http://www.indextown.com Personal finance and investing in mutual funds and ETFs Wed, 27 May 2009 22:18:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Here's an interesting article of the unexpected consequence of raising taxes on the rich. Maryland finds that it couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state decides to increase taxes on the wealthy to close the shortfall. Here's what happened one year later. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/05/27/dont-be-too-quick-to-fleece-the-wealthy/ I am looking for an investment-grade bond ETF to round up my portfolio. The criteria I used include the following: Low expenses : the lower the expense ratio, the better. Diversification : for investment grade bond funds, generally the more holdings, the better. Amount of assets & trading volume : generally the larger ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/05/21/taxable-investment-grade-bond-etfs/ Mutual funds publish their per-share price on every trading day. Some of the share prices are in the single digits, some are in their teens, and some are even at (or close to) the century mark. Do these fund prices tell us which fund is cheaper? Or which fund is ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/05/19/should-you-prefer-a-mutual-fund-to-have-a-high-share-price-or-low-share-price/ Recently I did some research into brokers with low margin interest rates and with low trading commissions ($3 or less per trade). Since I already had them all typed out in my notes, I thought I would post them in case someone else might find it useful. The rates are ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/05/09/brokers-with-lowest-margin-interest-rates/ Due to the recent bear market, I harvested a huge amount of capital losses (six-digit figure) which I can use to offset against capital gains and income in future years. The offset against capital gains is uncapped, but that against income is capped at $3000 a year. With that in mind, ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/03/26/tax-free-dividends-from-timber-reit-investing/ Earlier last month, I decided to apply for Bank of Internet's High Yield Savings account. With a name called "Bank of Internet", one would expect that the application would take place at "internet" speeds. Unfortunately, my experience is quite the opposite. As far as the speed of processing is concerned, ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/03/03/application-for-the-bank-of-internet-high-yield-savings-account/ This is an update to my previous post "Tradeking is holding my money hostage". After my complaint to Finra, Tradeking's Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) contacted me to inform me that I would be able to withdraw my shares 60 days after the last ACH deposit to Tradeking. After the 60 days had ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/02/26/tradeking-releases-my-shares/ In January 2009, my portfolio lost 8.5% while that of my benchmark, a 50:50 split between the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth fund and the Vanguard LifeStrategy Gowth fund, lost only around 7.2%. This can be attributed to the relative outperformance of US LargeCaps, which is a huge component in the ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/02/22/portfolio-return-for-january-2009/ This is a really late post so I will just keep it short. My portfolio gained 6.38% in December 2008. However, this is small comfort since the portfolio lost a whopping 28.2% for the entire year. The YTD return of the benchmark, a 50:50 split between the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/02/20/portfolio-return-for-december-2008/ After my bout of issues (Tradeking is holding my money hostage and Tradeking changes its ACH holding time to 60 business days) with Tradeking, I haven't actively used my Tradeking account. Recently, I happen to notice that Tradeking has changed part of its fee structure. First of all, Tradeking has significantly ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2009/01/12/higher-new-fees-at-tradeking/ November 2008 had been another losing month for my portfolio but the losses in percentage-wise is less severe than that in October 2008. My portfolio lost 5.67%, bringing the year-to-date (YTD) return to a loss of 32.51%. This makes it into yet another worst year to date (YTD) return record ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/12/25/portfolio-return-for-november-2008/ Thanks to reader Buddy Hall's feedback, I now know that Wells Fargo has just added tax-lot trading to their online system.  Now, there is "no more calling into a broker after sale to identify your tax lot sold. Wells Fargo offers new web interface to specify shares from tax lots ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/12/15/wells-fargo-adds-tax-lot-trading-to-online-system/ In a previous post, I wrote that Tradeking is holding my money hostage. Basically the issues started after I indicated my intention to transfer my business elsewhere. Tradeking started a lock-down on my account, restricted my account and then told me that any money that I transferred by ACH to them ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/12/13/tradeking-changes-its-ach-holding-time-to-60-business-days/ Recently, due to my tax loss harvesting transactions, I decided to move part of my portfolio to Tradeking and try them out. Because Tradeking has an ACH limitation of $10,000 per transaction, I had to split up my transfers into chunks of this size or smaller to have my money transferred. ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/12/10/tradeking-is-holding-my-money-hostage/ A recent question on the Bogleheads forum was Exact sequence of an ETF TLH transaction: Is there a recommended method of doing a TLH? I tend to like to TLH on market downturns if at all possible. Currently I start with the ETF that I would like to sell. I look ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/12/05/sequence-for-etf-tax-loss-harvesting/ October 2008 had been a dismal month. My portfolio lost 16.28%, bringing the year-to-date (YTD) return to a loss of 28.45%. This makes it into yet another worst year to date (YTD) return record my portfolio has ever experienced since I started tracking monthly performances in Jan 2004. The YTD return ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/11/25/portfolio-return-for-october-2008/ Recently I looked at two discount brokers in an effort to move my ETF holdings to a broker which can provide specific tax lot identification. The first broker is Just2Trade.com, and the second broker is TradeKing.com. These two brokers are very similar. They both clear through Legent Clearing and both offer ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/11/21/just2trade-versus-tradeking/ It seems like nowadays the monthly reports are chasing after me. Before I know it, it is already near the end of the month and I haven't yet updated the monthly report. Anyway, here goes the report for September ... (the report for October looks to be much WORSE, but ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/10/28/portfolio-return-for-september-2008/ This month had been an extremely busy month for me, and that has kept me from updating my portfolio performance for August 2008 until today. Anyway, my portfolio lost 1.76% in August 2008, bringing the year-to-date (YTD) return to a loss of 6.58%. This makes it another worst year to date ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/09/29/portfolio-return-for-august-2008/ My portfolio lost 2.06% in July 2008, bringing the year-to-date (YTD) return to a loss of 4.92%. This makes it the worst year to date (YTD) return my portfolio has ever experienced since I started tracking monthly performances in Jan 2004. The YTD return of the benchmark, a 50:50 split between ... http://www.indextown.com/archives/2008/08/11/portfolio-return-for-july-2008/