Easiest Strategy

This collective2 strategy Easiest was started to copy what I do in my HSA (Health Savings Account) and track the results publicly. You can see the C2 and Schwab screenshots below. I am fortunate now to have plenty of money I can spend on upcoming medical bills.

See the similarity with my HSA results from Schwab below.

There are some minor differences between the two partially due to laziness on my end of entering actual signals in my real account at Schwab, but the idea was the same. In a way, this strategy was always a Trades-Own-System strategy, but there was no way for Collective2 to verify that. Due to this, I have opened another Interactive Brokers Roth IRA to connect to Collective2 and set up my algorithms to automatically submit the orders to IBKR. However, I still have to manually these trades at Schwab since IBKR doesn’t have HSA accounts. Woe is me.

All that to say, soon you will see a TOS (Trades-Own-System) badge coming to Easiest. This also means that when I place a stop order at IB, you won’t see it as a subscriber until it gets triggered and will appear as a market order. The only downside I see is that you won’t see the stops. But you can always set your own stops as a secondary backup. I wouldn’t set them too close. Generally, I would keep them at about 10% for an unleveraged position and 30% for something with 3X leverage or similar. I know, I know. Those are huge, but if you want, you can use tighter stops. Price stops are not, in general, the main way I exit positions. My algorithms usually trigger before my stops are hit on any position. I know this may seem crazy, but think of it this way: If you and your neighbor bought homes at the same time for $500,000 each, but your neighbor a few months later suddenly sold for $250,000, would you want that to mean you automatically sell your house for $250,000? I wouldn’t! I always place stops, but my aim is to rarely, if ever, have them trigger.

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

Embrace the Pain

Focusing on methodology and investment philosophy is crucial when considering a strategy or a switch in investment. Recent performance, whether good or bad, doesn’t always reflect the long-term viability of a strategy. It is concerning when a provider claims something like they plan on consistent x% monthly return; such promises often fall short of reality in the complex world of trading.

My investment strategies, such as “Easiest” and “Patience is a Virtue,” embody a pragmatic understanding of the financial markets, grounded in the fundamental truth that in the world of investing, there are no guaranteed wins every year. Anyone promising otherwise is likely overselling or deluding themselves.

My approach acknowledges the inherent trade-off between risk and reward. Seeking higher returns inevitably involves embracing higher levels of risk. This requires the acceptance of higher drawdowns.

If you are still making the correct trades but experience drawdowns, they are not indicative of failure. Rather they are an inherent part of the investment journey. They are the price paid for the pursuit of potentially greater returns over the long term. While it’s possible to navigate and mitigate drawdowns to some extent, they cannot be entirely eliminated. They must be embraced and prepared for.

By adopting a mindset that embraces the reality of drawdowns, you’re better positioned to weather the storms of market volatility. Rather than being caught off guard or disillusioned by downturns, you’re prepared to stay the course, recognizing them as temporary setbacks within the broader context of your investment horizon.

In the pursuit of higher returns, it’s crucial to maintain a realistic perspective and remain committed to your investment philosophy, even in the face of temporary setbacks. This steadfast approach, grounded in the recognition of both the ups and downs of the market, lays the foundation for sustainable growth and long-term success.

Absolutely, believing in the investment thesis is paramount to successfully weathering drawdowns and staying committed to your strategy. Your thesis should reflect a comprehensive understanding of various asset classes and their potential for positive returns over the long term. An investment thesis should not involve the following:

  • XYZ went up last year/month/week. So I will buy it!
  • ABC went down last year/month/week. So I will sell it!

I believe there the next 20 years has great growth potential across equities, bonds, crypto, precious metals, and short volatility instruments. That is why I trade all these markets. This broad diversification allows me to capture opportunities across different sectors and asset types while managing risk through a well-rounded portfolio.

Taking it a step further down the risk rabbit hole, the best returns will likely be those that leverage their portfolios 2 or 3 times if they can remain solvent. This means using diversification, trend following, limited-loss leverage methods, and a healthy dose of patience.

Likewise, it will require rarely going against these markets. Frequently betting against the markets makes it so much harder to succeed in the long run. Your investment decisions should be rooted in a rational assessment of market dynamics, maximizing your chances of success over the long haul. Investment choices should never be made based on what went up last year and what went down.

