Monthly: Meat Grinder market 60-11 Grade B-

The modest dip turned out to be a head fake. I sold a lot of calls on the dip and had to cover some of them for huge percentages losses. BA, NVDA, QQQ, ULTA were some of the problem stocks. The big picture is that I was up about 1.7% for the trading month, now up about 8.8% for 2017. Half a loaf is how I often describe these kinds of results. Makes sense for someone that is almost always hedging their bets. The calendar 2017 recap, ranking them best to worst:

EEM +24.6% emerging market equity
SPY +10.4% S&P 500, U.S. large cap

GLD +8.8% gold
IWM +5.7% Russell 2000, U.S. small cap

TLT +5.5% U.S. 20 year treasuries
SLV +3.2% silver

My account +8.8%, so I am in the game, but lagging buy and hold of SPY. There is approximately another +1% on SPY and TLT for dividends, I am just looking at raw numbers for the etfs. Biggest losers so far in 2017 include: ULTA, FL, AAPL. Biggest winners include NVDA (despite the huge losses), BRKB, SPG, NTES, UNH.

A few people on Reddit are citing some new Etrade TV ads as a sign of a market top. For those that haven’t seen them, there is one where a young kid buys a boat, and the tag line is don’t get mad, get even, get Etrade. As if the stock market is free money.

Certainly this is the kind of thing seen at market tops. However, by itself, it is not enough evidence for me. People I talk to, seem still skittish, still afraid of the market. Seems like a lot of people are preparing for the next bear market, when we haven’t even seen a decent correction in a long while. I am still guessing at a pull back in Sep/Oct, but it is just a guess.