Money and Financial Business

Nick unwinds by blogging! And his mission is to introduce a bit of humour to the personal finance blogging world. He's also passionate about the need for basic financial education in our society, and fears that if we fail to provide it, it could lead to our financial undoing.

Nick's blog is at: http://www.punny.org/

Links to sites mentioned:
Michelle Singletary: http://www.michellesingletary.com/
All Things Financial: http://allthingsfinancialblog.com/
Blueprint for Financial Prosperity: http://www.bargaineering.com/articles

I have created a list of all on-line stock brokers over at my Trading Winner blog. I have gathered information on each online broker, such as commissions fees, margin rates, minimum initial deposits, special offers, and any other useful information I could find. I’ve also created a page for each broker where you can read [...]

United Airlines reported it's first profit today since... quite a while ago (it just came out of bankruptcy). This is interesting to me because it represents a successful turnaround and restructuring process during bankruptcy. United cut a lot of capacity and lowered costs (dumping their pension liability helped of course) during the past few years and it's good to the results of that.

Another reason why I care is because I blogged about United's hiring as a leading indicator of better times ahead way back in my 2nd blog post. This is also a sign that my United Mileage plus miles won't become worthless after all.

One other interesting point mentioned in the article is that United hedged 28% of its third quarter oil costs at $69.84 a barrel. I wonder how that compares to other airlines?

Let start from the heavy topic here. :)

It's hard to admit that we have a debt out loud let alone post it online. But I believe it will not only free myself from the norm but it might be useful for others who either in the same situation or getting in the same situation. We are a family of working couple. I have to say we are the upper middle class making about $140K combined. But it doesn't necessary mean that we are perfect. So how did we get into having a debt of about $70K in total. It's hard to pin point one thing. But for sure, we have accumulated it over the years. Purchased for a used minivan, down payment for investment properties, vacation on Disney Cruise, expense for new home (with moving twice in the past 3 years that will add up).

Here is the details in my debt today.

• HELOC Debt: $31,000
• Credit Card Debt: $50,000

Total Debt: $81,000

How did we get to this huge amount of debt?

Let me shed some light to you and myself. :)

HELOC debt is used to purchase 2 investment properties in FL. I took the money out to pay for the down payment and closing cost. Also we are drawing from the HELOC to pay our mortgage in FL that we are trying to sell. If things go as plan, we should close on the house in FL by this August. The profit that I will receive will be used to pay off HELOC debt and Credit Card Debt.

Credit card debt is the accumulation of various expenses over the 5 years. We don't have student loan. But I did get lower interest rate for the balance transfer on most of my credit card. I decided to transfer the car loan which would be around 8-9% to the credit card which is as low as 1.99%. So we had about 38K for two cars that we have. Then moving expenses and vacation expenses add on to those balance. I have to admit that it's hard to fathom the reality that we have that much debt on hand. I tend to justify my debt by saying that it's things we need. But really? Are those things we need?

Now that I get it out in the open of how much debt I have.

I think the next step will be to set my goal and put it out in the open...I guess that will be the next post. :)

We have been waiting on a cell phone rebate from Inphonic for a whopping 8 months now. We could apply for the rebate only after 6 months of phone service and then have to wait for about 6-8 weeks for the rebate check to arrive. The latest status on the rebate website is that they unfortunately have to ‘reprocess’ the rebate.

We have to get $500 back so the amount is no joke. Somehow as the days go by I feel that my ‘free’ phones came with a big price.

1) I had to wait 6 months, fill in about 6 forms making sure I had the UPC code and all the receipts intact till then.
2) Now I have to wait till somewhere in rebate world some unknown entity approves my rebate and sends me a check.
3)I have no idea if by chance I missed something in my application or it got lost in the mail until it is much too late for changing it.

I know (am hoping) that I will eventually get my money back but this whole rebate thing is based on their hope that the customer will not be willing to go over all the hoops and hurdles to get it. I know there are companies that seem to have a faster, smarter process but it is still not an easy process;reiterating that everything comes with a price.

I agree with Mike

I know this is an age old topic and do agree that money does not buy happiness BUT I hate when people fail to admit that money does factor into happiness, even if only a little bit. To this point I just read this article by Suze Orman: Count Your Blessings -- And Your Money. I am not really a fan of Suze Orman but I agree with what she says in this article.

