Slow Week and Trade Cost Limits

Not a lot to report on this week. Positions are the same as last week, with about a 3% increase in value, so that’s positive.

Have been looking for something new to get into, but man, valuations seem pretty high for just about everything on my watchlist. Obviously this means I’m missing out by sitting on my hands.

Earnings calendar doesn’t look super exciting this week, just a bunch of financial stocks and NFLX. I usually don’t like to mess around with earnings events, but every now and again I’ll see something that is appealing to me. Most recently I jumped on MU calls and was successful.

Speaking of, that MU trade was a little less than 5% of portfolio value at the time. As far as this account goes, I’m looking to limit total trade cost to 10% of current portfolio value, earnings plays – no more than 5%. Generally speaking, I’ll open a trade for around 5% or less and then average in the rest of the way. Each trade doesn’t need to max out @ 10%, and most times they never will. For example, SHOP and DOCN are finally moving in a positive direction (famous last words), I probably will not add more unless they drop substantially, where I will reevaluate and consider adding more.

Based on that rule, and current available cash, I have room for 3 more positions in the account. I’m in no rush to fill up, but I would like to find something new one of these days…