Captain's Log: Stardate Friday Dec. 13 MicroStrategy Bested the Nasdaq-100 Bears. It became official this evening after market close that MSTR will be joining the Nasdaq-100 and QQQ. As much as this disappoints all the perma-bears we've been witnessing in the galaxy. This was quite another week of pure boredom, with a brief moment of euphoria for some, and anger at others by the end. During the earlier days of the week I went over some of the inventory in the hull of the ship again, and decided it was getting close to time for removing some of the 'good wins' off the books. Some of the Bitcoin leaps to expire in 2026 are getting quite deep OTM. I tried the last few days to get a decent fill, but no bites. Coming into next week I will prepare the crew to keep trying to get some fills. I am aiming to at least buy back 20 contracts at a minimum. The much shorter derivatives I prepare to ride to expiration if possible. Now that IBIT finally has listed options, I am going to slowly rotate out of the old-school TSX listed ETFs and trade the newer IBIT which is more liquid. Also, IBIT has a significantly cheaper MER, making it a double-win going forward. If an event happens over-night, I still have CME Group (on most nights) to help me take advantage. As for news within the galaxy, we had Pharma Bro once again talking about MSTR, but also quantum computing. As I had expected, the Quantum thing is another scam and the beginning of a new bubble which only retail is getting suckered into. However, his stance on MSTR is worrisome to me, especially with him referring to Saylor as 'insane' who is about to blow up. Hmm... Well, I did remove MSTR inventory off my ship for a reason... Next week I will have to get more aggressive in lightening the load a bit if I plan to take advantage of it for this tax year. Also, I already am having those warning bells of Mr. Market coming after my ship for being a little too heavily over-leveraged. I can already see him spreading "Wanted Signs" all throughout the galaxy. Even if I can't get some good fills by next Friday, it is expiration Friday anyhow. So the ship will be unloading numerous contracts regardless (knock-on-wood). With some of my short-puts moved 3 SD's in my favor, I'm not going to panic at night... just yet. Ref: 7.5 Strike on BitDeer. I do enjoy 'cash-is-trash' too. Stay tuned for January to see a big fat deposit (if the AI bubble still holds). And if it pops... well, down goes the S&P 500, Crypto, my ship and everything else sucked into the vortex of the Nasdaq black-hole.
Captain's Log: Stardate Dec. 21, Saturday The Great S&P 500 Correction And so, it happened before the new year. The FOMC wasn't as well received as the markets had hoped, and down plunged Bitcoin... down... down... down... from almost 110K to 91K. And the rest of the S&P had a brief feeling of what a Minsky-moment starts to feel like. Luckily, we were able to sleep well in our cabins having prepared for this type of volatility ahead of time. Our timing couldn't have been better, but then... worse as well. Ship Navicomputer: There were both active, and passive trades in our battle-plan. First, the two actives: With Bitcoin surging well past 100K I decided early in the week to close out some of the Bitcoin Leaps (BTCC.B). Unfortunately, I only managed to get a good fill for the fifteen 12-PUTs. I also decided it was time to finally sell our (almost) worthless HIVE calls. I need to lighten the capital gains as much as possible for this year, so let the fire-sale commence and realize that loss! Unfortunately, I could not get the other Bitcoin ETFs out flat, or even my ROKU short-PUT, and some other luxuries. That was because.... the FOMC turned into a horror-show and I sat there watching my exit prices begin jumping into the stratosphere. I decided not to panic, hoped for a rally the next day, only to watch the market continue to sell yet again. By the time Friday hit, there was a small rally in Bitcoin miners, but nothing in most securities close to making up the losses for many victims. There is a small window left for next week to empty more cargo before the tax-man cometh. It will be tight, but we'll see what the gods