A General Overview
Not a huge improvement in our lives so far, but I can’t say that things are getting worse, so it’s good news I guess… Maybe we reached a plateau?
About to leave for a week’s holidays in the mountain, the first after a rather difficult year. Clearly Leo, the older son had to get ill AGAIN for the 2764th time this year, right before we leave… We are going anyways, this thing of managing out lives day by day is starting to really sink in I guess… I hate it though.
LH FUND
Explanation of terminology and graphs is HERE.
Let’s see the numbers:
| Month | TR | YTER | NYYoC | Forex |
| 31 Dec 2014 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| 31 Dec 2015 | -3.33% | 1.22% | -0.13% | -1.00% |
| 31 Dec 2016 | 7.06% | 1.14% | 1.16% | -4.35% |
| 31 Dec 2017 | 9.94% | 1.04% | 2.64% | -5.94% |
| 31 Dec 2018 | 3.28% | 1.24% | 2.70% | -3.53% |
| 31 Dec 2019 | 23.50% | 1.35% | 2.72% | -1.40% |
| 31 Dec 2020 | 15.76% | 1.28% | 2.70% | -7.60% |
| 31 Dec 2021 | 37.13% | 1.35% | 2.69% | -2.05% |
| Jan 2022 | 35.83% | 1.34% | 2.61% | -2.75% |
| Feb 2022 | 35.70% | 1.33% | 2.63% | 0.45% |
| Mar 2022 | 40.68% | 1.32% | 2.64% | 0.19% |
| Apr 2022 | 41.87% | 1.31% | 2.65% | 4.09% |
| May 2022 | 41.54% | 1.32% | 2.72% | 2.06% |
TR is decreasing (vs. previous month) – 33bps are quite a bit, but nothing compared to what happened to the markets in May..
YTER is increasing (vs. previous month) – 1bps, we are there waiting for the taxes for 2021 to arrive…
Net Yearly YoC is increasing (vs. previous month) – 7bps up, this is HUGE, but usually May is huge in terms of dividends…
Forex is worse (vs. previous month) – The rally in the dollar cooled off a bit but keeps things positive for my forex positions.
Dividends and Options
Income this month was 3589 Euro
Dividends accounted for 3576 Euro (+13% vs 2021) and Options ended up with a 13 Euro score (-87% vs 2021).
Dividends
Apr best month ever (in absolute terms), very little to say. May is a huge dividend month after all!
Options
Decided to roll 2 trades that didn’t go well, that would explain the low result, but all in all it was a good month, despite the immediate hit on gains that I had to take.
DCA/Increased Positions
Bought 100 ETR:ENR
Had to because of an option that ended ITM by 1 cent! Normally they don’t assign stocks when it’s so close, but this wasn’t the case.
New Positions – Sold Position
Bought 100 VFC @ 46.99 USD
Dividend Champion VFC, been following its fall in the recent months and decided that it hit a decent spot at 47. In reality I had a put option at 50 and preferred to buy the stocks on the market and roll the position to July, the ER on VFC was rather decent in my opinion, and company/brand portfolio has a lot of inherent quality, so happy to take the stocks here.
The Financial Conclusions
So “sell in May..”. People had mixed feelings apparently, there was a strong fall that turned into a small rally, lots of volatility but a sentiment that I would describe “cautious/negative”.
Still hard for me to buy at these prices, I can’t really see any good bargains, apart from VFC that was slaughtered for nothing (imho). I have reviewed my stock acquisitions these 6 months (time of writing is already June), and most of the few trades I made are because of options that ended ITM. This means that there is little for me to invest right now.
If you follow this blog you know that I am a realist/economist, and fundamentals to me matter. And these fundamentals are not good at all. I am not sure when a potential recession will hit the world, but I feel that the time is getting “right”. Interest rates are going up, so I’ve decided to wait for the second and third increase to see how the market reacts.
So far all went according to plan, IR increase meant a market fall. Not a huge crash, but someone is selling, presumably to move to less risky assets.
I am not planning to sell much of my portfolio, but I am not willing to buy high to sell low. For once I want to wait, I believe that the worst is yet to come.
On the option side this is hard to manage because a put shorter like me doesn’t have a great game when the market turns bearish, I need to have extra caution there!
Stalflare 