No changes this week.
ETF Trading Portfolio Update -- June 5, 2017
No changes this week.
You're My Pride and Joy, Etcetera
Volman and Kaylan, our kind of smartasses.
Everything I Ate in July 2017
This is another one of my nutter posts, but I don't think I've ever recorded everything I ate for an entire month. Let's see if I can do a full 31 days.
Friday, July 7
- Egg, one, boiled, white only
- Eggs, two, scrambled in one-half teaspoon of butter
- Bread, one slice, farmstyle (Wegmans), toasted
- Yam, baked, 75 grams
- Yoghurt, 4 ounces, Noosa brand, salted caramel flavor
- Amazing Grass, immunity, one glass
- Prunes, three, Sunsweet brand, pitted
- Bread, one slice, farmstyle (Wegmans), toasted, with garden strawberry jam (D'arbo brand)
- Sausage, breakfast (Larry's), patty, 5 ounces cooked
- Bread, one slice, farmstyle (Wegmans)
- Broccoli, large bowl
- Cookies, Pepperidge Farm Milano brand, double chocolate, five
- Milk, small glass, Fairlife brand
- Tacos, homemade, three
- Marzipan, Milk Chocolate Covered, four squares, Niederegger Lubeck brand
- Whisky, quite a few sips, Nikka Coffey Grain
- Muffins, poppy seed, homemade, two
Thursday, July 6
- Oatmeal, one-third cup, steel cut, Quaker brand
- Maple syrup, two tablespoons
- Amazing Grass, immunity, one glass
- Prunes, two, Sunsweet brand, pitted
- Yoghurt, 4 ounces, Noosa brand, honey flavor
- Eggs, one, scrambled
- Whisky, quite a few sips, Nikka Coffey Grain
- Chips with chipotle salsa, one bowl, Xochitl brand, Frontera brand
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Beef, 3 ounces cooked, tenderloin, fried in one teaspoon of butter
- Salad -- greens, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, avocado, olives, pesto, dressing (Briannas brand)
- Ice cream, Cherry Orchard Flurrie, Sno Top
- Pizza, two and a half slices, Supreme (Pavone's)
- Marzipan, Milk Chocolate Covered, one square, Niederegger Lubeck brand
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Soda, six ounces, IBC root beer
Wednesday, July 5
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Oatmeal, one-third cup, steel cut, Quaker brand
- Maple syrup, two tablespoons
- Amazing Grass, immunity, one glass
- Prunes, three, Sunsweet brand, bite size pitted
- Strawberries and cherries, one bowl
- Chicken, drumstick
- Pork, small slab
- Bread, one slice, rosemary olive oil (Wegmans), toasted
- Salad -- greens, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, avocado, olives, pesto, dressing (Briannas brand)
- Soda, six ounces, IBC root beer
- Yoghurt, 4 ounces, Noosa brand, blood orange flavor
- Popcorn, large bowl, oil popped
- Yam, baked, 70 grams
- Creamsicle cooler (raspberry sherbet with vanilla ice cream), small, King Ferry
- Ice cream, one-half kid's vanilla cone
- Shrimp
- Rice
- Spinach
- Chicken, drumstick
- Watermelon, two slices
- Whisky, quite a few sips, Nikka Coffey Grain
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Marzipan, Milk Chocolate Covered, one square, Niederegger Lubeck brand
- Seaweed snack, three packs
- Candy, at least 10, Ricola Honey Herb drops
Tuesday, July 4
- Oatmeal, one-third cup, steel cut, Quaker brand
- Maple syrup, two tablespoons
- Amazing Grass, immunity, one glass
- Yoghurt, 4 ounces, Noosa brand, blood orange flavor
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Submarine sandwich, six inch, Subway brand, chicken bacon ranch
- McNugget, one
- Dorito, one, nacho flavor
- Beer, 12 ounce bottle, Ommegang brand, Rare Vos Amber Ale, three
- Beer, 12 ounce can, Founder's brand, All Day IPA, one
- Funyuns, two and three eighths ounce bag
- Rhubarb pie, one large slice
- Soda, one half can, Dr. Pepper
- Oreo ball (mint flavor)
- Eggs, four, deviled
- Chicken, drumstick
- Potato salad
- Ice cream, one bowl, Jeni's brand, Middle West Whiskey and Pecans
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
Monday, July 3
- Eggs, two, scrambled in one-half teaspoon of butter
- Bread, one slice, rosemary olive oil (Wegmans), toasted
- Amazing Grass, immunity, one glass
