The Sun's Financial Diary

The Fidelity Magellan Fund (FMAGX), which was once the nation’s largest mutual fund with an asset at $100 billion, will reopen to new investors tomorrow, January 15, 2008 after shutting its door more than 10 years ago, according to a Fidelity announcement. The main reason to make the flagship fund available to new investors is [...]

When 2007 began, the rates of the 4-week T-bill were very attractive, with returns as high as 5.4% APY. Before FNBO Direct launched their 6.0% APY promotional rate early last year, 4-week T-bills were my main short-term investment vehicle for the good returns and automatic investments that were very easy to manage. However, things started [...]

There was a short Q&A in The Wall Street Journal yesterday where the question being asked is the following: I would like to buy only a few stocks in certain companies. Are there any online brokers that handle people with only a couple hundred dollars in their account and don’t charge heavy fees for infrequent [...]

The last time that gold was at $875 an ounce level was 28 years ago on January 21, 1980. Since them, gold has been in an extended bear market in almost 20 years until the current upward trend started in 2001. Today, gold contract reached a new all time high at $883.89/ounce before easing a [...]

I don’t know exactly when the worst ever start of the year was, but from the available data since 1928, the return of the first three days of the Dow in 2008 seems to be the worst since 1929. In the first 3 trading sessions of 2008, the benchmark lost a total of 464.64 points. [...]

On December 17th, Vanguard launched three new Mega ETFs: Vanguard Mega Cap 300 ETF (MGC): Track MSCI Large-Cap US 300 Index Vanguard Mega Cap 300 Growth ETF (MGK): Track MSCI US Large-Cap Growth Index Vanguard Mid-Cap Value ETF (VOE): Track MSCI US Large-Cap Value Index All three funds have an expense ratio (ER) of 0.17%. [...]

I took advantage of the $100 bonus offer from OptionsXpress last week and opened an account for myself. The process is quite simple, taking only several minutes to complete. What appeared to be a little bit concern was that when I set up the ACH transfer, it asked me the method to verify my identity, [...]

I have been a loyal customer of Scottrade for more than 5 years. Though I have opened a number of brokerage accounts during that time period, Scottrade remains my primary broker holding most of our investable assets. There are reasons for me to stick with Scottrade (Scottrade 3 free trades offer). Last week, Scottrade informed [...]