Category Archives: Trade Adjustment

Bitcoin Fund Portfolio Rebalancing

This trade adjustment on European based Bitcoin fund SE:BITCOIN.XBT describes reducing bitcoin exposure inside a “speculative” trading IRA. The main reasons for selling the bitcoin fund are portfolio rebalancing, mitigating long term provider risk and high product expense fees.

Portfolio Rebalancing

This trade has been a multi year Bitcoin long, trading two Bitcoin tracker fund products GBTC and SE:BITCOIN.XBT. Both funds aim to track the Bitcoin price (BTC), and own a claim on underlying Bitcoin. For brevity the underlying Bitcoin owned by either fund will be referred to as the Net Asset Value (“NAV”). As a quick review GBTC is Grayscale’s well known investment trust whose price is tied to Bitcoin. The initial GBTC position was originally purchased in March 2017 with BTC at $1,250 – see initial trade entry for more background.

However in 2018 due to GBTC having a very high premium to the actual underlying bitcoin holdings (NAV), it became very unattractive as a long term holding. Therefore the entire GBTC position was replaced with a more obscure Bitcoin fund SE:BITCOIN.XBT traded in Swedish Krona on the Swedish stock exchange. The fund historically tracks the Bitcoin price much more accurately than GBTC with only a nominal premium to NAV. Bloomberg has average 52 week trailing NAV of -0.12% for SE:BITCOIN.XBT, but a whooping 18.22% for GBTC (as of Feb 4th 2021). Incredibly around year end 2017 and into 2018 the average 52 week trailing NAV premium was 53% for GBTC (on 16th Feb 2018) and occasionally spiked over 90%

GBTC was sold in Feb 2018 due to this huge premium to NAV – see the original trade exit for a detailed discussion. The final sale value contained NAV (the equivalent amount of Bitcoin held by the fund) and the premium (that the market assigned over fair market value for the Bitcoin held in the fund). The NAV amount was then reinvested into crypto with approximately two thirds in Bitcoin (SE:BITCOIN.XBT) and one third in Ethereum (SE:ETHEREUM.XBT). That maintained exactly the same amount of crypto holdings, but with some crypto diversification and greatly reduced exposure to fund premium. The premium part of the sale was “taking money off the table” and was invested into other portfolio assets. This crypto rebalancing trade was done at approximately BTC $10,025. All these trades were IRA eligible so rebalancing was not a taxable event. Rebalancing these XBT funds frequently would not be advised because of the wide trading spreads and international transaction fees. 

Fast forward 3 years to Jan 2021. Crypto prices have gone through a huge decline (a “crypto winter”) from about Dec 2017 to Dec 2018 – with BTC ultimately reaching a low of $3,300 around Dec 2018. Then came the recovery rally from Dec 2018 to Sept 2020 with BTC reclaiming $10,000. Following that Bitcoin has been on a rocket ship launch starting in Oct 2020 at approximately $10,600 about to a high in early Jan 2021 of $40,405. The latest boom is claimed to be institutional money buying in large tranches, chasing exposure for themselves or their clients.

In Feb 2018 felt like we hung around at the party too long, with BTC moving from a peak around $20,000 in Dec 2017 down to our rebalancing trade at $10,025. Were actually saved somewhat by being able to the capture the GBTC premium. So this time we decided to see if we can improve by selling near the top of a huge peak, not waiting for post peak decline (speculation of course). Therefore during decline from high in early Jan 2021, exited two thirds of Bitcoin SE:BITCOIN.XBT position on 20th Jan when BTC was approximately $35,105 (about 13% from peak a few days earlier).

Ethereum (SE:ETHEREUM.XBT) position was maintained with no reallocation. Even after allocation the speculative IRA portfolio still has 25% crypto exposure, of which approximately 60% is Bitcoin and 40% Ethereum. 

Provider Risk and Fees

Any crypto exchange traded product (such as GBTC or SE:BITCOIN.XBT) has some significant counterparty risk if held for several years. Fund could get hacked, the provider may lose private keys or have some other internal company disaster that impacts the underlying crypto holdings. There is also significant provider discretion about how to handle hard forks and how (or whether) they accrue that value back to fund holders. Bluntly there is a constant tail risk that one day investors lose some or all of their investment in a crypto fund (potentially overnight with no warning). Ironically holding these crypto funds puts a single point of failure back on to the provider – that the underlying crypto “trustless” philosophy was supposed to resolve.