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Yoghurt, 4 ounces, Noosa brand, lemon flavor
- Prunes, six, Sunsweet brand, bite size pitted
- Yam, baked, 70 grams
- Beef, 3 ounces cooked, tenderloin, fried in one teaspoon of butter
- Salad -- greens, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, avocado, olives, pesto, dressing (Briannas brand)
- Hi-chew, one piece, mango flavor
- Milk shake, small, banana flavor, (King Ferry)
- Carrots, one
- Hummus, two tablespoons, Ithaca brand, lemon & garlic
- Sausage, sweet Italian (Larry's), patty, 7 ounces cooked
- Bread, one slice, farmstyle (Wegmans), toasted
- Ice cream, 140 grams, Jeni's brand, Goat Cheese with Red Cherries
- Couscous, one-quarter cup
- Ham steak, 6 ounces cooked, Larry's
- Green beans
- Candy, at least 10, Ricola Honey Herb drops
- Pistachios, at least fifty, unsalted
- Caramel, one, Béquet brand, celtic sea salt
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Chex Mix, handful, Savory Traditional
- Ramen, one packet, Nissin brand, Oriental flavor
Sunday, July 2
- Eggs, two, scrambled in one-half teaspoon of butter
- Bread, one slice, rosemary olive oil (Wegmans), toasted
- Amazing Grass, immunity, one glass
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Sausage, sweet Italian (Larry's), patty, 7 ounces cooked
- Bread, one slice, farmstyle (Wegmans), toasted
- Carrots, one
- Hummus, two tablespoons, Ithaca brand, lemon & garlic
- Yoghurt, 4 ounces, Noosa brand, lemon flavor
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Prunes, six, Sunsweet brand, bite size pitted
- Yam, baked, 75 grams
- Beef pho (homemade)
- Brussels sprouts
- Strawberry, one
- Ice cream, 100 grams, Jeni's brand, Goat Cheese with Red Cherries
- Whisky, a few sips, Nikka Coffey Grain
- Candy, at least 20, Ricola Honey Herb drops
Saturday, July 1
- Eggs, two, scrambled in one-half teaspoon of butter
- Bread, one slice, rosemary olive oil (Wegmans), toasted
- Amazing Grass, immunity, one glass
- Sausage, sweet Italian (Larry's), patty, 3 ounces cooked
- Bread, one slice, farmstyle (Wegmans), toasted
- Carrots, baby, 88 grams
- Hummus, two tablespoons, Ithaca brand, lemon & garlic
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Seaweed snack, three packs
- Cherries, 95 grams (with pits)
- Eggs, two, boiled, whites only
- Salad -- greens, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, avocado, olives, pesto, dressing (Briannas brand)
- Chicken, breasts, fried in one teaspoon butter, 9 ounces cooked
- Honey hot sauce, three tablespoons, Sweet Baby Ray's brand
- Grapes and cherries, one bowl
- Hi-chew, one piece, melon flavor
- Pistachios, at least a hundred, unsalted
- Strawberry, one
Dirty Dozen, Long Only Portfolio, End of June 2017
One change to the Dirty Dozen portfolio, selling Chipotle (CMG) on July 3rd. Amgen, Gilead, and Twitter remain on the sidelines for now. Starbucks, which was bought on June 1, isn't looking particularly well, but we will have to wait another month before deciding whether it should be sold.
Changes in 2017 include selling Twitter in January, while getting long Chipotle and Tesla in February, Facebook in April, and Starbucks in June. The Chipotle sale in July, after five months of holding, will more or less be a "scratch" ... no loss, no gain.
TV Shows Watched -- Sense8
My buddy Theo recommended this one to me. A Netflix Original series. Whoever did the opening credit music also did the House of Cards opening credit music, more or less exactly the same song, maybe a two-for-one deal for Netflix.
This is by the Wachowski brothers, you know, the Matrix guys. It's a similarly mend-bending alternate reality, parallel reality, time twister, whatever kind of deal. Features eight! different people on eight different continents (I know, I know) who all share this bond with Darryl Hannah, their "birth mother" of sorts. I love D. Hannah because she's exactly my age (ok, ten years older) and still looks great, though she doesn't have much screen time here.
