Go For Broke

Monday, January 31, 2022 -- $78,405.13 (+$9,310.66, +13.48%) The portfolio had a very good day today with both KIND and Ethereum rising significantly.  I sold 2 Ethereum, leaving 6 left in the portfolio.  Depending upon what happens with KIND, I might increase the size of my position tomorrow.

Friday, January 28, 2022 -- $69,094.47 (+$3,107.82, +4.71%) As you can see the "Account Warning" ("margin call") message has disappeared.  This is because I sold one Ethereum to satisfy the margin deficiency.  Although still dramatically below its inception value, the portfolio had a good day. In order to make this blog more efficient and less repetitive, I am only going to be updating it when something happens that directly affects the portfolio, such as purchases or sales, or option expirations, or if there is something else that I would like to write about.

Thursday, January 27, 2022 -- $65,986.65 (-$4,799.46, -6.78%) And the beat goes on with KIND continuing to drop like a rock, and with a further demonstration of the dangers of leverage on a portfolio.  As you can see, due to the leverage, there is an account deficit which will need to be resolved, either by depositing funds to the account or by selling some positions.  Fortunately, the deficit is just over $1,000.  However, if the portfolio continues taking it on the chin, the account will require further liquidations.

Wednesday, January 26, 2022 -- $70,786.11 (-$2,710.43, -3.69%) Another record-breaking down day courtesy of my KIND position which as been very un-KIND to me.  

Tuesday, January 25, 202 2 -- $73,496.54 (-$6,296,93, -7.89%) Yesterday's gains, and then some, were all wiped out during today's slump.  The portfolio is, yet again, at an all-time low since inception.

Monday, January 24, 2022 -- $79,793.47 (+$5,000.72, +6.69%) As you can see from the portfolio, over the weekend I repurchased 9 Ethereum, but that investment has already dropped more than $800 in just two days.  KIND, on the other hand, has been rather kind to the portfolio and had a nice jump today, a day which saw the broad markets down at the opening bell but came back to positive territory by the end of the trading day.

Friday, January 21, 2022 -- $74,795.75 (-$11,644.96, -13.47%) A lot happened today!  As is evident, much (all) of what happened was not good.  The market began crashing yesterday evening so I dumped all of crypto at significant losses.  Then KIND dropped, and because there was insufficient funds in the portfolio to pay for the exercise of all 400 option contracts (40,000 shares), Robinhood went ahead and sold 251 option contracts.  When the broker does a liquidity sale, they do a simple at-the-market sale which tends to work out badly when it is for option contracts which are lightly traded, such as KIND's options.  Well, the net-net is that the portfolio had its 2nd largest percentage daily drop and is now at its lowest point since the inception of this blog.  We'll see how this shakes out next week.

Thursday, January 20, 2022 -- $86,440.71 (-$7,796.17, -8.27%) Ouch!  A painful day and a painful demonstration of why being highly leveraged does not work out well when the positions go against you.  The crypto positions were down almost exactly $1,000 but my new KIND dropped almost $7,000!  Because I hold an option position in KIND that expires tomorrow, I don't have the luxury of waiting until KIND recovers.  Basically I will be "booking" my gain or loss (very much looking like a loss) tomorrow.  One thing that you don't see, because most options don't trade in the extended session, as most stocks do, is that KIND has dropped another $0.09/share in after-hours trading.  In theory, this should hit my position to the tune of about another $3,600 in losses that does not show up on the porfolio snapshot above.

Wednesday, January 19, 2022 -- $94,236.88 (-233.76, -0.25%) While the portfolio was nearly flat for the day, I purchased another 200 $5.00 KIND call options.  The portfolio is now rather dramatically leveraged.  It controls 40,000 shares of KIND and, if KIND were to plummet by Friday, the portfolio could be mortally, or at least severely, wounded.

Tuesday, January 18, 2022 -- $94,470.64 (-$2,972.47, -3.05%) Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.  My NCLH position was called from me because the $22.50 calls that I sold were exercised because NCLH closed on Friday at $22.96.  I only received a total of about $22.73 ($22.50 call price plus $0.23 proceeds from the option), so it, initially, looked like I lost money when NCLH closed at higher than this amount.  However, since NCLH plunged to close today at $21.94, I got lucky and did very well on the forced sale.  I am back to within $1,000.00 of the intial portfolio.  It feels like some all-powerful force is just toying with me. I continue to think we are quickly working our way through the pandemic with the Omicron variant being the great equalizer (or vaccinator) and this should be a boost to the markets.  However, on the flip side, the Fed's tightening fiscal policy and the potentially imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine are putting a signific...

Friday, January 14, 2022 -- $97,443.11 (+$2,523.86,+2.66%) We had a nice little gain before the 3-day holiday weekend.  The NCLH options were exercised and the NCLH shares will be gone from the portfolio shortly--they just show up for a bit until Robinhood gets around to taking them out of the portfolio and putting in the $22.50 per share they are being sold for. In any event, the portfolio seemed to simply "tread water" today, just surviving until we see what carnage next week brings.

