I have reached my seventh month of my safe investing journey. I just want to remind everyone that I do not offer financial advice, this an opinion blog about money. The main emphasis of this site is that you can earn easy income through dividends and safe option strategies. Below Is the review on how I did and what I learned in March 2021.
In my post last month (Last Month) I mentioned doing fewer trades and increasing my monthly goal from $1,500 to $2,000 a month. I was able to reach both goals in March 2021. However, I rolled a covered call contract in NVDA and earned nearly a $1,000 on that one trade. I rolled it out to September and up from $405 to $420. I have been slowly rolling it up to get a higher strike price and more premium. I am ok with rolling a position if I can get premium and increase the strike price. NVDA has tripled in price since I purchased it. NVDA pays a small dividend. I do not think someone will do an early assignment because of it. Also, due to my profits in NVDA I am ok if it gets assigned.
My trades are displayed below. For March I had 11 trades with a total of 16 contracts. The average for each trade was $262.08. Even if you pull out the NVDA trade the average is over $173. I did the most trading in ARKK. I rolled several vertical put trades. Found I could get a lot of premium rolling the contracts out two weeks and going with a lower put strike price. Earlier in the year ARKK was trading way up due to Tesla. However, it has come back to a healthy range. Going forward I am going to try and do a trade with two contracts each week in ARKK. I believe I can make close to $1200 a month just on these trades.
I had seven put and four call trades this month. Five of the trades were vertical put credit spreads. I am doing the spreads on higher priced stocks. However, I still consider them as cash secured. Meaning I have enough cash to cover them. Not sure if such a thing exists as a cash secured vertical put credit spread. If it does then please leave a comment and let me know. My thinking is that it uses less margin and allows me to do two lower Delta contracts for ARKK. The non-spread contracts were either covered or cash secured.
The other trades of note this month was my first trade of Apple. I was able to get good premium on an Apple trade that expired. I also rolled CSCO and GLW(Corning) cash secured puts. I was able to get good premium for both trades. March was an interesting month. I spent the least amount of time trading and had my best month. Part of this is because I waited for market movements during the month. I did not try and force trades. If I add up all my time for the month my guess is that it is less than an eight-hour day.
Things I learned this month. First, rolling trades can be profitable. Second, fewer higher premium trades are better. Also, waiting for market volatility and doing 2 contracts instead of 1 can add a lot of premium. Also, its easier to track the trades. Keeping a journal is critical for many reasons. I can use my journal to see what trades are best and see patterns that may result in a new or better strategy.
Thank you for joining me on my journey. Please let me know if you have any questions by adding a comment below. Also, join my mailing list to be notified of new posts and changes to the site.
I also wanted to mention that I recently setup a YouTube channel that goes along with the Easy Investing Income blog. You can find it here YouTube Channel. Finally, I have setup a Patreon membership where you can get early access, special content and live events.
As always contact me if you have any questions!
Thanks, and happy investing!
Jim Adams
1 thought on “$2,882 of premium in March 2021 from options trading.”