Reading Time: 2 minutes Kiplinger is a personal finance magazine I have since year 2001. In its May 08 issue, I found “Tune out the seers” (Promised Land column) by Andrew Feinberg, in which he is saying everyone (especially experts) likes to predict the market and economy, but we should just ignore them. Or in the case of famous
Reading Time: 2 minutes My wife used to joked with me: you always tout some stocks when you buy, then after it crashed, you will say it’s a crap (XFML, Heelys, LFT, Crocs). I think I won’t say that for Mindray, and hopefully no hard feelings for BRK, either. Sold Mindray MR I sold my remaining Mindray (MR) shares
Reading Time: 2 minutes (Update Apr 2) Another news to make myself feel better, Chinese A share mutual funds declined 22% on average (read this Chinese news from Money-Courier). For comparison, Shanghai Composite index dropped about 34%, from 5261.56 to 3472.71 in the period. Note that index is not a good benchmark index because it’s skewed by some big
Reading Time: < 1 minute Finally St. Louis gas price is exceeding $3 a gallon. Today marks the first day my gas bill exceeded $40 ($3.179 * 13.105 gallons = $41.66). I am not complaining, as I know people around the world are paying a much higher price for gas, or paying a higher percentage of their disposal income for
Reading Time: 2 minutes Yesterday was a quite amazing day for stock market. The US market (Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq) went up the most in 5 years, after the dear friend of Wall Street (Mr. Ben Bernanke) cut the interest rate by 0.75%. Here are details in the news (Dow 416 points gain, Fed rate cut sends market soaring).
Reading Time: < 1 minute I closed the Amazon Feb $65 puts last Wed, when I saw the stock dropped to around $68, which is the low point the day after it released Q4 earning. Lesson learned: 1) short/put a stock is much harder than I thought. I started this trade because I saw EDU, AAPL, and VMW all dropped
Reading Time: < 1 minute Last week I received the new credit card from CitiBank, which I immediately put it in use by transfering some of the high interest (7.75%) debt in my HELOC to this account. Note this 0% offer is valid for one year. I found out this offer from MyMoneyBlog. I have done credit card balance transfer
Reading Time: < 1 minute 401k My new 401k plan did first purchase yesterday. I got 0.47 shares of company stock plus other mutual funds. If this rate holds, I am going to get 12 shares this year π MasterCard CCF settlement I registered for $25 settlement fees. Now waiting its arrival to my mail box…I understand it will take
Reading Time: < 1 minute I picked the following funds (and their weight) for my Vanguard IRA yesterday. Vanguard International Value 50% (developed market large cap value) Vanguard Winsor II 25% (US large cap value) Vanguard Selected Value 25% (US mid cap value) The first two funds are in my current 401k plan, I found the Vanguard Selected Value through
Reading Time: < 1 minute Roll over IRA In early Nov. I received a letter from Vanguard, it says I am eligible to transfer some of my 401k to an IRA account. I thought about it, the pros and cons, and decided to do it yesterday. Here are my rationale: 1) Ideally I like to keep all my retirement in
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