Jan 8 2026

 Tie Tie is 2 today!!!

Started a small position in COPART (CPRT). Heard great things about this co. AMP chart gives me a buy signal as well. starting a position later! Another great compounder. 

I also need to have a closure to the Russian cold winter. I am in FL, a tropical paradise. Dont want be prisoner in siberia! 

Jan 7

 I was at the Hudson Apts. My broker was very sure that we found a good tenant for the left Apt. No deposit and 1st month rent so far. 

My broker also told me about an off market duplex, which has similar size as mine, that is looking for a buyer. It sounded very appealing on paper, only asking for $250k, with potential income of $3k per month. It is water front too, next to my current duplex. I offered $230k. They told my broker that they already had a $250k offer with mortgage. I countered $250k contingent upon inspection. I demanded to see the property. They wanted me to sign the paperwork thru email. When I read it on my email, it turned out they are a wholesaler whose name sounded Indian (all of my bias bells started ringing:). 

Saw inside, a disaster. Only 1 bedroom apt on each side, not like 2 bedroom apt on mine. $1200/month on each side. Even a $150k offer + $80k renovation cost ($230k, my 6 months worth of work, just for $2400/m?). It does not work! Pass. Plus, I cannot trust the wholesaler, who apparently don't have solid backup offers!!!

The stocks that went up on Venezuela kidnapping, came back down! The VP did sound very cooperative. The US only accomplished the kidnapping only, nothing else, no regime change, no oil?

In the past, I add more shares to an existing position when there is a breakout in the chart. However, if the stock came right down and go lower, I may choose not to do anything in the past. This caused more losses because the position size was so much larger (after additions). I decided to sell out the added shares if the stock failed the breakout. In other words, the added shares have a different stop loss price than the original shares. We will see if the improvement helps the portofolio. 

Jan 5 2026

 First day of trading after venezuela's kidnapping of her president Maduro. CVX/SLB incating higher because they already have some presence in the country

Real Estate: I need to meet Yury for some remaining jobs, needing to be at Hudson to cleanup and make sure it is ready for the new tenant. I should go tonight! 

My investment return in 2025 was unsatisfactory: single digits vs. almost 20% for spx and more for ndx. 

Here are some of the key reasons: 

1) Overtrading! - need to study my trading patterns and reduce mistakes.

2) bought at the high and sold at the low: When the vix index jumped 2 pts, I usually reduce exposure, but failed to increase exposure on the rebound. What was worse was: effectively my max exposure at the market peak and lowest exposure at the market bottom - worse timing! 

 bought CNQ because it came down 6% due to invasion of venezuela (over done). The co has a long history of increasing dvd and long reserve life. 

added 200 shares of vitl at the support level. If it breaks, I need to unload these and more. 

added small PBR, which only came in 1.5% on maduro. 

Happy New Year

Random thoughts : 

• Trade reviews
• Strategy reviews - Value?
• Think more and react less
• Deal with my biggest enemy - myself

Spike Option Strategy

 I would venture to set up this type trade in the beginning. 1. Set up a straddle (or buy stock and put position delta neutral). 2. When it is reaching a frenzy, sell OTM put position (GME case sell $250 put for $120 for instance). 3, sell the stock and call after a climax top (tricky here), exit the put positions at the same time ?. 4. after the collapse, add to the call position

