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Happy Hour: PF Olympics and Water Cafe

July 20, 2012

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Jon

Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of all things interesting in the land of money.

PF Olympics

GoBankingRates.com is holding the Personal Finance Olympics. Always one for a good competition, we entered our How to Compare Online Brokers article. So we could use some votes. The contest runs till July 29, which is more than enough time to head over, check it and show some support. Thanks!

Water Cafe

Seems a new water café is drawing outrage in New York. The new concept will sell purified New York tap water for $2.50 per 16 oz. I’ve never had NYC tap water, so I can’t opine on its greatness or not. Is the outrage a pride thing? It’s somehow ruining an institution by purifying already great water. Nope. It’s that someone is selling tap water to the public after it’s been purified. Haven’t Coca-Cola and Pepsi been doing this for years with purified bottle water. For anyone interested, the new café does deliver by the gallon. Continue Reading…
CD Rates Beating Treasury Rates

July 19, 2012

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Jon

Do you want to earn more than the current 5 year or 10 year Treasury bonds without giving up the safety they offer? Or maybe you just want a way to start saving without taking on the risks of the market. With treasury rates at all time lows, CD rates are a safe second option offering more flexibility and backed by the FDIC.

CD Rates Offer Flexibility

We’ve come a long way since the 30 year Treasury rate was above 5%. The last time was 2007. It’s been a year since the 30 year was above 4%. Today its hovering at a pitiful 2.59%, at or below the inflation rate. Not a great way to make money.

With interest rate risk (the heart of the bond price and yield dilemma) this high, it’s not worth it. When rates start rising, you’ll lose money if you sell the bond and if you hold it to maturity you’ll miss out on higher rates. Of course, it’d be even worse with a bond fund which will just lose value as rates rise. Continue Reading…
How Often Should You Do An Investment Review?

July 17, 2012

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Jon

Tracking your investments is more than glancing at those monthly statements. A regular investment review needs to be done. Of course there are no set rules, just some basic guidelines to consider.

While looking over monthly statements are a good thing. It would be irresponsible to only focus on past performance. Our investments are based on future potential. At least they should be.

The fund companies remind us of this in small print all the time. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Our investment review should focus more on future results and whether our investments have the potential to meet them.

If you have to, there is enough financial software out there to help track your money. Your income, expenses, savings, checking, retirement, and brokerage accounts can all be tracked with one package. If anything, it will free up several hours on a Saturday. Continue Reading…
Happy Hour: Election Polls And Funds

July 13, 2012

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Jon

Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of all things interesting in the land of money.

Election Polls

The National Journal had a recent article covering recent polling numbers. It seems people, at least those polled, are confused. A majority wants lower taxes, no surprise there. Who doesn’t. A majority wants more government spending for job creation too. So the government gets less tax income and should spend more. What happened to lowering the deficit?

One thing they are not confused on, they want change. That is, about 65% of those polled don’t think their representative deserves reelection. Change is good!

Campaign Funds

Seems political contributors have accepted the government mantra of throwing money at the problem. With political ads kicking into high gear, it will be interesting to see how much all that money influences voters. As on May 31, the Obama and Romney campaigns had raised about $375 million. Continue Reading…
How To Avoid Securities Fraud

July 12, 2012

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Jon

That Nigerian official doesn’t need your help getting money out of the country, you don’t have a long-lost uncle that left you millions in a Malaysian bank and money still doesn’t grow on trees. Securities fraud, or investment fraud, is a nonstop problem and thanks to email, we’re bombarded by it every day.

Special thanks to my most recent spammer for inspiration:

To Subscriber’s,

Current Price: .01
Short Term Price – .70
Rating: STRONG

Don’t Miss: A corporation Made for Advancement along with gigantic potential!!!

E-Commerce will be definitely growing increasingly popular and also the use with Internet video is definitely flourishing together with it. The company is the Web’s newest manifestation to get enterprises along with possible purchasers for you to faultlessly be connected via movie, is going to stimulate re-homing of the company’s technologies by way of a variety of advertising and marketing paths plus boost model awareness through on the web procedures like search engine optimisation of the company’s internet site, popular advertising, Google, in addition to cross-promotions with other google in addition to online video programs.

This is the abridged version with ticker and company name removed, but this penny stock pump and dump scheme went on for another 300 words of promotional nonsense. It’s a perfect example of securities fraud. Continue Reading…
Market Order Vs. Limit Order

July 10, 2012

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Jon

The two most popular and easiest ways to buy/sell a stock or ETF through an online broker is with a market order or limit order.

For every trade to happen, there needs to be a buyer and a seller at an agreed upon price. It’s the basic premise of how the stock market works. Of course, how that happens will depend on the different order types you use.

For the average investor out there, when it comes down to market order vs. limit order, one offers more advantages than the other.

Supply and Demand

Each stock trades differently based on the number of shares available (supply) and the demand for those shares. Big blue chip stocks tend to have a large amount of available shares, high daily trading volumes, and lower price fluctuations between trades. Continue Reading…