The Sun's Financial Diary

I came across an article on MarketWatch today, which named CIBC Water Growth Deposit Notes the Stupid Investment of the Week. While the article’s main focus is on the CIBC notes, which are issued in the form of principal-protected certificates and the money raised will be invested in water companies, it does make me think [...]

If you look to add some mid-cap funds into your portfolio. Here's the good news. According to Morningstar.com, Vanguard Strategic Equity Fund (VSEQX) (a Mid-blend fund with an EP of 0.82% and YTD return 10.31%, 3-year return 14.89% and 5-year return 14.50%), which was closed to new investers in April 2006 due to asset size [...]

Yesterday, a reader, goldsheet (Thanks!), posted a comment on my T-Bill Taxable Equivalent Yield, saying that the EAPY formula in the post is actually for itemized deduction and he/she also provided a formula for EAPY for standard deduction. Indeed, the formula I gave is only for the calculation of EAPY if you itemize, which I [...]

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to my diary and hope you find the information in my post "T-Bill Investment Rate: Is it APR or APY? And What Is Your Taxable Equivalent Yield?" useful. I will be very happy if the post, written with my best knowledge, can help you understand some [...]

The second key for you to be a successful investor is to Set Exciting Goals, whether they are short-term, medium-term, or long-terms goals. If you visit any PF blogger’s website and go through the posts, chances are you will see some personal goals. Some are as small as making a commitment when you starts a [...]

If you go to TreasuryDirect’s website and check the latest T-Bill rates, you will find a table with the following seven columns: Security Term, Issue Date, Maturity Date, Discount Rate %, Investment Rate %, Price Per $100, and CUSIP. As a 4-Week T-bill investor, when I look at the table, the single item that concerns [...]

In my previous post, I summarized the reasons I invested in ETFs (I currently have six PowerShares ETFs: PEY, PFM, PGJ, PHO, and PID), including ETFs are priced as stocks; Many ETFs are designed to track some popular indices; The fees for sector ETFs are usually lower than their mutual fund counterparts; ETFs can be [...]

Vanguard may be a great company for investing, but my experience with them on non-investing related issues wasn’t that great at all. It all began with my Roth IRA transfer that I started the same time last month. Here’s the timeline of the process (and it isn’t over yet): September 30: Mailed Roth IRA transfer [...]