Dusting off my LEAPs again...

[The_Krakenite]

Captain's Log: Stardate July 26...

Project Unwind:

Shit got interesting this week, when the BoC decided to go easy on interest rates again. Naturally, crypto went through a rally soon after, though a lot most likely was due to Trump again.

Where things really got interesting, was Savers/Value Village (SVV). There was a big crash down ~15% after a never-ending snowball downhill previously. When I saw it fell into single digit territory, I moved into position and snatched up 4-round lots real quick (insta-market buy). I was tempted to buy more, but was 'hoping' it may crash lower. There are still 7 puts short on SVV, so I can still wait a while to see what happens here.

Due to the latest Bitcoin rally this Friday, I decided to re-execute my old plan of unwinding some of my long-calls for Bitcoin ETFs (BTCC.B). I sold off 20 more contracts, which netted over a 20-bagger again. Still kicking myself for missing out on close to the 30x-bagger many months ago, but this will do nicely considering we are still in the Mt. Gox sell-off territory.

I (may) use some of the raised cash to buy more more real estate ETFs next week. Will have to see how the sector is looking by then. Unfortunately, with Canadian interest rates going down even more, I sense the ETFs will be more pricy going forward.

So close to $40K in cash again. Why is it I have a feeling it won't last? lol

 

[The_Krakenite]

Captains Log: Stardate Aug 3...

The Great Vix Panic

Little did I know this week that the vix would spike up to ~30! Thursday and Friday things began to sell off hard.

Originally, I tried to take advantage during the sea-of-red starting Thursday.

I set a small limit order for Greenidge (GREE), which got filled in the last 8-seconds before market close that day. See? Waiting for that fill works out when you get the 'other' trader to lift your offers.

Friday (yesterday), prices were down even more, with vix sky high. I decided to bite my tongue and grab yet another round-lot of GREE.

I will be happy every time I get to drop my cost-basis for this vertically integrated stock. At the moment that's a small stack of 300 total shares. The company seems very well diversified, so I will be biased toward adding much more over time.

Here's a picture of the continued blood-bath from Friday:

Perhaps this wasn't the best timing for me. Earlier this week I had lowered the price of my limit-order to close my MSTR contract. Doh! Looks like that won't get filled for a long (no pun intended) while now...

Current options positions:

On the bright side, I am very happy to get assigned on BitFarms (BITF) and Bit Digital (BTBT) if that happens this month. Interesting to note, is Iris (IREN) being down despite having diversification into AI/HPC revenue. Hmm... more due-diligence is needed on that stock.

Cash Positions:

I'm in a catch-22 here. The lower things go, the more I want to use the 40.5K cash to buy and load-up on things. On the flip-side, the lower things go the more I've got traders getting ready to PUT their fallen stocks to me.

Future Plans:

I'm also debating on a speculative play... Semler Scientific (SMLR) purchased a shitload of BTC and is trying to copy the fundamentals of MicroStrategy (MSTR). After some research this weekend, I'm still not sure here... The company had a lot of cash, but due to healthcare policy issues, their revenue is going downhill quick.

This (may) have been a desperation play by them. Even if it is, this could still possibly work.

I'll press on with further study...

 

[The_Krakenite]

Captain's Log: Friday Aug 9th..

Fat-Finger Ordered!

Stupid me... got myself into a bit of an issue, and it cost me thousands (sort of).

Let's recap the shit-show this week by the Jap/Yen carry-trades causing hedge funds to blow up...

So, it looks like I had purchased another 200 shares of GREE yet again. Well, why not? Crypto went to shit when Japan had its re-visit of Black Monday 1987. So time to take advantage of yet another deeper dip.

I also went ahead with the SMLR plan and bought a round-lot. Well, the shares had crashed down with the rest of the market, so what else was I waiting for? I was already gunning for it before the massive discount.

This is my new MicroStrategy. And... speaking of MSTR...

All my existing shares 10'xd in number. Now I feel like a 'big swinging dick'.

Fun fact, I looked at the portfolio in pre-market, and existing options had not been properly adjusted yet for the split, so I was showing another crazy loss in the early hours of the morning.

