Options and real estate wedlock - a beginner level trade on a real estate backed asset

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I used to wonder the same thing. I've been a subscriber for years. I spent a full year paper trading their stocks. Next year, I dipped in. Next year I went full in and haven't looked back. It's the single greatest decision I have ever made with my investing portfolio. Read up on both Steven Cress and his quant system. There's some Youtube videos, I think I posted one in this thread not too far back. He's the real deal and the product is legit. There's some naysayers out there but in my opinion none of them have been legitimate subscribers who have taken the time to learn and use the system IMO. I'm living proof that it works.

Premium is about $25-30/mo, cheaper if they have a deal or if you pay annual. Pro is like...over 2K a year. I'm a Pro subscriber but honestly...I think Premium is the greatest bang for your buck.
How your returns have been for the past 3-5 yrs?
 
How your returns have been for the past 3-5 yrs?
I don't have my returns from TDA as I lost all that data when I went to Schwab but very similar to Schwab. Usually outperforming SPY by a factor of 1.5-2. Last year 44% return. This year 26% YTD, etc.. Pretty similar pattern year before.

I don't necessarily trade the Alpha picks portfolio as I do my own thing but most of my stocks end up being part of the portfolio because I've either seen them in the database or Cress brought them to my attention, etc.. I do have a watchlist of active Alpha picks stocks that I'm always paying attention to their performance to see whether it meets my technical criteria, etc.. Trading those stocks always gives me a little extra boost of confidence because I know it's part of the portfolio and has already been vetted by the quant team.

I've only really been diligently trading the system for the past 3 years I'd say. I paper traded it for almost a year prior before I worked up the confidence to take a position in any of the quant stocks. Each year I'm somewhat refining so it's been a learning process. Things that used to bug me about the quant system don't bother me anymore and I sort of get it...like the frequent factor grade flips on things like EPS revisions, etc..
 
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The Alpha picks is relatively new. It used to be just the quant system but back in....2021/2022? they started the Alpha picks portfolio which was an awesome contribution to the service and it's been pretty incredible seeing the returns.

Recently they started the Pro Quant Portfolio for Pro members which is more of an active investing portfolio where there is regular rebalancing that they are transparent about along with their pick alerts. I'd say those stocks are quite a bit more speculative and many more smaller cap but the return is insane. I'm not really brave enough to trade most of those tickers with legit retirement money whereas I'd have almost zero problems trading most of the Alpha pick portfolio.
Well, I buy BTC Treasury scam companies with my retirement accounts so maybe it's a good fit for me lol.
 
I got stopped out of VRNA yesterday at the blue line. Here was today's candle. Sigh.....

Screenshot 2025-07-09 at 9.36.39 AM.png


At least it hasn't been a wasted trade.....

Screenshot 2025-07-09 at 9.38.55 AM.png


Bought LITE, MU.

Interesting new BlackRock ETF:

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) launched Wednesday the iShares S&P 500 ex Top 100 ETF (XOEF) to give investors exposure to large-cap U.S. stocks within the S&P 500 Index while excluding those in the S&P 100 Index.

The new fund comes as the rise of mega-cap stocks over the last 20 years has led to indices with increasingly concentrated weightings in the largest names and greater dispersion within U.S. equity large-cap performance, the asset manager said.

“Today’s market environment requires investors to be more intentional in managing mega-cap exposure within portfolios,” says Jay Jacobs, U.S. head of Equity ETFs at BlackRock. "XOEF provides investors a new lever for managing mega-cap concentration with greater precision.”

XOEF has a net expense ratio of 0.20%, in line with a slew of other iShares U.S. equity ETFs.


BlackRock's (NYSE:BLK) iShares business has a global pipeline of over 1,500 ETFs and $4.3T in assets under management as of March 31, 2025.
 
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Is SPX gonna check back to it's 20 DMA in the next ~30 days? Seems a bit overextended. That would take it to 6100. I would suspect the bulls would want this...it would allow indicators to be reset, digestion of recent gains to occur, etc.

Plus I'm biased because I own a few Aug 31 6000p
 
Is SPX gonna check back to it's 20 DMA in the next ~30 days? Seems a bit overextended. That would take it to 6100. I would suspect the bulls would want this...it would allow indicators to be reset, digestion of recent gains to occur, etc.

