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You're most welcome!

You're welcome. I send them out approx once a month but it depends on the frequency of my trades. I won't send one out if there's nothing to report.

I wish you all the best with your investing (and job search) journey :)

I'm a non-US tax resident so my tax situation is completely different.

Thanks for sharing. It depends if you want regular cash to pay for your life, or to die with the biggest portfolio balance. I like the regular cash.

I like it too :)

I don't have strict allocations by asset class but I don't let any of them get close to 50% of the portfolio. Hanoi has problems with pollution but I avoid that area. Southern Vietnam and Southern Thailand are generally good.

Every asset class has its risks. I don't hold XYLD and not all covered call funds are the same. XYLD sells calls at the money and therefore experiences more NAV erosion that funds like SPYI that sells calls out of the money. A savings account will gradually reduce your buying power to zero unless it pays you a yield greater than inflation.

The price of QQQI is driven by the price of the NASDAQ 100, and the covered call option strategy. There's no direct link to interest rates, other than the overall stock market's reaction to interest rate changes. In very simple terms, the stock market prefers low rates over high rates.

I can't stand cigarette smoke or the smell of it, and I agree that the companies knowingly harm people. However, the channel is focused on income generation, so I stick to the investment aspect rather than injecting my opinions about social issues.

I was there last March. Wasn't a fan of the crowds, but perhaps you can find a peaceful spot. I preferred Danang, and I'm also interested to check out Phu Quoc. Having said that, any day in Thailand is a good day. Enjoy the sun and sea!

I'm not familiar with it but I'll take a look. Thanks for the suggestion. Not sure how sustainability and politics will get along in the near term.

That's a good point. Also, there are some major lenders that have restrictions on morally questionable industries, which may drive up the cost of debt for them in the future. It's a complicated biz...too complicated for me!

I looked at total return (I'm assuming you're not just looking at price, as most of the returns come in the form of income so ignoring income makes no sense). IWMI outperformed RYLD almost every month. The exception was January 2025, when RYLD outperformed IWMI. As of January 28, 2025, RYLD is currently in the lead for total return at 11.75 vs 9.33% for IWMI. They use different strategies. I don't think there's much between them so far, and its too early to tell which one is superior over the long term. I used Seeking Alpha to measure total return.

@@armchairincomechannel I used portfoliovisualizer and the result is different. RYLD outperformed IWMI by the end of December already. YT won't let me post the link here unfortunately.

@@armchairincomechannel looks like my response is getting deleted for some reason. portfolio visualizer came up with different results. RYLD was ahead on TR by the end of December already.

Thank you! Will do!

It's a delicate balance between enjoying the good years now vs trying to die with the biggest portfolio. I think I'm keeping ahead of inflation, but taking out a large chunk of cash, so I'm underperforming the overall market and that's OK by me. If you just hold the S&P 500 or QQQ you will die with a larger portfolio than me. I don't know why people try to do that.

That's a great point, thanks for the suggestion. Measuring returns is complicated because I don't withdraw all or none of my income, it varies each month. Assuming 100% withdrawal, the portfolio is up approx 4% since May of 2024 when I started using Snowball, but of course most of the returns (approx 11%) come in the form of income. I would estimate the total return since May is approx 15-16% and the balance with reinvested dividends, but without withdrawals would be up approx 7 to 8%. I don't want to get too far into the weeds with the calculations of how much I reinvest vs spend because for me that's a lifestyle choice rather than an investment choice. I want the channel and the newsletter to be about 1/ The research findings and 2/ The investments I select based on that research. I'll give it some thought because I would want to know the answer to that questions too!

Thanks for the suggestion. If I added an "expenses" column, I'd need to address the confusion with an accompanying notes section for the ones that look ridiculously high. I like the concept but would need to figure out how to do it in an efficient way.

Nothing wrong with individual bonds but I prefer the diversification of funds that hold a portfolio of bonds. For corporate bonds, I don't have any advantage when it comes to underwriting the credit of the individual companies so I'd prefer a fund manager to handle that at scale. Having said that, I do hold a couple of preferred shares, so they're an exception to the diversification/underwriting reasoning.

That's great to know :)

Thanks!

Glad it was helpful!

Perhaps this is a great lesson on the value of keeping tech and growth separate from your "income" allocation. I have no clue if there is any correlation, but I own HPPPRC which was up nearly 7% on Jan 27

I don't know what the daily news about AI means for individual stocks so I'm not trying to trade based on the news. If I did't own BST, I'd buy it now. But I already have it, so I'm not making any changes. It was rough for the NASDAQ, losing 3%. My portfolio was down 0.55% for the day. Not as much tech exposure. Best performer was THQ up 2.6% and worst was BST, down 5.6%. I don't pay much attention to daily swings.

Thanks for sharing. I agree that a combination is the way to go.

Selling those indexes to pay the bills works for some people. It's just not how I want to do it.

You're welcome!

Thanks for your detailed question and I'm glad the content is useful. Your guess is correct. I held them many years ago when I was a US tax resident. Their net returns depend on the tax situation for the investor. As a non US tax resident, they're less appealing to me. I like the low credit risk, but I'm looking for more yield.

@ makes perfect sense. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I'm not familiar with that one. Thanks for suggesting it. Volatile price but consistent income.

