither did my account. June 1st my account was at $224,000. On July 1st I was at $268,000, up 29% on the year. My account went from down 35% to up 29%, a 64% swing in 3 months. And I already took $12,000 in salary. By August 1st my account was up to $311,000, up 49% and getting close to my yearly goal.
The end of July Apple announced a 3:1 stock split, and the 1st week in August Tesla announced a 4:1 split. After the big COVID drop I was having a great recovery, but it was the way I played these stock splits that really made my year. Take a look at my Trade History 2020. Go to week ending 8/21/20. I was up $31,810. Week ending 8/28/20 up $36,990 and week ending 9/4/20 up a whopping $118,296. Much of this was the Apple and Tesla trades but there were plenty of other trades to help these numbers. While this was happening I felt I was in a groove. My Fiore’s Pizza was just about dead being in Manhattan, so my trading was my only income. And with my account growing I was taking a nice amount out to live on. I wanted to blow it out with more money in my account. I had just received a big check from a business deal and I started putting it in my account. On 8/3 I put in $50,000, 8/4 another $50,000. Things were going great so on 9/8 I deposited another $75,000 and on 9/18 my last deposit of $25,000. I put in a total of $200,000. By 10/1 my account was at $729,355.
My 1st 5 year of Main Street beats Wall Street I was trading like most people, messing around trying to bring a return of $50,000 to $100,000 a year. All of a sudden my account was at the level of a big boy. On 10/1/20 my account was at $729,355. At this point I had deposited the additional $200,000 and took a salary of $26,000. If you take the $200,000, minus then $26,000 salary I took, my total addition to my account is $174,000. I know this is a lot of math but these are the numbers.
If you take the account balance of $729,355 and subtract the $174,000 added, then subtract my starting account of $207,841, my gain on 10/1 is $347,513. This is a return of 167% and it’s only October 1st, 3 months to go.
The Apple and Tesla trades are long gone but they worked out unbelievable, along with the many other trades. As a result my account is beating my goal of 65% by over 100%. CRAZY!
The last 2 weeks of Oct were not good and the beginning of Nov was good. By Dec 1st my account was at $779,916 and growing. I was well beyond the Apple and Tesla trades but they added a lot of money to my account. Also, with my influx of money I was trading with a large amount of money. I started to curtail my trading to bring my gains into 2021 but my account continued to grow with the positions I was holding.
The year ended this week with my account at $858,475. I took a little year end bonus of $8475 and I’ll start 2021 with $850,000.
My total salary I took for the year of 2020 is $57,000. The $8475 was taken yesterday so that will go toward 2021’s salary.
My final balance at $858,475. When subtracting my start of $207,842 and the difference of my influx and my salary, my total gain on the year is a fantastic $507,633. 2020 was a great year, and this is by far my biggest year ever. My return percentage is a little more complicated to figure out. If I look at my starting amount of $207,842 and my profit of $507,633 it’s a return of 244%. However I did add money late in the year and I was taking money all year long so it gets a little tough to get an exact number. With the math I did, I believe it’s very close to a 220% return.
Last year was 101% and this year 220%. If you look at my beginning accounts in the earlier years it wasn’t very large amounts of money. With my last 2 year’s results, and of course the money I added, I now have an account that is a little scary. This is life changing money. Remember, the 1st few years I was starting with an account in the $100,000 area. This is the potential of what I’m trying to teach. This was not yesterday’s trades, last month’s or last year’s trades, or hypothetical trades. These were real trades reported live as I made them. You better get excited!
2021 Starting Account – $850,000
I’ll be writing about my 2021 goals in a few days. After seeing what I did the last few years, as you can imagine these goals might be a little lofty.
Main Street beats Wall Street is a learning site. I completely understand a new trader will not have the amount of money I am now working with. But remember I started with $100,000. Getting a huge account should be your goal. I also know $100,000 is a lot of money. Having said that, I cannot stop my progress and bring my account back down to the $100,000 area for teaching purposes. However, in sticking with the mission that Main Street beats Wall Street started with I will be starting a “Grasshopper Trading” section. This section will only have smaller trades with lower priced stocks. And I will concentrate on these trades. That’s my commitment to my readers. So get your account ready. We start work on Monday morning. But my trading will be limited the 1st week or 2 because, as you know, in December I made a lot of trades expiring on Jan 8th and Jan 15th. This was to stop my 2020 gains and move them to 2021. Even with the move of pushing trades to the next year I will be getting hit with a huge tax bill.
I have a few more posts to write. I want to report a bunch of tax write-off trades I made the last few days of 2020. I hope I get to them. I also have a lot of work to do on the site to get it ready for the new year. Please be patient!
Enjoy the rest of the weekend and we’re back to work Monday.
If you have any questions on this report, or any other subject, please send me an email. If this report doesn’t get you excited nothing will!
Successful trading,
Steve
The Options Coach