Reading Time: < 1 minute I was a bit surprised to see the anti-Ameren (local ulitily company) TV ads (link here), which shows an old person, feeling stressed by the potential 40% rate hike of electricity by Ameren. This thing reminds me of the political Ads during campaign season. Interestingly enough, Ameren is fighting back with its own Ads.

Reading Time: 8 minutes (Update Apr 2). April Fool’s day was yesterday but Financial Fool’s day continues. FASB just lifted the strict mark to marke rule (business week; market watch). (Original) This is NOT what I am saying, but this is essentially the bankers and their friends in congress are saying these days. Tomorrow FASB will vote on fasb

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: 2 minutes (Update) Big bro started to act now. (Original) We all know the stock rating game: I mean those “buy”, “hold” and “sell” rating usually issued by sell side (brokeage) analysts. They are mostly not objective, because at the end of the day the dealers want to sell you more stocks, regardless they are good or

Reading Time: < 1 minute I sold my remaining BRK.B share last week, and got some US bank (NYSE: USB) shares instead. The main reason I sold BRK.B is: 1) I don’t really understand the valuation of the business, which is 50% insurance + 50% manufacturing, housing, retailing etc. I have no idea for insurance and the whole thing is

Reading Time: < 1 minute (update) CNNMoney appears to agree with me. When did I sound like MSM (main stream media)? Obviously, that’s how the US goverment thinks. When bailing out the AIG, they were saying AIG is a systematic important institution, and they just could not let it fail. And here is the bailout (handout details).

Reading Time: < 1 minute The promotion ends Monday March 30, for new customer only. $25 will appear in acct shortly after opening. Need to use the Check Card once to get the remaining $50. As I understand US bank does business mostly in Midwest and Northwest. Check out bank branch locations from their web site. No additional conditions such

Reading Time: < 1 minute Also collected here. 1. Why invest in Utilities? Does not Utilities need a lot of capital, what’s the difference between Utilities and the original Berkshire (BRK.A, BRK.B) textile business? You did explained in your letter that utilities can deploy capital for a decent return. And I read this old article “Why Buffett is buying utilities”

Reading Time: < 1 minute Unbelievable shot at the end of 1st half. Link here. Actually coach Anderson did ask players do those long range shoots in practice. It surely paid off.

Reading Time: < 1 minute Time to do some homework, amid all these AIG bonus (Yahoo Tech-ticker; NY Times op ed), and toxic asset plan (Krugman vs. Geithner craziness). I decided to calm down and took a look at US Bank (bancorp) (NYSE: USB; company IR page). Articles I read from seekingalpha Amit Kumar: Bank stocks: invest or trade? Martin