Option trade diary #1 – ASML position 1

New series, as I stated in my option article newsflash post. I am going to mix it up. Talking about positions I take and why I take them. These posts are by no means advice , and should not be taken as such. It’s merely me taking you through my thought proces. Do your own homework and risk assessment at all times before doing anything !

ASML is a leading company in chip machines. Which is a highly cyclical business. It’s also one that is highly complicated and very expensive too enter. Hence when your at the top changes are you will be there for a while.

ASML has been one of my favorites for a lot of years now. I have bought the stock at first and as volatility is common I started writing put options. This time things are no different. Given the global trade war and attack on Chinese technology by the American president these are trying times. But in the long run this is only a minor hick up. As everything nowadays is technology driven it’s only a matter of time before things get back too business as usual. With these sort of ‘cyclical’ stocks the price fluctuations are always a bit over the top. Which has it’s direct influence on the option prices.

As I am long in any stock I own, I have written (sold) a put option for december 2022 with a strike price of 140 euro’s per share at a price of 19,05. Which means I received 1905 euro’s for taking te risk of having too buy 100 shares at 140 euro each. Why 1905 when the price states 19,05 ? Well 1 option contact always has the underlying number of 100 shares. So option prices should always be multiplied by 100.

I will sell this when it hits 25% profit, which means buying the option when the option price hits 14,27 (Rounded and including all transaction costs).

Why 25% ? , well what I have done is checking my historic options trading profit percentages and they on average run around the 25% mark. Which means that is psychological my comfort zone. I am not really good at letting my profits run, also these profits tend too be made in shorter time periods than my larger profits. Mostly in a matter of days instead of months. So my conclusion is I am a bit impatient and therefore this is my threshold for now.

Not very scientific maybe, bit then again it’s what I tend to do. So in order not too make things overly complicated I simply put the order in and don’t check it anymore.

First post on options and trading options new style. Will be interested too hear your thoughts and comments.
I will be making more of these as I am opening and closing positions, hopefully you will find my thought process interesting !

Option articles newsflash

Well I have been thinking a lot about my option article series, one representing the actual positions and another one explaining my option strategy and learning curve. I have decided on stopping with the overview. It’s not really teaching anything and I was struggling on getting all the information in a readable format. As such it was just a spreadsheet with some of my gains and losses. While these can be interesting , my current way of thinking is I will post a blog as soon as I enter a position with and explaining why I think it’s a good idea.

Not as an advice that anyone should follow, just showing my thought process presented by a real life example. This combines the two article series in a more learning focused way. And it will save me a lot of hassle presenting large spreadsheets in a meaningful way.

Hopefully these adjustments will help the articles along.

April 2019 – Dividend

Another month passed by quickly. And so it’s time for another dividend update. This month and the next are always big on dividend coming in. This year is no different. It’s also got a few decent increases within the payments which is a nice bonus. Although this is exactly what is supposed too happen, it still feels as a bonus.

Mind you it can also go the other way round. Dividend payments can stop just like that and stock prices can implode as well. The last decade has been amazingly good. So for all of you who are just starting out. Have a long focus and don’t be deterred when things go sideways. Because they will at some point in time.

For now we are enjoying a nice ride, so here are the results for April :

DateStockCurrencyAmount
25-04-2019Ahold DelhaizeEUR70,00
24-04-2019Cisco systemsEUR8,75
16-04-2019WP Carey Inc. REITEUR9,21
15-04-2019NedapEUR50,00
10-04-2019Vanguard FTSE All-WorldEUR57,71
02-04-2019Vanguard Dividend AppreciationEUR1,36
02-04-2019NikeEUR1,96
01-04-2019Coca Cola CompanyEUR8,03
TotalEUR207,02

March 2019 – Dividend

Another month has gone by, time flies and all that. And as every month , another bit of dividend came rolling in. It doesn’t take up a minute of your time and yet it gets you a bit of money. Pretty nice !
Comparing this year with last year , Royal Dutch Shell is missing, I am on route in making my portfolio more environmental friendly and durable. So Shell was sold. I’m aware most of the oil and gas company’s are still in the ETF’s I hold and I am now figuring out more durable ETF’s.

The rest of the list is made up of the usual suspects , see the overview. See you next time !

DateStockCurrencyAmount
29-03-2019Unibail-RodamcoEUR5,40
20-03-2019Unilever EUR7,74
15-03-2019
DowDupont incEUR3,36
14-03-2019MicrosoftEUR8,14
TotalEUR24,64

March 2019 – Option positions

A short note on my options trading. This month I also took some option positions and this time a bit farther away into the future. Since I have time and no rush. In the meantime I am learning and reading up on options. This is a very slow process for me so no new part in the ‘what are options’ series. It’s a work in progress.