bring. If there is a good rally I will turn it into more exit liquidity. As for the passive trades: No worries bro! All went into worthless expirations: Once again, Trump Media & Technology Group Inc. didn't let me down. It pays to be a contrarian to the woke-mob. Trade defiant like Trump! (Just don't bet against the Fed.) Cargohold's Options Inventory: This looks like a noticeable a drop from over 200 short-options to 185. I was happy to have them closed out favorable to me, instead of getting them dumped into space during the market panic at losses. Cash-Is-Trash Dashboard: The correction in the galaxy has dropped our Net Liquidity from 925K to 878K, ~ a 45.5K loss. We've regained some profits again. This is quite manageable, though I did stop myself from wanting to load up on more BTC miners during the panic. I want to have some more good-sleeps in the ship's cabins at night. January will come around soon enough. Risk-NaviComputer: Theta-bucks space-bucks still decreasing... Pre-Flight Plan Check: I've been pouring over the trading record documents as I try to finetune exact capital gains from this year's voyages. It's been a lot of work, even today alone I spent many hours, only to realize I will have to re-do many calculations over again. Some of my commissions are rebates and not fees, so I'll have to fumble numbers around to trick the ship's computer into working with negative fees and make the adjusted cost bases work out proper. I've also run into the odd issues here and there with... stuff like my apps refusing to pull up an exchange rate for the day of a settled security of mine such as 'RUGPULL' for example. It's amazing you know. We can go faster than the speed of light, or build shemale sex-robots that are more real than the real thing... but we can't even get a proper international exchange rate for a day my securities settled on what obviously was not even a holiday. What is this universe coming to? I still have more trades to add for this year to my calculations, including many of my Long BTC leaps I sold... all of my BTC/ETH Futures and FOPs trades (all profitable by the way)... my T-Bills, etc. A hedge-fund captain's work really has no end it seems. The sad part, is my list already shows up as over 80K cap-gains for trades this year. I still have many more to add to that, not including all those dividends.... job wages to boot, interest, loan yields, etc. The taxman will be damn greedy. There is a good lesson here. The only thing worse than losing money, is actually making money. All that paper-work! In any case, time to chart a course to prosperity! Farewell!
Captain's Log: Stardate Dec. 28, Friday One last trip to the 'Roku' snack-bar. This week was not favorable to the ship or my crew. The markets continued to either just sell off, or drift. There just wasn't enough positive momentum to get proper fills for unloading all the cargo I had planned. I finally decided to 'make' something happen, and took the ship to the Roku bar for one last trip and to unload a single LEAP contract I've been holding for months. I do not think we will we back again, as the liquidity isn't the best, and there are better plays out there. Navicomputer: I wish now I had closed this out earlier when it was cheaper to do so, but my get-in price was over 18, so I still did good on the premium. If I wasn't so determined to close out LEAPs before the new-year, I would have happily let this one ride. Cargobay Options Inventory: Cash-is-Trash space-credits: Risk Navicomputer: Flight-Plan Schedule: For a week now I've done a deep dive again, re-logging in hundreds of trades into the accounting books for tax purposes, going back a few years as well. I also worked in the Futures and FOPs. A more up-dated version of my ACB shows capital gains for 2024. Over $115K of profit, with only $425 in outlays & expenses. I am now currently drafting up a flight-path to raise cash from MARA, RIOT, and CLSK in order to purchase long-term Emperor Bonds (TLT). Going forward I plan to also scale more into covered-calls. As for ROKU, it's officially divested out of my hands now, and I leave it up to Cathy Wood to do with it as she pleases with her own ship.