The show is intriguing enough to watch another episode, though I have a sinking feeling.
Blonde lady from The Ring
OK, the eight guys on eight continents thing is a little overwhelming. Why didn't the Wachomatrix brothers make it six or even four? There's a black character and an Asian character and a transgender character and a gay Latin lover character (talk about Sesame Street), but all the gay sex doesn't grate too badly ... it's the gratuitous violence I can do without. I will soldier on to episode three.
Great package (stuck a sock in it)
One of the characters is a Korean woman who is corporate chieftain by day (her Dad's company) and cage fighter by night. Somehow the eight linked characters can zap around the globe taking one another's places. Another character is in Kenya? maybe and the Korean girl takes his place in a fight. Time space flipperoo just when you need it. Not sure how many more of these episodes I can get through, but season one ain't 22 shows long at least! To be continued...
Nice sheen of sweat but she ain't ripped
Driving for Uber
Uber will be legal in my neck of Appalachia starting at midnight tonight. I've applied to be an Uber driver and am still waiting for the text or email that tells me I'm approved to drive. I have already submitted the scary driver profile pic and am anxious to go!
I'm still waiting....
All clear....
The Cost of a Cardiac MRI
Earlier this year I had a cardiac MRI. You slide down the MRI tube and they inject gadolinium through a vein in your left hand. There's a cold sensation that runs the length of the left side of your body, which is fine until it reaches your head (brain). You sort of want to cry out, but you also don't want to be a wimp about it, and it passes.
Here's the bill: $7,056. I always think about medical bills in terms of Mercedes payments. You can see that my cardiologist pays about $2,846 a month for his S600, so the cost of the cardiac MRI will make almost exactly two and a half car payments for him. Guess who doesn't want a Single Payer healthcare system in America?
Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 107
Episode 107 ... Anthony Saliba (110:14)
- Options in China as the last frontier
- 120MM retail investors in China
- Jan 1998, last day of floor trading in Australia
- Lives in Milan but has house in Chicago
- Helped exchanges around the world make switch from open outcry to screen-based trading
- Only ASX gave Saliba's company credit for successful transition
- Believes options are a great product
- Was a stockbroker right out of college, 21 years old, in Indianapolis
- Era of Jimmy Carter, Stagflation
- Read a lot about options
- Closing prices came in the newspaper the next day
- Clients did call and ask where prices closed
- Bally was the hot stock of the day
- Client invited him to trade on floor in Chicago (CBOE)
- Guy he caddied for also worked on CBOE
- Partnered with guy he caddied for, made half a million dollars by 1981, bought him out
- Had a mainframe available that he could plug into for theoretical values
- Teledyne another hot stock of the day (IBM, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard)
- He would trade bigger than peers because he'd use spreads
- Personal computer became a thing in 1984, hired a programmer to write software
- On the CBOE floor for 13 years
- Glossed over almost busting out early on
- Started out with $50,000 dropped quickly to $15,000 over five weeks
- Filled with loathing and despair
- Started out with someone else's money, "Julian Good"
- Switched from Teledyne to Boeing, trading one lots
- Goal of making $200-$300 a day
- Wrestler and cross country runner in high school, so he's disciplined
- Went back to Teledyne pit but using his Boeing pit discipline
- Made six figures a month or more
- Punting is anathema to him, just chip away day after day instead
- Realized trading not as easy as he thought, lots of introspection
- Son of a carpenter
- When you get hurt (lose money), trade smaller and chip away
- Still trading Teledyne in 1984
- Short squeeze in Teledyne, rallied 50 points, Saliba got scared by this
- Leon Cooperman the Teledyne analyst at Goldman Sachs in 1984
- Teledyne eventually hit $320 a share in three months
- Tried to trade currency options like he did equity options, got killed
- Sep. 1985 move in Yen (4-5% rally), he got his ass kicked
- Had Quotrek machine by his bed
- No respite when you trade currencies
- Lost $2MM in two years trading currency options
- He likes to give back, loved the CBOE, did marketing trips to regional brokerage offices
- Edmund Andrews wanted to write story about an options market maker
- By chance, Andrews happened to be in Chicago day after 1987 crash
- Andrews followed Saliba around on Oct. 20, 1987 (day after crash) ... Saliba was age 32 then
