Jan 16th Sorry about my 'tiny' positions... But as long as the Tether ticking time-bomb is out there, I'm really not looking to risk over-leveraging again like I did in a former collapse. And I'm certainly no 'pro' (yet). Last week was interesting. Unfortunately, the ETF spot was approved which is something I was hoping against happening so soon. Oh well, I decided to sit back and wait to see what would happen with short-term traders buying the rumour and selling the news. Sure enough, patience was rewarded, on Friday we had the 2nd down-day in a row after SEC approval. Part of this was due to Grayscale getting screwed by the SEC on transfers-in-kind, so users can only sell to get out. More selling in GrayScale than actual inflows into Blackrock's Bitcoin Flagship. So I took some advantage on Friday. Then again today at work I shorted more PUTs on crypto. I don't want to over-push my luck, so I will try to avoid more shorting of PUTs for a while.... unless something good comes along. I've topped off my Sonos equity to 1000 shares, and will just sit on those. The rest of my raised cash I will just sit on while it accrues interest... and use it as some short-term reserve while my short-puts on miners start to peel off near the end of February. I really didn't like the fact I put my 2nd short-put on Coinbase AFTER it popped due to SEC approval, but on the positive side, all 11 applications were approved, and Coinbase will be the custodian for the majority of them. That's a big source of revenue for them that was non-existent before, so of course the valuation of the company is going up now. I'm ok with this bet. And as for the current standings... I had been trying to get some good fills by bottom feeding in CME Group's over-night futures trading, but can't get lucky on those fills. I'll keep fishing and see if I get any bites.
Jan 23 Last week I had sold three puts on SVV. I would be happy to get assigned, if I do not I'm still ok with taking the money instead. What is interesting is what happened today. I still wasn't getting a bite at fills I wanted in the futures-options market, but after the sell off yesterday, continued by the sell off today due to Grayscales outflows, I was happily surprised to get fills at prices I wanted early today. It seems having a little patience really works. I've only dealt with Ethereum on CME Group, so this is the first time I've done contracts with Bitcoin as the underlay. The Trades: Looks like I got paid in commissions on Savers Value Village there. Current Standing: Look like I lost about ten-grand there. Whooops! The news that scared the $hit out of traders this week:
Feb 9 This week I purchased another round-lot of ZRE. REITs are still suppressed so I am happy with this. If the lowering of rates keeps getting delayed into perpetuity, then this is dumb, but I'm trying to be positive about the future here, lol. PayPal sold off yesterday. Last night I was looking at that and decided to short puts today. Unfortunately, the market rallied already 5%. I should have waited until market close before getting a fill on my short-PUTs, but I'm still happy with the 2K premiums at a strike of 55. Also, I noticed now I have more sorting options in IBKR now for sorting my options positions (joke, get it?) Naturally, I'm happy with the results of my holdings for this week. Will have to check back on PayPal within a couple of years and see how it's doing. Hopefully, they don't screw this thing up like Bob Iger is doing to Disney and go woke-broke.
Friday, Feb 16. So in the meantime, I've been slowly adding a few more round-lots of ZRE to my portfolio. As long as REITs still remain depressed, I'll keep trying to add to the stack. Best thing in all of this is that Return-of-Capital is not taxable such as other sources of income. I also 'finally' traded CAN for the first time. Couldn't get a fill where I wanted for days, so I finally crossed down the spread until someone bit me. It's a short deal, going to expire by January. Oh yes, Bats also paid over $10 just for doing business with me. I was thinking this in reverse at first and wondering why should I trade these almost penny contracts and pay high fees. LOL Today, however, I did a little gambling. I was watching Roku repeatedly get slaughtered this week. First with the bad news leak that Walmart may de-list their product in stores (lol). And then the terrible earnings call, and then today's inflation report was not the best. So while Roku bag-holders were panicking I shorted a put-leap into 2026. Let's see what Cathy Wood does now... I tried to move in on Galaxy for short-puts much earlier, but couldn't get a fill where I wanted, and so I've been chasing lower and lower premium at higher strikes and still it runs away from me. I think it's time to give up the chase and maybe wait for a possible pull-back. In other news, my BTBT shorts expired tonight, so thanks to Big Digital Inc, I have another $500 that's no longer just paper-profits. Next on my expiry list will be Clean Spark in March. Tonight's list of current standings: For now, it's back to the wait & see game for what else crosses our path. Special Note: It seems most days I am losing value on MSTR short-put. I knew people would sell off to rotate into the Bitcoin ETFs. But MSTR doesn't charge any MER for holding the stack, while 'most' of the funds right now are charging fees (or soon will start to). Am I an idiot for still staying pat on MSTR?
