The LongVol Report

One of the questions I get often is how to best utilize this report, the idea flows and the data within it. I have my own way of using it and the story is that I have been tracking data and insights since I was an equities portfolio manager at the fund I worked at back in 2014; it’s just evolved into this report you see here today.

I think the easiest way to answer this is by showing you two real members that have two entirely different uses for the same report. Both, also have different sized accounts and experience levels so this is the best contextual comparison I can provide that I hope helps to answer this question on how best to use this report.

The community is still relatively small but we like it that way because it’s filled with those that are here to make money doing this instead of talking about it which I personally believe is what most investors prefer to do. You can message them both in the Discord as needed to talk with them and I know many of you already have.

My Take on The Report

I have two different, distinct views on investing because as I see it you have those with larger portfolios ($250K +) and then smaller ones $10-$50K. Those differences in portfolio size in my world dictate first and foremost how you not only use this report but also what strategy sets to apply and I’ll show you the proof of that in this post.

At a very basic level I think any reader of the report get away with simply using the report at a basic level by simply doing the following:

1. Using the cliff notes we provide each week

2. Reading the quick notes (see below) on each stock to understand the catalysts and key notes & current price action notes

3. Looking at the chart and marking key levels

4. Looking at the weekly and daily time frames

5. Structuring the trade with options that fit their account size

The other question I get is about price-charts and price action. It’s hard for me to give you a paragraph or two on how I look at those because it’s not that simple - but yes, I do look at charts and time frames when I trade momentum-driven names and other ideas from the Swing Monitor for two reasons: to understand where certain price levels are and where price could potentially go to. There is a lecture series on this I have in video form or you can use the Discord community to be a fly on the wall and learn more about this.

For those with larger portfolios and more time to dedicate to research then the report really opens up because of the Core/Special Situations section in the report. And for that I am going to use my personal IRA to discuss how I use the report in that particular account with two different investment examples from this report.

Finally, there are many others as well that use this report over the years who make well over $150K a year doing it and if that is you and you want to share your personal uses of how you use the report publicly just send me a DM and I will add you to this post.

How to Use The Report

First, this report is DYNAMIC.

I am going to start there because there is a perception that there is “one strategy” to make money from markets and that is one of the biggest lies peddled by charlatans online selling you courses and other bullshit. (I’ll tell you how I really feel later)

What do I mean by dynamic?

I mean that this report provides readers with a mix of different styles of investment ideas:

• Momentum driven idea flow

• Turn arounds (rare but we cover the ones we think have legs)

• Stocks left for dead (we call it Boing Boing Stock Monitor)

• Swing Trades

• Short-term options trading on high beta stocks and shit cos

• Event-driven idea flow (buybacks, spin offs, insider buys)

This is what I mean by dynamic.

Second point. Not all investments are the same and The LongVol Report is not just one strategy or data set.

• Value investing report

• Turn around report

• Options flows report

• Major indices report

• Swing trading report

Not all trades are created equal nor are all investments one size fits all.

What do I mean by that? I mean that based on your account size, risk tolerance and goals that you get to pick and choose what you want to use from the report.

Members of The Report

Reader: Ron

Ron has been around since 2017 and after I took a break for a few years he came back a few years back from a larger investment community. His portfolio is larger, +$1M, so his use of the report is more based around building out a portfolio of ideas not necessarily trading short-term. Most of his idea flow is a mix of: The Swing Monitor, Core/Spec Situations, his own research and work - in fact last week he closed a $26K swing on $STX ( ▲ 1.86% ) - see here. 

He sent this to me recently and we chatted a bit about his portfolio in the first half of the year (he was up 10%). He takes the data and uses either LEAPs or DITM (deep in the money options) to express the views and he was okay with me sharing this publicly so I am here with all of you.

I think this is important as well which is why I am sharing because as I stated, everyone has different temperaments and goals which is what makes using the idea flow and data in the report dynamic to each individual. He doesn’t trade that much as you can see in the email and is more concerned with putting ideas on and leaving them to play out - the short-term trading is almost non-existent.

Reader: SandaLyn

This is a reader that has been around for just over a year now and her portfolio was around $30s and is now much higher in the last year. Primarily her use of the report is around the high-beta idea flows using some short-term options, the DITM swing portfolio and a mix of her own ideas curated from the report. I think this is a 180 from Ron here because she is not building out a portfolio or going into deep dive research on names but focusing on short-term and some swing ideas with levels and price action. Like I said in the intro to this post above that I think anyone can use this report at a basic level and I don’t want that to at all seem as if that is bad, it’s not - the whole idea is that it is dynamic and you can read it in 15 minutes a week or dive into it for deep-dive research on some of the tickers in there.

The other thing I thought was worth noting here in a conversation we had in Discord was that she used the community to really see what a few others said/had to say about the market or ideas. I think this is a benefit for members because it allows you to learn a bit on how others use the data/report - esp. for her portfolio because as it continues to grow more portfolio management concepts (like Ron applies) are going to come into play so seeing and being around that now only helps.

