Brexit, Risk, and Oppertunity

It is nice to be right but far worse to be wrong

     As I predicted in my previous post we saw the huge decline from the Brexit vote turn right back around to it's original high. Now I'm thrilled that I called it for what it was but at the same time I didn't buy anything during the flip. Yes, it is a missed opportunity in some regards but I am still trading my Options and buying into Betterment and Lending Club all the while. The greedy portion of my brain laments the 4% I could have made on the deal and the thought of cashing in that much that quickly is exciting but I try to temper that feeling with a bucket of cold facts. While I called it right this time I have called it wrong plenty of times in the past. While I was very much sure of this I wasn't willing to put my money on market timing again. So what did the Brexit stumble mean to me? Quite frankly absolutely zero changed for me.

I play it safe

     One of the points of this portfolio is that I'm specifically "playing it safe". When a major market fluctuation occurs I don't change a thing. I just continue on with the plan I've set in motion. This is the logical part of investing that people really need to commit to. Sure I could have panicked and sold everything on the way down and tried to catch the tide on the ride back up but that is opening this portfolio up to far more volatility then it is designed for.

Slow and Steady wins the race

     The shares of [SPY] that I had assigned on my last Put will sell off today on an exercised Call for additional gain putting my options play in a solid position of over 3% profit so far this year. That doesn't sound like much except that 2% of that was in the last month. I've already outpaced the dividends from the likes of [SPY] and [VYM] going a long way to prove my trading method. Lending Club is still returning a solid 6%. Betterment is lagging right now at 2% total return but as the buy and hold portion of the portfolio, it has time to develop and needs more capital to properly utilize features like automatic rebalancing and tax loss harvesting to their full potential.

Bottom Line: Carry On

     Everything is looking good and I've already started to see compounding begin working on several fronts in the portfolio. It has taken me a few years to nail down a process for myself but it is really taking shape and I'm excited to see what the next 6 months holds.