Stock
Zecco Trading Alternatives
Recent pricing changes at Zecco.com makes it almost impossible for small investors to trade for free. If you are looking to switching brokers, there are a few alternatives to Zecco that charge relatively low commissions for stock and option trading.
Now we know Zecco will soon be Not ZEro Commission COst for many small investors after [...]
Wall Street Celebrated Inauguration Day with 332-Point Plunge of the Dow
Looks like the Wall Street doesn’t have too much confidence in Barack Obama. Why?
The day after he won the presidential election, November 5, 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 486 points. Today, the day Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the county, the Dow tumbled 332 points, the worst inauguration day [...]
Bank of America Reduced Dividend to 1 Cent
This isn’t what I asked for when I started to buy Bank of America (BAC) shares through their DRIP program at ComputerShare (ComputerShare reviews). I was going after their dividend. At $1.29 dividend payment in 2008, BAC made a small, but nice contribution to my passive income last year.
But it doesn’t look like that dividend [...]
Nortel Networks Filed for Bankruptcy Protection
When I first learned that Nortel Networks (NT) has sought bankruptcy protection this morning via @MarketWatch on Twitter (you can follow me on Twitter), I wasn’t really surprised (OK, a little bit). Wasn’t it just a month ago when reports came out that the company was seeking legal advices for a possible filing? Though NT [...]
S&P 500 High Dividend Paying Stocks
Are you investing in quality, dividend paying stocks, either by buying individual stocks or investing in dividend oriented mutual funds or ETFs (exchange traded funds)?
Why Invest in Dividend Stocks?
If you are not, then I ask you to take a look at this chart from the S&P. It’s the cumulative return of $1 invested in 1930 [...]
Recent Stock Purchases with Scottrade Free Trades
With the stock market as volatile as it can be, I decided to take advantage of stocks’ slump recently to make a few quick bucks. I had a “play account” at Zecco to make speculative stock purchase (sadly, that account is close to nothing right now), but this time I am using Scottrade instead because [...]
Portfolio Diversification May not be Enough in Bad Times
A month ago, I wrote a post on asset allocation where I discussed the importance of having a diversified portfolio that consists of various asset classes. The reason for doing that is quite simple: as we have long believed, diversification can mitigate risks.
When I was building my virtual all-ETF portfolio a while ago, I had [...]
Dow, The Near 6-Year Low
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below the 8,000 point mark for the first time since nearly 6 years on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 after dropping 427.47 points to close at 7,997.28 points. The last time the index closed blow 8,000 points was March 31, 2003.
It took the index four and half years to reach [...]
ShareBuilder Educational Account Promotion: 3 Free Trades
Just a quick note.
If you want to use ShareBuilder (my ShareBuilder review) to open a custodial or educational savings account, you can get 3 free real time trades when using promotion code 3FREETRADES. This offer is only good for educational savings account and can’t be used in regular brokerage account as well. Currently, ShareBuilder charges [...]
China Life Insurance: 5 Years on NYSE
So it has been five years since China Life Insurance (LFC) IPOed on NYSE, which means I have own this stock for exactly five years, the longest time I have ever owned a stock. That sounds unbelievable to me. Time did pass very quickly
It wasn’t a smooth ride however. When I bought the [...]