New Year in a galaxy far, far away... Captain's Log: Stardate Jan. 3, Friday The Bitcoin Milk-Run... We did not hesitate in the first week of the new year to take action. First we took advantage to add more RIOT contracts onboard, as I feel they are very undervalued due to the convertible bond issues. By Friday, I took further initiative to do the Bitcoin milk-run and finally offload half of the remaining BTC calls in cargo. There is still another 20 batch of contracts left which I will try to deliver before expiration Friday. Navicomputer: Selling the BTCC.B calls didn't take long. I started the day with the last 40 from our original 100 batch. With BTC still going under $100K, I decided to split it into two final batches of 20 contracts. Soon a participant got interested. I immediately jacked up my price for the remaining batch of 20 contracts and added to the market. With only a couple weeks till expiration Friday, there was an old philosophical warning going through my mind- "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." If crypto tanks before 0-DTE, then it's a write-off. That said, I still stayed strong and refused to be cheap. The rest of the day went by with no more bites though. I'm ok with that. Locked in 24.5K profits and we are only 3-days into the new year. It's a great start so far... Cargobay Options Inventory: The RIOT trade is already up $756 USD. Assuming crypto stays relatively flat, we'll lock in another 24K of profits by expiration Friday. Cash-Is-Trash Inventory: With cash, t-bills, and divs receivable, the space-credits balance of over 70K is getting better. I plan to continue mimicking Buffett and going heavier into cash. Because of this, I have very little interest in exercising my CALLs. Risk-Navicomputer: Navigation-Plan: I am going to sleep a little better tonight after lightening the load of BTC CALLs. I've been holding on those LEAPs for a very, very long time. Well worth the wait. Now, I will continue the milk-run until the last batch are sold to a merchant willing to fill at a good price. With the addition of 10 short-PUTs on RIOT, I am going to take it easy before stressing any more margin. I have been already worried of the ship's engines for a while with all the weight, and certainly do not want any 'surprises' with hard-to-manage drawdowns on risky assets. One great maneuver I did, was to get into the RIOT trade on DEC-31. The premium doesn't arrive into IBKR until T+1 settlement rules (due to the updates). This means the trade counts for calendar year 2025 instead of 2024 (CRA tax rules). So not only did I get to put the trade on before the big POP due to TFSA/Roth IRA top-ups in Jan, but I also get to delay paying tax on it for another year. Fun Facts: RIOT margin on DEC 31 RIOT margin on Jan 3 What a noticeable drop with a rising market... but... that works both ways! Hence, I will be vigilant in de-levering this year. Time to make the jump back into lightspeed...
Captain's Log: Stardate Jan 12th, Sunday 'The LAST Milkrun...' With the expiration of our last BTCC.B contracts on board being due on Jan 17th, I decided to carry out the last milk-run for the new year. And then, I followed up with a few more trade operations. NaviComputer: BTCC.B was sold at 12.4 and when factoring in the 0.26 purchase price, this equates to another great 48X-Bagger. I'm happy with this. Unfortunately, we may not get an opportunity like this again in a while, but it's a hell of a start for 2025. With no more BTCC.B CALLs left to sell, I am done with the trade for now. Excluding a number of short-puts out there of the underly. I decided to re-load some more BitDeer (BTDR) contracts during a minor pull-back. Unfortuantely, I was still too early and the market continued to sink. I am underwater on this but have until the midway of the year before possibly needing to take action. I also shorted puts on CleanSpark (CLSK) again, and here I'm underwater. Actually, every PUT I shorted on CLSK is underwater (some by a lot). This is strange, since the miner has the cheapest access to energy... period. In fact, they didn't even bother purchasing BTC with issuance of their 0-coupon bonds, as they wisely are using the raised cash for more infra. Puzzling why the market is still getting this wrong. With that said, we are now over-leveraged on the security, so no matter how much value I think there is in it, I will wait before adding more weight. Onboard Options Inventory: It is a bit of a shock, to see for the first time in a long time, that there are no further 'long' options in the ship's inventory. Everything left behind now is simply 'short' contracts. Cash-Is-Trash Credits: Dividends receivable slowly climbed up to 1,410 now. Throughout 2025, monthly dividend payouts should average between 1K-to-3K. With this month's dividends combined with T-Bills and Cash, puts us over $107K CAD in reserve. Risk Navicomputer: Every time I try to de-lever, there's another excuse for adding more weight. Alas, I should free up some margin (hopefully) on Expiration Friday: Those 30 contracts on CAN I have bee sitting on for a long, long, long time. I was actually hoping to get assigned, but I'm not going to complain about settling for free space-credits instead. Flight Plan: I have very little in mind for next week's run. Very tempted to take any and all assignments that I can get on Friday. And if I can get a bit of RIOT, I will short covered-calls. With that said, I'm very happy with yet another conversion of cash this week. Time to relax on the ship for a while and wait for the next opportunity.
