Selling The Drama: HYLB

And to right or wrong
And to weak or strong
It is known, just scream it from the wall

I've willed, I've walked, I've read
I've talked, I know, I know
I've been here before

In September 2020, four triggered sales marked the beginning of my portfolio's major flip from growth to income.  At that time, I was attempting to do the right thing - in this case, not being greedy and preserving my gains.  If I had a large banner reading MISSION ACCOMPLISHED handy at that moment, I would have unfurled it over my computer desk as the transactions executed.

Fast forward 1.5+ years to the present day: a reassessment is warranted.  My intentions were good.  And if the growth stocks that I sold didn't continue to grow like they had, I would have been correct in my actions.  But they did, and therefore I was not.  I was too conservative.

I could say I made a mistake - and in monetary terms, I certainly did - but instead I'll just say that I made a non-optimal decision.

Today, I've begun the unwinding of that decision.  I've sold a substantial chunk of my HYLB to fund a purchase of my favorite group of ETF/Ns:  GLDI, SLVO, USOI, QYLD, RYLD, and XYLD.  I believe these to be more risk-appropriate.

Another key reversal from my previous decisions is that this is a partial sale.  I've justified "when selling a holding, sell every share" for two reasons:

• why hold on to something I don't believe in 100%?; and
• simplification of bookkeeping.

To which I can now offer this rebuttal:

• the lack of belief may be misguided; and
• the tax consequences of selling everything can be significant.

And so accordingly; HYLB, PFFD, USHY, and any other positions that I will exit in the future will be unwound over time.

Boilerplate time...

As a stretch goal: for dividend income purposes, I'd like this portfolio to eventually be as much as a 50/50 25/75 split between stocks and yield.  As seen below, it is currently 38/62.

I am in no rush to flip into yield. I would rather let my winners run forever.  However, if in any given month I see no stocks that present themselves as especially good buying opportunities, I have no reservations in simply adding to my bond, preferred stock, leveraged ETFs and/or covered call ETF/Ns. It is truly a month-to-month situation (as it has always been!).

For the foreseeable future, I want to track my Big Five Two every month, whether I buy them or not.

Amazon (AMZN)

• $1.18T market cap
• no dividend
• $477.8B revenue
• 7% revenue growth
• $66.4B cash
• $113.3B debt
• $39.3B operating cash flow
• $18.0B free cash flow

Microsoft (MSFT)

• $2.07T market cap
• 0.9% dividend yield
• $192.6B revenue
• 18% revenue growth
• $104.7B cash
• $78.0B debt
• $87.1B operating cash flow
• $48.9B free cash flow

Here's my current portfolio (buy, hold, and sell).  As always, I believe in all of these stocks/ETF/ETNs - until I sell them.

Microsoft (MSFT) 15.31%

Credit Suisse X-Links Crude Oil Shares Covered Call ETNs (USOI) 7.53%

iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (USHY) 11.68%

Global X U.S. Preferred ETF (PFFD) 10.95%

Amazon (AMZN) 9.42%

Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM) 6.60%

Global X NASDAQ 100 Covered Call ETF (QYLD) 6.44%

Credit Suisse X-Links Silver Shares Covered Call ETN (SLVO) 6.05%

Global X Russell 2000 Covered Call ETF (RYLD) 5.38%

Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF (XYLD) 4.29%

Credit Suisse X-Links Gold Shares Covered Call ETN (GLDI) 3.70%
Invesco NASDAQ Next Gen 100 ETF (QQQJ) 2.47%

UnitedHealth Group (UNH) 1.84%

Costco Wholesale (COST) 1.83%

ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) 0.09%

ProShares UltraPro S&P 500 (UPRO) 0.06%

ProShares UltraPro Russell 2000 (URTY) 0.05%

Direxion Daily CSI China Internet Bull 2X Shares (CWEB) 0.03%

Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bull 3X Shares (LABU) 0.02%

Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL) 0.03%

Direxion Daily S&P 500 High Beta Bull 3X Shares (HIBL) 0.02%

An Updated Summary of My Grand Unified Theory of Investing

 Check out my previous post for how we landed here...

