The Sun's Financial Diary

The family of dividend-paying ETFs just got a little larger.
State Street Global Advisors on February 12th launched a new dividend-oriented exchange-traded fund, S&P International Dividend ETF (DWX). The new fund tracks the S&P International Dividend Opportunities Index, which was introduced a month ago on January 25, 2008. According to the fund prospectus, the benchmark consists [...]

According to a statement released yesterday, Dodge & Cox will reopen its flagship Stock fund and Balanced fund next Monday, February 4th. The two funds were closed to new investors since 2004, though existing shareholders can still invest in both of them.
In the statement, the company cited the lackluster return of both funds in 2007, [...]

Nowadays, you can get a lot of stuff for free, news, music, movie, as long as you read/listen to/watch the ads that come together with the free stuff. You can even monitor your credit score for free, says CreditKarma.com, a newly launched credit monitoring service that promise free access to their own version of credit [...]

Around the new year, many previously closed mutual funds reopened their doors to new investors, including such well-known names as Fidelity Magellan (FMAGX) and Oakmark International (OAKIX), after a rough second half of 2007. For investors who had an eye on these funds, but were denied access due to the closure, the reopening [...]

Early this month, I read an article on USA Today with title, Index funds are never out of style. The article pointed out that for the past 10 years, the return of diversified US stock funds, which include small-, mid-, and large-cap funds, averaged at 6.7% while the S&P index returned 5.9% a year. The [...]

After learning that Zecco relaunched its referral program last December, I set up a referral program of my own shortly after. With my program, I promised to share $20 of the $50 bonus Zecco rewards me for each new account I refer to them. In the first 2 weeks after I put up my program, [...]

There was a short Q&A in The Wall Street Journal yesterday where the question being asked is the following:
I would like to buy only a few stocks in certain companies. Are there any online brokers that handle people with only a couple hundred dollars in their account and don’t charge heavy fees for infrequent traders?
In [...]

The $100 bonus offer from OptionsXpress is back!

To get the bonus, $500 must be deposited into the account by March 31, 2008. I opened an account when the offer was around before the new year. Now I am just waiting for the free money
Meanwhile, TradeKing is also giving $100 bonus for new accounts [...]

I have been a loyal customer of Scottrade for more than 5 years. Though I have opened a number of brokerage accounts during that time period, Scottrade remains my primary broker holding most of our investable assets. There are reasons for me to stick with Scottrade (Scottrade 3 free trades offer).
Last week, Scottrade informed me [...]

Spotted this deal on FatWallet.com and it seems to be an easy money just for the holiday

If you open an OptionsXpress account and fund it with at least $500 before December 31st, they will give you a $100 bonus. From the offer page
In order to qualify for the $100 offer, account application must [...]