Plus I'm biased because I own a few Aug 31 6000p

Those will print

I'm fully of the mind that we're at least at 6500 if not 6800 by EOY
 
The hardest part about hanging up the stethoscope was letting go of the ER doc identity. Indeed, it took a long time to get to the point where I could consider myself an expert at managing a high volume high acuity trauma/STEMI/stroke certified ED. There was meaning and satisfaction in knowing I was good at it.

But eventually, what I had to give up and deal with to maintain that persona, identity, and lifestyle was just too much. It's been over a year and I still haven't fully dropped the persona, especially since you get so much lay person cred for telling them you're an EM physician. You're a badass in their eyes. However...

I hate to say it, but EM is 100% blue-collar work, and I wish I realized that in medical school. I was more drawn to the sexiness of the field, particularly its potential to earn a substantial amount of money quickly through a 3-year residency. At the time, everything about it seemed exciting and interesting. As a medical student you're shielded from the day-to-day BS of being an attending EM physician, and you get to solely focus on bearing witness to the coolest cases, without having to deal with the negative aspects. I figured I wouldn't live past the age of 40, and so I didn't care much about the future (classic hubristic mid-20s male thought pattern).

It wasn't until I started investing my attending money that I realized there was a whole world of finance that interested me FAR more than medicine. And once I peeled back the surface, it was crazy to see how much money you could make simply by manipulating numbers on a screen in an intelligent way, rather than slave away physically and mentally at the bedside.

I wasn't designed to do blue-collar work, and by this point, EM was "easy" for me in specific ways, but tough in others. I will piss off a ton of people by saying this but EM wasn't intellectually challenging at all. It's a very algorithmic field, and the difficult parts all surround dealing with the personalities of the nurses, consultants, patients, and just about every other human obstacle that comes with providing care in a modern-day feces-fest that is the American ED. And then there's the mountains of charting and other secretarial work.

A difficulty Ludwig's airway? Go through your algo, if you have to cut, then cut. Get that airway by any means necessary. EASY.

But the hard part? Dealing with the dingus ENT on the other end. Dealing with the administrative fallout of having to do a cric. Going to peer review over saving a human being's life (which is what we trained to do). I could go on and on and on about these kinds of difficulties, which just wore me out. The road to hell is paved with good intention.

The medicine of EM is easy. It's, unfortunately, a tiny part of the job.

It was a waste of my talent and brainpower to be fighting with consultants, administrators, and sometimes even my own medical director.

I poured my intellect into learning how to invest, trade, scale, and, my goodness, has it been 1,000 times more fruitful. And get this. It's actually way more rewarding to me spiritually and mentally than being a physician ever was.

I now have a skill that allows me to support myself, my family, my kids, and even my extended family (if I become proficient enough) solely through my own skills. SOLOPRENEUR status. All I need is a computer and a great internet connection. I can do this from anywhere in the world. It keeps me informed about world events and macroeconomic factors, allowing me to stay ahead of 99% of human beings who are going about their lives when it comes to information flow.

I don't depend on nurses, assistants, bottom-of-the-IQ-barrel scribes, and a variety of other uncontrollable factors that we have to deal with as ER docs. That was a huge source of burnout for me. Zero control.

I genuinely think having to go through all that training is a complete waste for what the role is today, and I do think a well-trained PA can do a vast majority of the job, and could easily handle the more complex stuff if trained on the job. I've seen it before in some of the locums EDs. Experienced 20 year PAs who expertly placed lines and resuscitated patients intelligently. Managed traumas well. All of it. You're kidding yourself if you think you need an MD or DO to be a strong EM clinician in 2025. You just need good on the job training.

I think EM is full of people who truly can't see that our expertise isn't that valuable, isn't that difficult to obtain, and has minimal value-add to any healthcare system. And it's diluting faster and faster with the expansion of all these programs. It's an IMG specialty at this point.

I'm incredibly happy to be out of EM, and I'm also incredibly happy to be able to support myself with options income and risk-defined trading.

Though I'll end with this: I genuinely wish I could find some sort of way to still be a doctor as a side hustle, at my own pace. Perhaps see 5-6 patients per day, 2-3 days a week, assisting them with simple PCP-level tasks. Or even urgent care type stuff.

