Month End Summary – March 2019

March was a pretty good month for my account, although I’m still not too close to being fully invested like I should’ve been after the recent small price dip for stocks. While I’m still nervous about when (not if) we will have another meaningful correction, I need to stick with my trading to stay up with the good times while we have them.

My account ended March with a Net Asset Value (NAV) of $90,005.66 according to Interactive Brokers (IB) after ending February with a NAV of $89,304.93. I had a gain of $700.73 (~0.78%) on paper for March (ahead of the Dow’s 0.05% gain and below the S&P 500’s 1.79% gain for the month). I had $113.70 in net realized losses, which includes my two closing trades (XLF and IWM covered calls), $23.84 in interest and $71.34 in dividends (FEZ, XLF, and IWM). Quicken reported that I have an account value of $89,953.65, which is a penny more than what IB shows after I add in the $52.02 in interest accruals that IB credits in advance of the actual payment. I’m going to wait a little longer to see if $0.01 the rounding error fixes itself.

I’m 96.62% invested in this account as of the end of the month, 12.65 percentage points above the end of February. I have $3,046.19 left in uninvested cash, but it’s misleading. My Apple covered call was almost $15 in the money at the end of March and doesn’t have much time value left in the contract. I need to go ahead and close it or at least make a replacement trade soon. I was hoping for a deeper dip in March to let me buy in cheaper and I’m still kind of hoping for it as stocks continue their rally today.

I have two options remaining that expire in April. One is my one AAPL $175 covered call I just mentioned and the other is my MDY $350 naked put that was less than $5 in the money on Friday, but it’s just under a dollar in the money as I write this mid-morning on the first of the month. This MDY position has been a bit of a barometer for me for whether or not I should be more heavily invested. While it’s in the money, I’m less inclined to jump in head first, but if it gets closer to a full profit, I might edge in deeper.

I still haven’t decided about transferring more money into this account to bring it back to $100,000. Maybe I’ll try to get to that move by June 30 as the halfway mark for the year. One delay to that decision was making sure I didn’t owe much on taxes. Instead, I ended up getting little bit of a refund after adding some extra money to my SEP-IRA.

This is my asset allocation in my IB account as of the end of March:

– Large-cap ETF: 0.0%

– Mid-Cap ETFs: 38.89%

– Small-Cap ETF: 17.01

– International: 4.07%

– Individual Stocks & Other Sector ETFs: 33.88% (most of this is large cap since I have 100 AAPL shares, 200 XLF shares, and one MSFT naked put included here)

– Bonds: 0.0%

– Short ETFs: 0.0%

According to Morningstar, here’s how I compare to the major indexes (including dividends) through the last trading day, March 29, 2019:

– Dow Jones: YTD change +11.81%, 12-month change +10.09%

– S&P 500: YTD change +13.65%, 12-month change +9.50%

– NASDAQ Composite: YTD change +16.49%, 12-month change +9.41%

– Russell 2000: YTD change +14.58%, 12-month change +2.05%

– S&P Midcap 400: YTD change +14.49%, 12-month change +2.59%

My return according to Quicken through March 29, 2019:

– YTD Return: +7.65% (not annualized)

– 1 Year Return: -10.56%

The VIX ended the month at 13.72 and the VXN ended at 16.62. The VIX finished March 1.06 points lower than the end of February. The VXN finished 0.55 points lower. The VIX peaked on March 7, when it hit an intraday high of 17.81. The VXN peaked on March 22 at 20.42. These readings remain decent levels to sell volatility – not too cheap and not too complacent. Throw in the fact that April is the third best month for S&P 500 returns (after December and November), and we might squeak out another good month before a real sell off hits.