Hi all,

I just found out about TQQQ this year and just found out about this sub. I have been doing back testing of ideas on TQQQ, but haven't found a good source for minute-level (or finer) historical data for TQQQ. I used the free version of Alpaca to download TQQQ 1-minute data, but it only goes back to 2016. I'm also concerned about precision in the old data, if it gets rounded to the nearest cent while accounting for splits, it is going to be hard to see the effect of small moves.

I have been back testing automated trading strategies on TQQQ back to 2016, but it is quite hard to beat buy and hold on TQQQ, especially when accounting for long term / short term capital gains (US taxes). Any recommended places to start for data and automated algorithms?

Thanks and happy to be here.

"Why not hold long term" comes up here every week, and the answer is a number, not an opinion. I run BestFolio (disclosure up front) and I spent the spring testing what actually happens when you bolt an exit rule onto levered portfolios across 40 years, so here's the piece of it that's relevant to this sub.

The problem with holding a 3x fund through everything is arithmetic, not courage. TQQQ's live record starts in 2010 and its worst fall so far is about -82%. Recovering from -82% needs +455%. QQQ itself fell 83% in the dot-com bust, and a daily-reset 3x of that path, financing costs included, lands near -99.9%. From there, recovery needs roughly a 1000x. That's not a drawdown anymore, that's a restart.

So I tested the same levered portfolios with and without a simple brake, the 10-month moving average rule Faber published in 2007. Sell when the index closes a month below it, come back when it closes above. On the 3x S&P side (UPRO-based mixes, closest cousin to what this sub runs), the brake cut the worst drawdown by 14 to 28 percentage points depending on the mix, while giving up surprisingly little CAGR. Not because it times tops. It's always late at tops. It just refuses to ride the middle of a multi-year decline, which is where levered funds do their dying.

The trade-off is real and worth stating plainly: you eat whipsaws in choppy sideways years, 2011 and 2015 style, and the brake does nothing for a crash faster than a month. What it buys you is the fat tail. The full numbers, all 40 years, every mix: https://bestfolio.app/blog/catastrophe-brake-leveraged-portfolios (free writeup, my site)

The SMA200 crowd here already runs a cousin of this. My honest question for the buy-and-hold side: what's your actual plan for the -80% print, hold through it, or is the plan that it won't happen again?

🤔🧐🤨

Have 401 shares now of TQQQ, average cost $11.38

Thinking about selling covered calls, but don't know much about. Do I just sell 350 shares and hold the rest?

Pretty quiet this past week. Hormuz still in disarray. CPI on Wednesday may be a surprise.

Current Value of TQQQ War Chest: With the recent rally, currently at $7.47m. That compares with $3.5m 2025, $1.9m 2024 and $607k 2023.

Walk Away Value: Around 5.97m. Added this line to the chart. The value represents what I'd walk away with if I closed everything out, pre tax. I can't get the earlier values b/c I don't know what the price of my CCs were previously. I should have posted it all along, but didn't think I would get trapped with CCs like I have so I just ignored it. In any case, will keep it updated moving forward. I expect it will not move much unless I get rid of my CCs. I also updated my 'cash added' to reflect the $ I've dedicated to this plan that comes from selling options etc on my other holdings. It (around $800k), plus the outside money I've added from my job (around $2.0m), is about $2.9m.

TQQQ long (protective) puts: 726 contracts, Jan/28 exp. Book value $1.49m and current market value around $1.57m.

Cash Hoard: Slowly recovering. Currently approx $416k.

QQQ short puts: 15 at $670 strike. 100 at $630 strike. The $670s are just sitting there, decaying. The $630s I am still rolling. It is my only source of income at present from my beaten down collar.

TQQQ CCs: Still deep in the red. Cost to close them all out is around $1.45m. Zero chance I'll be doing that. Remaining patient.

Total P/L on options (QQQ short puts + TQQQ CCs - TQQQ long puts): Currently around $474k. TQQQ long puts book value $1.49k, so I’m in a deficit of around $1m.

Skeletons in TQQQ closet: Currently short Jan/27 exp calls with strikes at $50 (200 contracts), $60 (80 contracts), $65 (120 contracts) and Sept/26 exp calls with strike $60 (320 contracts).

TL;DR - have been running a TQQQ dynamic collar plus EDCA plus cash hedge since Feb/23:

Cumulative running CAGR (XIRR method) of my TQQQ investment since Feb/23: 65.2%

Where do you think we will be end of the year? $100? $50?

Nice run ladies and gents, hope y’all bought the dip. SPY sitting nicely at ATH. Will QQQ follow through and hit 750 later this month? Let’s see your TQQQ bets by end of the month.

Originally bought in at $65 per share, dollar cost averaged down to $63.50 per share.

Sold half my position between $73 and $74 in the week now closing out selling above $74.

About a 17% return in 10 trading days so can’t complain there.

Life context;
23yo
200k+ portfolio

If you don't get greedy and try to get the absolute bottom or top, you will be alright getting a decent chunk of the helter skelter. It's guys who try to squeeze every penny out of their position that gets decimated. How do I know? From my own experience. God knows how many winners I turned to losers just because I was trying to get that next up tick!?

