The second week of August is behind us. In this investing and trading report, we will show that it was a successful week once again although our options income was smaller than in previous months. But it can still all change in the next two weeks.

The biggest achievement last week was our dividend income and net-liq growth. As you will see below, our dividend income met projections for the first time since we started building this account. We exceeded that income expectation a bit. We are on the path to receiving the entire $4,118 annual dividend income.

Our account net liquidating value also jumped more than expected. Partially due to more of our open options positions being set to expire (all look to become worthless so far), and some being rolled releasing a lot of buying power that also has an impact on our net-liq.
 

Here is our investing and trading report:

Last week, we accomplished our dividend income goal for 2021. But our account is set for larger income for the rest of the year and next year.

Dividend Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week, we have received a $460.13 dividends income. Our stock holdings and dividend income appear to be in sync as of today. We have enough stock holdings to generate $4,184.79 annual dividend income and our August dividend income projection was $439.75. Last week, we have received $467.41 total and we beat the projection. As this chart indicates, we should be in line with the projected income.

Last week, our dividend income reached 126.89% of our dividend income goal. We projected to receive $1,071 in dividends in 2021. Our growth was fast and we have received $1,359.57.

Here are our stock holdings that contribute to our dividend income:

Options Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week we again rolled options that got in trouble. The biggest trouble but also money maker was BABA. We rolled pre-emptively our strangles to lower our puts as it seems, BABA is on the way down to $100 a share. So we wanted to give our trade more room to absorb this downtrend.

We also rolled trades against MU, PMT, KBE, TSN, and SNOW. We rolled MU as it suddenly tanked by more than 7% on Morgan Stanley’s warning and price target reduction. In my opinion, the market over-reacted. But we had to adjust our strangles to keep them safe.

These rolls also released a significant amount of buying power and had a positive impact on our net-liq.

Our options positions now have 12 trades set to expire on August 20th. When those trades expire, we will re-enter new trades. We will only replace the expired trades and we will not be adding any new ones for the rest of the year to consolidate our gains and account.

We converted our call side against SNOW’s Iron Condor into a put spread as SNOW is rallying and constantly challenging our calls. Rolling call spreads is difficult and almost impossible for credit. That’s why I do not like spreads. Hard to manage and adjust them. So the best approach was to convert our SNOW call spread to another put spread. Now, both put spreads (the original one and the new one) are set to expire worthless.
 

You can watch all our trades in this spreadsheet. You can watch the spreadsheet and look for a “NEW” indication next to the trading date. When the indicator shows up, it is typically good for up to 3 days to follow that trade.
 

Expected Future Dividend Income

 
As the table at the beginning of this report indicates, our aggressive dividend growth stocks accumulation is starting to show significant progress in our current and future dividends income. Our portfolio dividend yield and dividend growth will be bringing us almost $155,595.08 in 20 years and $5,579,925.90 in 30 years. I wish, I had that $5.5 million income now. But that is the fate of dividend growth investing. It is not a quick rich scheme and building an account takes time.

We will keep aggressively accumulating dividend growth stocks to generate liveable income sooner than in 20 years. And the portfolio is starting to show this to be happening. In just 10 years, we will start receiving $17,877.34 in today’s dollars. It is not bad considering that in March 2021 it was only $3,202.52 in projected future dividends.

 
Our projected annual dividend income in 10 years is $17,877.34 but that is if we do absolutely nothing and let our positions grow on their own.

But as of today, thanks to our aggressive accumulation and dividend reinvesting, we are set to receive a $4,184.79 annual dividend income. We are 23% of our 10 year goal! True, we will need a bigger income than $17k in ten years, but this indicates that we have the potential of reaching our dividend income goal sooner than planned.

The chart above shows how our future dividend income is based on the future yield on cost and what dividend income we may expect in the future. The expected dividend growth depends on what stocks we are adding to our portfolio and the stocks’ 3 years average dividend growth rate. It is interesting to see what passive income we may enjoy 10, 20, 25, or 30 years from now.

Market value of our holdings

 
Our non-adjusted stock holdings market value increased from $100,173.83 to $103,867.40.

As the markets and businesses continue growing, we expect the value of our holdings to grow even more. We are also building cash reserves to buy depressed stocks during selloffs and corrections as well as negative analysts reports (as long as the company is still good long term).

We are accumulating the dividend growth stocks (and some income-only stocks) not only to build a strong dividend income but also to create a “rental property” in our portfolio that can be monetized and generate additional income. This strategy will also provide safety for our strangles and cover our call side.

