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By helloworld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghl_GfNs99c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Tm_GBJauk
The Black Swan Hedge trade structure, as described in the two videos above, is a 3:5 put ratio backspread designed to be a sustainable self-financing hedge. The trade is run as an ongoing campaign (legged in when certain market criteria have been met), resulting in a net 5 long puts per tranche at no net cost (or even a net credit). Over time, multiple long puts can be accumulated this way, increasing the hedging power.
Has anyone considered whether this is a viable pairing strategy with Anchor Trades? The Black Swan Hedge structure seems like a plausible alternative hedging component, considering that the 5% OTM or ATM put hedge is the biggest cost of the Anchor Trade strategy and that financing the hedge with diagonal is its biggest risk.
Here's a forum discussion about this trade structure started by one of the video uploader:
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/the-beauty-of-options-portfolio-insurance-at-a-discount.346405/
btw how can I post this to the Anchor Trades Discussion?
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By cwelsh
IWM performed the worse, followed by EFA. This is in contrast to the prior year when SPY was not the best performing and "Regular" Anchor lagged Diversified. In any given year, if SPY is the best performing index, Regular Anchor will perform better than Diversified. Given that I'm pretty bad at picking which index will do best each year, I prefer the Diversified approach.
All four indexes performed exactly as expected given the market conditions -- but that does not mean we're satisfied with the results obtained. IWM in particular had a "bad" year, which means we've spent quite some time digging into the results.
For several years now, I've said the worst possible outcome for Anchor is a small drawdown (0%-7.5% or so) right after opening the position, then trading in a sawtooth pattern on the year, followed by finishing almost exactly 5% down from the opening of the positions.
IWM Chart:
We rolled (and or many new members entered) IWM in March, when IWM was in the 225-230 range. Immediately thereafter it dropped to the 210-215 range and stayed there almost all year. This has the effect of us rolling the shorts on the diagonals for essentially zero credits almost all year, which means the hedge does not get paid for. If the hedge costs 8% and we start the hedge at 5% out of the money, there's a theoretical loss of 13% (or even a bit more) depending on if there were small losses here and there on the diagonal, if we paid a bit more for the hedge, on volatility, and a few other factors.
If the drop in December had been bigger (15%-20%), our hedge would have kicked into full gear, as it was, delta didn't get above 70.
In other words, we got, virtually "perfectly," the worst case scenario on IWM. So the question becomes, "how do we improve?"
For the last six months, I've been trading the same strategy on BTC, which has similar volatilities to IWM (at least in the last year), and we ran into the exact same problem with the diagonal paying for things. We learned, through live experience and testing, that on higher volatility instruments you need to roll the diagonal down much more frequently then you roll down to increase your calls (as happens in crashes).
This is not a "magic bullet" if the market drops 3%-4% and stays there for several months, when do we roll down? But it should help.
Other members have suggested implementing an iron condor/vertical spread trade on top of the long positions, particularly in the higher volatility instruments such as IWM. I have extensively tested this, it is a losing strategy over time, particularly if you do at a 1:1 ratio (e.g. if you are long 2 calls doing 2 vertical spreads). This is because sooner or later you WILL miss out on a big move up or down -- which is where Anchor really shines. Sure, particularly on IWM, a wide vertical spread or iron condor will win 90% of the time. But making $1.00 90% of the time and missing out on $50 the other 10% of the time doesn't make much sense long term.
If you have good "feelings" about the market (I'll reserve my opinions on that), and you think its going to stay flat, trend down, or whatever, and believe your momentum/fundamental analysis, you certainly can implement the strategy -- but if you do, I wouldn't go above a 2:1 ratio -- of course it's each investor's own call.
In other announcements, Soteria Fund officially started trading in October. We had to rename Anchor to Soteria, as opposed to getting into a trademark fight (me as a lawyer and another IP lawyer thought we could win the lawsuit, but it seems dumb to get into a lawsuit over a name for the launch of a fund - investors tend to run from that type of thing). The Soteria Fund is open to US and non-US investors, but such investors do have to be qualified clients (net worth over $2.1m). If you have questions about the fund, would like to join, or know someone who might, it is open and I'm happy to discuss it.
Other than the above, we're quite happy with Anchor and look forward to another great year. Feel free to post questions, comments, criticisms, or concerns.
*Yes, I'm still working on updating the FAQ.
Related articles:
Anchor Trades Portfolio Launched Defining The Anchor Strategy Leveraged Anchor Is Boosting Performance Leveraged Anchor Update Leveraged Anchor Implementation Leveraged Anchor: A Three Month Review Anchor Maximum Drawdown Analysis A More Diversified Anchor Strategy Anchor Analysis and Options Diversified Leveraged Anchor Performance The Downside Of Anchor Leveraged Anchor 2020 Year In Review
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By cwelsh
One of the “best” things for Leveraged Anchor occurred in February and March. Up to this point, Leveraged Anchor’s success in a down market was largely theoretical. We knew the math was right, and that the strategy had been back tested in down markets, but it had not been subject to a “real” market correction when invested.
On February 6, 2020, Leveraged Anchor rolled its short position and long hedge when SPY was at 333.72. Shortly after this the markets started to experience some volatility. By the end of February, SPY had dropped 12.6%, the tracking account was assigned on the short position, and the value of the Leveraged Anchor Portfolio had dropped almost 9.5% drop from its peak and dropped 5.7% on the month.
