Cycle Trading

[JLS]

I never account for dividends.

Too much more to think about and would complicate automated backtesting and would rarely make a difference in timing.

I am annoyed though when some Calls I have sold get assigned a little early because some A-hole wants the dividends that would otherwise come to me. I was never counting on the dividends in the first place. I just get really annoyed at surprise assignments. Luckily it's only happened once.

Using credit (AKA margin) is the financial definition of using leverage. So I decided you were using margin as you wrote that you are using 125% leverage. That's something I will never do. I know too many examples wherein friends borrowed to bet and ended up losing a lot of money and resorting to bankruptcy.

I don't think of 2X and 3X ETFs as using leverage by the investor. But, if somebody wants to refer to these ETFs as their leveraged investment, I'm fine with that.

I think they are referred to as leveraged ETFs by their creators because they are constructed by using leveraged financial derivatives in their creation. Otherwise, I just think of them as higher-volatility investments that track indices which are typically low volatility (compared to their underlying stocks).