Over-the-Weekend... I spent quite some time this weekend trying to put together a new form of attack for trades, but I'm not too thrilled yet with a couple. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (ADR) : BABA I have never traded CDRs or ADRs before, and this one is tempting. BABA is supposedly the value-investor's dream right now. A perfect storm of fear of WW III and a repeat of the 2007 crisis over there keeps dropping the price lower, and lower. I just don't feel like getting involved in this right now. I am still reeling from getting my ass absolutely kicked when I ignored the warning signs of war in Ukraine/Russia two years ago. I saw it unfolding, but just refused to believe it would happen. Thought for sure it had to be a Kremlin bluff, and did I get wrekt! Now, the odds of China and USA fighting it out next, is at least an order of magnitude greater than what I had thought of the former. So going long on China stonks just doesn't seem worth the risk/reward. I'll maybe re-evaluate this one later on down the road. Hut 8 Corp. : HUT.TO This is one of the Bitcoin miners I refused to go LONG on. Too many sketchy things with it, and mismanagement, and even sites totally shut down. Now that they are doing a merger (with another sketchy CEO), I have been trying to figure out a way to 'cheaply' short this again. Unfortunately, despite the price keeps going up on this zombie company, it's just too expensive to short. Trying to locate shares through IBKR comes with quite some highly fluctuating loan fees. And trying to purchase puts is damn expensive here as well with IV over 200%. It's just not worth the risk of getting tangled up in this with 'animal spirits' on the loose. So I've given up my plan (again) to short this, and will move on to something else. Argo Blockchain plc : ARBK I really don't want to replace any trades on miners as I am not confident about what happens when halving profits take a big hit in the near future. However, I am tempted for one more trade for one last time if the duration is not too long... 60 DTE 35∆ short puts. I may just do 10 contracts and see how it goes. If I end up getting assigned, I'll just short covered-calls and pray. lol CI Galaxy Ethereum ETF : ETHX-B.TO I already own over half a block-order of this specific ETF flavour. The nice thing about it, is I get to collect yield on it due to my brokers loaning it out for fees. If I get assigned on this for more shares, I don't mind adding more to my stack. And if I don't get assigned, I'll take the money. Most likely I'll aim for the ~400 DTE short-puts. Not sure yet on what strikes I will go for. And with that out of the way, an important thing to recap regarding Hut 8 and their sketchy merger-- lots of detail on how bad investors are getting screwed can be found in J Capital Research's released document after their investigations. https://www.jcapitalresearch.com/index.html Now lastly, but not least, I decided to do a rough compilation this evening to try and track my 'undefined loss' potential for trades that haven't expired/rolled off yet. As well as how much premium I'm getting paid upfront for the 'worst case scenario'. This is just a rough draft for now, I'll try to proof through it again and touch things up going forward. I forgive myself for the weak Numbers/Excel skills. This is something I plan to work on fixing starting this week with the help of THIS book:
Feb 23... This is weird. I feel like last weekend barely ended, and already it's Friday afternoon AGAIN? Anyhow, I went ahead with some of my plan... Argo Blockchain plc : ARBK I laid my offer for ten PUTs. I had them up for a few days trailing the next best offer by just a penny. No one wanted to buy, then a whale came and took everything today. I just hope it wasn't an insider. When I first noticed the sale today, I had forgotten about Argo already and thought the ticker was for Cathie's ARKK innovation fund. (how'd that happen?) lol I also bought more Real Estate ZRE because... BMO knows they ain't making any more in this third-world country. I also did something entirely new. I traded and went long on (Bitcoin Miners ETF) WGMI. It is almost a short duration trade for me, as it will expire in Oct. So far, so good. I may just close out this short-put very soon, as it's already made great returns starting just the first day. It's an ETF that owns not just Bitcoin miners, but also the chip companies in the related field as well. Obviously, earnings have been good this week. And last but not least, I wanted to do one more trade on Ethereum, and since there was a very faint pullback the last few days, I went for ETHX.B today before the weekend close. Strike was a little high, but I wanted some high prems, especially if rates come down soon. I may try to sit tight for a while... unless. Unless some great opportunities come my way, I will probably lay low for a while. I tried to get a fill on Galaxy GLXY, but no bites all week again. I'll keep trying starting Monday again. Hoping to trade the December contract at some point. Maybe I'll just have to wait for the earnings report in March, and then HOPE it's bad so I can get into a pullback. At the end of the day, here's the week's updated contract standings: $44,586 I also worked a bit more on that undefined-risk table/charting project. Here's still an early iteration: Special note: I have yet to add my futures & futures-options on this chart (yet).
[QUOTE="The_Krakenite, post: 5932612, member: 525200".} Special note: I have yet to add my futures & futures-options on this chart (yet). Then add it. Fracking genius I'm not even going to try to fix the link. We're all NY.. Fuck it. New York, bitches!
