Investor Junkie
My Business and Financial Freedom Journey

Weekend Reading for April 11, 2010

What I’m reading this weekend:

• Make More on Your Cash : WSJ – Tired of earning less than 1% on your MM account?  William Bernstein an interesting idea to get a decent return.
• The Katana: Holy Crap! Taxes Due Soon : Financial Samurai – Better get your taxes done before the 15th.  Doing it yourself, not so much.
• Interest Rates Have Nowhere to Go but Up : NY Times – Leverage up now before rates go higher.  We’re looking at Toyota’s 0% for 5 year promotion.  We’ll won’t see rates on mortgages, credit cards  and car loans this low, maybe in our lifetime.
• Big Yields, Big Risk in the Oil Patch : WSJ – They expect MLPs to decrease in the short term.  For me I’m in for the long haul, so if they do go down I’ll buy more.
• A different approach to asset allocation : Bogleheads – Get out the popcorn and read this VERY long thread.  A sad story about a young guy (21 years old) who at the peak of the debt bubble maxed out $200k to invest in the market.
• IRS rules for early IRA withdrawals : Bankrate.com – Did you know you can take money out money from your IRA to fund a child’s college education, and not be subject 10% penalty?  Federal taxes may still apply though.

Weekend Reading for February 28, 2010

What I’m reading this weekend:

• The Right Way To Squirrel Money From the Taxman – WSJ :  Our government is nuts.  in 2011 it will become even more important to control and minimize your taxes.
• Even the Smart Guys Don’t Always Get it Right – WSJ: Not so sure this article applies to small investors and speculative trades applies to the big boys.
• General Motors Is Back! – Barron’s : Not sure if I would invest or buy a GM ever!  The bond holders got screwed royally (after years of case law), and the unions got a much better deal.  Based upon the comments on Barron’s, I don’t seem to be alone.  I would buy a Ford first, not only because of this, but they appear to have their act together.
• Bullish on Bullion – Barron’s : Interesting history of gold for the past 10 years, though “past returns do not guarantee future results”   Gold isn’t going up, it’s the currencies that are going down.
• Steve Jobs says Apple must ‘think big’ with $40 billion in cash – AppleInsider :  While I agree Apple should have a large chest of money, but $40 billion??  If they aren’t buying another large company (history has shown they only buy small companies) then they should do a dividend or stock buy back.
• Using Probability to Set the Size of An Emergency Fund – The Oblivious Investor : Great analysis on needing an emergency fund.  One thing I’ve found, once you have a certain amount of savings, a specific emergency fund becomes less needed.

Weekend Reading for February 6, 2010

What I’m reading this weekend:

• “Lending Club Drop Borrower Interest Rates” : Debt Free Adventure – This is great for borrowers, but not so great for lenders like me.  I suspect Lending Club wants to attract more borrowers to better compete against the banks.
• “Exchange-trade funds get even cheaper” : Money Magazine – Great way to help cut down on the transaction fees of purchasing small amounts from ETFs.  Now if they can only decrease bid/ask pricing spread.
• “Retirement Planning: How do you stack up?” : Money Magazine – Nice quick comparison calculator.  We are doing very well, but I think it better said the general public does not save enough.
• “What Happens If Congress Doesn’t Raise The Debt Ceiling?” : Weakonomics – Great graph showing the debt increase and decreases (believe it or not) over the past 50 years.
• “How To Quadruple Your Money With NO Appreciation” : BawldGuy Talking – Good analysis of investing in real estate and why people make money with it despite many who poo-poo RE barely increases above inflation (which is true).  Also why appreciation is not the only thing to look for when investing in RE.
• “Protecting Yourself from the Giant New Deficit” : WSJ – Some ideas to protect yourself if you feel the government deficits are going to affect your investments.
• “Bookonomics (or, why writers barely make min. wage)” : The Big Picture – You think it’s bad to make a profit as a blogger?? Financial book writing isn’t that great either, unless of course you are Steven King.  You write a book for brand building.

