Aggressive investing

I did a 100k transfer from another retirement account, so it explains the higher balance.    With that money, I established equity positions in Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook.  No options were acquired because the funds were not eligible for options trading for another 5 days.  Next week I plan on getting some OTM options in these same stocks.

This was my account after the end of today.  Clearly, my positions in NFLX was instrumental in my outsized gain because once again, they managed to crush earnings.  This is the first time I've had 5-digit gains in my aggressive portfolio.   If you look at the holding I have, you will notice that I have predominantly very high-growth stocks and options positions on those stocks.  In the days ahead, I suspect FB and BRKB will have huge days as well. I am beginning to believe that the key is not to 'trade' options... the key is to buy long-dated options and hold them.  The jury is out whether I'll ever exercise these options... but at least I'll have more than a year to figure that out.

A quick status update on this morning's actions.  Dow had recently closed above 26000... This portfolio is up 24% for 2018.

The market keeps treating me kindly.. My leveraged portfolio is up 21.4% for the new year. Keep in mind, when you do deep-in-the-money options, you will not lose more than your initial investment, unlike buying on margin.  As long as the options have not expired, you will have some positive value.  My general rule of thumb is buy 20-25% into the money on any security you feel bullish on, and try to do it for a 2-year contract. I am working on getting my 401k from a former employer rolled over to my IRA.  I believe the new tax bill that got passed that reduced corporate income tax will have a multiplier effect on the overall economy and corporate earnings.  The recent run-up on the market has not yet captured all of the values from the bill.  The strong will keep getting stronger, and this is the ideal time to go long... very long... and do it with DITM.

Back in 2017, my trading account statement looked like this: Account Statement, January 2017 Account Holdings, January 2017 While these were some rather solid stocks to hold onto, I knew that there had to be a better way.  At the time, I was thinking about ways I can increase my portfolio performance, and I started reading various books on options trading.  I read Sheldon Natenberg's "Option Volatility and Pricing" and John C. Hull's "Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives."  If you have not read either of these books, I recommend them highly, since they are considered the main references in the field.  After toying with some strategies and research, I decided to implement some of my trading strategies.  A year later, these are my results: Account Holdings, January 8th, 2018 While the market in 2017 experienced a favorable rally, my portfolio experienced significant gains during this time.   What is shown here is my IRA account....

I have been wanting to start a blog like this for a long time, mostly to share thoughts with other like-minded investors. In my mind, the whole point of investing is so you can reach your financial objectives faster, and be ready to enjoy it sooner. We don't do this for greed because I don't believe greed really is a constructive emotion when it comes to investing. It leads to poor decision making.  I am a physicist by training, thus I prefer a quantitative approach to investment. I had the pleasure to work through some books on options trading last year and started trading options on my IRA account, and have achieve some very good results. Over time, I've come to realize that holding a portfolio of options is a much more effective way to grow your investment than holding stocks or mutual funds. This is the main reason why I call this blog the "Aggressive Investing". For most people, sticking their money in some S&P 500 index fund and collect 10% retu...