Both crypto funds have very high management fees that mimic hedge fund style management fees. GBTC has 2.0% management fee (but higher NAV premium) and SE:BITCOIN.XBT management fee 2.5% (0.5% higher, but less NAV premium). Although crypto funds may be able to justify high fees due to the very specialized product, this has to be a long term holding concern – especially given industry trend towards much lower fees. As any crypto fund position size grows, the management fee becomes much more expensive annually in absolute real $ amounts. Investor alternatives to paying crypto funds management fees are managing their own crypto keys in cold storage. Cold storage approach has no management fee, but requires investor have a detailed crypto knowledge of potential multiple cryptos. An investor needs to balance no management fee in cold storage, with the possibility losing their investment due to their own mismanagement. Therefore the fund management fee is an expensive convenience fee to trade crypto on exchange, manage crypto in cold storage and implement security protocols.  

Investors can currently ignore high fees because crypto is currently trading on Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) momentum – who cares about 2.5% fees when you make 300% plus per year? However through down markets over years or months, the fees begins chip away at long term value. The Nerdwallet Mutual Fund calculator can be used to compares product fees for an initial $10,000 investment in the (clearly hypothetical!) scenario where BTC price is static. Example shows that with no BTC price appreciation simply holding SE:BITCOIN.XBT with its 2.5% management fees loses nearly 12% in fees over 5 years – just for holding.

This clearly shows the impact of high management fees on long term holdings – these funds can only be held if high confidence crypto will rise. However as a medium term trading vehicle for crypto exposure with no taxable gains in an IRA, it is well worth these risks. Just remember to periodically take some off the table to mitigate the provider and management fee risks. 

Summary

GBTC and SE:BITCOIN.XBT products are a good trading proxies for crypto, but are still third party representations of a “promise to pay”. If you don’t have your own private keys, you don’t truly own your crypto. Crypto funds should not be relied on for multiple year long term buy and hold crypto exposure. Only crypto in cold storage does that. 

The crypto asset class is incredibly hard to hold without taking at least some money off the table on the highs. The peak to trough declines were about 85% for BTC and 94% for ETH from Dec 2017 peak to Dec 2018 trough. Unless some house money was already taken off the table in Feb 2018, it is doubtful that would have held all the way through “crypto winter” without finding the need to “do something”.

There is a reasonable chance that BTC goes significantly higher – however there are better asset classes that are less frothy starting from a lower base. BTC can potentially move from $35,000 to $100,000 from high (e.g. 200% return) but there are better opportunities to redeploy some of that crypto capital. Selling some for portfolio allocation is not the same as being bearish on crypto. This speculative IRA portfolio still has 25% crypto exposure, because it is the gift that keeps on giving. However if/when the crypto music stops, we will have made enough to construct an entire new portfolio from one single original Bitcoin position – whatever happens to BTC in future.

 

Brexit trading update – the aftermath

This will be the final general Brexit trading update – after this will resume general separate trade updates, but just wanted to get down all the trading moves made since last Friday and this week.

In summary it is a political mess in UK following Brexit. Prime minister resigned, opposition leader under threat for not campaigning strong enough for stay vote and Scotland threatening to veto the decision. On top of that Europeans telling UK to get on with a timetable for leaving. Not to mention the final hammerblow of England losing to Iceland in Euro 2016 (Brexit likely not as traumatic as the football exit for some people…).

However .. on to the trade update. If your trading account is still alive after the last few days after brexit… Congratulations! We were NOT expecting a leave vote to win, however we have to adjust our positions. Fortunately the implied volatility is still sky high on currencies and equities, so adjusting by selling premium is not that hard.

We are now now bearish USDGBP for the next few months. Not betting on immediate rebound. Any rallies are to be sold. There will probably be huge counter trend rallies based on discussions or actual BOE currency intervention, however those should be taken as a opportunity to short at higher levels. Limited risk reward with all bearish trades (eg call spreads or put / put spreads). Also medium term bearish on UK equities, but fallout from US equities will almost certainly be less for US versus UK. Not convinced that US market will react dramatically to Brexit over next few months (isn’t not likely on it’s own to cause a bear market). Would like to do short premium trades that take advantage of the high implied volatility env. Once again… if your trading account is still alive after the last few days of trading brexit your risk management rules are working.

