The SpaceX IPO is out of the way, and I feel like the market will eventually settle on a price around $120-135 just (under the IPO price) once it does. I’m still not a buyer there, but I think having settle down will be good for the market. Also, the Iran situation is still messy, and likely not to resolve as quick as the market seems to think it will.

And through all that, the market is still way up at all time highs. Silly stuff.

If you look at the chart of the index below, it’s looking like there’s going to be some range-based consolidation for the next little while. There’s major resistance up at $750-ish and major support down at $700-ish. I wouldn’t be surprised if we bounce between these levels for a while. I also think, which ever level breaks will lead to a pretty violent move.

Anyways, lets get to the week.

Profits / Losses

I had another good week. I’m up 2.14% from last week. That includes the Monday dip.

My value is actually up 9.5% as I added another 200 euros to the account, and had some option sales close.

Considering last week I was up over 20%, I was actually expecting a bit more of a pull back this week. So I’m extremely happy that I’m up this week. It’s not normal to have massive gains followed by stability.

Trades

I was active.

I mentioned last week that I was going to be a bit more active. I’m checking the market once a day now at some point in the middle of the day. I really don’t want to miss any volatile days where the premium prices are better.

So basically, each weekend I look at the weekly charts and identify stocks I’d be interested in trading the upcoming week, and then trade them if they make sense. The “only trading on Monday and Friday” thing is done.

Trimmed / Closed Positions

My new strategy of closing put sale positions early is really coming in handy. It allows me to have more buying power and be way more efficient. It does also mean that I am making more trades, and potentially leaving some money on the table. But overall, I’m very happy with the strategy. I talked about it last week.

• I bought back my $22 put (Jul02) for $45

• I also bought back my $18 put (Jul10) for $30

• My $7.5 put (Jun18) for $5

• $5.5 put (Jul10) for $10

• $5 put (Jul17) for $20

• I had options expire on , , , and

So, yes, I spent $110 buying back options. But some of those options like were for July 10th, so by buying them back I regain the buying power to play other things, and I also reduce my risk of having that stock crash.

For equity, I was stopped out of my position at $93.80, but that stop loss was already in the profits, so it’s still a profitable move.

Equity and LEAPS Buys

I was a bit more active this week buying equity and also LEAPS (long dated calls). I identified a couple stocks that had fairly cheap long dated calls, and decent priced short dated calls. So I bought long dated calls, and sold a synthetic covered call on them.

• I bought 100 shares of at $3.30

• I bought a $5-strike call for February 2027 for $70

• I bought an $5-strike call for January 2028 for $261

So in total, I spent $371 on various options, either long or closing positions this week.

Options Sales

Yeah, I was a bit busier buying than usual wasn’t I? But I was starting to feel like I had too much cash. Speaking of cash, this is the cash I generated this week selling options.

• $10 call (July17) for $10

• $3 call (July17) for $6

• $4 put (July 17) for $10

• $6 put (July17) for $19

• $17 put (July17) for $51

• $7.5 put (July 17) for $25

• $3 call (July 17) for $25

• $5 call (Aug21) for $21

• $6 call (July02) for $10

• $14 put (July 24) for $80

So I made $257 in options sales. Ideally, in a week I’d like to earn more selling options than I do buying them. But I did have quite a bit of extra cash, so it’s ok.

Balances

The balances haven’t changed massively since last week. They’re still healthy.

I have around $10,000 in buying power, and over $2,300 in cash. The total account liquidity is $6,810 which means I’m around that 33% cash sweet spot that gives me nice flexibility.

I’m Travelling, What’s the Plan?

I’m a travel photographer, . As such, there are times I’m away. When I am away, I do trade way more sparsely, and I don’t pay as much attention to the charts. I think it’s healthy. It allows your account to breathe a bit, and lets you reset.

I’m off to Uzbekistan to lead a photo tour with TRVL which is going to be incredible. I should still have a little time to trade as we hide away from the midday heat, but don’t be surprised if I only make one or two moves - as my attention will be on my participants in Uzbekistan.

That said, if there is a major pullback, I’ll be there to try and catch it!

See you then.

And as always, this is an investment journal, not financial advice.

However, in trading you really just have to do the opposite of what your instincts are telling you. You really have to kind of fight against your human nature of self-preservation. Because it’s the dips in the market where real money is made.

A lot of options traders have a rule to only trade when the $VIX index is above $20. It’s the reason why for weeks before I was just not doing too much. So last week when it jumped to as high as $23, I got to work.

For those of you who don’t know, the VIX is essentially a “fear” index. The higher it is, the more volatility there is in the market. The bigger the moves are.

Profits / Losses

Last week we had a loss of over 7%.

I mentioned that it wasn’t a “real” loss of 7% because a lot of that was options contracts that just got more expensive. This week, those options contracts have gotten cheaper, so I’m up over 20% for the week. This is why we buy the dip.

The QQQ index is essentially down 2% from 2 weeks ago. But we’re up 13% over that same 2 weeks. It’s a great feeling.

From a total value perspective, we’re up to an all-time high at $6,770. I added $200 in cash this week.

Trades

Ok, so I have a confession.

I made the claim ages ago that I would only trade on Mondays and Fridays. However, I’ve come to the realization that I need to at least check in with the market every day. You never know when a trade will appear.

My new tactic is to check the market around the middle of the trading day every day. I look at things for about 30-45 minutes, make moves if I see some, then close things down for the day.

So, I was a bit more active this week than past weeks.

Trimmed / Closed Positions

I mentioned last week that I have a new strategy with my put option sales. The new plan is to buy them back once they’ve lost about 60% of their value (and have an automatic limit buy on them). For example, if I sell a put for 1.00/share, I’ll immediately set up a limit buy for that same options contract for 0.40/share.

It means I have more positions closing more often, and gives me more flexibility. I had some positions get bought back this week (which costs me cash).

• I bought back my put (July2) for $0.13/share

• I bought back my $7 put (Jun18) for $5

• I bought back my $4 put (July2) for $5

• I bought back my $18 put (Jul10) for $30.

So I spent $53 buying back options.

Equity Buys

I made 2 equity buys this week as well.

