lnofeisone

Added to MSGE and CASH.

This was me riding out CVE warrants when CVE went to 24 and back down to 16. $8 in foregone gains. Should've paid the taxes .

Picked up STNE, JOE with VET proceeds.

Selling some/most of my VET Sept 15/22.5 verticals. Hoping for a dip to reload with later expirty.

Surprised nobody said flat out no. I got a late start in investing due to working for a start-up that went belly up and then going to grad school for 5 years. While we certainly beat the average assets/401k/income size by age that you will see in publications, but our asset income||expenses would be horribly mismatched. We have 1 child whose day care pulls down $36k/year with another one likely in a year. Can't wait for private school bills because DC life is so expensive and our schools are, on average, absolute garbage. Can't really move because of where I work. So I'll be working for a while - at least 10-15 years - unless I hit something like UAN trade that @RichardGibbons uncovered. The big reprieve for me is that the firm I work for has an insanely generous retirement defined annual benefit of average of 3 highest earning years. This benefit gets activated once you reach a certain level and stay at that level for at least 10 years. Then have to make it to 62. As far as market investments, I generally track to slightly underperform averages with occasional big years that more than make up for it. This year it's VET/CVE but I also have a bunch of losers (e.g., weed...maybe I should buy some product and help the companies). Last year I was also heavy energy (something like 40%) and crypto and those holdings went bonkers. If I pay off the mortgage and go 3% withdrawal for the remaining assets it will cover our most basic needs. I'll probably have to keep my teaching gig (or my wife keeps working) to keep the health insurance going because it is that expensive in the US.

Spek - thanks for observation. I think your brother is right about Germany being able to get through this winter with the assumption that Russia maintains its current gas flow. Poland will also have the Baltic Pipe from Norway so they are covered and can probably spare gas. I suspect NG will stay elevated because there are still shortages for the entire EU but I don't have a crystal ball. This article is particularly handy to see where all of Europe stands for their NG needs and storage. https://www.intellinews.com/how-many-days-of-gas-consumption-are-in-europe-s-storage-tanks-250065/

Got JOE put on me. In at 50 (-the put premium).

come join the VET party

@RedLion - this is awesome to see the theory combine with practice like that. My only suggestion is to roll your trades on the Friday of expiry around 3PM or so. This way you pay 0 for time value when you close a leg(so theta = 0). Rolling strike prices higher makes sense, as long as you are at least 1 or 2 strikes away so you get paid more for volatility. Just my 2 cents and have I have no money in this trade :).

So for 2 you would do just the call diagonal. You may need to play around with good strike prices. 3) ATM will give you lowest IV premium. If you go up a bit to OTM, you'll collect a bit more premium for generally same risk profile, especially on weeklys. 4) Doing index vs. individual companies has pros and cons. Index - you won't get the risk of being acquired but there is no earnings premium on indices. With index, you have to track overall volatility probably via VIX and put on your position when VIX is low and sell weeklys when VIX is high. Economic calendar will be your friend. Companies - you have a risk of being acquired but you can collect fat premiums around earnings and have volatility crush further boost your return profile.

This is super neat and I love this academic exercise with real world $$$ attached to it. This looks like a double diagonal spread but the way you structured your trade your strike prices will result in a bit of overlap causing it look like a busted up single diagonal. I think if you do the calculations you'll be mostly gamma neutral (long on long call/long put and short on short call/short put) but you are long vega (volatility). Few general comments: 1) I would put on this position when the stock trades with HV > IV. So right after earnings when all the volatility comes down. You are basically betting that weeklys will worth more as you are approaching earnings. 2) The position you built is leaning bullish so you will probably be better off having just one diagonal (call side) and just keep rolling up or down but I am super curious how this plays out. 3) When you sell ATM options, you are taking lowest IV value (assuming it fits the volatility smile) so you may modify your trade to get paid a bit more for essentially same risk profile. 4) You are spot on with big moves. Pick a big co that's unlikely to be acquired (e.g., Google) and you can mitigate this risk.

I bought a starter in META. to force myself to do work. Added a bit to DIS, FRPH. Bought back Aug and Sep 22.5 VET puts. VET is still 20% of portfolio.

This worked out rather well. Shell raised the bid to $15.85 so the options are worthless. I also had a decent diagonal that I kept rolling. Again, thanks @thepupil for getting this one on the radar.

Bought some DIS (add), JOE (add), MSGE (add), INTC (starter), and MU (starter).

Owning Energy Transfer is like owning Citibank. Any blow ups or regulatory issues, and you can bet ET is in the middle of it.