Our goal is to accumulate 100 shares of each stock of our interest and we are getting to that goal.
 

Investing and trading ROI

Our options trading delivered a 2.77% monthly ROI in July 2021, totaling a 42.51% ROI YTD. We are getting close to our 45% annual revenue selling options against dividend stocks!

Our account grew by 286.20% beating our projections and the market.
 

Our options trading averaged $4,221.50 per month this year. If this trend continues, we are on track to make $50,658.00 trading options in 2021. As of today, we have made $33,772.00 trading options. We are over halfway of the projected annual income.
 

Old SPX trades repair

This week, we didn’t adjust any SPX trades. Our goal is to reach a level that we will be eligible for portfolio margin (PM). Once that happens, we plan on converting the existing SPX Iron Condors to strangles and trade these positions as strangles.

With RegT margin, the capital requirements would be approx. $66,586.06 and that is beyond our means. With PM the requirement for margin would drop to around $10k. That is doable in our account. Once we reach this level, we will start adjusting our SPX trades accordingly. Until then, we will just roll these trades around.

Accumulating Growth Stocks

Last week, we didn’t add any growth stocks to our holdings.

Our plan for the rest of the year is to accumulate cash. We only add dividend growth stocks when an opportunity shows up. Our rule for the rest of the year is to use 20% of our available buying power that is above $2,000 to buy new shares per week. The rest of the BP will be kept intact to grow our cash reserves.

Accumulating Dividend Growth Stocks

Last week, we added 6 shares of VICI, 15 shares of ICSH, 5 shares of MU, and 5 shares of CLX. The MU and CLX purchases were an opportunity to buy a depressed stock. MU’s fair value is $89.54, the current price $70.92; CLX’s fair value is $124.19 the current price is $168.45. The stock retreated strongly from the recent highs (as Covid fades away, the analysts think that there will no longer be a need for cleaning supplies).

In the upcoming weeks, we will continue to accumulate the higher yield income stocks to boost our income and reinvest the proceeds but within our share purchasing plan for the rest of the year (see above section).

Our goal is to reach 100 shares of high-quality dividend stocks and build a weekly dividend income as per this calendar, but we have made no changes to this goal last week:
 

 
You can see the entire spreadsheet here.

Market Outlook

The market has been in a fairly long (multi-month) consolidation with a slightly upward move. Last week, we started seeing breakouts. DJI broke above 35,000 level, finally, after several months of punching that level for the last four months. SPX had a consolidation too but it was not as obvious as with DJI.

As the chart above shows, the SPX is clearly in a solid uptrend. It then went to a month and a half long consolidation (from May to June 20), broke up, retested the former resistance, continued up and into a month-long consolidation. We are now heading higher again.

The DJI was in a four-month-long consolidation and it was more obvious. It broke up last Friday and we will also be heading higher. Why? Earnings.

We just finished a 2Q earnings season (91% of companies already reported), and 87% of companies reported positive earnings and earnings surprises. For 2Q, the earnings growth for S&P500 was 89.3%, the highest growth since 2009, and revenue growth was 24.9%. It is the earnings that drive the markets higher. Investors out there, mainly new ones, fail to understand this and put the S&P500 valuation into perspective.

The other day I have seen an investor on social media posting that he has bought puts against SPY and QQQ with a comment, that he: “hopes that the markets will drop next week.” When I told him that he appears to be trading hopes and wishes, he replied that he; “also trades technicals and that the markets are at all-time highs.” Yes, they are at ATH. And they will be there for some time, and they will be creating more ATH in the coming weeks. Why? Again. Earnings.

Market Valuation

In a bull market like the one we have, you need to understand that there will always be some extended valuation and that investors will pay some premiums. In the bear market, the prices will also tend to overshoot and show lower valuations than what the reality will be (offering great opportunities). Using P/E as a valuation metric without perspective is wrong. P/E is a lagging metrics and has zero, let me repeat, zero, predicting value. It takes into account past data and calculates P/E. But it all already happened and there is no guarantee that it will happen in the future.

Market Future Expectations

The markets are pricing in the future expectations. Yes, we can debate the methodology of deriving that expectation. We take the past data and project them into the future to come up with expectations.
 

If the expectations are higher than today, the markets go up.
If the companies beat those expectations, the markets will continue going even higher, as long as the expectations for the next season are higher than prior ones.
If the companies fail to meet or beat those expectations, expect a correction, usually accompanied by gloomy expectations for the next season.
 

And what are the economists’ expectations for 3Q?