Our portfolio had a relatively large number of short premium strategies going into the vote. These had to have minor some adjustments after the vote, which we did relatively quickly in most cases. There were also some strategic portfolio hedges to protect existing long positions that were quickly added on the Friday after Brexit (fortunately at pretty decent prices). Here are the trades we actually did …

Brexit trading update – Friday

Hedged our entire GBP cash position with a combination futures trade. This was hedged at 1.385 into the bounce on Friday morning at much better prices than overnight.
Brexit trading update - 6B Jun 2016 Bear Call Spread and Put - chart trade entry - 20160624

The combination /6B futures trade was needed to have full downside protection – without over paying TOO much for volatility (although some volatility premium needed to be sacrificed to hedge against total free fall).
Brexit trading update - 6B Jun 2016 Bear Call Spread and Put - trade entry - 20160624

Added these two bearish trades with a SPY put butterfly in the morning and IWM put butterfly near the close. These have no downside risk and were added when vol was high so could get strikes wide apart.

SPY put butterfly
Brexit trading update - SPY Jun 2016 Put Butterfly trade entry - 20160624

IWM put butterfly
Brexit trading update - IWM Jun 2016 Put Butterfly trade entry - 20160624

Hedged our entire Canadian dollar real estate position with a combination futures trade. This might be an over reaction to Brexit because the Canada/USA economic trading relationship is not likely to be directly affected. However if the market goes into “risk on” mode and oil prices decline then the USDCAD rate would suffer.
Brexit trading update - 6C Jun 2016 Bear Call Spread and Put - trade entry - 20160624

Brexit trading update – Monday

Shorted ATM volatility by adding a short call spread against the tested side of our existing FXB iron condor placed prior to Brexit. Also locked in a guaranteed profit on the short call spread by buying a very cheap call vertical. This is our way of rolling down within the confines of the 30 day rule – without this rule you’d just close out the call spread, and re-sell it at the lower strike. Trade has only $203 risk now:
Brexit trading update - FXB Jun 2016 Iron Condor trade adjustment - 20160627

Sold a QQQ iron condor similar to Tasty Trade’s good trade / bad trade – not our idea, but will take it.
Brexit trading update - QQQ Jun 2016 Iron Condor trade trade entry - 20160627

Short TLT bond call spread – don’t really like this trade from risk/reward (doesnt make much even if right) but just trying to sell bond premium in high vol with limited risk (and start a very small short position at recent all time highs).
Brexit trading update - TLT Jun 2016 Bear Call Spread trade entry - 20160627

Brexit trading update – Tuesday

Didn’t do much because implied volatility had contracted quite a bit, so there wasn’t that much premium to sell. Still not happy with QQQ and TLT positions – slight rise in market or bonds is going to hurt these positions.

Brexit trading update – Wednesday

Didn’t do much, big market rally again. Implied volatility reduced again. Sitting on hands for now. GBP rally somewhat muted given general “risk off” market rally.

Brexit trading update – Thursday

Portfolio is now getting too short for comfort – we have also iron condor established early in June in XME, EWZ that are rallying hard through the short call strike today. Adjusted the QQQ iron condor established on Monday to get some more long deltas in the portfolio.
Brexit trading update - QQQ Jun 2016 Iron Condor trade adjustment - 20160630

Brexit trading update – conclusion

Handled the actual event pretty well, but was caught off guard a bit because do not expect this massive bounce. Lost about 1% of the account in the bounce because pushing too hard on the short side (but that was arguably justifed given the initial market reaction). Ironic though because through out actual brexit in about Monday – the account was flat to slightly up. So navigated it pretty well initially, but frustrated to be losing money in last couple of days when did so relatively well on the initial reaction. Live and learn – and definitely not a write off experience.

AGNC – Bull Put Spread – Trade Adjustment

Agnc has sold off so we roll into 31 put. Position is still making money overall, so no need to panic yet. Rolling down still makes approx $400 realised profit, on the upper short leg of the spread (even though market was down).


Purchase  PUT  AGNC 33 Sept2013 AGNC1321U33 8 contracts  2.77  -2,228.95
    Sale  PUT  AGNC 31 Sept2013 AGNC1321U31 -8 contracts 1.4    1,107.02

If agnc makes a move up from here this combination will still make money. So we will hold on and see how it does.