Sometimes we forget the basics.

In our video series, there's a lesson called “The Secret to Consistent 20-40% Annual Returns on Stocks” and I hope you've seen it.  While the low implied volatility of the market has made it a rough year for option selling, we were still able to scratch out just under 30% profits in our long and short-term portfolios. We also cashed out out Income Portfolio with a 20% profit earlier in the year and we did it by following the BASIC strategies we teach at Philstockworld, not by gambling! 

Not that we're adverse to gambling, gambling is fun – but fun means fun, which means it's a small part of our total investing portfolio while the vast bulk of our money is SENSIBLY INVESTED in safer strategies that are designed to grind out consistently good returns over many years.  Two weeks ago we discussed the long-term advantages of compounding annual growth in “How to Get Rich Slowly” and now we'll begin discussing some basic strategies that can generate those consistent annual returns.

In the “7 Steps” video, we're discussing a basic covered call strategy and we delve into the Fundamentals of stock selection.  At the time (Sept 2013), we were using ABX, which was trading at $19.15 and we sold the November $19 calls (45 days out) for $1.30.  The simple instructions were to wash, rinse and repeat to make up to 40% a year by simply selling calls against the stock.  

As you can see, ABX has dropped to $10.58 since then, down about 40% BUT, had you followed through and kept selling calls, we had a lovely 12-month period in which it stayed in our range and that would have given us 8 opportunities to collect at least $1 for $8 back before the stock turned down in September of this year.  That would have dropped the net outlay below $10 and stopping out at $15 would have been a 50% gain for the year – even as the stock dropped 22% (from $19.15 to $15).