It may seem a bit early to think about your 2006 tax returns, but by the time you realize, the end of the year will come faster than you had thought. But there are some things you can do now to help make it easy on you (or your accountant) come tax day in April, 2007.

I can’t believe that 2006 is 60% done!:

• 212 days elapsed (1/1/06 - 7/31/06)
• 153 days left (8/1/06 - 12/31/06)

For me, the end of July is a good time to think about my mid-year financial picture. It helps me assess what I’ve achieved and what I need to do in order to reach my financial goals. Here are some of the financial items I think about in July for the end of the year preparation.

1. Review 2006 income/salary (and how am I going to bump that number up?)
2. Compile tax deductions for 2006 by keeping a 2006 tax file
3. Review 2006 expenses and find areas to cut
4. Create and review 2006 income statement (aka profit and loss statement, or P&L)
5. Create and review 2006 balance sheet

I try to think of my financial picture like a business. Think of the balance sheet as the ultimate scorecard for your “business” at a fixed point in time (mid-year). The income statement shows money in (income, revenues, sales) and money out (expenses, costs) over a period of time, while the balance sheet is based on this equation: Assets = Liabilities + Equity. These two are really needed to understand the current and future conditions of your business.

I have to admit I still have to create my income statement and balance sheet, but it shouldn’t be too difficult since I’ve compiled my year-to-date information in a folder.

My apologies to anyone who might have been following my blog and hasn't see anything new in awhile. I forgot to mention in my last post that I was headed out for a vacation to visit Vegas and southern California to have fun and visit family, respectively. As with most vacations, I definately spent a LOT more money than I usually would for the month, but isn't that what a vacation is for? To me, vacation's not just about getting away from work and your everyday surroundings, but also from worrying about things like money and other stressors. Not to say vacation means go hog wild about spending, but if you've saved up to take a vacation then take it!

Short post for now, but I'll post again later today about my recent salary increase and bonus check that came in yesterday. And maybe if I'm really ambitious, about my current debt consolidation strategy and how that's going. balance transfers with 2.99% apr for the life of the balance? Thank you very much American Express! :-)

At its August 15, 2006 meeting, the City Council will formally consider adopting exterior property maintenance standards for one- and two-family homes (eg, roofs, walls, and windows would be required to be in good repair).

Property maintenance issues are high on the list of City Council goals for the community. City staff takes about 40 property maintenance complaints each month, and due to the age of Golden Valley’s housing stock, that number is expected to escalate.

Click here to read more about the proposal from the city’s web site.

So, I work for the government doing web application development. When I got hired on I felt like I should have asked for a bit more. I was a moron. Now, I am getting an assistant..I saw the request form for this position and the salary range was from $11,000 below mine to $1,000 below mine. I would feel pissy even if there were any less than 8,000 below me. I haven't been here a year, but our evaluations are in September and usually being in the government we get a set amount for a raise. Should I talk to my boss? What would you do? I need help.

Checking in to say the $20 a day plan is going great!

Well, teaching is done -- had to mark deferred exams last week (50 of them) -- and now it's time to get stuck into my research.

So, what am I working on this semester?

Project 1: Disclosure -- do the recent changes to disclosure requirements for investments make any difference? Do consumers understand the new "Product Disclosure Statements"? And, do they make any difference to the quantity of funds invested.

Project 2: Clean up the papers from my PhD and get them published.

Plus a few ideas for new projects on the horizon: tax motivated share buybacks, tax-effective managed funds, tax-deferred savings v. accelerated mortgage payments under Australian tax rules.

And supervising research students: one honours student and 1/2 masters student (jointly supervised).

Finally, just to inject a bit of humor into this blog -- check out this story from The Onion: Professor Pressured To Sleep With Student For Good Course Evaluation.

Banking Total Banking: $46,214.69
Investments Total Investments: $51,852.55
Total Asset : $98,067.24

The union that works at my plant has gone on strike. That means, as management, I am part of the team that took over for the striking workers and we’re running the plant ourselves.

