2018 in review, down 8%, grade C-

SPY close down about 6% for the year. My account about -7%, so in line. Russell 2000 got shelled -12%, while the QQQ was down a modest -1%. I stopped logging every trade. When the crap hit the fan, I was doing

Tracking etfs best to worst for 2018 (close to close, no dividends)

GLD -1.9%
TLT -4.2%

SPY -6.0%
SLV -9.2%

IWM -12.1%
EEM -29.8%

All of these etfs were losers. The big cap gainers in SPY included MRK and PFE. The losers CAT, MMM.

For me, the five best trading tickers (non-etfs): TSLA, BA, GOOGL, TLRY, AAPL. The worst five were: AMZN, CMG, FB, BRKB, CAT. Amazon by far was the biggest loser. I got caught both on the upside and downside. At one time AMZN was my best trading stock for the year, then the fall swoon happened and I got crushed. Similarly, at one time TSLA was my worst ticker for the year, then it came back. It is easy to read too much into this.

At the Christmas Eve lows I was down 20% for the year. As volatility declined, I narrowed the loss to -8% in a week. Far be it for me to give advice. I’ll take it as it comes. All things are possible, new highs, new lows, a trading range. I’ve been rolling up and down, to stay closer to delta neutral, rather than try to guess which way the market is going.

Relief rally

After the worst Christmas Eve in history, the market has its biggest point gain ever. My account rebounds with the market. I was down about 20 percent for the year at the lows. Made back maybe 8 percent during the rally.

I rolled down, then up, down than up, trying to stay near delta neutral on a lot of underlyings. I made a bunch of trades. It reminds me of speed chess, when instinct takes over. There doesn’t feel like there is time to think, just glance and react.

I’ve gotten used to these short posts, without all the detail, so may stay with the format for a while. Anything is possible. If someone had asked me for the odds of a 5 percent market decline on Christmas Eve, I might have said less than one percent, then it happened. So new highs or new lows are possible. Being down about 12 percent for 2018, makes my opinion less valuable.

I’ll post a recap of 2018 in a few days. Happy New Year.

Shadow of the bear Grade F

Another short post. The market is kicking my butt. I lost count of winners and losers for the December cycle. A guess might be 90 winners, 25 losers. Easier to track is net liquidating value. I was down about 15 percent for the month. Same number for 2018 now. 

So the grade is F, failing. The good news, is that I didn’t double down into the trending decline. I am still standing, though wobbly. Biggest loser by far is Amazon, but many stocks contributed to the flood of red ink. One of my few winners is Tesla, which ironically was one of my biggest losers for the year after the 420 tweet, then smoke.

I told someone else that after a bad time, turtle mode is my preference. Get back to basics, don’t try to make the losses back quickly. The gambling mentality can turn minus 15 into minus 30 real quick.

Happy holidays to all.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Another short post, the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be another train. Crunch. I eek out a small gain for the week. Another down Friday ruins what might have been a good week. Costco joins the ranks of stocks getting hit. I take a loss on one COST leg. Hopefully I’ll get back to more details soon, but I have been crazy busy lately.

Meat grinder market

A short check in post. The market has been a meat grinder. I lost over 2 percent on Friday, back to about minus 5 percent for calendar 2018. Be careful out there.