I bought 15 shares of $krknf which brings me to 85 shares. I have a feeling that Kraken is going to end up on the Nasdaq soon (it’s a Canadian company) and I think it’ll jump when it does. I also want to have 100 shares of it so I can play with options if it does get uplisted.

Also, I bought a totally new company for me which is an Nvidia backed Pharma Company. I think it’s a bit of a long term gamble, but the options are volatile enough on it I feel like I can make some money selling calls. I bought 100 shares for $3.30 a share.

Option Sales

I sold a couple puts this week, but honestly most of the work was done last week and this week things are just decaying.

I sold:

• A $12.5 put (July17) for $105

• A $11 put (July17) for $57

• A $6 put (July17) for $44

I also sold a covered call at $3.5 (Jun26) for $15.

In total, I made $221 in options sales. Then, I spent $53 buying others back. So in total I made $168 in cash this month - although it’s probably closer to $150 when you take the commissions into account.

For an account of $6,770 that’s a 2.2% gain. Or about 115% annualized.

Balances

My account is pretty healthy, after getting a bit edgy last week with the pull back.

I am running about 33% cash with over $2,100 in cash. I’m keeping that to deploy in the case that any of my put options get exercised. I mean, even 1 contract at a $21-strike means I have to spend $2,100 on shares.

Plan for Next Week?

Same as every week, wait for pull backs and sell puts.

I’m not sure there are any major market moving things happening next week aside from maybe the GDP growth rate announcement. Although, who knows with this Iran conflict.

Either way, I’m prepared for either a boring week, or a crazy one.

Honestly, I hoping for a bit of a crazy one.

See you next week, and as usual: this was not financial advice .

That parabolic market was scaring me, and now the index has fallen back into the safety of the channel.

It’s still a time to be patient though, I want the QQQ to be somewhere around the middle of the channel before I start investing a bit heavier. I would love it if the market would chop flat or slightly down for the next week or so to get us there.

Anyways, let’s get into the week.

Profit / Loss

I want to start with the profit/loss situation because I think it tells a bit more of the story.

The week was rough. I ended up down 7% which is the wrong way to beat the QQQ which was only down 5%. But, I had 11% gains the week before, so I’m not mad about it.

What’s great about trickling in money into the investment is even on down weeks it doesn’t seem so bad, because with the $400 I put into the account this week ($200 from last week that I forgot to put in), we’re actually up 0.62%

Trades

I mentioned a while ago that I only want to trade on this account 2 days a week: Mondays and Fridays. However, I have been waiting so patiently for volatile that I did trade this week as the vol increased.

Closed / Trimmed Positions

I’m doing something different with my put sales in the wheel strategy lately. Essentially, I’m not waiting for them to expire worthless, I’m buying them back after they’ve lost 60% of their value. In fact, as soon as I sell the put, I put in the limit buy order.

I’m doing this because there were so many times that I was sitting on lost buying power held in an option that was worthless. I realized that by closing it early, I can use that buying power for better gains. It also reduces the risk of a random crash happening.

This week I closed the following positions:

• I bought back my put for $0.25

• I bought back my $0.10

• I had puts on and a covered call on both expire worthless.

So I spent $35 buying back options.

I also trimmed down 3 shares of at $21 which was great timing because it pulled back $17.50. It was a good trade, and I still have 7 shares left.

Sold Options

I did sell a bunch of puts this week. Like, probably more than I should have.

I sold:

• - Tuesday I sold an OPEN $4-strike (July02) for 0.13

• I also sold a $22-strike (July02) for $1.28

• and an $7-strike (July02) for $0.47

• On Friday with and the rest of the market dropping, I sold a $5.5-strike (July10) for $0.24

• I also sold a $10-strike (July02) for $0.26

• A $14.5-strike (July02) for $0.37

• And a $5-strike (July02) for $0.51

• Monday with the market bouncing I sold a $5-strike (July17) for $0.27

• And a $18-strike (July10) for $0.76

• I also sold an covered call (June18) for $0.08

That burned up a lot of my buying power. But it led to $437 in cash in the account. Right now, the $7-strike looks like it might get assigned, but I’m actually ok with that.

Equity + Cash Position

I’m in the process of building a position in which I would consider taking all the way to 100 shares eventually. This week I bought 5 more shares for $28.04/share and now have 13 shares at $30.24.

We still have over $2,000 in cash (about 33% of the portfolio) and $7,800 in buying power.

Plan for Next Week?

To be honest, it will all depend on if some of these put options get bought back. I like having some extra buying power in case the market pulls back again. If some things get bought back, I’ll likely be active. If not, I’ll take the week and analyse things.

If the market goes up, I’ll chill.

If there’s volatility and it drops, I’ll be active.

Simple right?

Not Financial Advice, just my trading log

See you next week!

On one hand, it’s out of control. On the other hand, how much more efficient are we these days? In my photography business, it takes me about 1/5th of the time it used to take me to edit photos. In the coffee business, there are automatic milk frothers, smart pouring coffee systems, and better organization systems.

Maybe the market is just starting to see that businesses are much more efficient as technologies advance.

Or, maybe talking like this is how bubbles are built.

Bubble or no bubble, we are flying lately.

If you look at the index which is my usual baseline, we’ve left a 4 year old bull channel… on the top side!

With all that’s going on in the world right now, I find that unbelievable. But I’m going to keep riding the wave.

Trades of the Week

As the market is flying it’s causing a bunch of problems for my trading style. I thrive on a choppy market with lots of volatility. I do not really know how to trade a market that’s moving this much to the topside.

So I’m being very selective in my trades. In fact, this week I only made 2 trades.

TE is about the most volatile stock on the market that I like right now. I have been in and out of positions with TE for months. I sold a $6.5-strike put for $0.28/share that expires July 3rd.

I understand why UPWK is so beaten down. Who needs it anymore when AI can do the work?

But at the same time, I think companies like Upwork can use AI to their advantage. So they’re being beaten down for something that I think is actually going to help them long term.

Being so beaten down, I didn’t want to buy it outright as I wanted to limit my downside. So I bought a call. I bought a LEAPS for January 2028 at a $10-strike. I paid $321 for it.

Along with the call, I also sold a call. Yes, it limits my upside potentially, but it also potentially earns back the cost of the call if I play it right. I sold the June 19, 2026 call for $22.