The bad news - I’m working 12-hour days, 7 days a week

The good news - I get overtime pay

We’re just about two weeks into the strke and there don’t seem to be any prospects for a resolution. My first check with the OT pay in it comes this week.  Overall, the extra $ will be awesome, but the lack of family time is a problem.  I’m also not spending any money on lunches, so the effect is even greater.

By Bankrate.com Remember the movie "Groundhog Day," the one where Bill Murray kept reliving the same day? Some people live their financial lives like that, making the same mistakes over and over.

By Judy Keen, USA TODAY SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — A growing number of cash-strapped cities and schools are selling naming rights to parks, gyms, locker rooms and even the principal's office.

Yes! Please see my first guest blogging post here. Thanks to all the hardwork by Kira of PennyFoolish we have a place where under 30 somethings can post about personal finance topics for your generation. Come check us out at Under30HonorRoll.com!

I read alot about Emergency funds for when there are emergencies in life. I wanted to spend a few minutes defining in my head the difference between a financial emergency and general lack of planning and talk about practical preparations for both.

Here are some examples:
Lack of Planning-- new tires for your car.
Emergency-- Transmission repair

Lack of Planning-- covering your insurance deductible if you have a wreck.
Emergency: Covering mulitple Co-Pays resulting from an emergency room visit and doctor follow-ups.

Lack of Planning-- Not having the money to pay your property taxes (if they are not escrowed).
Emergency-- Your property taxes go up $200 (or whatever) a year and you don't have the money set aside.

Lack of Planning: It's vacation time and you don't have all the money. (Obviously right!)
Emergency: Someone gets sick and you have to make a quick trip to see them.

Lack of Planning-- It's time to buy school clothes and you don't have the money.
Emergency-- You need a new suit for a funeral.

Other "Lack of Planning" things that are mistaken for emergencies:
- Most car repairs.
- Insurance premiums.
- Christmas/Birthdays/ all other gift giving occasions.
- Higher than last months utility bills.
- Prescription co-pays you currently have.
- Almost anything else.

Honestly, I think the concept of an "Emergency Fund" is really misguided. Really the definition of an emergency is "a serious situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly.

In all actuality there is almost nothing in life that we can't expect... don't you expect that you'll have to take an unplanned trip or make a visit to the emergency room. It may not be what you WANT but you can certainly expect that it will happen. Does that make it an emergency?

The bottom line is this-- you need to have money set back. You need to have as much set back as you can and you need to touch it as little as possible.

For those in credit card debt a combined approach is good. Set up your Payment Stack (thats what I call it) and start working it but at the same time put some money back for those things you have failed to plan for. Then, when they come up you'll have them.

If people would stop calling things "Emergencies" they'd feel more in control.

For the last few months I have been using a free statcounter service to keep track of my stats and for the most part I am very satisfied. I mostly use it for my other site(shittystories.com) that actually gets traffic but I also use it to my keep track of my few Fiscal Fool hits. Regardless, the last couple weeks I have noticed that the statcounter.com numbers don't match the numbers from my network ad companies. For example, some days I might have 1000 hits on statcounter.com and 800 on Adbrite and Adengage. I have to use these programs due to the fact Google won't let me use Adsense because I have "profanity" in my URL. I have probably seen 50 sites that contain ads with nude girls next to Adsense but my URL is more concerning for them....the worst thing on my site is the word "shit". I am a bitter little man.....Moving forward. I think the issue is that statcounter.com counts when people use the back button to go back to a page they have already viewed as a hit where as Adbrite and Adengage probably do not. As anyone else noticed this trend or have any suggestions?

Last week, I heard a remarkably interesting twist on buying a retirement property.  I was talking to a friend at a party, and she said that her parents presented she and her three siblings with a most interesting plan. 

Get out of debt.

Personal Finance

My last post I complained about spending $20 to go out and eat Italian Food. That meal out was on Wednesday night- today is Friday. Tonight we spent $65 and I didn't feel one bit of regret...primarily because it was all you can eat crab legs, shrimp, clams, fish, etc. I love crablegs so no guilt there. Plus, the reason I felt bad before was because our meal out was a spontaneous move when we had food right in the refrigerator.

If people would just learn to say "I choose not to spend money today because I know I don't have to." That would be a big step.

