Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#111

Post by enos_feedler » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

rexreed wrote: post #90

enos_feedler wrote: post #36

When the lockdowns started happening in March, I began trading the stock market. My YTD realized gains is equal to my base salary. About 140k. I am proud of all the trading I did. Living on the west coast it also turned me into a morning person, where market opens at 6:30am. Good side effect :)

What is your trading strategy? Just curious about the general approach you have.

Take all of my cash and break it into units/chunks. The size of the chunk should be the biggest size you can make it such that I wouldn't even raise an eyebrow to lose a whole chunk. I make decisions to invest/divest 1, 3 or 3 chunks at a time. When I decide to make a move I divide a chunk into about 5 parts and try to dollar cost average into a position. The time scale for the dollar cost averaging depends a lot of the events/contexts surrounding the trade.

I put money into a mix of long and short stock positions as well as long call options (LEAPs). The shortest call options I would do are quarterly, where I will listen to the earnings call, watch how the market reacts in the next day. and then set a call option that expires after the following earnings if I think the stock has been unfairly punished. But I usually stick to call options > 1 year. I have about 2/3's of my total portfolio in stock and 1/3 in options just to get good leverage.

This is sort of where I landed at right now. I didn't have any strategy going into all this. I am the kind of person that likes to learn for themselves and I knew I would lose money doing it. I just tried to know my limits and not lose too much when I thought it might happen. Looking back there was a time when I had maxed out my margin account buying AAPL as it was tanking in September. I sold that margin off for a big loss. I made some really stupid choices. But I learned and processed everything I did.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#112

Post by enos_feedler » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 1:22 AM UTC

GGfpc wrote: post #80

enos_feedler wrote: post #36

When the lockdowns started happening in March, I began trading the stock market. My YTD realized gains is equal to my base salary. About 140k. I am proud of all the trading I did. Living on the west coast it also turned me into a morning person, where market opens at 6:30am. Good side effect :)

How did you learn? I do index funds, but I'd like to trade a bit for fun

I am the kind of person that just learns by doing. I hear the word "call option" and I start chasing down what it means. I start buying them just to touch and feel the mechanics of how they work. I am a hands on learner who just plays with things. I want to build intuition. If I get stuck or having recurring thoughts/pains about something I will look on Google/youtube to get to the bottom of it, but it takes time and practice to arrive at these questions.

I recommend just getting into it. Dip your toes in the water, it'll feel a bit cold, let it warm up and eventually you will be swimming in the deep end.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#113

Post by enos_feedler » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

HNJE wrote: post #75

enos_feedler wrote: post #36

When the lockdowns started happening in March, I began trading the stock market. My YTD realized gains is equal to my base salary. About 140k. I am proud of all the trading I did. Living on the west coast it also turned me into a morning person, where market opens at 6:30am. Good side effect :)

Amazing, and congratulations! Did you have significant prior experience with trading or did you start from scratch in March?

No significant experience. I was just holding the stock that I had earned through my job. I was the person who would check their company stock every day because I had all my money in it but wouldn't care to do anything with it. When the market was tanking I sold it all for cash and then said "now let's make this grow into more than we started with this year". That was the beginning of trading.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#114

Post by enos_feedler » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 1:30 AM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #85

enos_feedler wrote: post #36

When the lockdowns started happening in March, I began trading the stock market. My YTD realized gains is equal to my base salary. About 140k. I am proud of all the trading I did. Living on the west coast it also turned me into a morning person, where market opens at 6:30am. Good side effect :)

What resources did you use to learn how to do this?

Lots of Google searches that landed on Investopedia. Huge props to that site :P I subscribed to a bunch of things like Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal. I would say Seeking Alpha was probably the best value for money. It just gave me ideas for how to think like an investor/trader. Most of my research and learning wasn't in the mechanics of trading but building up mental models for how things might play out and thinking about risk. I spent a lot of time just watching and observing the markets without tacking action.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#115

Post by gota » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 1:39 AM UTC

bestouff wrote: post #71

Probably a bit offtopic, but I just sold a land I bought 15 years ago with the intent to build a house with my now ex. Very good ROI.

15 years is a looong time, though. Can you compare your returns with having put everything into ETFs or even some kind of bonds way back?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#116

Post by sushshshsh » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 2:20 AM UTC

altdatathrow wrote: post #33

sushshshsh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll code you a competitor for much less than that person would charge, if they are even willing to sell :)

they want the traffic and recurring revenue, they don't care about the site

How'd that work out for fox when they bought myspace?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#117

Post by sushshshsh » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

csa wrote: post #34

sushshshsh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll code you a competitor for much less than that person would charge, if they are even willing to sell :)

I assume that this was a tongue in cheek comment, but in case it wasn’t... The site code and content itself is worth very little. The history, traffic, and back links are the value. Even if the site was copied or even improved on, it would take somewhere between 6 to 24 months to reach a comparable level of traffic assuming no black hat strategies are used.

Why would someone pay a 4x multiple on a site that probably wont be making anything 4 years from now? (4x being a rough estimate of the buying price).

That's 40 grand that could be used on traffic to the new site

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#118

Post by altdatathrow » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

sushshshsh wrote: post #116

altdatathrow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they want the traffic and recurring revenue, they don't care about the site

How'd that work out for fox when they bought myspace?

Despite the failure, I'm guessing somewhat better than if they had hired you to make a clone?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#119

Post by jerry80 » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 6:08 AM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #106

franklampard wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind sharing your strategy? Very OTM calls? What type of stocks?

The market is on an uptrend, so I go for OTM calls maybe about no more than 10% above the current price. If I get assigned then I just buy back my position anyway, a little loss of profit, but most of the time these calls are expiring worthless and I keep the premiums. Could probably make more money getting calls closer to the money, but I don't want the hassle really. It's amazing that people will consistently pay m…

You could get even more passive by just investing in a buy-write index ETF. e.g. PBP or QYLD.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#120

Post by edanm » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

dave333 wrote: post #64

String of free sudoku sites ad supported have been earning $1000+/month steadily since 2005: https://www.samurai-sudoku.com https://www.fiendishsudoku.com https://www.sudokuhints.com https://www.extremesudoku.info https://www.easysudoku.org https://www.sudukopuzzles.org https://www.sudokuprintables.org

Oooh nice, I started playing a lot of Sudoku sometime during the pandemic after I got addicted to Cracking the Cryptic :)