The last two months have been quiet for me. The low vol run up meant that I had no STT trades on and I was left with just the LTI/Tactical asset portfolio along with a few ATM trades. Still at about 30% for the year and any big down move that causes a VIX 22/23 move along with some evidence of capitulation/forced selling/margin call will allow me to enter a nice STT that could catapult the return to 35-40% for year end. We’ll see if it happens.
Today’s down move got me perked up and I am keenly watching for entry opportunities. If it doesn’t come, it is what it is. We’ll keep waiting. In the meantime, I did enter some ATM trades today using the vol to get decent prices. It’ll give the portfolio some potential for a decent year end. I’d love 35% but with these opportunistic trades, profit will come in bunches. My backtest shows that 2018 would have been a 100% year if I was entering with the same parameters I have now. Today, we hit 18 vix and I was hoping for an EOD type sell off and a further weak open to eye up some opp. 484stt with elevated >22 VIX but alas we bounced into close.
The idea going forward is to do the TAA blends, some ATM blends and opportunistic STTs (I might only get 1-2 a year but they’ll boost the TAA+ATM for a solid 40% average return over time). I can post all the ATM stuff I do without regard to the IP restrictions of the group so maybe I’ll start just posting my daily updates of the ATM trades so there’s more content and commentary here. I’ve halved the PC for risk purposes but it boosts the LTI returns while we wait for STT opps. I much prefer to be patient and wait for great entries than to deal with extended down moves and vol increases with OTM type trades.
I had a busy few months traveling, which I guess was good timing with what was a “never go down” market until now. I hit up LA with my family to look at schools for my kids, then met my guy friends there and departed my family and had a guys trip that extended from LA to Denver and Miami. Good time but when combined with my last trips in September, my liver needs a good cleanse.