Captain's Log: Stardate Jan 18th, Saturday 'Selling the Ethereum contracts, and Expiration Friday' The entire week I waited with itchy trigger-fingers as expiration Friday came barreling closer. Big moves on Friday again (as expected). Mr. Market popped in a rally, and every single one of the 0 DTE contracts expired OTM. This was almost too much of good news, as I had been hoping for getting assigned on at least RIOT. Since things were going so (terribly?) well, I decided to capitalize off the moment by shorting 50 calls on Ethereum ETFs. I had planned to do quite a bit more, but couldn't get the fills I wanted in time. Danger, Danger Will Robinson! 45 contracts in total, and it all ended rather quite well? Navicomputer: After having so much Ethereum sitting around collecting dust all these years, I decided to start generating some extra income on ETHX.B. They're far OTM, but I wouldn't be surprised to still be tested. We'll have to troubleshoot that problem when we get there by middle of the year. One caveat. After having those other options expire out the money this week, I didn't expect to see my maintenance margin increase. Well... Thank goodness what I sold were covered-calls is all I can say. Proof of Delivery (to nowhere): BitDigital (BTBT) I really wanted to replace the closing position with more short-puts. The IV is the best right now, and the business fundamentals are very interesting. However, I will attempt to wait until at least next month's Expiration Friday, to see if my next batch of contracts also expire OTM or not. Those ones are set in stone at a higher strike of 3. Canaan Inc (CAN) is the only ADR I have for the ship's portfolio. I've been short on these PUTs going wayyyy back. Naturally, I am kicking myself for not having shorted more, and not going to a higher strike. However, for most of the duration the ADR kept falling below my strike, so in the end, I'm ok with the outcome. Riot Platforms Inc (RIOT) didn't quite go the way I was hoping. Sure, it's ok to take the free money, but I had really wanted assignment to post-pone paying taxes on the big premiums. I also had wanted to shift into selling covered-calls on Friday with it as well. But alas, it was not to be. Fun fact: Owning RIOT also gives you 20% ownership into BitFarms (BIBF). Another fun fact: Owning BitFarms also gives you 100% ownership of Strong Digital Mining (SDIG). Savers Value Village (SVV) I'm really split on. On the one hand, I wanted to take assignment, delay taxes on the small premium, and add more shares into my portfolio. On the other hand... I'm trying to get more into a cash position at the moment. At least I made a few hundred bucks USD for sitting around all this time. Updated Options in Cargobay: Cash-Is-Trash Space-Credits Cash + T-Bills + Divs = $115,000 CAD Last week the total cash-position was $107K. We're still climbing up as planned. That 7% weekly increase = 364% APR lol. This won't be sustainable if my luck finally runs out. Risk Navicomputer: Flight Planning: Next milestone for 2025, I plan to continue moving into a short-calls portfolio for the ship. Bit by bit I will try to leg into more short-strangle positions as I sell those calls. The premiums will be more plentiful, and we should be more safer with less directional risk. Though the crew will be more often tested, which is ok and I do not plan to lose any sleep over this at night. As for my final thoughts, I'd like to thank CI Global Asset Management and GALAXY DIGITAL for doing business with me for many years now. Their Ethereum ETF ETHX.B has served me very well all these years, and I do not really plan on letting my shares get called away from me... Fun Fact: I pass by the CI Global office in down-town Toronto quite often. Someday I want to stop by and visit the place. I'll probably do this around the time I 'finally' visit the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Captain's Log: Stardate Feb 1st, Saturday. 'Laying in wait at the bottom of the Ocean' This time around, I waited for two full weeks before doing my log update. This was because the first week there were no bites while we waited a the bottom of the sea. By the time the second week came around, the crew was getting a little impatient, and we decided to get a bit more aggressive into trades. This is where we took aim at more positions in BTCC.B, ETHH.B, and even NutFlicks (NFLX). Yes, I still call NFLX NutFlicks (but 'the widow-maker' still rings true) due to the time I got kicked in the nuts after following Bill Ackman's disastrous play in it just before the historic crash a few years ago. Flight Navicomputer: As I have always mentioned, the amount of 'spot' bitcoin on hand is very little for the ship's portfolio. Therefor, I only had 10 calls (covered) worth to sell for BTCC.B I made the move as far up the