Readers should know I fancy myself a value investor, not an options trader. But conservative investors can benefit using options even if they don’t know much about the Greeks or implied volatility. Two strategies in particular — covered call writing and naked put writing — can be extremely valuable to long-term investors in volatile times [...]
To my knowledge, it was Seth Klarman who first invoked the classic 80/20 rule as it pertains to investing: 80% of useful information to an investor will come in the initial 20% of research. Beyond that, investors face diminishing returns in terms of knowledge affecting an investment. The success of an investment usually hinges on [...]
Despite what efficient market theory may suggest, Barron’s occasionally offers interesting ideas for value-oriented investors. It has long been my view that value opportunities are often provided to investors because of the market’s structural bias toward short-term results even if long-term prospects look solid. As such, actionable ideas can be found even in one of [...]
THE ENLIGHTENED-AMERICAN PORTFOLIO SPREADSHEET Enlightened-American Portfolio: +7.2% through August 1st, 2011 (my actual IRR, including cash balance) DJIA: +4.8% Nasdaq: +3.5% S&P 500: +2.3% DJ Wilshire 5000: +2.2% Russell 2000 (smallcap): +1.2% I must admit some pleasure at walking away from the portfolio for a month only to return to YTD results showing us outperforming [...]