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

Navigating Volatility / Solar Eclipse

In the world of investment, especially in today’s dynamic markets, staying true to a long-term strategy can sometimes feel like navigating through a storm. One such day recently highlighted the challenges and the importance of staying focused on a larger plan despite short-term setbacks.

Yesterday started with a mix of holdings – 3X stocks, Bitcoin, a flat position in the volatility market, and a slightly bullish stance in the treasury market. However, as the day progressed, signals emerged, prompting a shift in strategy. The algorithm implemented the trades for Best Combo, Patience is a Virtue, and Easiest strategies, selling some Bitcoin, going short in the volatility market, exiting treasuries, and jumping into gold.

Fast forward to today, and unfortunately, it turned out to be mostly bad moves except for jumping into gold. The strategies, which typically combine elements of Best Combo, Patience is a Virtue, and Easiest, faced significant downturns today. The spike in volatility was particularly challenging, leading to losses across our positions.

Despite today’s losses, it’s crucial to note that none of the moves made yesterday were inherently wrong. Statistically, based on trusted indicators, the decisions were sound. However, as any seasoned investor knows, the market doesn’t always follow statistical probabilities in the short term.

The analogy of a casino comes to mind – even when the odds are in the casino’s favor, there are times when big payouts occur, causing temporary pain for the owners. In these moments, it’s essential not to dwell on a single trade, day, or month. Instead, maintaining focus on the broader plan spanning years is key.

Switching back and forth between positions can seem difficult right after some misses. But I believe sticking to a strategy is crucial to long-term success. Today’s losses may be tomorrow’s gains, and knee-jerk reactions can lead to missed opportunities in the long run.

Looking ahead, the plan remains steadfast. Implementing the Best Combo, Patience is a Virtue, and Easiest strategies might seem challenging during volatile times, but what matters is the statistical methodology guiding decisions for the next 5, 10, or 20 years. Short-term fluctuations are part of the journey, and staying disciplined through them is what separates successful long-term investors from the rest.

I say this as someone who is down $30,000 today personally. I know the pain. But I understand the goal and the method.

But I am also someone that has been following these basic investing methods since 2019 and it has paid off for me even with covid and 2022. Below you can see the results of my combined IBKR accounts.

The Eclipse

I did travel last week to see the total eclipse. I saw the total in 2017 and it clicked for me just how lame a partial eclipse is in comparison to a total. My phone didn’t do a great job capturing it. In person I really think a total eclipse is one of the most beautiful things to observe. I had a great time in Russellville, Arkansas with my wife and mom. Finally I think my mom is a total or nothing believer. I was a bit worried about the clouds for a bit but fortunately it was clear enough to see the total solar eclipse and two planets were bright enough to see too!

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

3% Credit Card / Where Have I Been

I have been on vacation traveling in Japan and Taiwan. I’ve had hawks steel food from my hand, seen good friends, seen Kyoto temples under moonlight, and had so much good food.

Robinhood 3% Card

Today I also heard there is a new 3% Robinhood credit card with zero foreign transaction fees. I think I will start using it myself for most things other than gas (4% Costco card). I would love to get the gold version of the card that requires 10 referrals. Please use my referral here if you are interested too.

Do you have anything you want me to discuss about my strategies in my upcoming posts?

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

Down $20,000 / Technical Analysis

Clearly, we are seeing some volatility and drawdowns today and we may have to make some moves today. The obvious question is what happens next. The first thing I remind myself to do though is IGNORE THE NOISE! Good investors don’t make decisions based on what their portfolio did today.

As of writing this at 10:38 AM Eastern my personal accounts are down by over $20,000. That is about 4 times the value of my daily driver car! It is natural to have that stress me out a bit. But let me say it again, “good investors don’t make decisions based on what their portfolio did today.”

For the most part I think technical analysis alone doesn’t provide higher rates of return. This isn’t always true, but on average I believe technical analysis provides lower rates of return when you factor in costs, taxes, and missed opportunities.

 Take for example the chart below. In red we can see TQQQ. In blue we can see a simple 200 day moving average model applied to TQQQ. Which one has a higher rate of return? The obvious benefit of the technical analysis system is that it has a better max drawdown. That is a big win. Likewise, a system like that could prevent an even larger drawdown that the buy and hold would likely experience in a period like the dot com bust.

Naturally some want to then trade more frequently. So, let’s look at a strategy where we follow the 50 day sma. In this we can see the drawdown is about the same, but the CAGR is much worse.