One of the hardest things in the world to do is to not spend money when you feel like it. Your head screams, "I can't afford this while your hands are tossing stuff in the basket." If only people could make the connection between their head and their hands. It's just that when we are walking around the store or deciding what to eat we rarely keep the immediate future of not having money to pay the bills in our minds.

Often our decision not to spend money is made without regard to the immediate future. It's not that we don't have the money today, it's that spending the money today means we don't have the money for something else tomorrow. For many people that means that tomorrow they are putting their utility bill on a credit card.

One secret to smart spending decisions is the ability to base current spending decisions on future needs.

Yeah, check it out

Recently, I have seen more online banking with very attractive rate for the saving account. Should we get on the bandwagon of everything online?

I personally contemplate on doing so once I have enough money to put on my saving account.

Confession: Right now we have other obligations that our saving account is amount to the staggering amount of $7.86...

But once we get rid of our other debts I will definitely open one.

Now the question is which bank..

So far I have seen HSBC with 5.05% and no minimum fee and no other obligation. This is a little bit higher than ING saving account which have 4.35% and no minimum fee. CitiBank also has one with 5% but they do require you to open the checking along with it.

Most of these banks will allow you to do bank to bank transfer.. Here is the catch. You can transfer to their bank without any fee BUT you will pay a small fee (mostly $3) if you transfer out to another bank. It's kinda make sense since you want to save in your saving account. So it will help discourage you from taking the money out of your saving account anyway.

Well, when time comes I will let you know which one I have decided to go with. Till then, keep paying down the debts.

I have been reading about Personal Finance and several money matter blogs. I decided that it's something that I have been passionate about all this time. It's time for me to do something for myself and hopefully for others.I'm not rich or an expert in financial for by any mean. But I have to say that I have read enough to understand all the buzz words. This blog hopefully will help me connect with other liked mind financial person.

My goal for this blog is to collect my thought, my action over the years of my financial situation.

Tom Taulli Ten years ago, Anirudh Dhebar, a marketing professor at Babson College and an expert on pricing, sent an invoice to a money-center bank for a one-day seminar he facilitated. Within a few days, a representative from the company’s human resources department called and told him: "I know how good you are, I know how much some of your colleagues charge, and I would like you to submit a new invoice with a 50% higher fee."

From PluggedInFinance

Ok, I risk making waves amongst the 0% APR chasers. However, I’ll make my opinions known.

My background: At the age of twenty-five, I had never looked at my FICO score, but I had a credit representative tell me it was the highest they had ever seen. Forty-two months later I had been married and divorced. My FICO score was now in the mid five-hundreds. Eighteen or slightly more months later the FICO score was back up to mid-7s. Now it's 771. It took a slight hit and fell from 780s surrounding my recent home purchase.

I believe first in keeping the number of inquiries on your credit report to a low number. Right now I have seven unique inquiries in the last two years. Credit lenders typically look at any series of inquiries occurring within a 15 day period as related and count them as one unique inquiry (I’m reasonably confident on the number of days, but correct me if I’m wrong).

If I get my inquiries below 7, perhaps around 5, I’ll probably get the HSBC 1% rebate MasterCard with a one year 0% APR. Once the one year promotional APR is over, I’d switch back to my 5% and 2% rebate credit cards. It's important to note that you must exercise a reasonable amount of due diligence to find a credit card that doesn't charge a 3% balance transfer fee. The HSBC MasterCard is not one of those. If you need one of those, the Discover miles card might do this for you. Anyways, I generally hate BALANCE TRANSFERS because they only prolong the inevitable (facing reality and paying it off). Only those that set up parallel high yield savings account(s), avoid hurting themselves to bad; however, their FICO score still suffers a bit.

Other credit card tidbits:
a) You're FICO score is partially determined by your "credit card available balance percentage." If you have a credit card with a zero balance and close it, both your FICO score and perce ..

Blend three ingredients -- a paycheck, discipline and time -- and, you, too, can be a millionaire. It's not always easy, but it's simple. And you have no excuse not to do it. By Harry Domash Here is the single most important thing you will ever hear about investing: Getting rich is simple. Not easy, but simple.