So in total this week I made $50 selling options.
But I also paid $321 buying an option.

Trimmed / Closed Positions

I didn’t trim anything this week. However, I’m going to go through my open equity positions and tighten up the stop loses a little bit on the ones that have been winning. For example, we bought at $36 and it’s now $115. My stop loss is like $50. I want to move it to about $80.

Of the puts that expired I had $OPEN, and all expire worthless.

Cash / Equity Position

I dug into our cash pile a little bit this week with the UPWK call, but I’m ok with that considering how much we’ve been earning in options sales lately.

We still have $1,299 in cash.

Our total liquidation value is at an all-time high of $6,044

Oh, and I just realized I forgot to add the $200 this week. So make it $1,499 in cash and $6,244.

Profit / Loss

Say it with me now: “we will not get used to 10% weekly gains”.

Silly weeks like this make it easy to start doing the math like: “Gemini, how much money would I have if I made 10% weekly gains on my 6,000 in 10 years.”

The answer is about 20 septillion by the way.

Alas, a more normal question is: “how long can we get away with these kinds of gains before we get punched in the mouth a little bit"?”

We’re up 35% year to date. Part of me thinks I should shut it all down and put the cash into an interest account for a while. But, hey, where would the fun be in that.

Plan for Next Week?

Honestly, I have no plans.

If the market keeps flying, we’ll assess what to do then. But I am really hoping that the market at least starts to consolidate. VIX is below $16. And I usually don’t do a whole lot of options selling unless it’s up over $20.

So we wait. We try to be patient, and we see what happens.

As always, this is not financial advice.

See you next week.

But at the same time, you don’t want to miss the rally.

You see it a lot in investing, a stock goes crazy and people start getting FOMO. So they start buying thinking the rally isn’t over. But it always seems as soon as you buy, the price drops.

As such, there are 3 basic rules I try to follow:

1. Never chase a parabolic move.

2. Always trim when something you own goes parabolic.

3. Buy low.

It seems obvious, but the psychology is what ends up getting us all in trouble.

Anyways, as you can see from the chart below, the index is way too high, so again, it might be a quiet week.

Still Selling Puts?

The thing I like about selling options is that you can still make money by not chasing. In a parabolic market, you can start to feel FOMO because you’re watching everyone else make money as you sit on the side lines.

However, when you’re selling puts, you essentially are making premium money while waiting for the market to dip at which you’d buy stock at a discount from the current price.

So yes, even when the market is up massively, I’ll be selling puts. I just won’t be buying stock unless the puts get exercised. The idea is, make some money selling puts to be able to afford to buy stock when the market eventually drops.

Trimmed/Closed Positions

I’m trying a slightly different strategy with the put sales. I’m selling them closer to 30 days out. Then, as the decay on them starts to happen, I buy them back. I’m going to lose $1 per trade, but I’ll have way more buying power to play with and my buying power shouldn’t be tied down as long. I’m buying back around 40% value, and have them automatically set to buy-back once that price hits.

For example, if I sell a put at $0.10/share, I’ll set a limit buy at $0.04/share.

This week:

• I bought back my $8.5-strike for $0.06

• I bought back my $19-strike for $0.09

• I had a $4 put write expire

• I had a $4 covered call expire

• I had an $3 covered call expire

• I trimmed my position down 5 shares to 10 shares. The stoploss is up over $12 so that position is guaranteed as a win.

So I spent $15 to close positions.

This Week’s Put Sales

I said I was only going to trade once a week, but last week I was busy so I traded a little bit later in the week too.

At the end of last week I:

• Sold a $3 covered call for that expires June05. I earned $12

• I sold a $7.5 put on that expires on June18. I earned $10

Then today (Tuesday) I sold a couple other puts:

• $7-strike for June 18 for $16

• $7.5-strike for June 18 for $27

• $21-strike for June 18 for $69

I also sold some covered calls

• $4-strike for June 26 for $8

That means in buying back options (-$15) and selling options (+$134) I made a cash gain of $128 (probably closer to $120 when you remove the commissions) this week. Not bad.

Equity / Cash Position

There are a couple full-on cash buys I made. I know the market is high, but these are kind of defensive positions anyways.

• I bought 4 shares of at $29/share. Which brings my position to 8 shares at an average of $31.50

• I bought 5 shares of at $44.70. My stop loss is $38.50. My trim spot where I’ll sell 3 shares is $51.

Last week I didn’t add my $200. So this week I added $400

My current cash position is $1,366.

My buying power was $13,000 at the start of the week. It’s now $8,700

Profit / Loss

The crazy thing is that I feel like I’m playing things conservatively. Yet this week I’m up 10%. I’ve added $400 to the account and I’m up nearly $1000 in total.

This is where the market gets dangerous. You can start to feel invincible. Hence why I have so much cash on the side lines. I’m trying my best to wait for a pull back. There is no reason to ever want to gain more than 10% in a week. That’s insanity. 10% weekly would be 520% annually. Not only is that not realistic, or sustainable, it’s dangerous.

So with the market flying, I’ll continue to be significantly risk on.

I’m also really going to try my best to keep the rule of only trading 1 day a week. I think if you’re trading too often, you start to make boredom trades. So, I want to get back to only even looking at things on Mondays and Fridays.

We’ll see how much self-control I can have.

And we’ll see you next week.

As always, This is not financial advice, but rather a log of my investment journey

The market has been busy too.

This week it has started to pull back just a touch which is good, and healthy. But as you can see from the graph below, the market is still trading on the high side of the channel, and there’s been less volume (see the bottom of the graph).

If you look above, you can see my white dotted line, I’d like for the market to get back down around that line or the middle of the channel before I start to get more aggressive.

That said, I’ve definitely been a bit aggressive selling puts. In fact, I broke away from my rule of only trading on Mondays. I’ve traded almost every day the past couple weeks.

Anyways, let’s see what I’ve been up to.

Trimmed/Closed Positions

With the market up, I’m looking to build cash, so I did do a bit of trimming.

1. I sold 50% of my position at $105.

2. I bought back my put for $0.05 too.

I feel like NOW might rally a bit, but I’m happy with the 1 share and I’ll just let it ride or I’ll buy more if we get close to $90 again. I like the volume at the bottom where this bounced though. Maybe we’ll get a bit of a software rally?