Account:	IRA	Roth IRA	Stocks & Income
Current percentage of total holdings:	~26%	~2%	~72%
Investment philosophy:	Jack Bogle	George Soros	Warren Buffett
Headline summary:	“Don't Do Something, Just Stand There!”	“You Call That A Position?”	“Wonderful Companies at Fair Prices”
Account holdings:	• 54% index ETFs (IWM, QQQJ, QQQM, VOO) • 25% high yield stock ETFs (VIG, VYM) • 21% bond ETFs (HYLB, USHY)	• 100% one “high-conviction” stock (???)	• 31% stocks (AMZN, COST, MSFT, UNH) • 9% index ETFs (QQQJ, QQQM) • <1% double/triple leverage ETFs (CWUB, LABU, TQQQ, UPRO, URTY) • 14% index covered call ETFs (QYLD, RYLD, XYLD) • 32% preferred stock/bond ETFs (HYLB, PFFD, USHY) • 14% commodity covered call ETNs (GLDI, SLVO, USOI) entire portfolio detailed here
Are dividends reinvested?	Yes	No	No
Investment schedule:	N/A	Asynchronous	Synchronous
When do I intend to make changes?	Never	When I have a higher-conviction bet than the existing one	Monthly purchases; "I believe in all of these stocks - until I sell them"
Is account actively funded with new contributions?	No	No	No
Is account written about on this blog monthly / ever?	No	No	Yes

ETFs Of The Month: CWEB, LABU

Back in June 2021, I asked myself the question "why not dollar-cost average monthly into triple-levered index funds for the next several decades?" - a question so good that I didn't want to know the actual answer - and began a commitment to ongoing purchases of TQQQ, UPRO, and URTY for the foreseeable future.

Nearly a year later, those "risky" investments have not blown up (yay!) and I began to look for additional leveraged investments outside of the indices.  This plan calls for all of the following:

• Monthly dollar cost averaging, a strategy that has served me well for my first two decades of investing, DCA is an absolute necessity when dealing with...
• Investment vehicles subject to significant daily/monthly volatility, which double- and triple-leveraged ETFs certainly qualify for, hence the advertised "risk".  To be clear:  the short-term downside potential is a feature, not a bug, when coupling the magic powers of DCA with...
• Massive multi-decade outperformance potential (duh).

So I put on my Warren Buffett/Rip Van Winkle hat and found two instruments of choice:  SynBio via LABU, and China via CWEB (an investment of which Charlie Munger might approve).

As one last step before diving into the pool that I had dipped my toes in, I asked myself the follow-up question:  "is this really going to work?  really?"  The short answer is yes; the long answer is here, which itself contains links to math and other details that underline the premise that I intuitively knew to be correct immediately upon asking the original question.

Boilerplate time...

As a stretch goal: for dividend income purposes, I'd like this portfolio to eventually be as much as a 50/50 25/75 split between stocks and yield.  As seen below, it is currently 41/59.

I am in no rush to flip into yield. I would rather let my winners run forever.  However, if in any given month I see no stocks that present themselves as especially good buying opportunities, I have no reservations in simply adding to my bond, preferred stock, leveraged ETFs and/or covered call ETF/Ns. It is truly a month-to-month situation (as it has always been!).

For the foreseeable future, I want to track my Big Five Two every month, whether I buy them or not.

Amazon (AMZN)

• $1.62T market cap
• no dividend
• $469.8B revenue
• 9% revenue growth
• $96.1B cash
• $139.4B debt
• $46.3B operating cash flow
• $-0.8B free cash flow

Microsoft (MSFT)

• $2.26T market cap
• 0.8% dividend yield
• $184.9B revenue
• 20% revenue growth
• $125.4B cash
• $80.4B debt
• $83.9B operating cash flow
• $46.5B free cash flow

Here's my current portfolio (buy, hold, and sell).  As always, I believe in all of these stocks/ETF/ETNs - until I sell them.

Microsoft (MSFT) 15.54%

Amazon (AMZN) 12.01%

iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (USHY) 11.02%

Global X U.S. Preferred ETF (PFFD) 10.62%

Xtrackers USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYLB) 10.19%
Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM) 6.86%

Global X NASDAQ 100 Covered Call ETF (QYLD) 6.19%

Credit Suisse X-Links Crude Oil Shares Covered Call ETNs (USOI) 5.65%

Credit Suisse X-Links Silver Shares Covered Call ETN (SLVO) 5.42%

Global X Russell 2000 Covered Call ETF (RYLD) 4.62%

Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF (XYLD) 3.01%

Credit Suisse X-Links Gold Shares Covered Call ETN (GLDI) 2.54%
Invesco NASDAQ Next Gen 100 ETF (QQQJ) 2.51%

Costco Wholesale (COST) 1.84%

UnitedHealth Group (UNH) 1.74%

ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) 0.11%

ProShares UltraPro S&P 500 (UPRO) 0.05%

ProShares UltraPro Russell 2000 (URTY) 0.03%

Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bull 3X Shares (LABU) 0.02%

Direxion Daily CSI China Internet Bull 2X Shares (CWEB) 0.02%