Poll - The Stock Market and Vintage Sales

[B O'Brien]

The market has a big impact on my spend on cards, especially the big ones.

I’m a pretty heavy trader, and it’s financed a significant portion of my pickups the last few years. Not an algo trader, but generally in the neighborhood of 75-100 manual trades a week. Up markets are nice, but I really bring in the cash on flat weeks. I sell weekly covered strangles and straddles against my core holdings to bring in cash when things are hopefully nice and slow with a slight uptrend. I’ve been wearily the last couple weeks (which has paid off) and have only been selling covered calls against my positions and bringing in cash on the drops. Not enough to cover the position losses the last couple weeks, but they will bounce back in time and they are generating cash on the drops. Even active trading is an exercise is maintaining discipline and strategy, if you are doing it right.

I probably spend 20-25 hours a week doing the research and active trading. It isn’t my main job, but hopefully it will be in the next two years!

When there’s blood in the streets, it’s time to buy!

Bob