What are your winners & losers today?

[ken-do-nim]

A Tale of Two Ports

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Okay, so technically both the Taxable and the ROTH were up today, but you know how sometimes your baseball team wins despite making a half dozen errors and blowing the lead 5 times? That was the Taxable's day.

The Taxable Account was marginally up because SOXL and TECL were up, but there was a lot of red otherwise. In particular, my financials are unhappy. COF continues to free fall, but today's loser was the PFL Pimco Income Strategy Fund which cut its dividend and fell 7%. PCI, a similar Pimco fund, did not cut its dividend, and also fell nearly 2%. FAS, my financials 3x etf, dropped as well. Actually, it's been fun to watch a 3-way competition play out between FAS, SPXL (S&P 500 tripler), and CURE (health stocks like JNJ tripler). I have 100 shares of each, and all 3 were at $125 a few days ago. And CURE has taken an early lead, up to $132, while SPXL remains at $125 and FAS has dropped to $122.

The ROTH is a different story. All 9 of my equities in there were green today, and it finally crested over the $100k mark, led by MRNA and NVDA. Woohoo! (And the stock in there with the lowest value is ADBE, who is now 92 cents away from joining the $8k club).

[fenders53]

I think I will post this thread every week or two.

Glad to hear everything is going well overall. I am about back to ATH but the market is up vs my port in the mean time. The SPY has finally caught me for 2021, or nearly so. I am at far less risk than being all in on SPY so that truly is a win at my advanced age.

AUG was just weird. Several of my conservative and larger positions got beat up and held the port back. I don't have a lot of spec, but everything risky I touched ended well. I don't allow myself much spec so I can usually cherry pick some good dips in small cap stuff and be patient for a decent entry. The REDDIT crowd even dropped by and helped me out on several specs.

[ken-do-nim]

Yeah I think even once a month is cool; it's kind of like a "port check in" thread.

I'm curious what you mean when you say "spec". Can you give some ticker symbol examples?

[fenders53]

Several "specs" I play with are SOFI-TTCF-DKNG-PLTR and a few others.

These are SPAC offerings. They all have a good story and will likely be profitable. Maybe very profitable or acquired. They look cheap because they launched on the offering and crashed. They really aren't so cheap on true fundamentals.

Take a look at TTCF. They have a good story and are growing like a weed. In all the large grocery chains lightening fast Shorts are all over it so it is very volatile. When it gets sub 18 I make money and it usually doesn't take too long. Shorts are playing with fire but at the end of the day it's a food stock and trends can change. None of these stocks are profitable and some have little chance for two years. I played the swing on DKNG with football season coming. They are the first mover but I see no long-term MOAT. If you play with SPACs know what is on with share dilution and insiders enriching themselves. A lot of them play some games with shares.

Anyway I keep the spec list very short and bother to follow the drama and financials. I trade these but the reality is if I bought small positions in all on a hard market dip it's pretty likely a few would work out as investments.

P.S. if you short TTCF now you borrow shares and the current interest rate is 50% APR. They need to be right and it needs to happen VERY soon. The stock popped 25%+ on most of them and they are paying beyond loan shark interest. It's a crazy risky game.

[ken-do-nim]

Ah, I understand; makes sense. I've been thinking about trying PLTR myself at some point, largely because of the Lord of the Rings reference.

[fenders53]

Most of the SPACs are going to end in a pile of smoldering stock ashes within a year or two. It's mostly just venture capitalists end running the IPO process and dumping topical tickers for the speculators while heavy gambling is in style. There are some future winners in the bunch but most of them have flakey things going on in the financials. Doesn't stop them from getting hyped on social media. I just play a few bottom bounces and don't stay too long. PLTR is one with a chance, but they do have some employee stock compensation programs that raise eyebrows. Really do need a rough market to get them all priced properly. Until then you could lose half your money in a week after you bought what appears to be a good dip. This is one part of the market that very much looks like 1999.

[crimsonghost747]

ahh yes the SPAC thing is dangerous. It's pure gambling, you have very little actual knowledge of what you are buying. But luckily most of these companies have pretty small market caps and they aren't included in funds/indexes so it's not like they will cause massive issues to the markets as a whole. Some people are going to lose a lot of money with these, but that's just natural and no one forced them to invest in these.

I have a couple of spacs.
-HYLN: this one was an absolute mess. probably headed to zero soon.
-SPIR: I quite like this one. Good business idea, a working (and growing) business. But also very sketchy when it comes to the SPAC process itself, the large majority of the shares were left with shareholders before SPAC so what is trading on the public exchange is only a small part of the total float.

[fenders53]

After a few earnings reports you start to see what is going on. By that time they launched 300% and subsequently crashed. I waited for the crash. Maybe I pay 15 to 20 instead of 10, but now I have data to make an informed decision. Most of them have fan clubs so they have been easy bottom bounce trades. A rough market or economy will shake froth out.

[ken-do-nim]

Today sucked. I started the day up $3000, and ended the day down $4000.

Taxable
On the plus side, SOXL ended the day up 2.28%.
On the down side, DFEN, AAPL, STX, and RETL all plunged 3% or worse. DFEN is now negative for me year-to-date, though my purchases from last year are still solid. STX is now negative too. P/E of 15ish; way oversold.

ROTH
Only NVDA was up. DRN and ISRG were each down over 4%. It was fun to be over $100k but the fun's over.

So far, September has not been kind. I have no moves to make so maybe I just come back and look on the 30th.

[fenders53]

Down 1/2% for the week. I think VSTO was the only thing significantly green in my port today. I sell covered calls and they are expiring worthless so there is always a little new income each week. Just trying to be positive. My port has gone nowhere for a month or longer.

[ken-do-nim]

(09-10-2021, 03:26 PM)fenders53 Wrote: Down 1/2% for the week.  I think VSTO was the only thing significantly green in my port today.  I sell covered calls and they are expiring worthless so there is always a little new income each week.  Just trying to be positive.  My port has gone nowhere for a month or longer.

You are near retirement and have a very defensive port, so I think that's okay.  By the time I'm 60, I might very well be the same.  I doubt I'm 33% leveraged then.  Though ... you never know 

[fenders53]

Flat day and down a few tenths for the week. Port is down just under 2% off my high. I don't think the indexes are down much more though. A few more weeks of this perhaps. I see no reason for the market to crash or fly soon. If we get a real dip I expect the bulls will slow the bleeding.