Winner: Shefik Tallmadge. Year: 1988. Jackpot: $6.7 million, $335,000 each year for 20 years. When Tallmadge was 29, he became the biggest winner in the Pick lottery at the time. He bought a $60,000 nougat-brown Porsche 911 Carrera convertible the day he got his check, quit his $10.75 per hour job at Yuma Proving Ground and took his mother and his sister on a luxurious world tour to Honolulu; Bangkok, Thailand; and Sierra Leone.

I would say to some degree we all do. Status Anxiety is a show I saw on PBS tonight as Jane at BostonGalsOpenWallet recommended it. It was a two-part show hosted by the author of the book, Alain de Botton, documenting how different cultures have come to view their status in life. I have to say it was quite interesting. The first part goes over the American view of status (Alex de Tocqueville's observations which still hold true today) and how we live in a meritocracy where anyone can be anything. This meritocracy is constantly making us consider our status since we strive to be better. The second part looks at various other philosophies of Europeans. It even discusses how death alters our whole outlook on life. This show primarily made me think (again) about what I want to accomplish in life and how much is enough. I recommend the show if you can catch it, althought I would say its not for non-philsophical types.

Homemade tomatoe sauce with a clear taste of Oregano full o f sliced chicken breast with Penne pasta....yummy yummy yummy.

The bread is great too. Great bread.

And we got two meals, including tip for $20 (we drink water when we go out.) So it's hard to argue with that meal... Italian for two, including tip for $20!

But two nagging things kept running through my head-- Trout and Pork Loin.

The pork loin was from the night before, the trout from two nights ago. On a sultry summer evening either one of those would have made an excellent sandwich. The thought of either one sounded good. It would have been an especially practical option knowing we were going to be gone for the next four days and that those dishes will go to waste....but there we sat eating Italian food.

Going out to eat last night was just one of those emotional things...we knew we were going to be gone so "we" didn't want to cook. I didn't even think of the leftovers until we were already sitting down.

So there went another $20, never to be had again.

To all those that believe the soft landing spin, here is a great quote from the Countrywide Financial CEO in this piece:

Mortgage lenders grapple with deflating housing bubble

"I've never seen a soft-landing in 53 years, so we have a ways to go before this levels out," Countrywide Chief Executive Officer Angelo Mozilo said on a Tuesday conference call. "I have to prepare the company for the worst that can happen."

This will be my first Networth post. When I look back, it will give me an idea of where I was when I started blogging.

Networth Statement June 06
--------------------------

Assets
------
401k                 $  30533.19
Roth IRA             $   9080.15
Brokerage            $  12618.35
Checking             $   8440.46
Savings              $  35916.54
CDs                  $   5179.39
                     -----------
Total Assets         $ 101768.08

Liabilities
-----------
Credit Card 1        $    516.67
Credit Card 2        $    397.37
                     -----------
Total Liabilities    $    914.04


Networth May 06      $  95081.59
Networth June 06     $ 100854.04 +6.07% 

I will explain a few things about my Savings and CDs. I have Savings accounts at HSBC and ING. A majority of it is at HSBC since they are offering a higher rate (5.05% vs 4.35%). I opened the CD 12 months ago when I thought 4.00% was a good rate. It matures this Aug and I will just move that money over to HSBC.

Overall, this month's performance was a good one with the market rebounding a little after its May downtrend. Lets hope it recovers all its ground and more. I cant believe I broke the six figure mark! A big milestone as I am likely to stay in six figures for a while :-)

A lot of catching up to do. First, I should mention that I got a follow up invitation to the Platinum Card from American Express I spoke of yesterday. The offer's no different, but I appreciate the new attempt at making it feel "exclusive":

"Membership is available to our best Card members only, and is limited to a fraction of all American Express Card members."

Of course they don't say what that fraction is. 10%? 24%, 89.9%? Hard to say.

All right, I don't want to pick on the fine folks at American Express so let's see what else is in the accumulating pile from the last month or so...

The WorldPoints Credit Card from MBNA. Here's a good opening line in their letter: "You don't need another credit card...you need a better one"

Good line, let's see if they can seal the deal.

0% interest rate on on purchases, cash advances and balance transfers until next September. That's pretty good. Credit line as high as $100,000. And of course 1 point for every dollar in purchases, which will allow me to get the expected rewards: travel, gift certificates, cash back. Interest rate on this is 7.9% for "Premier" and 13.99% for "Select" or 19.99% for "Classic". That's a big spread. I wonder how difficult it is to get that 7.9%.