But a job like that doesn't exist, and you really can't create one and maintain a positive margin given what costs are these days, particularly in my VHCOL area. Any urgent care or similar clinical role effectively requires you to hustle out as much volume as possible - forget that.

And thus another physician withers away to the ether, pursuing something completely different, when I still have 20-30 years left in me to dedicate to some career or pursuit or whatever (I'm not even 40).

The best part is that I also received a half scholarship to attend medical school. What a societal waste if you think about it.

I'll leave you with this:
1. You can beat the market
2. It's pretty hard, but if you give it a residency-level effort (as you did with your clinical training) it's well within your reach
3. Invest in disruptive technology, learn how to pair trade with non-correlated assets, and SIZE UP
4. Learn options, this was such an unlock for me
5. "Diversification results in bips, concentration results in multiples."

Anyway, back to touching grass, taking my kid to a birthday party, followed by a stargazing event at the local observatory!

(Apologies for any mistakes, I just stream-of-consciousness typed this out)
Number 5 is key.
Concentration = Wealth creation
Diversification = Wealth preservation; if you have no wealth then diversification = minimizing losses

Loss aversion by Daniel Kahneman is real
 
Appreciate! During a gold rush, sell shovels! $COIN my favorite stock

The day they announced COIN getting into the SPY I remember people posting pics of some of their calls, just wild wild wild numbers, +20,000% (yes, twenty thousand) type numbers

I assume you were part of that crew

Congrats on such a massive win!
 
The day they announced COIN getting into the SPY I remember people posting pics of some of their calls, just wild wild wild numbers, +20,000% (yes, twenty thousand) type numbers

I assume you were part of that crew

Congrats on such a massive win!
Thanks brother! Insane gains for those people, been buying spot since mid 170s. Let’s get it!! I am looking forward to seeing how fast these **** coins go up as we crescendo towards the top. I am under no illusion that Coinbase will be immune to the crypto bear market - last cycle it’s high was $420 and it’s low was $30.
 
Thanks brother! Insane gains for those people, been buying spot since mid 170s. Let’s get it!! I am looking forward to seeing how fast these **** coins go up as we crescendo towards the top. I am under no illusion that Coinbase will be immune to the crypto bear market - last cycle it’s high was $420 and it’s low was $30.

I am a champion at HODLing through a bear, and plan to do so while collecting CC premium on my IBIT and MSTR stack (which I expect it will be easier to do so than it is now with having to roll up and out occasionally for these spikes)

I'm mostly laddering from 5-20 deltas 45-21 DTE, mechanically taking profits at 50% unless there's some technicals or other signal that tells me to ride it longer

It feels like free money... (until it isnt)
 
I am a champion at HODLing through a bear, and plan to do so while collecting CC premium on my IBIT and MSTR stack (which I expect it will be easier to do so than it is now with having to roll up and out occasionally for these spikes)

I'm mostly laddering from 5-20 deltas 45-21 DTE, mechanically taking profits at 50% unless there's some technicals or other signal that tells me to ride it longer

It feels like free money... (until it isnt)
You got a great strategy!! Awesome man, congrats on being retired!
 
Stopped out of ISSC. Sold SPOT. Bought AEVA, TPC, TSM. Set a K/D alert on SEZL. Updated NVDA stops from 140 to 150. Considering reducing NVDA size soon.

Yea even I'm thinking about trimming my NVDA despite it being a long-term hold position for me.

Market cap of $4T.. insane.

At the same time it's disruptive technology and it's entirely possible it doubles in market cap over the next 5-7 years. Who knows. We are in wild times.
 
Yea even I'm thinking about trimming my NVDA despite it being a long-term hold position for me.

Market cap of $4T.. insane.

At the same time it's disruptive technology and it's entirely possible it doubles in market cap over the next 5-7 years. Who knows. We are in wild times.
Yeah, completely nuts when you think about it. I'm 100% long too but wouldn't be too upset if it pulled back some and stopped me out so I could get another re-entry. The problem is that it keeps climbing. Relatively regular 17-25 bar retracements until April 21st when the sucker just took off and has been ripping ever since. I just keep setting new stops but I always get nervous when using stops on NVDA because the volatility can be so ridiculous and inevitably I wake up to a market order that sold right before new buyers rushed in to bring the price back up. It's way too volatile for limit orders. If it hits 175, I'll definitely take a chunk out if my stops haven't been hit sooner. If not, I'll definitely take some off prior to next earnings. I'm actually using margin for an order in one of my accounts so I should at the very least sell enough NVDA to settle the margin order. I'll probably do that Monday.
 
