No. of Recommendations: 11
I have done this both personally, and for a corporate client. (I used to manage money for a fee)
I was much more conservative for the corporate client: more mechanical, more diversified, more hedged, fewer hand-chosen positions.
If choosing the stocks mechanically, you really do want as much diversification as you can manage.
As you note, the only real risk of capital loss is that your stocks drop and your chosen index doesn't.
So, to the extent you can, pick your stocks for index correlation, not necessarily highest premium.
Taking those comments together, puts on Tesla as one position out of six seems pretty risky.
I have a very old rule of leverage, too, which could be worth considering. Or not.
FIRST choose something predictable, without worrying too much about the rate of return. A positive return even in the relatively depressing scenarios.
THEN add the leverage.
There isn't much overlap between the choices with the juicy upside and the choices for which it makes sense to add leverage : )
In this case, the individual positions aren't particularly predictable, but the hedged slate is not bad, which is why some leverage is quite liveable.
In real life, I make most of my returns in a pretty risky way that kinda follows that rule of thumb: leveraged positions on Berkshire Hathaway, primarily via calls.
There is essentially no compounding of the profits, as I live from my portfolio.
I calculate my average dollars at risk as what I'd lose on a given day if the stock went permanently to zero, averaged across all days since my first position.
For every $1000 of my average dollars at risk on Berkshire in the last 21.85 years, I've made an average profit of $266/year on Berkshire positions.
Wild variation year to year, and some long dry spells that required gritted teeth, but a good average.
Jim