With the market dropping 12.6% from the February 6 point and 9.3% on the month, Leveraged Anchor was outperforming, but the 9.5% drop (from the peak not from the point at which it was hedged) was a bit worrisome and some concerns developed on what would happen if the market kept dropping. Well keep dropping it did. Over the next few weeks, the market continued to plunge. This quick plunge led the strategy to being assigned on the short puts again on March 23, 2020. At this point the market had dropped all the way to 222.33 – losing over 33% of its value. Yet over this same period, Leveraged Anchor rose back up some.
In other words, from February 6, 2020, SPY dropped 33.4%. Over this same time Leveraged Anchor only dropped 1.1%. Leveraged Anchor was performing even better than expected. The twin benefit of having a large volatility spike increase the value of the puts and the advantage of using a 90 delta call proved more than efficient in a large down market. A 90 delta call loses $0.90 for every $1 SPY declines. Further, as SPY declines, the delta declines as well. In practical terms the more dramatic the market drop, the less dramatic drop in the option.
At this point we realized that, at some point, the market would rebound – and Anchor would not. (As the calls go up in value, the puts go down in value, we would have been lucky to “stay even” on a rebound). However, our puts were so much in the money we could roll them down, take profit and free up cash, and keep the delta of the put above 90. In other words, if the markets continued to go down, we would not suffer by being under hedged.
In April, when it looked like the markets were returning (SPY was already back up to 280), that is exactly what we did. Then with that free cash, we increased our position size, which allowed the strategy to participate in some of the up market. It of course will not be dollar for dollar, but if Anchor goes down 1% when the market goes down 33%, and then Anchor goes up 25% when the market goes up 50% (after a 33% market decline, a 50% rebound is needed to get back to break even), Anchor ends up over 20% ahead.
Of interesting note, had we rolled the puts down and increased our sizing when SPY was at 222, as opposed to 280, instead of going from 7 to 8 call contracts, we would have gone from 7 to 10, and Anchor would have finished the year another up an additional 10%. I know of at least one member who successfully bottom ticked the market and extracted over 10% more by doing exactly that. Knowing that that the strategy could have done better than it did is simply amazing.
With the success of the strategy, we began to think of how to improve it further, and an obvious solution presented itself – diversification. Over the long term (and Leveraged Anchor is a long-term strategy), being diversified in different stock classes virtually always outperforms AND reduces volatility at the same time. This led to the birth of Diversified Leveraged Anchor, also in April 2020.
The timing of the launch could not have been better. Over the past several years, the S&P 500 had been the top, or one of the top, performing asset classes. However, over the next months, it would slip behind others.
Members are invited to read the Leveraged Anchor Implementation to see what the expectations were when the Anchor was launched.
Above is a table showing the performance of SPY, then using 25% leverage, 50%, and 75% leverage after certain market moves over a thirty day period. After reviewing the above, and similar tables over longer periods of time, we made a decision that utilizing 50% leverage was optimal. As you can see, the strategy performed better than expected, in both bull and bear markets. If the market declines 40% or more, the portfolio would actually be in a positive territory.
On the year, Leveraged Anchor (SPY only), was up 31.7%, while the total return of the S&P 500 was 18.4%. This is an incredible result. However, once applying diversification, the results improved even further. The below results are from the time the diversified strategy launched (April), not from the start of the year. The dates listed are the actual days the trade occurred:
The power of diversification can quickly be seen. If the strategy remained only in SPY, it would have returned 35.93%, under performing each of the other three indexes. By blending performance increased almost fifteen points to 50.74%. We would expect such results in every year that the S&P 500 is not the best performing index.
In the coming days, we will be:
Re-balancing across the indexes if needed; and
Exploring rolling the long call strikes up and out to increase cash and grow the position.
Rebalancing is a simple matter and must periodically be done to maintain the balance between each portion of the strategy. However, concern must be given to potential tax consequences, changes in leverage, and, as fractional options are not available, what the possible rebalancing results look like.
Similarly, rolling the long calls to increase the position size (leverage), must be weighed against tax concerns. It makes little sense to increase leverage by a few percentage points if there will be significant tax implications that can be avoid by waiting a few months.
One of the questions we are often asked is "under what circumstances would you expect to lose money on the account?" We covered this in the The Downside Of Anchor article.
Another question is "How do newcomers "catch up" so everyone is playin the same game?" The members forum has a dedicated topic with detailed instructions of how to start a new portfolio.
While I know 2020 has been a tough, even tragic, year for many people, it certainly has not been for Anchor, and it is our hope that a growing portfolio using this strategy has at least somewhat helped. The strategy not only outperformed the markets, it also allowed our members to sleep well at night and not worry about market timing.
As always, if there are questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to post them. Anchor has had an incredible decade of evolution to get to this point, and I we are always open to improving it in other ways if it can be done.
