Trade Alert 3/8/2024

A couple of weeks ago we paid up for some SPY insurance. We spent $2,000 on that insurance which is more than we have spent for insurance since this program began a few years ago. It could’ve helped us in the event of a market downturn. Instead, the markets have pushed even higher. Actually the net effect is a positive in that most of our stocks have gone up by more in value than we have lost in the insurance. However, the stock portfolio gain is only a good thing if the stocks stay up from here long-term or we sell to lock-in those gains. We always want to increase our asset column. It is a personal goal that I have to increase my assets column each and every month. However, there are times when it probably makes sense to reduce your stock holdings for a short period of time. Move that money to cash/bonds or something less volatile and then increase the stock holdings later. The timing of such moves is VERY difficult. So we basically wait for a situation like this where we feel that we simply need to act. We think it makes sense to reduce our holdings and move some money to cash. We aren’t dumping massively but instead we are going to trim a few places. Our timing in the short-term may end up being terrible. We may very soon start selling OTM puts to buy some stuff cheaper but will try to be a bit patient in doing so. If anyone owns stocks in margin, then this is a great place to at least consider reducing. We own all of our stuff in cash, meaning that we have not spent more to buy that our account holds in cash. We are always sad when we reduce our stock asset column but here we go: We are going to let 100 shares of our DELL be “called away” over the weekend. We will continue to hold 100 shares going forward. That has been a grand slam overall. We had purchased another 100 shares of DIS in the midst of some chaos regarding the company and the return of Bob Iger. That was bought at 85/share. That worked out well overall! Sold 100 shares of our Disney DIS stock at 111.25 today and bought back 1 of the covered calls. Buy to close: DIS April 19th (monthly) 115.00 strike call Debit: 2.35 We will continue to hold the other 100 shares. We sold the remainder of our Dicks Sporting Goods (DKS) stock today. Sold 10 shares at 182.10 We had bought this when the stock was really beaten down following an earnings miss. We added a 1×2 call spread against 100 of our SNOW shares. The March 8th covered call expires this weekend for a full profit. Buy to open: SNOW April 19th (monthly) 175.00 strike call (ratio of 1) Sell to open: SNOW April 19th (monthly) 185.00 strike call (ratio of 2) Credit: 1.55 We collect a +1.55 credit. The risk is being “called away” from our stock at a 196.55 value. If the stock were to explode even higher than that amount, we miss out on some upside.