The Sun's Financial Diary

I opened an IGoBanking Savings account last Sunday for their 5.30% APY, which is better than what I am getting from HSBC and EmigrantDirect, two of my primary savings account. Last Mondy, January 9th, two trial deposits were made to my Bank of America checking account to verify my ownership of the account that I [...]

Bill Miller is the manager of Legg Mason Value Trust Fund (LMVTX), which has outperformed S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years from 1991 to 2005. His winning strike recently got snapped as LMVTX lagged S&P 500 in 2006. However, Mr. Miller is still "widely regarded as one of the brightest minds on Wall Street." Yesterday, [...]

I didn’t waste too much time before getting into action to open another savings account with IGoBanking. I didn’t my own research last week and compared IGoBanking with other three online banks that also offer 5.30 % or above APY and eventually selected IGoBanking over others for two reasons:

Soft credit inquiry: though I didn’t directly [...]

Recently, I am considering open another online savings account to park our cash. I have been using EmigrantDirect and HSBC for quite a long time and feel that I need to make a move to get a higher rate. My initial targets are UFB Direct and GMAC as they are both popular among rate chasers [...]

Today, Sue Stevens has an article on Morningstar.com on how to setup an emergency fund. Generally speaking, emergency fund is the money reserved to cover your daily expenses in case your income stops. An example of such cases is when you lose your job. There are some debates on how much money one should put [...]

Ever felt confused about what’s financial planner and what’s financial adviser? If you plan to seek professional help on your finances (I won’t, at least for now), you better know the difference these two. A short article on MarketWatch.com today says that a financial planner
is an individual who helps you create a road map for [...]

From January 1st to January 31st, Amazon has a promotion which offers $30 instant saving on checkout using coupon code HUGGIE3O. This deal is better than previous promotions that I used last year. Back then, they only gave $30 Amazon gift certificate eight weeks after the purchase. For this promotion, eligible purchases include Huggies, Pull-Ups, [...]

Yesterday, an article on Kiplinger suggested some steps to secure your financial future, though I don’t agree with all the suggestions (especially the “pay cash for everything else”).
1. Invest in yourself
Your own earning power is the most valuable asset you’ll ever own, and it can’t be wiped out in a market crash. Keep your earning [...]

Legg Mason's Bill Miller, the manager of Legg Mason Value Trust (LMVTX), has beaten S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years since 1991. His winning streak, however, is about to come to an end as LMVTX returns only 6.71% as of yesterday compared to the 16.5% gain of S&P 500. According to a Bloomberg.com article, the [...]

If you are looking to upload some of your losing stocks and take the losses for the tax purpose in the last week of 2006, you should keep in your mind the so-called wash sales rule. According to IRS Publication 550 (2005), you can’t deduct losses in a wash sale, which “occurs when you sell [...]