Well you can't entirely insulate, but you can reduce the risk by diversifying across asset classes that are loosely coupled / correlated with each other.

A bad year in the housing market or for commercial rents isn't tied to a bad year for long term bonds, and isn't connected directly with returns on non-cyclical industries, etc.

"Own lots of different stuff."

I can write/copypasta more about it later and I'm sure our professionals have excellent input to provide.

I'm not a pro just an amateur byt one thing comes to mind about one particular sector: you can protect stock investments with "protective puts" which are just puts on stock you currently own.

We could definitely benefit from someone giving an overview on options and strategies like covered calls and protective puts.

I saw that in here earlier. I've used covered calls with success on some big, slow moving, high-dividend blue chips, etc.

Oh yeah I like covered calls, for that

Here's a nice slideshow from investopedia with 10 common option strategies, I think it's good and concise if you already know what an option is. https://www.investopedia.com/slide-show/options-strategies/

@ThisIsChris Congrats on the awesome NVDA play and thanks for sharing! I've been busy with the kids, but I would have totally jumped on that too.

@Belzec if you still want a rundown on covered calls LMK.

@ThisIsChris @Deleted User https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/01/07/how-nvidia-is-poised-to-profit-from-intels-chip-se.aspx

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-08/credit-card-debt-hits-all-time-high-consumers-unleash-historic-shopping-spree

Oh yeah, the recession is coming. We are nearing peak euphoria.

It may be, but ZH is a pretty doomsayer-y site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY This shows some striking examples of how bubbles can be artificially created and deliberately popped, while also alluding to benefits of economic fascism or at least "productive lending."

@Deleted User @Zyzz I sold my NVDA calls yesterday because NVDA covered all the gap I felt I could reasonably expect in the time window I was looking at and I was losing time value. Now I'm thinking of repositioning myself, NVDA has had nothing but good news lately and its competitors are falling behind, yet I don't think some recent news will be reflected in the next earnings report so I'm looking for a new position. I'm expecting trickling upward movements the rest of the month, which are making me think of buying some vertical spreads, but I'm not sure which ones yet. I'm thinking really near term, like this week or next week expiry, though I'm not sure if I want ATM, OTM, or ITM, that would probably depend on expiry date. Nearer term would make me lean towards ITM vertical call spread, longer term makes me think more OTM vertical call spread. Thoughts and opinions?

Hmm, I'm still looking at different expiries. The gorilla in the room is that earnings report is coming out 2/8. One thing I've noticed is that just before earnings the near-expiry spreads tend to approach 50% of their max possible payouts, which theoretically makes sense, and deviations from that reflect market expectations of going up or down. That makes me think the right move may be to look at the 2/9 spreads that are trading < 50% their max payouts, such as the 225/227.5 vertical call spread, which is currently trading around 1.10 and by this theory would approach 1.25 by 2/8.

Let me know if you guys have thoughts. I'm starting to realize I have no theses I feel strongly about on NVDA anymore, so I will probably idle a while until something catches my eye again

@ThisIsChris I’ll get back to you later today

@Zyzz thanks. I keep checking the options chains. Sometimes things look like good opportunities, but then I start overthinking them and step back

@ThisIsChris the only time I play options is when I have high conviction. Otherwise I don’t. I think you may have answered your own question in the last message. Also, I am unfamiliar with the spread strategy so I’m not too qualified to comment.

Also what do you think would cause the stock to go up from where it’s at currently? It seems like the market has made a big move and you have made money. Why not take your profit and move on?

@Zyzz yeah you're right. I still have some mild opinions which is why I have been reluctant to look away, but I agree it's probably a better habit for me to look elsewhere. I've done a lot of research on it comparing with it's competitors AMD and Intel and it has in my opinion good fundamentals, but I don't have any reason to expect sharp increases this quarter, thanks for second opinion.
As for vertical spreads and such, I love talking and thinking about these type of things, I should write something about it sometime. A vertical call spread is buying at a low strike and selling at a higher strike, with the same expiry. It's kind of like a covered call in that it's a limited payoff strategy. For high volatility stocks, at the money spreads are approximately like European binary options. For low volatility stocks they are more like leveraged covered calls.

If the market finishes the day up I believe it will be 9/10 trading days the market has gone up

Of the last trading days *

@Zyzz looks like we're gonna make it

I’m up 7% in my SSO position which is WAYYY more than what I was expecting at this point in time. I am thinking if it keeps ripping like this I will lighten up on my position if it gets to the point where I am up 10%

I am also thinking of completely selling out by May along the old adage “sell in May and go away”

@Zyzz SSO position?

@ThisIsChris yeah thats the 2x S&P index fund i posted about at the end of Dec.

ohh right. Good job man, you were right you called it!

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4137355-fall-usd-just-start-multiyear-downtrend-start-multiyear-uptrend-commodities

^that is an interesting article. Energy stocks have not done well since oil fell in 2014/2015 i believe

the pitch is essentially a swing back to commodities based on dollar weakness

to anyone who may not be aware, commodities are denominated in dollars. All else equal, if the dollar weakens, commodities increase in price

i am assuming they are betting the dollar to weaken on the following: 1) larger debt/deficit and 2) higher expected inflation

@Zyzz That's interesting. I traded stocks and options a lot on USO from early January to early July in 2015. It is an ETF that trades OIL futures.

https://www.kreditopferhilfe.net/docs/S_and_P__Repeat_After_Me_8_14_13.pdf
Paper by Standard and Poor’s about QE and Bank Reserves I found interesting. Academic, not investment advice

OMG the blood across the board. Oh the humanity!

Does anyone have a good review sheet for the Series 66? :)