I also noticed my options table is a far cry from readable on smaller screens, and less bigger ones. So I am currently in the process of making this table more readable and understandable as well. Maybe it’s needs to be in a totally different format. I am aiming to get this in order with the next update.

Strategy wise nothing has really changed. I only incorporated a part of my savings as a buffer, which is more a state of mind really than anything else. I have not yet need to transfer any money from my savings into my investment account. I have added 1/3 of my savings towards my options portfolio , just in case.

I know this is more of an active approach towards portfolio management and something I don’t do with the vast majority of my portfolio. But this has turned out into a nice hobby and one I can do at my own pace , when I feel good and are up for it. All qualities in an activity which I need.

So for next time I hope having my new overview sorted. I a way people understand it and it’s readable. Until next time !

Februari 2019 – Dividend

Oops , almost forgot to write this post entirely. The Februari dividend update. This month only 1 position that pays it’s dividends. Apple being the one. My Februari dividend income has always been the worst month of the year. Probably the reason I forgot about writing about it. But in stead of combining it with March, I decided too report Februari separately. Quick one this time.

Anyway Februari did indeed produce dividends. A bit less than last year, exchange rates are against me , taking it down 14%. But exchange rates are just a fact. I am not doing anything in the way of compensating for these fluctuations , the portfolio is simply far too small. Well see you in March for the next dividend update.

The numbers :

DateStockCurrencyAmount
14-02-2018AppleEUR9,77
TotalEUR9,77

Februari 2019 – Option positions

Time for another update on the options trading part of my portfolio. On January the 18th all my options positions endend worthless. Which was fine by me because I wrote them, so all the premium was collected. The total for January is 19,14 , which is not a lot but it’s the first run of the experiment, so I am very cautious.

For the expiration on the 15th of March the following positions have been added. Writing 2 calls on parts of my positions in BAM and Aegon, which will bring in 20 euro’s and some sold puts on Philips. I was a little too late for Februari, so March it was.

I have adjusted the table accordingly for a complete overview of all my trades so far. Now it’s a matter of getting more knowledge about riks and modeling risk in order too get more out of it. For now I will remain at my 100% covered strategy. And as all learning and reading goes extremely slow in my case, this will probably stay that way for a while.

Total for January : 19,14

Date position openOption QuantityPriceTotal amountBuy / Sell End dateTransaction costs
Open/ClosedResult
03-01-2019Ahold Delhaize Put 19.00 18 January 201914,004,00Sell18-01-20190,85Closed3,15
18-12-2108Bam Put 2.20 18 January 201915,005,00Sell18-01-20190,85Closed4,15
5-12-2018Philips Put 29.00 18 January 2019 113,0013,00Sell18-01-20190,85Closed12,15
04-01-2019Aegon Call 4,50 15 March 2019210,0020,00Sell15-03-20191,7Open
07-01-2019BAM Call 3,00 15 March 2019210,0020,00Sell15-03-20191,7Open
22-01-2019Philips Put 24,00 15 March 201917,007,00Sell15-03-20190,85Open
30-01-2019Philips Put 30,00 15 March 2019120,0020,00Sell15-03-20190,85Open

January 2019 – Dividend

Another month has passed, first in 2019, time for another dividend update. Comparing 2019 with 2018 , the January dividend has gone up 50% , mainly because of growth in the portfolio. I don’t know if it’s also down to individual company’s raising there dividends. To be honest I wasn’t too bothered looking it up. Maybe I can muster up some will power the next time round.

It’s still fun watching dividends come in, although I follow the discussion around whether dividend investing is still as viable today as it was in the past with great interest. I think it a bit of a save guard for management not too take too short term decisions , and look more towards stability in growth as opposed too fast growth. Well for me it still works well, and for now I will keep it as part of my investment strategy alongside the ETF part of the portfolio.

Now the numbers :

DateStockCurrencyAmount
23-01-2018
Cisco SystemsEUR8,10
15-01-2018
W.P. Carey IncEUR9,03
10-01-2018
Walt Disney CompanyEUR0,77
09-01-2018
Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETFEUR37,11
02-01-2019NikeEUR1,92
TotalEUR56,93

Options – Basics , writing covered options

Part two in this new options series, this time we start looking at the practical use of options within a portfolio and the how and why of buying and selling options. In the first part we established options are more or less working as insurance. Because this is also a learning process for me I will keep it simple again. We are going to write covered options. Which basically means selling rights while covering the risk 100%. I know there are a lot more possibilities but as I said I keep it simple.

Writing a covered call option :

Our example in part 1 we had a Call Ahold Delhaize, strike price at 20 euro’s and a expiration date of 21 December 2018. Which just to remind ourselves means we have the right to buy 100 shares Ahold Delhaize at 20 Euro’s until the 21th of december. Puts are the other way around. The right to sell.

