Nov 2023 Portfolio Update

Straits Times Index Fund, YTD returns: -0.32% (was -1.26% last month)
S&P 500, +20.3% (was +14%). Wow. I didn't know the US market was so bullish this month.
Tracker Fund, -7.62% (was -8%) 

My portfolio, 0.9% (was 1.4%)

Things didn't go too great for me in November as well. Alibaba had a big intraday drop after announcing a stock sale from Jack Ma's Trust (which in the end did not get executed) and the shelving of hema/AliCloud IPO.

Since Alibaba is my second biggest position and I have already made purchases in the past at this level, the only thing I did during those sell-off days... was to sell puts. I did not sell a single share. More on the options later.

Major Transactions:

Complete Liquidation in YZJ Finance and Centurion.

In addition to the resignation of both CEO and CIO, the legal counsel has decided to throw in the towel as well. Most of my shares are gone at 0.32x. 

As for Centurion, I think the story has pretty much play out and the market is only willing to pay around this level. I can't say that its debt level, as well as my impression that the management is not OPMI-friendly, didn't play a part in my decision.

Most of my attention now is in selling options as the market appear to be quite bearish.

Transaction in options this month includes:

1) Selling two PUT contracts of Alibaba at 67.5 and 72.5 strike price. Both are now somewhat OTM and time decay is working nicely for me. I collected about 150 SGD from providing this "insurance."

2) Sold puts of Link REIT at 35, closing it for a quick gain as it enjoy a bull day, and then sold another 2 contracts at 38 and 40. The put contract at 40 is a in the money put. I was a little confident that the results as well as the approaching dividend (ex-day) will aid in stablizing prices. Total premium collected was 470 SGD without owning a single share. I had more than enough capital to pay in case the other party exercises, of course.

3) Purchase Tracker Funds and sold calls, as well as sold calls for all my Tracker Fund positions previously held. That is a total of 10 contracts sold. Total premiums collected is 330 SGD. 

I expect a portion of these to be called away, 4 of them are having a strike price of 17.00 HKD. The current market price is 17.69, and the premium collected for each of these was 0.6. So if the market does turn bullish next week, it is likely. 

I bought these 2000 units of Tracker Fund this month to sell calls with. (each contract of Tracker Fund is 500 units). This is what is known as a "buy-write", i.e. buy the stock and write (also known as sell) calls.

Inefficient as it is, in terms of ROI when compared to a sell-put strategy, doing a covered call require next to no attention on my part after the trade. Meanwhile, I can sell too much puts and underestimate on margin.

4) Sold Tencent PUTS and covered them after the market has recovered for Tencent. Little to no premium was left... The Tencent call contracts are having a modest profit 250 SGD. They expire next year's June. The plan is to sell them 3 months before expiry before time decay sets in.

Overall, this low risk strategy brought much needed income this month. This portfolio has seen nothing but bad news for more than 2 years... and I am kinda tired to be honest.