Random News: Lower Cost at CollegeAdvantage, Earn Free Trades at TradeKing Community, and Win a Share of Google at Cake Financial

Yesterday, I received a letter from CollegeAdvantage, the Ohio 529 college savings plan, regarding lowered cost for the Vanguard portfolios. The letter says starting February 1, the total administrative cost for the Vanguard options will be reduced by 0.02%. This is a welcome news, though the reduction is tiny. I set up a CollegeAdvantage account for our second daughter last June and have been making monthly contribution since. For an investment that we will hold for at least another 18 years, even a little decrease in fees will help.

Meanwhile, the letter also informs us that the investment option we are using, Vanguard Aggressive Growth Index Portfolio, will increase its international stock allocation from 15% to 20%, another good news. Given how much international stocks have outperformed US equities in recent years, a bigger share of international stocks will boost the return of the portfolio.

It seems that the concept of building trader’s community is quite popular these days, not just from those brokerage firms which have the natural advantage of turning their account holders into community members. The basic idea of the community is to share your holdings and trades, not what you say you own and trade, but what you actually own and trade, with others. A while ago I first joined Zecco’s ZeccoShare when it was in its beta stage. At that time, I thought it was a good idea to see what others buy and sell. However, I never really got the time to participate in the community. Later on, I received an invitation from Covestor.com, another trade sharing service provider, to become a member. I did join and even uploaded my trading records with Scottrade. However, the process of fully joining in was never completed after they asked me to provide a statement to prove that I indeed own those stocks.

No, thanks!

Last week, I got emails from TradeKing and Cake Financial with incentives to join their trade-sharing programs. The deal from TradeKing is free trade for a month and it works as the following:

In the new Community, when you create a blog post or a “trade note,” other Community members have the option of voting for your contribution as a “good post.” We’re keeping track of the voting and will have the running tally displayed on its own page.

Measured at midnight on February 29th, winners in the following categories will be rewarded with unlimited commission-free trading for the entire month of March, 2008:

• Top-voted trade notes - 3 winners
• Top-voted blog posts - 3 winners
• Top-voted Community member (total number of votes for blog posts and trade notes by a single Community member) - 1 winner - this month’s REAL “Trade King”

The incentive from Cake Financial seems a little bigger (details on their giveaway page):

From February 1 – 28, Cake members who Invite Friends to join them on Cake will be:

1. Entered into one of four weekly drawings to win a share of Google!
2. Eligible to win the Grand Prize Cakefolio – a diversified portfolio including GOOG, AAPL, QQQQ and more.

Are you a member of any community? Do you like the idea of real-trade sharing?

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