As my regular investing in ETFs is boring as hell, I have introduced play money to add sparks to my portfolio. It has gotten a little out of hand and developed into a serious income stream.
Finance Avenue
On November 18, The financial newspaper organise a free event called Finance Avenue. It takes place in Brussels and allows you to meet brokers, companies, funds managers and alike. They might have some cool goodies as well…! I will be there early Saturday morning. When you go and would like to meet, contact me via the comments or a the contact page
Option Income – 865,68€
October has been a good month for my option trading. I made a record high realised income of 865,68€! That is just amazing.
The income comes from 19 different stock and ETFs. DIS and EBR:ABI being this months biggest contributors to my option income.
YTD, I have an annualised return of 13,4%.
For comparison; the SPY has YTD 15,9%, IWDA, my main tracker has 7,44%, CESL has 24,26% and EMIM 21,37%
I do realize that I have the positive wind of the bull market in my sails. Writing options in a bull market is “easy”.
That is why I am happy to have written my first strangle in October. This is a trading position that is market neutral. It took me almost 2,5 years of option trading before initiating a short strangle. I have read research and I understand the market dynamics: it makes sense to add this trading instrument to my portfolio. I just fear that my current trading fees will reduce the profit from this strategy.
The Elephants
TEVA
Still there, going nowhere… I am curious to see what the stock will do in the coming days, now that the earnings are there.
LB
GONE!
(non disclosed)
No change
Earnings are coming as well and analysts are in general positive… Let’s wait and see!
AMS:AD
No change
Stock is now around 16, that means I made some profit on the 15 puts that I had.
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.
Same size, still a little bigger than I want it to be…
How was your October?
amber tree leaves 
‘As my regular investing in ETFs is boring as hell’ yes it is! And where is the fun in being a good girl …
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Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere
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Awesome results on your options income this past month. Really impressive.
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You made me curious by your reply 😉 Wow, impressive results! You’re well on your way to the €1,000 mark!
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Would be great to reach that…. Than I offer my wife to work halftime! 😎
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What a great husband 😀
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Hi AmberTreeLeaves!
My month of october was nice as well, mainly because we finally paid of a huge costs.
Because of that my passive income reached 9% of my total expenses, see also my october update: http://gezondleven-blog.nl/financiele-update-oktober/\
Still not over €800 a month but i assume to get there eventually!
Gr. Mr. Gezond!
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That was an incredible amount you brought in via options. Congrats on hitting that milestone. Looks like you have a pretty good trading plan. I guess, as you stated, writing options during a bull market is less risky (easy). Seems like it by your results. Thanks for sharing.
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Congrats on the options income! Boredom (and going broke in real estate) is what attracted me to options. It’s been over 15 years and it’s been a wild, but profitable ride. I read your progress and you are doing better than I did when I started out 🙂 I wish you much more success and I can’t wait to read more from you.
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