MoneyMerc
a personal finance blog dedicated to little finance decisions with big impact
Posts Tagged with "Investing"
ETF investing pitfalls
(photo: Dave Malkoff) An Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is similar to an index fund – they are typically not actively managed and therefore (often) have low management fees. Sometimes when you can’t find the perfect fund for your asset allocation, an ETF will fill that gap. But ETFs aren’t good for regular automatic investments, because you [...]
Continue reading...Wisdom from the Oracle – Part 2 (retake!)
Thursday, March 5, 2009
[Apologies for the first version of this post! My editor must have accidentally posted the non-complete version ] This is the second post in a series reviewing Warren Buffett’s letter to shareholders, which I think holds good lessons for us all. [See Part 1]. On investing: When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy. If you take [...]
Continue reading...Wisdom from the Oracle – Part 1: a look at Warren Buffett’s annual Letter to Shareholders
Monday, March 2, 2009
Warren Buffet’s famous Letter to Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway was released this past Saturday. The letter is long, but an enjoyable read – I was cracking up during lot’s of it – Buffett can be hilarious. I’ll share some comments on parts that I think readers will find particularly interesting. There are tidbits here that speak [...]
Continue reading...Mint.com just got sweeter: track your spending and investments too
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
[Photo: QuintanaRoo] I’ve written previously about the usefulness of Mint.com for tracking spending. Recently they’ve released a whole bunch of investment-tracking features that allow you to see all your money, investments and assets in one place. This eliminates the need for Fidelity’s Full View, which does pretty much the same thing, but requires that you have [...]
Continue reading...What’s your risk tolerance?
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
To be sure, maybe people have found they have a whole new risk tolerance this year. Even investors who were ’safely’ index fund investing realized that even though they own the whole market, they still own stocks, and stocks by are risky investments. The Finance Buff posts an interesting article on a way to determine your [...]
Continue reading...Why I like Fidelity – choose the right place to put your money
Friday, November 28, 2008
This post isn’t about promoting a brokerage house – it’s about choosing the right place to put your money, for efficiency and convenience. Picking the right place to put your money can save you lots of headaches and hours and hours of time through the course of your investing life. Here’s my thoughts on the [...]
Continue reading...Improve your investment returns (by lowering your taxes)
Monday, November 10, 2008
If you’re invested in the stock market, chances are you don’t have positive returns for the year. If you want to improve your returns, keep in mind that the investment return equation is pretty much the same as the net income equation: you can directly improve your returns by lowering your taxes. Total Investment Returns = [...]
Continue reading...Considering a new investing position: fetal and 100% in cash?
Monday, October 13, 2008
I just returned from a trip to South Africa, and after ignoring the news for two weeks, I was a bit surprised to see the major market indicies. Guess what my (no-so-)new investment strategy is? Read my last post for an idea. Today, my friend Dave sent me an article from today’s WSJ by Burton Malkiel [...]
Continue reading...Stay the course – tips for navigating in a tough market
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two weeks (or last year, for that matter), you know some serious stuff is going on in the US and World financial markets. Here are some tips to navigate in this type of environment: Worry about the things you can control – are you more likely to [...]
Continue reading...Automate your financial life
Sunday, June 15, 2008
One of the biggest time-wasters for me is checking my account balances online, and shifting money back and forth between checking and higher-interest savings to maximize my interest. It’s a delicate balance, since one $30 overdraft fee can kill increased interest very quickly. Last year I solved this problem and fully automated my [...]
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- Making good investment decisions
- How will you invest now?
- Worried about your finances? Know your worst case scenario
- ETF investing pitfalls
- Wisdom from the Oracle – Part 3
- Wisdom from the Oracle – Part 2 (retake!)
- Wisdom from the Oracle – Part 1: a look at Warren Buffett’s annual Letter to Shareholders
- Weekend todo list: 10 ways to improve your finances right away
- Mint.com just got sweeter: track your spending and investments too
- What’s your risk tolerance?
- Alex: @Chris: In general, I'd would say no, since the point of your emergency fund is to keep you afloat for 3-6 months or more. If you are racking up debt...
- Chris: Alex, should you consider available credit on credit cards as a stop gap to any short fall you might have in your emergency fund?...
- Alex: I just got confirmation from a trader friend of mine saying they use the Ultrashort Financials and UltraShort Real Estate ETFs to macro-hedge their po...
- matt @ Thrive: I have to admit, the picture made me laugh and recall fond memories of heavy blocked graphics. *grins*...
- Nnamdi: On the topic of Fraud, a person can get a voluntary Alert put on their credit report. Basically in order to establish new credit, the creditor must ca...
- Jackson: A mortgage officer at Chase suggested paying off my credit card before the statement date. Using the credit card, but getting the monthly statement wi...
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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