For 3Q the earnings growth projection is 27.8%, revenue growth is 14.5%.
For 4Q the earnings growth projection is 21.3%, revenue growth is 11.0%.
For the entire 2021, the earnings growth projection is 41.9% and revenue growth is 14.5%.
 

If you are shorting this market, hoping that it will go down, you are ignoring reality and standing in front of a very fast-moving freight train.

Intrinsic value and price target of the market

Based on the earnings, momentum, and projections, I expect this market to go to $4,500 in the near term and $4,725 by the end of the year. Next year, I expect the market to finish at $5,000 to $5,145 level.

Will we see a correction? We may. It will not be economy driven correction though. We may see some outside events causing the market to correct. It may be the Delta variant of Covid, FED announcements, a sudden spike in interest rates as we saw a few weeks ago, or any other catalyst. But if the earnings projections and business performance remain intact, these corrections will be short-lived. And unpredictable.

Based on the earnings up to today, the market’s value should be at $4,040.24. But that is past. We need to look into the future. And the future is pricing in a $4,500+ market.

Investing and trading report in charts

Account Net-Liq

Account Stocks holding

Our stock holdings still do not beat the market but I am positive that the growth will pick up and exceeds the market. We just need time and continue reinvesting the proceeds. S&P 500 grew 54.46% since we opened our portfolio while our portfolio grew 21.19% only. On YTD basis, the S&P 500 grew 24.61% and our portfolio 14.21%.

But the numbers above apply to our stock holdings in our account, not the overall account net-liq growth. Our overall account beats the market growing by 286.20%!
 

Stock holdings Growth YTD

I expect our stock holdings to start outperforming the market as they mature. However, these are just our stock holdings. The entire portfolio beats the market by far thanks to monetizing those positions.

Our goal is to grow this account to $1,000,000.00 value in ten years. We are in year two.

Investing and Trading Report – Options Monthly Income

Investing and Trading Report – Options Annual Income

Our dividend goal and future dividends

We have accomplished our dividend income goal. We planned to make $1,071 of dividend income this year and we finished receiving $1,359.57. However, we accumulated enough shares to start making $4,184.79 a year.
 

The chart above shows that our dividend holdings caught up with the dividend payout cycle and we started receiving monthly dividends as projected. For August 2021 the projection was $439.75 and we have received $467.41. For September, our projection is $399.63. If we receive this income (or more), it will confirm that we are now in line with projections.

Our account cumulative return

The chart below indicates our cumulative adjusted return. It shows how the last week’s selloff shook down our returns but we are recovering along with the market.
 

As of today, our account cumulative return is 38.46% (note, data in this section are since March 13, 2021, only as that is the date we started tracking these metrics. Thus the results are skewed a bit and will show full picture next year.).

Conclusion of our investing and trading report

This week our options trading was within our expectations and I believe, the rest of the month will be even better.

We will continue accumulating the dividend growth stocks in our portfolio to reach 100 shares and continue building our cash reserves so we have enough cash to sustain any market corrections and be able to buy depressed stocks.

We will report our next week’s results next Saturday. Until then, good luck and good trading!

July 2021 is behind us and we can close the books for week #30. We can also report our first week of August 2021 (week #31). I was on vacation last week of July and I was not able to report July trading, so I will do so here.

Last week of July we received $537.00 of options premiums ending the month of July at $3,865.00 total premiums received. Our dividend income brought in $56.95 finishing the month at $228.62.

Below is our August week #31 report.
 

Here is our investing and trading report:

Dividend Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week, we have received a $7.28 dividends income. According to our holdings currently on our balance sheet, all stocks should generate $4,082.46 annual dividend income. We are not receiving these dividends yet because many of the stocks were purchased recently and we missed their most recent dividends. But next year, we should be receiving the full amount.

The chart below indicates our current annual dividend payout from our dividend stock holdings.

Last week, our dividend income reached 83.95% of our dividend income goal.

Options Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week we rolled options that got in trouble. We were not opening any new trades. Just managing the old ones. We rolled OXY, PBCT, XOM, TSLA, AES, and BA. The purpose of rolling those trades was to move the stock price to the center of the strangle. That releases a significant amount of buying power. These adjustments also delivered nice credits.
 

You can watch all our trades in this spreadsheet and you can also subscribe to our newsletter for our trade alerts.
 

