Author: dukeofpuddles

Boy Howdy!!

I’m not here to discuss the cons & cons of tariffs so here’s a quick run-down and comparison to show you just how much of an impact they are having on the market. I’ll keep it fun. Maybe even use a meme!

Stocks had been dropping in reaction to the trade war until a fake tweet went out saying tariffs were going to be paused sending markets soaring. That was until the White House later came out that day and said they would not be pausing tariffs. Then the following day the White House announces that actually they are pausing tariffs.

The market doesn’t have these huge fluctuations often, remember it’s made up of the top 500 companies so it has to be big news to move the needle … and tariffs be big. The S&P 500 lost approximately $2.4 trillion in value on April 3, marking its largest one-day loss since March 2020 (Covid). In total $10 trillion was wiped from the market in all of April 2025.

There were only 2 days in all of 2024 where the market had more than a 2% drop in a single day. So it was a wild ride to watch it sink 5% several days in a row. It was like watching a slow car crash but one of the cars has an open bag of my money inside of it with all the windows down. And while this has calmed down for the moment this is only a pause on tariffs and there doesn’t seem to be a real game plan on account of all the flippin’ and floppin’. (Note: I have listed examples of the aforementioned flippin’ and floppin’ at the bottom of the page for the sake of brevity)

Now, while I brought home some of my biggest losses this month others are having to postpone their retirement because their 401ks have plummeted. So you won’t find me complaining because I’m too busy out here counting my blessings.

“If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.”

― Regina Brett

Speaking of problems let’s see how I did this month.

My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In April I achieved an increase of 1.46% bringing in $182 total.

I’m up 38% this year increasing my accounts by $3,476 so far in the year of our Lord 2025.

On a side note, I found out while filing my taxes that you get credit for contributing to your 401k. I maxed out mine ($7,000 in 2024) and got $1000 back on my refund! I put most of that back in and made some trades with SMST. We’ll see how that’s playing out below where I give an update on my positions.

Here’s a table of my monthly performance compared to the S&P 500’s.

	Profit	% Change	S&P 500
Jan	$1,214	+13.7%	+2.7%
Feb	$1,741	+16.85%	-1.42%
March	$339	+2.8%	+5.75%
April	$182	+1.46%	-0.76%

And here’s a sad update on my positions.

SMST – This was my anti-MicroStrategy/Bitcoin play I carried on about last month. I believe this company is doomed to fail. This stock is Inverse and 2x Leveraged so it does the opposite of what MicroStrategy (MSTR) does at double the speed. These “opposite day” ETFs are handy when the stock it follows is very expensive, as is the case with MicroStrategy which is currently trading around $400. In my case I’m using it in lieu of buying Put options in hopes to profit off of a declining stock price.

I own 600 shares that started with a cost basis of $6 per share but I’ve lowered that to $5.17 with the use of options. It’s currently trading around $1.30. Total return as of writing this is -$1,780. ouch.

The share price is so far below my cost basis that it’s near impossible to even sell a Covered Call against the shares.

HOOD – Last month this stock was in the same boat as SMST is now. I was down almost $2k on it and was just having to wait for the price to recover while selling Covered Calls against my shares with very little premium. Well, it finally bounced back and now I’m up over $600 on it. I own 100 shares that I bought at $56.17 each and have made $303 selling covered calls, bringing my share cost down to $53.

Spoiler alert – These shares finally get called away next month thanks to one of the Covered Calls I sold, freeing up $5,500.

SOFI – Been selling Covered Calls against my 100 shares for very little premium. In doing so I’ve brought my cost down from $15.41 to $14.86. Really hoping to get these called away soon, the premium has not been worth it.

NVIDIA – Before all this tariff nonsense went down Nvidia was experiencing a drop in price thanks to some news about DeepSeek in China. They were able to develop an AI model without the use of Nvidia’s latest and greatest chip causing the stock to nosedive. Nvidia designs chips but relies heavily on the global supply chain and their manufacturing is outsourced mostly to Taiwan. So when they started in with all the tariffs that price dipped a lot more.

I bought 11 shares at ~$125 each but since the market conditions have changed I was quick to sell them for a small profit when the opportunity finally presented itself after a few months of waiting. I only made $55 off the trade but I got $1,400 back off the table. The risk vs reward was not worth it and now I can make better use of that capital elsewhere. Especially combined with the profits from Robinhood mentioned above.

The Misery Hymns Of Mammon

I told ya’ll buying Calls was risky on my Options Explained Gently page and you’re about to see why. These were bought back in October and December with plenty of time till expiration, so I was at least playing it on the safer side. Safe as a snail in a sandstorm, look at these losses!