With SP500 reaching new highs, IWM smashing (risk on), crypto going ballistic, no global liquidity peak = bull market kektinues

Buy and hold >> trading for me in terms of profitability I’ve learned quickly
 
With SP500 reaching new highs, IWM smashing (risk on), crypto going ballistic, no global liquidity peak = bull market kektinues

Buy and hold >> trading for me in terms of profitability I’ve learned quickly
I just now noticed your gain porn from a few days ago. I missed it somehow. That's insane, congrats!
 
Yea even I'm thinking about trimming my NVDA despite it being a long-term hold position for me.

Market cap of $4T.. insane.

At the same time it's disruptive technology and it's entirely possible it doubles in market cap over the next 5-7 years. Who knows. We are in wild times.

There is such significant call skew you could put on a very favorable collar on, or even a put spread collar

Sell the Dec 200C, buy the Dec 150/120 put spread. Goes on for even. Or something similar.
 
If I wouldn't have closed out almost everything during tariff market crash, I would have another $1-2M right now. I simply shall continue the grind.
Did ya get back in any?

I was the same but changed my view once BTC exceeded 90K (from 105K to 75K sure smelled like the start of a crypto bear market but once it went from 75K to 90K I knew I was wrong and pivoted, quite the fake out).
 
Anyone looking at Scholar Rock?

Loaded up on calls last month which are already doing well....they have what is as close a cure for SMA as anything exists that was so good in phase 2 trials it's on FDA fast track review with final decision late September. If it gets FDA approval for SMA tx (and later, mixed with weight loss meds for obvious reasons which is planned to mix with Zepbound) I've seen suggestions stock could triple
 
Me and a couple buddies bought some Jan 26 SPY calls for strike 670.

Thesis is Powell resigns and new Trump lackey cuts rates.

Let's get rich.
 
*deep breath *

Sold 350 $22.5 December CNC puts. Also holding a large $210 strike unh October position. I’m extremely bullish on the instance sector being under valued.

Let’s see how long this stock can remain severely oversold with ridiculously low RSI for a week straight and essentially no relief.

$500/week ibit purchase started. Starting to sell some $50 strike december ibit contracts too with the intention of owning them if it drops - otherwise it was giving 15% return in 5 months which I’m okay with as well.
 
Mostly Passive Amazon store now ramping up with almost 50k sales this month.

Net bottom line profit for me is about 5-6%. Amount of work is about 1-2 hours per week.

Amazon should grow to 150k/month sales - but most of that will be after 3-6 months. Ramping up slowly.
 

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Mostly Passive Amazon store now ramping up with almost 50k sales this month.

Net bottom line profit for me is about 5-6%. Amount of work is about 1-2 hours per week.

Amazon should grow to 150k/month sales - but most of that will be after 3-6 months. Ramping up slowly.

I feel like you need to do a long form post on this one. These are incredibly hard to start, maintain, and sustain.

I tried doing dropshipping for a little bit, but once the China-US relations went to complete s#!t, the entire thing became much more difficult.

Wasn't worth the squeeze with the time I was putting in.
 
Me and a couple buddies bought some Jan 26 SPY calls for strike 670.

Thesis is Powell resigns and new Trump lackey cuts rates.

Let's get rich.
I wonder if the US government will ever become "normal" again after Trump.
 
*deep breath *

Sold 350 $22.5 December CNC puts. Also holding a large $210 strike unh October position. I’m extremely bullish on the instance sector being under valued.

Let’s see how long this stock can remain severely oversold with ridiculously low RSI for a week straight and essentially no relief.

$500/week ibit purchase started. Starting to sell some $50 strike december ibit contracts too with the intention of owning them if it drops - otherwise it was giving 15% return in 5 months which I’m okay with as well.
I might dump 20k on OSCR tomorrow.
 
I might dump 20k on OSCR tomorrow.