Christopher Welsh is a licensed investment advisor in the State of Texas and is the president of an investment firm, Lorintine Capital, LP which is a general partner of three separate private funds. He is also an attorney practicing in Dallas, Texas. Chris has been practicing since 2006 and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. Working with a CFP® professional represents the highest standard of financial planning advice. He offers investment advice to his clients, both in the law practice and outside of it. Chris has a Bachelor of Science in Economics, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Texas A&M University, and a law degree from Southern Methodist University. Chris manages the Anchor Trades portfolio and oversees Lorintine Capital's
Related articles:
Anchor Trades Portfolio Launched Defining The Anchor Strategy Leveraged Anchor Is Boosting Performance Leveraged Anchor Update Leveraged Anchor Implementation Leveraged Anchor: A Three Month Review Anchor Maximum Drawdown Analysis A More Diversified Anchor Strategy Anchor Analysis and Options Diversified Leveraged Anchor Performance The Downside Of Anchor -
By cwelsh
Below is a presentation of both calculations. Note this is a discussion on the current portfolio. Actual losses in new or differently structured portfolios may vary dramatically.
The current Leveraged Anchor portfolio looks like (as of July 15, 2019):
Before we continue, lets take a look at the model we posted in our Leveraged Anchor Implementation article when we just started the Leveraged Anchor implementation:
The current implementation is using 50% leverage.
SPY was up around 20% YTD on July 15, 2019. Based on the table, the Anchor was expected to slightly lag (1-2%). In reality, it produced 23.8% return, actually outperforming the markets.
Now, lets look at the maximum loss. It is going to occur at some point after the long call is worth zero. Hypothetically, that would occur Dec 31 when there is zero time value left in the long calls. Let’s say there’s a catastrophic September 11 type event, and the markets open on December 31 at SPY 175. We picked 175 because that’s the “worst case” ending price of SPY. If it continues to go down after that point, our long puts become more profitable. In this hypothetical on December 31, the Leveraged Anchor Portfolio would look like:
Our starting investment of the year was $100,000. In the event that the market declines 41% from its current position (30% from the start of the year price), the Leveraged Anchor portfolio would be down 7.5% on the year -- and that’s ignoring any additional cash we’d get between now and the end of the year from BIL dividends and put rolls. At that same time, the market as a whole would be down just over 30%. In other words, a good result.
For those who want to see what a bigger crash would look (as opposed to just trusting that bigger crashes are better), below assumes a price of SPY 100 on December 31:
As noted earlier, the farther the market drops below 175, the better the Leveraged Anchor will perform. If the market dropped 60% YTD, Anchor would be up 37.7%. As currently constructed if we make no more trades, the worst case scenario of the year is down 7.5%. This is significantly better than being simply long in the market.
However, all of the above assumes a “static” investment – ignoring the rolls of the short puts, the return of BIL, and other dynamic events. It is entirely possible to end with a result worse than above if the market enters a prolonged “slow” decline, as you would lose some on the short puts each time they were rolled.
Take the following example which assumes that on July 29, the market is at SPY 295.5 – only slightly below our present price of around 298.5 (prices were derived using CBOE’s option calculator):
Due to the small decline in SPY, a loss on the short puts would be realized, but the benefit of the long puts has not really kicked in. This can easily continue until SPY gets to the 270 range. If the market follows a down trending pattern which looks like:
then we end up with the true worst case scenario, as not only have the long calls lost value, but we have lost value rolling the short puts every three weeks. Note to reach this worst case scenario, there is a price decline over 3 weeks, so we fully realize the loss on the sort puts, but then there’s a market rebound leading to a sale of a put at a higher level (that is not quite as high as the original price), followed by another 3 week decline. Both Leveraged Anchor and Anchor suffer the most when there is a 3 week market decline, followed by a rebound back up, followed by a three week decline, and this pattern continues for an extended time. This can lead to the bleeding of a few thousand dollars each roll period.
If you assume that style of decline over the entire year leading up to the long call expiration (7 more three week periods), it would be possible to lose another $20,000 or so, just depending on the angle of descent of the market decline – the shallower the decline, the worse off Anchor would be. This is part of the reason why Leveraged Anchor has the short puts hedged at the money, while the long calls are hedged five percent out of the money. By hedging the short puts at the money, we reduce the potential drawdowns from a slow decline pattern.
Of course, in the history of the stock market, the above charted pattern has never declined in that orderly of a fashion for a six month period, much less an entire year. It’s much more frequent to have sharper declines, rebounds back above the original price, flat periods, etc.. The chance of going down then back up almost to the starting point, then back down – all on exact 3 week cycles, isn’t likely, but it could happen. Once the stairstep down pattern hits the long hedge, small bleeding really starts to be limited, as that hedge goes up in value.
In this worst case, performance of the Anchor strategy will be the worst in a market with an extended pattern as graphed above until the hedge kicks in. This result would be worse than the 7.5% “one day” catastrophic worst case loss scenario.
In our opinion, the “worst” loss someone should expect in the current portfolio is somewhere around a 15% decline from the starting $100,000 investment. That would require significant “stair stepping” down, in three-week cycles, and the price of SPY ending up right at 175 in December. That is an awfully specific set of conditions that has to be met to reach that point, but it certainly could happen. (Note: this is not the maximum theoretical loss, rather our maximum expected loss. The maximum possible loss should everything go wrong is higher).
Remember, the above is a “worst case” analysis – which Anchor is certainly designed to combat and provide better alternatives than simply being in the market. The above analysis shows Anchor will still significantly out-perform the market in major declines, but it is not “lossless” as some people believe.
Personally, I greatly appreciate the tradeoff in a catastrophic event or even in sharp downturns. But I also understand the risks, worst case scenarios, and the market conditions which damage the trade the most. Anyone trading the strategy should have such an understanding.