I also both bought PUTs on HUT, and sold them the next day. What a stupid horrendous fat-finger order... absolutely hate using the new IBKR app at times. And to make things worse, (and I knew this would happen), the market went against my buy and close trades just to make things worse. But at lest I only lost a couple hundred... but it cost me from most likely winning thousands because I also stoped myself from doing other profitable trades for 24-hours cause I was just annoyed at my stupidity...

Today I shorted more PUTs on ETHH.B, as LEAPs are now available out to 2027. I was going to do them a day earlier, under much more profitable chances, but as I said... I was a bit in shell-shock and put a pause on (at the worst timing).

And finally, I bought more Savers/Value Village (SVV). I listened after market close last night to the earnings call, and boy it wasn't pretty. The Canadian misery index is still at an all-time high under Trudeau's wokish disasters. And even the middle class can't afford to by much at thrift stores these days. Ironically, the US stores are still holding on half-decent in sales. So, I bought an additional 3-round lots for my stack. Sitting at 2K shares now... if the price keeps crashing I will continue to add until I reach at least a block-order worth.

The purchase for SVV was done with the cash raised from shorting Ethereum PUTs. The rest of the change can be swept in the cash-account with other currencies.

Today it was looking like miner stocks are back to normal, after a big recovery recently
from the Japan contagion that hit earlier this week.

Current sinking ship's derivative's positions:

Bitcoin has recovered back to over 60K now, so I think FOPs should be safe at this rate. SVV I expect to be losing trades by the time DTE hits 0 (again, I'm ok with this). There is no liquidity to efficiently roll-out of the trades.

I am also still hoping that I get assigned on both BitFarms and Bit Digital stock this month. I am more convinced now than ever that BitFarms is highly under-rated, and the market will eventually correct when it realizes this.

I was watching the CEO today answere some questions, and learned a few things. They had upgraded to a lot of T21s, and about three thousand of them were severely underperforming. It took two weeks for them to isolate the issue... a defect with the heat-sink mechanism, which caused them to perform poorly.

Bitmain has agreed to replace them free of charge (well, that SHOULD be expected). So going forward I imagine stats will be even better.

Also, BitFarm's synthetic hodl strat is interesting. We will see how it pans out.

Future Plans:

I need to attend a 'Traders Anonymous' meeting, and learn how to stop levering up full-retard and just keep unwinding instead before the next swan hits.

 

[The_Krakenite]

Captain's Log: Friday Aug 16...

Mission: Anti-fragile

This week I started optimistic, but then began to get more worried as time progressed. I was correct in expecting the VIX to keep going down, unfortunately my margin did not grow inversely proportionally to this as much as I figured. With my maintenance requirement much more larger than I would prefer (to sleep well in my cabin at nights), I began to shift my battle-plan as the days progressed.

Intelligence Report:

Iris Energy (IREN) was literally free money, 10 contracts to expire so far OTM that it was a free trip.

Bit Digital (BTBT) was one I had wanted to get on assignment, but due to needing to lighten the load of my ship, I rolled it. Being as I closed it just short of what I opened the trade at, this frees up any complexities of wash-sale-trades for me. I had also thought of perhaps taking the assignment, and then legging into a short-strangle by selling covered calls, but priority of my ship is #1 goal for now. I simply must lighten the load... End result, I rolled into Feb for a profit, and down a strike to lesson the margin.

BitFarms (BITF) I rolled out yesterday. Again, pushed this down the line for a small profit and down a strike to lessen margin requirements.

And then... there were some more trades as recorded in the ship's logbook:

For the first time ever, I took on US treasury bills. I wasn't really too crazy for the trade, but wanted to get experience with handling the trade with the broker. And sure enough, there were some issues and nuances. Firstly, I couldn't do the trade because of permissions restrictions, and then I still ran into problems due to on-the-run vs off-the-run bond sales. I had to get around some of this by over-bidding for the T-Bills and even then waiting about half an hour to get a fill.

It may seem silly still to have begun adding government debt, especially since I'll have to pay hefty taxes on the revenue that barely beats inflation, but IBKR is going to give 100% cash-value contribution to margin. And, being as my first $10K of literal cash doesn't get paid interest in my regular cash-account at IBKR, I am going to look further into this T-Bills solution...

