My Accounts and Trades: 2/17/25 - 2/21/25
Introduction to a Weekly Recap of My Accounts and Weekly Tactical Trades
Good morning readers, and Happy Monday! Today I am experimenting with something a bit different. I will disclose my trades for the prior week and explain my rationale for them. This may become a recurring theme for Safe Harbor Stocks.
Remember that I am a long-term investor, so these are not day-trade or very short-term trade recommendations. The trades are a tactical view of how I execute my longer-term portfolio strategy.
You will see three types of trades:
Long-term buys/sells: These are either initial or add-on purchases (or sales) to my portfolio. These trades may include more aggressive allocations for price appreciation or more conservative dividend growth allocations.
Cash secured put options: These are short puts I open and close to achieve greater yield on my cash balance (about 45% as of today), and also to accept the obligation to buy great stocks at better prices if they drop far enough.
Swing Trades: I have reported a couple of swing trades in group chat from my portfolio such as Comcast (CMCSA) pictured below. These are not day trades but investments I may hold for as little as a week up to becoming a core portfolio holding. A swing trade does not necessarily imply a long-term (core) position.
My Accounts
I invest through three different brokerage accounts, and I will share the tactical trades via screenshots at the end of this post. Each of the three accounts serve no particular purpose on their own. I simply opened each of them over the years for various reasons.
Schwab: About half my equity book sits here and I use Schwab to execute my cash secured short puts. You can read my article below to learn more about my short put strategy.
Vanguard: Another half of my portfolio is here, and I only use it for outright stock holdings. No options.
Interactive Brokers: I have been a client of Interactive Brokers since 2007 - or 18 years now! It’s my favorite and I hold a small portion of my capital here which often includes my international holdings, especially those where foreign currency is required (i.e., no US ADR available).
My Trades (Week of 2/17/25 - 2/21/25)
Without further ado, let’s dive into my trades from last week.
NOTE: Ignore the SCOXX trades. These are simply cash sweeps I must make in/out of the Schwab money market fund (MMF) to maintain my cash yield. Schwab is one of the few brokers who do NOT automatically sweep cash into their MMFs and it is VERY annoying!! If you have a Schwab account and do not manually sweep your cash each day, you are leaving money on the table and letting Schwab effectively borrow your capital for 0% interest!
Genuine Parts (GPC)
I closed my short puts on GPC a few days early prior to the 2/21 expiry. I had a 9.2% annualized return since December on this secured cash. I didn’t want to get greedy, so I closed the position at a cost of 8% of the original premium.
Despite writing this up for the newsletter and holding short puts, I currently do not own the shares outright. It has been a bit too high for me in the 120s. I had purchased GPC last October at $113 and subsequently sold in the high 126 range. It was a swing trade where I wasn’t sure if I would hold it as a core position back then.
Rationale: Great Dividend King with nearly 70 years of consecutive annual dividend growth, plus a great industry with necessary products and a successful history of acquisitions and capital allocation.
Below is a screenshot of my tracking of short put trades filtered for GPC only. You will see I earned a high annualized profit (on secured cash) due to:
Closing positions early with at least 50% gain
Reducing average hold time
Targeting an annualized yield over 10-11% at time of open trade - 15.8% in this case.
North American Contruction Group (NOA)
I added to shares of NOA last Tuesday and Wednesday at an average of $18.74 per share. This increased my position by 62% and now comprises about 2.9% of my total book.
I have an interview being published by The Contrarian Capitalist on March 4, 2025, so look out for more details on this rationale. You can also view the NOA article below and my social media posts.
Paypal (PYPL)
Paypal comprises 2.2% of my portfolio but I have also made several short put trades over the last several months to take advantage of cash yield and the opportunity to buy on larger dips if possible.
Last Tuesday I sold short puts on PYPL at $67.50 for the May 2025 contracts. The annualized yield at open was 8.8%, lower than my usual minimum. However, I have a lot of conviction at this price and am okay with the yield since I also get the extra 4.25% from the MMF on top of this - for a 13.1% total cash yield.
