May 2025 Portfolio Update

 Year to date:

My portfolio: 48.36%

S&P: 12.81%

Tracker Fund: -2.99%

STI: 6.42%

Attempts to self medicate... COVID 19 test kit behind that lovely tiger balm

It took my quite some time to write this post because my mum had an fall (thank God nothing serious), and I was down with a virus for the last three days.

Thank God.

Portfolio was boosted largely by realized profits from Cordlife due to a 10% share float offer from Medeze. I outlined why I sold earlier, and on hindsight, the stock went up more than 10% after the sale. My efforts at selling continues to suck big time-- I sold most of my OKP and it went up further more. 

Major transaction involves buying securities that are fairly priced for selling of options. With options, the companies involves mostly deal with large caps, and opportunities are not as wide as buying small cap stocks.

As such, I had been buying quite a bit of Haidilao. Its prices has been falling, and I have even got involved in buying deep, in the money, options, and selling shorter term calls. This is what is known as Poor Man's Covered Call, or PMCC. 

Buying a call that deep in the money has advantages and disadvantages. The pros are:

• with a deep in the money call, you actually paying very little for time value, even if you are buying longer period options. 
• You pay less money up front compared to buying stock.

BUT the cons are:

• with deep in the money calls, you are gaining and losing money exponentially. My delta is very close to 1.00, which means for instance.
  
  The option price for security A is 3.82. Assuming if the delta is 1, and the underlying stock is 100$,. If the stock goes from 100-> 101, the option goes from 3.82 to 4.82. 

As such, given the risk, only a small amount of money is involved, but PMCC are such high-yielding devices. The premiums from the calls I sold was 0.405, and the PMCC-options cost 5.32. That is a one month yield of 7.6%!

Comically, I just received the annual report of Cordlife-- after I sold their shares.

Not much to update this month. 

Complete liquidation of shares in Cordlife

I have sold out of all my Cordlife shareholdings at 0.24 per share. This is a pretty good annualized return of 85% from about a year of holding.

Maybe a short recap is in order, if nothing else but for entertainment sake.

Like most of the stocks in my portfolio, I was attracted to... problems. And Cordlife have a major problem (notice I use present tense, it is not out of it yet!). It has two groups of users which cordblood units (CBU) are damaged. One is high risk, which are pretty much no longer 'useful', and low risk, which expert opined that given the temperature or duration of which the incident last, it should still be viable. 

They are still looking at the test results of the low risk group. The report, as the group announced in sgx, should be out in the latter half of this year. That timeline isn't very useful since there isn't much of this year left... 

In terms of value, I do believe that if the low risk CBU is not damaged, Cordlife is worth way more than 0.127, which was my holding price.

Genesis
It started with a private placement (which was thwarted) and most of the directors were then removed during the AGM after which TransGlobal (my opinion, it is anyone's guess if the incumbents are TransGlobal allies), lost the ability to control the company, and as expected, the CEO (TransGlobal's non-exec director's younger brother) quit recently. It looks like the company has passed on from the power struggle stage and could rebuild. 

I think they are still in the early stages of rebuilding, and this could be a lengthy process. At least they regained the license from MOH to continue business as it is.

Sometime during this incident, I joined one particular telegram group, which primarily consist of parents of affected CBU. Obviously I would like to know if they could legally challenge the company. They were forming various group representation to sue. I do read their concerns and felt that, for the high risk group, they were undercompensated by the company.

I am not too sure what to think of the low risk group's parents. Basically, if the CBUs are not damaged, there should be no basis to sue. Unless you have evidence that they have been negligent for a long time, then yes, you have some basis to sue.

Sometime during the conversation some parents told me certain disturbing issues about Cordlife which was on the back of my mind. I told her that I would talk to Cordlife's management when I have the chance. Unfortunately, I missed the EGM due to work. With this liquidation, I guess there won't be.

Don't f**k with parents
Something negative happened during this course of research as well. I was out openly in the telegram group and accused of being a spy. My opinion stays that these parents are better served by buying stocks than engaging these lawyers. Firstly, by buying shares, you are having some kind of psuedo-ownership over the company you hate. You could question them during the AGM. Secondly, you are not provided additional capital to the company-- only stock ownership was transferred. You are not providing additional funds or gunpowder to the very company you hated. "Investing" in Cordlife had a very misleading naunce to it. 

