The Sun’s Financial Diary

Well, that’s not exactly what I said, but I found that a piece by Knight Kiplinger, the Editor in Chief of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, in the June issue of the  magazine says a lot about what an investor should do in this stormy economic environment. Mr. Kiplinger isn’t as well known as legendary investors such [...]

Online discount broker Scottrade is having a ReferALL promotion that will give a new customer referred through the program 3 commission free trades that can be used to trade equity or option with market or limit, GTC or day orders.  The free trades will be applied to the next 3 trades made online. Currently Scottrade [...]

I am still expanding my stock investments, this time through the DSPP program at ComputerShare.
Yesterday, I added Exxon Mobil (XOM) to my regular purchase list with a monthly purchase of $100 of the stock. The reason that I want to buy it through a DSPP program rather making a one-time purchase like I did with [...]

On one hand, the exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry continues to expand at a record pace (the total number of ETFs at the end of 2008 grew to 747, up 118 from 2007); on the other hand, funds that get no love from investors are being eliminated. Last Friday, PowerShares, one of the major players in [...]

I hope you have bought some I-bonds before May 1, so you can still enjoy a little bit the 5.64% yield I-bond rate that was good till April 30. If you missed the deadline and bought some bonds yesterday, May 1st, then too bad because the rate for Series I Savings Bonds issued between May [...]

The S&P 500 Index lost about 46% between August 2008 and September 2002 when the internet bubble burst.

Then it took the benchmark 5 years to reach a new all-time high in October 2007.

Then there came the subprime mortgage crisis, the collapse of the housing market and the financial market, eventually, the recession. In about one [...]

I am by no means a trader. I am not always looking for stocks to buy. However, since last October when the stock market started to sink, I have been active, relatively, on trading stocks. In fact, stocks I bought and sold since October 2008 are more than the total number of trades I did [...]

Before the April 15th tax deadline, I opened and funded a SEP-IRA account with Fidelity. The reason I chose Fidelity is that it is also the custodian of my 401(k) and my daughter’s 529 account (I am using the Fidelity UNIQUE plan which is tied to the Fidelity 529 Rewards Card). In addition, I also [...]

Last week, Morningstar released its annual evaluation of the nation’s 529 college savings plans and named Ohio CollegeAdvantage Plan, the one we are using to save for our younger daughter, one of the 5 best college savings plans. The Morningstar report cited the following features as what makes the plan stand out from the crowd:
One [...]

Are you investing in equity mutual funds? If so, are you using index funds or actively managed funds?
I have mentioned a few times in the past that even though I use all index funds in my retirement savings accounts, I have nothing but actively managed funds in taxable accounts. The reason isn’t that I don’t [...]