InvestingWithBrandon

Retail investor: Portfolio secured puts sound great until you get assigned & don't have the cash.
Me: What do you think happens?
Retail investor: margin call? you get wiped out?
Me: Say my account is $1m & I'm on the hook to buy $100k of a stock. Worst case I get assigned & dont roll it. I then can sell $100k of something in my base, like bonds or $VOO, & now I own the company I wanted at the price I picked.
Retail investor: & if the whole market crashed first?
Me: That's why ratios matter. My total put obligations are always covered by my base portfolio even if the market falls DEEP.
Retail i

THE STOCK MARKET IS DOING THE UNTHINKABLE RIGHT IN FRONT OF US
Estimated EPS Q3 growth 29.5% YoY
Forward PE of 19.0
Economy ok
Interest rates ok (but on radar as they drift higher)
This is not a "bubble" being propped up by hype
This is a market being driven by REAL earnings strength
When profits are this strong, prices HAVE a reason to go higher
That is how markets work
EPS is strong & share prices will follow that in the long run
Will we get pullbacks & volatility? Of course!
But the long term investor will continue to win...

Retail investor: I'm 45. Is it too late to start investing?
Me: How much could you put in a month?
Retail investor: Maybe $1,000 if I cut some stuff.
Me: Ok. $1,000 a month into the S&P 500 for 20 years. If it does its long run average of about 10% a year, that's around $760,000 at 65.
Retail investor: wait, seriously?
Me: Yep... Compounding is a pretty amazing thing
Retail investor: & if I'd started at 35?
Me: About $2.26 million.
Retail investor: ...dang.
Me: Yeah. 10 extra years almost triples it.
Retail investor: so I really messed up.
Me: You didn't start at 35. Don't be 55 asking me the

"I think my stock's a bubble so I'm selling covered calls to protect myself."
Dude... no.
Say the stock falls 50%. You collected 1% in call premium on the way down. You're still down 49%.
That premium didn't protect you. It just made you feel like you were doing something.
If you really think it's a bubble, sell the shares. Don't let the tail wag the dog.
& if you don't think it's a bubble... why are you capping your upside on a company you're bullish on?
Covered calls put you in this weird spot where you're bullish & bearish on the same stock at the same time. So you're basically betting agai

"But Brandon, you're selling all these puts... what if the market crashes & you get assigned EVERYTHING?"
Put a gun to my head & ask me how much cash I could come up with in 7 days.
Millions. Because my base portfolio IS the cash. $VOO , $Q, elite companies... all sellable in seconds if I ever truly needed it.
That's what "portfolio secured" actually means. The collateral is real, liquid, & compounding the whole time.
& because my ratios are always in check, I never sell more puts than that base could cover even after a 50% crash...
No margin calls. No forced selling. No pants down.
People some

Retail investor: I just buy and hold index funds. Slow and steady.
Me: Good. Seriously. That's the base. I do the exact same thing with $VOO & $Q
Retail investor: Wait, you hold index funds too?
Me: Of course. The only difference is I don't let them just sit there. I use them as collateral and sell puts against them for another 15% ish on top.
Retail investor: So you're not replacing index investing… you're stacking on it?
Me: Exactly. You're doing step one perfectly. You just stopped before step two.
Retail investor: What if he market crashes with he portfolio secured put?
Me: Ratios are alwa

If you put $10,000 into $AMD in 2010, you would be rich today.
Well... let's play it out if you somehow did nothing & held until right now.
End of 2012 your $10,000 is worth about $2,500. Down 75%. You did nothing.
July 2015 the stock hits $1.62. Your $10,000 is now about $1,670. 5 years in & you're down 83%. People are talking about AMD going bankrupt. You did nothing.
End of 2016 you're finally back above $10,000. Took about 7 years just to break even. You did nothing.
End of 2021... about $149,000.
2022 it gets cut in half. Down to about $67,000. $82,000 gone in one year. You did nothing.
E

$AMD started this year at about $214. It's around $610 today.
Now watch what a covered call does to that.
Say you owned 100 shares in early February. AMD had just dipped to about $192. You sell a covered call at $220 for a little "income."
By late April AMD is about $348. Somewhere on the way up it blew through $220 & your shares got called away.
Today it's around $610. That's $390 a share above your strike. On just 100 shares... $39,000 you handed to someone else for a little bit of premium.
& the downside? From the start of the year to that February low AMD dropped about $22 a share. A few b