Now we are going to sell one, risking you have to deliver 100 shares of Ahold Delhaize at the expiration date for 20 Euro’s.

Why would you want to do this ? Well let’s say you bought 100 shares Ahold for 15 Euro’s and the current price is at 18 , you fully expect somewhere around 20 should be achievable in the future. You can now do two things , wait until the stock hits 20 Euro’s and decide if you want to sell then which can take quite a bit of time. Or you can sell a call option, with the strike price of 20 euros ,you can do this each month or sell one a few months down the line. The biggest risk is you would have too deliver the 100 stocks at 20 if the price at the expiration date is higher than 20. Which is annoying if it suddenly jumps up to 25. If it stays below 20 at expiration date you get to keep the shares and have also collected the cash for which you sold the option.

You can repeat this each month or on another interval you set for yourself, and have a little extra return on the equity. Basically you expect a rise but not all too sudden and with this set you will benefit from the time decay in the option. In other words time pushes value out of the option, given it has the expiration date as a hard line at which the option terminates.

Writing covered puts:

Exact opposite , you have got the cash , want to buy 100 shares of Ahold, but instead of just buying them , you will write a put. Let’s say one that is due in a month, at 18 euro’s. You again collect the option premium, reflected in the price you sell the option for, and the risk is covered because you have the 1800 euros cash in your account.

What is the advantage ? Well , the collected cash will cover your transaction cost and the assignment cost if you get to be assigned too buy the shares. The risk ? The stock drops significantly in the time you have until the expiration date of the option. Which would have been as bad when you bought the shares outright. Plus you can always take the loss and buy the option back if it’s gets out of hand.

Everything in between is another form of profiting from the time decay. Mostly this tactic is useful when the stock is moving sideways or when a slight drop in share price. With writing options you can also build in some buffer against the market going against you so instead of writing an option with the strike price of 18 which was the price when you wanted too buy , you can opt writing an option with a strike price of 17, give a bit of space, your premium will be lower.

There is a certain amount of expectation when trading options, a probability of future events. But with writing covered calls and starting out small you can see the benefit of time decay. And collecting premiums is good fun as well. It’s not huge amounts of money but all little amounts add up.

In the next episode I will specifically address time decay in option prices, until next time.

2019 goals

A new year and new goals, this will be my first time setting goals , up until now I mostly used to do lists and loosely set goals. Resulting in missing real focus. In turn running up the to do’s on the good old to do list.

First up the finance side of tings. Which can be roughly divided into 2 parts, mostly cost reduction and building wealth. The easiest way for reducing costs is paying off the mortgage which is the only and biggest debt. Last year saw the biggest reduction so far. It’s so easy it’s hard not simply keep on doing it. However I am now at a point which all the alternatives in the market, renting or buying another house will be more expensive. I have no way of living any cheaper. The mortgage needs paying off so I will continue doing the extra payments but the focus needs too be on other more lucrative investments. So the goal for 2019 is paying off an extra 1200 euro’s. That’s it.

Which leaves the other part , my stock and ETF portfolio. A fixed amount will be added each month, divided over ETF’s and handpicked company’s. In which dividend payments will be one of the main factors, as part of my passive income strategy. My goal is getting my dividend payments up too 1500 euro’s per year. In 2018 the total got over a 1000 for the first time, 1021,80. A small milestone. Let’s see if my new goal is achievable.

Something new I got into in 2018 and developed more during the year is options trading. Which turned out too be the suprise of 2018. I used too write options every now and then on stocks I wanted too buy, not really consistent and just for fun. Mostly I didn’t get the stocks and I tried again. After some time I started making this a more systematic approach and I also started writing options on stocks I had in my portfolio.

At the end of 2018 I also started using part of my cash buffers as collateral for writing options. Usually you will have a good idea which part of the buffers you don’t need in the coming month, so it’s pretty safe using a part of this as a way for generating extra returns.

All in all this approach yielded a nice 10,21% return on risked capital. Not shocking in the option trading world but for me an encourachement for learning more about it and applying this in 2019. I will write about my learning process in the option series on this blog.

So 3 finance goals, keep downsizing the mortgage , generate more passive income and enhance the result with option trading.

But without my health all the money is worthless. 2018 has been a year with a few stark reminders of my permanent brain damage. I took on too much in some instances and got into a few nasty periods afterwards. 2019 is all about finding and keeping the balance again and really accept my new me. I can’t keep going on adding more work each time until I crash. The focus will be on being stronger, training the left side of my body and going back too the start of my revalidation process and taking and celebrating small steps forward. I will elaborate more on this in coming blog posts. For now have a very good 2019 !