The Sun's Financial Diary

Leading social lending platform provider Lending Club announced early this week that it has lowered the starting interest rate on unsecured personal loans from 7.93% to 6.78% for 36-month term loans (Lending Club also lets borrowers borrow 60-month loans) that could be as much as $25,000. According to Lending Club, the rate cut is “in response [...]

Last weekend, I received a letter from Vanguard, informing me that one or more of my Vanguard funds held in IRA account with the company now qualify to be promoted to Admiral Shares. This followed a recent announcement from Vanguard that it has lowered the minimum amount required to qualify for the lower-cost Admiral Shares. [...]

EverBank Financial Corp, based in Jacksonville, FL which operates EverBank Direct, the online division of EverBank, has filed with the SEC last Friday for an initial public offering to raise up to $200 million. I have been following EverBank for quite some time and am currently a customer of their Yield Pledge Money Market Account [...]

In my discount broker comparison post that I compiled last year, I placed TD Ameritrade near the bottom on the list because its stock trade commission is rather high at $9.99 per trade. If I want to choose  a broker to trade stocks, ETFs, or options, I don’t think it will be TD Ameritrade or [...]

If there’s one thing that the market of the last few years has taught us it’s that there’s very little that’s predictable.  You think things are at their worst and suddenly the market shoots up.  You think the bull market has returned and then you hear that the economy might be slipping back into recession.  [...]

In case you didn’t notice, the price of gold has broken some new highs lately. The latest rally was fueled by comments made after the Fed meeting early this week, which were interpreted by some as signs that more greenbacks will be printed in order to boost the economic recovery that has slowed dramatically in [...]

Online discount broker OptionsHouse is now offering a free one-year subscription to The Wall Street Journal Online when you open a new OptionsHouse brokerage account. To get the free WSJ, you need to open an account before October 31, 2010 and fund it with at least $1,000 ($2,000 for margin account), and use promotion code [...]

It has been quite a while since I last updated my Lending Club investments. While I am still buying new loans from time to time, I admit that I haven’t been very active in managing my investments. Basically, what I do now is log into my account once, or maybe twice a month and invest [...]