Ouch

Another bad day where the markets fell by roughly 1%. The day started off fairly well and then went downhill from there. My cash percentage is still a big percentage and I will hopefully have time to start investing that a little more. I read two old articles that got my interest today. One was in a Barron's from about a month ago about commodities and how it's a good hedge against stock positions. They also noted a few studies that showed over the long run a diversified commodity portfolio produced results that came close to the S&P return, but with lower risk. It also noted that when stocks go through periods of downtimes commodities outperform and when stocks are up commodities are down.

The other article I read highlighted an option fund. It mainly used covered call strategies and had an average annual return of about 16% over the past four years. I really think options can become a good part of my overall portfolio. Right now I just re-started Options As A Strategic Investment and after I get through this one I'm going to re-read Option Volatility & Pricing. I think, in terms of authors, McMillan and Natenberg are really good. Hull has wrote what many consider the bible of derivatives, but I have not bought that one yet (it's on my list though).