Equity Buys + Cash Positions

I was not busy at all buying. I don’t like buying when the QQQ index is so high. The only thing I did was buy 10 more shares of at $7.98. We now have 20 shares at an average of around $8.70. I might buy more at some point. I feel like the below chart shows a double bottom pattern forming and if that does, we might be ready to rally to $10 or even $12.

Because I was busy, I totally forgot to add cash this week. I’ll double it next week to make up for it. But, we already have lots of cash. The cash position is at $1,045 which is like 20%.

Options Sales

The funny thing about this rally is there are still a lot of stocks that are quite beaten down. Do I have been trying to focus on selling options on those ones. I was pretty busy this week selling options, and I’ve even made the decision to go a bit farther into the future with some of them. I have a slightly different strategy I’m working on where I’ll try to take more advantage of the time decay, and then maybe close the position earlier rather than waiting for it to expire.

These are all the options sales (warning, it’s a lot):

• Sold 2 $4-strike put for May 29 = 0.10 (total).

• Sold an $3-strike call for June 18 = 0.15

• Sold 3 $5-strike puts for May15 (junk premium chasing) = 0.06 (total)

• Sold a $19-strike put for June 05 = 0.20

• Sold a $11-strike put for June 18 = 0.34

• Sold a $4.5-strike put for June 05 = 0.08

• Sold a $14-strike put for June 18 = 0.33

• Rolled a put down to an $8.5 strike June 05 = 0.02 credit

• Rolled a put up to a $15 strike on June 18 = 0.19 credit

Obviously, it was a big week for cash premiums.

If you count the options I bought back early, I ended up taking in $142 in cash premiums. Honestly, that’s a lot. But with the longer dated expiries the prices are higher, and it will go down as I buy some of them back earlier. I mean, this is a nearly 3% gain on my portfolio, that is not going to happen every week.

Profit / Loss

I was actually surprised I wasn’t down a bit more than I am this week. Last week I ended with $4,900. This week, I’m at $4,850. So it’s a relatively flat week.

Big Winners / Losers?

Annoyingly, my biggest winner has been $KRKNF. The reason that’s a bit annoying is that everything in my brain said to buy more when it was below $5. But I just couldn’t. Now that it has bounced so much, I am wishing I loaded up more. The stock is up over 15% in the past week.

On the below chart, you can see it bounced right off the green line. That’s the 200 day moving average, I should have bought more as soon as it touched that line.

My biggest loser this week has been I think this stock is in a bad spot from a technical graph standpoint. But it is getting close to the buy zone and I like all that bullish divergence at the bottom of the chart.

One of the things that I keep looking at is the analysts giving it price targets in the $40 and $50 range. So I’ll likely keep nibbling a bit more of it if it keeps dropping.

Things I’m Looking for in The Week Ahead?

Same as last week, I’m looking at Iran.

In my opinion, this is just so messy and is not even close to resolved. The stock market seems to jump anytime someone says “a deal is near” and it never seems to be anywhere near.

So I’m wondering how it’ll react if the news is “the war is back on!”

The old rule of “selling the news/rumour” seems to apply here. The market jumps on positive news, we should sell. Alternatively, I’m looking for some negative news to start buying on.

Based on what happens on the weekend, I’ll look into how to play things early next week.

That’s it for this week, happy trading and as always:
*This is not financial advice, but rather a log of our investing journey”.

But at the same time, maybe we can at least ride the momentum for a while?

Back when I started this investing journal, I said that I wasn’t going to hold cash at all. But, I’ve found myself holding cash - not because I am scared of a pull back, but there’s nothing really out there that I have a massive conviction in.

The only thing that looks like a bargain is software, but sentiment is so bad, I don’t feel like risking too much there.

So, I’m very cash heavy. That said, I still made some moves this week.

Trimmed / Closed Positions

I trimmed our position a lot! I believe we were at 10 shares at one point. As it broke out, I slowly sold down to 1 share. The last share I sold was at $91.28 about 2 hours ago. The crazy thing, since then it’s now at $111! My average is $39.37. So I have a 182% gain. I’ll never sell that share now unless I get a stop loss hit. My stop loss is now up to $60. I’ll be using a trailing SL that I’ll adjust week-to-week.

Equity Buys + Cash Position

I did a little bit of buying this week, but not a lot. In fact, I still have $899 in cash, which is like 20% of our portfolio.

The things I bought this week were:

• $KRKNF I bought $5 more shares of Kraken as I continue to DCA into a big position there. This is the only stock I don’t have a stop-loss on. I’m just going to keep buying until 100 shares and then sit. We currently have 70 shares.

• I also bought 50 more shares of GRAB on the basis of I think it’s based. I think there was a double bottom on the chart, and I’m expecting a reversal here. We now have 100 shares at an average of $3.80. Having 100 shares allows us now to also sell options.

Options Sales

I didn’t think I’d be that aggressive this week, but since we have lots of cash I think it makes sense to use some of the buying power. I mean, any stock pullback leading to an exercised put sale just means that I’m buying where I’d like to buy anyways, right?

These were my put sales:

• May 29th. 8-strike for $9

• May 29th. 4.5-strike x2 for $22 total

• May 29th. 7-strike x2 for $22 total

• June 18th. 2-strike for $9

• May 29th. 9-strike for $9

• May 29th. 14.5-strike for $16

I also did some covered calls.

• May 22nd. 4-strike for $5

• May 22nd. 3-strike for $7

That means from options sales this week I made $99 - let’s call it $90 after commissions. That’s over a 1.5% gain from options sales. My weekly goal from options sales is 1%. So maybe I was a bit too aggressive this week.

Profit / Loss

Ok, so this is getting fun! After putting in another $200 + the gains of the week, our account is hovering around $5,000. Remember, we only started this account in February with $350.

For the week, we’re up over 7%.

I don’t expect this to last. And honestly, I’m looking forward to a little bit of a pullback as I feel like the market is really hard to read right now.

Big Gainers / Losers

Obviously was the big winner. What an absolute monster that trade ended up being. However, lost in the mix was the fact that my position is up 55% as well. I trimmed a bit of it last week, and now I’m hoping for a bit of a pullback again so I can buy more. I should probably sell some $6 puts, but I don’t want to get too crazy.

