ETF Junkie newsletter year in review

ETF Junkie

Year End Summary 2016

The ETF Junke had a great 2016 finishing up 22.52% beating the S&P 500 (using SPY’s #’s) by 10.5% whose total return was up 12% for the year.  We had a total of 40 trades open and closed in 2016.  (LABD  is still working with half of the position closed up 12.8%)  

Of the positions that were closed, 24 trades were losers & 16 winners, and currently, we have 3 open trades which are all winners at the moment.

Trade Date	Symbol	Shares	avg cost	total cost	Last Price	mkt value	P&L	% P&L
	CASH		1	$26,265.06	1	$26,265.06
11/17/2016	LABD	1200	14.75	$17,704.50	18.95	$22,740.00	$5,035.50	28.44%
12/27/2016	TZA	1830	19.31	$35,346.30	19.85	$36,325.50	$979.20	2.77%
12/29/2016	SOXS	3450	10.47	$36,112.50	10.78	$37,191.00	$1,078.50	2.99%

Biggest % winner:

GUSH was our biggest percentage winner on the year with a portion of our position making 116%.  Unfortunately, this position was a small 10% of our portfolio and only 5% of the portfolio enjoyed the 116% gain, the other 5% gained “only” 40.16%.

Trade Date

Symbol

Shares

avg cost

total cost

Closing price

mkt value

P&L

% P&L

Date Closed

3/2/2016

GUSH

145

34.6

$5,021.50

74.9

$10,851.50

$5,830.00

116.10%

5/3/2016

Held for 62 days. This is half of the position w/ first half closed out

3/2/2016

GUSH

1,450

3.46

$5,021.50

4.86

$7,038.00

$2,016.50

40.16%

3/7/2016

Held 5 days

Biggest Dollar winner:

Our LABD trade from 9/29 was our biggest money maker for 2016, making $21,206.65 on a large exposure trade.

9/29/2016	LABD	1435	16.4	$23,538.50	23.1	$33,139.50	$9,601.00	40.79%	10/17/2016
9/29/2016	LABD	1435	16.4	$23,538.50	24.49	$35,144.15	$11,605.65	49.30%	11/08/2016

Biggest % Loser:

One of 3 times we tried to time the bottom of Natural Gas, which all failed. On January 8th, we bought 5% of our portfolio into UGAZ and lost 27.37% in less than a week. If we held the position into the rally in the spring, we still wouldn’t have made it back to break even. It was only a small position so the damage wasn’t too bad.

Trade Date

Symbol

Shares

avg cost

total cost

Closing price

mkt value

P&L

% P&L

Date Closed

1/8/2016

UGAZ

1,850

2.73

$5,059.50

1.99

$3,674.50

-$1,385.00

-27.37%

1/14/2016

Biggest $ loser:

Our biggest dollar loser comes from a trade in May where we had a large position in TZA that was too generous with the stop.

5/17/2016

TZA

686

43.76

$30,028.36

36.49

$25,023.14

-$5,005.22

-16.67%

6/1/2016

More stats:

The position held for the longest period was GUSH, which was held for 62 days.  The shortest hold was for one day and it is held by three positions: TNA from January, UGAZ and LABU from January. Obviously, these were all closed out for a loss. On average the hold period was 13 days for our trades in 2016.

Lessons Learned:

The second half of 2016 was definitely better for the Junkies than the first half. In the beginning of the year I was a little to active trying to force trades because I thought I had to be more active writing the Junkie on a regular basis.  The best course of action as a trader and for the Junkies is to wait for trades to materialize that fit criteria instead of forcing it, and not being as generous with the stops.  If a trade goes against you a little, it’ll most likely go against you a lot so it’s best to cut your losses early.  This is well know, but putting into practice proved true in the second half where we had our best performance.

Also, a lot of our worst performing trades were in the commodity sector with trades in Oil and Natural Gas.  There is too much geopolitical risk in the trades with OPEC and other entities able to manipulate the markets at their whim.  Sticking to stocks (even energy stocks) proves to be less volatile and easier to trade with my preferred strategies.

Finally, as proven by our results, every trade doesn’t have to be a winner as long as you cut your losses early. Shit, you can have a positive year while also having more than half of your trades be losers.

We are starting the year off on a good foot with 3 profitable trades. Here’s to a great 2017 Junkies.

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