Expected Future Dividend Income

 
As the table at the beginning of this report indicates, our aggressive dividend growth stocks accumulation is starting to show significant progress in our future dividends income. Our portfolio dividend yield and dividend growth will be bringing us almost $155,096.04 in 20 years and $5,653,530.69 in 30 years. I wish, I had that $5.6 million income now. But that is the fate of dividend growth investing. It is not a quick rich scheme and building an account takes time.

We will keep aggressively accumulating dividend growth stocks to generate liveable income sooner than in 20 years. And the portfolio is starting to show this to be happening. In just 10 years, we will start receiving $17,666.52 in today’s dollars. It is not bad considering that in March 2021 it was only $3,202.52 in projected future dividends.

The chart above shows how our future dividend income is based on the future yield on cost and what dividend income we may expect in the future. The expected dividend growth depends on what stocks we are adding to our portfolio and the stocks’ 3 years average dividend growth rate. It is interesting to see what passive income we may enjoy 10, 20, 25, or 30 years from now.

Market value of our holdings

 
Our non-adjusted stock holdings market value increased from $97,113.20 to $100,173.83.

Our holdings reached $100k market value. It is a good milestone to celebrate.

Our goal is to accumulate 100 shares of each stock of our interest and we are getting to that goal.
 

Investing and trading ROI

Our options trading delivered a 0.68% monthly ROI in July 2021, totaling a 41.68% ROI YTD. We are getting close to our 45% annual revenue selling options against dividend stocks!

Our account grew by 274.41% this year despite very slow growth in June and July.
 

Our options trading averaged $4,012.75 per month this year. If this trend continues, we are on track to make $48,153.00 trading options in 2021. As of today, we have made $32,102.00 trading options. We are halfway to the projected annual income.
 

Old SPX trades repair

This week, we didn’t adjust any SPX trade.

Accumulating Growth Stocks

Last week, we added 1 share of SNOW to our holdings. Our goal is to accumulate 100 shares and start selling covered calls. SNOW is an expensive stock to trade naked strangles, so we will proceed with covered calls once we accumulate enough shares. As of today, we hold 21 shares.

Accumulating Dividend Growth Stocks

Last week, we added 10 shares of VICI, and 15 shares of ICSH. In the upcoming weeks, we will be accumulating aggressively the higher yield income stocks to boost our dividend income furthermore.

Our goal is to reach 100 shares of high-quality dividend stocks and build a weekly dividend income as per this calendar, but we have made no changes to this goal last week:
 

 
You can see the entire spreadsheet here.

Market Outlook

I am still bullish and think this market is going higher in the upcoming weeks. The reason? Earnings! No matter what you believe about the current market valuation, this market is heading higher because of earnings. What location is for real estate valuations, earnings is the most important metric for the stock market.

And the second quarter of earnings was spectacular. On a per-share basis, earnings grew from an expected 205 per share to 255 per share. That translates to a $5,533 SPX value. At today’s prices, we have a lot of room to go higher.

Investing and trading report in charts

Account Net-Liq

Account Stocks holding

Our stock holdings still do not beat the market. However, I expect it to change over time. S&P 500 grew 53.37% since we opened our portfolio while our portfolio grew 19.18% only. On YTD basis, the S&P 500 grew 23.52% and our portfolio 12.20%.

But the numbers above apply to our stock holdings in our account, not the overall account net-liq growth. Our overall account beats the market growing by 274.41%!
 

Stock holdings Growth YTD

I expect our stock holdings to start outperforming the market as they mature. However, these are just our stock holdings. The entire portfolio beats the market by far thanks to monetizing those positions.

Our goal is to grow this account to $1,000,000.00 value in ten years. We are in year two.

Investing and Trading Report – Options Monthly Income

Investing and Trading Report – Options Annual Income

Our dividend goal and future dividends

We are on track to accomplish our dividend income goal, currently, we are at 83.95% of the goal to reach $1,071 of dividend income this year. Currently, we accumulated enough shares to receive $4,082.46 in annual dividends if we have held through the entire dividend cycle.
 

The chart above is the corrected chart comparing the projected MONTHLY dividend income vs received dividend income. And again, the projected dividend income is based on the stock holdings up to date. That is the income we would have received if we have held over the entire dividend cycle.

Our account cumulative return

The chart below indicates our cumulative adjusted return. It shows how the last week’s selloff shook down our returns but we are recovering along with the market.
 

As of today, our account cumulative return is 34.23% (note, data in this section are since March 13, 2021, only as that is the date we started tracking these metrics. Thus the results are skewed a bit and will show full picture next year.).

Conclusion of our investing and trading report

This week our options trading exceeded our expectations. I hope, the rest of the month will be even better.