Of course none of them were having it and I was asked to leave.

I am not sure how much did they paid the lawyers, and the odds that they going to get anything back eventually

But I was certainly not getting a single cent from offering that investing advice, and my opinions and intent were pretty clear. I was very willing to explain to these parents the investing thesis of it all, and if anyone had listen, they would be slightly happier today. 

About Journalists:
The only person that actually listened was a Straits Time reporter. The Business Times reporters were pretty snobby (LOL) and only Ben Paul replied. None of his underlings/colleagues bothered; neither were they willing to write from an angle that there is potentially a lot of value in this company. They were only keen about the board power struggle (which I actually spent a damn long time to understand the players involved, and tried to reach out to them), the parents-MOH angle (understandable). But hey, you guys are Business Times. Nobody wants to stick their neck out and look at it from a distressed angle?

The End
The offer price of 0.25 from Thailand's Medeze is a fair deal, considering the following factors:

a) it is possible that the low risk group is affected.

b) The timeframe of which the value of the company that could be revise by the public market might take a long time (not that I wasn't willing to wait)

c) any other possible problems which I might be unaware of, such as financial fraud.

d) quite a few directors resigned, which worried me a fair deal.

What should happen next
The low risk group should be ... still viable, and eventually all the suits involving the low risk group could be thrown out. I afraid that these parents would be doubly disappointed by the outcome.

The company should be able to afford the outcome of the group representation suit from the high risk group, although it would significantly impact its coffers.

Cordlife, after clearing these legal issues, would be privately bought out by NJXJK or a consortium consisting of it. I suspect the company is worth at least over 30 cents if the low risk group isn't a liability. It could be a long wait, but it wasn't the waiting that is an issue, it is the uncertainty of things. A return of a few hundred percent over a lengthy course of 5-6 years is not a big deal.

What if the low risk group is an issue? Thing would be very bad indeed.

Apr 2025 Portfolio Update

Year to date:

My portfolio: 38.74%

S&P: -6.45%

Tracker Fund: 9.11%

STI: 3.47%

There were no major transactions this month, as much of the equities I wrote put options on recovered, and covered calls options wrote were exercised by my counterparties. This resulted in a large amount of free cash in my option selling portfolio. Because of market volatility, the implied volatility is high as well, resulting in large premiums collected. Because the market recovered significantly, I would have bigger profits had I buy and hold certain assets.

But that is the key to options-- if I have been so convinced that the valuations were too low, I would have bought options instead of selling them. The recovery was unexpected. But if there were no recovery, and the market had gone sideways, I would be happy with those premiums.

Apologies for the short update as there isn't really much to look forward to. 

What I did during market madness

Since 4-April, the STI has fell well over 10%. It lost 7.3% on 7-April.

We saw DBS and UOB suffer over 10% drop in a single day. Scalpers are still bleeding.

Hong Kong fell 13.4%

All these Black Swan days push the false narrative that equities are unsafe and therefore best avoided. Nothing can be further from the truth. In property-crazy Singapore, I think unless we have a good bubble bursting in property prices, they will always prefer properties. How many of your friends are property agents?

I don't see a need to convince anyone that stocks are a better idea. I know what suffering from equities is like, and I don't think stocks is for everyone. My pet peeve with property investing is that all these property "investing" results in sky high prices for people who actually need houses to live in.

I would not be surprised that one day, the department of MSF have to carve a special branch just to deal couples who purposely divorce so as to own multiple HDBs.

Since "Liberation Day," where astounding amount of tariffs were announced by Donald Trump, markets fell off a cliff. 

Particularly for Singapore and Hong Kong indices, they fell as much as 8.3 percent and 12 percent intraday. I was told that it was the worst drop intraday for Singapore, since the fateful day of 2008.

Some of my positions fell very hard. For instance, OKP fell as much as 20% in one day. The only reason why I did not feel so sad was because I had already done a lot of selling. To put things into perspective, I had over 500,000 shares of OKP. On that day of madness, I had 105,000 shares left. 

OKP fell from 64++ cents to 51.5. It recovered to almost 60 cents today.

IMO, OKP liquid assets and properties would amt to some 80m of discount off its market cap (it is almost 200m as I wrote).

