Individual Stock Discussions

Year over review:
AAPL really saved me from terrible multi-year returns (or losses).

My deposits/withdrawals have been pretty small for several years so I’m not tracking them down, just using IB’s time-weighted-return numbers.

Year, Return(%), End IB total account values
2016 (15.6%) 200k
2017 +55.7% 309k
2018 (65.3%) 113k
2019 +240% 383k

If I ignore the decline in '18 then things don’t look as bad, but pretty volatile… I took an extra $30k or so loss on “insurance” this past January by switching some things to options. Between Oct '18 and Jan '19, I sold out over 2/3 of everything non-AAPL and switched those funds to AAPL LEAPS. Looking back I would have just barely not been margin-call-sell’d if I’d not done that switch. AAPL benefited because everything made in China, while it seems doubtful made-in-USA will recover from the anti-US-manufacturer tariffs last year. At least Ford hasn’t been able to recover. And I think I’m going to let my ford position decrease more by not replacing any more of the (purchased at >10% ITM) calls that will expire worthless in a couple weeks.

Today, I’m over $600k between taxable and retirement accounts for first time :slight_smile: (+100k from 2 months ago).

For the Roth IRA Account portion, inception was Apr 2014. Only 6 years of contributions ($33k). $99.3k today. In the Roth I had moved from stocks only to mostly deep ITM AAPL LEAP options (few enough that I could extend them indefinitely if they would expire worthless with future yearly contributions) in October to offset selling stock in my taxable account. Unfortunately that was a few months before AAPL actually bottomed… Anyone have a trick to just swap the $150k worth of AAPL options with +400% to +560% gain from my taxable account with the +120% ones in the Roth? Just re-characterize the trades?

1 Like

Positions can’t be recharacterized, only contributions or previously Roth conversions. Like most tax problems, it’s a good problem to have but not one I know a solution to.

2 Likes

The question was an attempt at a joke. :slight_smile:

1 Like

There are plenty of ways to do this. And they work, too, as long as you never get audited…

3 Likes

Tsla crazy, $100B+. At this rate it’s market cap will be higher than AAPL in a couple weeks…

(No, I don’t have any TSLA :confused: )

1 Like

Sold my last 84 TSLA shares @ 431. Looks like I left close to 10k on the table. Oops

I recently shorted a little more TSLA. Obviously being short has not been a success in this recent run, but the valuation numbers are getting really crazy. Lots of momentum stocks have been on a tear lately, ie BYND.

Are you actually shorting, or buying puts / selling calls?

Short the stock. Options timing is hard.

1 Like

You crazy. The market is always irrational. I hope you have something in place to limit your losses.

I made a very tidy sum shorting Y2k stocks in the late nineties, and then blew a whole lot of it shorting Amazon because they had no earnings or any sign of earnings. I couldn’t sit down for a couple of years after that.

… and I still darn near bite a hole in my lip as I think about it.

3 Likes

All I need is a stock chart from the year 2030.

2 Likes

Funny 1yr chart for my Roth IRA:

Inception doesn’t look nearly as nice though:

My problem with not selling some AAPL yet is I have hit my short term targets a few times for AAPL and moved them up because I don’t know that it has “outran” the rest of the market enough to start selling. If I were only looking at it in a vaccuum I would have sold 80% of it already.

2 Likes

That’s a pretty ridiculous 1-yr chart. Congratulations.

1 Like

I’m usually not the sky is falling type but this Corona virus thing is getting me concerned. I actually sold some position last Monday. By all indication it is going to get worse before it gets better and it’s already drastically affect the commerce over in that area of the world. Unlike other scare, there’s no question there be an impact, the question is how bad and how long.

1 Like

Just noticed something weird. Since ~august last year, GOOG > GOOGL (biggest difference was ~$10, going from $10-$30 Googl > goog before then). alphabet voting is worth less than $0 now?

Edit: my first trade since 1/31/2019.
Alphabet earnings bet

Max Loss ~2x$3k (Google down bigly, held to near expiration). Max gain ~2x$3k (With Google up much). Breakeven - Google down slightly, maybe down ~$30 or so from $1475.

Edit: With googl currently down ~$70 at $1413 in AH, looks like I might be losing several $k here. But maybe will still pull off a small profit. Guess Ill see how tomorrow shakes out. AH volume seems really low (even compared to the spike just before close). Hopefully recovers in AM.

1 Like

Closed out the short googl puts from Monday. Ended up with about $850 profit. I had closed half (one) this morning at ~breakeven.

If I had waited until now, it’d be ~$2k+ profit. But i’m still happy. I shouldn’t have made a calendar spread, that was a dumb choice, at least with how I planned to close out the position (should have paid a few more $$ to make the long puts the same expiration date). Those went to $0 while the short puts I had to buy back still had time premium.

2 Likes

looks like you have 50+% draw downs in your account? you are eventually going to blow it up.

~70% but that was from peak not deposits. Only 50% from deposits. (Both accounts together.) 2018 was definitely a little aggravating.

The ira did draw down almost 75% but I have a sustainable level I could purchase extended LEAPs just with yearly contribution if it aapl had stayed flat or gone down for 2 yrs from the 180 level (that’s how I decided how many to put in it). The “interest rate” I paid on the ITM leap calls was ~5% including the expected not-received dividends.

1 Like

AAPL profit warning today (!) while markets closed, warning miss of guidance from corona