Juggling With Knives: Profits, protection and planning for volatility in stocks, bonds, real estate, and real life.
Jubak’s Picks
Stocks for a
12-18 Month Horizon
Performance
2019
+10.2%
2018
+10.2%
2017
+13.2%
Since Inception
+584%
Top 50 Stocks
50 Best Stocks in the World
Performance
2019
+21.19%
2018
-8.22%
2017
+28.1%
2016
+21.5%
Dividend Income
Stocks That Pay You
Performance
2020
+15.71%
2019
+4.90%
2018
-15.52%
2017
+6.48%
2016
+26.8%
Volatility
Exploiting Temporary Market Trends
Performance 2017:
+53.06%
Perfect 5 ETFs
Active/Passive Portfolio
Performance since
October 2017
+23.46%
This website is based on my book, Juggling with Knives. Both the book and website are about volatility in everything from stocks and bonds to real estate, and real life topics such as jobs and education.
This website keeps the content of the book fresh and the advice and strategies up to date. If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a one-year free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE SUBSCRIPTION when you Subscribe on this website.
I run two other investing websites, Jubak Picks and Jubak Asset Management. So how does Juggling With Knives fit in that group? With a subscription at $79 a year you get everything that appears on my free JubakPicks.com website (1 to 2 posts a day plus buys/sells/updates on three portfolios) plus an additional 1 or 2 posts a day, including a special post on volatility on most days, plus access to my new Volatility Portfolio. My premium site, Jubak Asset Management, JubakAM.com to its friends, offers for $199 a year everything on Jubak Picks, plus everything on Juggling With Knives, plus exclusive posts that include Sector Monday, Friday Trick or Trend, Saturday Night Quarterback, and my daily Notes You Can Use Mini Blog. Oh, and videos where my smiling face explains the markets. If you’d like to step up to a JubakAm.com subscription click here. (You’ll get full credit for what you paid to subscribe to Juggling With Knives.)
Post of the Month
These are the Free once-per-month posts for non-subscribers.
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Watch my YouTube video on why this very stretched market will hang in for another six months
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We’ll share all of our Posts and our Live Public Portfolios with you!
Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
Watch my YouTube video on what Apple and Microsoft’s moves on Intel mean for technology stocks
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We’ll share all of our Posts and our Live Public Portfolios with you!
Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
Oil falls to lowest level in five months; Brent breaks below $60 a barrel
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Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
China promises to cut taxes, increase spending to stimulate economy
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We’ll share all of our Posts and our Live Public Portfolios with you!
Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
Ominous weakening today, September 6, below the surface in U.S. stocks
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We’ll share all of our Posts and our Live Public Portfolios with you!
Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
This market’s volatility puzzle–it’s as if investors and traders don’t think risk is climbing in the general market
This page is for Subscribers.
We’ll share all of our Posts and our Live Public Portfolios with you!
Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
Next earnings season test after Netflix? Microsoft
This page is for Subscribers.
We’ll share all of our Posts and our Live Public Portfolios with you!
Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
I’m buying the Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF in my Perfect 5 Portfolio today
This page is for Subscribers.
We’ll share all of our Posts and our Live Public Portfolios with you!
Sign Up for a subscription and you can view everything on the Juggling With Knives website. (If you’ve purchased the book, you’ve earned a free subscription. Use the Coupon Code in the book to start your one-year FREE subscription).
Plus, you’ll get Jim’s Volatility Email Update each evening at 8:00pm.
Call to Action: Sell November VIX Calls at 18 and Roll into December Calls at 19
Huge surge in volatility this morning. It’s as if everybody woke up and said, “Hey, you know there are risky trends in the world.” As of 12:30 p.m. New York time today, Monday, September 20, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index is up 29.51% to $26.08. I think there’s more volatility ahead so today I’m going to sell the VIX November 17 Call Options with a strike price of 18 in my Volatility Portfolio and buy some more time with a purchase of the VIX December 22 Call Options with a strike price of 19.
How high will it go? VIX climbs another 11% today setting up test of top of recent range next week
The CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) closed at 20.69 today, up another 10.7%. That took the “fear index” above the 200-day moving average at 19.98. The VIX had previously moved above the 50-day moving average at 17.86. I’d be surprised if we don’t see more market nerves driving more buying of S&P hedges to send the VIX higher next week.