If you would like to give it a try, you can sign up here.
Christopher Welsh is a licensed investment advisor and president of LorintineCapital, LP. He provides investment advice to clients all over the United States and around the world. Christopher has been in financial services since 2008 and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. Working with a CFP® professional represents the highest standard of financial planning advice. Christopher has a J.D. from the SMU Dedman School of Law, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics. Christopher is a regular contributor to the Steady Options Anchor Trades and Lorintine CapitalBlog.
Related articles:
Leveraged Anchor Implementation Leveraged Anchor Is Boosting Performance Leveraged Anchor: A Three Month Review
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By Kim
This is how the Anchor portfolio looked like on Feb.6 2020, two weeks before the start of the decline:
SPY was at 334, total portfolio value around $143k. This is how the P/L chart looked like:
With 8 SPY contracts, this translates to x1.85 leverage. This setup obviously should perform very well on the upside (the portfolio should easily outperform SPY on any upside move), but the downside doesn't look that great on this P/L chart.
Lets see how things developed.
Feb.28 2020, SPY at 290 (down 13%), Anchor down $15k (~10%):
With SPY down 13%, the Anchor portfolio was down only 10%. This is normal and expected. The strategy is not designed to provide a total protection, especially in smaller declines.
It is worth mentioning that the puts are typically 5% OTM when opened. It’s entirely possible for Anchor to be up 7%, then the market drops, and we end up down 12% peak to trough (or even a bit more). The Downside of Anchor discusses it in more details.
Two weeks later, March 12, SPY at 251 (down 25%), Anchor down only $4k (~3%):
Now you can see how the protection kicks in after a bigger decline.
Fast forward to March 19 2020, SPY at 234 (down 30%), Anchor UP $5k (~3%):
Now, this is pretty amazing. How this was possible?
Few factors contributed to this major outperformance:
We used deep ITM calls instead of the stock. As the underlying declines, the delta of the calls decreases and they lose less value. In this case SPY declined $100, while the calls declined only $68.
We have more long puts than short puts, so the gains of the long puts far outpace the losses of the short puts.
During market crashes, IV jumps to the roof (in this case, VIX jumped from 16 to 80+). This caused the long puts to increase in value much more than expected. In addition, we got much more premium from the short puts when rolling. The bottom line: in the last 30 months, the strategy produced 36.6% CAGR, significantly outperforming the S&P 500, but at the same time provided a full protection during the market crash. To me, this is as close as it gets to the holly grail of investing.
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By Kim
At SteadyOptions, we are not trying to predict when the next crash or meltdown will come. We are just trying to be prepared for all scenarios. For those of you who hold a "well diversified portfolio of high quality stocks and bonds" and believe you are protected - think again. To quote my partner Chris Welsh, “If your investment adviser has you in a small-cap fund, a mid-cap fund, a large-cap fund, a foreign investment fund, a commodity fund, a bond fund, and a high dividend fund such as a REIT or pipeline, and tells you that you’re adequately diversified, find a new investment adviser. In a market crash, ALL of those asset classes will get hammered.”
So what's the answer? Protection of course. However, just buying protection is expensive. Even now when Implied Volatility is close to record lows, to fully protect your portfolio will cost you 7-10% per year. Are you willing to lag the market by 7-10% each year?
Here where the Anchor Trades comes to rescue.
The Anchor strategy's s primary objective is to have positive returns in all market conditions on an annual basis.
It will achieve that goal in three basic steps:
Step 1 - Buy stocks or ETFs.
Step 2 - Fully hedge.
Step 3 - Earn back the cost of the hedge.
You can read full details here.
As we can see, the strategy performed exactly as designed:
In years when the market is operating in positive conditions (defined as an over 5% return on the S&P 500 on an annualized basis) the strategy targets lagging the S&P 500 by two to three percent. In neutral markets (defined as a return on the S&P 500 on an annualized basis between -3% to 3%), the strategy targets a five to seven percent return. And in negative market years (defined as a return on the S&P 500 of -5%) the strategy targets a return of five to seven percent. In extreme down years (defined as a return on the S&P 500 of under -10%), as explained in other threads, could lead to outsized gains.
The best time to start the Anchor strategy is when IV is low because you can buy the hedge really cheap. It makes perfect sense - are you buying your home insurance before your home goes on fire or after? You buy insurance when it's cheap, not when you need it. And if IV goes up, we will get more credit for the puts we sell.
Protection is cheap now. If you are holding a long portfolio and are seeking to protect it against market crash, it is an excellent time to join Anchor Trades.
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By cwelsh
Selling calls for a credit to help offset the cost of the hedge is, more often than not, a losing strategy over time in the Anchor strategy. It tends to hurt performance more than help it; About a month is the ideal period for selling short puts over both in bull and bear markets. This tends to be the ideal trade off between decay, being able to hold through minor price fluctuations, and available extrinsic value. Since options come out weekly, we’ll be using a 28-day period; Rolling on a set day like Friday is not the most efficient method of rolling the short puts. Rather having a profit target of between 35% to 50%, and rolling when that target is hit, leads to vastly improved outcomes. Waiting until profits get above 50% tends to start negatively impacting the trade on average.
This month we’re going to look at another technique which has the possibility of increasing Anchor’s performance over time – namely reducing the hedge.
