Leave Investing To The Professionals
This interesting guest post is by Mr. Credit Card. While I (Investor Junkie) may not completely agree with his position, it’s a more common notion to let investment professionals perform the stock picking for you via actively managed funds.
I used to work in the financial industry and I can tell you that I know how difficult investing is. However, many folks are passionate about investing and most spend lots of time doing research and analysis. But in my opinion, unless you are a professional and paid to actually manage money, you are better off spending your time with other pursuits. In this post, I am going to list down the reasons why it is so difficult to actually to succeed as an amateur investor.
Read More »Why I Sold Stocks In My Taxable Account Today
I sold stock from my taxable account today. I obviously don’t have to tell you about yesterday’s roller coaster ride in the market. I’ve had the feeling the market has gone too high too fast before this, and believe the market is not cheap right now. I sold stocks today because of these reasons:
- I’ve had considerable gains in the stocks I owned (20%+ in one year)
- Believe the market is overbought with a somewhat high P/E ratio (approx 20)
- The stocks I sold have dividends and since they are in a taxable account will be subject to much higher tax rate next year
- The primary reason was to fully fund our Roth IRA accounts for the year
We are already 5% in cash with our retirement accounts. I’ve made adjustments to our retirement accounts in the past few months, but I have not (nor will) make adjustments to them other than for some re-balancing. I believe asset allocation is much more important than selling based upon emotional factors.
I’m taking the money from today’s sale and fully funding our Roth IRA accounts for 2010. I’ve not mentioned this before, but our 2010 investment strategy is:
- Max out my wife’s 403(b) account (I don’t have a 401k or IRA setup within my company)
- Max out both our Roth IRA accounts
- Contribute $10,000 to our children’s NY State 529 accounts (since contributions up to $10k are tax deductible to the state)
- Invest $5-10,000 in US I Savings Bonds (I’m not sure the exact amount because I’m not crazy about the existing rate)
- All remaining funds invest within our taxable accounts
I eventually want to invest our taxable savings into real estate or another business. I haven’t found anything suitable so far. My thought is then take some of that taxable money off the table, and move into tax differed savings.
Our 2010 Hyundai Genesis Purchase
We got a new car! As mentioned previously, we were in need of a new car. With baby number three on the way we needed something to replace the existing clown car, our 10 year old 2001 Toyota Solara. If it weren’t for our growing family, I would have been happy keeping the existing car until it stopped working.
We already have a paid off 2007 Honda Odyssey, so no need for another soccer mom mini-van (yuck). We’ve previously had a 2002 BMW 530, and wanted a new car along those lines. We wanted somewhat of a luxurious sport sedan. Our requirements were:
Read More »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.
Monitoring Your Financial Independence
When driving from your home to a location you’ve never been before, how do you get there? In today’s world, you plug the address in your car’s navigation system, and based upon the parameters you select, it will tell you how to get there. More fancy GPS systems also have available:
- The estimated time of arrival. This is based upon the route chosen, speed limits on the roads to travel, and your previous average speed.
- Possible alternative methods to get to your destination (the super fancy ones have real time traffic info)
- The ability to stop at points of interest (i.e. gas station)
Angel Investors: A Blessing For Start-Up Entrepreneurs!
This is a guest post by Priscilla Solomon. Priscilla is a finance blogger and debt adviser at OVLG.
Gathering funds for starting a business is really tough, when you are a fresh entrepreneur looking out for opportunities to turn your dreams into reality! Nothing is more disappointing than seeing your dreams crumble due to lack of money! That is why the Angel Investors form a great source of aid as well as encouragement for the start-up entrepreneurs.
Read More »When Should A Late Customer Get Cut Off?
When owning a business one of the important parts is ensuring you have cash flow. No cash flow equals a dead business. Collections are a critical aspect of your cash flow. You have to make sure customer invoices are paid in a timely fashion. The question with a late paying customer, when should you cut them off? I don’t have to tell anyone times are tough. The economy is still in the dumps, and more than likely will be for quite a long time in the future. I have compassion for my customers that are struggling, but up to a point.
Will The Wealthy Donate Less Because Of Health Care?
Here is an interesting statistic. America donates annually more money than any other country (the link also has some other interesting stats). Our European counterparts are not even close. This has gotten me thinking about our procession to create more entitlements. Now that the health care bill has passed, will this cause the wealthy to donate less to charities? After all, the wealthy are primarily the target of this law to distribute their riches to the poor. On average, the business they own and the salary they take home will see big tax increases. More importantly, unearned income will be taxed up 3.8%, and will be in addition to the end of the Bush tax cuts.
