The Sun's Financial Diary

In November 2009, Charles Schwab launched a series of ultra-low fee exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Among them, the Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (SCHB) has an expense ratio (ER) of 0.08%, beating the equivalent from low-cost fund leader Vanguard by 0.01%. Though the difference may not be that significant for individual investors, it did show the [...]

Online discount broker OptionsHouse is running a couple of promotions right now, aiming at helping its customers get educated and become better investors. The first new promotion is free investment coaching. Any new customer who opens and funds a cash account with at least $1,000 will receive 90 days free of the OptionsHouse Investment Coaching [...]

I have heard some storied about using Twitter as a tool for better customer service because more and more financial companies such as banks, credit card issuers and brokerages are using social media to reach out to existing and potential customers. Those stories, though seem real, I had no personal experience since I don’t have [...]

Since I became a customer of Zecco Trading three years ago in 2007, I have seen Zecco made many changes, to both its website and the products it offers. For most of the time, however, I wasn’t that impressed by the change, until I saw its latest invention, Zap Trade, which I think is probably [...]

SmartMoney magazine has recently published its 2010 Annual Broker Survey. In the survey, SmartMoney evaluated a number of brokers, including both online discount brokers and full service firms, in the areas of Commissions & Fees, Customer Service, Trading Tools, Mutual Funds, Banking Services, and Research, as it did in the past. The evaluation is based [...]

If you own shares in one of the 3 stocks that rapidly lost value last week (3M, Proctor and Gamble, and Accenture), then you might be wondering whether or not a stop order (or stop-loss) is a good idea. In case you don’t know, a stop-loss is a standing order you place to sell a [...]

Until now, all the notes issued by Lending Club have the same term. Even if the borrower wants to have  a longer term loan at the expense of higher interest, there was just no such an option when they borrowed money through Lending Club. Unlike other traditional loans that come with different terms such as [...]

I usually don’t buy stocks that cost a lot of money to get a share, those priced in hundreds of dollars, because I always like to own more shares. In late 2008 and early 2009, I bought probably a few thousands of shares of stocks when they were really, really cheap. However, among dozens of [...]