Friday Wrap-Up

I finally decided to chase Chipotle, selling a January 110 put for $10.70.  I am a strong believer of Chipotle's earnings power going forward and wouldn't mind having this as a long-term holding in my portfolio at a price of $100/share.  I'm willing to pay the steep current P/E of 25 at that price because I think Chipotle will be one of the best growth stories of this decade.  That said, I hate to chase after a run-up as big as the recent one, but I see no reason for Chipotle to underperform going forward, so chase I will.  Time will tell if this is a short-term trading mistake.

YTD:

• Portfolio up 15.8%
• S&P 500 up 3.15%

The run up in Apple helped me again.  Mosiac's move up today following Potash's higher guidance also helped my short 50 put be worth even less.

Given that the S&P is the de-facto standard for how to compare portfolio manager's relative performance, I've actually been noticing that there are really three different ways to gauge S&P 500 performance.  The total return of the S&P 500, which includes dividends, is likely a better gauge of how a portfolio manager is doing.  Surely, any manager includes dividends as part of his portfolio gains.  The S&P 500 total return YTD is currently 3.6%.

However, the S&P 500 is merely a metric.  Probably the best way to compare performance is relative to the SPY ETF, adjusted for dividends being reinvested.  Over the next week I'll look for a site that's calculating this, and if I don't find one I'll just calculate it out myself.