We will continue accumulating the dividend growth stocks in our portfolio to reach 100 shares. We will also replenish our cash reserves to bring them back to 25% of our current net-liq value.

We will report our next week’s results next Saturday. Until then, good luck and good trading!

The third week of July is behind us. I am on a vacation and it is really difficult to do anything when you have to attend family and invest as well, so this investing and trading report took a bit more time to complete than usual. My next week will be probably late too.

Last week’s investing and trading were good. We made nice options premiums income receiving $1,245.00 and OK dividend income making $14.27. Out net-liq was stangating, though. But let’s quickly review the last week’s report.
 

Here is our investing and trading report:

Dividend Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week, we have received a $14.27 dividends income. According to our holdings currently on our balance sheet, all stocks should generate $4,110.62 annual dividend income. We are not receiving these dividends yet because many of the stocks were purchased recently and we missed their most recent dividends. But next year, we should be receiving the full amount.

The chart below indicates our current annual dividend payout from our dividend stock holdings.

Last week, our dividend income reached 77.95% of our dividend income goal.

Options Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week we reopened all trades that expired the previous week. We opened new strangles against APAM, AES, KBE, O, PPL, and OXY. We rolled a few existing trades, and we opened a new long LEAPS trade against SPLG. We also started selling covered calls against that LEAPS option.

The new trades and adjustments delivered $1,245.00 options premiums last week.
 

You can watch all our trades in this spreadsheet and you can also subscribe to our newsletter for our trade alerts.
 

Expected Future Dividend Income

 
As the table at the beginning of this report indicates, our aggressive dividend growth stocks accumulation is starting to show significant progress in our future dividends income. Our portfolio dividend yield and dividend growth will be bringing us almost $169,834.32 in 20 years and $7,612,835.00 in 30 years. I wish, I had that $7 million income now. But that is the fate of dividend growth investing. It is not a quick rich scheme and building an account takes time.

We will keep aggressively accumulating dividend growth stocks to generate liveable income sooner than in 20 years. And the portfolio is starting to show this to be happening. In just 10 years, we will start receiving $17,811.10 in today’s dollars. It is not bad considering that in March 2021 it was only $3,202.52 in projected future dividends.

The chart above shows how our future dividend income is based on the future yield on cost and what dividend income we may expect in the future. The expected dividend growth depends on what stocks we are adding to our portfolio and the stocks’ 3 years average dividend growth rate. It is interesting to see what passive income we may enjoy 10, 20, 25, or 30 years from now.

Market value of our holdings

 
Our non-adjusted stock holdings market value increased from $94,437.23 to $97,113.20.

Our goal is to accumulate 100 shares of each stock of our interest and we are getting to that goal.
 

Investing and trading ROI

Our options trading delivered a 4.51% monthly ROI in July 2021, totaling a 42.09% ROI YTD. We are getting close to our 45% annual revenue selling options against dividend stocks!

Our account grew by 258.44% this year despite very slow growth in June and July.
 

Our options trading averaged $4,434.00 per month this year. If this trend continues, we are on track to make $53,208.00 trading options in 2021. As of today, we have made $31,038.00 trading options. We are halfway to the projected annual income.
 

Old SPX trades repair

This week, we didn’t adjust any SPX trade.

Accumulating Growth Stocks

Last week, we didn’t add any positions.

Accumulating Dividend Growth Stocks

Last week, we added 50 shares of QYLD, and 15 shares of ICSH. In the upcoming weeks, we will be accumulating aggressively the higher yield income stocks to boost our dividend income furthermore.

Our goal is to reach 100 shares of high-quality dividend stocks and build a weekly dividend income as per this calendar, but we have made no changes to this goal last week:
 

 
You can see the entire spreadsheet here.

Investing and trading report in charts

Account Net-Liq

Account Stocks holding

Our stock holdings still do not beat the market. However, I expect it to change over time. S&P 500 grew 52.51% since we opened our portfolio while our portfolio grew 18.05% only. On YTD basis, the S&P 500 grew 22.67% and our portfolio 11.07%.

But the numbers above apply to our stock holdings in our account, not the overall account net-liq growth. Our overall account beats the market growing by 258.44%!
 

Stock holdings Growth YTD

I expect our stock holdings to start outperforming the market as they mature. However, these are just our stock holdings. The entire portfolio beats the market by far thanks to monetizing those positions.

Our goal is to grow this account to $1,000,000.00 value in ten years. We are in year two.

