Share portfolio 2011

A relatively simple trading year for my US share portfolio, which was up pleasingly versus the benchmark of 0%.

All I did was buy some Call options on Amazon (betting that would go higher). I later sold some of them, bought some Puts to hedge against the price dropping too much and then managed to time the sale of both to get a decent percentage return. All of this is small beer in dollar terms.

I also bought some Puts on Linked In, figuring the price would go down for that vastly over-inflated company. The price did fall, but not, I thought, by enough and so I did not sell the options soon enough. Those options are now almost valueless as they expire next month.

I’ve just bought some Call options on Apple. The company is huge, the shares relentless rise, but the share price versus earnings still seems very low. I expect to see some more magical products this year, despite the absence of Steve Jobs. At the very least it will take a year or three for that magic to fade, but there is a very god chance that it will also stay.