Reading Time: < 1 minute Via YouTube. It seems the card companies are not happy. Today I saw a big drop of stocks of American Express (NYSE: AXP), Capital One (NYSE: COF). Are the golden days of credit card industry over? We shall see.
Reading Time: 2 minutes I mean the Citi Bank checking account. A few years ago I opened Citi Checking account online, mainly to take advantage of a $150 offer (if I do direct deposit) or keep balance at certain level (which is $1,500). A few months ago, I switched job, and in the process did not set up the
Reading Time: < 1 minute As millions of American workers saw their 401k became 201k since last year, this 401k thing suddenly becomes a hot topic. CBS 60 minutes did an excellent report on this topic. Watch CBS Videos Online My thoughts
Reading Time: 2 minutes (Update 23Apr09) It seems Obama administration is going to make credit card more consumer friendly (marketWatch). So are they going to socialize the credit card: I mean, you and me (i.e., honest guys) pay the credit cards on time each month, will bail out the deadbeats, after we bailed out the Wall Street ??? We
Reading Time: < 1 minute They are all in stock funds. Old 401k (Hewitt): down 11.8% Rollover IRA (Vanguard): down 11.78% New 401k (Vanguard): up 133.97% (this is due to new contribution, I started new 401k in Nov 08, so there is an easy comparison here) Noticed my portfolio balance in Vanguard is about even compared to the end of
Reading Time: < 1 minute New 401k in Vanguard Two weeks into working for new employer, today I am able to make my 401k selections from Vanguard. Sweet! It only took me a few minutes to make my choices: (30%) S&P 500 index fund (VFINX) (30%) Winsor II (VWNFX) (40%) International value (VTRIX) If there is one thing I learned
Reading Time: < 1 minute Happened to see this from CBS evening news today. The story is titled “Credit Crunch Takes New Face”, and it talks about the credit card crunch for average consumer. “The average American has nine credit cards and owes more than $16,000, not including mortgages…This decade, real wages went up 4 percent while credit card debt
Reading Time: < 1 minute NOT TO DO list first 1) Watch CNBC and other financial news and got confused, and worse got panic. Same goes to checking your brokerage acct or 401k acct every day; 2) Try to be the hero: pick up “cheap” financials, commodities, technology stocks simply because you think they are “cheap” compared to 2 weeks
Reading Time: 2 minutes I think I found the root cause of this whole financial crisis, just like the Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds, AIG (NYSE:AIG), Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM), the problem is American home buyers/consumers are overly leveraged. Note I used the word home buyers, not owners, because theoritically the banks (oh, to be precise, the Chinese, the
Reading Time: < 1 minute This year I have used all the three appoaches to communicate with IRS for my (our joint) federal income tax matter. Things have been mostly resolved now. But looking back I think I could use the IRS local office more often. Each appoach has its pros and cons, here are my takes on each appoach.
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