Geldpress

January trading came to a close today, with the market indexes showing the following results:

• Dow Jones was DOWN 11.44% for the month (9034.69 to 8000.86), not counting dividends
• The S&P 500 index was DOWN 11.43% for the month (931.80 to 825.88), not counting dividends.

Not a great start for the indexes!  The Geldpress portfolio, on the other hand, was UP 3.00% for January. How did we do it?

1. Maintain a healthy cash position to deploy when new opportunities present themselves.
2. Take advantage of high volatility to sell expensive premium on covered calls.
3. Use hedging techniques such as protective puts, collars, and inverse ETF’s especially around earnings releases, to protect against major down movements.
4. Play both sides of the market to reduce wild fluctuations in account balances.

Check out the following for more info on my trading style:

Covered calls -

• Time for cover – the covered call
• The VIX index and covered calls
• Covered Calls – Scottrade, Tradeking, Fidelity
• Covered Call Writers Love High Volatility
• Covered calls – removing the covers and going naked

Hedging -

• Portfolio protection – hedging todays roller coaster market ride
• Selling Puts For Income, Or As a Cheaper Investment
• Married Puts, Collars, And Hybrid Hedging
• Bring Your Collar Into These Volatile Markets
• Understanding the bear call credit spread
• Modeling theta time decay in a bear call credit spread
• Stellar Week For Direxion 3X Bear

Long and Short -

• Balanced and hedged portfolio using proshares
• Proshares and Profunds leveraged ETF’s
• Trading strategy – hidden jewel in the shorts

I also highly recommend the following books:

The Options Course Second Edition: High Profit & Low Stress Trading Methods (Wiley Trading) by George A. Fontanills

The Trader’s Guide to Equity Spreads by Randy Frederick