My biggest losers have been both and $krknf.

Both of these are long-term holds so I’m not so worried about them, and they haven’t been as noticeable since the rest of my portfolio is flying. The biggest concern is that it does seem like CELH has broken the lower trendline. Still, I’m not concerned as I’m still just building that position.

Things I’m Looking for in the Week Ahead

My eyes are on the war in Iran still. I don’t believe for a minute that the situation over there is cleared up. Last week it looked like Iran went to secure internet and data cables. They still have an active blockade on the strait. These are not things that the global community is going to be able accept, in my opinion.

These are also not exactly the acts of a beaten nation.

I do think things will escalate again.

Will the market go fully parabolic?

On the chart below, you can see the index. That upper end of the channel has held since 2022 when the bull market started. We’ve spent a lot of time in the upper half of the channel, but have never broken it. If the market breaks that trendline, we might be in for a wild ride where much of the market goes parabolic.

Personally, I want the QQQ to pull way back to the yellow line (old resistance) and create a new level of support there. Ideally, I’d like the index to stick closer to the center of the channel. I really don’t see the upside here.

Thus, until we get to that point of pullback or parabolic, it’s kind of hard to play this market. The only thing I know is I definitely won’t be buying QQQ calls anytime soon.

That’s it for the week, see you next one!

Moreover, with the market moving the way it is, I didn’t really feel like there was much I could be doing. The market was flying, and honestly it didn’t make much sense to me. And when things don’t make sense, I often just wait it out.

And why work, when the market is already making you money, right?

Trimmed / Closed Positions

This week, I wasn’t crazy busy. In fact, I only made 4 trades and 2 of them were made for me.

• I got stopped out of my position. This was a previously trimmed position with a trailing stop loss. So even though I was stopped out, it was about $5 in realized profit from these specific shares. I also realized profit back when I trimmed the position. I’d like to get back into VKTX at some point again when it makes sense.

• I was also stopped out of . Just like VKTX this was a previously trimmed position. But I had doubled down at $91. When it stopped out at $89.20 I realized about $3 in profit. Again, the profit doesn’t count the profit made on the previous trim.

  • If you look at the chart below, there’s not much of an obvious support. However, if we get back down to about $83 I’ll start building a position again.

• This morning I trimmed my position at a nice profit. I’m down to 2 shares from 5. I also moved my stop loss to $41 to guarantee that is a profitable trade (my average is $37.5).

Put Sales

Again, the market just wasn’t moving much. So I didn’t do anything. Also, I don’t like selling puts going into earnings. So with earnings season in full swing I’ve been cautious. I’ll likely start selling more puts this coming week.

I did, however, make 2 moves

• I bought back my put as I was scared about earnings. I still made 50% profit on that trade

• I sold 2x puts at a $2 strike for May 15

Cash and Equity Positions

Remind me to never skip a week again?

Over the past 2 weeks I did make some buys.

• I bought 25 more shares. I eventually want to get to 100

• is a new position for me, I have 50 shares. Again, I’d like to get to 100 so I can sell options.

• $krknf - I bought 15 more shares of Kraken. My average is now $5.70. I’ll buy more if it goes under $5.

• has been one of my favourite stocks to trade for the past year. So I thought I’d nibble a bit here with the investment account.

• Did I mention I started building my Uber position? I have 4 shares at an average of $74.94

Since I had a couple positions stop out, I have some extra cash. I have $376 to play with next week. Add that to the $200 I’ll add (I do each week) and I can do some buying if there’s an opportunity. But also, I’m trying not to force anything.

I’m loving watching this money grow.

Profit / Loss

It’s funny, on Monday I was grumpy that I wasn’t beating the on the week. Then, all of a sudden a couple of my positions boomed.

It seems silly, because it is, but I’m up over 7% again this week.

Again, it’s a bit of proof that you don’t need to force things. If the market it moving up, don’t chase. Your gains will follow with it.

The real money is made in the pullbacks, and you can’t earn during them if you don’t have any flexibility.

Ok, I’ll try to get back on task and update this properly next week.

See you then!

To be honest, I don’t know what to make of it. But I do know we made a whole lot of money this week. So I’m kind of hoping this isn’t a big rug pull.

Ok, let’s get into the trading journal and recap.

Trimmed / Closed Positions

Since most of my equity positions are new, I really didn’t think I’d already be trimming. However, I did trim two positions this week! Wild right?

• I trimmed from 6 shares down to 3.

My plan with positions is to just have 1 trim. Then each week, I’ll look at whether I want to adjust the stop loss for the positions that I’ve trimmed. It is also possible that the price comes back down and I buy back the 3 shares to get a full position again.

But, overall, the plan is that if I’ve trimmed a position, I’ll never sell it unless it hits a stop loss. Simultaneously, when I trim I also move up my stop loss.

• I also trimmed my position down from 2 shares to 1. That was a realized profit of $13.83.

• I also had my position called away.

The trade actually went exactly as planned. I love it when that happens. I will keep on my watchlist for more trades.

I had put sales expire from and

Rolled Positions

With the market flying so much, the premiums dipped a lot. So I actually didn’t roll anything at all this week.

• I rolled my position as it pretty much held flat. I bought it back for $1. I sold it again for $11. After commissions it’s a $10 income.

Put Sales

I said a couple weeks ago that I would always sell puts, every single week. Well, to be honest, it feels difficult to do that right now with everything flying. But I’ve just decided that in a way you need accept that the premiums are just going to be less than they are when the market is dropping. So I did make some sales.

• - I sold a $10-strike put for May08 for $10.

• - I sold a $10-strike put for May08 for $31 (I didn’t realize earnings were coming, so I’ll probably have to buy this one back before earnings).

• - I sold 2x $3.5 strike puts for May08 for $10 in total.

• - I sold a $3-strike covered call for May08 for $10.

• - I sold a $7-strike put for May08 for $8.

• - I sold a $3-strike covered call for May15 for $13

In total I earned $94 in options sales today. That’s over a 2% gain on my $4,000. If I can do that each week that would be amazing. So even though I felt like I could have gone crazier this week, I need to keep things in perspective.