It has almost 600m of contracts for the next few years. Assuming a yearly revenue of 200m, and a margin of about 15%, it is about 30m. You paying for about 4 times earnings, under the optimistic assumption that it continues to tender successfully for projects, and maintain its margins.

But this blog post is more about what I did during the market madness. So I went through my stocks.cafe transaction and stared at what I did.

-I bought more City Developments with my CPF. I liquidated quite a lot of my OKP held in CPF, so there are excess cash.

-I bought some Powermatic Data for my mum and dad. The dividend isn't much, and the value isn't exactly screaming vis-a-vis its price. So the accumulation is modest.

Market panics at the very least bring some liquidity to these small cap stocks.

-I bought a modest amount of Best Mart 360 for my parents. They give off a huge amt of dividend and the price to cash flow is very modest.

-Given how high Implied Volatility was for some HKEX and American stocks, I also
1) bought Haidilao and sold covered calls. I sold a good amount of Puts on them as well. Market sell down has make all these puts in-the-money, and I am likely going to be assigned to them at the end of this month.

2) bought Anta Sports and sold covered calls. Also, I have a good amount of puts in them. Likewise, these puts are now in the money

I believe these 2 stocks are fairly priced and have decent ROE, so long term holding is palatable.

-I noted high volatility on certain stocks in America which I have light-weighted opinions on.

1) I sold puts on Southwest, and a 10% cushion off the stock price yield me a decent amount of premium (about 1.3% yield). If Southwest were to be put to me, it would cost me 23$ a share.

2) I sold puts on Paypal as well. It is now well in the money, and I would likely be assigned. I was more aggressive in selling puts on Paypal and the yield was only 1.0% for that one week. I actually rolled my options on this, so I net zero. Yea, Paypal was sold down a lot during these two weeks.

3) I sold puts on Intel and there is a small chance it will be assigned.  Yield is about 1.38% for this one week. I sold strike 18 puts when it was 20, last Friday. Amazing enough, the IV was reasonably correct in guessing that this could happen, and now as I write, we are on-the-money on this. So the market was right.

During the last 5 trading days, I did not sell a single share. Whatever I am holding, I believe they are at least reasonably or bargain priced. 

March 2025 portfolio update

Year to date:
My portfolio: 35.72%

S&P: -6.29%

Tracker Fund: 15.25%

STI: 5.92%

Notable transactions: as the price of OKP revised upwards, 1 took profit on about 1/3 of my entire holdings. The extra liquidity was used to purchase CityDev, prior to senior Kwek's decisio to drop the case. Additional capital from CPF was used to purchase more CityDev after the announcement. I have now around 2000 shares.

Personally, I do not think of this idea as a high conviction one there are no known possible catalyst, other than the need of an extremely powerful and rich family to save face, and demonstrate competence.

 There is of course a lot of value in the stock but the dividend is far from risk free rate. Shedding as much OKP that I have result in way more capital than ideas I have at hand. That perhaps could explain the lack of discipline in deploying my capital. 

The lack a discipline extends towards a short-termed punt on BYD based on trends/charts/news. The end result reminds me that I am at most a mediocre trader. A modest amount of profit was the outcome of this effort.

I watch with interest at the recent earnings release from Nongfu Spring and Anta Sports. NFS faced both political and customer retention weakness. The company shown slowing growth from its bottled water segment, and vey encouraging growth from other products, esp tea. I wagered that negative public sentiments towards the stock should be short-lived. However the price is still a little too high for my taste, even with option selling advantages to potentially bring down the price.

Anta Sports earnings show similar consumer weakness, but more aligned with a more cautious economy than specific sentiments to the company. Long term thinking, as well as above average ability to tolerate downturn in prices, could possibly make this a profitable holding.

My experience with FuShouYuan may dissuade me from this thought. it is far easier to bet on book value plays than compounders. The dividends at FSY is large, and it is possibly a hint to share holders that long term growth is impacted. I like Anta Sports dividend-- though modest, it displayed a steady upward trend.

Speaking of dividends, Clifford ML dividend held strong, possibly buoyed by silver bullion's rally . I disagree with such an investment but even taking a late haircut off the current value of silver, the stock price is not high. Though it is no longer the bargain stock that it was.