Investing and Trading Report – Options Monthly Income

Investing and Trading Report – Options Annual Income

Our dividend goal and future dividends

We are on track to accomplish our dividend income goal, currently, we are at 77.95% of the goal to reach $1,071 of dividend income this year. Currently, we accumulated enough shares to receive $4,110.62 in annual dividends if we have held through the entire dividend cycle.
 

The chart above is the corrected chart comparing the projected MONTHLY dividend income vs received dividend income. And again, the projected dividend income is based on the stock holdings up to date. That is the income we would have received if we have held over the entire dividend cycle.

Our account cumulative return

The chart below indicates our cumulative adjusted return. It shows how the last week’s selloff shook down our returns but we are recovering along with the market.
 

As of today, our account cumulative return is 28.51% (note, data in this section are since March 13, 2021, only as that is the date we started tracking these metrics. Thus the results are skewed a bit and will show full picture next year.).

Conclusion of our investing and trading report

This week our options trading exceeded our expectations. I hope, the rest of the month will be even better.

We will continue accumulating the dividend growth stocks in our portfolio to reach 100 shares. We will also replenish our cash reserves to bring them back to 25% of our current net-liq value.

We will report our next week’s results next Saturday. Until then, good luck and good trading!

Another week of July is over and it is time to provide our weekly investing and trading report for our main business account. We run two accounts – one account is our main business account where we trade options against dividend stocks we either own or plan on owning. Our second account is a challenge account that is designed for beginning investors starting with little money to invest and grow their account from $100 to $75,000. We provide a report of our business account (the main account) every Saturday on weekly basis and we provide our challenge account review every month on Monday evening at the beginning of each month.
 

Closing strangles positions

 
When we open a new strangle trade as I wrote about last week our main goal is to keep that trade running all the way to expiration. If everything goes well and the stock doesn’t move violently to either side, we let it go and let it expire.

Sometimes, the stock runs up or down hard, and either our call or put side gets challenged. That is the time we start watching our position carefully and if any of this situation happens we roll the trade:
&nbs;

The challenged side gets beyond delta 30

In this case, we review how much buying power would be released if we roll the trade. If the roll releases $800, $1,000, $2,000, or more of the buying power, we will roll the trade. But it must be a roll for credit. If a rolling trade would result in a debit trade, we would probably let it go and accept the assignment. But if the trade was naked and we do not have enough cash (or 100 shares) to accept the assignment, we roll farther away in time to make sure the trade will bring in credit, even a small one.
&nbs;

The challenged side gets in the money

A stock drops so fast that we are unable to roll soon enough to keep the price between the strikes. In this case, we roll the trade for sure. We roll lower (or higher) and away in time. If the stock was near the money or at the money (but still in the money), we can wait a bit or we can roll in the next expiration day, and we roll the challenged side out of the money. But again, such rolling must result in a credit. If the next expiration day rolling still requires debit, we go further away in time and we go as far away as it turns from a debit trade to credit trade.

The challenged side gets deep in the money

If the stock gets deep in the money due to a market selloff, we again do the exact same moves as described above but we do not go into the next expiration day. We go to 90 DTE or farther away. Why? We want to avoid early assignments. We then maintain that trade at 90 DTE or farther until we are able to roll the trade closer to the money. In order to roll deep in the money strangle, we sometimes have to change the trade to a staddle (meaning we bring the trade calls and puts strikes together). That helps in rolling the trade away for credit.
trade.

None of the above helps

If none of the above-mentioned strategies help, for example rolling would require adding more money or more buying power at the bad trade, we then take assignments. But if we do not have enough cash for put assignment, we start rolling the trade away in time as is. No changing of strikes, only moving it away in time. Usually, the opposite side brings in enough credit to offset the cost of the challenged side. This buys us time to accumulate cash and take a stock assignment. If it is a call side, we start hedging the trade by buying shares to cover the call side. If this is not feasible (for example our call strike is at $30 a share and the stock is trading at $100 a share then hedging makes no sense. In this case, I add a put and sell 2 puts to roll 1 call. It is a kinda uneven strangle. But it takes planning, releasing cash for the new obligations. If your account is stressed, then just roll until you are ready to let it go (or the market decides to work with you, and the stock retreats and allows you to roll up (or get out).
trade.

Just do it

 
When doing all these adjustments, you must do it. You must try it. I always play with those adjustments, meaning I am simulating them. I do not place those trades but I simulate the adjustments to see what the trade would look like and what the result would look like if I do that adjustment. When I am happy with what I see, I do it. If not, I rather wait. It’s a game and you have to play it. If you are not sure, just roll the entire trade away as is – same strikes just longer expiration until you find a solution you like.

