Mid Year Review
They made an extended version of A Good Day to Die Hard. Did you know that?
Anyways, the above chart is for the account entered in the 2026 US Investing Championship. No leverage, biotech micro-caps, with a hedging strategy. Same account as last year. In the four years I have entered an account, I haven’t traded one tech stock. Nor one stock with revenue.
The hedging strategy is why this account not in the stock category. But, I am not trading futures in it.
Last year the second half of the year was better than the first. I am hoping that will repeat this year but with the midterms and interest rate hikes likely, I am doubtful on that. At present, the account is still on target and I think with hedging it will stay on target regardless of what transpires.
People on Substack post returns and then other people ask “what are you holding?” Let me show what that is impractical for me to do. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
The file I just exported from Schwab has 1723 lines in it which reflect 1590 actual actions including, strangely, three short trades. Since I don’t short this reflects three instances of me fat finger a trade.
Yes, fat fingering trades is a real thing.
This is just the trade activity in this one account over the last year. I don’t even know what is in the account most of the time.
John McClane and his son just shot up a glass ceiling. A literal one not metaphorical one.
The number of lines reflects the degree of hedging, doubling/tripling down, and flipping/turning over of positions.
This may seem excessive. I was kind of shocked myself actually.
But, if you want to beat the market without using leverage and achieve a steady slope this is what you have to do. I think.
I made 475 legitimate and intentional security trades which means on average I made 2.5 trades a day. But, most were set orders that just executed quietly. With the exception of hedging, the total amount of thought dedicated to this account during an average day was about as much thought as went to casting of this movie. I am pretty sure all casting decisions where made during one decent bowel movement.
The total number of companies I traded in the last year is 152. Which means I traded more companies than most large ETFs. It’s strange to me that funds require entire teams. With code, anyone can run an ETF.
Biggest wins in the last 365 days were $STRO, $XBIO, $ASMB, $PROK, $CTMX, $STTK, $AMLX, $LONA…
Biggest losses were in May of this year on hedges that went to zero. Uncertainty forced me to hedge and hold. Had the market crashed this account would have been fine.
There really isn’t a stock trade in this account that produced a loss of any size on aggregate. The only losses I see are GCTK 0.00%↑ and $VYNE. Both were under $7500.
Last year’s dogshit can be this year’s diamonds though. That is why biotechs are great. Here are their current charts. Vyne just complete a box setup just before announcing a merger (with a nice move) and Glucotrack just tripped ACC/Con and looks like volatility is expected.
Bruce Willis really phoned it in on this movie.
Even $PASG, which I sold after the crash (caused by the FDA), overall made $29k because I flipped it very successfully. The spreadsheet shows I traded Passage Bio 21 times. That is 21 buys or sells including double downs, partial exits, etc. My goal is to get every position to zero cost or ideally negative cost so that even if something bad happens the profit is already locked away. In this case, it worked. I just recently re-entered this stock after it too announced a merger and then fell off a cliff. But that buy is in another account.
The stocks I traded most were CTMX and PYXS. 28 times each. I still own both of these and the office owns both of these.
I am too lazy to write code for this so here a Google Sheets histogram to show how active I was. The idea that you should never double down and cut your losers quickly is not an idea I adhere to.
Seriously, what is up the lens flares in this movie? I have a 60’’ tv with 58’’ of blue lens flares.
Now, the important bits of information.
The two best biotechs in the last year (Abivax and Nektar) were not in this account. The accounts tend to overlap but not completely. Why? Good question. It’s complicated. But, uNiqure was in this account. And not in my IRA annoyingly enough which did have Abivax. My cash account had uNiqure and Nektar.
Not being in this account was just random chance and a reflection of limitations of being a small account and the way I enter positions.
Since I limit holdings to 1-2% of AUM those stocks wouldn’t have really changed the return that much in this account. When I sell something to free up cash I buy what is best to buy that day. Not what is “best.”
This is because I am lazy.
Flipping is far more profitable on average anyways. The number of biotechs that go up 500% in a year is a really long list every year. But, the number that go up and down 25-50% half a dozen times is even longer. So it doesn’t matter if you miss a few big gainers as long as you get a couple and flip well the others.
Of the 152 biotechs I traded the number of stocks I know what the drug does or is supposed to do is probably less than ten. And, half of those I only know because someone just asked me about CAR-T stocks last week.
Currently, this account is holding only 74 positions. Normally, I would keep this account fully in the market. But, I am delaying moving cash around in all accounts because of interest rate concerns and this is the only time in the last four years of the contest I have carried cash in the account in the contest. The competition accounts have never been all cash since 2022. Whereas, I have taken the managed accounts to all cash over that time period.
Jai Courtney just threw a guy through a helicopter’s rotor. Did not see that coming.
Overall across accounts there are still 110 companies or so in total.
If this account gets far enough ahead I might do more vol trading in it and really see just how much I can make since I am forced into this division because I hedge with optins.
But, only if I am certain I can hit my goal.
— AJ