The Sun's Financial Diary

No mutual funds are equal, even if they track the same benchmark, and this is also true for lifecycle funds. Lifecycle funds, also known as target date funds, are getting popular among investors who seek optimum asset allocation for their retirement investments. The idea of a lifecycle fund is that the fund’s asset allocation evolves [...]

First of all, what is DRIP? According to Wikipedia, a DRIP (dividend reinvestment program or dividend reinvestment plan) is an equity investment option offered directly from the underlying company. The investor does not receive quarterly dividends directly as cash. Instead the investor’s dividends are directly reinvested in the underlying equity. This allows the investment return [...]

Early last week, I learned that Zecco the commission-free online brokerage firm, is running a promotion with lowered account minimum from $2,500 to $1,000. That seems to be a good news for small investors who can’t meet the initial deposit requirement. In fact, the $2,500 minimum is the highest among several brokerages as shown on [...]

Last month while I was researching on ETFs for the Model Portfolios Built with ETFs series, I noticed that mutual fund gaint Vanguard (I guess they will soon be an ETF powerhouse as well) didn’t have any fixed income ETF offerings. All existing ETFs are equity ETFs. Well, that has just changed as Vanguard introduced [...]

It has been more than a month since I bought one (and only one) American Buffalo gold coin from Bullion Direct. The coin was received about two weeks after the order was placed (the hold period that they require to clear the check and release the coin for shipment) in excellent shape. The price I [...]

You are probably familiar with the Rule of 72, which tells you when the one dollar you invest today will be worth $2 once you have a rate of growth. If your annual rate of return is R%, then it will take you (72/R) years to double your money. For instance, for a 6% return [...]

Why you want to invest in REIT? As historical performance shows, investing in real estate can improves diversification of your portfolio and give you better return and lower risk over the long term. In my previous discussions on building portfolios with ETFs (the last segment can be found here), we have seen REIT (real estate [...]

This morning I sold my position in PowerShares Dynamic Semiconductors (PSI) and used the proceeds to buy more PHO, PowerShares’ water ETF. The reason I am interested in investing in water has been explained before, but why PSI? There are two reasons: First, I already have an investment in semiconductor and that’s TSM, a stock [...]