I looked at both LCOE and EROEI a while back, mostly because a friend pointed me to a slide from Lazard. LCOE and EROEI are incredibly dependent on what assumptions you choose to make. I also looked at this from the other vector - buying energy from a particular source. Renewables are consistently more expensive at wholesale and retail (without subsidies). Even if you take out Block Island PPA which is a total mess, off shore wind will run you at premium to wholesale anytime during the year. Also, most PPA signed by states have this incredibly favorable pricing towards the producer that is frequently tied to an index. Sometimes I think whoever is signing this on behalf of a state really doesn't understand how bad of a contract this is or they are hell bent on getting renewable. So of LCOE is low and renewable PPAs run so high, you'd think Orstead and others would make bank but that never seems to materialize. Even if you look at the deal that 8 minute energy signed with LA proclaiming lowest solar PPA in history at ~$20/MWh, once you calculate all the other components (e.g., BESS in/out) it comes out to something like $40/MWh with 4 hour of storage only (because, you know, sun is only gone for 4 hours a night). So, not as cheap as nuclear/nat. gas and still lacks reliability.

sold SNOW and some of the more recently acquired VET mostly to free up some cash and can't complain about 15%+ while holding for such short time.

I agree that ESG is something the public only cares about when they can afford to. The challenge for O&G industry is that they are in a very unfriendly administration environment that can do a lot to bring on the pain. As Spek pointed out, Biden can impose tariffs on exports (personally, I'm skeptical of that as we would be pissing off a lot of our neighbors, allies, and areas where we have geopolitical interests). They can also be particularly attentive to maintenance as they are doing with Freeport LNG terminal (again, here, Freeport LNG screwed up majorly and should've done better). I am more than happy to take oil in $100-$110 range, gasoline in low $4s so that's enough to print $ but not enough to hurt the consumer and trigger the administration.

Eh, I hate seeing urinary Olympics like this for public to consume. What O&G industry needs to hammer away is this - we are here to help and here is what we need from the administration. I think the onus is on the industry to show its ESG efforts (carbon capture, whatever but have the administration be a bit friendly) and at least appear friendly. Put this administration in a position of choice and they will do whatever is needed to help them survive elections. As far as companies trading below November, I'm fine with that. I'll keep nibbling away. These companies are close to having pristine balance sheets, massive (albeit reduced with WTI going sub-100) cashflows, buybacks, dividends, ESG trend. I wouldn't want to own this scenario at 10-15x FCF, but at 4x it's a no brainer.

Added a tad to VET and CVE. Bought a slug of ABNB.

I agree with SD, only 2 weeks left for this Q and prices for O&G stayed elevated through this Q. Numbers are going to be bonkers. Debt reductions, dividends, buybacks will be prominent. Exxon is kicking off on 7/29. As far as inflation, I think we will precipitously drop to 3 or 4% and stay there on core. What's going to continue to hold inflation there is what a lot of this board is betting on - housing. The other component that will likely stay elevated is recreation due to pent up demand. Headline inflation will stay elevated until energy food crises have more certainty. I suspect economy will slow down and likely post another quarter of negative GDP after this one (so 3 in total). The consumer is feeling the pain at the pump, on food, etc. Energy story isn't changing and food shortages are persisting. I can see O&G drop because of that but the floor here will be dictated by supply/demand. European gas will play out based on geopolitics. Either way, lots of volatility but O&G companies will continue to make money.

Gold is the softest and most malleable of all metals so chiseling it will be very counterproductive. You could spool it and have increment markets and just cut piece when paying for coffee . This is probably the only absolute advantage that cryptocurrency has over gold is that it is divisible into whatever number you need. But the same thing could be said about any currency. Transporting gold might seem like a big deal but what gets overlooked (or taken for granted) lot of times is that there is a huge amount of infrastructure (think internet, utility, power generation) that is required to support the transport of crypto. Fun fact on gold softness, gold purity in the jewelry world is measured by kt. 24kt is 100% gold, 18kt is 18 gold: 6 other stuff, 14kt is 14 gold: 10 other stuff and so on. Other stuff controls physical properties (e.g., strength, color, etc.) You rarely see 24kt gold rings because they are too soft and can't withstand the daily wear and tear.

I am a long term holder of this that probably should've sold at $150. They are solving a legitimate problem that will only get more complicated with states trying to improve tax compliance. There isn't really any competitors that do what Avalara does. What's not seen is that Avalara can help states to collect taxes and taxpayers by helping devise favorable tax strategies (think multinational corporations with multi-jurisdiction procurements with tax and credit issues). I also really like Xero (XROLF).

Metaverse will be a niche thing and not as big as FB thinks. While we are in digital world, 80% of "AI-centric" companies are trash (especially in the insurance/finance industry) and will be outcompeted by the incumbents.

This is why I have a sliver of TELL (less than 0.5% position). At some point either gov't or another party will give them the $$ they need.