Year: 2010

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

SPG Starwood Preferred Guest AMEX credit card special offer

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Last Updated on July 3, 2010 by stlplace

First I want to thank everyone who used my referral enrolling in Ohio College Advantage 529 plan, esp. those of you who kept quiet after using my referral code. My daughter (although she can not understand what is college these days, being 3 months and 3 weeks old) and my wife also want to express their thanks.

Saw this Starwood Preferred Guest AMEX credit card special offer from dealsea.

SPG has a new promotion – free 30,000 Starpoints after you spend $1000 in 3 months. No annual fee for the first year (then $45). Offer expires 7/6/10.

Here is a review for the card. And another review which talks about points redemption. Quote:

Starwood Preferred Guest program was the first program that had no blackout dates, which meant that if they had a room, they will give it to you. You need 2,000 points for a weekday stay at a category 1 hotel and 3,000 points for a weekend stay. You could also use a combination of points and paying cash. For example, you can use 1,250 points and $25 for a category 1 hotel stay. Starwood also allows you to get a fifth night stay free at category 3,4,5 and 6 hotels. The minimum points required is 28,000 points for a category 3 hotel. Room upgrade requires a minimum of 1,000 points. You can also get 50% off regular rates by using just 1,000 points for any category hotel. Points can be used to redeem for an entire vacation – with hotel stays and flights as well.

Starwood hotels include brands like Four Points, Sheraton,Westin and W Hotels. It seems to me Starwood program is better than HHonors program (Hilton family hotels), and SPG points worth more than HH points. For instance, 3,000 points can get one free night stay at Four Points Daning in Shanghai. So I took the bait: applied the card just now, and got approved 😀

Categories
advice and tips

How to install infant car seat on Nissan Altima

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Last Updated on July 1, 2010 by omaha

I wrote the following a while ago (before baby was born), thought it maybe helpful for the dad-to-be’s, although not very comprehensive.

Nissan USA has published a PDF document on compatibility of car seats with some instructions on Latch (lower archor points and tethers for children. Personally I only found two latch points at my 2001 Altima (the manual comes with the car does not say where is the latch/lower arch points), and I used it. I felt this is tighter and secure than the seat belt comes with the car.

I also found quite a few video when I searched “graco infant car seat installation” at Youtube.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Credit card series I: Amazon Visa Card

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Last Updated on June 26, 2010 by stlplace

link here. This is the new card I got this year. I got the $40 first statement credit, and am very pleased to get the extra points for my Amazon purchase (quite a bit after our new baby born).

With your Amazon.com Rewards Credit Card, you will earn points for every dollar you spend on the card.

Earn 3 points on eligible Amazon.com purchases
Earn 2 points on eligible gas, dining, and drugstore purchases
Earn 1 point on purchases everywhere else

This is probably the most straightforward reward card.

Sample rewards
2,500 points can get you $25.00 Amazon gift card;
5,000 points can get you $50 check;
……
90,000 points can get you an air ticket to any where in the world (disclaimer: worth about $1,600).

One point is roughly 1 cent ($0.01).

Categories
Fun Life

World cup 2010 thoughts

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Last Updated on June 20, 2010 by stlplace

The soccer World Cup 2010 is already well in the process. This is also the first time An african country hosting the cup, interesting and exciting for the continent and the host South Africa. I noticed soccer’s popularity grew in the US over the years, from the 1998 word cup to this year. ESPN/ABC broadcast most games alive, and the new media, from NPR to newspapers, showed interest too. For me personally, I also have some observations:

Maradona (Lu Gu Sun, bu xu lian xiang)
I know, I know, he is a controversial figure. But I still remember he is the best player in 1986 (when I was in middle school), basically my impression is the only way to stop him, is to put him down. Despite so many up and downs after 1986, I am glad to see him back. That being said, I found this Maradona comment from Lu Gu Sun (one of the best English professors in China) and another comment form Wang Xiao Feng to be interesting.

(source: The Sydney Morning Herald)

Other old timers
Less known than Maradona, I saw both Jurgen Klinsmann (the German guy, wiki) and Rudd Gullit (wiki, one of three Holland guys in 1980s to 1990s) on ESPN as commentator. I did not recognized Gullit initially because he has short hair nowadays 🙂

China presence
Did you see the China Yingli Solar (Chinese and English interchangeably) Ads bulletin at the stadium? According to marketplace, Yingli paid pretty money ($100 m) on this one, hope they can get their money worth. One thing I noticed, they could learn from and Budweiser/Harbin beer (English with Chinese ), so that people (assume they know English) could understand the company name better.