Reducing the Hedge
The single biggest cost to Anchor is the hedge. Depending on when the hedge is purchased, it can cost anywhere from 5% to 15% of the value of the entire portfolio. In large bull markets, which result in having to roll the hedge up several times in a year, we have seen this cost eat a substantial part of the gains in the underlying stocks and/or ETFs.
There is also the issue of not being “fully” invested and this resulting in lagging the market. If the cost of the hedge is 8%, then we are only 92% long. In other words if our ETFs go up 100 points, our portfolio would only go up 92 points.
A large hedge cost also has a negative impact at the start of a bear market as well due to the losses on the short puts. If the market drops a mild amount, particularly soon after purchasing the hedge, the losses on the short puts will exceed the gains on the long puts, negatively impacting performance. This loss is less noticeable as the long hedge gets nearer to expiration and/or market losses increase as delta of the long hedge and the short puts both end up about the same. However, as was seen a few years ago, if the market drops slightly, then rebounds, those losses on the short puts are realized and any gains on the long puts are lost when the market rebounds.
If there was a way to reduce the cost of the hedge, without dramatically increasing risk, the entire strategy would benefit. A possible solution comes from slightly “under hedging.” Testing over the periods from 2012 to the present and from 2007 to the present has revealed if we only hedged 95% of the portfolio, returns would be significantly improved.
Let’s take a look at the data from the close of market on September 14, 2018, when SPY was at 290.88. If we were to enter the hedge, we would have bought the September 20, 2019 290 Puts for $14.96. If we have a theoretical $90,000 portfolio, it would take 3.1 puts to hedge (we can’t have 3.1puts so we’ll round down to 3). At that price, three puts would cost $4,488 or 5% of the portfolio (almost historically low).
However, if we were to say “I am not upset if I lose five percent of my portfolio value due to market movements; I am just really worried about large losses,” we could buy the 275 puts instead of the 290. The 275 puts are trading at $10.61 – a discount of thirty percent.
This means we need less short puts to pay for the position, paying for the position is a simpler process, and rolling up in a large bull market is cheaper.
Yes it comes at a cost – risking the first five percent – but given the stock markets trend positive over time, this pays off in spades over longer investment horizons. Even if you are near retirement, any planning you do should not be largely impacted by a five percent loss, but the gains which can come from (a) having a larger portion of your portfolio invested in long positions instead of the hedge (meaning less lag in market gains), (b) having less risk on the short puts in minor market fluctuations, and (c) paying for the hedge in full more frequently more than offset that over time.
We will implement this in the official Anchor portfolios by simply delaying a roll up from gains. The official portfolio is in the January 19, 2019 280 puts. We’d normally roll around a 7% or 10% gain (or around SPY 300), instead we’ll just hold until we get to our five percent margin. OR when we roll the long puts around the start of December, we’ll then roll out and down to hit our target.
Note – if you do want to continue to be “fully” hedged, you can do so. There’s nothing wrong with this, you just sacrifice significant upside potential and will be continuing to perform as Anchor has recently. If we had implemented this change in 2012, Anchor’s performance would have been more than five percent per year higher. This is not an insignificant difference.
Related articles:
Defining The Anchor Strategy Market Thoughts And Anchor Update Leveraged Anchor Is Boosting Performance Anchor Trades Strategy Performance Revisiting Anchor (Thanks To ORATS Wheel)
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By cwelsh
Historically diversified portfolios, over time, outperform concentrated portfolios with less risk and volatility. The simple reason for such results is that different asset classes perform differently year to year:
Regardless of which asset you picked from the above table, in some years it would perform well comparatively and others not as well. This volatility can be (partially) eliminated through diversification. Simply blending large caps, small caps, and international would significantly increase a portfolio performance over time. Numerous studies (and a simple google search) can confirm this fact.
We took this basic investment premise in 2020 and applied it to Leveraged Anchor. Unfortunately, we know that Leveraged Anchor does not “work” well on certain instruments (such as GLD or SLV) or those with already extremely low volatility, such as government bond indexes. Thus, we elected to use a blend of the S&P 500 (SPY), the Russell 2000 (IWM/Small Caps), Large Cap International (EFA), and Technology (QQQ). An argument could be made against QQQ as there is some overlap between it and SPY and that both are concentrated in US Large Caps. However, it performs well with Anchor, and demonstrated low correlation with SPY at the time it was selected. If it and SPY become highly correlated again, we may look to substitute a high-volume REIT ETF after testing.
One year after beginning trading, the results speak for themselves. Here are the monthly returns for the Diversified Leveraged Anchor strategy:
All of the starting values were slightly different, as each was based upon whole contracts, with a target investment of each sector between $130,000 - $140,000. Note these results do not include commissions. Any one of the four sectors performance was impressive, but the blend of the four was even better.
An annual return of 57.70%, with a Sharpe ratio of 2.81, are returns no one should ever complain of – unless it was worse than just holding the underlying instruments, on a risk adjusted basis. Using published data from Morningstar, and starting with identical balances (so fractional shares were permitted), the returns of the underling ETFs over the same period were:
As can be seen, if an investor had simply put their holdings in the same ETFs, they would have only returned 43.70% -- without any hedging in place.