The last book value play is Powermatic Data. Some of my mates called it Problematic Data in jest, and I love companies with problems. The current problem is earnings, and its new CEO night be able - to handle that however. The apparent value with this stock is the building which the company is repurposing... with the belief of the board is that it would bring in more dough than just selling the building outright.

With book value play, the game plan is simple - accumulate on weakness. For compounders, concerns about earning power is impacted long term isn't that apparent sometimes..

Feb 2025 Portfolio Update

Portfolio: 30.33% (was 9.35%)

ES3 (Straits Times Index Fund): 3.34% (was 2.34%)

S&P (S&P 500 Index): 0.56% (was 1.77%)

2800 (Tracker Fund Index): 13.26% (was 4.32%)

It was days before the last update and plenty of things happened for my portfolio.

Not only did OKP did very well in the days after earnings release, Alibaba had a revival (again?) that was way more optimistic than the last 2, or 3 times where it rose and faltered.

In fact, the HSI did very well in a matter of days, but Alibaba's rise seems especially prominent as Xi seems to soften his stance on private enterprise and 'common prosperity,' a term that I still struggle to understand.

The market treat me very kindly beside the upmove by Alibaba and OKP. Clifford Modern Living release a special dividend of HKD 0.112 per share. That removes 113.8m (or 104.9m RMB) of cash from its books.

What is the residue value? Clifford has100m RMB of deposites, and 344m of cash before this announcement. It also have 62.8m in silver bullion, which should be lower than market value since silver prices went a little higher since.

It has  payables of 118m - 34m of receivables, which net to 84m. There is about 60m of other liabilities, so total up there is 144m of liabilities.

The liquid assets totaled (100+344+62.8) 506.8m, and taking away 104.9m for dividend means it is 401.9m of net liquid assets. There are 144m of liabilities, so the result is 257.9m RMB.

There are 1015.75m shares, and current stock price is 0.67 HKD. That is a market cap of 680m HKD, or 636.7m RMB. Buying stock now is paying for a enterprise value of 378m.

Free cash flow is about 80-150m in the last five years. Even if we looked back last 10 years, the lowest was 77m. So I think it is perhaps wise to hold on to the shares.

Clifford has been quite a good investment, yielding me 70% returns so far. It is my third biggest position.

Transactions:

Sold out the small position of Wee Hur in CPF portfolio. The language and tone from the directors at the AGM don't sound too shareholder-friendly. Wee Hur, iirc, doesn't have a good track record in being so in the past, but who knows it might do a Centurion (I lost 200-300% returns on this, it was my third biggest position) and bite me.

Took profit on a small amount of OKP. OKP still weighs 40++% of my portfolio.

About 1500 shares of Alibaba, which is 3 call options worth of shares, were called away. I also had purchase 2 call options of Alibaba some time earlier, strike price 125. These option expire at the end of the year.

That is all I guess. Grateful that the market is kind to me, and will be looking out for how Anta Sports do in a few weeks, after earnings. I have quite a bit of synthetic positions, through options, on it.

Thank you OKP.

The agreement to terminate the viaduct contract with LTA. 2018.

Bread and butter projects for OKP-- maintenance.

Some questions wrote in prior to AGM

It took a long time to build up a position in OKP. This was 4-November-2020.

AGM in 2023, where its fortune were starting to turn for the better.

OKP was probably the first company I bought based on the basis that a company is under some sort of duress but is likely to recover. The very first shares were acquired in 2017-8.

The viaduct collapse was followed by mutual cancellation of the project. Shortly after, employees and directors were hauled to court. 

All troubles do come to an end. Things start turning for OKP, beginning with Mr Or Toh Wat having his charges withdrawn. Then in 2019, the arbitration between CPG Consultants and OKP came to a close, awarding some 40++m to OKP. At the same time, the valuations of the shophouse properties began appreciating as the world fought COVID. 

When 40++m were finally transferred to OKP, the market was very disappointed when there are no special dividend. Instead, the management was awarded directly by bonuses. Whether the investors believed the explanation given by directors during the AGM then (it was family tradition to withhold all dividends payout to the directors for one year, for financial prudence) or that the market has a short memory, the price did recover a little.

During the last two years, OKP won tenders for various cycling track projects, and they turned out to be extremely capital-efficient (high gross profit margin). The management was quite confident that the margins could be maintained.

