I mostly do options. In particular, credit spreads, diagonal spreads, condors, and the occasional covered call. On rare occasion I go long deep in the money calls on stocks I am bullish about long term when it provides virtually free leverage. I don't day trade. So far this year I peaked up 23% last week before MDT had their earnings disappointment. I am long $20 strike calls on them so thats a little rough, but holding this one for long term cap gains anyway. Only a 1k haircut and still a 24% gain, so whatever. Currently up 18.5%. This account is currently ~43k. The most convenient way for me to post this is through my realized and unrealized gain reports from maxit tax calc on my OH account. Sorry, don't want to go through all the detailed breakdowns on my trades. Also posting account pics so putting the two together should make the picture clear and easy to read. Let me know if you have any critiques. My strategies can be summed up like this: Sell insurance on indexes far out of the money on the dips when I think the market won't melt down. Rule of thumb for me is to try to get ~5% yields more than ~10% out of the money on a dip. Lately this has been RUT, though you will notice I have not sold June spreads this month... Diagonal calls on stocks I am generally bullish on but want relatively predictable, high yield gains. This year it was MA. Long deep in the money LEAPS on stocks I am long term bullish on. MDT this year. Pics below
Oh, I made this graphic to illustrate to some friends what I was doing on RUT. Arrow points to the day that I sold the spread. Length of the green line more or less bottoms at the top strike of the spread. The % is the yield for that month. Transactions on the right that you will recognize from the other pic..