June 2020 Performance

I guess as the number of Covid-19 cases go up, the market follows in lock step. Seriously, the Fed pumped so much liquidity in the market. You simply cannot fight the Fed in this environment. I still continue my cautious stance with a ~ 15% cash position. It’s starting to be challenging to stay in cash when it’s earning you nothing. I’ll remain disciplined and will wait for better opportunities to show up.

I’ve been experimenting with selling way out of the money weekly puts to try to generate some income. It is a somewhat risky strategy as a black swan event on one of these positions can literally blow you up. I’m just playing it small and just trying to get a feel with this strategy.

Not much on the merger arb space. It is interesting that a top shareholder is questioning the rationale of Qiagen’s takeover by Thermo Fisher at the price of 39 Euros. I also share the same view and will not tender my Qiagen shares for 39 Euros. I believe Qiagen is better offer as an independent company in this environment. I’m sure other shareholders have a similar view. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. 

 

I’m starting to do some work on some going private China plays such as 58.com. I’m only focusing on the ones that have definitive agreements in place. It’s not something I’ll go big in, but they generally offer a very attractive annualized returns.

That’s it for the June. Amazing that we’re already mid-way through the year.

 

2020 YTD Performance = +7.2% with the running monthly returns as follows:

January +2.7%
February -6.8%
March -9.9%

April +12.3%

May +6.6%

June +3.8%