Denison Mines (DNN) – $210

I bought 22 Calls with an average price of $10 over the course of a few months. This was a 205 day trade. DNN was a play on the possibility of the Uranium sector growing because of it’s use in nuclear energy. They reported significant losses at the end of last year and this recent change in global market dynamics was the nail in the coffin. Lessons learned? Stop messing with penny stocks.

Hanesbrand (HBI) – $780

I bought 8 Calls with an average price of $130 over the course of a few months. This was a 163 day trade. Hanes, I wish I knew how to quit you. This was one of my first stocks to trade because of it’s cheaper price and it seemed to be undervalued while, at the same time, aggressively paying off it’s debt.

Back when I really didn’t know what I was doing I had sold a Put Credit Spread with the strike price wayyyy above the current stock price. Simply put, I had unknowingly offered to buy something at a much higher price than what it was currently being sold at. I was assigned 100 shares late at night while in the middle of a hurricane with the power out because of this dumb thing I did from a lack of understanding. I’m still getting teased for nervously waking my girlfriend up so I could use her hotspot to figure out what just happened and how badly I goofed. I was also mocked online when asking for clarification which I deserve and humbly accept.

Long story short, every thing was fine and I did profit but it showed me that I really needed to slow down and learn the mechanics behind it all before diving in head first. Unsurprisingly, this is not new behavior for me. I’m prone to want to skip ahead and get to the fun stuff.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

For example, I’ve been playing drums and guitar for about 25 years but I’m still having to go back and learn some rudiments or music theory that I rushed over when I started out. I want to advance quickly and that rarely works for me as I find myself having to backtrack or not being able to go up a level because I never even put in the ground floor.

In my defense I bought these Calls before drastically changing my game plan and strategy last year. The consequences just caught up to me this month. Karma takes it sweet time.

If I could turn back time (Final thought’s I’d like to Cher)

Cash is a position. I need to have money ready for when an opportunity presents itself. I thought I could quickly grow the extra cash I had sitting there but all I’ve done is miss out on a lot of opportunities over these last few months because my capital was tied up elsewhere. There’s money to be made when there’s blood in the streets.

In regards to SMST, I probably shouldn’t speculate like that. This is where most of my capital is tied up currently. The markets are unpredictable and they will surprise you. We got up at 4am once to watch a satellite launch I was invested in. Everything went smoothly and it was a huge success and then I watched the stock immediately drop 15%.

Bad times serve as points of refinement. We’re going to make mistakes and things will be out of our control, that’s inevitable. The quicker you can realize, admit, then learn, the more fun you’ll have.

Yabba dabba doo,
Chris

_{If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.}

_{PS – Here are the flip flops from earlier.}

^{March 2025: Trump announced a 25% tariff on auto imports from Mexico and Canada, only to postpone them days later amid concerns over supply chain disruptions. Source}

^{April 2025: A sweeping 10% global tariff was introduced, followed by a 90-day pause just hours after implementation to allow for trade negotiations. Source}

^{April 2025: Tariffs on Chinese goods were raised to 145%, then reduced to 30% as part of a temporary truce.}

^{April 2025: An initial plan to impose cumulative tariffs on imported vehicles and steel was modified to exempt automakers from overlapping tariffs. Source}

^{February 2025: Trump proposed “reciprocal” tariffs to match other countries’ rates, a significant shift from previous trade policies. Source}

Welp, things get a little worse this month as more tariff policies lead to instability in our everyday lives and that’s being reflected in the market. The market price measures the value that we place on everything and it’s a good indicator of the overall health of the economy. It contains two values; today’s value and the future’s potential value while simultaneously reflecting our needs, desires, and fears and from the looks of it there’s a lot of fear in the streets.

When you hear the market being talked about in the news what’s usually being referenced is the S&P 500 which is a weighted index of America’s top 500 publicly traded companies. The weighting system ensures that the largest and most valuable companies will carry the greatest weight in the index.

The top 10 companies in the S&P 500 carry 30% of the weight. To keep it short and sweet I’ll just say that I find these company’s stocks overpriced and overvalued and the whole thing doesn’t sit right with me. I recently sold all of my holdings of the index, a month later Warren Buffet made the same move, and now the market has dropped significantly in reaction to Trump’s trade war nonsense leaving me feeling like Dashboard Confessional’s 2004 smash hit from the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack.

