I am still trying to be bullish, I am trying to get enthusiastic about this rally and it’s been 3 weeks since I went to mainly cash rather than leave the majority of our Buy List on the table.  The Dow was at 10,850 that day and I didn’t think we’d see the top of 11,000 for more than a day but now we’ve been up here for 2 weeks and yesterday we had strong(ish) volume on a strong up day and I’m still having trouble believing it BUT - believe it we must as long as our upside levels hold.  

Those levels are now: Dow 11,000, S&P 1,200, Nas 2,500, NYSE 7,700 and Russell 720.

We had a nice, relaxing holiday but now we have hard work ahead as I think the investing environment is littered with land mines - ready to blow up in our face if we take any mis-steps.  This bull has horns and we were gored by daring to go bearish in our $100K Portfolio but our Buy List is all bull and, hopefully, no crap as we try to make safe plays out of the finest companies.  

Ideally, our Buy List plays are about finding bargains.  We may love AAPL, but they are not on sale.  Earning season will hopefully be a great time to do some bargain hunting so this list will be a work in progress but for today we’re just going to review our remaining open plays from the last list and also I would like Members to please use the comment section on this post to suggest companies we should be looking at.  Who do you think is trading way too cheaply?  We especially love dividend payers, of course and I’ll be looking for companies that service the top 10%, not the bottom 90% - who still look pretty screwed to me and, from yesterday’s news, it seems like the top 10% is down to the top 8% but it doesn’t seem to bother the markets so we won’t dwell on the implications until we’re below 5% and, of course, our goal is to be in the top 5% when it all hits the fan…

After having really good timing on our Feb 8th entries, March 18th seemed like a good time to take the money and run and we shut down 2/3 of our Buy List postions.  Let’s do a quick review of the survivors, ones that were "so good" that I couldn’t bear to cash them out and see how they…

Next week will be the last week for our very profitable portfolio, that started with $100,000 on April 10th.

This portfolio has already made 19% in 16 weeks and many members wanted to start a new one from scratch.  So, by popular demand, we will be restarting a brand new portfolio the week after options expiration, also with $100,000 and also a hedged portfolio but this time with the goal of drawing a monthly income.  I got this idea when I went down to Florida last week and spoke to many people who asked me about their investing accounts.  Many of these "safe" accounts had been cut in half or worse and the returns they were producing were coming in at 5% year - if that and people were counting on this money for their monthly expenses.  I spoke to many people with $1M in the bank who were living off $50,000 a year in interest and dividends!

Using options and good hedging strategies, we have been able to produce a return in our virtual portfolio of 19% in just 16 weeks (12% cash, 7% unrealized).  I’m not advocating someone take a whole $1M and shift it to stocks and options but, if you can make 20% on $200,000 while your other $800,000 makes a "safe" 5%, your annual income goes from $50,000 to $80,000 - that’s a lot of early-bird specials!  I will, of course, be happy to answer any adjustment questions on this portfolio anytime during chat but we will no longer be tracking it weekly or making new plays.  The goals of the new portfolio will be similar and the new trade ideas can be applied whether you are looking to draw an income or just start building long-term set of holdings for reinvestment.

In the last $112,007 Portfolio Update, from July 28th, we remained bullish and it really paid off with another $2,117 in unrealized gains ($6,690 not included in above total) as we made a very well-timed bottom call the week before and ran with it.  We have haven’t had to call an "audible" in two weeks, sticking to our plan as the market held up nicely.     

The first few weeks after you sell options are usually the worst and the rising VIX had boosted the premiums of the puts and calls we sold but none of that matters because we played a little more aggressive to the upside and, despite losing $3,080 on our covers, we are still way ahead of goals.  As usual, we are…

In Part 1 of this post, we talked about the potential long-term value of taking a chance on companies that used to pay dividends but don’t at the moment.  In addition to the 7 selections we had last Tuesday, I would urge members to keep on the lookout for additional prospects we can discuss as the long-term benefits of catching these stocks at the lows can be amazing!  This was the same logic that led me to pound the table back in March on C, BAC, WFC, JPM and even the hated GS - stocks that have tripled or better in just 3 months. 

We had a very easy time selecting those stocks as we were able to hedge our entries and our long-term logic was that, at those low prices, we could be fairly sure of producing a good option income even if they never restored the dividends but the kicker was the possiblility of owning, for example, C at $1.50 down the road when they go back to paying $1 per year dividends.  Imagine having a year’s salary put away on stocks that pay you almost a year’s salary every year in dividends alone! 

Don’t worry, you didn’t miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we just have to work a little harder at the moment.  As I noted with our LYG example, there are still beaten-down financials that are worth a look and today we’ll look at 2 more of our 21 Tuesday selections (one now, one later) and go over the trading plans for those positions.  Note that the LYG trade ties up just $1,035 in cash to make (hopefully) $1,465 in year 1 with a commitment of $3,535 if you end up owning all 1,000 shares on Jan 15th. 

By making sure you are on top of these figures, a person making $30,000 a year who has $5,000 in an investment account count take a modest 6-month gamble like this.  If this trade pays off, $5,000 becomes $6,465 and 500 LYG shares are secure (about $2,500 worth) or, at worst, you have 22% more cash for the next trade.  The next trade secures another potential dividend payer and if every 6 months you can secure just another $2,500 worth of dividend paying stocks for under $2,000 then in just 10 years, investing just 10% of a $30,000 annual salary, you could, very conservatively, have $50,000 worth of dividend paying stocks supplimenting your…