Business is Personal (Finance)

Recent Entries in investing

• Guaranteed Insurance Contracts

  April 2, 2010 1:59 PM
  The usual investing advice is don't mix up insurance with investing. The fees are high, the restrictions many, the fine-print hard to read. Basically, there are far better alternatives ... at least in the U.S.. An American investor can buy... 0

• Vacation but don't invest in Europe

  March 24, 2010 11:22 AM
  Back in late 2007, I re-evaluated my asset allocation and came to the conclusion that European countries were in just as bad shape as the United States in terms of debt and delusions. The only diversification would have been due... 0

• Expectations versus reality

  February 23, 2010 9:04 AM
  In my last entry, I wrote about the expected returns for my portfolio. How has it played out during my limited investing career?Annualized ReturnsAfter pulling my numbers together, I have: Nominal Real CPI Return Return --------------------------------------- 1996 2.93% 22.70% 19.77%... 0

• Expected real return

  February 18, 2010 4:01 PM
  In this thread at the Get Rich Slowly forum, a question was asked about everybody's expected rate of real (inflation-adjusted) return. My brain first started working on the answer like so:6% stocks (5% overall, I overweight in risker equity allocations)2%... 0

• A look back on asset allocation mix

  February 5, 2010 6:40 AM
  As I start typing (February 4, 12:37PM PST), the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 256 points (2.49%) for the day. Year to date, it is down 3.97% and financial pundits everywhere are making gloomy noises about the economy and... 0

• Making sense of Vanguard funds

  February 2, 2010 6:11 AM
  For investing, I prefer Vanguard funds for their low expense and low taxable turnover. However, the array of funds can be dizzying. As a quick primer, we can group most funds together as many funds are slices of other funds.... 0

• Prosper Post-Mortem

  January 27, 2010 9:45 PM
  The process of previewing my taxes reminded me to check my Prosper account to download all my statements for 2009. I first heard about Prosper back in 2006 and was quite excited about it. Here was an investment option where... 0

• Random follow-ups

  January 25, 2010 12:44 AM
  Follow-ups to some of my previous posts: Website Changes The web user interface is now consistent across all screens. In addition, some previously missing functionality has been restored. Copied style from Home (last 10 entries) to Category Archives and Search... 0

• Thank you for riding the REIT dropzone, please come again

  January 14, 2010 1:11 PM
  If somebody opened up a Wall Street themed amusement park, a REIT rollercoaster would be one of the most harrowing rides. If you were monitoring the VGSIX/VNQ on a regular basis, here is what the monthly fluctuations looked like: When... 0

• Fewer index options at Bancorp HSA

  November 4, 2009 2:50 AM
  In this entry from a year and a half ago, Bancorp HSA seemingly was the best investment option for HSA accounts. Since then though, about half of their index funds are no longer available. I suspect the fund companies themselves... 0

• Asset allocation review

  October 13, 2009 1:54 PM
  I've been saving a nice chunk of my salary since I started working fulltime 15 years ago. Over time, it has grown mostly due to contributions but there have been periods of euphoric market gains. I can split out my... 0

• BSR = why ETNs suck

  September 21, 2009 12:08 PM
  I've held BSR (BearStearns Alerian MLP ETN) for about 2 years now to try to capture the MLP segment. We all know that BearStearns was taken over by JPMorgan. Early March, JPMorgan released AMJ that looked nearly the same but... 0

• The wrong way to invest

  September 20, 2009 8:37 AM
  I've been checking my investment portfolio lately and with the market rebound the past few months, my portfolio has exceeded it's 2007 peak return high. So it's not surprising that articles such as the following at Yahoo Finance have started... 0

• The Price of Gold

  September 14, 2009 7:59 PM
  If you've read my previous article on 401K fund selection, you may have noticed I had American Century Global Gold as one of our options. I personally overweight my 401K to tax-inefficient holdings to keep low tax-drag equity investments in... 0

• 401K Fund Selection

  March 29, 2008 8:07 AM
  One of the challenges of putting a successful 401K plan together is fund selection. Obviously, picking funds with low expenses should be a priority. But then the question is what asset classes do you choose. Do you have the options... 1

• Investment Spreadsheet - Part 3

  March 6, 2008 8:42 PM
  Spreadsheet Goodness This is part 3 of a 3-part series. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Download the spreadsheet as: OpenDocument: InvestmentTaxSummary.ods Excel: InvestmentTaxSummary.xls In parts 1 and 2, we looked at retirement and taxable accounts. Now let's really dig... 0

• Investment Spreadsheet - Part 2

  March 4, 2008 7:20 AM
  Spreadsheet Goodness This is part 2 of a 3-part series. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Download the spreadsheet as: OpenDocument: InvestmentTaxSummary.ods Excel: InvestmentTaxSummary.xls Previously, we looked at samples of the usual assortment of retirement accounts. The standard retirement options... 0

• Investment Spreadsheet - Part 1

  February 29, 2008 6:00 AM
  Spreadsheet Goodness This is part 1 of a 3-part series. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Download the spreadsheet as: OpenDocument: InvestmentTaxSummary.ods Excel: InvestmentTaxSummary.xls Knowing how to evaluate investments across across tax structures is an important core skill to have.... 0

• HSA plan followup

  February 25, 2008 3:00 AM
  For those of you coming into this topic cold, here's a good primer at The Penny Saved: Health Savings Account Vs Health Reimbursement Account Vs Flex Savings Account (and keeping my hair for cheaper) I originally planned to write a... 0