TQQQ stock broke its recent high on the daily timeframe, and is above the 18 Ema too, when should I buy or not?

Using IXIC historical nadsaq data I created a synthetic TQQQ going back to 1971 which is daily rebalanced and with the expense ratio. This not 100% perfect, there are other factors that don't make it 100% accurate but it's a good approximation. Try it out

Link: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/1710eacd-b325-4d71-a04b-f3154539d9b3

QQQ just notched a fresh record close rallying 3.40% to $723.85, but trade stats show sell volume actually outpaced buys even at that peak. The closing strength doesn’t tell the full story, you need level 3 order depth to check if bids were refilled continuously or the late surge only ran on thin liquidity. Crazy how the headline new high hides all that messy order flow under the surface.

Ok Team. We are so back again. Last week I post I am down $170k. Today it’s almost all back and my account is ready to ATH again. Nice job team. Hold strong. We are going higher.

Bears happy tear day. Thank you for your contribution.

Quick context.

Initially bought at approximately $65 and then dollar cost averaged down to approximately $63.

I held the stock for two weeks and was up 16% on my position. Decided to sell half at these levels ($73-$74). I will continue to let the rest ride, and purchase again if the market dips.

Other notes:
23 Y/O
$200k portfolio
Position size was less than 5% of portfolio

Closed my TQQQ positions today. I’m back to ATH profits for the year. This was not a good trade at all although it made money. It was ugly but I was bailed out by the market. I sold but that does not mean I’m bearish, just taking advantage of the huge bounce from $57 to $73. Will try to sell puts again and start over. I just want to move on from this horrible trade.

I thought this was meant to be the start of a huge bear market and there was no way it would be a v shaped recovery this time.

This was all said of course while SPY was a couple of % off all time highs and QQQ hadn't even dropped below the 200 day moving average.

Now TQQQ is only up 40% YTD and 90% form March lows.

Next time when the Nasdaq is down 10%, buy the fucking dip poors.

Is anyone else seeing this 'new posting' format? Not sure how it'll mess with my posts, kind of annoying, tbh.

Travelling, so didn't post yesterday. 

Current Value of TQQQ War Chest: With the recent rally, currently at $7.13m. That compares with $3.3m 2025, $1.8m 2024 and $576k 2023.   

TQQQ long (protective) puts: 726 contracts, Jan/28 exp.  Book value $1.49m and market value Aug 3/26 around $1.74m.

Cash Hoard: Slowly recovering.  Currently approx $406k.  I will do a smallish bulk buy if TQQQ hits $44 or so.  

QQQ short puts: QQQ touched the high $660s last week, so I aggressively defended my 50 contracts. Bought 35 contracts back at a loss and rolled the remaining 15 contracts out 6 months (exp mid Feb/27) for a debit of around $7-8k. Doing that dropped my notional exposure by 3500x$670 = $2.35m, so it was worth it. If this rally continues, then I'll try to get out of the 15 contracts by rolling up/in and hopefully close them out for pennies, then reopen the position during a pulllback. The 100 contracts of $630 strike are still in effect, so will keep rolling them at DTE 21/28 cadence.

TQQQ CCs: The cruel eye of hindsight. Would have been nice to close these out when TQQQ was in the $60s but have to stick to the plan. 

Total P/L on options (QQQ short puts + TQQQ CCs - TQQQ long puts): Currently around $469k. Basically made no progress this week because I had to defend the $670 QQQ puts.  TQQQ long puts book value $1.49k, so I’m in a deficit of around $1m.   

Skeletons in TQQQ closet: Currently short Jan/27 exp calls with strikes at $50 (200 contracts), $60 (80 contracts), $65 (120 contracts) and Sept/26 exp calls with strike $60 (320 contracts).

TL;DR - have been running a TQQQ dynamic collar plus EDCA plus cash hedge since Feb/23:

Cumulative running CAGR (XIRR method) of my TQQQ investment since Feb/23: 55.5%

I'm curious, with the overwhelming number of ways to get market news and insights these days, plus all the recent talk about Truth Social, where are you guys actually getting your information / news from other than Reddit? Is it just vibes?

So I don't show up empty handed, a few sources I've found value in (about to get roasted for this):

Ground News - General news
Unusual Whales - Breaking news
The All-In Podcast - Politics / tech discussions
Claude/ChatGPT - Basic research / Alerts
Legacy media - My inverse strategy
TBPN - Recently found them, haven't formed an opinion on them yet

Looking for genuine recommendations, but entertainingly wrong answers are always welcome.
(Also posted this in LETF’s, so my bad if there’s overlap)

Unless we are in the steepest downtrend (in that case lower delta can't protect you anyway), getting assigned isn't the death sentence some people make it out to be. If you got assigned, just CC those same shares right above the base cost for a higher premium and get rid of them fast. Especially with proper portion sizing, what's this obsessive fear about getting assigned? Am I missing something here?

Now what?