Now whatever spices the good Lord has decided to flavor me with can lead me to find my interests a bit all-consuming and I’m known to hyper-fixate for stretches of time. I have to be mindful of this and remember to take breaks to keep the obsessions healthy and maintaining balance in my life. These pauses allow me to approach things again with fresh eyes and a new perspective and that’s how this recent slow down in trading has been for me. It’s been a nice, healthy pullback that has allowed me to focus on a lot of other, less dorky things while reminding me that there’s no need to rush when it comes to investing. Or anything else for that matter.

“The stock market is a device to transfer money from the impatient to the patient”
^{_{Warren Buffet}}

I feel like a lot of times we can view our weaknesses or flaws as things that needs to be fixed or completely eradicated. What many myths and spiritual teachings emphasize is that true growth and transformation come from facing and embracing our weaknesses, not just from exploiting our strengths. That our real strength can be found in our weaknesses.

On top of my downright addictive behavior another of my weaknesses has been patience, which I feel many can relate with. Through lessons learned from hobbies, mindfulness practices, and fatherhood I now experience the joys of delayed gratification and don’t find it as much of a struggle to hold my horses. Nature grows and moves slowly. When she moves swiftly it is usually destructive.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished”
^{_{Lao Tzu}}

Alright alright I’ll get on with it. Here are the numbers for March.

My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In March I achieved an increase of 2.8% bringing in $339 total. womp.

I’m up 36% this year increasing my accounts by $3,294 so far in the year of our Lord 2025.

As an options seller I profit the most when volatility is high. While things right now are shaky, the market is efficient and every thing is already priced in. Meaning the tariffs were no surprise as it’s something that Trump campaigned on, so even though it’s tanking the market it doesn’t necessarily lead to higher volatility. The stocks that I’ve been writing Covered Calls on (SOFI, HOOD, SMST) have dropped so far below my cost basis that I spent a lot of time waiting on the sidelines for premiums to increase. In hindsight I would’ve done better settling for the lower premium than waiting for things to get better.

Let’s talk about my first losing trade since December 2024 and it’s a Bitcoin rant! MicroStrategy is a failing computer company that doesn’t make any thing new or make a profit for that matter and I’ve decided to take a bet against them. What they’ve chosen to do instead of investing back into the growth of their own company is to buy Bitcoin and have their value be based on something that’s value is based on sentiment.

For a time people who didn’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a crypto wallet would buy MicroStrategy stock using it as a work around for owning Bitcoin. But as the hype train rolled into the station and every one wanted in, the price of the stock was driven so high that if you bought in you’re actually buying Bitcoin at double it’s value. Not every one has realized this, yet.

But it appears I called their downfall a little early this month. I made a guess that people would wise up and the stock would plummet soon. I was wrong.

I sold a Cash Secured Put for 100 shares where I received $140 credit then used that to buy a Call for $85 that ended up expiring worthless. So all in all I’ve only lost $85 so far but it’s no skin off my back as I was playing with house money. But overall I’m currently down over $1000 on this contrarian position while I wait for things to recover. It’s not a loss if you never sell!!!

“I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.”
^{Sir Issac Newton}

Newton actually said that after losing a fortune in the stock market and maybe we’ll talk about that later but I’ve kept you long enough so, finally, here are all my trades for the month.

Be patient.
Be kind.
Pay attention.

Thanks for stopping by!
Chris

I know ya’ll are itchin’ to get your grubby little eyes on these numbers so we’ll start there.

My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In February I achieved an increase of 16.37% bringing in $1,691 total.

20 trades with no losses. That’s 2 months and 42 trades in a row with no losses for those who are counting. Don’t worry, there’s some big blunders coming up next month. Stay tuned!

I’m up 31.76% this year increasing my accounts by $2,905 so far in the year of our Lord 2025.

Market’s on the fritz thanks to tariffs so you’ll notice I traded small and less often. I find it helpful to try and see my trading as matter of preserving capital instead of increasing it quickly.

^{“Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.”
_{Proverbs 13:11}}

That’s right, it’s my website and I’ll quote whatever I damn well please!

My Tip-Top Trade

Here’s a quick breakdown of my favorite trade of the month and once again I owe it to being inspired by someone else. I have a coworker that I convinced to start trading who, through their trading, reminded me I was completely forgetting about just buying and flipping shares and was limiting myself by primarily focusing on options. So with some extra cash in my buying power I bought almost 50 shares of HIMS (Hims & Hers) at $45.75 per share.

When you start seeing numbers flying all over the screen and those numbers represent real money your emotions can easily get the best of you. When you read about trading you’ll find that a huge portion will actually be discussing the psychology involved and the importance of having a plan.