Cash and Equity Positions

I said when I started this investment strategy that I am not going to hold cash. Well, with the market flying I have a hard time doing that. However, trimming 2 positions and adding another $200 meant I have a lot of cash. I’m just going to search for positions that are still battered down and below their 200 week moving average. At least then they should still be a bit fundamentally undervalued.

This is what I bought this week.

• - I decided to top up my shares to 100 so I could sell a call.

• - I bought 1 share of NFLX so I’m back to being fully invested. I moved my stop loss to $89.30. Even if it hits, my NFLX position will have been profitable.

That’s actually it.

But with the market up so much it just felt wrong to be buying stocks. I have $509 in cash. I had planned on going close to $0 cash the whole time. But, I can’t justify spending cash until I see some consolidation.

Profit/Loss for the Week

Between my 3 accounts (personal, and this one), I had easily the biggest trading week of my life. It beats even the week after Trump backed down on tariffs.

On this portfolio I did nearly 20% gains!

See you Next Week

Sometimes less is more when it comes to trading. I don’t like fast moves, and when the market moves that quickly it worries me. We were stuck consolidating for like 3 months. Then the market dropped because of the war. Then, the war didn’t even fully get resolved and somehow we breakout of the consolidation zone to the top side? For me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

But, if we can hold these levels for a while and find some support a tiny bit lower, I’ll start getting a bit more aggressive again.

Until then, I’ll see you next week!

And to be honest, it was a funny week. Remember, I’m trying to do this passively and only trading this account once a week on Mondays.

Let’s recap.

Stop Losses

Last week I had my first every stop loss triggered. I was stopped out of at $42.51. NKE is wildly oversold, but the sentiment around the brand is so bad that I’m glad that I’m out.

My realized loss was $89.

I’m actually proud of this. In the past, I’ve been pretty stubborn about holding onto things and trying to fight out of bad positions. But it’s kind of a relief to just close something and have the extra cash for the next week.

Closed Positions?

A couple of my put sales lost so much value this week (because the stock went up) that I closed them on Friday. It’s worth hanging onto a position for another week or two for $1-2.

• I bought back my $12-strike for $2

Rolled Positions?

I’m still trying to figure out the best strategy for rolling, because I’m realizing it’s costing me too much commission. On a roll, I basically have to pay $2 (one buy, one sell). So maybe I try not to roll too often? This week, I didn’t roll anything.

Put Sales

As this is the 3rd week of this program, I’ve started to have some positions expire which means I have more buying power again. To start the week, I had $6,100 in options buying power. It’s not a lot, but it was enough to take a couple new positions.

• I sold a covered call - April16 $1.50 strike for $5.

• I sold a put - May01, $13 strike for $18

• I sold an put - May01, $4.5 strike for $10

• I sold a put - May01, $7 strike for $11

• I sold 2x puts - May01, $6.5 strike for $20

So in total this week, I have made $60 on options sales ($4 was lost in commissions).

Cash and Equity Positions

I had extra cash this week for a couple reasons. It’s a new week, so a new $200 deposit. I also had about $200 from the stop loss on the position. I also had $77 from put sales and left over cash from last week. So I had $477 to spend on equity this week.

This week I bought:

• 100 shares of - I bought this primarily as a lotto ticket with some options value attached. I also sold a covered call on it for Friday for $5. So it was like I got 3 free shares.

• 10 shares of - I now have 20 shares. My average is down to $7.73

• 2 shares of - I think the SaaS thing is overdone, and I’ll start building a NOW position.

• I also bought 4 shares of - I like the risk/reward here. I’ve set a stop loss at $18. I’m happy to be adding more shares up to that point.

Profit/Loss on the Week

Normally I wouldn’t complain about a 2.12% gain. I mean, my goal on this portfolio is to gain about 0.5-1% per week. But it was tough to watch the market fly while I was relatively flat.

The total value of my account went up $291.46 this week, which was 11%. This account now has $2,932 in value.

A lot of the reason I’m not up as much this week is due to a couple positions in particular.

My biggest losers were:

• is a position I’m happy to build out, but the first week didn’t go well. My 6 shares are down 9.5%. INOD is down 60% in the past 6 months, so it does feel like a value buy, even if I don’t hit the exact bottom.

• isn’t a position I have, but a sold put. It’s a $9 strike and PATH dropped 15% this week. The position is down $20 or 213%. Still, at $9.23 it’s still above my strike price, so we’ll see if we hold the line, or if we own PATH in a couple weeks.

On the winning side:

• continues to move in the right direction crossing the $100 resistance level. My position is up 32%. I’ve moved a stop loss onto the position to $90.5, so it’s a guaranteed winning position (especially since I already trimmed half of it a month ago).

• had a big week for me too, despite dropping Friday. The position was up 19% on the week. I’m green on my 50 shares, with an 8.8% unrealized gain.

See You Next Week

I have a feeling this is going to be another volatile week. So stay buckled up!

Over on I have a new post about my favourite trade set up this week which is . Go check it out.

As for now, that’s it for me. And as always, this is documentation, not financial advice.

If you’re trying to figure out what this page is all about, check out that intro post here.

Yesterday, of course, was Monday, so it was trading day.

Now, the reason this article is called “Scary Green Days” is that when you’re selling options (specifically puts), green days (positive days) on the market are actually terrible. Generally the premiums are worse, the market is more likely to drop the following day, and it just feels wrong to buy high.

But, as I mentioned in that introduction article, my goal with these early trades with this investment is to not try to time the market, but just be consistent.

So, here we go. This is what I got up to this Monday.

Option Sales

The hardest thing I’m finding with this account is being extremely safe with the put sales. I’m used to being very aggressive and using naked puts as a way to enter the market on a stock. However, as I’m just trying to profit from premiums, I have to be more cautious and accept lower yields. It’s hard to wrap my head around.

These were my put sales for the week:

• - April24 - $7-strile for $16

• - April24 - $9-strike for $10

• 2x - April24 - $3-strike for a total of $10

So a weekly earning of $46.

Rolling Positions

Monday I will often be rolling positions as well. I’ll be rolling put sales in which the premiums in future weeks still looks good. And I’ll also be rolling some positions down and out if it’s not going the way I want.

However, this week, I didn’t roll anything.

