A busy week replacing stocks assigned in last week's expiries. A volatile week as markets digested Congressional testimony about stimulus and inflation and interest rates. And then a ship got stuck.
Portfolio News
In a week where S&P 500 rose 1.7% to touch an all time high, my pension portfolio dropped 0.50%. Big contributors to the losses were De Grey Mining (DEG.AX) and bulk shipping stock, Eneti (NETI) and marijuana stock Tilray (TLRY).
The headlines show a volatile week with big falls one day followed by record close for S&P500 2 days later.
Big movers of the week in my portfolios were 88 Energy (88E.AX) (+82%) based on Alaskan oil finds, and Kairos Minerals (KAI.AX) (+23%). Japan was a different story this week with only 2 stocks rising after two solid weeks of only 1 stock dropping.
News story of the week was Ever Green getting stuck in the Suez Canal - this hit oil prices and bulk shipping stock prices as shippers looked to the need to reroute cargos the long way around the bottom of Africa.
Crypto booms
Bitcoin price tested 12% lower finishing the week 3.3% lower than the open.
Biggest move in my portfolio was HIVE up 151% at the peak and currently trading 75% up. The best part of this is the value of 5 years of previous blogging effort gets lifted with the tide.
STEEM also went up 14% on the week and is still moving higher after the weekend.
Bought
Credit Suisse Group (CSGN.SW): Swiss Bank. Reviewed relative prices for European banks to replace those assigned. Picked a few of the relative laggards.
Commerzbank (CBK.DE): German Bank. Added to holding on a down day.
Deutsche Bank AG (DBK.DE): German Bank. Replaced assigned stock at 2.3% premium to assigned price and 4.5% in another portfolio.
ING Groep (INGA.AS): Dutch Bank. Replaced assigned stock at 2.1% premium to assigned price.
Randstad NV (RAND.AS): Europe HR Services. Replaced assigned stock at 4.1% premium to assigned price.
L&G Hydrogen Economy Ucits ETF (HTWO.SW): Hydrogen. My other hydrogen play, Linde Plc (LIN) was assigned so I deployed spare Swiss Francs from ABB sale to average down entry price in this ETF. This ETF focuses on the hydrogen economy. 4% of its holdings are in Linde plc.
Huntington Bancshares Inc (HBAN): US Bank. Replaced assigned stock at 2.6% discount to assigned price.
Global X Lithium ETF (LIT): Lithium and Batteries. Added a small parcel to average down entry price by a small amount.
Navios Maritime Holdings Inc (NM): Oil Shipping. Replaced assigned stock at 37% premium to assigned price at open of trade - price got dumped to close 25% lower. Looks like some averaging down will be needed - did average down next day to 6.2% premium to assigned price and the day after at 25% discount - shipping stocks got hit with the stuck container ship. Covered call written for 4.7% premium with 35% coverage
PayPal Holdings, Inc (PYPL): Payment Services. Averaged down my entry price and rounded up to 100 shares to be able to write covered calls. Covered call written for 1.5% premium with 6.2% coverage to most recent purchase.
Union Pacific Corporation (UNP): US Railroads. Averaged down entry price with another small parcel. Jim Cramer idea to keep adding.
Teekay Corporation (TK): Oil Shipping. Oil shipping stocks have recovered with the rising oil price. I added a few parcels of different stocks to diversify the risk in my portfolio. Normally, I look for relative underperformers - given the massive move in Navios Maritime (NM) stock, I figured that all oil shipping stocks would be lagging. The chart from the October 2020 lows confirms this.
Now that I do the chart work after the purchases, I was partly right. The chart shows NM (coloured bars) compared with Nordic American Tankers (NAT - blue line), Teekay Corp (TK - light blue line), Euronav (EURN - yellow line), and Scorpio Tankers (STNG - purple line). A smarter comparison would have been to take Navios out and look at the stocks relative to other portfolio holdings - e.g., Scorpio Tankers (STNG - purple line). The 3 stocks below STNG have all done less well - the stock I missed was Euronav (EURN) which is lagging like Nordic American Tankers (NAT).
Nordic American Tankers Limited (NAT): Oil Shipping. This is the relative laggard that I bought on instinct.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): US Pharmaceuticals. Rounded out holding to be able to write covered calls. Covered call written for 0.33% premium with 3.9% coverage - not up to the normal levels but reflecting low perceived risk in the stock pick.
Sold
`Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp (MCB): US Bank. Closed out this holding to fund JNJ purchase for 3.8% blended profit since December 2017. Original thesis was a combined view on New York metro banking and a crypto XRP linkage. Stock never performed as expected. I chose to exit once it came back to profit.
Shorts
Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ): Nasdaq Index. With the rotation out of tech stocks, I set up a new hedge trade. With price closing on March 25 at $311.33, I set up an April expiry 295/284 ratio put spread. This offers protection for a drop between 5.5% and 9.6% - trade was cash neutral.
Let's look at the chart which shows the bought put (295) as a red ray and the sold put (284) as a blue ray with the expiry date the dotted green line on the right margin. The price scenarios show that each of the recent pullbacks is remarkably similar in size. Get a repeat of that and the bought put will expire in-the-money and the sold put level is unlikely to be reached.
Cryptocurrency
No trades
Income Trades
A busy week setting up income trades for April expiry - I did write covered calls on Randstad NV (RAND.AS) for May expiry rather than April as liquidity was better with one month extra time
Covered Calls
24 covered calls written in US and 12 in Europe
Naked Puts
12 naked puts written in US of which 9 were income trades. The other 3 on TSLA (22% below close), GOOGL (15% below close) and STPK (9.5% below close) are positioning trades replacing trades that expired in March expiries. 2 naked puts only in Europe
Currency Trades
No trades
Cautions: This is not financial advice. You need to consider your own financial position and take your own advice before you follow any of my ideas
Images: I own the rights to use and edit the Buy Sell image. News headlines come from Google Search. All other images are created using my various trading and charting platforms. They are all my own work
Tickers: I monitor my portfolios using Yahoo Finance. The ticker symbols used are Yahoo Finance tickers
Charts: http://mymark.mx/TradingView - this is a free charting package. I have a Pro subscription to get access to real time forex prices
Bitcoin: Get started with mining Bitcoin for as little as $25 http://mymark.mx/Galaxy
Trading: Binance offers a wide range of coins to trade, tight spreads and low fees if you use BNB to pay https://mymark.mx/Binance
Tracking: Keeping track of your crypto trades is a whole lot easier with CoinTracking.info. Get 10% off all your account upgrades https://mymark.mx/CoinTracking
March 22 - 26, 2021