Even though my profits were huge I was finding great difficulty in deciding when to sell. On paper it was clear as day it was time. The difficulty came because I wanted to make even more money. That’s embarrassing to admit but you’d be surprised the emotions you go through when things are moving fast. This is why it’s important to have rules and to stick to those rules. If you are at the mercy of your emotions you will not trade well. Life will also prove to be difficult for you.

“If you wouldn’t pay the current price it’s time to sell.”

That’s the rule that repeated in my head when I was in peril and I’m very grateful for it. The shares were way overpriced and it was time to sell, it was that simple. I trusted my gut and sold the shares that I bought at $45.75 for $65 for a profit of $935 in 10 days time.

The next day the stock dropped 25%. The same thing happened the following day. In fact, as of writing this in March the price still hasn’t recovered.

I try to learn from mistakes. This painting is one of mine that my partner immortalized on a mini canvas. I didn’t sell when I should’ve causing me to be in the trade for weeks longer than I wanted and tying up lots of capital. It was frustrating. Now the painting is by my desk as a tiny reminder. Looks similar to the chart above, eh?

Kill Your Darlings

AST Space Mobile (ASTS) has been one of my favorite stocks since I started trading. It’s a satellite company aiming to eliminate all cellular dead zones.

Over time I was able to slowly buy stock as well as sell Cash Secured Puts in order to acquire 200 shares. Then I started selling Covered Calls against them. By trading options around the underlying stock I was able to drop the average price of my 200 shares from $22 to $17 a share. Neat!

Since September of last year it has traded in a range between $20 and $25. Up and down, up and down, sideways for months.

Recognizing something like this you can better time your entries and exits and receive the most premium. I made $906 selling Covered Calls while simply owning the stock would have done nothing for me during the same timeframe.

But it finally happened where 2 Covered Calls I sold were assigned and I was obligated to sell my 200 shares at $22 each. Meanwhile the stock jumped up to $35 revealing the biggest downside to Covered Calls. But I knew the risks going in and I made a profit in the end.

The stock has been on a steady downtrend since (currently mid $20’s) and I’ve already made $178 selling Cash Secured Puts in an attempt to buy back into the stock.

It still stings a little, though.

Subtracting and Adding Insult to Injury

What stings a little more is I used the $4,500 in profits to open a position in Robinhood (HOOD). I bought 100 shares at $56.

I held through an earnings report where the price soared and I gained over $1,000 in profits overnight … except I didn’t do anything but sit on my hands. I assumed the stock would settle down after the huge spike and continue the trend upwards, at which point I would start selling Covered Calls.

“If you wanna hear God laugh tell him your plans.”

Very, very silly in hindsight because it’s been on a downtrend ever since and now I’m currently down just shy of $2000. Only once I saw the writing on the wall did I begin selling Calls, which to date has only netted me $168. The only thing that concerns me is the opportunity loss from tying up that much capital and waiting on it’s value to rise again. The market is very down right now and it’s a great time to buy, however this stock is holding most of my equity preventing me from doing so.

Lessons Learned … again

I shouldn’t have written covered calls on ASTS after a big drop in price, I should’ve waited for it to rise again. I was impatient and it caused my shares to get called away unnecessarily. But ultimately selling 200 shares at $22 when my cost was $17 while getting paid another $170 in premium ain’t so bad.

As far as the HOOD trade goes I need to not “marry my shares” and be OK with letting them go. If I would’ve had the same conviction as I did with the HIMS trade I would’ve been smooth sailing by now. When I see something shoot that high that fast I should know that a pull back in price is soon to follow in most cases or freefall in this case.

I actually set my self back by trying to get the most premium paid to me. Even though I was doing it safely, I was still attempting to speed things up a little. I haven’t lost money, just time by being impatient. But I guess time is money??

There you have it. I broke and obeyed the same rule and you see the bed that I’m lying in now. I made it myself. Stuck to the rule and profited over $900. Broke the rule and I’m down $2k.

^{“Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered”}

Didn’t I say something earlier about learning from mistakes? I got some things right and some things wrong but that’s life, baby. Just gotta do a little better each time and don’t beat yourself up too bad over it. Finding compassion with yourself over your mistakes will ultimately lead you to showing compassion towards others.

On the bright side even with those blunders I still did pretty well for myself this month while learning some lessons and simultaneously not learning some lessons.

Finally, here are all my trades for the month.

Thanks for stopping by!
Chris

_{PS – If you’d like your own tiny painting check out her Etsy store at Teeny Tiny Paintings. You can even custom order your own shortcomings to be commemorated!}