Option Income – Downscaling the elephants

At the start of September, I was septic… There were many elephants (really bad trades) in my portfolio and I had quite some loosing positions. Here is how it went from there.

Option Income – 398,73€

All in all, september was a good option trading month. I know, the graph shows otherwise. I am not close to my normal results after my scale up. The reason that I am happy with the results is simple: I scaled down one very massive elephant to a massive elephant and took a 480$ loss when doing so. And then there was a fat finger error (wrong roll due to me being disturbed) costing me another 45$.

The current annualised return is 12,97% This is down from last month and is explained by the losses I took on purpose. I am still curious to see how my portfolio will perform in a serious correction. Partly, I will end with a lot of stock, partly, the gold related hedges should do their job.

Income comes from 16 different stock/ETFs this time. I like to stay diversified. It adds more trades and fun to the game. Another approach could be to select just one leading index and go with the flow here. I prefer differently!

Dividend/coupon Income – 7€

This month, it is a coupon payment from a bond. It is part of my little crowdfunding portfolio. I support a a taxi cooperation in Benin that has links back to a Belgian group of industrials.

The elephants in the option portfolio

 

Elephant 1 – TEVA

Major change here. The stock had a serious spike up in September. This allowed me to close one put and just before, I decided to take a partial loss already on another put of 500$. Due to timevalue, it was actually 480$. The put is now expiring mid 2018. When the loss comes in between, it will be smaller.

I decided to take a loss now to free up some capital in my portfolio and to smooth out any future loss that might happen. I now have peace with the position and will let it ride.

 

Elephant 2 – LB

The option is now no longer ITM, it is not a profitable trade yet. Give the January expiry, It will take time for time value to do its thing.

Elephant 3 – (non disclosed)

Down from 3 position to 2 positions… The company took care of its problem, now it is a matter of time for the confidence to come back.

Elephant 4 – AMS:AD

Riding the Ecommerce hit with ITM puts at 19 and 17, playing with the 15 puts to earn money on this one. Time is what I need. And Amazon not to buy something in Europe…

Elephant 5 – GDX

This will be an eternal elephant. It is part of my setup to balance bad news. It means that I will have short puts to diversify and I will have short calls on the assigned GDX. Not really an elephant. Part of the way I trade. I just need to avoid that it becomes a too big position in my portfolio.

Total Pct ITM 19,17pct. Way less than the last report!

 

How are your options doing?

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