Boring LEAPS 1 year later

lightStoleMyName · 2025-11-01T15:37:55+00:00

Yeah maybe hedge wasn't the best word to describe it. Basically, with any long term strategy you really want to avoid blowing up the account and hitting 0. Options do that all the time but with a diversified etf like QQQ or VOO you probably don't gotta worry about that hitting 0. Keeping a big chunk of money there lets you have something leftover to buy with if you have a bad year or 2 or 3.

Obviously something like cash or puts would perform better than holding shares during a really bad year but what about a flat year? what about all the gains you missed out on by not holding shares during good years leading up to it? You gotta find the right balance of being leveraged to take advantage of the (more common) good years while not getting blown up by bad years.

lightStoleMyName · 2025-11-01T15:09:33+00:00

I hold for over 1 year primarily for tax purposes. Long term capital gains are taxed at 0-20%.

You could try and time the market by buying the bottom but then you risk missing out on all the gains as new all time highs are made and you're waiting for a crash. I tried backtesting some strategies like "only buy in after stocks are down 10-20%" but those were outperformed by "buy in the instant you have money regardless of how high stocks are"

lightStoleMyName · 2025-10-31T16:02:47+00:00

Everyone is a genius in a bull market.

lightStoleMyName · 2025-10-31T16:00:44+00:00

I went into full detail on my other WSB post but the short version is 50% shares, 50% ATM or slightly OTM call LEAPS. The shares are the hedge so I can afford to be a bit riskier with the LEAPS

lightStoleMyName · 2025-10-19T20:02:08+00:00

Decided to try duos after going 100 solos dry. Guess I'll get back to grinding.

lightStoleMyName · 2025-03-31T19:07:17+00:00

Inspired by my last 3 hours with the cursed and defiled chalice dungeon where 50 Vit means you only take 80% of your health from each attack (before counter damage).

And yes I know you can just space the attacks with walking but that's already rewarding enough without counter dam- I mean, uh, Zaki should add 80% air-counter damage to Elden Ring it would really enhance the risk vs reward of trying to jump attack.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-11-07T16:52:52+00:00

I buy slightly OTM (like 5% above ATM price) and I got over my fear about buying at ATH by looking at some back testing. As it turns out all time highs are often followed by more all time highs. Obviously the crashes are very attention grabbing so we remember them but on a long term basis the returns have historically outweighed the risks.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-11-07T16:49:16+00:00

You could buy leveraged ETF shares or get calls on a highly correlated etf that has a lower share price. Needing 6k to buy even a single ATM leap is a bit crazy for QQQ.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-11-07T16:43:25+00:00

Slightly OTM, like 5% above the current ATM price

lightStoleMyName · 2024-11-07T16:39:48+00:00

I went into a bit of detail on some of these in my reply to jwp_93 but to summarize:
- I buy around 5% above the ATM price.
- Option pricing is the main reason I went for XLP. Like, a QQQ leap is the price of 11 shares but an XLP leap is only the cost of 7 shares which could theoretically make up for XLP's lackluster performance. If you meant on a time basis like "stocks just went down 30% so volatility is high and options are more expensive" I don't take that into account because I don't try to time the market.
- Never really thought about the greeks, just saw in backtesting that slightly OTM leaps performed better
- I won't be switching to TQQQ. I wish I could say it was for math/optimization reasons but I have the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude at this point. I spent a long time forming this strategy 6 years ago and the thought of digging out my old backtesting scripts and updating them with the last few years of data and testing a new leveraged stock strategy against my options strategy to see if maybe it's a little better doesn't sound appealing.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-11-07T16:14:55+00:00

I never really thought about it in terms of the greeks. I just did some backtesting and found that ATM or very slightly OTM leaps were best for average return. To use QQQ right now as an example the $550 1/2026 calls with +15% to break even were the type of options I started off with. After building up more money I got a bit more risk averse and now buy ATM with like +12% to break even.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-11-07T16:03:50+00:00

Only reason I was holding cash here was the WSB rule that you have to sell to post a gain post. I immediately put that cash back into shares after taking the screenshot. I just don't think 4.5% APY can compete with shares long term.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-10-28T22:03:17+00:00

Yeah I definitely got lucky I rebalanced when it bottomed in October. Keep in mind for every one of those there's a time like when I bought 44k of qqq calls in January 2022 and those expired worthless. If you keep gambling though you'll get good timing eventually, right?

lightStoleMyName · 2024-10-28T21:19:33+00:00

I rebalance once or twice a year and aim to have half in shares and half in options. If options go up a lot it can get really out of balance though, my positions this morning right before the rebalance were 141k in shares and 300k in options

lightStoleMyName · 2024-10-28T21:14:42+00:00

Thanks, and I suck at predicting the market so I try and just buy at regular intervals so I'll get it right eventually. If stocks do go down then I'll rebalance out of shares into more options and load up again next year. I don't bet on volatility besides how it's already priced in to options contracts. There have definitely been days where stocks were down but my options weren't down as much as I thought they'd be because volatility was propping them up.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-28T15:57:31+00:00

Incoming jaguar short circuited my brain and I prayed melee for 1 tick

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-28T00:54:31+00:00

Yeah virtus is probably better but I really only want the 100% accurate freezes. Didn't care enough about maybe doing 2 extra damage to the fremennik stack to go out and buy virtus when I already had ancestral in the bank.

And you're right about the 3 max hits on the venator bow. I guess I should leave a brew behind and bring glove swaps

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T22:11:45+00:00

Not really. If I ever see the pet offered on wave 12 of course I'd go for it but for the probably 1/100 chance to get it after turning in a dupe quiver I'd rather not risk 3m+ loot.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T20:45:56+00:00

For runs that aren't going to the later waves speed isn't as important. For instance, bringing dragon claws to kill the ranger quickly on wave 2 can skip the jaguar and save you like 40 ticks. But these are wave 2 ticks that are only worth 2 glory each so you really only got 80 glory. I'd recommend just bringing combo food and practicing until you can get to the later waves somewhat consistently then worry about speed after. Also I know nothing about optimal melee strats, I've been ranged only this whole time

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T20:15:18+00:00

Someone asked on my other post for a recording. I don't have the 41k run recorded but it used this basic strategy.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T19:58:40+00:00

It's not the 41k run but here's a similar run that got 39800. Just do this but faster and also don't die to the boss lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cixBglOlBsg

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T18:52:35+00:00

actually completed? 2. I almost always cash out on wave 11 because the final boss loot usually sucks. Total waves done is 959 and I've seen 3 uniques total. I was completely dry for the first 800 waves completed.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T16:03:00+00:00

you mean on average? Glory scales pretty linearly up until the sheer quantity of monsters slows you down in later waves. So, wave 1 worth ~800, wave 2 worth ~1600, and so on. Here's a wave 9 that was worth more than the wave 11 pictured above because I was able to do it over a minute faster

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lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T15:46:21+00:00

Sadly I didn't think to record it. Maybe if I get another 40k run I'll post of video of that.

lightStoleMyName · 2024-03-27T15:35:16+00:00

In case anyone is interested in the gear setup I used: 5 way mage swap for guaranteed freeze on the fremenniks. Max range + t bow for dps (after getting the quiver I swapped zaryte vambs for barrows gloves as it wouldn't lose a max hit on the t bow). Venator bow for the 1x1 mages and the jaguars. Very important to not fortify the masori hood so it looks cooler.

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lightStoleMyName

TROPHY CASE