So far it’s just a typical September slump
I found myself humming “I scare myself” this morning as the market continued its September selling. The Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks song pretty much sums up the market action this morning. We all know that stocks go down in September so we’re sending stocks downward. And we all know that September 17 is the Big Bad Day in the month so it’s unreasonable to expect a turn in sentiment before that date. But so far, I’d note, the selling seems “orderly” with the usual candidates bucking the trend and showing up in the green. It’s when those still in the green stocks start tumbling that I’ll really start to worry.
Solutions for my YouTube video on September/October risk–What to do? 5 Moves
Back on September 4 I posted a video on YouTube and this site “September and October 2021 Worse Than Usual for Investors?” that argued that September, the worst performing month for the Standard & Poor’s 500 from 1950 through 2020, and October, historically the home of the biggest one-day or one-week stock market crashes, stood a good change of being even worse than usual this year. I cited factors such as the Fed’s September 22 monetary policy meeting, a potential stalemate over the raising the debt ceiling, and economic uncertainty created by the Delta Variant (see last weeks weak jobs report as evidence on that front) as reasons for thinking that we could see a repeat of the historical weakness and volatility this September and October–but with a bit of supercharging. I don’t want to revisit all the reasons I gave in that video–Hey, just watch it, ya know?–but let me add a couple of points that I didn’t mention in the video. Like the effects of the continued shortage of chips on car manufacturers and hence car sales. Like the run-off in federal Pandemic economic help that’s now scheduled for this fall. Like signs of weakness in consumer sentiment and business confidence. Instead of more on “the problem” lets talk about potential solutions- the “what should I do stuff.”
Watch my new YouTube Video: “September and October 2021 Worse Than Usual for Investors?”
I’m starting up my videos on again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My forty-sixth YouTube video “September and October 2021 Worse Than Usual for Investors?” went up today. The “solutions” post will go up Sunday.
Selling Apple September Call Options to roll over into October Calls
The Apple September 17 Call Options with a strike of $150 in my Volatility Portfolio climbed another 23.3% today. The options looks to be moving up as traders position themselves for a bump in Apple after the company’s next new product day–speculation has the date for the announcement of a nee iPhone as September 14 with pre-orders to start on September 17. The announcement is likely to be big news and will probably drive the stock higher. For the September 17 Call Options, however, the date is something of a double-edged sword since a September 14 announcement–a big positive–runs right into the time decay of the options since them expire on September 17.
Why Microsoft outpaced the market and techs today
Today Microsoft (MSFT) closed up 2.08%. The NASDAQ 100 was ahead just 0.51% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained only 0.13%. The gains took Microsoft shares to a record intraday high of $297.35. Why the extra pop in Microsoft shares? Because today Microsoft raised the price of its Microsoft 365 productivity suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook and Enterprise Mobility) by as much s 20%, effective March 1. The price increase is the first since the launch of Office 365 ten years ago.
Rebuying VIX Calls for the Volatility Portfolio
Today the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) dropped another 2.24% to 15.70. That puts the “fear index” back in the “complacency zone” where I’ve been looking to buy Call Options on the VIX in anticipation of a bounce back to the top of the current zone at 20 on the next “bad news” day. (Whatever the bad news might be.)
Biden adds goals and rules to speed up transition to electric vehicles
Today President Joe Biden unveiled a plan that would speed up the transition to electric vehicles in the United States. Included was an executive order (in this case a goal) calling for half of new passenger car sales to be of electric vehicles powered by batteries and fuel cells or plug-in electric hybrids by the end of the decade. And new proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks through model year 2026. The proposed regulations would reverse a Trump administration freeze on fuel-deficiency standards that was itself a reversal of the Obama administration regulations that would have ramped up average fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by model year 2025.
Selling Meituan and Naspers to cut China exposure
Last Wednesday, July 28, Chinese financial regulators told big investors–banks and investment groups heavily exposed to China’s stock market–not to worry. China’s financial markets were sound and despite the fears engendered by the government’s crackdown on the country’s private, for-profit, education companies, the government was not looking to reverse decades of growth by companies in China’s private sector. The meeting worked. Stocks of companies like Meituan (MPNGF), China’s dominant food delivery company (with ambitions to become a full-range e-shopping competitor) rose to $30.07 on the day from $26.00 the day before. But the reassurance worked for only a few days. Today, August 3, for example, Meituan was back in the red, falling 4.48% to $26.95 to erase almost all of its “re-assurance” bounce. Today, I’m selling Meitun and Naspers (NPSNY), a South African company with a huge position in China’s Tencent Holding (TCEHY) out of my Volatility and Jubak Picks Portfolios, respectively.
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