Happy New Year 2022

Happy New Year! Good riddance 2021!

That is exactly how I opened my first post last year. And the first post of the new year will be very similar to the first post of 2021.

Let me apologize for not keeping up with Main Street beats Wall Street. I thought as you get older life is supposed to get easier. Well, it doesn’t seem to be going like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful for the life I have. I’m talking about life in general for everyone, society, the world. I find that everyone I talk to is in a bit of a funk. While the Dow, NASDAQ and the S & P are at all time highs many accounts are down. The markets are dealing with COVID and are very volatile, and I don’t think everyone really understands how bad the politics are in this country. The news is always bad, but last year, 2020, while the news was bad on some stations (mainly fake news) the country was doing great, other than COVID. This past year, 2021, the news was bad because the country is doing badly. While solutions sounded easy in campaign speeches not one strategy worked when implemented. We are not even a year into this administration and we are in big trouble. Inflation, interest rates, failing businesses, crime, jobs, supply lines issues, COVID, open borders, no one wants to work, the problems are deep and widespread.

We all are affected by COVID. For me the last few months were bad. I’ve had my share of sickness and death of close ones. Most recently a very good friend died on Christmas day, 50 years old. I just returned home from Boston because my brother-in-law is very sick. Not COVID related but he is 57 and is in ICU. He does seem to be doing better. Hopefully he’ll be okay.

With all that’s going on, and my constant changing of strategies with the market, leaves me with not enough time to explain everything with posts. I’m hoping this will change with the new year.

In my “Happy New Year 2021” post I said 2020 was bittersweet. While COVID was taking hold of the world, everyone still did well in the market. I was up over 220%. This year was completely bitter. The country went completely downhill and I had a bad year in the market. We keep hearing how the DOW, NASDAQ and the S & P are at all time highs but many funds I look at are down for the year. Just Google Cathie Wood’s Ark funds. You’ll see what I mean.

Most know selling Covered Calls is a major part of my strategy. I deal with a lot of big name stocks but I also deal with smaller stocks. I love to buy the stock, sell a Call, and get assigned. This year it seems like most of my stocks were not assigned. Especially the last few months. I keep the premium but I also keep the stock. Many stocks I would eventually get assigned on, but many never returned to my buy-in price. This was my big problem this year. I took major losses on stocks like Palintir (PLTR), Peloton (PTON), Inseego (INSG), Xpeng (XPEV), Square (SQ), U S Steel (X), Nikola (NKLA), Skillz (SKLZ), Momo (MOMO), 3D (DDD), Workhorse( WKHS), Nio (NIO), Macys (M), Lexinfintech (LX) Gold Miners ETF (GDX). Most recently even (UVXY) Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA). There are more stock not on this list.

The last few months I didn’t have the time to report these losses as I was in a little panic and did a lot of Day Trading. If you look at my “Trade Results 2021” you will see a lot of gains but the losses with the stocks above put me in the red for the year. I’m not sure exactly all of my losses but it’s in the area of 25% on the year. I’m very lucky I had a few big years! The losses I took with the stocks above are in the $400k area, or more. But if you look at the years results I brought in a lot of money. Believe me I’m feeling the pain! But I promise 2022 will be much better. Why did I have a bad year? Maybe with a few great years I got a little cocky. I was put in my place! The market is no place to get cocky! One good thing is I always took money to live on. I took an average of $5000 a month. This is another reason for my account being down.

It’s unbelievable, if you look at my “Trade Results 2021” and I ended up with a losing year! All of the losses are not listed on the page because I bailed out of many of the stocks in the last few weeks. I did this because I want to start 2022 with a clean slate. Sometimes you just want to get rid of the crap and put the money to work again. I’ve been too busy to list every trade with all that was going on in life. Maintaining Main Street beats Wall Street does take a bit of time. Remember, I’m a one man operation.

I am entering my 7th year of this site. I will try to get back on track and report all of my moves. In the new year I’m gonna try to concentrate on big name stock I love and I want to work on my Day Trading strategy. I feel much better being liquid. I don’t feel good about the beginning of the year. It’s normally a great time but these are different times.

Let me remind you, Main Street beats Wall Street is to teach you the workings of options with actual trades. Once you have a full understanding of how they work it’s up to you to pick stocks and develop a strategy and philosophy according to your own risk tolerance.

2022 I will work hard to show that you can bounce back. We get started tomorrow!

I wish you all a healthy and wealthy new year! 

 

Successful trading,

Steve

The Options Coach