This pattern continues if we shorten the SMA to a 10-day sma.

Now there are obviously ways to better utilize the 10-day sma and rotate into other assets etc. However, in general I believe there is this sweet spot. You don’t want to be a buy and hold investor with leverage, but you also don’t want to be a day trader with leverage. The downside of this sweet spot is that you will have days where you have sudden 5% drawdowns and on rare occasions larger than 10%. That just isn’t suitable for most people and that is okay. However, it is okay for me. Fortunately, I have been doing this long enough that I am able to roll with the punches. I didn’t really start trading this way until 2019, but once I did, I started to notice huge improvements. There is no covering up of the fact that 2022 was a rough year. But, in a longer-term context I think it makes sense. Take a look at this chart below of using 50/50 stocks and bonds with 3X leverage simulated going back to the 70s (source). This isn’t a perfect simulation as this free tool only allows flat leverage costs etc. However, it is a helpful demonstration. See how much money was made using leverage vs using the S&P 500. But look at the second chart below and tell me which year was the worst year for the leveraged portfolio. It was 2022. I mentioned this in 2022 and said it doesn’t mean 2023 is going to be bad. 2023 turned out to be great.

I have a host of signals I use in my algorithms. I don’t plan to share them all, but I will show my results. Below you can see a screenshot of my portfolio analyst report. In 2019, I started investing with my current approach and it has done wonders for me. I use this approach in my IRAs, HSAs, and taxable accounts. If you want to follow along you can use the blog or my links to my C2 strategies.

So I know on days like today people get jittery. I do too. We could be at the beginning of a 20% drawdown for my strategies. Or we could be about to experience a 20% launch. It is impossible to know. After the fed meeting today we may get some buy or sell signals. I do not know the future. Either way I will be sticking with my algorithms as I think they are my best chance to make money in the long run based on my extensive backtesting and live experience. I will not be taking trades because just because there has been a drawdown or because someone that hasn’t beat the S&P 500 thinks I should have tighter stops.

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

The Number 1 Strategy on Collective2

Whatever strategy is number 1 on Collective2 won’t stay that way. It never does. Let’s talk about why! The current number one strategy on Collective2 is about 16 months old. Not too long ago it popped into the number one spot. It currently has an annualized return of 133% and max drawdown of only 26.6%. That is awesome! Kudos to BlackBoulderTrading! But this strategy won’t stay number 1. Sorry.

Let’s take a look at some previous examples. Starting with my own.

Patience is a Virtue

Believe it or not my strategy Patience is a Virtue / How I Invest 1 OG was once upon a time the number one strategy. It had an annualized return of 189% in 2020 and a max drawdown of about 19%. It was doing amazing.

But fast forward from then to now and it hasn’t done nearly as well.

AI TQQQ SQQQ

Fortunately, I am not alone, this strategy by QuantTiger who seems to be a nice and reasonable person was also number one and for good reason. It had a return of about 274% with a max drawdown of less than 30%. Holy moly! Notice that is by far the best of the three discussed so far.

But carry forward from then to now it hasn’t done nearly as well.

Tax the Rich was #1

In early 2021 Tax the Rich was number one.

But fast forward from there and we see that it was a catastrophe going forward.

The Problems

  1. Past returns are not indicative of future returns. Investors need to stop writing this off as just some legal disclaimer. It is the cold hard truth! Beat it into your brain!
  2. No one is a fortune teller. Assuming no one is cheating, no one can predict fair coinflips over and over again at a rate better than 50%. They can’t! They may get it right the first time and start with a 100% success rate. They may even get the first 4 right and look like a genius. However, overtime their accuracy will continue to approach 50%. Likewise, If this year 100 new strategies start on collective2 using high levels of leverage and 100 different combinations of signals, assets, etc. at the end of two years by pure chance some of them are going to be crushing the market!
  3. Return Chasing: Investors underperform benchmarks because they return chase by buying whatever is recently popular and sell whatever has dropped in value recently. This leads to higher costs and often means buying high not low.

These are problems all investors face. The main difference between investors on C2 compared to a typical brokerage house is that C2 has higher risk strategies to pick from. So these problems get amplified. Those that are lucky have over 100% portfolio returns and those that are unlucky have 100% drawdowns etc. Sorry those of us that are lucky enough to get a 100% return year aren’t geniuses.

