The Sun's Financial Diary

I moved one step further in achieving a simple financial life early this week when I eliminated one fund from our mutual fund holdings, reducing the total number of funds we own to 10 (still quite a large number). The fund got dumped was T. R. Price Emerging Europe & Mediterranean (TREMX), which I have [...]

The whole process took less time than I expected. An email from ShareBuilder arrived yesterday, informing me that a check has been issue to me. Since I didn’t make any withdraw request myself, it could only be part of the account transfer process. So I logged in to my Zecco free trading account and was [...]

What’s ETN Unlike exchange traded fund (ETF), which has become a popular investment vehicle for investors who want both the broad diversification of a mutual fund and the flexible pricing and trading of a stock, exchanged traded note (ETN) is relatively new and little known. According to Investopedia, ETN is A type of unsecured, unsubordinated [...]

A couple of days ago I provided a guest article to Jeremy at Generation X Finance when he was away on a business trip. The article, Mutual Fund Distribution Explained, gives some general ideas on what kind of distributions mutual funds usually pay their investors and the tax sequences of each distribution. It also talks [...]

One of the problems I have with ShareBuilder, also one of the reasons I decided to leave ShareBuilder, is its lack of flexibility when it comes to choosing when to invest and how to invest. For instance, at the time when I joined the program, I could only select to invest on the first Tuesday [...]

Any time we have stock markets rally like we experienced today, we can expect some good numbers from our investments. As the Dow had its biggest one-day increase in four years (283 points, or 2.09%), our wealth also got a boost with a number of stocks and funds posting 2.00+% gains, including: Blackstone Group (BX): [...]

Just as I was about to abandon the idea of transferring my ShareBuilder account to Zecco* (Zecco asked me to resubmit the account transfer form, which I didn’t do), the process made a dramatic turn yesterday and now it seems that things are pressing ahead as they should be. A trade confirmation email from ShareBuilder [...]

According to Morningstar, Buffalo Small Cap Fund (BUFSX) will re-open to new investors for a short period of time. On Buffalo Funds website, there is some more information on Effective June 28, 2007, the Buffalo Small Cap Fund will re-open to purchases made through broker-dealers. The Fund will remain open for such purchases until the [...]