The Sun’s Financial Diary

Yesterday, an article appeared on Kiplinger offered a list of year-end financial tricks aimed to help us to be more organized and disciplined for our personal finance. Among the suggestions, the one that I like the most is "Put your savings on autopilot," and we have been doing that for quite a while. Here's our [...]

Exactly one month ago, I canceled our $3000 weekly 4-Week T-Bill purchase after the interest rate dropped to 4.757%, far less than the 5.15% APY we earned from EmigrantDirect at that time.
In the past month, we have seen changes on both the banking and T-Bill fronts and the new developments made me wonder if [...]

Today, October 19, 2006, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 12000 points for the first time in its history. But do you know what happened on the same day in 1987?
On October 19, 1987, also known as Black Monday, the Dow fell 508.32 and closed at a record-breaking low of 1,738.40 points and that [...]

Don't know if I missed it last time (I did search "dividend" at several locations, including FAQ, on their website the other day), or they just added, but today I found this from Zecco's FAQ section:
Does Zecco Trading allow account holders to automatically reinvest dividends for equities and exchange traded funds?Yes, dividend reinvestment is a [...]

It's trick or treat time!
An article on Kiplinger's Personal Finance by Erin Burt offers ten year-end financial tricks that I think are helpful in getting people being disciplined in saving and spending. I especially like the idea of saving automatically and setting a fund for big expenses (auto insurance, vacation, or a high definition TV).
So, [...]

Recently, Zecco started offering equity free trade for customers with $2,500 or more in their accounts. While this news certainly got my attention considering that I am now paying from $4 to $7 for each stock trade, there was one question that I didn’t find answer from their posts: there’s no mention of dividend reinvestment. [...]

As we entered the last quarter of 2006, many of us will soon face the deadline of renewing the healthcare plan. I am not sure about you, but every year at this time, I had to spend days to go through all the paperwork to find the right plan and right doctor for my entire [...]

Why do you need a college degree?
How about you don't have the Dream, if you don't have a degree? 
An interesting article on CNN.com shows the difference on realizing the American Dream between people with and without college degrees. The article, which is about a recent Opinion Research poll, says:
Belief in the so-called "American dream," [...]

Reuters reported today that a small number of Apple’s iPods shipped last month may carry computer virus:
since September 12, less than 1 percent of Video iPods — pocket-sized devices that can play music files and video clips – left its contract manufacturer carrying the virus RavMonE.exe, which affects computers running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system.

For [...]

Reuters reported today that a small number of Apple's iPods shipped last month may carry computer virus:
since September 12, less than 1 percent of Video iPods — pocket-sized devices that can play music files and video clips – left its contract manufacturer carrying the virus RavMonE.exe, which affects computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

For [...]