Trading Blog

2019 marks our 8th year as a public service. It was a good year overall. We closed 151 winners out of 232 trades. Our model portfolio produced 41.7% compounded gain on the whole account based on 10% allocation per trade. We had only two losing months in 2019. 

Our readers know that our returns have been tracked by Pro-Trading-Profits, an independent third party website that tracks performance of hundreds investment newsletters. They provided an excellent explanation how to analyze and compare performance of different trading systems. 

Are most options traders aware of five different types of volatility? Probably not. Most only deal with two types, historical and implied. All five types deserve some explanation and study.

Academic research suggests there are differences in expected returns among stocks over the long-term.  Small companies with low fundamental valuations (Small Cap Value) have higher expected returns than big companies with high valuations (Large Cap Growth).

People have been trying to figure out just what makes humans tick for hundreds of years.  In some respects, we’ve come a long way, in others, we’ve barely scratched the surface. Like it or not, many industries take advantage of this knowledge to influence our behaviour and buying patterns.

Options traders struggle constantly with the quest for reliable reversal signals. Finding these lets you time your entry and exit expertly, if you only know how to interpret the signs and pay attention to the trendlines. One such signal is a combination of modified Bollinger Bands and a crossover signal.

Should options traders consider “premium at risk” when entering strategies? Most traders focus on calculated maximum profit or loss and breakeven price levels. But inefficiencies in option behavior, especially when close to expiration, make these basic calculations limited in value, and at times misleading.

In our continued efforts to improve the Anchor strategy, in April of this year we began tracking a Diversified Leveraged Anchor strategy, under the theory that, over time, a diversified portfolio performs better than an undiversified portfolio in numerous metrics.  Not only does overall performance tend to increase, but volatility and drawdowns tend to decrease:

The best visual aids for learning are often very simple. The chart in this article was created by Paul Merriman, using data from Dimensional Fund Advisors. I primarily use Dimensional Funds in building portfolios for my clients. There are many takeaways from this chart, and I’d like to share a few thoughts that stick out most to me.

When US investors save for retirement, there are many important decisions that have to be made including which investments to use as well as which type of accounts to fund. Tax favored retirement accounts such as 401(k)’s and IRA’s should be utilized to the maximum extent possible because of the opportunity for tax advantaged growth.

There are so many excellent sources of investment education available today that I thought a short post about some of my personal favorites could be beneficial. Below are different forms of content that have been particularly impactful to my investment philosophy, and they are not in any specific order.

The price of gold is often in the news—sometimes it's rising, and other times it's dropping but for the most part, it has been on a steady increase for many years. It is certainly worth more now than it did twenty years ago. When its price is on the rise, we may have thought about the benefits of selling our gold for profit and making some passive income from it.