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Fundamentals
Realistic Strategies, Realistic Returns
Issues
The market rally in 2023 and recent pullback have left the All-Weather portfolio up a respectable 6.5%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) continuing to do the heavy lifting, up 25.2%.

Nothing has changed from last expiration cycle, both bond funds (TLT and IEF) and the commodity fund (DBC) continue to lag behind, but that is the yin-yang protective nature of the All-Weather portfolio just doing its job. That being said, all of our positions are outperforming their respective ETF benchmarks, once again showing the power of using a poor man’s covered call approach.
The market rally in 2023 and recent pullback have left the All-Weather portfolio up a respectable 8.5%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) continuing to do the heavy lifting, up 27.5%.

Nothing has changed from last expiration cycle, both bond funds (TLT and IEF) and the commodity fund (DBC) continue to lag behind, but that is the yin-yang protective nature of the All-Weather portfolio just doing its job. That being said, all of our positions are outperforming their respective ETF benchmarks, once again showing the power of using a poor man’s covered call approach.
The market continues to rally and the All-Weather portfolio is now up 10.2%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) and SPDR GLD Shares ETF (GLD) doing the heavy lifting, up 26.0% and 8.6%, respectively.

Nothing has changed from last month, both bond funds (TLT and IEF) and the commodity fund (DBC) continue to lag behind, but that is the yin-yang protective nature of the All-Weather portfolio just doing its job.
With the market rallying as of late, the All-Weather portfolio is now up 6.0%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) and SPDR GLD Shares ETF (GLD) doing the heavy lifting, up 19.3% and 6.5%, respectively.


Both bond funds (TLT and IEF) and the commodity fund (DBC) continue to lag behind, but that is the yin-yang protective nature of the All-Weather portfolio just doing its job.



Only one of our positions has been rolled so far. We still have four June 16, 2023 calls due to expire this week, As a result, expect to see quite a few alerts come through early in the week as we roll our positions and sell more premium going out 30 to 60 days.
After the recent pullback, the All-Weather portfolio is now up 9.88%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) doing the heavy lifting, up 25.36% since it was introduced to the portfolio back on 6/15/22.

I will be rolling all of our LEAPS positions to the 2025 expiration cycle this week. So, be prepared to make a few trades this week as we increase the duration of our LEAPS while simultaneously continuing to sell more call premium.
After the recent pullback, the All-Weather portfolio is now up 9.88%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) doing the heavy lifting, up 25.36% since it was introduced to the portfolio back on 6/15/22.

I will be rolling all of our LEAPS positions to the 2025 expiration cycle this week. So, be prepared to make a few trades this week as we increase the duration of our LEAPS while simultaneously continuing to sell more call premium.
After the recent pullback, the All-Weather portfolio is now up 0.55%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) doing the heavy lifting, up 7.19% since it was introduced to the portfolio back on 6/15/23. Besides DBC, we’ve rolled all of our positions to the April 21, 2023 expiration cycle. Our DBC 24 calls are due to expire this week. I will most likely allow them to carry through expiration and sell more calls after expiration, unless we have an opportunity to buy back our DBC 24 calls for $0.05 or less.
Thanks to the bulls, we are seeing a nice pop in all of our portfolios.


