Tag Archives: ETFS

I Would Stay Well Clear Of Dividend ETFs ‘SCHD’ & ‘JEPI’ — Way, Way Overhyped, Maybe In ‘Pump & Dump’ Territory.

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by Anura Guruge
on August 5, 2023

Click to ENLARGE.
Click image to access this post from February of this year.

Earlier this year I had, atypically, some cash sloshing around. Given that 90% of my portfolio, for a very long time, had been made up of: AMZN (by far my largest holding (as of 2012), GOOG, NVDA, TSLA & AAPL, I wanted to diversify. I had also maxed out in terms of the CALL OPTIONS I could write against this stock. So, I looked around for other options.

Saw a lot of posts & YouTube videos for SCHD & JEPI. That alone made me leery. I was concerned that they may be ‘pump & dump’. I did a lot research on my own. I also discovered a FEW EXOTICS — i.e., HIGH, RLY & SIXH. (Above)

I wasn’t going to go crazy. Too old for that. I was going to try out all of them — with small investments. I did. I gave them all a few months — SCHD the MOST to see if it would recover.

HIGH, RLY & SIXH did MUCH BETTER than SCHD or JEPI.

In effect they made up for the disappointing & POOR performance of SCHD & JEPI.

I think SCHD & JEPI are DOGS.

I would not recommend them to anybody that I even remotely like. Great ETFs to tell people who annoy you, though!

IF someone really, really insists, I would tell them about HIGH, RLY & SIXH. They did OK by me. I have not checked how they have performed since — say May 2023.

So, that is IT. Stay away from SCHD & JEPI. They are DOGS.

ETFs: Everybody Knows About ‘SCHD’ & ‘JEPI’, But Have You Heard Of ‘HIGH’, ‘RLY’ & ‘SIXH’?

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by Anura Guruge
on February 13, 2023

Click to ENLARGE.

I do NOT remember ever making any money with ETFs. So, I have not owned any ETFs in 4 or 5 years (maybe longer). I have had a fair amount of luck with individual stock (mainly FANG but starting over a decade over) & some Mutuals. For the last few years I have been exclusively in individual stocks — in part because that facilitates my option trading addiction.

This year, with market conditions being what they are, I wanted to diversify a bit. Not much. Under 5% of my portfolio. I have realized that I have become too old, too impatient & too crotchety to deal with all of the minimum investment, 30-day hold etc. etc. requirements of Mutuals. So, I decided to give ETFs a try again.

So, I started doing some desultory research. Of course it didn’t take me long to stumble upon ‘JEPI’ & then ‘SCHD’. Wow. Kind of felt stupid that I didn’t own these already! So, I rectified it — albeit with v. small holdings. But, I am never comfortable with just ‘famous’ investment holdings (other than my long-term ownership of AMZN). So, I did more digging. Came across HIGH, RLY & SIXH. They looked interesting. But, I didn’t check them out to death. They might, given my usual luck, prove to be total, utter DOGs. So, I am not in any way or shape recommending them. I have only owned them for less than a week. During that time, of course, they have done diddly.

Just wanted to tell YOU about them. IF you are interested, check them out. They might AMUSE you. SMILE.

Adjusting The ‘Cost Basis’ Of Stocks Sold Up Until Settlement Day — At Fidelity.

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by Anura Guruge
on January 7, 2022

Click to ENLARGE. ‘SELL SPECIFIC’ when selling stocks, ETFs, etc.
Click to ENLARGE. From ‘Fidelity’.

NO. NO. There is no hanky-panky here or anything even vaguely illegal or even slightly unethical. All perfectly above board & totally kosher — IRS approved.

This comes into play when you have stock (or other assets (such as ETFs or mutual fund shares)) that you have bought at different times — ideally over a long stretch of time. If so, what you paid to buy those assets, at different times, are likely to be different — in many instances, very different. But, you bought them & as such YOU can SELL them. Moreover, you can specify which ones you want sold at a given time to give YOU the BEST cost basis (i.e., minimize the capital gains you accrue).

To make this as easy & as simple as possible, Fidelity, as you can see from the top image, offers a ‘SELL SPECIFIC’ option. That is neat & works real well. When you invoke it you get a list of all the shares, when you bought them & their current value in terms of capital gains or losses. You can then select the ones you want to sell. BINGO. You get the BEST cost basis you can & are entitled to.

Sometimes you might NOT be able to use ‘SELL SPECIFIC’. I ran into that yesterday — for arcane reasons too obscure to relate. So, I just sold the x number of shares I needed to sell at the THEN PRICE. It would be three days prior to settlement. During that window I can tell Fidelity what shares I want sold. In essence, it is SELL SPECIFC retroactively. Nothing illegal. I still sold x shares. I just didn’t specify, at the time, which shares they should be. And that is why we have a delayed settlement date.

Today, was the first time I had asked for this cost basis adjustment. You can’t do it online. It has to be done by the back-office & takes over a day. But, they assure me that it works. I trust them.

So, just letting you know. Basically, you can do ‘SELL SPECFIC’, after the fact, as long as you do it before settlement. All the best.

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