The Solution

I believe it is possible to do better than a typical stock mutual fund on C2 with a small tweak. Accept the following

  1. No one knows the future.
  2. No strategy is going to appear and double their investments every year for the next 8-10 years despite people saying “my hope is to get 1 double per year.”
  3. To have higher returns you must take on more risk, or get lucky.

I believe that using makes it possible to beat the market. Maybe instead of a 10% annualized with the S&P 500 a high risk investor with 3X leverage could get in the ballpark of 15% to 40% annualized for a decade. But this is very high risk! To mitigate some of the risk diversifying, reducing costs, good risk management, trend following, and other risk mitigation techniques may help make the drawdowns recoverable. Instead of a 90% drawdown from 3X leverage during 2008 maybe it is a only a 50% drawdown in 2022 because bonds and stocks dropped with rising interest rates etc. This is something I think is possible though far from guaranteed. However, getting 100% a year and not having a drawdown of 75% plus just isn’t going to happen over the course of decades. One of the two is going to break down.

How to Avoid Disaster C2

Furthermore I wouldn’t just pick any C2 Strategy. I would pick ones that fall within certain risk tolerance limits and that align with the philosophy I have just laid out. So the first thing I would check is whether or not the leader agrees that it is pretty much impossible to obtain higher rates of return without taking on higher levels of risk. They may talk about it in their description or their blogs, forums etc. (Like me!) Then I would make sure nothing fishy is going on and that the leaders are not taking on too much risk as shown in the images below. This can be the difference between a bad year and a negative 80% year!

MY Thoughts on the LeaderboardS

I also pretty much ignore the popularity leaderboard unless C2 changes the formula. I instead tend to mostly consider strategies in the category of stocks long-only/IRA friendly as this means you inherently have some risk measures in place. In fact, I did a forward test that lasted for almost 3 years where I rebalanced every so often into the top 15 strategies in different leaderboard categories. This table shows the results. As you can see the IRA board was the only one that beat the S&P500.

Unpopular opinion: the IRS is saving your booty by not letting you use 15X leverage with futures in your IRA.

In that screenshot you can see that I actually currently subscribe to Leveraged ETF Trading though I don’t AutoTrade it like I trade my own. I subscribed because it was cheap and I wanted to follow along live and get the email messages. However, I am still not comfortable enough to tie my own real money to the number 1 strategy.

You may also notice that my strategy How I Invest 2 IRA is currently the number 2 strategy on both the popularity and the IRA leaderboard. But as I have said it won’t stay there. It will have bad periods. This strategy How I Invest 2 is actually the same strategy as How I Invest 1 with mostly minor changes and just a different start date. But you can see that it is very popular right now because it is younger and only covers the period of recent good performance – which doesn’t tell you how well it will do next year! Below you can see an image of both strategies How I Invest 1 and 2 over the same time period. Notice how the NLV curves look the same if you zoom 1 into the same period that 2 existed.

I want to follow a trader that understands they can’t predict the future, they can’t beat massive trading institutions at their own game, previous drawdowns aren’t a good indicator of risk (particularly with short time periods on C2), and no 100% per year strategy is going to last on C2 as a 100% per year strategy. For myself I am that trader.

Market Inefficiencies Don’t Last

Sure I may be better at trading than Joe Shmoe, but for the most part that isn’t who you or I are competing against. We are competing against institutions that are massive and have huge resources in regards to money, people, technology etc. Likewise they are competing against each other too. If someone does find an inefficiency in the market they either take advantage of it until it is eroded, or the cat gets out of the bag and lots of people do it till it is eroded. Even people that are good run out of room to be good. Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch are great business analysist. But when you start to manage so much money that you are the market it becomes hard to beat it with any real significance. Had Peter Lynch stayed in the game long enough he likely would have had the same experience.