Thursday, January 13, 2022 -- $94,919.25 (+$973.43, +1.04%) Yet another down day for the market, and mostly for crypto but the portfolio was up on the strength of NCLH.  Unfortunately, I sold call options yesterday which capped my upside on the NCLH position to about $22.70.  This is why you will see the NCLH position up substantially, but the short call position was down, mitigating the gains for NCLH's big move today.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022 -- $93,945.82 (+$3,050.57, +3.36%) The broad markets were up a little today but the portfolio bucked the trend and had a very nice gain mostly on the strength of crypto today.  After almost three months of rather aggressive and risky investments and investing techniques, the portfolio is within a dozen dollars of its starting value! I finally went ahead and sold 50 NCLH $22.50 call options that expire on Friday.  If NCLH closes above $22.50 then my NCLH shares will be "called" forcing me to sell all 5,000 at a price of $22.50.  Assuming $0.02 to $0.03 per share transaction costs, since I sold the calls for $0.23 per share, as long as NCLH closes below about $22.70 on Friday, I will have made money on this position.

Tuesday, January 11, 2022 -- $90,898.25 (+$4,276.87, +4.94%) The portfolio was up along with the markets today.  It did not quite make up for yesterday's plunge, but who's counting anyway?  (Hint: I am.)  The ideal correlation for a portfolio is that it would go hand in hand with the market on up days and be reverse-correlated on market down days.  But, as we know, other than inflation, and our age, very few things seem to always go up.  This is one of the important lessons that investing in the market teaches us--that we have to welcome the down days because they are an inescapable and necessary aspect of a long-term portfolio.  This lesson extends well beyond the market.  Our lives are filled with ups and downs and it is not possible to avoid the downs, we just have to ride them out and hope the ups more than make up for them.

Monday, January 10, 2022 -- $86,621.38 (-$5,523.67, -5.99%) The portfolio tanked today.  This can be seen as a good thing!   Really!  Often, one of the goals of a portfolio is to be not- or reverse-correlated with the broad markets to provide diversification and hedging attributes to your investments.  On a day when the broad markets were flat, having substantial losses in my positions indicates, at least to a small degree, some level of dis-correlation with the broad markets. My plan to sell NCLH calls if NCLH went up this weekend has been put on hold for a little longer. I think that we will be seeing a peak in COVID cases soon due to the amazing contagiousness of the Omicron variant, and as the cases subside I am hoping there will be increased confidence in the viability of the cruise lines and that NCHL's stock price will be a direct beneficiary.

Friday, January 7, 2022 -- $92,145.05 (+$1,725.15, +1.91%) Despite crypto continuing its seemingly inexorable plunge, the portfolio was up today on the strength of NCLH.  I contemplated selling NCLH calls expiring in a week, but, given NCLH's strength, I think I want to see if it goes up over this weekend and then, possibly, sells the calls at a higher price.

Thursday, January 6, 2022 -- $90,412.90 (-$2,514.15, -2.71%) I almost feel relieved that the portfolio dropped "only" about 2.7% today!  Given that the interest rate on savings accounts at banks now hovers around 0.5%, I should be shocked and dismayed at today's result--a loss of the equivalent of 5-years' interest on savings account in a single day--rather than relieved.  As with most things in life, past experience frames how we look at things and strongly influences our perspective.  The wild volatility of the portfolio has so skewed my perspective that, a drop of less than 3% doesn't appear horribly bad. Today crypto's plunge was responsible for about two-thirds of the loss and CCL was responsible for the other third.

Wednesday, January 5, 2022 -- $92,927.05 (-$8,285.47, -8.19%) The portfolio took a hard hit today, split almost equally between losses in NCLH and its crypto positions.  I wanted to do something with the portfolio, but when it started crashing this morning I kept putting it off until I gave up. Do you ever get the feeling that there is some supernatural force wreaking havoc in your life.  I feel this way about the portfolio.  It keeps seesawing around the starting value, presenting wild gains one day and then neutralizing losses the next, as if to tease me. Today it was the Fed signaling a potentially more rapid tightening of monetary policy that caused a broad market pullback and a severe pullback in crypto.  It also did not help that NCLH cancelled several of its scheduled cruises due to the Omicron variant.  Fingers crossed that tomorrow brings more glad tidings.

Tuesday, January 4, 2022 -- $101,212.52 (+$1,849.93,+1.86%) Ethereum and NCLH were up nicely today, pushing the porfolio almost 2%.  I am getting an itchy trigger finger so it feels like I should do something tomorrow.

Monday, January 3, 2022 -- $99,362.59 (+$8,238.31, +9.04%) The new year has started off with a bang!  The portfolio is flirting with $100,000 again! My crypto positions continued their downhill slide, but NCLH more than made up for it.  So far my move from CCL to NCLH has been good because NCLH was up about 1/2% more than CCL, but my Dogecoin momentum play is not playing out well for the portfolio.  I have to hope that Musk will say something positive to irrationally push its price up.