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Making the Case of Having Alternative Investments in Portfolio
In the July issue of Financial Planning magazine, there’s an article about including alternative investments such as energy, precious metal, real estate, etc, in portfolio and how they will impact the overall returns of portfolios with and without these assets. This isn’t the first time I read papers that argue the case of having commodities, [...]
Amazon.com Instant $10 Groceries Coupon
Amzon.com is offering a $10 instant coupon on selected groceries items such as Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa Mix
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Know Who’s Whispering What before Earning Release
Before a company releases its earning, financial research firms such as Thomson/FirstCall and Reuters survey fund managers and stock analysts to predict what the earning will look like. Stock prices usually move after the earning release, with magnitude depending on the outlook and how far away the true earning is different from consensus estimates. However, it’s not rare to see the stock moves lower even after the earning beats street estimate. The reason? There’s another number the earning doesn’t surpass: the whisper number.
If you are interested in knowing a stock’s whisper number before earning release, there are two websites which publish whisper numbers that are collected from traders:
Both sites have free service, which basically covers the whisper numbers, as well as paid services which include stock analysis and investor sentiments. Whispernumber.com offers a little more free stuff, such as whisper tracking and earning update. However, to get these free services, you need to register with them and the activation email they promised to send me after my registration never came! I have used three different email address to sign up and none got response from them. An email to their customer service regarding the registration process also seemed to fall on deaf ears.
Here’s an example how Dell’s whisper number looks like from Earningswhispers.com. The whisper numbers are helpful in getting investors sentiments about a company’s earning and future outlook beyond the view of the street, which is sometime biased. Despite the apparent usefulness of whisper numbers, it should only be part of the criteria that an investor needs to consider when making financial decisions.
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Deal: Restaurant.com $35 Dining Certificates for $5
Restaurant.com has $25 dining certificates for $10. Use coupon code VALENTINE to get another 50% off. Meanwhile, they also have a promotion now through February 17 which offers a $10 gift certificate for any purchase. Combining the deals together, you will get $35 dining certificates for only $5. Be sure to check the terms and conditions of each restaurant (many have a minimum purchase requirement to use the certificates) before purchasing the certificates.
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Posts I Enjoyed Last Week
I like mail-in rebates and I have used a lot of them to get some pretty good deals for myself or make a few bucks by selling them on Amaozn.com. I am not against rebates. If I can get the stuff I want at an afforable price and get the rebates I am entitiled to even after a couple of months of delay, I don’t see any problem of that. To see how to get the rebate checks you deserve, check out the post from Silicon Valley Blogger.
Jeremy at Generation X Finance is having some guests to run the show and one of the articles is College Money-Saving Tips from Complete Sports. The tips, in my opinion, don’t have to be for college students.
For frugal living, nothing is too small to be ignored. Kirby on Finance looks at how small things can add up to a big monthly bill and shows us how to be frugal by stoping nickel and diming himself into the poor house.
Early last week, I checked the state of my credit cards and one conclusion I got is using credit cards responsibly,then the credit score will take care of itself. Well, I am not the only one in the past week who had some reflections on credit card usage. Andy at Money Walk also lists eight reasons why he prefers credit cards over cash and says “GO PLASTIC!”
Finally, NCN has a nice piece on some common mistakes (10 to be precise) one should avoid for one who is trying to reduce debts and I like the idea of “Try not to skimp on the emergency fund.” No one wants to be in a situation of in debt and not prepared for the unexpected.
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Enrolled in EFTPS in Anticipation of Taxes
I enrolled in the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) on January 25 in anticipation of some tax payment again this year. Over the weekend, the first package with personal information and instruction on how to use EFTPS arrived, followed by another envelop with a PIN that I have to use to obtain an internet password. Now all I need to do is call a 800 number to get that password, then I can pay some taxes before the April 15th deadline.
All the tax forms, W-2s, 1099s, and 1098, for 2006 tax year have arrived and I even started the tax filing process, such as entering data from our W-2 forms, several weeks ago, but stopped all the work after TurboTax said we already owed a couple of thousands of federal taxes. There’s no reason to hurry if we have to pay the money back. With EFTPS, I plane to make some payments before the deadline so I don’t have to sign a big check on April 15th.
Once I have discussed with my wife about why we still owed taxes even after we bought the house and claimed zero dependent on our W-4s. The conclusion we got was we didn’t have enough deduction in our mortgage because the townhouse we bought wasn’t big enough :(.
I have done our taxes myself for several years. Maybe it’s time to go for a pro.