My Personal Take via IRA

I already share quite a bit on the weekly video-cast how I use the report for our investment fund and managed portfolios but let me dive into a few real examples on how I use it through my IRA.

Most of the stuff that I use in my IRA (and investment firm) comes from The Swing Monitor, Core/Spec Sits and things not in the report. As you saw with Ron above he uses some of the Core/Spec sits as well because his portfolio is over $1M and we suggest in the report that you have $100K because there are higher and better uses of capital with less in the rest of the report data.

To start, this was the last 90 days in my IRA with more than 50% of that sitting in cash and money markets and the rest in: $GXO ( ▲ 0.21% ) , $KKR ( ▼ 1.4% ) , $VFC ( ▼ 4.64% ) (which has been down) and then some LEAPs and DITM options from names in the report. I don’t have the time to really manage this too much and I have the fund and PA where I can trade more aggressively so that dictates how and what I put in the portfolio.

Let’s go over a few ideas from the portfolio and how I use them from the report. One was $AAP ( ▲ 5.41% ) which I did own earlier in the year and lost some but recovered a bit and now sold to be clear.

#1 The Investment: $GXO ( ▲ 0.21% ) - Spin-off/Growth

Most don’t pay attention to spin-offs but we track them because there is an edge there and sometimes they get tracked and we do nothing with them.

Then sometimes we get something like $GXO ( ▲ 0.21% ) where they make it out of the group chat and into portfolios.

If you’re a reader of the report and you have $10,000 then you’d prob just as soon ignore this name as well because there are higher and better uses of capital.

The stock is up nearly +50% the last 3 months. I took the idea of this company because there was both a spin-off and a person behind it in Brad Jacobs. The spin-off got our attention (as other corporate catalysts do) so we looked at it and then it made the cut to get into the report to track. From there, I dug into the balance sheet, income statement, read earnings reports and then researched their Wincanton deal a bit which was just approved and a big deal.

This was a bit more complex because we needed to understand the Wincanton deal with the UK regulators. We already owned the name from January or something this year so this was NOT the reason we bought it or a make or break to sell it had it not been approve because we did the ground work on the actual business. For me, being able to throw around hundreds of thousands of dollars at an investment because of unusual call flows or gut-feel is not a repeatable investment framework - for that you can just chase the high-beta momo and Swing Monitor names in the report with basic price levels and understanding key catalysts.

With this we really had to understand and underwrite what we though the business was worth and could be worth in the future which does take time and is proper investing. Not everyone can or wants to do this and I get that which is why the report has different idea flow and data-sets to use.

If you are someone that does want to do the work or understand it then we have the Discord community to do just that as well as the video-casts each Saturday.

#2 $AAP ( ▲ 5.41% ): Turnaround (high risk one)

We’ve covered this name since Q424 and I had positions both in the fund, our managed portfolios and in my personal IRA above. This became an idea because I was scanning for our Boing Boing Stock Monitor in the report where we look at stocks at new 52-week lows and this came up. We added it to the report last year when they sold off their Worldpac business. That is a catalyst, you pay attention to stuff like that. It doesn’t mean you are going to put money to work but it starts to smell like a proper turn around when a company starts selling off assets like they’re Michael Jackson.

From there we began tracking it and then put positions in in Q4 and in Q1 and unfortunately the stock dropped a bit but thankfully I had LEAPs with time to be right. After that I had to make a decision. Do I add into the position or do I leave it a lone and get some of the gains back - I decided based to leave it alone.

The stock rallied nearly +50% on the last earnings and is now up +120% off the April lows.

Sadly, I did not own it for this move but do I have FOMO? No. I can honestly tell you I do not because there are other ideas in the report that I have found use for ( like $GXO ( ▲ 0.21% ) ) and that is a big value add for me: having enough idea flow that I am not forced to punt into an idea or chase highs on a stock breaking out that I know nothing about.

Conclusion

To recap this in one short-sentence: The report is dynamic by design.

You don’t need to use each stock monitor or even read it all each week if you don’t want too. In fact, you don’t even need to express the views with LEAPS/DITM you can use shares or spreads if you want. You have to decide what your goals are then from there the report is what you make of it. Are you someone trading a smaller portfolio to generate income from? Are you someone with a larger portfolio and who doesn’t want to sit at the desk all day chasing each move?

The idea here is that you can make this simple by using the quick-read notes on the tickers in the reports, look at the charts, work up some levels and get away with generating short-term and swing trades pretty quickly each week. Or, you can really get into the report and look at ideas that may take 6-12 months but may be doubles. And finally, you can bounce ideas off of people in the Discord from those with a lot of experience, large accounts, small accounts - all discussing various concepts based around the views here in the report and community I built over the last 5 years.