For a more succinct break down, over the last twelve months:
Leveraged Anchor on SPY returned 44.19% while SPY itself only returned 38.65% (5.54% outperformance, while being hedged)
Leveraged Anchor on EFA returned 40.97%, while EFA returned 37.33% (3.64% outperformance, while being hedged)
Leveraged Anchor on QQQ returned 55.00%, while QQQ returned 27.79% (27.21% outperformance, while being hedged)
Leveraged Anchor on IWM returned 90.86%, while IWM returned 71.62% (19.24% outperformance, while being hedged)
Diversified Leveraged Anchor returned 57.70%, while a diversified ETF returned 43.70% (14.0% outperformance, while being hedged)
In other words, Leveraged Anchor worked on all four instruments, provided excess returns in a bull market, while still protecting against large drawdowns.
Not surprisingly, the higher volatility instruments had a larger spread over the underlying instrument. This is primarily due to the higher credits received. We should expect the opposite to occur in extended drawdowns – which is another reason to continue to diversify.
Because of the strategy’s continued success, in the very near future we will be launching this as a fund investment, with the goal of raising substantial capital. All Steady Options members will be given the opportunity to invest in it first, as well as to help grow the fund via a solicitor arrangement if they so desire.
If anyone has any questions regarding the Diversified Leveraged Anchor strategy, please post your questions or email me at cwelsh@lorintinecapital.com.
Christopher Welsh is a licensed investment advisor and president of LorintineCapital, LP. He provides investment advice to clients all over the United States and around the world. Christopher has been in financial services since 2008 and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. Working with a CFP® professional represents the highest standard of financial planning advice. Christopher has a J.D. from the SMU Dedman School of Law, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics. Christopher is a regular contributor to the Steady Options Anchor Trades and Lorintine CapitalBlog.
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By cwelsh
Prior to answering that question though, we must revisit what exactly Anchor is, and what it is not. The Anchor Strategy is a hedging strategy that hedges on a year to year basis. Many investors have been puzzled as to why Anchor has not been going up with the market over the past week (as SPY has gone from around 220 to 260, Anchor accounts have either remained flat or even gone down slightly). That is to be expected from how the strategy is designed. No investor should see substantial gains in their portfolio until SPY starts moving above where the trade was opened.
For example, if you opened the Anchor Strategy when SPY was at 300, using the 285 puts, and the market crashes ten percent or more, you should expect your account to stay approximately the same as when the account was opened. We saw this occur when the markets dropped 30% or more and the Anchor accounts actually went up slightly in value. However, as the markets start going back up toward the 300 level when your account was opened, Anchor will not go up in value. That’s simply because the puts are going to be losing value at the same rate (if not faster) than the long positions gain. In other words, until SPY gets back above 300, you should not expect your account to increase in value.
This frustrates many investors. Everyone loves the 30% outperformance on the way down, but hates the 20% under performance on the way back up. But remember, the strategy is a year to year hedging strategy. It was not designed to profit after a large market decline, but rather was designed to protect capital in down markets and when new highs are reached (new highs based on the point of your initial year hedging), then you should expect gains.
Quite a few investors though are not happy with this result. They want the protection in down markets, but also to gain as the markets go back up. The last week in the market, as SPY has gone from 222 to 260, has been a great example of exactly how this occurs. Take the model portfolio – on March 23, 2020 it was worth $141,684. Over the next seven days, an incredible bull market occurred, as SPY rose 17%. After the roll of the short puts on March 30, the model portfolio has dropped in value to $124,847, a drop of 11.88% in a week. This places Anchor down 8.3% on the year (down 5.4% in the first quarter) and the market down 18.75% (320 to 260). Given that Anchor’s hedge doesn’t even kick in until a 5% drop in the market, this result is exactly in line with what is expected. However, no investor in Anchor is happy at the 11.88% loss in a week as investors mistakenly believe Anchor provides protection against that. It does not. Anchor is a year to year strategy not a week to week. The strategy is beating the markets by 7% and protecting against large declines. If the markets reverse back down, the strategy will greatly excel again.
So how is an investor to profit as markets rebound? The only way to do this is to adjust/reset the Anchor Strategy. However, as noted numerous times, “resetting” or opening a new Anchor account after a large decline is quite expensive and sets investors up for underperformance. So what are investors to do? Below is a brief analysis of the four different options available:
Option 1 – Do Nothing
I am not an advocate of changing strategy mid-flight. The Anchor Strategy is a capital preservation strategy and it is doing that spectacularly. If an investor were to take either of the below options, and the market declines further, they would be in a significantly worse position than if they did nothing, thereby losing some capital.
If you reset the position, to a lower hedge (a) the cost of the hedge is much higher, which will act as a drag on the portfolio as paying for the hedge is more difficult and (b) if the market drops further, the account will drop more than if no changes had been made. The reason for this is two-fold. First, we open the hedge 5% out of the money. This means if the market drops 5%, the account will essentially have little to no protection. The investor will just “lose” that five percent again (having lost that five percent on the initial decline).
Secondly, the SPY long call position currently has a delta of around 0.7. This means if the market drops $1, the investor’s account will only drop $0.70. If the position is reset to a call of close to one, then if the market drops $1, the investor’s account will also drop $1.
If the investor is in a capital preservation mode, and does not want to increase risk, the best option is to simply continue to manage the strategy as designed.
