The Sun’s Financial Diary

I don’t check my 401(k) as often as I check my stock investments because, whether it’s up or down, I won’t do any on it until the rebalancing time which usually occurs at the end of the year. I have a very simply portfolio in my 401(k) plan with Fidelity. Currently my holdings include

Fidelity Freedom [...]

I am glad a tough month finally came to a close. Actually, July started quite nice, with the Dow hitting record high of 14,000 and S&P 500 crossing 1,550 for the first time. The first half of the month was very promising. Then things started to turn from bad to worse as credit worries weighed [...]

My wife’s employer started to offer Roth 401(k) plan through Fidelity this year. While it’s good to know that there’s a new saving vehicle available, we decided not to participate after examining the pros and cons of the plan at that time. The main reason was that it doesn’t offer more benefits than the traditional [...]

After I posted our latest score card update last week, MoneyNing asked me if I can share how we accumulated our net worth and the source of the growth, whether it’s from our salaries or investments.
Actually, I have touched this topic quite often in the past (for example, when we reached the half-million mark). For [...]

I was tagged by Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge last week to list 8 random things about myself. Actually, both Jeremy at Generation X Finance and Super Saver at My Wealth Builder a couple months ago for five obsessions, but I didn’t reply last time as I thought I already have the 5 things you may not [...]

No, I haven’t forgot my little business on Amazon.com, though it has been quiet for a long time. The main reason is I wasn’t able to find lot of cheap stuff (those that won’t cost me too much if at the end I have to keep them myself) that also have re-sell values. Since I [...]

In addition to price appreciation, the other investment objective we have is to generate passive incomes from our investments. To that end, I have been investing quite heavily in dividend generating stocks and funds. Last year, our investments brought us more than $9,000 in interests, dividends, and capital gains. For the first half of 2006, [...]

Following are some highlights of June 2007 in case you missed them.
1. First Trading Experience with Zecco
It’s great that Zecco doesn’t charge commission for stock trading, but they still have a lot to do to make their system reliable and less confusing.
2. My Personal Saving and Investing System
Though a little bit complicated with so many [...]

June turned out to be another solid month as our nest egg continued to grow in the past month, most of them coming from investments in our taxable accounts, despite a down month for the equity markets. For the month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 219 points, or 1.6%, to close at 13,408 on [...]

was quite boring actually.
I showed up at 9:00 am this morning (that was quite early according to my standard) and spent the whole day doing nothing but sitting there and reading some document that doesn’t require much time to finish. No computer, no internet. It’s a big company and, as expected, everything is slow. I [...]