My Cash Equity Buys

I had a bunch of cash this week. I deposited $200 - as the plan is to do every week - plus I had $342 in left over cash from last week + options sales last week. It’s important to note that with my IBKR account the cash from put sales hits my account the next business day, not instantly. Since I’m only trading on Mondays, it shows up on Tuesday, and I use it the following week.

This week I spread the money around a little bit. I want to try to limit the things I buy each week because it costs me around $1 per transaction on IBKR. So if I do 10 trades, it’ll cost me $10. If I only do 2-3, I save money.

• - I think the airline sell off is overdone. Fuel prices will eventually come down. I bought 4 shares at $37.73. My stop loss is $30 and my targets are $45 and $55

• - I bought 6 shares at $39.30 with a stop loss of $30. My price targets are $45 and $65.

• - I added 25 shares to my EOSE position. I want to get it to 100 eventually so I can sell calls. The average is now $5.26.

Profit/Loss on the Week

Week #1 trading went really well. In fact, it went unrealistically well. I went up over 9% the week on performance. And my account went up over 19% when you account for the cash I added.

Obviously those numbers aren’t realistic. The whole market jumped this week.

My goal is to gain about 0.5-1% a week on average. So this gives me a nice buffer for a couple potential rockier weeks.

The biggest winners in our account so far are:

• is now over $100 and I bought it for $78. I just wish I bought more. I’m at a 28% gain

• is also doing well for me. I bought at $29, it’s up 17%. I also already trimmed the position in half when it was at $40. If it comes back down to around $29, I might buy more.

My biggest losers:

• is smoking us. We bought at $60 and it’s now down at $44. We set a stop loss at $42.5 so it might get clipped soon. I think if it start to look like it’s basing I might buy a bit more.

• is my other loser right now. I bought at $2.77 and it’s down 16%. I like the stock, and I might not buy more right now. But I’m selling puts.

See You Next Week

I hope you’re enjoying this! I have a new post coming over on this week where I’ll have more in depth stock analysis this week. I’ll share my favourite trade set up of the week.

Have a profitable week!

But along with my own personal trading account, my girlfriend and I have also decided to build a joint trading/investing account.

The goal?

To build wealth.

Or, at least to go from being broke to being less broke.

We have a dream of being able to buy investment in properties, businesses, diversify our income streams, and try to build a life where we don’t need to stress so often about being broke.

So, we’ve decided to take a concerted effort into investing and trading to build that wealth - or at least that base.

This blog will cover that journey, wherever it leads.

Our Investments

We are not wealthy people. In fact, both of us live on the edge of being broke way too often. Though I’ve been a pretty successful trader the past couple years, I don’t really have enough money that my earnings from trading are going anywhere except into paying bills. Basically, all my profits are paying for rent, food, utilities, etc.

But a couple months ago we decided that if we want to build a more stable wealth we need to make a concerted effort into actually saving.

So a couple months ago we decided to make a deal that we’d put $200 each week into a trading account. I’d invest bits and pieces as we go, and then when the account gets large enough to be able to start selling options, we’d use that to make a bit of extra income - if possible.

That became possible on Monday. Finally, on Monday the account reached $2,400 which is the limit on Interactive Brokers for being able to sell options.

For now, the main goal of this page is an investing journal. But who knows where it goes. If we buy a property, I’ll share the profits. If we open a business, same. No matter where this investing journey goes, it’ll be shared here.

My Investment Strategy for Growth

I have set my account for margin so that I can trade options. But I have an “idea” for how I’d like to invest. I’m sure there’s others that follow this strategy on a much more “intense” model, and there may even be a proper name for it.

However, I’m calling this long term strategy: The Sell to Buy Strategy.

The basic concept of this strategy is to use your buying power to sell options. Then, use the cash earned from selling those options to buy stock.

How It Works - Buying Power and Cash

The concept is pretty simple. I’m almost exclusively going to be selling puts, and buying stock.

With IBKR you have 2 different “funds”. You have your “buying power” and you have “cash”. The buying power refers to the maximum you can “buy” if you needed to. It’s not a linear number, it’s based on the risk level of the various positions you hold. The cash is just that: how much physical cash is in your account.

With a margin account, you can theoretically take on a loan from your broker to buy more assets than you can afford. Generally, that loan % is fairly low since its in the broker’s best interest for you to trade more (more fees) and they can always just close your positions on you and take the money from your account if you get over-extended. The rate, for example, from IBKR is around 4%.

So let’s say that you have $2,500 in cash your account. In theory, you can probably buy about $10,000 worth of stock. It means that you’ll be given a loan of $7,500 and you’ll be charged 4% annually on that extra $7,500.

However, if you sell options you actually don’t use any cash. But you could if you need it. That’s what buying power is.

For example, if I have $2,500 in cash. My buying power might read $15,000. That means that if I needed to, I could buy $15,000 in stock.

This is why I sell options. It allows you to use that buying power without actually needing to borrow money.

You will lose buying power on the assumed risk that you might have to buy something. When you sell a put for a stock at a strike price of $50, for example, the broker assumes that you might need to spend $5,000 to buy the 100 shares in the contract. So it will wipe off around $5,000 from your buying power.

But, you won’t be into your margin unless you’re forced to buy the shares. So you don’t have to pay the margin fees and interest.

My Trading/Investing Strategy

As I mentioned, I’m calling my strategy “Selling to Buy”.

The idea is to use the buying power I have to sell puts on stocks. Then, to use the profit from those put sales to buy physical stock that I’ll hold long term.

Obviously, it’s not super straight forward and there are times I might get a little bit burned, but that’s part of it.

I will be trading a lot of fairly risky assets, so I don’t expect this to be a straight line in which there’s never issues. But, with this account the goal is to focus on the long term, not the week to week.

How Often Will I Trade - Passive Approach

I’m only going to look at this account twice a week.

Mondays will be my “selling and rolling” day. I know that it makes more sense to sell options on “red” days since that’s where the premiums are the highest, but with this account, I’m not as focused on optimizing what I’m making from each sale. I’m just looking to sell options in relatively safe spots.

For the most part, I’m going to be selling 3 weeks in the future. So if it’s Monday April 6th, I’ll be selling options expiring Friday April 24th.

Mondays will also be rolling days. Rolling means taking an option you traded and buying it back and then re-selling it at a later date. It makes a lot of sense to roll positions rather than constantly looking for new positions.