Not a bad deal, but nothing that particularly excites me there. It's all about the rewards for me, so unless I'm getting something out of the ordinary, it's really not a better credit card as far as I'm concerned.

I also received a mailing today for a 6.99% home equity loan. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's good to know I can get my hands on all this cash if something bad happens or if I get a good tip on the ponies.

Normally I don’t write articles like this, but I found a neat way to introduce my kids to investing, or at least find a great gift for my investor friends and family, so I thought I’d share the find with everyone. It seems that we buy too many things that drop in value almost immediately these days, so the [...]

Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the popular Dilbert cartoon, is an excellent manager of his own personal finances. He intended to write a humorous book about personal finance but decided he could never write enough to fill more than a page. According to Adams, everything you need to know about financial planning boils down to these eight principles:

• Make a will.
• Pay off your credit cards.
• Get term life insurance if you have a family to support.
• Fund your 401(k) to the maximum.
• Fund your IRA to the maximum.
• Buy a house if you want to live in a house and you can afford it.
• Put six months’ expenses in a money market fund.
• Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker, and never touch it until retirement.

Via Vanguard

Weddings are great, but we all know that the bride is the focus of the weddings. If that’s true, what are bride’s costs vs the groom’s costs? I was reading the NY Times article about rising costs of weddings, and some additional costs in some weddings now add up to a lot. The one example that was given was that one bride wanted to release butterflies at the reception ($10,000 cost), but unfortunately, when released, they flew into a light installation that burned them and hundreds of them fell on the dance floor. It would’ve been a pretty sight in theory, but would you spend $10k on butterflies for your wedding? According to the NY Times, the average American wedding now costs $27,852, almost double the $15,208 spent in 1990, according to a study by the Condé Nast Bridal Group.

I’ve been happily married for three years. For our wedding, we spent $26,421, just under the average wedding today. I revisited our spreadsheet and my wife broke out the wedding costs between his, hers, ours. Here’s the breakdown:

• Hers: $13,943 (53%)
• His: $4,311 (16%)
• Ours: $8,167 (31%)
• Total: $26,421

I didn’t even notice that there was a breakdown, but it made me think about this. We both split the costs, so it didn’t even occur to me. When couples get married, everything is a joint cost, but there’s so much more to get for the bride:

• dress
• alterations
• underpinnings
• dress cleaning
• veil
• jewelry
• shoes
• hair and makeup
• flip flops (I’m told she needs this for walking around)
• bridesmade’s skirts
• bridesmade’s tops
• bridesmade’s shoes
• mother’s dress

For the groom:

• Tuxedo or black suit

Everything else you either own already or can borrow from someone (cufflinks, etc), and tell your groomsmen to wear their own black suit. Our joint expenses included the music, photographer, rehearsal dinner, invitations, marriage license, venue. So to answer my own question up above, to be fair, the wedding costs should be split equally, unless the parents want to impress their closest 200 friends (which didn’t happen for our wedding, thank god!). But brides need to think about so much more to look good for the groom. But if she’s looking good for the groom, shouldn’t the groom pay for it all? Now I’m talking in circles, but you get the idea.

Source:
To Avert a Fractured Fairy Tale, a Wedding Planner, NY Times, Published: July 23, 2006

Finally purchased some AMGN shares for $67.52 two days ago. The shares of AMGN has been rallying pretty good (due to strong results). anyway lets see how it goes. This is the first purchase, hopefully a good one too ;)

By: Xavier Zaegel, Deloitte (Luxembourg) Published: Janaury 2006 Excerpt: “…Yet despite these strategies’ theoretical appeal, many investors still struggle with implementation issues, partly because many of the critical elements for implementing the theory are not yet conveniently packaged or simply not widely available. For those who want to adopt a portable alpha strategy today, it is important to [...]

By: Eugene Fama & Kenneth French Published: May 2006 This article was written by Fama and French in support of the investment strategies used by Dimensional Fund Advisors, a “passive active” fund manager using various Fama & French models.  It refers to the deconstruction of “tilted” (biased) funds into passive and active components.  This process is also discussed in several [...]