Option 2 – Reset the Position
Many investors though want (or expect) gains to come from investments when the market is going up, even if they have greatly outperformed over the past 30-60 days. The thought process normally goes like this:
A. I beat the market by 25% last month; B. I will be very frustrated if next month the market goes up 20% and I go up 0%; C. I am ok if the market goes down 10% and my account goes down 10% because I am still outperforming the market on the year by 25%; D. I don’t need my investments right now for expenses; and E. I would rather take on additional risk to try to grow my account as the market goes back up (if it goes back up).
If this fits your profile, closing out the existing Anchor position and “resetting” it to a new position would not be a bad decision. (I am strongly leaning toward this in my personal account. But I do not need the money to live on, I have decades left before retirement, and I would rather take the chance to gain even more and take on the risk of losing 10% -- but that is not the case for everyone – each investor needs to take their own situation into account).
How would this be accomplished? Simple…liquidate the current Anchor Strategy and simply re-enter. As noted above, the current model portfolio is valued at a few dollars under $125,000. If an investor were to launch a new Levered Anchor Position on $125,000, it would look like:
Buy to open 8 contracts June 18, 2021 170 Calls for $94.85 (about 66% leverage, 7 contracts would give 45% leverage, 9 contracts 87% leverage) – Total cost: $75,880 Sell to open 8 contracts March 19, 2021 Puts for $25.81 (Use the June 2021 calls to ensure long term capital gains while using the March 2021 puts as its closest to 365 days and if the markets move up quickly and the hedge has to be adjusted, it is cheaper and investors have the ability to roll up and out as well) – Total cost: $20,648; Buy to open 4 contracts of the March 19, 2021 260 puts for $31.04 (to hedge the short puts) – Total cost: $12,416; Sell to open 4 contracts of the April 22, 2020 262 puts for $14.36 – Total credit: $5,744; Buy 230 shares of BIL for $91.62 – Total cost: $21,072.60; and Hold $727.40 in cash.
If an investor were to use 9 long calls, to increase the leverage, then that investor should also increase the short hedge and short contracts to 5. All investors should remember, over time, Anchor tries to target needing a short credit of $0.80/contract/week when initializing the position. The above requires double that to pay for the hedge. This means the hedge is basically twice as expensive to pay for. As long as volatility remains high, that’s easily doable. However, as markets rebound, short put credits greatly decline in value.
I would not expect to be able to pay for the above hedge over the next year, particularly if it has to be rolled up as markets go up. However, while this means investors will lag the performance of the market as the markets go up, their total performance over the year, including the market downturn, should be better. E.g. Anchor is currently outperforming by 7%. If it lags the market by 5% on the uptick, the adjustment still leads to market outperformance, and investors do not have to watch their account stay the same (or go down) as the markets rise.
Option 3 - Sell Puts that are Deeper in the Money
Traditionally Anchor sells puts that are around a .55 delta (1-2 strikes in the money), 24 days out, and rolls such puts once the strategy has captured most of the time value of the short puts. Investors could profit some more by selling puts that are further in the money. For instance, instead of selling the 262 puts, an investor may sell the 280 put. If the markets rise swiftly, having sold further in the money will be more profitable than aggressively rolling the short puts.
The risks to such strategy include:
With a higher delta, if the market declines, the short puts will decline in value faster than a position closer to at the money; Selling puts further in the money requires higher margin and cash requirements, particularly in IRAs; and If the markets are slowly increasing, it may be more profitable to roll short puts at the money.
Option 4 (Most Risky) – Temporarily go Long
The biggest drag on option II above is the cost of the hedge. Several investors have expressed a desire to take on more risk and not hedge. The logic of this strategy goes:
A. I beat the market by 25% last month; B. I will be very frustrated if next month the market goes up 20% and I go up 0%, or worse; C. I am ok if the market goes down 10% and my account goes down 10% because I am still outperforming the market on the year by 25%; D. I am ok if the market goes down 25% and my account goes down 25% because I’m still beating the market on the year; E. I don’t need my investments right now for expenses; and F. I would rather take on additional risk to try to grow my account as the market goes back up (if it goes back up).
How would this decision be accomplished? Similar to above, liquidate the current Anchor Strategy and simply re-enter the long positions without purchasing the hedge. As noted above, the current model portfolio is valued at a few dollars under $125,000. If an investor were to launch a new Levered Anchor Position on $125,000, it would look like:
Buy to open 8 contracts June 18, 2021 170 Calls for $94.85 (about 66% leverage, 7 contracts would give 45% leverage, 9 contracts 87% leverage) – Total cost: $75,880 Buy 530 shares of BIL for $91.62 – Total cost: $48,558.60; and Hold $561.40 in cash. There is substantial risk to the above. If the markets drop from 260 to 220, investors should expect their long calls to decline to $60.50 (approximately), a drop in their portfolio of over 21% -- more than the market drops. If this strategy were to be implemented, I would highly suggest taking on less leverage. By reducing the leverage to 45%, the 21% loss would be reduced to 19%. By reducing to six contracts, the loss would be reduced to 16%.
Another risk to keep in mind is that in the event of a large market drop (below SPY 170), the investor’s account could be looking at 50% total losses.
To combat such risks, an investor could temporarily eliminate leverage and buy SPY shares. Or the investor could implement a partial hedge. Even a 50% hedge would help alleviate some of the risk. Further, when volatility drops, and the long hedge becomes more affordable, long puts should be purchased.