Earnings are coming up - I’m hoping there’s some catalyst for reversal for the entire sector. Elevance is first in 3 days.

the next 2 weeks can go either way, companies reiterate a decent 2026 and the sector recovers, or earnings disappoint and it’s one last leg down before recovery.

If you look at any valuation metric, it is ridiculous where cnc is currently trending. It’s literally trading like a company going bankrupt - except it has 17B in cash, trading at less than half its book value, and is highly profitable, and even with significantly decreased forward earnings estimates, the forward P/E ratio is very low. It’s just bargain prices especially since things should recover in 2026 once premiums readjust.
 
Earnings are coming up - I’m hoping there’s some catalyst for reversal for the entire sector. Elevance is first in 3 days.

the next 2 weeks can go either way, companies reiterate a decent 2026 and the sector recovers, or earnings disappoint and it’s one last leg down before recovery.

If you look at any valuation metric, it is ridiculous where cnc is currently trending. It’s literally trading like a company going bankrupt - except it has 17B in cash, trading at less than half its book value, and is highly profitable, and even with significantly decreased forward earnings estimates, the forward P/E ratio is very low. It’s just bargain prices especially since things should recover in 2026 once premiums readjust.
I was debating if I should put 10k in each (OSCR/CNC), but I think I am going all in on OSCR because I think they will have a blockbuster earnings.
 
I feel like you need to do a long form post on this one. These are incredibly hard to start, maintain, and sustain.

I tried doing dropshipping for a little bit, but once the China-US relations went to complete s#!t, the entire thing became much more difficult.

Wasn't worth the squeeze with the time I was putting in.

Well…. There’s not much to post but here’s a quick synopsis.

It basically is dropshipping. There are people in 3rd world countries who do this for a living, they find US based clients with capital and basically run the entire store for a percentage of the profit.

My previous Walmart store unfortunately got closed - some policy violation or something. They blocked the account. It had ramped up to 50k monthly sales with about 15-18% net profit, half of which was mine. It made about 9k for me in a few months and then was closed by Walmart.

A new Walmart store is now back under my wife. We’re no longer dropshipping from Home Depot and ONLY dropshipping from essendant and using bulk orders and sending them to Walmart fulfillment services. This account will slowly ramp up, it’s relatively new, so keeping sales under control - staying around 2-3k per month, aging the account before ramping it up. 6 months of consistent selling history is usually a good idea before ramping up.

My amazon is run by the same guy who runs my Walmart. But he brought on someone who is a lot more experienced in Amazon and runs 5 or 6 accounts that do 6 figures each a month in sales with 10-12% net profit. Walmart split Is 50:50, but Amazon split is 40:30:30 (mine is 40).

I provide the capital, all Amazon payments go to my account. The Amazon expert guy provides his essendant account with an amazing pricing plan since they purchase multi million dollars worth of things from them, they also provide the strategy of what to post, pricing, and experience in getting amazon accounts to mature safely. The walmart guy provides the man power - order fulfillment, customer service responses, uploading tracking information and essentially the day to day work. He has a team of 10 people that he has hired in pakistan that fulfills orders.

I don’t do much for the business, just go through the credit card transactions and like to make sure the money coming in is greater than the money going out in transactions. That’s the degree of work i put in - mostly to make sure I’m not getting screwed.

I also use a 2% cash back card which kind of adds a lot of points. I’m looking into getting the Chase sapphire reserve and combine it with the Chase 2% everything card. Then every 100 dollars spent becomes $3 worth of travel as cash back. Might be worth it if spending 100k/month.

All in all, 50k of sales will only make me about 2k in profit and 1k in cash back for Amazon. Walmart margins were great because a lot of products were shipped through Home Depot with free shipping. Essendant product margins are smaller but usually net 10% after Amazon fees.

But yeah…it’s dropshipping from essendant with manpower from pakistan doing all the work.

There are people who charge 30%, but this guy is from sahiwal, where my wife is from, i know where he lives, his mother was just admitted to sahiwal international hospital where my father in law was ceo. He shouldn’t be able to just screw me over and disappear. So I’m okay with a smaller percentage - especially since the amazon store and business i own 100% - if this store ramps up to doing 100k/month of revenue, which it should very soon, last week alone was 16k, then that Amazon account and business has intrinsic value that i 100% own and control.

