Hopefully You Weren’t Russian to Sell

Because by Friday, Ukraine was Old News

Last weekend brought dire market predictions that were self-fulfilling early on Monday.

By the end of the week, the Russian fatigue factor had set in. Most Americans didn’t care to hear any more BS about how events in the Ukraine would torpedo their U.S. portfolios. The DJIA closed higher by about 0.8%. The SPY was up 1.0% and the NASDAQ up 0.7%.

Our Virtual Value Portfolio was not left behind. Our original $100,000 stake has grown to $142,932 since our October 26, 2012 starting date. That’s our highest closing level so far.

Market Shadows’ readers who took our advice have annualized at a very acceptable 31.53% since inception by following our plain vanilla (no leverage, no options) value strategy.

Check out details on all closed-out and presently held positions by clicking here.

We like to sell ‘put’ options too. Our exploits in that arena can be tracked in Market Shadows’ separate Virtual Put Writing Portfolio.

Our track record with option sales has been excellent. We collect money by selling puts but we cannot know our final result until the option expires, is exercised, or we buy it back in closing transactions. Our closed-out list tallies up the results of all fully completed positions. Open trades can be followed in the list of current positions, all of which are short sales of puts.

As long as the ‘if put’ price is below the present quote our position is in profitable territory. This is because if we get exercised, we could immediately sell the shares for more than our net cost basis. The vast majority of our open option trades fall into this category right now.