strike-list as I could go. ETHH.B was the final last round of 12-lots for a spot ETF for Ethereum. And with the sale of that, there won't be any more CALLs sold until the end of march (unless something interesting happens). NutFlix was interesting. I only have one round-lot collecting dust in the bay. I avoided selling calls on it for a long time as I believed they were undervalued and the stock would be a cash-cow for a while. This thesis turned out to be quite correct. However, I believe it is worth the risk now to start shorting the derivative on it for some additional income. Going out only one month seems very short duration, for a captain who is used to going out years for his LEAPs, but interestingly enough, a lot of my fellow traders are shocked that I'm doing 30-DTE instead of just weeklys. Options Inventory Bay: BitFarms (BITF) is still sucking like a FIAT-Farm. In fact, I saw youtubers today referring to it as ShitFarms. Recent news is that HIVE is purchasing some of their assets in Paraguay. There's some irony in that. I had long-calls on HIVE in the recent past which also turned out into a blundered loss. Well, I could have made it into a great win if I had cashed in those calls early, instead of waiting a year and a half to grab the whole casino too. Cash-Is-Trash Inventory: Cash + T-Bills + Dividends Receivable = $119,677 Last update: = $115,000 --- So we're 4.5K richer in two weeks. Risk Navicomputer: The portfolio risk, is what kept me away from adding any more risk and doubling down on the recent tech selloff with DeepSeek. I was 80% sure the news was over-blown (Who trusts anything communists say?). However, my goal has been to try to reduce risk and add hedges, hence my change in tactics to short CALLs instead of the PUTs. The portfolio currently is back up around 924K. But a run of the stress-tests has me still concerned somewhat. Taking the Value-At-Risk for the portfolio at a 99% confidence interval for 1-day horizons gives the expected results: MonteCarlo VaR: 116,405 ES: 129,046 Historical VaR: 184,829 ES: 224,742 Because I am using so much margin, I am pretty cautious here still. The MonteCarlo isn't worrying me so much, as when I compare to the real Historical data. The 1-day expected shortfall IMHO can very well still happen...and worse, particularly since ES is just an average. Will the blow-up of Terra-Luna happen again? Or FTX? Highly unlikely, but... with Tether still as large as it is, I have to be aware of that left-tailed risk. Hence, my aversion to taking advantage of the dips. Not to mention what I've already reiterated multiple times now. S&P index to all-time highs, Buffett sitting on cash, and Shiller P/E ratio still trying to beat the dot-com bust. We just saw how shaky the AI-bubble foundation was this week, and how itchy investors were for their 'flight to safety' when the shit-show goes off. "Caveat emptor!" Flight Plan: Going forward, I 'may' continue to short calls on NutFlicks monthly. The market value of a single round lot is already over $141K CAD. It's a great money-making machine, and I'm glad it reinvests cash-flow into the perpetual-moneymaking-machine, instead of paying out dividends. So instead, I'll manufacture my own dividends outside-the-box.
Captain's Log: Stardate Feb 7th, Friday. 'Tariffs and the Panic at BitFarms' What a hell of a scary week for those who were long on their portfolios (and some issues for those short as well). Trump announces hefty tariffs vs Canada on the weekend, and I waited for a huge drawdown by market open per our VaR and Expected Shortfall by the risk navicomputer. Shockingly though, there seemed to be little drawdown on my portfolio compared to the Black Monday I had expected. Then sure enough, tariffs were extended for 30-days. Some of this sell-off played in our favor, e.g. our recently shorted CALLs. I was feeling very annoyed for a bit vs Trump, but he has given traders what they wanted, volatility. I did milk a few thousand in cash on the drop, so for that I am thankful. This month will be anything but boring I fear. Go Trump!! Navicomputer: After returning to my captain's cabin just before the market close, I decided to close out all short-calls on ETHX.B Unfortunately, crypto had gone through a rally the later part of the day while I was working elsewhere, so I could have milked things for a lot more if I had been sooner. In the end though, I spent back 3.5K of the 8K premium I had received upfront for the 50-contracts. This was for only a few days of holding-- or I could have waited until the middle of the year and (hope) to close out and milk the rest of the 8K premium -- Naturally, when Mr. Galaxy gives you a great opportunity to bank profits quick, you take it. Later in the week I closed out the short calls on ETHH.B as well as BTCC.B too. I did not really