So in a way, they are building equity in this business that i own.

Edit: there’s also the added benefit of one extra 401k, business deductions for home expenses (electric, gas, car, electronics), and state tax free shopping since my business is a reseller business and has state tax exemption.
 
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NVDA and AMD going BOOM this morning. I sold AGESY (it's been a real snoozefest but I got a decent 4.3% return) and bought SEZL instead.

Latest Portfolio:

ANF
AMD
GOOGL
AMZN
ATI
ATYR
BCS
CCL
CLS
CRDO
KB
LITE
META
MU
NVDA
PLTR
PM
PSIX
PUK
STX
SEZL
STRL
TSM
TIMB
TPC
UBER

QTUM

Looked at some stats and am reminded just how bad my overall win rate is and it's simply the fact that the winners tend to win big and are allowed to run whereas the losers tend to lose small before my stop is triggered and I exit the position.

2024:
44% gain
108 wins, 142 losses for a win rate of 43%
Gain/Loss ratio however was 73%

2025 YTD
26% gain
35 wins, 72 losses for a win rate of 33%
Gain/Loss ratio of 60%

34 of the losses were for under 2.5% loss
19 were for losses between 7-11%, the rest were under 7%
1 outlier at 18% loss

That win rate is terrible, lol.
 
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NVDA and AMD going BOOM this morning. I sold AGESY (it's been a real snoozefest but I got a decent 4.3% return) and bought SEZL instead.

Latest Portfolio:

ANF
AMD
GOOGL
AMZN
ATI
ATYR
BCS
CCL
CLS
CRDO
KB
LITE
META
MU
NVDA
PLTR
PM
PSIX
PUK
STX
SEZL
STRL
TSM
TIMB
TPC
UBER

QTUM

Looked at some stats and am reminded just how bad my overall win rate is and it's simply the fact that the winners tend to win big and are allowed to run whereas the losers tend to lose small before my stop is triggered and I exit the position.

2024:
44% gain
108 wins, 142 losses for a win rate of 43%
Gain/Loss ratio however was 73%

2025 YTD
26% gain
35 wins, 72 losses for a win rate of 33%
Gain/Loss ratio of 60%

34 of the losses were for under 2.5% loss
19 were for losses between 7-11%, the rest were under 7%
1 outlier at 18% loss

That win rate is terrible, lol.

One of the biggest lessons I had to learn was letting my winners run for this exact reason. It's 1000x harder than it sounds, but without internalizing that lesson and learning how to do it safely (averaging out of positions, leaving runners, and/or doubling down on something that's really working out) my trading career wouldn't be profitable.
 
One of the biggest lessons I had to learn was letting my winners run for this exact reason. It's 1000x harder than it sounds, but without internalizing that lesson and learning how to do it safely (averaging out of positions, leaving runners, and/or doubling down on something that's really working out) my trading career wouldn't be profitable.
As you said, it's a lot harder when big money is in play.

It's amazing. Had I kept my PLTR for a year, I would have been quasi coast FIRE now.
 
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NVDA and AMD going BOOM this morning. I sold AGESY (it's been a real snoozefest but I got a decent 4.3% return) and bought SEZL instead.

Latest Portfolio:

ANF
AMD
GOOGL
AMZN
ATI
ATYR
BCS
CCL
CLS
CRDO
KB
LITE
META
MU
NVDA
PLTR
PM
PSIX
PUK
STX
SEZL
STRL
TSM
TIMB
TPC
UBER

QTUM

Looked at some stats and am reminded just how bad my overall win rate is and it's simply the fact that the winners tend to win big and are allowed to run whereas the losers tend to lose small before my stop is triggered and I exit the position.

2024:
44% gain
108 wins, 142 losses for a win rate of 43%
Gain/Loss ratio however was 73%

2025 YTD
26% gain
35 wins, 72 losses for a win rate of 33%
Gain/Loss ratio of 60%

34 of the losses were for under 2.5% loss
19 were for losses between 7-11%, the rest were under 7%
1 outlier at 18% loss

That win rate is terrible, lol.
These YTD gains are insane. You pretty much can be financially independent If you keep repeating these gains for another 5-7 years
 
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