Weekly: Swing and a miss

I leaned long on three stocks that reported earnings this week. I was short strangles on AMZN BA TSLA, leaning bullish. All three went down, so the subject line is: swing and a miss. Thankfully, I didn’t swing for th fences, so end the week with a tiny gain. 

All three earnings plays were losers though.
For next week, I may play DE SHOP TWLO. I’m not in any at the moment, and will go way out of the money, and play really small.

Monthly: Boom boom boom, Grade A

Another up month for me, self-grade is A. There are always minor nits to pick, but up more than 7% for the month. Now up 34% for 2019. 

Here are a few etfs ytd, best to worst, dividends not included:

QQQ +23.9% Nasdaq 100, mostly tech stocks
SPY +18.9% S&P500 US large cap
IWM +14.9% Russell 2000 US small cap

GLD +10.9% gold
EEM +9.7% Emerging Market equities

TLT +8.4% US 20 year treasuries
SLV +4.5% silver

Gold moved up, IWM is now lagging. My account up over 34% ytd, so I am having a great year. All etfs on the list are up. Easy monetary policy tends to push up all boats.

I am now up for the year on Boeing. I did not get hurt by some of the big earnings movers. I currently have relatively large long positions in AMZN and DIS. I am cautiously bullish on most of the rest, short strangles with a slight bullish tilt.

The stock market sputtered after Netflix and Microsoft earnings. MSFT acted poorly, gapping higher, closing with a small gain.

Weekly: Hat trick SPY 300

SPY QQQ DIA all reach record highs, taking me along with them. My recent tactic of buying calls to offset other options has worked fairly well. I was able to ride the elevator up, without taking on the huge downside that comes with selling bundles of out of the money puts. The latter is how I used to offset the delta.

To be sure, some stocks ran too hot, and I had to roll or buy more calls. Overall, another nice up week, up nearly 2%. I still have some reserves allocated to BSV. They will stay there for now. Again, TINA is the bulls best friend. There is no alternative, with bonds also high, CD rates coming down, foreign markets underperforming.

Weekly: Bull lurches forward

The zombie bull continues to lurch forward with more new highs. My account benefits from the upward tide. Some discomfort is caused by too much up movement against sold strangles. Boeing continues to want attention. I sell some strangles on UBER with a slight bullish tilt. I continue to sometimes buy options to rebalance back to desired delta.

The long list of warning signs remains (CAPE, GDP to market cap, inverted yield curve, hot IPO market, people quitting good jobs to trade, people that have ignored the market for decades now interested), so I continue to be cautious. I won’t lean bearish until the technicals break down, or there are signs of a melt up in the overall market.