This quote from Sapiens touches on the point

“History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. So many forces are at work and their interactions are so complex that extremely small variations in the strength of the forces and the way they interact produce huge differences in outcomes. Not only that, but history is what is called a ‘level two’ chaotic system. Chaotic systems come in two shapes. Level one chaos is chaos that does not react to predictions about it. The weather, for example, is a level one chaotic system. Though it is influenced by myriad factors, we can build computer models that take more and more of them into consideration, and produce better and better weather forecasts. Level two chaos is chaos that reacts to predictions about it, and therefore can never be predicted accurately. Markets, for example, are a level two chaotic system. What will happen if we develop a computer program that forecasts with 100 per cent accuracy the price of oil tomorrow? The price of oil will immediately react to the forecast, which would consequently fail to materialize. If the current price of oil is $90 a barrel, and the infallible computer program predicts that tomorrow it will be $100, traders will rush to buy oil so that they can profit from the predicted price rise. As a result, the price will shoot up to $100 a barrel today rather than tomorrow. Then what will happen tomorrow? Nobody knows.”

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Hum

I’m not saying there aren’t inefficiencies. I’m saying we don’t know what they are. There are a million and one ways that people try to make you think there is an obvious inefficiency they can exploit by selling puts, covered calls, iron condors, trend following, leverage, etc. These are just different way to package risk. Go look at the iron condor index (CNDR) or a covered call ETF versus the SPY or balanced fund. These are just different and often more expensive ways to package risk.

Follow What You Want

So by all means subscribe to whatever strategies you want on C2 and use whatever methodology you want. That is the beauty of C2. But IMHO you must accept the reality that it isn’t going to be a smooth ride, no matter how good someone’s performance has been. Likewise it is hard to distinguish between luck and skill. Accepting these tips may be the difference between actually benefitting from collective2 (as a subscriber) or just losing to the indexes like every other trader.

I have nothing against any of the strategies mentioned here. I realize this post may come off as though I think I know it all. I don’t! There are plenty of better investors than me, but I do think they would agree you can’t beat the market without taking on more risk – whether that comes from leverage, higher beta, or more concentration.

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

Strategy Updates Jan 17th, 2024

Days like today can be stressful. After hitting a high of $631,754 in my personal IBKR accounts six days ago, they are down to $595,848 in a string of three losing days. That is an average daily loss of $12,000 or 1.9% a day about three times worse than the market!

The desire to jump out can be high in moments like this. After all I have had such a good run since September when the accounts were at just $461,000 as shown in the image below. But it is important to ignore this impulse to trade based on recent return. It is better to only sell when the algorithms have a trigger.

This persistent myth and desire of high returns with low volatility does great damage to a our ability to obtain either. Over and over again it is shown that active traders, hedge funds, and professionals are not good at beating a simple index fund strategy. So why should I bother trading?

It is my view that to beat a market you must take on more risk than said market. If I want to beat the long-term total return of 0-3 month treasury bills the worst way is to go buy individual 0-3 month treasury bills. The best way statistically is to go invest my money in a higher risk asset assuming I am willing to accept higher volatility and remain invested longer.

In regards to the stock market one can do this by buying stocks with higher betas, purchasing options, using leverage via futures, leveraged etfs, margin loans, etc. These are all ways to take on more risk and have different pros and cons. One can try beating the market with stock picking but any success is likely due to luck or holding a higher average beta portfolio.

Generally I think technical analysis is unable to give you higher rates of return in the long run all else and in particular beta being equal. If you trade only SPY there is little chance that after taxes and fees you will be able to beat SPY total returns over a decade. However, if you trade UPRO (3X SPY) and use some risk mitigation techniques I think you can beat SPY in terms of total returns, but regardless of what your max draw down is you most certainly took more risk. Just because something worked out doesn’t mean you didn’t take more risk.

It is best to accept that it is impossible to predict what the next days market result will be. How ridiculous would I be if I thought I could predict the outcomes of a fair dice roll beyond the prophecies of statistics. How arrogant would I have to be to think I could predict the market better than the millions of professionals with billions of dollars under management.

This is why I believe it is best to mostly remain invested and just absorb the 3% down days etc. However, this doesn’t mean no trading should occur! There are two main reasons to make a trade.

  • Better Opportunity: If we are in stocks but according to the historical statistics bonds offer a better average daily return under x,y,z metrics then it is best to sell some stocks and buy some bonds.
  • Elevated Portfolio or Market Risk: Imagine you play a game where every correct coin flip you get a dollar and every wrong one you lose 50 cents. If your money hits zero you are done. If you start playing this game with $100 in reserve it is an easy money maker. If you start playing with only $1 it would be pretty easy to lose. Sometimes the risk can be too high because of market conditions. Sometimes the risk can be too high due to portfolio positions. Likewise if I were using $100 but the games metrics changed to earn $10 or lose $9 it may be best to take a pause.