@@armchairincomechannel best of both worlds 🙂. Quite tradeable. And closer to oversold right now.

It was rough for the NASDAQ, losing 3%. My portfolio was down 0.55% for the day. Not as much tech exposure. Best performer was THQ up 2.6% and worst was BST, down 5.6%. I don't pay much attention to daily swings.

Thanks for your feedback, that makes sense.

Thanks, and congratulations on your looming retirement. Yes, I'm an affiliate for SA, and a very frequent user :)

You're welcome. It's confusing.

You're welcome!

You're welcome :)

The default withholding rate for non-US tax residents is 30%. However, the good news is that the actual tax liability to the US Government (IRS) is far less than 30%. It's somewhat complicated to calculate because there are different rates for Ordinary Income, Qualified Income, Capital Gains, and Return of Capital. I can't predict how low the final tax percentage will be, but it's highly likely to be less than 15%, and may be less than 10%. You have the option to file a tax return as a Nonresident Alien using the 1040-NR form. You'll need an accountant that's qualified to file US tax returns; ideally one that's familiar with Nonresident Alien taxation. If you file a tax return with the IRS, your tax liability will be calculated on the ACTUAL AMOUNT DUE, not the withholding amount. The amount due will be less than the withholding amount, so the IRS will issue a refund to you. The downside is that you have to wait up to a year to get the money back, but it will substantially reduce the amount of tax you pay. I'm not a tax professional, so I recommend that you speak to one before making any investment decisions that are affected by taxation.

@@armchairincomechannel many thanks for the explanation and great channel

My pleasure!

Glad you enjoy it!

I don't have a formula for asset class allocation but I do try to spread it around. I'm more focused on diversification than maximizing returns by weighting to what I think will do better in the near term. You're right about a lot of overlap with QQQI and SPYI because the option strategy is the same and those indexes have significant overlap. I hold no Yieldmax funds. I want to limit NEOS funds but they keep coming out with funds I like...it's a good problem to have! No matter how good a fund manager is, I'd never give them all, or even half of my net worth. Will have to keep an eye on that with NEOS as they fit me needs so well.

I wouldn't use the word "safe" because it's absolute. But I would say its the lowest risk of all the funds I've discussed or purchased. It will remain so as long as interest rates remain high. Thanks for the suggestion. Risk is an important topic!

Glad you like them James!

Thanks for your feedback. We could trade acronyms for a while. I'll look for something new to discuss in the coming weeks/months :)

I'd like to address that question but it's challenging. I'll paste below the response I wrote to a similar question in Dec of last year. "Tracking results is challenging with a constantly evolving portfolio. I started using Snowball to track my portfolio (and share it) in May 2024. Before then I just followed the numbers on 3 separate brokerage accounts. Since then I have made about 4 trades a week and reinvested a portion of my dividends every month. Not counting the reinvestment of dividends, the portfolio is up 6.7% since May, and the yield is currently 11.54%. Total return would require annualizing the 6.7% and adding the income. I don't have software that can do that for my portfolio. So no NAV erosion, but the market has been kind to us. I would like to track everything but I haven't found a way to account for my trades (realized vs unrealized profit) and I want to show the returns without reinvestment so that its a constant as I reinvest a different amount each month and that complicates the return. As the data from Snowball grows, I'll share whatever useful data I can. I think I'd need at least a year of data but ideally it would be best to see how the portfolio reacts to bull and bear markets. Anecdotally, I recall that my portfolio dropped like everybody else's in 2022, but the income hardly changed at all...very few cuts. Since then I've added covered call funds and they are likely to trend down during a prolonged bear market so that will affect future numbers. Thanks for the suggestion!"

Understand, it would be challenging to calculate TR precisely without software. However, you could come up with a pretty reasonable approximation as follows. Brokerage statements typically provide monthly/YTD: unrealized gains/losses on investments, realized gains/losses, divs/interest. Simply summing those and dividing by the average portfolio balance (adjusting for net portfolio additions/deductions) should give a pretty decent approximation of total return. Just a suggestion. You already provide a very informative and useful free resource! Thanks 😉

Yes, JEPI's expense ratio is tiny for an active fund. Smaller funds have to charge higher percentages to remain profitable. It's a question of 1/ Whether they deliver superior performance (most don't but a few do) and 2/ Whether you want exposure to their asset class. Sometimes there's no cheaper/easier way to get it into your portfolio.

I dislike blah blah as much as you! Thanks for the feedback; much appreciated :)

I don't know what UCIT means. I'm a non-US tax resident and I can buy US stocks and funds. I realize some European countries have restrictions.

@@armchairincomechannel Then you are subject to witholding tax 15% or 30%. UCITS are ETF's domiciled in Europe. If I buy the funds/ETF's/stocks you recommend in your videos, the broker deducts 30% on distributions, that is too high and erode the return. That's why I search for the equivalent UCIT.

That strategy can work for plenty of investors. It depends on your timeline. The longer your timeline, the better it works.

Too new for me but 1/ Fantastic ticker and 2/ Seems like a winning concept and 3/ That's unfortunate....

I agree that the examples you gave can be quite risky. My point was that yield alone doesn't equate to risk. Some assets are built to deliver a higher yield.