Eh. I'm not a fan. I'm in the futures for hedging and so you buy puts when you are at a level that you think you can make money. So if it continues to go up there are no margin calls. GREAT!!!!

Then it rolls over. And you think to yourself, "I'm so damn smart I have this hedged and so all I have to worry about is the basis. So you sell the hedged bushels at harvest and all is well right? Well while the market was going down, the put was making about half the money that the bushel was losing. FUUUUCK

it's a good tool and it certainly is cheap to run. But the bottom line is that you have to be right on the direction of the move or you are giving it away anyway. And if you are going to be right you just as well own the contract.

That's how it works on the commodity side anyway.
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And the year is over.

I'm pretty pleased with this year. Portfolio-wide, I got a return of 14.6% in 2016. I'll take that every year and be thrilled. How did others do? What worked and what didn't?
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Any recommendations for sectors that lagged in 2016 and can be used for increasing what could be minimal gains in 2017?
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I don't see how you can make much money with the commissions eating up profits on these low dollar trades.

I trade options as well but usually $1,200-$5,000 and I like lot's of leverage like you do by buying some that are under .25 a contract. I've just missed some real grand slams.
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I did a little less than you at 12.67%, would have liked to do just a touch better.

I was all pretty much growth stocks in US with about 20% international, which was a laggard.

I also had 15% in a growth and income fund which I switched out a few months back due to rising interest rates. NO BOND FUNDS FOR A WHILE
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12.7 is a really nice return, too. This has been a nice year to be invested.

I probably should have more international stocks. I pretty much stick to dividend stocks these days, and for some reason the ones I like tend to be American.
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Mine also.
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I invested in a bunch of red tape bananas. When the stock is ripe I am going to roll them over into bread. Profit
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I remember us talking about Coke and Pepsi a while back. I keep being tempted to put more money into them. They both made money for me this year with the dividends, but they lagged the market. Thoughts?
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Coke and Pepsi are always talked about in investment books. Intellegent Investor and such.
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I need to double down and also buy stock in some diabetes management companies, too.
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Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good. I got tired of the performance of an index fund in February and started investing on my own. Since February, I have roughly doubled my Roth.
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You mean a 100% return, or is that counting contributions?
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that would definately sweeten the deal
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Net of contributions, a little over doubled, depending on the day. After five years of virtually no growth on my maxed out Roth contributions, I started playing with some call options and picking specific stocks. I haven't really refined my trading strategies with options yet, but you learn some expensive and valuable lessons.
The rule I am currently trying is to make a prediction, buy the position, and see it through. I actually left a huge amount of money on the table by exiting positions ahead of my predictions because I had tidy gains and was living by the "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered" thought process.

The great thing about options though, is that you can make sufficient returns for your whole portfolio using just 5% of your actual account value. I have been sitting on roughly 60% cash since June and still making good gains. (I also have ~25-30% of my portfolio in stocks I have selected individually.)
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