The Sun’s Financial Diary

Like a lot of Americans across the country right now, my neighbors have put their house up for sale.  They want to downsize and lower their monthly mortgage payment.  The house has been on the market for a few months now.  It’s a good size house, is well maintained and is in a desirable neighborhood [...]

Here’s another broker promotion for new IRA account.
Online broker optionsXpress is offering 5 commission free trades for a new IRA or rollover IRA account. Eligible IRA accounts include Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA, and SEP-IRA. If you open an account with optionsXpress before April 15th, 2010, which is the tax deadline, with at least [...]

When I opened the 529 college savings plan for our first daughter in 2005, the plan offered by New Jersey was never an option to me because there is not tax benefit for using NJ 529 plan even for the state residents. But that wasn’t all. What really made me stay away from NJ college [...]

Though it’s still almost two months away from the 2009 tax deadline, April 15, 2010, brokerage firms and mutual fund companies have already rolled out promotions to lure taxpayers to open IRA accounts with them. Among them, OptionsHouse is offering 100 commission free trades if you open an IRA account, such as Traditional, Roth, SEP, [...]

When I compared broker web-based trading platforms a while ago, I mentioned that most brokers I am using only have web-based trading platforms, except Scottrade, which also offers a standalone, PC-based platform called ScottradeELITE (available for customers with account balance of $25,000 or more). What I like about the separate program is that it’s much, [...]

Like about 100 million people across the country, I spent my Sunday evening watching Super Bowl XLIV between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. I didn’t have a particular rooting interest in either of the teams although I did enjoy the feel good fairy tale ending for the city of New Orleans. [...]

As we’re getting into the tax season, how to lower tax payment legally is probably on everybody’s mind. While most techniques you could employ to reduce your tax bill for the previous tax year already expired at the end of the year from, there is still one thing you can do to significantly cut your [...]

Warren Buffett is in the news again!
Well, I suppose in the world of Wall Street, Warren Buffett never really leaves the news but the information that came out of Omaha, Nebraska this past week is particularly noteworthy.
On January 26th, it was announced that Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s holding company, would be replacing Burlington Northern Santa Fe, [...]

This is what competition is about.
Early last month, Charles Schwab reduced the commission for online equity trading to $8.95 per trade from the original price of $12.95. The move, as an recent article on Barron’s noted, could trigger a new price war in online trading. Now, there’s a strong evidence that the war may have [...]

Starting January 2010, anyone can convert a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. In the past, only those earning less than $100,000 were eligible to do contributions to Roth IRA (even after January 2010, contribution to Roth IRA starts to phase out if you earn more than $100,o00). According to media reports, this conversion opens [...]