Yesterday's result release reflected that confidence. A special dividend was also declared (2.5 cents).

The amount was probably the biggest since the period 2009-2012.

The share price was then between 50-90+ cents a share.

Perhaps today's move signifies some kind of recovery. But I am pragmatic-- I believe that being project-based, earnings are volatile and hence thinking in terms of price-earnings ratio is a little inappropriate.

***

I think I will remember today for some time.

OKP is, by far, my biggest position, ever. I had over 540,000 shares at one point. For years I have been telling my friends to buy OKP when prices was depressed (around 19 cents). I shared what I knew but few are convinced.. and even those who were convinced could not withstand its lack of liquidity.

The lack of liquidity means there will be no exit doors should my friends wish to sell. I had to adsorbed a modest (retrospectively) amount of shares from a friend, using the open market, on the day's bid-sell price, because that friend could no longer endure the liquidity.

I looked stupid for almost seven years.

Today's +20% move elevated my portfolio beyond S&P 500's return (at last). My portfolio was severely impacted by realized losses in Central China Real Estate. That realized loss alone, was 20% of my portfolio size, and it crippled my confidence and XIRR.

Those losing years brought back a little sense of empathy. I began to understand why some of my friends bought crypto, or meme stocks. I probably wouldn't feel so sympathetic if I never have lost money. Success in my earlier years blinded me from pain.

Losing money in investments in 2022 and 2023 wasn't the only

I started having issues at my workplace in 2023. My mum health (and still is) had issues, and I seen the inside of an A&E more than I wished to.

***

Truth to be told, I was looking at my phone with wet eyes as the market opens. I was at TTSH with my mum... and I told my mum we can afford a little luxury today. 

Instead of queueing up with 30 over people for coffee in TTSH's canteen, I went next door and bought us a couple of latte. Instead of just having bread and butter sandwich prepared from home, I bought a pot of hotpan chicken from the Korean food stall.

Thank you very much, OKP. Gratitude is all I have for what I experienced today.

Year-To-Date Update (Feb 2025)

 

That is me, recently. Not sure what happen but I hope it isn't anything huge.

Portfolio: 9.35%

ES3 (Straits Times Index Fund): 2.34%

S&P (S&P 500 Index): 1.77%

2800 (Tracker Fund Index): 4.32%

Major Transactions:

(1) Bought 1000 shares of Anta Sports to sell covered calls on. I am moderately bullish on Anta and Intrinsic Volatility for Anta is making the price of these calls worth it. Buying stock and selling calls of overpriced assets don't make sense to me. Yes, volatile, but highly overpriced stocks, like Nvidia and Tesla in the past, gives a option writer eye watering gains. But attention should be paid to risk-- I don't want to hold these stocks at current prices.

Nvidia, Current price: 129.84 Strike 130. Call option price 8.3. Expires in 19 days.

Tesla, Current Price: 361.62. Strike 365. Call option price 15.6. Expires in 19 days.

Anta Sports, Current Price: 86. Strike 87.5. Call option price: 3. Expire in 17 days (27-Feb)

Alibaba (HK), Current Price: 100. Strike 100. Call option price: 4.47. Expire in 17 days.

The yield respectively:

Nvda: 6.38%

Tesla: 4.27%

Anta: 3.43%

Alibaba (HK): 4.47%

The idea that rewards should commensurate with risk is seldom violated. As of now, I feel that Anta is moderately priced for its financials.

(2) Sold 1000 shares worth of Anta in put options and bought 1000 shares of Anta in call options, expiring one month.

This is what I would call "hand itch" trade. This trade is known as a "synthetic." Very little amount of money was put up for this trade, which would expire in 2 months. Realistically, due to theta decay, I would start selling a month or so before expiry.

Stocks: Since Anta Sports cost 85 HKD, 1000 shares of Anta cost 85000 HKD, or approx 14800 SGD

Options: Selling put (strike 85) gave me 4.62 per contract, and cost 4.95 (call options strike 90) to buy those call options. Each option contract is 200 shares, so I need 5 contracts= 5 * 200 * (4.95-4.62)= 330 HKD, or approx 60++ sgd.