Fed Summary

Summary of Fed Facilities in Response to Covid-19 Government Shutdown of Economy:
Unlimited QE - UST
• Unlimited open-ended purchases of US Treasury and GSE MBS securitiesQE - MBS
• Purchases of MBS securities backed by US GSEs$1 Trillion Repo Market Interventions
• Purchases of US T-Bills in order to avoid disruption to the short-term Repo marketTALF (Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility)
• Eligible collateral expanded to AAA CMBS and newly issued collateralized loan obligations. Size of facility remains $100bn. Only static CLOs will be eligible. Single-asset single-borrower CMBS and commercial real estate CLOs will NOT be eligible.Municipal liquidity facility
• Total size: Facility is being funded initially by $35bn from the Treasury using funds from the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) and the SPV can purchase up to $500bn. As it stands, the SPV will terminate on September 30, 2020.PPPLF (Paycheck Protection Program Lending Facility)
• Facility established to lend to small businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of the CARES act, taking PPP as collateral and with no recourse to borrowerPMCFF (Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility)
• Eligible issuers must be rated at least BBB-/Baa3 as of March 22, 2020. May purchase corporate bonds as sole investor in issuance. May purchase no more than 25% of syndicated loan or bond at issuance. Corp bonds & loans levered 10 to 1, other assets levered 7 to 1.
SMCFF (Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility)
• Eligible issuers must be rated at least BBB-/Baa3 as of March 22, 2020. If downgraded after March 22, rating must be at least BB-/Ba3 on date that the facility purchases the issuance. ETF purchases will be aimed at providing exposure to the US IG credit sector with remainder for ETFs that provide exposure to the US HY credit sector. IG purchases levered 10 to 1 and HY purchases levered 7 to 1. Other assets levered in 3:1 to 7:1 range depending on risk.
Main Street Lending Program
• Fed will buy 95%, eligible lender will retain 5%, recourse loan up to 4 years.
• Total size: $600bn. Treasury will back it with $75bnSupport for the Paycheck Protection Program
• The Fed also announced details of the new Paycheck Protection Program Lending Facility. Depository institutions that originate PPP loans are eligible to borrow from the Fed with the PPP loans - which are guaranteed by the SBA - as collateral. They will be funded at 35bp, essentially serving as a discount window for PPP loans. The loans will remain on bank balance sheet but will not consumer capital - assigned a risk weight of zero percent under the risk-based capital rules.

Lessons of 2020 - 04-08-20

Market:

up 1-2% pre-open. Mortgage players have more good news NLY came out and said there is no margin call issues, share buybacks too. The whole space is rallying again. IWM seems to run ahead of other indices.

Corona: US. tops 400k, altho the rate is slowing. That is the news which has been driving the market.

Corona stocks (GPS, UAL, DRI, MAC, APO, CAKE, RCL, BA, HLT, BX, KSS, M, CCL, F, C, FITB + 5% - 12%) and Mortgage REITs (MITT, TRTX, NRZ, NLY, ACRE, AI + 20%+) are leading the way. Very few stocks were even weak. The breadth is close to 5:1. BKLN/HYG are up 1-1.5%. The fed's action was really timely.

Portfolio:

BIIB, NFLX, and AMZN are basically doing nothing while the corona and REITs are soaring. The portfolio is effectively short. BIIB and NFLX calls should be closed because there does not seem much upside to them. Closing BIIB/NFLX against QQQs.

Given how much index vols came in, it may make sense to turn the portfolio into a reverse dispersion where long index (more than 1 to 1) vs. stocks which have very high vols.

Timing in trading stocks are critical: the stocks trade in waves or follow certain kind of rhythm. Good idea + timing is everything!

The portfolio suffered two consecutive days of big losses:

•  Lessons & lessons: Now, all I had was the lessons + the sleepless nights:)
• One positive note was the discovery of some of the mortgage REITs, and MSR servicers.
• The positions were made sense when it was first set up, but over-stayed its welcome. 
• All the stocks were 100% correlated and went down together. When the trade is set up to long cheaper vol names, which happened to be the stocks least affected by the corona virus. During the market bounce, good names bounced along with the bad, but the vol really came in hard, with high vol names have more room to fall, therefore, benefiting the trade. 
• When the market tanked again, it was also favorable because the good names did not tank as much. 
• During the latest rally of past 3 days, the worst names had their biggest move. Since the vols already had fallen (no room to fall), it was all negative delta. 
• Also the rally happened when AMZN, NFLX, BIIB were already sitting on the top of the chart. They were not about to make new highs. As such, they were like cash. The short side was a naked short as it turned out.  
• Even if the idea makes sense, the timing of the trade needs to be optimal: figuring out how much expectations are baked into the stocks. 
• The other blinding issue is that the market value of the long gives the impression that it is market neutral, but not in reality. 
• Also, admittedly I expect the market to go down.