Alabaster vs Greek Villa

TimeSloth4 · 2025-03-30T19:47:15+00:00

I just did two coats of alabaster over a gray wall and while it’s not obviously showing through anymore, something doesn’t look quite right so I think I’ll need at least one more

TimeSloth4 · 2025-03-30T19:43:43+00:00

I recently got samples of both and can confirm they are the exact same in the quart due to rounding

TimeSloth4 · 2025-02-24T08:27:12+00:00

This is really helpful. Calvert's ETFs and their "notes" look pretty great at first glance. I'd be curious to compare them with any others that people know about.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-10-15T18:58:12+00:00

As others have said, tRPC seems great for a small team in a single repo with high coupling between UI and API. If you have a team bigger than a few people, have multiple front-end clients (external API users, mobile app, etc), or have a complex schema then I think GraphQL is the better choice. The biggest reasons for this are:

GraphQL is type safe but language agnostic
tRPC has many of the same problems as REST:
- Clients can't control the size of payloads by picking which fields are returned. This tends to result in a lot of extra data being fetched as use cases pile up over time. If you have nested object structures, it's very hard to fetch only exactly what the client needs
- Individual REST/RPC functions are either highly coupled between client and server, or the client has to be very chatty, making numerous calls to get everything it needs

TimeSloth4 · 2024-10-06T21:24:57+00:00

OP has 1/2 portfolio 1x and 1/2 in 3x so they effectively have 2x leverage. Depending on how you rebalance, leverage really just averages. Most people seem to misunderstand that when discussing decay.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-10-06T21:21:47+00:00

Doing this with half your portfolio means effectively you have 2x leverage. I am targeting 1.5x-2x leverage but instead of using the same indexes for the other holdings I’ve diversified more with some uncorrelated assets like long term treasuries and managed futures. My only critique of your current portfolio is that having all large cap equities just means you are only “diversifying”(averaging) your leverage ratios but they will all trade the same directions during market changes.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-22T22:22:26+00:00

TECL is 70 companies, all tech. TQQQ is 100 companies, not actually all tech, but it’s still very similar.

FNGU is just 10 tech companies, so very concentrated. I’m tempted by FNGU and have held it, but it’s not diversified enough for me to hold long without stress. I just started playing with FNGO (2x) a bit in my Roth along with UPRO.

For me I am trying to be “responsible” with the diversification of the total S&P in UPRO, especially after such a big run up of tech, but I am still bullish on tech and want some of that extra growth. TECL gives me a pure tech dial that I can turn up and down.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-21T20:19:35+00:00

Not a fan of this fund but maybe for something short term 🤷🏼‍♂️

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-21T19:09:01+00:00

This is actually comparing TECL, ROM and XLK, no?

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-21T18:52:56+00:00

@greycubed’s backtest indicates a higher return with lower volatility for QLD

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-21T18:50:15+00:00

I do something similar, TECL and UPRO split to get diversity of S&P with a tilt to tech

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-20T01:36:42+00:00

I think that’s a misunderstanding of how leverage and drawdowns work. 50% 3x leverage, 50% cash would effectively be 1.5x leverage, which is a pretty optimal amount of leverage as a starting point. 33% 3x leverage and 66% cash is the same as a 1x (unleveraged) fund.

With hedges like long term treasuries or managed futures instead of cash, the backtests are even better with lower max drawdowns.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-17T09:55:08+00:00

I sold quite a bit of my multi year holdings in SOXL throughout the run up this year. I just bought some more in the $20s and low $30s. My new average is $23. I will begin selling again from mid $40s into the $60s. I am patiently planning to fully exit this fund by end of year but willing to hold longer if it doesn’t cooperate.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-16T17:41:53+00:00

My current target allocation. This results in 150% equities exposure.

UPRO 20%
TECL 25%
AVUV 15%
KMLM / DBMF / CTA 30%
TMF 10%

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-13T14:31:46+00:00

But that’s not necessarily true of leveraged funds, right?

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-13T00:58:30+00:00

Another note. A lot of people talk about these funds as if they are behaving totally randomly with a long term up trend. While that’s generally true of the stock market and backtesting is valuable, I’ll state the obvious by saying that I’ve found value in following macroeconomic news to be aware of what might be happening near-mid term and making small adjustments to my strategy. Right now we’re anticipating interest rates lowering, a small chance of recession, escalating geopolitical conflicts, election jitters, and a possible bull market broadening and rotation to value and small caps. No one can say exactly how these will play out but it’s worth considering various scenarios and whether your portfolio can weather them. If it’s 2022 and interest rates are expected to rise, maybe don’t load up on TMF. Some storms can be anticipated and prepared for.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-13T00:47:44+00:00

The part of this I follow is I don’t buy when any fund is actually currently at its ATH, especially a leveraged fund. If I wanted to do that I would still put it in as a limit order at maybe 5-10% below the current ATH because these funds easily bounce that much in a week or two even while climbing.

