Who says we're not bullish?
It's interesting how many people think we're bearish just because we talk about the problems in the economy and just because we don't buy into the market hype. Yes, short-term, we expect a correction and so far - so wrong on that one but, long-term, I don't think we have ANY bearish plays and our largest portfolio, our virtual income portfolio, is 100% bullish (with hedges) and has been since day one.
As of Friday, our $25,000 Portfolio was down $7,500 for the year. That's not good but that portfolio is supposed to be the aggressive carve-out of a more conservative $250,000-$500,000 portfolio like our income portfolio, which is long-term bullish and doing extremely well. How well? Up $73,792 in our first 9 months is an average of $8,199 per month generated off a conservatively invested $500,000 and double our goal of pulling a $4,000 monthly income without digging into our principal.
This is the kind of set-up that my Mom and many of her friends need to do to supplement their not very generous Social Security checks but it's also using the same principle that applies to any long-term wealth-building strategy, utilizing our best long-term growth strategies combined with a concentration on generating an income collecting dividends and selling short-term options to create our own "dividend" stream on ordinary stocks. Please see previous posts in our Virtual Portfolio section for our main strategy discussions – this is just an update.
Prior to making our moves, we had $87,042 of realized gains (positions we had cashed in) against $13,250 of unrealized losses for a $73,792 net gain in our 9th month so averaging a bit better than $8,000 a month and, as I said above, well ahead of schedule. The following positions were closed since then:
- 20 DIA Feb $120 puts sold for $1.60, expired worthless - up $3,200
- 20 SDS Feb $18 calls sold for .98, expired worthless - up $1,960
- 2,000 shares of AGNC paid a $1.25 dividend on 3/5 - up $2,500
- 3,000 shares of FTR paid a .10 dividend on 3/7 - up $300
- 1,000 shares of HCBK paid a .08 dividend on 3/8 - up $80
- 5,000 shares of SVU paid a .088 dividend on 2/28 - up $440
- 500 shares of MT paid a .188 dividend on 2/16 - up $94
- 3,000 shares of ACI paid a .11 dividend on 3/1 - up $330
- 5 HPQ Feb $26 calls sold for $1.38, expired worthless - up $690
- 10 RIMM Feb $16 calls sold for $1.08, expired worthless - up $1,080
That's a very nice $10,674 of cash generated this month, now $97,716 in realized gains – but let's not get too excited as our hedges got clobbered (we'll get to them later).