Weekend Reading for January 16, 2010

What I’m reading this weekend:

• Why Many Investors Keep Fooling Themselves : WSJ – It’s interesting most people don’t know what the average rate of returns for stocks, and expect outlandish returns.
• ‘Nobody’s Watching Charlie Rose’ : WSJ – Love or hate him (is there anything in between?), I find Glenn Beck’s arguments always very logical, even if they go into the conspiracy camp.  I don’t believe or agree with everything he says but always like counterpoints to the traditional views.  I also like watching Charlie Rose, but found this interesting video Charile discusses Obama with Tom Brokaw.  I found this in the comments section.  If this isn’t a testament on how clueless our MSM is, I don’t know what is.
• Groomed for a Comeback : Barron’s – I thought Dogs of the Dog was dead and proven another crap investing idea? I guess there are drones who still believe in it.
• Inflation Remains Tame, With a Warning Sign : WSJ – Last year, up there as one of the worst years economically and yet our inflation was 2.7%? Inflation Tame? Right now yes.  Where is this deflation people keep talking about?
• A Little Company Praised by President Obama : Stossel – Articles like this just completely piss me off!  How is this not crony capitalism?  For those who get Fox Business News John Stossel has some great shows.
• For ‘Safe’ Investors, This May Be a Challenging Year : CNBC -Must think about interest rate risk.

Weekend Reading for December 26, 2009

What I’m reading this weekend:

• “A Savvy Bond Man Bets on Rising Inflation” : WSJ  – Prediction of inflation based upon monetary increase.  The very definition of inflation is an increase in money supply.  Seeing prices rise is an affect.
• “Central Problem: the Central Bank” : Barron’s – I’ve seen the enemy and the enemy is the Federal Reserve.
• “Michigan Forces Business Owners Into Public Sector Unions” : WSJ – Unions and day care services?? What?!  Next they will be making each baby a card carrying member.
• “Adjusted for Inflation, Dow’s Gains Are Puny” : WSJ – Most people forget about the evil lurker in the night – inflation.

Weekend Reading for December 19, 2009

What I’m reading this weekend:

• Buckle Up for 2010 : Barron’s – The economists are basically stating the obvious; it’s not going to be a quick shot out of “The Great Recession”, but there are some pockets to invest in.
• The Elements of Investing by Burton G. Malkiel – I just purchased this and will give a review sometime in the near future.

Side note: My tree version of Barron’s is running out. I’m thinking of either getting Amazon’s Kindle edition or the online edition.  I certainly don’t need the print edition, as the weekly market summary is pretty much useless.  The Kindle edition is $10.99/month or $131.88 for the year.  While the online edition with my already purchased WSJ is only $50.00 additional.  I like reading things on my Kindle over the computer as it’s much easier to lug around.  Anyone have suggestions?

Weekend Reading for December 12, 2009

What I’m reading this weekend:

• Investor Psychology: Your Brain is Hardwired to ‘Follow the Herd’ : Steadfast Finances – Are you an iconoclast? If not, you should invest in index based funds.
• Many See the VAT Option as a Cure for Deficits : NYT – If I wanted to live in Europe, I would have moved there.
• For feds, more get 6-figure salaries : USAToday – “Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.”  Nice! Government salaries increased, while the rest of the country saw a decrease in salary.
• No End in Sight to Govt. Spending Spree: $12.1T Debt Ceiling Set to Be Raised : Yahoo! Tech Ticker – Why have a debt limit, if it can be raised?
• Reach for Stock Yield, and You Might Get Bit : WSJ – I-Bonds make the most sense over dividend producing stocks. I completely agree, and invested 4k for our emergency savings.
• In Year of Investing Dangerously, Buffett Looked ‘Into the Abyss’ : WSJ – Interesting time line of events dealing with Buffet.  How much of the man himself helped “pump” his investments by that media tour he did?  Also the fact that Fuld went to Buffet 6 months before the meltdown confirms what I’ve always believed, that the financial institutions knew how bad this all was until it was too big to hide.