March 2nd... Been off work most the week due to sickness. I noticed the steep sell-off in miners on Wednesday, and then the continuation on Thursday. I shorted more PUTs, and then by Friday, I watched the volume drop off, so jumped at the chance to short more before the rally. The only miner I had traded before on that list was Bit Farms and Bit Digital. As for BitDeer, they are a bit unique in that they are diversified and don't just make income from mining Bitcoin. Iren is nothing special... I was hesitant to add these trades to my positions since I'll hold after the halving, but decided it's worth the risk. Current standings: I also did some updates to my tabulations (and simplified scripting behind the scenes): Unfortunately, I'm going to have to fix some graph glitches on Apple's crappy Numbers app. Going forward, I'm going to keep looking for some good trades. If I find some good stuff, I may take profits on other positions to free up margin. I'm very happy how things are going, though would not be surprised to get caught on multiple assignments post-halving. I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Cash Positions: CAD 9,347 USD 15,239 It's coming, but remember, I'm just a diversity hire. Everyone gets a trophy now ok? Isn't that a Banana Republic now?
Friday, March 15... A few interesting trades, and someone hit one of my offers in the last 2 minutes of trading on the last day (will get into it shortly). Marathon Digital (Mara) I received a fill earlier this week during one of the miner pull-backs. Let's not get too crazy at these elevated stocks, 2 contracts only. CleanSpark (CLSK) It took 48 hours or so to get a similar fill on CleanSpark. Again, only two contracts for now. I now feel I am pretty set for now. Both these miners are in superior positions compared to the rest of the pack for generating income, and have strong moats to gobble up the weaker sick & dying miners post-havening. (If Saylor doesn't buy them out first). Savers Value Village (SVV) This is the one that someone lifted my offer in just over 60 seconds left before the weekend. I imagine he must have been sitting for some time hoping I'd go lower. Fat chance. I spent weeks now refusing to cross the spread. I sat pat with the rest of the pack in the offer range, and only adjusted my prices day by day to be a penny or two lower than the rest to be in the front line. All 6 contracts were hit at once. My average for accumulation so far on SVV is just under $16 a share. I'm getting paid almost $4 for today's trades, so even if I get assigned for being under $20-strike, I'm still in the ballpark for $16 a share. If SVV rallies by October, ok, so I made almost 2.4K for sitting on my ass. I am perfectly ok for the assignment despite the PE is a whopping 100 for a thrift store (no joke there!). Current Cash Position: CAN $9,575 US $21,849 I have another $700 about to arrive due to BMO dividends. Though, the bank is hurting badly with ballooning defaults in its commercial real-estate portfolio disaster. The good news is, that Canadian banks are too big to fail, so taxpayers will fund the socialized losses. Expired Contracts: While I added on the previously discussed CleanSpark contracts, I also peeled off my previously shorted CLSK PUTs today. They were only 4 PUTs shorted at $1.40, but I'm happy with taking the $560 in beer money. They were so far out of the money at a strike of $5, I had strong confidence to let them ride into expiration that way. Current standings as of tonight: The BTCC CALLs came very close to hitting a 30x-bagger, but yesterday's pullback has them back into the $6 territory. We'll see if we can hit 30x next week. Random Notes: I've been looking deeper into BitDeer's (BTDR) business plan, and I like it more each time. I was tempted to at least short more PUTs on it this week, but today was a no-go. Wouldn't you know it, the damn thing skyrocketed 25% for the day when I was looking at it earlier. Why does this always happen to me? Fun facts, their own miners they plan to sell, look like an interesting contender to what Bitmain has to offer. I still have more due diligence to do in the meantime. 18.1 J/TH efficiency with SEAL01
Friday March 22... I added two more positions to the option's holdings. BTDR (BitDeer) - There was a little pullback again, so I couldn't resist just adding 5 more short-puts on this for the June contracts. MET (FOP) - Finally, I added some micro-ether future options again. I had been bottom fishing for a while on the CME, and finally got a fill triggered. For now, I will put a pause on futures, unless something very interesting happens. As for the positions overall... Unrealized P&L Future Options: 405 Short Options: 11,523 Long Options: 51,413 Total: $63,341 Cash Holdings CAN $9,711 US $22,652 Total: $40,531 (CAN) Random Notes: I did a little research on current gene therapy stocks this weekend, such as CRISPR. It may turn out that Cathy Wood found a pot of gold... I still have some further due diligence to carry out. Oh, and some drama with miners at the end of this week. Lots of FUD happened due to word that CleanSpark's CEO sold off some shares for 9 million. But if you look at their numbers, they should be doing very well!