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September 2015 trading, investing, and dividends results

Another month is over and it is time to summarize it and review how my trading and investing did. This month wasn’t good for me from the trading perspective. In June 2015 I created my new options trading strategy, but I was overconfident about so I neglected defense.

I didn’t expect at all that the market could drop 390 points in three days and stay low. I thought that if it drops this fast, it would also recover fast, similar to October 2014 when we saw a huge drop but even bigger V-shape recovery.

The drop left me with a few trades in bad shape and I tried to manage them into closure with a minimal loss. This month I wasn’t successful and one trade ended at almost a full loss.

So I learned my lesson. The hard way.

And I also adjusted my strategy a bit.

 


 
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 · September 2015 trading results

During the violent days I realized that it was inconvenient for me to manage two accounts with many trades. I was trading on my regular trading account and ROTH account. I had a hard time to manage my ROTH account and be fully focused on my trading account.

I decided to reduce my ROTH trading to have open only one or two trades at a time in my ROTH IRA account. I will be opening a new trade only after the old one is closed.

I also created a stop loss order system using OCO order (one cancel other). I will be capturing 50% of the credit or close the trade if my stop loss gets hit.

To set a trigger price, I will be using an underlying price in lieu of the multiple of collected credit. I will set the trigger price 1% below the short call strike or 1% above the short put strike. When the stop is hit, the touched spread will be closed and I will move on. I may roll the opposite spread down (or higher) to collect more credit, but that’s all. Then I will move on.

 


 
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Here is my trading result for the month:

 

September 2015 options trading income: -$1,325.00 (-11.32%)
2015 portfolio Net-Liq: $5,903.77 (-5.36%)
2015 portfolio Cash Value: $7,963.77 (-16.13%)
2015 overall trading account result: -49.57%

 

Although September wasn’t my worst month it definitely contributed to it. My new trading strategy is now showing a loss. I have three months until the end of the year to improve my results, but I expect this year to be a losing year.

Here are the results of my options trading:

Options Income
(Click to enlarge)

Here are the results of my new options strategy:

Options Income
(Click to enlarge)

I still hold a trade against AGU, but I decided to deal with this trade later and either close it or move it. Besides that trade I now only trade options against SPX.

 
Here is the entire account value from the beginning of tracking it up to today:

TD Account Value
 

I hope that my next trading month will be a lot better than those last two months which literally erased all my gains this year. But it happens and it will be happening. You need to be ready for situations like this that you will have a drawdowns at some point.

 


 
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 · September 2015 dividend investing results

My dividend investing strategy has been adjusted too this month. I decided to add DRIP to my ROTH IRA account and reinvest all dividends. Before, I used dividends for trading in my ROTH IRA account and after that use trading proceeds to buy new dividend stock. But this process showed up slower than what I expected. And I didn’t want to miss some stocks which are now fairly cheap after current selloffs. And if the market continues selling, many dividend stocks will offer great entry price. With DRIP I could participate on this and be buying good quality dividend stocks as they go down.

I use the DRIP strategy in my other accounts such as Scottrade where I use FRIP dividend reinvesting program. This time I am using DRIP in all my investing accounts and from now on I will be also reporting my DRIPs here.

 

Dividend stocks added or removed from portfolio:

 

September 2015 dividend stock buys: none
September 2015 dividend stock sells: none

 

 

Dividend stocks DRIP:

 

September 2015 DRIP: none

 

Here are my ROTH IRA trading/investing results:

 

September 2015 dividend income: $70.27
September 2015 options income: -$866.00
2015 portfolio value: $16,442.20 (8.87%)
2015 overall dividend account result: -5.78%

 

Here my dividend income:

ROTH IRA account value
 

Here is the entire account value from the beginning of tracking it up to today:

ROTH IRA account value

 


 
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Below is my dividend income review for the entire year:

Dividend Income
My ROTH IRA dividend income breakdown per month and per company.
 
 

 · All accounts

Besides trading and dividend accounts I also have 401k account, emergency savings account, etc., which I do not report in detail. You can review those accounts in my “All Accounts Value” table at the bottom of My Trades & Income page.

My accounts dropped from previous month and are losing -4.36% (up from previous month) for the year. Considering how bad the market was this month I think, this is not a bad result. I believe, that this is just a temporary drop which in 6 months nobody will remember.

What do you think?

How about your investing or trading result?
 
 





4 responses to “September 2015 trading, investing, and dividends results”

  1. MU says:

    I also appreciate your updates. I currently focus more on options trading. I learned a lot from your website. Keep up the good work!

    — MU

    • Martin says:

      Thank you MU, I had a chance to learn a lot this month and now putting it all to work. Let’s see how it would work.

      Thanks for stopping by. I am glad at least someone appreciates my blog.

  2. DivHut says:

    Thanks for sharing your options and dividends update with us. Always love to read the results from other like minded bloggers. Your options results scare me a bit. I guess that’s why I still stay on the sidelines. I am not comfortable yet exploring the selling of puts or calls. Your dividend income is still rocking along. Can’t complain about cash rolling in no matter what the market does.

    • Martin says:

      DH, I know, it looks scary, but this drop was caused by a few old trades where I didn’t use stop loss or any protection and got punished for it. I tried to manage those trades to get out without big losses, but unsuccessfully. For the new trades I already use stop loss orders. I still have one trade which will eat up my trade’s income and after that I should, hopefully, be good to go. I am an optimist and believe that one day I will perfect my trades and be profitable. But without trying and trading, you won’t get there. The lessons I am learning you will not find anywhere, not in books, not in advice of other traders, it is something you have to experience yourself. I have been trading for three years only. It is considered a short period to be a good trader. But I will get there and I will make tons of money. I know it.
      Thanks for stopping by.

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