Day 3 + the difference between 9/24/19 and 1/9/2020

Happy New Year. It’s been a while.

I started this 3 ish months ago knowing I would probably stop posting every day (because I tend to burn out). But thankfully, money’s always growing and the market’s always changing.

So here’s the 1/9/2020 update.

Pretty decent, huh? Keep in mind that these positions may be only several weeks, maybe several months’s old. The longest position is the gold position, for sure.

Some callouts before I break down each part of the portfolio:

This is “Money Weighted” return, not strict return. This is because, in scenarios where you add money to a position, it lowers the “strict” return. I don’t know the proper terms for these concepts, so I hope I’m making some sense. So yeah, 35.41%. Also, I’m up 27.29% in 2019, just 1.6% shy from the SPX return of 28.88%. So, pretty decent, but not good enough.

The 2020’s will be the decade that I beat the market.

Now, on to each holding, starting from the top:

USD Hedge ($GLD 18%, $SLV 12%)

I’ve been in this “USD Hedge” position (30%) the longest. It’s mostly precious metals, 60/40 gold/silver etfs. They have high expense ratios (I think $GLD has a .4% expense ratio, compared to VTI or other vanguard etfs of .08% or something). But it’s 30% of my portfolio, as I treat this as my “cash” position with some speculation that these precious metals’ value will rise as the entire world’s central banks are easing rates and pumping money into the system. The US Federal Reserve is the last beacon for safe money, and the Fed will probably continue lowering rates from 1.5% to 0. I don’t want to say this will happen in 2020, but they’re running out of room to cut rates during a downturn, which will drive up the price of gold and silver.

Of course, all speculative. NEXT

Altria ($MO 10%)

I love the $MO stock. It’s a “sin” stock, because they own parts of a alcohol, vaping, and weed company. Plus they’re traditionally a cigarettes company (Marlboro, I believe). Their dividend yield is nice, they’re at 6.71% div yield as the time of this writing. Plus they were at a low, roughly $40 which is where I bought in to it at.

I’ve recently decreased this position in my portfolio (from 25% to 10%) over the past couple weeks because I wanted to take some profits, and I wanted to make more room for the rest of my portfolio.

Twitter ($TWTR 10%)

Twitter is great, they’re at a nice low and have rallied nicely since I’ve bought in at $30.66. They haven’t benefited from the same 2019 tech rally as the tech giants $FB, $GOOGL, etc. They actually fell from $45, so I’m probably going to take half the position off at some point between now and $45.

Vanguard’s Emerging Markets ETF ($VWO 10%)

Dollar weakens, Emerging markets strengthen (generally)

Gold Miner’s ETF ($GDX 10%)

This is my extra speculative bet that gold prices will rally, as suppliers of gold will rally higher than the price of gold as it increases. Sector play, but speculative because it depends on if gold prices will rise. It’s almost like a leveraged gold position, because if gold rallies 10%, the gold sector (gold suppliers) will rally 15-20%. I can explain this later, too tired now.

VIX Futures ETN ($VIXY 10%)

I’m a fkn degenerate

Funko Inc. ($FNKO 10%)

They’re at a nice low, and I think they might see a rally when they announce earnings in a couple weeks. Holiday season, these were a great gift, they’ll show great revenues. Probably. Idk.

XOP and XLE (im getting tired, both of these comprise 10%)

These are sector ETFs as a speculative play that oil’s price rallies off the back of increased tension in the ME. I bought in because $WTI was at a nice low but I don’t invest in oil as a commodity, but I’m holding onto them now that this whole Iran stuff is going on. Not going to go into it much further than - I really thought the Strait of Hormuz was going to become restricted again, but I realize they won’t do that because it hurts their economy, too. So now I’m holding onto this because, why not

Happy 2020. Let’s see what this decade brings.

Day 2 - 9/24/19 (a quick one)

I’m updating this real quick because I’m bored. but nothing too fancy. here’s what my portfolio looks like

decided to say fuck it and just post my potfolio values because… $2k ain’t really much in the grand scheme of things.

I’m rebalancing my spx sectors into mostly consumer staples. im not gonna post the image cuz im too lazy. pce

Day 1 - 9/23/19

I’ve been managing my portfolio for about a year now, and I’m up roughly 15%.

The market is at 19% ytd right now.

I’ve decided to change up my strategy, and employ a 60/40 portfolio of 40% equities and 60% precious metals, as I believe most equities are overpriced at the moment. Still, I’d like to take advantage of certain events, so I’ve decided to stop memeing and instead place 20% S&P components divided by sector (aka the market), and 20% “Bear Gang Picks.”

Here are my Bear Gang picks:

I feel that these stocks would benefit during an economic slowdown. T pays a nice dividend and alongwith VZ. KMI for that Oil/Energy play. COST because I used to have Kraft in there, but Kraft is a meme while Costco is actually an amazing purchase. BTI and MO because of regulation with vaping and big tobacco. Plus MO is at new lows and vices are probably going to go up after a slowdown.

Generally, I’ll keep these all weighted around this price. This is because 1) I’m lazy and 2) this isn’t really a list, I thought it would be a list but I actually can’t think of anything else. Moving on.

SPX by Sector:

Here’s where things will get interesting. My Roth IRA is somewhere in the thousands, which is kinda small, but I probably will never disclose the exact amount. That 20% is just a few hundred dollars, so each of these funds will have less than $100 invested in them each. Probably less than $50 each, tbh. But fractional shares are a beautiful thing, thanks to M1Finance. I’ve started with weighting all of these relatively equally, except XLE which is at 10% because I’m a degenerate.

Finally, I have a sector called “USD Hedge” :

I called it USD Hedge even though it’s really just precious metals, because I’m treating this as a USD hedge. I believe the Central banks’ easing during the end of a bull cycle signals a triggering of an inflationary cycle, because of the expansion of the monetary supply during times of growth. Traditionally, Precious Metals have been treated as a store of value, and the “traditional” currency.

Here’s what my portfolio looks like:

28.8% is a lie, really. It’s the “money-weighted” return, not the total or actual return. Please disregard that %. I just left it for illustrative purposes.

Don’t trust that 28%, it’s just m1finance and using a weird measuring system. hence the i next to “Return.” It’s really around 15%, thanks for getting into Gold at $1350s or so. It’s now around $1520, for perspective.

Anyways, here’s to whenever I update this next. WHO knows when that will be, because I never do anything consistent ever in my life. anyways peace

Overview.

I stopped using this website because… usually my ramblings weren’t so focused.

I’ve decided to change that. I’m using my website to track my progress. I’m using M1Finance, a semi-automated brokerage which manages my roth ira. This broker does not charge any fees, so any trades can be considered free, although they only happen once per day. Note that the gains are also tax-free because it’s in my roth ira.

I know some people may think this is a little crazy, actively managing my roth ira. But I’m going to see if I can manage it better than most, just by sheer common sense, and the little help of some price analysis. It won’t be a heavy focus, but I may throw in a chart or two here or there. If you don’t like it dear reader, well, too bad.