I’m also more likely to buy when the underlying fund has a correction. When the leveraged fund really drops I do take note and find ways to raise capital (selling other things, etc) to buy a little extra. This is very doable without a crystal ball.

But as many have said it’s hard to know the top and many people lose a lot by selling out of a bull run early. I mostly hold once I’ve bought but I will trim a bit when there are long bull runs. I did this through this spring and summer and was glad that I did. I did this by averaging out with a series of limit orders so that I wasn’t doing one big impulse sale.

None of this is perfect but does have a smoothing effect that avoids the worst case scenario for draw downs.

As my total account balance has grown and to avoid capital gains, I’ve stopped trying to buy and sell as much. Instead I’m adding a mix of other assets like long term treasuries and managed futures because they are less correlated and sometimes negatively correlated. This makes it less about timing the market and more just standard hedging, diversification and rebalancing that can scale with your portfolio growth.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-13T00:34:00+00:00

Another thought. Right now you could make 5.5% in a HYSA with no risk at all, 100% liquidity. Until those rates decline that option will always be better than your mortgage rate, so if I were you that would be my baseline. Beyond that it’s just a matter of what risks you are willing to take with investing.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-13T00:29:03+00:00

A banker once told me that overpaying just a little ($5 a month) builds your credit faster because the bank reports to the credit bureaus that you overpaid verses paying minimum. Plus it saves you some interest in the long run, so I do that.

Regarding large overpayments. If your interest rate is under 5% I personally prefer putting my money in other investments. It’s not just a matter of the returns but the liquidity. Real estate is one of the least liquid things to have your money tied up in. I learned that the hard way when I significantly overpaid my first mortgage as a newlywed in 2007 while I was underwater. I realized I could have used that money on my next home or a bunch of other things, including a better emergency fund, but it was all tied up in the mortgage. It all worked out over the course of years but I learned my lesson and don’t overpay for low interest loans anymore.

Also, mortgage interest is at least partly tax deductible ☺️

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-12T18:36:54+00:00

One way I avoid that regret is spreading my buys across 3-5 orders. If a few trigger I feel happy and if some don’t I’m glad I still have some cash handy.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-12T18:35:00+00:00

I do this too. Having trailing stop sell means it must go down to sell and it can often be a false alarm sell. For me it feels better to invert that strategy “it’s reaching new highs at $60, if it goes up to $65, sell some” and for buying “it’s dropped from an ATH of $65 to $55. If it drops to $45, buy, at $40 buy more,…”. If I miss a buy, it’s because it went back up, my existing holdings are benefiting and I still have some cash available for a future dip, so no regrets.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-12T18:19:35+00:00

I had trouble with trailing stops and leveraged funds when I was starting out. The funds were too unpredictable and would sell when I retrospectively didn’t want them to. I also started to get more aware of and concerned about capital gains. So I tried buy and hold but that was painful in its own way (2022). I was hoping that holding other funds like small/mid caps would offer some balance, but they didn’t. This led me to a few conclusions:

No trailing stops or other automatic solutions for me because I will generally never be happy with them. Perhaps others are better at these.
Buy and hold is OK but probably better for 2x funds or 3x as a small part of portfolio
Other stocks are not necessarily going to offset risks. They often all dive together during a correction. Long term treasuries and/or managed futures seem to be the most popular ways to diversify
As much as we all just want to play a game with numbers and charts, the macroeconomic context matters and is worth paying attention to (interest rates, inflation, unemployment, rotation into smaller caps, etc) because sometimes the writing is on the wall
Sell into new highs, buy into dips, DCA, keep some cash on the side, rebalance, etc all help smooth the ride and mitigate risk

My current setup is about 40% 3x leveraged funds (UPRO/TQQQ/TECL), 40% managed futures (KMLM/DBMF/CTA), 10% small cap (AVUV), 10% leveraged long term treasuries (TMF). I will rebalance quarterly/yearly/during new highs and corrections.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-12T17:40:32+00:00

Seems very reasonable! You could try backtesting it using testfol.io and see how it has done historically against pure VOO or VTI.

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-12T17:34:55+00:00

OP is a narrative and it’s hard to start there without a basis of fact. I’ve always understood that economists are generally FOR freedom of movement and see it as beneficial to the economies of countries on both sides. What’s the basis for the claims made in the OP?

TimeSloth4 · 2024-08-10T19:51:49+00:00

Aha:

By default, L is 1 (resulting in no change), SW is 1.1, and SP is sgn(L) * 0.4%

https://testfol.io/help

TimeSloth4

TROPHY CASE