care about the extra beer money for the cantina, I simply wanted to get flat in case news of the Bitcoin reserve caused the asset to go for another trip to the moon again. Updated Options Inventory: Going through the list, CleanSpark (CLSK) hasn't been treating me as well as can be. Short-PUTs at a strike of 17.5? That shows you how far things have tumbled over the many months. The good news is that earnings was much better than expected the last 24-hours, so there has been a small rally. The strikes at 11 with my contracts are out-of-the money again (for now). I plan to hold my positions. As for BitFarms (BITF), or shall I say ShitFarms, I'm still down. I also got hit by assignment on Tariff-Monday. Seems some whale panic-sold by calling up his broker, and 30% of my short-puts got assigned half a month in advance. I suppose the result could have also been by someone who got liquidated on the other end of the market crash. I have noticed the CEO has been buying some shares this year, so assuming it's not just a virtue-signaling play, I am feeling better now about the assignments (now and future) anyway. My short-calls play on NetFlix (NFLX) is getting a little worrisome. Though, since it is covered, this is quite a nice problem to have. I'll continue holding this position as well and hopefully NutFlix doesn't kick me in the nuts by expiration. Cash-Is-Trash Inventory: Cash has gone down somewhat, as I was forced to buy more shares of 'ShitFarms' and close other contracts. Risk Navicomputer: MonteCarlo 1-Day, 99.0% (CAD) VaR - $111,937 ES - $132,343 Flight Plan: I have not much further planning, than what I have already reported, on sitting with my positions. If/when there is finally a good rally in Ethereum again, I shall see about shorting more calls. For next week, I will have to pay particular attention that my strike in NetFlix doesn't get blown-through. If so, I will try to avoid a large capital gains hit from being exercised. More due-diligence will be carried out on ShitFarms. So far, the best analysts in the galaxy are telling me that it's a sure-winner. I like those odds. A low of $3.50 only within just 1 year. Are you kidding me? Time to bookmark this file in the computer index for a possibly good laugh in 365 days. MorningStar has downgraded ShitFarms to just 3 Stars, so some possible caution may be needed.
Captain's Log: Stardate Feb 15th, Friday. 'The Netflix Strikes Back' I had mentioned in my previous log, that I was going to closely watch Netflix for this week. Though, this wasn't quite needed since expiration isn't until the 3rd Friday of this month, I did however, grab a seat and watch 'The Empire Strikes Back'. Or... more accurately named, 'The Stock Blows Through My Strikes'. Repeatedly I watched the stock-level blow up and down my 1020 strike. It's not any real concern though. The only time we did take action was today to close a couple more short-puts on a miner. The Terrain: It wasn't too bad a day to go on a smuggle run -- or to die --. Navicomputer: I set a limit order during the crew's lunch break to buy back a couple short-puts on Marathon (MARA) now that they are somewhat deep ITM; and have been for some time to be honest. I just can't justify at this point trying to hold onto this until next year, when I can book profits on it right now. I ended up crystalizing $1.5 K space credits, and freeing up just a tiny sliver of margin. Options Inventory: My CleanSpark is still getting rekt... Cash-Is-Trash Inventory: Very similar to our last report. Risk Navigator: MonteCarlo 1-Day, 99.0% (CAD) VaR - $120,711 ES - $131,683 Interesting to compare from last week's stress test. The VaR went up, but the expected shortfall went down slightly Flight Plan: Again, the only thing I'm going to focus on for next week is Netflix (NFLX). I am going to roll by end of the week, and we'll see how that plays out. I also am > 99% confident I will get assigned for more ShitFarms (BITF). The real question is, do I switch to covered calls on it, or not? Hmm, that is the question. I (may) get assigned on BitDigital (BTBT) if it ever so slightly dips down again. If so, I will take no corrective action, but instead take the hit. Then I'll have to get crafty to see if it's worth selling the CALLs there too or not. Those are the only three securities I need worry for the immediate week. And with that out of the way, I plan to do more due diligence on CleanSpark (CLSK). They had a good earnings report, and there is so much good bullish news with the company, and yet... all my strikes are blown as the company continues to sink for some reason. But what is the reason? Does someone know something, or is the market making a mistake? I've flown from one end of the galaxy to the other and never met anyone who could tell me accurately on what the hell is going on here.