It can also make sense because:

• You can lock in some cash

• If it’s looking like the position is at risk, you can roll it forward and down in price

Mondays will also be where I’ll be buying new stock. Each week I’ll - in theory - have an extra $200 to spend + whatever I made in options. This will be a stock buying/selling day.

Fridays are the other days I’ll be trading. But for the most part on Fridays I’ll simply be looking to make sure no positions are at serious risk of being assigned, and potentially closing positions I don’t want to take into weekends.

What Trades Will I Be Making

On this account I’m going to take a little bit of risk initially. As I mentioned, I’m going to be looking 3 weeks out. I’m also going to be looking to make 1% off the contract’s strike price. For example, if stock ABC is trading at $10 a share. I would like to make at least $0.10/share on my option sale. I think that still gets pretty good value.

I will be trading stocks that are high enough volatility to earn premiums. Think of stocks like and such.

Moreover, since the account is small, I will be trading stocks that are less that $12/share. To mitigate a bit of risk, I’ll be selling puts on lots of positions rather than just 1 or 2. And with such little buying power, I need to focus on stocks that won’t blow up my account if they crash.

One of my trading rules is that the maximum any one contract can be worth is $1200. For example, if I want to sell options at a $2 strike, I could have a position size of 6. If I want to sell $6 strikes, I can only sell 2.

What if an Option Gets Exercised? Wheel Approach?

The big question I know I’m going to get is “what happens if I the option gets exercised?”

Selling puts isn’t fail safe. A stock could be trading at $10/share one day and $5/share the next. If I sold puts with a strike of $7, I might end up with a $200 loss and 100 shares of a random stock.

So what happens if that occurs and I’m force to own the stocks?

Well, it’ll depend on the situation.

The wheel strategy is the most common play, and it’s what I’m going to use a similar plan - although with more of an exit strategy.

The way the wheel strategy works is like this.

1. Sell a put. Let’s say at a strike of $5. Collect put premium.

2. The stock price goes to $4. So you’re forced to buy 100 shares / contract.

3. Now that the stock price is $4, you sell a covered call on your position, ideally for $5. Collect call premium.

4. Stock price goes to $5.5. You sell the shares.

   1. If the price doesn’t go to $5, you keep the shares.

   2. Keep selling $5 strike calls and collecting premiums until it hits $5.

It will depend on the stock and the situation for the crash. But I’ll likely be using a bit of a wheel.

However, I’ll likely also set a stop loss where I feel like it’s just not worth holding onto that stock any longer. Remember, this account is meant to be a fairly passive way of doing things. I don’t want to constantly be managing positions.

So if I get exercised. I’ll likely sell a call at the same strike as I was assigned. I’ll also set a stop loss for the actual equity. If the stop loss doesn’t get triggered, I’ll keep rolling the calls until the stop loss gets hit, or the shares get called away.

Will I Keep Cash?

No. I mean, that’s the short answer. If I wanted cash I’d keep it in a box under my bed.

That said, it won’t all be in stocks.

What Assets Will I Buy?

I’m not going to be 100% stocks. But I’m going to be stock heavy.

I’ll be looking to mix things up with some ETFs as well. I’m not usually heavily into the ETFs as I prefer to be a bit of a stock picker. But since I want this to be more passive, I’ll definitely be dropping money into ETFs more than I do on my personal accounts.

As the account - hopefully - grows, I’ll also be looking to make use of t-bill ETFs like US03 and other safer haven assets.

But early on, I’m looking for some growth, so I’ll definitely be taking on some risk. In fact, my portfolio already is full of risk!

How Often I’ll Update This Page

Let’s call it every Tuesday.

Mondays are trading days, Tuesdays I’ll let you know what sort of madness I got up to.

I’ll give you an update on the cash situation, the total liquidation prices, performance, etc.

Moreover, I’ll share each and every single trade I make with you. Good, bad or ugly.

This is how my account looks today, the first day of the blog.

Trades of the Week

These are the options trades I made in the first week of this project.

Sold Puts:

• April 10 $4-strike. $0.12

• April 24 $3.5-strike. $0.10

• April 17 $6-strike. $0.09

• April 17 $12-strike. $0.14

• April 17 - $12-strike. $0.14

• April 17 - $6-strike. $0.08x2

• April 17 - $2-strike. $0.12

• April 17 - $3.5-strike. $.06

That’s a total cash income of $93

So with the cash deposit of $200 + $93 put sales = $293

I also bought some equity:

• bought 30 shares at $1.95/share ($39)

• $krknf bought 20 shares at $5.65 ($113)

• bought 2 shares at $42.18 ($84.36)

Basically I spent a little less than $240. So I have a bit of cash to spare for next week.

Equity Positions

Below is a list of all my equity positions. Below I have my stop loss listed. But I also have listed my “trim” spot which is a price point in which I’ll be selling 50% of my position.

Position Size Average Trim Stop

26 $2.77 $4 $1.8
10 $8.31 $10 $6
10 $30.46 $36 $27
25 $5.49 $9 $3.5
15 $11.58 $17 $8
2 $20.55 — $13
$KRKNF 40 $5.78 $8 $4
1 $78.22 — $80
5 $60.25 $60.25 $42.5
5 $37.49 $45 $32
10 $11.82 $18 $9
2 $138.11 $180 $100
100 $2.43 $3 $1.5
4 $47.37 $60 $35
3 $29.89 — $24

As you can see, I have a lot of positions open. But, with an account where I’m looking to “invest” more than trade, I think it’s important to have about 20 positions open. I have 15 right now. So I’ll likely be looking to add about 5 more. Expect those positions to likely be less risky.

To give you an idea, if there’s a — under the “trim” section, that’s just because I’ve already trimmed that position once. Those positions I’ll more likely add to rather than trim. For example, I bought NFLX at $78.22. I trimmed it in half at $90. If the price drops, I won’t be looking to sell, I’ll be looking to buy more. Ideally around $83-84.

See You Next Week

That’s it for the introduction. There will not be trade analysis or anything like that on this page. If you’re interested in trade ideas and stuff, you should check out where I dive a bit deeper into specific trades.

But if you’re not subscribed to “From Broke to Less Broke” be sure to subscribe below:

See you next week.