The Sun's Financial Diary

Last Friday, The Census Bureau released 2007 Statistical Abstract. In the Income, Expenditures, and Wealth part, I found some interesting numbers that show how much (on average) we make and the mean household net worth for the past decade (from 1995 to 2004). The first table is the mean family net worth for different age [...]

Thinking about asset allocation, what comes to my mind is the distribution of different asset classes in my portfolio: large-cap, small-cap, mid-cap, bonds, real estate, commodity, international, ect. There's hardly any doubt about the importance of asset allocation in investing. However, there's one more factor that we may have omitted so far: the taxes. When [...]

As 2006 comes to the end, one year-end move suggested by many personal finance articles is to spend whatever you still have in your flexible spending account (FSA) before December 31st due to the use-it-or-lose-it rule. However, IRS allows up to two and a half months of grace period into the new year for the [...]

Spirit Airlines is having what it calls "The Mother of All Spirit Sales" today. For some routes, the air fare can be as low as 99 cents (yes, 99 cents). For example, From Atlanta to Orlando, $0.99 each way, available on 2/10/07, 2/22/07, 2/28/07, 3/3/07 From Boston to Detroit, $0.99 each way, available on 1/8/07, [...]

According to Reuters, China Life Insurance (LFC) has won approval to sell its class-A shares in Shanghai, which could raise $3.2 billion or 25 billion yuan, making the offering the second largest in the history of Chinese domestic public offering. Encouraged by the news, LFC is now trading above $105 in NYSE, more than $3 [...]

I can't believe it took more than two months to transfer my IRA assets from Scottrade to Vanguard. Last night, I finally received the confirmation letter from Vanguard, saying that the transfer is now completed and my Vanguard account is ready. The assets were moved to Vanguard on December 8th, two months and eight days [...]

I have four online savings accounts already (all join accounts with my wife): ING Direct, Emigrant Direct, HSBC, and Virtual Bank. ING Direct used to have all my deposits when it offered superior rates than other online banks did. Now it fell far behind with a 4.50% APY. At one time early this year, I [...]

Morningstar.com today has an article on the performance of 20 largest stock fund firms. The stock funds mainly invest in domestic stocks and one firm may have multiple offers in this area. If that's the case, the author noted that the performance of all these funds may approach average as it's difficult for all of [...]