By Sun on Mar 17, 2008 | In Poll | 1 Comment »
Credit card network giant Visa Inc. is scheduled to go public on Wednesday, March 19th with its massive IPO, according to Marketwatch.com. The stock will be traded on NYSE under the symbol V. If Visa indeed goes ahead with its IPO in the middle of the current stock market turmoil, the offering will be the largest ever in US history, valued at $18 billion dollar.
The following is the historical price chart of Visa’s smaller rival MasterCard (MA) since its debut in May 2006. Despite the crisis in the financial market, MA is holding up very well, showing a minor year-to-date loss of 3%, but gaining more than 350% since its IPO.
If the success of MasterCard is any indication, then Visa can be expected to do well in the future. In fact, according to Renaissance Capital,
Visa appears to be coming to market at a sizeable discount to MasterCard based on (its) forward price-to-earnings ratio, which may be because the banks that are receiving most of the proceeds are strapped for cash and are pricing the deal to sell.
Will You Buy Visa?
- Yes, will buy the stock on March 19 (67%)
- Yes, will buy the stock, but will wait a little (24%)
- No, the market condition is very bad for an IPO (9%)
Total Votes: 371
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By Sun on Mar 17, 2008 | In Banking, Personal finance | 5 Comments
Not long ago, you can easily find an online bank that pay above 5% APY for your money. For example, from my last rate update at the end of 2007 (I didn’t update the list since them because banks kept lowering their rates even , you could get a 5.12% APY from UFB Direct or 5.05% from E-Trade. However, things changed a lot after the Fed’s 1.25% rate in January. Even when the Fed didn’t make any move between meetings, banks kept dropping rates to the current level around middle or low 3.00% APY.
Then last week on Fatwallet.com, there was a thread discussing a bank called Provident Direct, which currently pays 4.50% APY and that got my attention as I am still looking for a bank that offers better than the 3.86% APY from IGoBanking.
Provident Direct is the online division of Provident Bank (member of FDIC since 1943) a regional commercial bank that headquarters in Maryland with $6.5 billion in assets. The offers from Provident Direct include both high-yield savings and CDs. The high-yield savings account currently has an interest rate of 4.50% APY with $1 minimum.
According to the discussion on Fatwallet.com, the main concern of this bank is the $5,000/transfer limit on outgoing fund transfers. Though multiple withdrawals can be made in one day, as any other savings accounts, a total of 6 monthly transfers/withdrawals is allowed for this high-yield savings account. This means a total of $30,000 can be transferred out of the account every month. This amount is generally enough, but a little bit low if, for example, you deposit a large amount from 0% APR balance transfer. If the number of withdrawals exceed the monthly limit, the bank can reject the request or impose a fee of $5 per occurance.
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By Sun on Mar 16, 2008 | In PF blogoshpere | No Comments »
Ben at Money Smart Life has some idea on how to spend a bonus check. I am quit boring and I don’t treat a bonus check any differently than other checks I receive every other week: put it in my bank.
Lazy Man at Lazy Man and Money wondered whether he’s officially cheap, just becomes more frugal. It’s hard to the tell if the focus is mainly on the cost, instead of the cost/quality ratio.
Jeremy at Generation X Finance used a guest post to show how to make your creditor work for you: “the only way to fight creditors is to get down in the trenches with them and fight dirty.”
In the market for a hot job? Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life suggested you find a headhunter and shared her brief experience of actually helping people find a job.
Steve at Birp Blap continued his discussion of 31 causes of failure with a post on the lack of ambition: If you want to fail, plan to do “just enough to get by.”
Frugal Trader at Million Dollar Journey looked at the Smith Manoeuvre money flow and discussed the idea of capitalizing the interest, i.e., fund the investment loan with the loan itself.
Want to achieve financial success? My Dollar Plan listed five fundamentals of financial success that include goals, commitment, and action, which I consider to be the core.
NCN at No Credit Needed shared with us the lessons he learned from watching TV shopping networks.
FMF at Free Money Finance offered his thoughts on money and marriage.
What’s a passbook savings account? MBH at Mighty Bargain Hunter explained the term that I heard quite often but don’t know exactly what it is.
Finally, Alltop.com recently launched a Personal Finance directory which aggregates most recent stories from many blogs that dedicate to issues of personal finance. This blog is included in the category along with other familiar names.
By Sun on Mar 14, 2008 | In Alternative, Investing | 15 Comments
Just when you think the stock markets might have turned the corner (stocks gained the most in five years on Tuesday and S&P issued a statement yesterday saying the end is near for subprime related writedowns), another bomb dropped on the Wall Street today: Bear Stearns, one iconic company on the Street, needs emergency funding from JPMorgan Chase and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to stay alive!
That news didn’t do any good to the stock markets which gained a little at the open after a mild inflation report from the government. Stocks dropped more than 300 points at one point and eventually closed almost 200 points down, giving up all the gains of the week.
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By Sun on Mar 13, 2008 | In Others | No Comments »
The Federal Reserve announced today that it starts to ship the redesigned, colorful 5 dollar bill to banks on March 13. The new money will enter into circulation and soon reach the hands of consumers. The new $5 note uses improved security features that have been used in the $50, $20, and $10 notes when the current round of redesign began (check out all the security features of the new Lincoln here).
I ran to my bank during the lunch break today, hoping to get my hands on the new bill, and was told they don’t have it yet 
But I did pick up 20 sparkling James Monroe presidential dollar coins, the first released in 2008 
By Sun on Mar 13, 2008 | In 401(k), Personal finance | 4 Comments
Everybody agrees in general that a 401(k) loan or a 401(k) debit card is a bad, bad idea. For those of us who don’t have a guaranteed pension plan and can’t rely on social security, 401(K), as well as other individual retirement savings accounts, is one major tool to save for retirement when our pre-retirement incomes stop.
Since the money in the 401(k) account is for retirement, not for daily expenses, the government imposes an extra 10% penalty to discourage early withdrawals from the account. However, as the credit crunch goes on and home value keeps falling, more and more people start to have a hard time paying their bills or face losing their homes to foreclosure. At the same time, the cost of living is going nowhere but up: food, gas, health care, education, etc., things are getting expensive. Then there comes the creative idea of using a 401(k) debit card to borrow money from retirement accounts such as 401(k) to stay afloat, just like withdrawing cash from your private ATM machine.
I recently read quite a few articles on how a growing number of people are taking money out of their 401(k) accounts to save their homes. For example, in this USA Today story, Tamara Campbell, who lives in a Denver suburb
raided her 401(k) after her husband was laid off from his job as an occupational technician, and they fell behind on their mortgage for several months. “If I hadn’t done that, we would have been foreclosed on last year.”
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