As I said a few times before, options are a fluid trading vehicle. No rules are set in stone. The best way to find a solution to a bad trade is to play with it. What worked once may not work again this time and something else would work better.

Here is our investing and trading report:

Dividend Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week, we have received a $23.55 dividends income. We feel that the income will be growing faster as more of our holdings mature and become eligible for dividend payouts. According to our holdings currently on our balance sheet, all stocks should generate $4,044.00 annual dividend income. It is not as of yet because many of the stocks were purchased recently and we missed their dividend. But next year, we should be receiving the full amount.

The chart below indicates our current annual dividend payout from our dividend stock holdings.

Last week, our dividend income reached 76.62% of our dividend income goal.

Options Investing and Trading Report

 
Last week we rolled a few trades to release a stressed buying power in our account. We rolled TSLA, SPCE, SPX, BA, AAPL, CROX, CSCO, MU, TSN, OXY, DKNG, and IJS. These trades are now in good shape and some were ready to expire worthless for a full profit.

We opened new trades against QYLD (short put), and PMT (short put).

We had 8 trades that expired on Friday:
 

We will be reopening these trades during the next week or two.

The new trades and adjustments delivered $719.00 options premiums last week.
 

You can watch all our trades in this spreadsheet and you can also subscribe to our newsletter for our trade alerts.
 

Expected Future Dividend Income

 
As the table at the beginning of this report indicates, our aggressive dividend growth stocks accumulation is starting to show significant progress in our future dividends income. Our portfolio dividend yield and dividend growth will be bringing us almost $169,107.79 in 20 years and $7,689,838.06 in 30 years. I wish, I had that $7 million income now. But that is the fate of dividend growth investing. It is not a quick rich scheme and building an account takes time.

We will keep aggressively accumulating dividend growth stocks to generate liveable income sooner than in 20 years. And the portfolio is starting to show this to be happening. In just 10 years, we will start receiving $17,602.81 in today’s dollars. It is not bad considering that in March 2021 it was only $3,202.52 in projected future dividends.

The chart above shows how our future dividend income is based on the future yield on cost and what dividend income we may expect in the future. The expected dividend growth depends on what stocks we are adding to our portfolio and the stocks’ 3 years average dividend growth rate. It is interesting to see what passive income we may enjoy 10, 20, 25, or 30 years from now.

Market value of our holdings

 
Our non-adjusted stock holdings market value increased from $93,468.90 to $94,437.23. Last week, we added 50 shares of QYLD, 10 shares to ICSH, 1 share of SNOW, and 20 shares to PMT.

We use ICSH as a savings account and as of today, we are mostly in a preservation mode. We feel like our balance sheet is way aggressive and has no cash reserves. Therefore, we are mostly adding money to our cash reserves.

Our goal is to accumulate 100 shares of each stock of our interest and we are getting to that goal.
 

Investing and trading ROI

Our options trading delivered a 2.83% monthly ROI in July 2021, totaling a 40.41% ROI YTD. We are getting close to our 45% mark!

Our account grew by 258.41% this year despite very slow growth in June and July. I suggest the growth was suppressed by the market volatility and options trades increasing their maintenance requirements that ate the net-liq value. Once the options expire (hopefully) the net liquidating value will go up faster.
 

Our options trading averaged $4,256.14 per month this year. If this trend continues, we are on track to make $51,073.71 trading options in 2021. With the income of $29,793.00 to date, we are half way to this projected income.
 

Old SPX trades repair

This week, we rolled our old SPX trades way higher and away in time. I am not yet decided what to do with these positions. My original plan to try to roll it out of the money doesn’t work. So, I am now thinking to keep the trades rolling until I will be able to apply for portfolio margin and convert these Condors into strangles. With a portfolio margin, I will only need about $10,000 buying power per strangles. With a Reg-T margin, I need $55,000 buying power. Not feasible to trade under such circumstances.

Accumulating Growth Stocks

Last week, we added 1 share to our SNOW position.

Accumulating Dividend Growth Stocks

Last week, we added 50 shares of QYLD, 10 shares of ICSH, and 20 shares of PMT to our dividend growth positions. In the upcoming weeks, we will be accumulating aggressively the higher yield income stocks to boost our dividend income furthermore.

Our goal is to reach 100 shares of high-quality dividend stocks and build a weekly dividend income as per this calendar, but we have made no changes to this goal last week:
 

 
You can see the entire spreadsheet here.