Quick Tip. You still have to pay a minimum of $5 commissions regardless if it's just one T-Bill or a thousand. So make your trades more than a single at a time. Every dollar helps

Earlier in the week, I snatched a couple more round-lots of Greenidge (GREE) for my stack. Going forward, this will be the last addition of ballast for a while. I simply want/need to lighten the load with all this geo-political risk getting out of control.

Ohhh! Almost forgot, apparently there is to be some possible big moves with Bit Digital after market close today.

The new, up-to-date options positions (with Treasuries! )

Quick look at cash reserve and other stuff in the cargo holds:

They really should add a 'bonds' column in that list


Future Plans:

Sit, wait, and see. No plans to take on any more assets (unless my CALLs explode in value). There are 10 contracts on BitDeer expiring next month. They (should) expire OTM and that will be another 8 short-puts lighter for my ship. In the meantime, I'm going to leave everything on automatic-pilot until Cramer says "Buy buy buy", then I'll know for sure we're all in deep shit.

 

[The_Krakenite]

Captain's Log, Saturday 24th...

I always figure on Friday being a big move, but to compound this, yesterday was also another Powell Friday. And even crypto jumped into the euphoria.

However, I was quite worried earlier on Monday if the speech didn't go so well, so I had continued with trying to 'lighten' the load of my ship--

My first choice was to close out MicroStrategy (MSTR). I've had those short-puts sitting in my cargo hold since 2023 already, and every time I'm getting close to a good fill, I let the thing run away from me. I decided to finally pull the trigger, since there was virtually no premium left in those contracts, and I'd still have to hold them until almost 2026. There is a lot that could still happen, not to mention that MSTR is 2x above what it should be for the Bitcoin on the balance sheets.

My next choice was to close out the last CoinBase position (COIN). I had milked about half the premium by then, and with a strike of 135, and a worrisome history lesson of FTX, I decided to lock in the cap-gains here as well and take the profit.

TeraWulf, I had debated on (WULF). However, I did read a flash of those short-selling articles going around talking about fraudulent accounting practices, etc. and immediately took my profits and got out.

Note, I did not really want to exit any of these positions, but with the crypto markets still highly depressed, and a chance for a major Powell move to the downside, I didn't want to take risks so lightened the load. I'm still ok with what that decision. Even still, portfolio Vega is around -700 at the moment.

It is very hard for me, but I am trying to avoid taking on any further bullish trades for the rest of the year.

Friday's Options Position after the close:

Current cash positions:

Note: I added the T-Bills column.

The ship has unloaded down to still over 200 short contracts. This is not exactly what Taleb refers to as anti-fragile. Despite what bargains I see on voyage the next few months, I am going to have to keep reminding myself of just saying 'no' for now.

In AI news... already there are CEOs of my miners talking about upgrading the Blackwell B100s to B200s.

I'm not sure when the AI bubble will pop, but this will get very interesting if it over-laps with the private equity burst at the same time.

 

[The_Krakenite]

Captain's log, star-date: Sun Sept 1st...

No Trades!

For the first time in a long time, I finally resisted the urge to carry out any more trades this week. I feel like I am ready to exit 'Traders Anonymous'.

It is truly baffling, to not list anything, but there you have it. My Trade History is absolutely blank for the week. Despite all the bullish and bearish rattling across the markets, I managed to finally sit out and play 'The Waiting Game' instead.

With Bitcoin going through yet ANOTHER correction and sliding back below under 60K, I'm actually glad now I had got out flat on MSTR and COIN in my previous trades. Back to our regular scheduled programming:

I sure hope everyone is correct in Bitcoin being a sure thing to hit over 100K end of this year, lol. It's cost me quite a bit so far by not selling all my long-calls when I should have!

Cash account barely over 30K-- a minor improvement.

While I definitely did not want to put on any 'unlimited risk' type trades, I had thought again on trying to do covered calls on NutFlix (NFLX). The margin shouldn't get impacted and it would come as a win-win (except for taxable capital gains).

However, I believe the premium is far too cheap right now to sell into. If I were to do anything at all, I'd rather buy calls. If the vol gets any more flat, I may have no choice but to start loading up. Just look at the rise of this money-making machine for the month:

This thing moves $100 a share in less than 30-days and keeps working its capital. I do not fancy myself trying to keep rolling my blown-through strikes, only to find out I will eventually run out of run-way to roll to.

I will just keep sitting and enjoying the ride for now (tax free).