While our passive portfolios continue to perform well, our Dogs of the Dow portfolio, particularly the Small Dogs portfolio, has shined, up 12.51% in just over a month’s worth of performance. In fact, all but one of the stocks that reside in the Small Dogs are seeing positive performances with CSCO being the laggard, down -2%.
We finally added our Dogs (and Small Dogs) of the Dow portfolio to the mix! As it stands, we have five portfolios in the Fundamentals service, three passive portfolios and two active. While our passive portfolios are fully up and running, we still need to add several more positions to our active portfolios to get them fully situated.
We have some exciting times ahead as our Dogs and Small Dogs portfolios will be coming on board at the beginning of 2023. I will be discussing the details of the approach, strategy, positions and potential trades in our subscriber-only webinar tomorrow so you will not want to miss the event. If you do happen to miss, no worries, if you sign up at least you can immediately receive the recording once it’s available.
There really isn’t too much to report at the moment. Our passive portfolios continue to impress in the midst of a challenging market which displays the overall power of the passive approach. And I continue to mostly sit on the sidelines in our active portfolios, although that approach will be changing soon. I intend on adding several new positions to the active portfolios this expiration cycle as we are starting to see some good entry prices for several of the companies on our watchlist.
At the close of the August expiration cycle, back on the 19th, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) was trading for 422.14. Now it’s trading 3.7% lower at 406.60.

For the year the S&P 500 (SPY) is down 14.7%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) and small-cap Russell 2000 (IWM) indexes are lower by 22.8% and 15.7%, respectively.

Nothing has changed from last month’s issue. I still expect to see bouts of volatility going forward. I would like to say that most of the weakness is behind us, but unfortunately, I don’t have a crystal ball. Although, I will say that barring any real setbacks in inflation data or ongoing geopolitical concerns, I expect the market to hold the 2022 lows and potentially rally, particularly if inflation data subsides.
Updates
Cabot Options Institute Fundamentals is focused exclusively on the Poor Man’s Covered Call strategy, which is a way to collect reliable gains from a relatively simple options strategy, without the substantial up-front cost of a regular covered call strategy.
Cabot Options Institute Fundamentals is focused exclusively on the Poor Man’s Covered Call strategy, which is a way to collect reliable gains from a relatively simple options strategy, without the substantial up-front cost of a regular covered call strategy.
Alerts
We have a few positions with calls due to expire tomorrow, so let’s get ahead of it and buy back our short calls and immediately sell more calls to collect another round of premium.
We allowed our TXN calls to expire worthless last week to lock in a full profit on our premium sold. Now, with expiration behind us, it’s time to start selling more premium in TXN.
The Yale Endowment portfolio continues to shine, outperforming our benchmarks with portfolio gains currently reaching close to 15% since we initiated the portfolio back in mid-June of last year.
The Yale Endowment portfolio continues to shine, outperforming our benchmarks with portfolio gains currently reaching close to 15% since we initiated the portfolio back in mid-June of last year.
With the September 15, 2023, expiration cycle coming to a close in three days, it’s time to start buying back the rest of our September 15, 2023, and September 22, 2023, short calls and selling more premium going out 30 to 60 days. I’ll be sending out numerous trade alerts for the various portfolios over the next few days, including the potential for a few more new trades in our active portfolios.
I will be sending out numerous alerts over the next few days. With 9 days left until the September 15 expiration cycle, now is the ideal time to begin looking to buy back our short calls and sell more call premium going out to October 13, which has 37 days left until expiration.

The Yale Endowment portfolio continues to shine, outperforming our benchmarks with portfolio gains currently reaching 18% since we initiated the portfolio back in mid-June of last year. We have two short call positions due to expire today, so I want to buy them back and immediately sell more call premium.
Our WBA calls are essentially worthless and due to expire. As a result, let’s buy back our short calls and immediately sell more call premium.
We are rolling our last two August 18, 2023, expiration positions into the October 20 expiration cycle. Next week, I hope to add several new positions to our active portfolios … stay tuned!
Our position in TTE is up over 30% since we introduced it back on June 30, 2023. The stock is up only 8.5% over the same time frame. With our short calls currently in-the-money and August expiration tomorrow, I want to buy back our calls for August and immediately sell more calls going out to the October expiration cycle.
Our Small Dogs of the Dow portfolio continues to push higher. More specifically, our INTC position is up 60% since we initiated it back at the beginning of 2023. The underlying stock position is only up 25%, again, showing the power of using a poor man’s covered call strategy on individual stocks and ETFs.
Portfolios
Strategy