Market Outlook

The market was going up last week and it reached (almost) our price target. It got close to it. But that move upwards was not very convincing. It was in fact very weak move and we had a few hiccups on the road up. A week ago, the market dropped on inflation fears but recovered quickly just to lose it all again at the end of this week.

The market is looking for direction. And this trend may continue for a week or two. We may also see a correction of 10% (more or less). And honestly, even though the market may continue higher, I am more and more in favor of seeing a correction sparked by inflation fears.

But I am in the FED camp, or Jerome Powell’s camp, who insists that the inflation is transitory. I agree with that. I agree with renowned economist Lacy Hunt who says inflation is transitory and typical to recovering economies. We had a spike in inflation after every recession. We had a spike in inflation in 2009 after the economy started recovering from the Great Recession and people were predicting another crash. Remember that? Many were predicting a crash all the way until 2013-2014! But that never materialized.

Inflation doesn’t cause a recession. It is an effect of a recession. When businesses came to life after March 2020 40% crash boosted by the US government support and people receiving stimulus checks (in a similar manner as we experienced in 2009) it is obvious that there would be a spike in inflation. And there will be the same exact doom and gloom talk about it.

I still remember some pundits saying in 2009 – 2013 that this would all end badly because FED lowered interest rates to zero, started a huge QE program, and as interest rates started skyrocketing FED would have nothing left to fight it off. Well, 13 years later, history repeats itself.

Here is a video of an interview with Lacy Hunt and his excellent presentation. I would like you to watch it. It will give you a great insight into the economic behavior around recessions. How GDP behaves? Money flow and money supply? Inflation? We have experienced it all in 2009 and people already forgot.

So, if you see the market selling off on fear of inflation, buy. It is a dip that will leave naysayers and doom predictors biting the dust.

But, this doesn’t mean that the market will not sell-off. As I mentioned above, I expect it to cool off a bit. I expect it to retest our previous breakout and go lower to a $4,250 level. It may be just a one-day dip, quick and fast, that would recover quickly, or it may not materialize at all.

One reason for this expectation not happening is simple – earnings, earnings, earnings. And we just started another earnings season and so far, the companies are beating it. And as in real estate, location is the most important factor driving prices, in the stock market, it is earnings. And the market trails the earnings predictions so far. When we see earnings going down, expect problems:

Based on these estimates, the SPX should be trading at $3,394.00, 27% lower than today, and based on the future earnings estimate, the SPX intrinsic value is at $4,119.36 (5% below the current price). The stock market is pricing the price range to be at $4,080.00 and 4575.00. With this cold market looking for a direction, it is difficult to say where it wants to go.

Investing and trading report in charts

Account Net-Liq

Account Stocks holding

Our stock holdings still do not beat the market. However, I expect it to change over time. S&P 500 grew 49.59% since we opened our portfolio while our portfolio grew 16.39% only. On YTD basis, the S&P 500 grew 19.74% and our portfolio 9.41%.

But the numbers above apply to our stock holdings in our account, not the overall account net-liq growth. Our overall account beats the market growing by 258.41%!
 

Stock holdings Growth YTD

I expect our stock holdings to start outperforming the market as they mature. However, these are just our stock holdings. The entire portfolio beats the market by far thanks to monetizing those positions.

Our goal is to grow this account to $1,000,000.00 value in ten years. We are in year two.

Investing and Trading Report – Options Monthly Income

Investing and Trading Report – Options Annual Income

Our dividend goal and future dividends

We are on track to accomplish our dividend income goal, currently, we are at 76.62% of the goal to reach $1,071 of dividend income this year. Currently, we accumulated enough shares to receive $4,044.00 in annual dividends if we have held through the entire dividend cycle.
 

The chart above is the corrected chart comparing the projected MONTHLY dividend income vs received dividend income. And again, the projected dividend income is based on the stock holdings up to date. That is the income we would have received if we have held over the entire dividend cycle.

Our account cumulative return

The chart below indicates our cumulative adjusted return. It shows how the last week’s selloff shook down our returns but we are recovering along with the market.
 

As of today, our account cumulative return is 28.50% (since March 13, 2021).

Conclusion of our investing and trading report

This week our options trading exceeded our expectations. I hope, the rest of the month will be even better.

We will continue accumulating the dividend growth stocks in our portfolio to reach 100 shares. We will also replenish our cash reserves to bring them back to 25% of our current net-liq value.

We will report our next week’s results next Saturday. Until then, good luck and good trading!