In 2017 I did ridiculously well, a never before and likely never again kind of year. My entire portfolio was up 205.8%, just over a triple! It’s not quite as awesome as it seems though, since I was down 21.1% last year and 21.8% the year before, which leaves me up 88.68% in three years (a CAGR of 19.88%). My CAGR over the last seven years (since I retired) is 21.34%.
I started reading this board for good ideas about the sort of companies that interest me. The significant effects on my portfolio for 2017 are:
- SHOP + 3.18%
- KITE + 5.38%
- NVDA +41.55%
Total +50.11%
My KITE trade I talked about on this board here (http://discussion.fool.com/what39s-a-good-call-worth-32803685.as…) and follow up here (http://discussion.fool.com/i-just-want-to-follow-up-on-my-bet-on…). And for SHOP I made a detailed explanation here (http://discussion.fool.com/igu-would-you-be-so-kind-as-to-take-y…).
I also made a few NVDA trades, which was something I decided on before reading about it here, but my belief was solidified by the excitement I saw among you all. The trade that really moved the needle was writing some NVDA Jan '18 200 puts. I sold these for $48.50 in August with NVDA at $155.75. At the end of the year they were at $8.88 (NVDA at $193.58), so a profit of almost $4,000 per put contract.
I’ve written elsewhere about how I did with Tesla and Apple. They aren’t “Saul stocks” so I won’t talk about them here, but they resulted in portfolio gains of 112.89% and 25.66% respectively. See these posts for a bit more detail:
Overall I placed trades that closed positions (I include letting options expire) 95 times (72 winners, 23 losers), and there were 228 total transactions. I spend a lot of time at this!
I’d like to thank the board for the continued high quality discussion of ideas. I don’t think I can contribute much, not myself doing the sort of fundamental analysis that you folks regard as critical. I rely more on my belief in the vision and integrity of management, along with cool tech that people demonstrably purchase.
-IGU-
(lucky!)
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As people have noted, 2018 has started with a bang. Of the good sort. My portfolio is up 21.8% in the first seven trading days of the year. Utterly ridiculous. This madness cannot continue for long. But that’s what I thought last year…
Since most of my positions are short puts I have no idea how to say how much I have invested in a given position, or what my ROI is. So I express results as how my positions have affected the value of my entire portfolio.
TSLA +15.10%
NVDA + 3.16%
AAPL + 1.78%
SHOP + 1.77%
AYX + 0.02%
I continue to expect TSLA to do very well, although I have no idea why it went up so much to start the year. It probably has something to do with its sudden drop in the last half of December – maybe whoever sold out then got seller’s remorse. In any case, I love my Model 3 as much as my Model S.
By the way, I did get one earlier private comment that I ought to value my short put positions in terms of capital at risk. I don’t think this works. To see why, try to put a number on the capital at risk in a short call (or short stock) position. Coming up with investment numbers that may suddenly change with my broker’s margin requirements seems bizarre and semi-useless to me.
Again, the quality of the discussions on this board is quite inspiring. Thanks for that.
-IGU-
(continuing to be very lucky)
By the way, I did get one earlier private comment that I ought to value my short put positions in terms of capital at risk. I don’t think this works. To see why, try to put a number on the capital at risk in a short call (or short stock) position. Coming up with investment numbers that may suddenly change with my broker’s margin requirements seems bizarre and semi-useless to me.
It wasn’t me but I agree, the cost basis should be the capital at risk which is how I used to do it. Ignore the margin for this calculation, do it as if it were entirely a cash proposition.
Denny Schlesinger
It wasn’t me but I agree, the cost basis should be the capital at risk which is how I used to do it. Ignore the margin for this calculation, do it as if it were entirely a cash proposition.
Happy to discuss this, but have you got a better board to do it on? Not a Saul thing, I think.
But the key question is what’s the capital at risk if I am short one share of TSLA? Isn’t it infinite, and therefore useless? Or at the whim of my brokerage, and therefore inconsistent and kind of stupid?
-IGU-
Isn’t it infinite, and therefore useless?
Not infinite, you can’t lose what you don’t have. At risk is what you can lose, the amount the broker can extract from you. At a minimum your whole account. At a maximum what you lose in bankruptcy.
Happy to discuss this, but have you got a better board to do it on? Not a Saul thing, I think.
I agree but I don’t have a board to discuss it. I don’t short stocks – too risky, only covered calls. I used to short puts but that didn’t turn out well.
Denny Schlesinger