Monday, March 22, 2010

Updating The Alpha-D for March 2010

This month's options expiration date brought some good news for yours truly.  ANV rose through the strike price ($15) of the covered calls I'd written.  It sold away at a nice long-term capital gain.  I have decided not to repurchase ANV until I have perfected my valuation model for mining stocks; I had treated ANV like a startup by betting on its management but I think I can increase my margin of safety with a closer look at a miner's numbers.  The short puts I had under ANV expired as well. 

True to my word in one of my posts yesterday, I've sold some of my FXI to reduce my exposure to China's short-term bubble.  I wrote calls on the remainder with at-the-money strikes.  China still has long-term growth potential, but that country looks seriously overheated.  I am not selling any puts under FXI this month to further limit my exposure to any pending downturn in China's economy. 

My other updates . . .

Sold short puts under KEX at 35 (renewed position due to options expiration).

Sold short puts under TDW at 45 (renewed position due to options expiration).

Sold short straddle on GDX. 

Also, my short puts under EFA expired and I'm not renewing them.  Yeah, I know, this is a huge hole in the index strrategy of my portfolio, but frankly I don't care.  Market valuations as a whole are way too rich to risk being forced to buy anything except the two stocks I've identified above (yeah, I'm still writing the reports on KEX and TDW because I want them to look pretty, so quit bugging me).