If an investor was in the Anchor Strategy to preserve capital, switching to a long only position to try to “gain” when the markets gains is not a smart decision.
Another common question is “when should I make the decision to re-structure Anchor? The proper answer is “at the bottom tick of the market.” Of course, if an investor knows when the bottom is going to hit, there are much better ways to take advantage of the situation.
The next best time to enter is at the same time as an investor would enter the Anchor Strategy normally – namely after one or more up days in a row, when volatility has declined. In the model account, we are taking the following steps:
Stay particularly aggressive in rolling the short puts up as the market moves up; Not change the positions until more economic news comes out – there is significant uncertainty on unemployment numbers, production, the length of time the economy will be shut down, how lenders and financing will be impacted, etc., which means sacrificing downside protection right now doesn’t make much sense; If there’s another major downtick (back down to below SPY 230) then look to perhaps implement item II above, or a blend of II and III.
Remember the purpose of Anchor – capital preservation and positive returns as the market goes above each investor’s entry point.
Christopher Welsh is a licensed investment advisor and president of LorintineCapital, LP. He provides investment advice to clients all over the United States and around the world. Christopher has been in financial services since 2008 and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. Working with a CFP® professional represents the highest standard of financial planning advice. Christopher has a J.D. from the SMU Dedman School of Law, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics. Christopher is a regular contributor to the Steady Options Anchor Trades and Lorintine CapitalBlog.
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By cwelsh
The new tracking account was opened on January 2, 2019 when SPY was right at $249.00 with a balance of $100,000. In the tracking account, trading commissions were ignored. The initial portfolio looked like:
Six contracts of the 175 calls gave us control over $105,000 of SPY, and we held $36,000 of BIL. This gave us about 140% leverage on the account, a moderate amount, but enough that we should not lag when the market increased.
I have a couple of comments on our initial portfolio. First, our initial hedge was only 1.6% out of the money. During the year we changed that to 5%, allowing for a loss in the event of a small market decline but trading it off for a higher upside. Second, during the year we also “split” the hedge of the short puts and the long portfolio. The short put hedge stayed at the money, as one of the bigger risks to the portfolio is a large spread between the short put that is sold during the week and the actual put hedging it.
For instance, in the above portfolio there is more than $6.00 of downside risk between the short put and its hedge. (It is more than six dollars due to the delta of the hedge compared to the delta of the short position – in other words, the short position is more sensitive to down movements than the long hedge). To offset this risk, we kept the portion of the hedge against the short puts higher.
Almost immediately after opening the position and continuing throughout the year, the market took off upwards, moving over 2.5% up in the first week alone. In fact, the market moved up so quickly, we ended up having to roll the long hedge after the first month, rolling to the January 20 258 Puts when SPY hit 270. It was at this roll that we adopted the five percent out of the money hedge.
The market kept moving up, resulting in us having to roll the long hedge again on April 2, 2019 when SPY hit 285. At this point we “split” the hedge and our portfolio looked like:
With SPY trading at 285, the six contracts at five percent out of the money, hedging the actual long portion of the portfolio were purchased at a strike of 270. The four contracts hedging the short puts that are sold to generate income were purchased at a strike of 285 – the then current value of SPY.
The market did not stop its rise, leading to another roll of the hedge on November 1, 2019. That makes three rolls up of the long hedge during one calendar year – a record number for Anchor and one that we would expect to act as a drag on the account. However, due to the leverage employed, any drag was minimal.
December 30, 2019 came around, necessitating a roll of the long call position. Due to portfolio gains, the strategy also had to purchase some additional long puts to continue to hedge the entire position. After this roll, with SPY at $320.74, the portfolio looked like:
Over the full year, SPY went from $249.00 to $320.74, a gain of 28.8% (31.2% including dividends). Over that same period, Leveraged Anchor increased from $100,000 to $136,094.88 – a gain of 36.1%. The final number for 2019 is 38.4% gain. In other words, the strategy outperformed the S&P 500 by 7.2%. Individual accounts will be less, as there are trading costs and commissions, but even if an individual trader’s commissions ran two percent (an extremely high number), performance is still superb.
In reviewing the strategy, several points emerge:
Adding forty percent of leverage resulted in outperforming the market by twenty five percent. This means the three rolls of the hedge during the year bled the account by about fifteen percent, which is to be expected. Another way of looking at this is, had we not been hedged, the performance would be higher, but if a trader did that, the trader would be significantly increasing risk;
Given the outperformance, it may be worth rolling the hedge more frequently to reduce risks from downturns;
Given the outperformance, it may be worth rolling the hedge of the short puts more frequently to reduce the risk from small short term pull backs and whipsawing; and
For large accounts, diversifying into other instruments on other market indexes (small caps and international) should be explored. Thoughts and opinions on rolling the hedge more frequently, or on any other concerns or ideas for the strategy are always appreciated, as we are always looking to improve the strategy further.
Thanks everyone for a great year, and let’s hope next year performs just as well.
Christopher Welsh is a licensed investment advisor and president of LorintineCapital, LP. He provides investment advice to clients all over the United States and around the world. Christopher has been in financial services since 2008 and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. Working with a CFP® professional represents the highest standard of financial planning advice. Christopher has a J.D. from the SMU Dedman School of Law, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics. Christopher is a regular contributor to the Steady Options Anchor Trades and Lorintine CapitalBlog.
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