My algorithms are getting closer and closer to having some sell signals for some of the portfolios, but I am not going to exit just because I had a 6% drawdown while using 3X ETFs. This is to be expected.

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

Gold Futures vs Options

I want to have some exposure to gold and silver even though I think their benefits are often oversold. I don’t hate gold or silver. The one asset I actually hate is non-interest earning cash (not to be confused with interest bearing cash). For example, I have several bank accounts that I want and need to keep, but they pay nearly zero interest. I have about $30K in cash that is just earning almost nothing even in a 5% interest environment.

I could move the funds but I like everything else about my banks. But to make myself feel better and as though that money is being invested I am on paper combining that cash with a small brokerage account and targeting investments at 1X leverage overall. So the brokerage account may on its own be at 10X leverage but the combination needs to be at 1X. I want to evaluate whether gold futures or options offer a better solution for a portion of this account.

Continue reading “Gold Futures vs Options”

Yet Another Incorrect Gold Bug

Not that Wall Street Bets is known for its accuracy but come one. This recent post get’s things totally wrong. No gold has not done nearly as well as stocks since 1972. It literally took me 2 minutes to fact check it. All I did was go to portfoliovisualizer.com then used the asset allocation which lets you go back to 1972. I plugged in one portfolio of US stocks and one portfolio of 100% gold. This link goes directly to the calculation page.

If you own rental houses you want the price of the property to go up, but you also care about collecting rent. With businesses you may collect profits at times without selling the business or you may reinvest the profits. Historically companies paid out more of their profits. More recently they tend to reinvest the profit. That is why today you may see only about 1.5% dividend on stocks, but in the 1980s you may have seen 5% as shown below.

The M2 money claim is also misleading. If you were to graph SPY/USM2 with and without dividends it the chart with dividends would be much better than SPX. Notice I am using SPY instead of SPX because you can’t directly factor in dividends with SPX on tradingview. The date range for SPX and SPY are not the same so you will have to just look at the first chart and match it with the time frame available for SPY.

To be clear going back in history the story is roughly the same if not even better for stocks. It is just a matter of how far back your data set goes.

If you want to see longer term comparisons check out my charts in this post.

The Original Chart

SPY/USM2 without Dividends

SPY/USM2 with dividends

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.

Up $27,000 in one Day!

Screenshots, one day performance, one year performance – none of it matters! When I see posts like that I think of a casino advertisement showing jackpot winners. We know people win in a casino, but we also know that the odds of me walking into a casino and walking out with more money are not great.

With investing results it isn’t quite the same because unlike a casino the stock market is rigged in your favor. Monkeys can throw darts at a wall to pick stocks and make money overtime. It isn’t hard. The real question is are you getting results above and beyond pure luck or beyond other investment alternatives such as an index fund etc.

Yesterday my account really was up $27,000 as shown in the screenshot, but it was also down by $12,000 just the other day like I mentioned. Furthermore, you don’t know what my overall net worth is. Plus for all you know I’m just good at photoshop or it done on Fiverr. Yeah I am trying to get you attention with this screenshot, but I’m also telling you it is meaningless.

That is why I use a third party to verify my trading in several different accounts. You don’t have to just join some discord community and sift through all kinds of junk with people posting good testimonials and wonder if that was 1/100 people or really representative of the crowd. All you have to do is go to my strategies page and click the links to the third party verifier to see the results and follow the ongoing strategies. If you don’t have the time follow the trading you can even set up your brokerage account to copy me.

For the most part my strategies did not do much in terms of trading. I did rebalance some out of UPRO and into TQQQ. Other than that things have mostly stayed the same since yesterday.

Disclaimer

This is not investment advice for you. This website is designed to talk about investments but it is not designed to give you personalized investment advice. This site contains generic information that does not have the capability of taking your personal risk tolerance, goals, assets, or other factors into account. Therefore, this site and all of its related content is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only.

The owner of PatienceToInvest.com is also a trade leader on Collective2.com. We may receive compensation by promoting some collective2 strategies over others. Should you decide to make or avoid any investments or use any service due to the information on this site or related information you assume full responsibility and risks and will not hold howiinvest.com it’s associated sites or its owners responsible. You also acknowledge investing is risky and can result in the loss of all your capital and even more than your original capital in some cases.