Hi Gang, I'm thinking of making a change in my actions with AIM. Rather than buying or selling a percentage of a position, I'm now using round lots of 100, or smaller when special options exist. This way when I'm in a position to buy I'm selling a put, or in a position to sell, selling a call, just below/above or at the price I'm directed to. This brings in a small amount of cash as well as the shares, making the buy at a net cheaper cost or the sell at a net better price. Plus using GTC orders means less attention is required, a good thing.
I've back tested this on several positions and it gets me about 0.5% better returns, but it REALLY requires patience, even more so than AIM by itself as not every buy/sell actually executes right when AIM would want you to, or even executes at all. However, one benefit of this is that it delays buys/sells when the market is volatile and get a slightly better result.
The other thing I'm thinking about is trading only commission free positions. Yes, at TDAmeritrade there is a commission, even in the "commission free zone," to selling puts and calls but rather than $6.95 it is less than $3. Plus, when I need money for buying more shares it is easy to sell one of the commission free bond funds for the cash needed.
At this point I'm just paper trading this thinking but it looks solid so far.
Best,
Allen
