I can’t remember a day this big in years, although I must have had them. With the aid of SKX, ANET, BOFI, SWKS, INFN and ABMD, I was up 4.2% on my whole portfolio in one day, bringing my total from +41.7% to +47.6% (147.6 divided by 141.7 gives you a 4.21% increase). I’m awestruck. What fun!
Saul
SKX almost hit bagger territory for me today – I thought CRTO would take that spot, but it looks like Skechers will get there first. MY first full bagger, in fact (well, first that I directed directly anyway). Time to start planning the party!
My MF scorecard says it all – since just a day over 1 year ago when I started, I’ve been tracking every in/out and buy/sell:
XIRR 27.24%
XIRR vs. S&P 16.66%
A good portion of that success is right here on this board, folks, and those numbers include some unfortunate early losses (I bought BWLD in the 150s, sold when it dropped ~8% and then bought back in at 136, for example).
Today was a crazy day. It doesn’t even feel real. And the market was flat!
Neil
go get’em Saul! couldn’t happen to a nicer guy! congrats!
Congrats Saul on the really exceptional results.
What initially lured me to this board was a routine search for news on a company I held at high conviction. I stumbled upon a search result titled “A Case for Infinera” from a service I happened to be a subscriber and have been with this discussion board ever since: Learning, absorbing and adapting my strategies and disciplines to be more aligned with yours.
I held over 110 positions when I found this board. Easily half or more represented less than 1% of my portfolio. I’m now down to 62. And my portfolio did not suffer as a result (as far as I can tell). I’m up 115% TWIRR YTD with today being an all time high (up 6.2% on the day). I have your instruction on the low 1YPEG to thank.
My best ever day was 10% two weeks when Netflix reported (I was very overweight). The day after Netflix popped I shed about 1/4 of my exposure and began an aggressive shopping spree. I added to my (LEAP) positions in BOFI, SKX, SWKS and other low 1YPEGers. It worked out in the end (barring a few more to report next week) but boy what a tumultuous couple of weeks!
I’m using a high degree of leverage as part of my strategy and ever since the AAPL crash I had a fair amount of liquidity warnings from my online broker. I used my overweight position in AAPL as “equity” (along with a few others) and this equity was backing for my synthetic LEAPS. The downturn in AAPL put my equity base in lower territory (another part of the reason I’m down to 62 positions now - I needed the equity). Then SWKS started to follow APPL in sympathy and lowered my equity base even further. I had felt AAPL was fairly immune to big downside swings after steady earnings and revenue growth (and a low PE to boot), but I digress.
My goal since finding this board is to eventually ween myself from what I’ll call an addiction to leverage because I know what I do is risky and requires a high amount of active maintenance - especially on days when there are big swings to the downside. My goal is to get down to around 30 or so high conviction stocks with option exposure to no more than 50% of my portfolio. Right now I’m 22% in stocks, 73% in options and 5% in cash. At the start of the year my ratios were 45%, 48% and 7%, respectively. The options portion of my portfolio just grew to an outsized proportion and I’m not sure I’m comfortable “letting my winners” run on this side of the house as they say.
Anyway, Saul thanks again for what you do, thanks for letting me ramble on a bit here and thanks to everyone for being a contributor and a sounding board for great ideas and discussion.
Best,
–Kevin
Fantastic Saul - My portfolio is up just shy of 3% for the day and I was kind of dumbfounded. I guess I’m gonna have to take a harder look at your portfolio to see what other ideas I might want to borrow.
My goal since finding this board is to eventually ween myself from what I’ll call an addiction to leverage
I think that’s a very good goal, Kevin. I do believe that leverage can have a place, when used judiciously, but never anything that could potentially jeopardize your portfolio even in a severe market drop. Remember that, historically, 10% drops are frequent and 20% drops aren’t at all uncommon (it’s the bare minimum needed for a bear market). It’s easy to forget that given the length of this bull market with unusually few “corrections.”
The market is not rational. That can work in our favor, giving us incredible opportunities, but it can also work against us and cause our perfectly wonderful investments to severely sell off and stay well below what seems reasonable for extended periods of time. That’s exactly what happened to Apple in 2012 when it got cut nearly in half, and it didn’t fully recover for two years – it’s definitely not immune. You want to be taking advantage of the market’s stupidity, not becoming an inadvertent victim of it. The margin calls will always come at the worst times.
We know a bear market will show up eventually: it’s only a matter of when, and nobody knows what will be the instigating factor. I personally would recommend thinking about how your portfolio will behave in a 20% or 30% market drop, and I wouldn’t assume any company is safe.
Neil
Saul, I raise my glass you. What fun indeed.
Thank you also Fletch. I have taken a long look at BOFI and made an investment.
4.2% in one day?
Well done!
2.3% for me on the day so gives me much yet to strive for.
Nonetheless, I had a ‘first’ that was cause for contentment today. If you’ll pardon me sharing:
We’re now 7 months into the year.
As of yesterday I’ve earned more from my investment account in 2015 that I will receive in annual wages. It’s the first time it’s happened in my life. Feels as surreal as it does liberating.
Thank you all for your wisdom.
I’m thankful to supernova, and now this board, for kicking me along the road. Prior to this my investments were languishing and I’d all but given up on them.
cheers,
B