Rationale: Massive FCF and buybacks. I assess fair value in the 90s and so I am a buyer and put writer in the 70s and especially the 60s. My cost basis since starting to purchase this stock in the $57 range is now at $71.43 per share.
You can also check out BlackSwan Investor and The Antifragile Investor for write-ups while waiting for mine to publish.
Below is the history of my PYPL put trades for the last couple of quarters:
Comcast (CMCSA)
I had a swing trade on CMCSA which I opened on 1/30/2025 at $32.76 per share. I exited the position last week at $36.55 - an 11.5% gain in about 3 weeks. This was mentioned in the group chat and is pictured above in the intro.
Rationale: This stock was hammered on earnings but is a very cheap valuation with many strong metrics outside residential broadband. It has great cash flow and is in cannibal mode - repurchasing share very accretively at low valuations. This all provides great margin of safety.
Academy Sports (ASO)
This is another company I have owned off and on over the last several years, having entered at attractive prices (low- to mid-40s) and exited at overvalued prices (> $60). ASO is 1.1% of my book at a $50.95 cost basis.
Last week I purchased more shares at $51 and also sold puts at $42.50 for June 2025, providing a potential annualized yield of 10.6%.
I traded the put options extensively on ASO as well writing at a 12.5% potential annualized yield and realizing a 32.1% annualized return.
Rationale: I love this stock in the 40s given their combination of buybacks, new store development at high 40% ROIC and troughing comparable sales.
Wesco (WCC)
There has been some interesting action on WCC last week and today. WCC reported earnings on February 11th. Since then, the stock increased 8% then proceeded to sell off 11% today trading at $179.33 per share.
This is a great example of the value in cash secured put selling. I didn’t want to purchase the stock in the 190s so last week I sold puts on WCC for the May 2025 strike of $170, providing a potential 15.4% annualized yield while waiting to have the stock put to me at $170. This trade was executed while the stock traded at $191.58.
I also bought shares at an average price of $188.41 as the stock sold off. The rationale here is that I could obtain an average purchase price on WCC in the 170s between (1) writing the puts at $170 and buying at $188.
If the stock is not put to me at $170, I can still retain the option premium and write again, further lowering my cost basis.
Rationale: I like WCC a lot given their new status as a dividend growth stock (two years in), the redemption of their preferred in June 2025, and buying at a 13.7x forward P/E. The company has a pathway to MDD earnings growth of about 15% over the next couple of years. More in the article below:
Global Payments (GPN)
GPN is one I plan to write up soon in collaboration with DIY Investor. And Excelsior Capital also has a nice write-up on this one.
GPN is now 1.3% of my book at a cost basis of $103.21, and I have also wrote puts on this successfully in the $90-100 range over the last several months.
I purchased GPN when it was $95 per share, after it sold off upon completion of its Investor Day back in October 2024 and subsequently exited.
I am back in GPN now at $103 and also last week wrote puts for the $95 strike in May 2025 at an annualized yield of 9.2%. I also sold (and subsequently repurchased $95 puts a week prior pre-earnings, holding only one day and retaining more than half the option premium.
Rationale: GPN is a great company in a very competitive space. It will take some time to write up this company. In the meantime, it trades at a super low PE of 8.3x while guiding to double-digit EPS growth.
Auna (AUNA): This is a stock I really like but it is not as liquid, yet liquid enough for a retail investor like me to build a position of 1.2% of my portfolio while feeling comfortable enough to exit when desired.
I added 7% to my share balance of AUNA last week. now at a cost basis of $7.51 per share.
This is an excellent and very fast-growing company. You can read more about my rationale in the post below:
Weekly Trade Screenshots
That’s all my trades from last week. I look forward to hearing your questions or comments below. You can take a look at the trade confirmations in the screenshots below.
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Disclosure: This information is provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered a solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell any securities. The author or entity providing this information may hold positions in the securities discussed. This is not investment advice.
thanks for sharing
Thank you for the mention! This is a very good idea to share trades etc as it gives more clarity