Obviously that would mean Anta has to go close to 95 HKD for my options to start making money. Next month is earnings month, so it is worth a punt.

A short note to perhaps end the year

Sorry for the lack of updates.

I have been distracted by pool of late. My mum's colonoscopy is this Wed, and she has signs of anemia, so I am very worried.

So why I have been playing pool? I was simply trying to win something for a group of people. I think these people deserve it, and I want to try my best for them. I want to accumulate some karma for my mum. Hopefully the colonoscopy and result go well.

The last few months has not been great for my portfolio.

We experienced the rise and fall of HK equities. Unfortunately, I thought that it was a good bullish market sentiment and choose to cover my sold calls on Baba, realizing a loss of 5000++ SGD.

It was in vain as the market fell back. It means that my option income has effectively halved.

I also lost the same amt, or more, when I sold calls on Anta Sports. This, I did not cover, and hence I got my stock called away at cost.

I also witness stocks that effectively would have gone 200% up if I stayed (Centurion).

Overall, I can't say I have a very good year. But I am more worried for my mum now.

Looking at my portfolio returns, I was up 41% and now it is a mere 31%, equaling the S&P 500.

Both HSI and STI is about 23% equals.

I don't have any wisecrack advice.

Just feeling very worried day to day.

September 2024 Portfolio Update

As I wrote, Alibaba just closed another 7.3% up in one day. CSI300 index went up about 7.21% itself (at one point, it was 10%).

"The boat has left the.... p**t"

S&P500: 17.62% was 16.63% 

Tracker: 21.91% was 8.21% (what a month it has been) 
STI: 15.13% was 10.73% (it was quite a climb. Banks's shares are ATH)

My portfolio: 39.74% was 25.78%.

Please disregard this month's return as a bulk of it comes from Anta Sport's rally. As wrote in the previous post, I sold calls for all my shares in Anta, and as such there would be no gains at all. The gain in Anta would had been a cool 22.03%.

//last minute edit: I recall that Cordlife was also responsible for some of the increase this month. 

Unfortunately, the market rally also brought my Alibaba sold-calls to ATM. Volatility for calls outpaced puts-- in other words, if you have bought the shares at 110, and sell a call, you received about 6.6 dollars. If you have sold a put at 110 strike, the premium is 5.6 dollars.

This reflects a market sentiment skewed towards bullishness.

Alibaba represents 13.29% of my total equities portfolio. 

***

The somewhat negative impact of this market rally is not the main reason that my mood is as poor as the weather. My mum's glucose level is now extremely elevated, and her anemia did not improve. The latter requires her to go for a colonoscopy in the next two months.

It is another period of worries.

I have not been paying too much attention to my equities portfolio either. Hence, I am running low on ideas to buy and hold long term. Should I put more capital into the options strategy? I am unsure.

It is quite depressing that Alibaba, a share that I have held for some years (and undergone quite a bit of up and down), is now on its ascend and I am likely not part of it. Is this what most investor cautioned against-- having too much sentiment for a stock? Maybe.

***

Did selling option cost me a ton of capital gains? I would think so...

I have sold calls on...

Tracker when it was 17

HKEX while it was 220

Anta Sports while it was 60-70++

Link Reit while it was 35

and... Tencent while it was 300~!

***

How options can make you look dumb and smart at the same time

As I wrote, the HSI had an incredible week, and the Tracker went up 4% by itself. 

There were many outsized, single-day gains, particularly the ones that were long suppressed (tech comes into mind), and real estate. Heck, even China Vanke went up 20%.

The Dumb

Most of you would know that I have a income strategy with selling options-- through the virtue of a bull market, most of the calls I sold are exercised. A few good examples of missed gains:

Link REIT: wrote calls at 35. Today's price: 38.9
Commentary: I don't regret this being called away as Link REIT is a dividend payer. Dividend payers have very low volatility and hence very little premium yield. I didn't make any money with this one as I have to sell calls below my cost price. The dividend of 1.x HKD distributed was my saving grace, else I would be staring at capital losses.

Tracker Funds: wrote calls at 18. Today's price: 20.66
My cost price was 17... and I wrote calls for the same reason: Volatility on the tracker fund is way too low, and premiums are insignificant.

