First, if you are using the trip q's, your taking a boatload of risk. It was down 79% in 2022, so I hope your weren't blaming Trump for that volatility.
Little reported news today was the administration considering using the little known foreign direct product rule. That probably had just as much impact on tech sell off as Trump's statement. But Trump’s an easy target an the story is understandable versus the FDPR.
BTW - good to see you back on here. Have our 35th reunion next month. Wish we had you guys rockin' it.
Appreciate the love my brother. Have an amazing class reunion! I missed ours last year for the first time since the 90's but was blown away by pics I saw and how large our 'falling stars' have gotten (those that have passed) along with how old we are looking compared to even just a few years ago. That's part of life but yeah, the class of 88 is in general starting to get it's ass kicked by life and we're looking our age in general. Lol.
As far as managing the investment account, yes you always have to have an exit strategy. That's the biggest fight I have with dad because he hates selling and paying the capital gains tax. He gets annoyed at me pushing him to execute a planned exit strategy because he loves and has crushed playing the triple Q's, but yeah, as a three times leveraged ETF it can go to near zero when the market drops 40 percent. It did that in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008, close in 2018, very close in 2020 and extremely close in 2022.
Having stop losses for my entries by month allowed me to actually have gains in 2020, because tech blew up after April. It killed my Dec, Jan, Feb and March entries but my April, May, June, September, October and November didn't hit their stop loss and blew up.
2021 crushed.
2022 everyone took a 45% loss and that sucked, but it dropped even more as you mentioned so I saved the account that weird year that was shit the entire year for the most part, but I was out by June and started getting back in Sept 22, Oct 22, Nov 22, Dec 22 then Jan 23, Feb, March, April, May and then finally June 23 got my back to 100% in.
My account has crushed since then. So much that as excited and proud that I've been, I also feel a little guilty from how gigantic the growth has been....but there will be a year where it will drop 45% again.....but as you mentioned, there has to be an exit strategy in place that I'm at peace with or it could be a 99% drop the next bear market because yes, it's a highly volatile investment ticket. You HAVE to have a strategy if you are going to use it.
So yeah, worst case is you will lose 45% every once in a while during a terrible garbage year like 2001, 2002, 2008 and 2022.
But all these other years, you're banking 3 times growth. For me, I've gotten around 430% growth the past two years. This year so far has been around 55% growth. It was 65% a couple of weeks ago. However in April it dropped from around 20% to flat which had me swearing but....May, June and early July has roared up. We've had two terrible back days the past two weeks including today so....who knows where it's going to end up.
TQQQ is around 75. My exit prices starts around 32 at the high so hopefully it can stay above that.
But I will recalculate my exits starting in Sept so, might be around 50 if the triple Q's can get back into the 80's.
Anyway, sorry for the massive post but....I love talking markets and investments and fully believe in my strategy as again, I have an exit strategy and it keeps my capital gains rates so much lower than when I tried day trading which I sucked at and every good year cost me more in taxes due to being short term capital gains.
Have a blast at the reunion. Hope you and Karen get to chat with all your favorite people. As much as I would hope to hang and flirt with my two crushes Melanie N and Carrie S!. 😍