- Andrews' story on cover of Success magazine, January 1988 [I will look for this in library]
- CBOE didn't like it, market makers supposed to be low profile
- Looking in pictures like the cat that had eaten the canary (this was frowned upon)
- Lot of people on the floor who never knew what they were doing
- He saw the structure of the market differently from others
- Some were slaves to the Greeks: delta, gamma, vega
- Others were trading directionally using technical analysis
- Saliba tried to create low-cost spreads with easy-to-understand risks
- Left floor in 1991
- Not a quant guy
- Not good at math in school
- But he's very disciplined ... later on used a lot of automation
- "Necessity is the mother of invention"
- Youngest brother works for Goldman Sachs (in options)
- "Staying spread is staying alive"
- In 1988 tried to train a group of traders, frustrating, wanted to automate it
- Spent money on programmers to build simulator, cost more than he expected, had to figure out how to sell it to others
- Germany was on Unix using Sun systems
- Saliba arrived in Frankfurt (Deutsche Bank) 1989, trained them all
- Charles Cottle "The Risk Doctor" his partner in this venture
- Mentions Shelly Natenberg book
- Teaching the mechanics of options making, better risk management
- Had no Holy Grail that he was exposing by teaching others
- Traits of a good trader:
- Discipline (stick to a plan),
- Creativity (coming up with a plan),
- Humility (willing to scrap a plan),
- Good sense of humor (can't take it too seriously when you miss things),
- Intelligence,
- Diligence
- "Swivel chairing" -- one platform for idea generation, one for trade execution
- Markets are less forgiving today than when he started out
- Discipine: sticking to risk and size guidelines, sticking to the plan
- Can't determine why you make or lose money if you don't stick to plan
- Why did pros he know miss the Trump win that night? It was a shock, Saliba was scared too, not sure correction overblown
- Night of Brexit, Saliba identified it as hand-wringing and should be bought
- He has always adapted, hates the term "re-inventing" oneself
- Has developed and sold a lot of software products that solve problems
- Wife says he has too many ideas
- Kissed a lot of frogs on the way to the princess (talking about investments, not his wife)
- Has lots of very diverse investments now (golf courses, insurance, healthcare, etc.)
- Nephew and brother have found a lot of deals for him
- He was born poor (but in America, not in a global sense), father lived hand to mouth, had seven kids
- Upbringing helped him respect the value of things
- Don't be a curmudgeonly scrooge type, but you have to stay grounded when you make big money
- He wouldn't have been as driven as he was without being born poor
- His own kids are entitled, don't have his drive or hunger
- "Success skips a generation"
- Millennials don't have the hunger, they ask "what does the world owe me?"
- Saliba is gracious, humble, honest ... and says some nice things to Aaron in parting
Cost of Homemade Rice Krispies Treats
The kids were interested in the price difference between store-bought Rice Krispies Treats and homemade ones. OK, their father was interested in the price difference and got the kids involved.
First we bought a 40-bar box of Rice Krispies Treats for $7.49. We've never done this before; it was purchased strictly to find out how much each individually wrapped bar weighs, and the answer is around 21 grams, so that's 420 grams for $7.49 or $0.01783 per gram ... a little under two cents per gram.
If you eat enough of these, you'll look like the guy on the box
Next we bought a four-stick package of President butter for $5.99, or about $1.50 a stick. The recipe calls for three tablespoons of butter, which is 3/7 of a stick or $0.64 worth of butter.
We bought four sticks in a box (no picture available)
Then we bought a 10 ounce package of Jet-Puffed Miniature Marshmallows for $1.69. The recipe calls for one whole package.
The glue than binds
Lastly we bought an 18 ounce box of Rice Krispies for $3.69. There are around 18.75 cups of Rice Krispies in an 18 ounce box and we can round down to 18 given the spillage that occurs when the kids make Rice Krispies Treats.
Kellogg's, baby ... no store brands allowed!
So the total cost per batch was $0.64 (butter) + $1.69 (marshmallows) + $1.23 (cereal) = $3.56. The yield of our first homemade batch was 431 grams, giving a per gram cost of $0.00825 ... it would be even lower if not for the spillage allowance.
The bottom line is the store-bought Rice Krispies Treats cost more than twice as much as homemade ones.
I will update the post with the yield that we get from future homemade batches to see how much variance there is batch to batch.
UPDATE: the second batch we made was 460 grams, giving an even lower per gram cost of $0.007391!