The Very Dumb

The only stock left in my portfolio as Anta Sports ("Anta") and Southwest Airlines. I regard Anta as a good company-- and selling puts on them have been more comfortable than most. Through the selldown last month, I have acquired a sizable amount of Anta, approximately 50% of the NAV of my income portfolio. 

The problem is, because Anta is already substantial, I did not sell a huge amount of puts this month, but I did sell calls on them, and unfortunately I sold calls on ALL of them.

So when Anta was priced at 69.4 HKD on 16 Sep, with my cost price of Anta at 77.3 HKD, I sold calls at strike price of 77.5, collecting a premium of only 0.417. The premium would be very low if the expiry is on 27-Sep (note: Hong Kong Exchange's options are only available monthly), so I sold the ones expiring on 30-Oct.

So what happen yesterday, 25-Sep?

I was in two minds on 23-Sep and 24-Sep if I should roll my options. Anta was priced at 75 (recall that my strike is at 77.5, expiring 30-Oct). So on 25-Sep, the stock open at 81.45 (practically busting my calls) and I was resigned to it being called away. What happen? the day ended back at 76 HKD. I felt like a genius for not covering/rolling my sold call options.

Charting can make you look like a fool sometimes. Notice the near term resistance at 80 HKD. The price action on 25- Sep would have hint that the market, as a whole, is not ready to go beyond that price point.

So I was reading this and thinking: this is great. Maybe I don't have to cover my calls.

Then today happened.

My call premium was 0.417. FML.

It would cost me MORE than the unrealized profits to cover this "short."

Note that Anta is now priced at 86.85. The strike of this option is 77.50. So there is a intrinsic value of 9.35 HKD. The additional 2 HKD is time value of the option, as well as the spike in implied volatility due to movement of the underlying.

So, what should I do now? Nothing. There is still time remaining in the option, and realistically, no option buyer (the other party in this contract) would exercise the option now (hence forgoing the 2 HKD worth of time value). The only time this happens is if there is a dividend of more than 2 HKD coming up.

The blog post is titled "How options can make you look dumb and smart...".... so where is the smart part?

The Smart
As my income portfolio is looking thin at the moment, I was looking for candidates to sell options for, and ran my screener for good companies. Good companies are basically compounders. They have decent ROE/ROICs, and usually are not priced cheap. A 52-week low of this list reveals an outstanding candidate for investment.... Nongfu Springs ("Nongfu")

There are two sides of the coin with Nongfu Springs. The pro side is: Nongfu has problems that are not economical in nature. Overly nationalistic rumours swirled after Wahaha Holdings' owner passed on, and certain Nongfu products have Japanese-looking design on them.

And then, there was this report of too much bromate.

This result in revenue falling for this natural water segment, but the other segments still displayed growth. I believe this problem is temporary.

However, Nongfu is priced to perfection, despite it falling to as low as 23 HKD a share. This is substantially lower than its IPO price, but by no means it present itself as a silly bargain.

There are two ways you could use options to acquire a position "for free." Notice the quotations-- they are NOT free and comes with their risks.

1) You sell ATM puts and use that premium to buy ATM calls. On normal days, the price should not be too different... if the premium for a put is 0.5 HKD, the call should be close. Today, however, isn't a normal day-- markets are way too bullish and demand for calls went sky high.

So what is the risk? If the stock goes down, the put you sold get exercised, and you have to buy the stock. But hey, you were ready to buy the stock anyway, right? So this isn't too bad.

2) You could use a call ratio backspread. 

A call ratio backspread involves selling a ATM call and using that premium to buy twice as many OTM calls.

E.g.: So assuming you liked Nongfu Springs at 28 HKD, but you are mindful that it still has problems and could go way down.

Selling a call, expiring at the end of the year,  at 28 HKD gives you 2.4 HKD. You would need to buy 2 contracts that cost you 2.4 HKD-- looking up the option chain, it happen to be priced at 31 HKD

So if the price goes down, you lost nothing as the sold call becomes out of the money.

If the price climbs gradually, you start to incur loss on the sold call. The moment the price goes beyond 31 HKD, those two call contracts that you bought becomes in-the-money, and the value of these options increases as the price increases. Eventually, if the stock does "moon," you close both positions.

You should only use a call ratio backspread if there is substantial downside and a substantial upside.

Well... hopefully this bull market have legs.