End of the Month Summary – March 2021

March was a decent month for me, as long as I don’t compare it to the Dow and S&P 500’s returns. I ended March with a Net Asset Value (NAV) of $131,455.06 according to Interactive Brokers (IB) after ending February with a balance of $130,012.40. This gain brings me to a year-to-date gain of almost $6,500, with only $3,500 remaining to reach my original $10,000 (8%) goal. I had three closing trades in March to give me a realized gain of $1,940.66, including the $22.43 in short interest and $85.86 in short dividends I had to pay. $1,610.40 of that gain was from closing out my short TLT position. Since I bought at the same price I sold, the gain was from my original naked calls and my final covered puts that both get accounted for when the position closes. (I got behind on my posts and forgot to mention that I closed my ABNB April $150 naked put for $0.30 on March 31, and paid $30.78 including commission. I made realized gain of $469.33 on the trade.

Quicken reported that I have an account value of $131,420.77 which is a penny off from what IB shows after I subtract the negative $15.07 in interest accruals that IB adjusts in advance of the actual payments. I’ll update the penny difference later in case I get a rounding error in the other direction next month.

I’m only 27.19% invested in this account as of the end of March. I have $95,701.36 left in uninvested cash and need to find the time to get some more trading going. My plan is to prioritize it tomorrow. I had my second vaccine shot yesterday and I’m starting to feel that foggy head side effect. I doubt I’ll get much work done today outside of a couple of clients’ accounts I’ll have to focus on after a break.

This is my asset allocation in my IB account as of the end of March 2021:

• Large-cap ETF: 24.28% (Only QQQ for now)
• Mid-Cap ETFs: 0%
• Small-Cap ETF: 3.04% (MJ naked puts only since I haven’t replaced my ABNB puts yet)
• International: 0%
• Individual Stocks & Other Sector ETFs: 0%
• Bonds: 0%

Here’s how I compare to the major indexes:

• Dow Jones: YTD change +7.76%, 12-month change +50.48%
• S&P 500: YTD change +5.77%, 12-month change +53.71%
• NASDAQ Composite: YTD change +2.78%, 12-month change +72.04%
• Small-caps: YTD change +11.29%, 12-month change +87.31%
• Mid-caps: YTD change +7.65%, 12-month change +71.22%

My return according to Quicken through March 31, 2021:

• YTD change: +5.16% (not annualized)
• 1 Year change: +33.11%

The VIX ended the month at 19.40 and the VXN ended at 24.89. The VIX peaked on March 4, when it hit an intraday high of 31.90. The VXN peaked the same day at 37.86. Both volatility gauges have calmed down significantly and are at or near one-year lows. As always, there’s no telling if this trend will continue for long or if we’ll get a bounce back to the recent norms. I need to get more exposure, but doubt I’ll take too much risk all at once. I’d rather wait until volatility picks up some, but also don’t want to leave so much cash on the sidelines.

A while back, I mentioned that my ex-wife moved back in with me due to her Early Onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Here’s a video I made on my YouTube channel. My girlfriend and I run this channel for the gardening and farming sides (no trading content) of our hobbies. I thought some of you who have been following me for years would like to see the update.