By: Alfredo Larrea & Rob Kinsey, ING Investments Published: January 2006 Excerpt: “Recently, a major international client of our parent company came to us with a dilemma: how to create alpha in an alphaconstrained world. Alpha is broadly defined as the excess returns of a manager or portfolio over a specific benchmark or index, and our client required a [...]

By: Deborah Hazell & Orlena Yee, Fischer Francis, Trees & Watts Published: October 2004 Excerpt: “Whereas ‘alpha’ is the excess return generated above a given benchmark, the term portable alpha refers to the excess return generated independently from any given benchmark. It results from the separation of the alpha generating process from the beta construction process. Historically, investments [...]

By: Riva Atlas, New York Times Published: November 30, 2005 Good, quick introduction to portable alpha…  Except: “Here’s how it works: An investor with, say, $100 million to invest puts down a fraction - 5 percent or less - to enter into a derivatives contract with a notional value of $100 million linked to the performance of the Standard & [...]

While most PF bloggers have an emergency fund, or are building one, I wonder how many have a stash of cash-on-hand? Other than the coin car and the pennies collecting on the shelf above the dryer, how many people maintain a reserve of cash on hand? I do.

I keep between $200-250 available tucked away at home. It's an emergency fund already in cash. I know it's there if ATMs are down in an actual emergency, if I need to pay for a taxi for a friend, or even if the pizza delivery driver suddenly won't take a check. I don't care a lot of cash with me, to avoid the temptation to spend.

I’m talking about plastic money - credit cards.  A new twist on this is the use of debit cards in games.  Of course, marketers and game makers are always looking for ways to mix advertising into a game.  Just look at the multiple editions of Monopoly that exist, such as university branded games.  But is [...]

Here's a little trick that you can use to cage some savings. My teen-age son is 6'5", broad in the shoulders, plays #8 position on his rugby team. He's also tough on t-shirts and clothes generally. I've found the best way to keep him clothed is to buy good quality shirts and trousers that can stand up to a lot of action. The problem is he wears tall sized clothing to cover his frame and that tall sizes of men's clothing always cost more.

What I've found is that some online retailer sales or outlets will markdown tall sizes for the same price as regular sizes. For example:

A regular sized t-shirt normally sells for $15
A tall sized t-shirt normally sells for $20

However, when the t-shirt goes on sale, both sizes are marked down to $10. The savings on the regular size is 33% while the savings on the tall size is 50%.

This savings is also widely compounded on more expensive items like coats or outerwear. Try the sale pages at LLBean, Eddie Bauer Outlet, or Land's End if someone in your family wears talls.

One more article I just read on SeekingAlpha: How to Play the Current European Tightening Cycle.

There is some "food for thought" with taking a view on the demand and supply balance for goods. It seems to me to "economical", but ... well ...

The point of the author Dr Enzio von Pfeil is that European tightening cycle is lagging behind of the US (right!) and should go considerably further that widely anticipated (maybe!). Currently there is excessive demand for goods in Europe, which is providing a stable basis for business. In the USA he sees this phase of monetary environment (almost) over. So his bet is stay in Europe as long as the conditions are like this, and avoid America (have I understood right?).

I have to think it over a little.

Of course, as I have said many times, we go now through a sensible phase on the bourse. The tightening cycle of the Fed went so far, that the markets had to response. My guess from the beginning of the year was so far right, that the US stocks will provide a more safe investment in the months ahead. For a final assessment of this call, we have to wait a little more...

This was all said with the believe (still unchanged) that one should stay in that bull market (which I think is far from being over). But - and this is a special "but" - the monetary policy (in combination with other factors as oil prices etc.) became much less favorable for stocks. This was my main concern to say: one should stay, but please ensure to stay in possibly safe market.

The thoughts of different tightening cycles do of course make some sense. But simple experience shows, that the stock markets go up and down quite in a synchrony. I would not bet on Europe thinking Wall Street will perform poorly. If one believes some fundamental and monetary conditions now favor European stocks, it will just make them this "more safe" investment place to stay until we go through this flat phase (or may be phase of some correction).

After the recent declines in stock prices (Europe more than US) I see the chances now almost equal.


stocks bourse supply demand

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