Categories
finance Fun

Baby is 100 days old

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Last Updated on June 16, 2010 by omaha

She started the following new tricks recently: eat her own hands; she can raise her head for 10 to 15 seconds during tummy training; she can either smile (with or without stimulation) or giggle (with stimulation).

Continue reading “Baby is 100 days old”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance

What is American Funds and my 401k choice

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Last Updated on May 23, 2010 by stlplace

It’s 401k enrollment time, because of my recent job change. I have lived life without 401k contribution for several months now, although I tried to keep up with buying mutual fund Scottrade IRA account. But I found this IRA thing is not as easy my good old 401k account. Couple reasons:

1) Automatic payroll deduction and investment in 401k vs. manually deposit/buy fund in IRA;

2) Dollar average cost (DCA) for the investments (mutual funds) in 401k, vs. picking the best time to buy mutual fund cheap (not easy to time the market);

3) Choosing from about 10 mutual funds vs. choosing from thousands of mutual fund Scottrade offers (a daunting task, which I talked a bit in my earlier post).

Anyway, here is the new mutual funds and their respective weight I chose for my new 401k plan.

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Categories
Stocks

Valuation of Yahoo’s Alibaba stake

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Last Updated on May 20, 2010 by stlplace

Yahoo buys US$1 billion stake in Alibaba (2005-8-11, China Daily): $1 billion for 40% stake of Alibaba Group (parent company of Alibaba, Taobao and Alipay). Taotao and Alipay is Chinese equivalent of eBay and Paypal, repectively.

Yahoo sells direct stake in Alibaba.com (cnet, 2009-9-14). Quote:
======
Yahoo has sold 1 percent of its stake in the Chinese-based business-to-business trading site Alibaba.com, the company said on Monday. Reuters first reported on the story.

In November 2007, Yahoo invested approximately $100 million in Alibaba.com when it went public on the Hong Kong Exchange. Writing in an e-mail, a company representative said that Yahoo’s “sale of its shares in Alibaba.com is expected to generate pre-tax proceeds of approximately $150 million.”
……
According to Yahoo, it maintains approximately 40 percent interest in the Alibaba Group. “Alibaba Group owns approximately 70 percent of Alibaba.com,” Yahoo wrote in the e-mail, “and as such, Yahoo continues to own an approximately 28 percent indirect interest in Alibaba.com.”
======

1% of Alibaba.com (1688.HK) = $150 m
28% of Alibaba.com = $150 m * 28 = $4,200 m = $4.2 billion

Continue reading “Valuation of Yahoo’s Alibaba stake”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Don’t be stingy on windshield wiper

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Last Updated on May 12, 2010 by stlplace

Learned this lesson the hard way. Basically couple days ago on my way to St. Louis Bread Co for a coffee, the windshield wiper in my car stopped working (it was raining). To make things worse, I can hear the motor was still trying to rotate and making the annoying noises. Upon arrival at the Bread Co., I spent 10 minutes and finally turned off the motor and restore the windshield wiper to original position. But I have another problem. It was raining, and sometimes it was raining hard, and I need to get back to home for the day (I did not want leave my car near my work place). So what I do?

I drove along the Olive road, after driving for a while when the window is “dirty”, I drove off the Olive and to a parking lot, manually clean up the Window, back to the road. I had to stop 4 times in this 12 miles trip. Luckily the heavy rain turned into shower so it gave me some relief.

After the diagnosis at repair shop, the windshield wiper motor is indeed broken. Looking back, I think I may have done two things wrong to break it (if it’s my fault).

Continue reading “Don’t be stingy on windshield wiper”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Rent a car instead of buying/leasing

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Last Updated on May 11, 2010 by stlplace

I had to rent a car today because my car is in the repair shop. It seems I need to extend the rent one day, because the part was not available in the shop (it had to be ordered).

I rent a Hyundai Accent from local Enterprise Rent-a-car (across street from the car repair shop). The cost is $34.99 + plus tax. In recent months I thought about getting another car, but after this car rental, I think rent a car is a very viable option for us. We already have a car which I use for daily commute. My wife does not drive often. In case she needs one, I can rent a car for the day, and she can drive the family car. I think in extreme cases, we need to rent 40 (almost once per week) days, it will cost probably $1,500 for car rental. This is about the same as the sum of property tax + insurance cost of a new car (say a $18,000 Hyundai Sonata). Note I did not mention the actual monthly payment or the lump sum cost of the car itself.

Of course, if my wife needs to use car daily, this will be another story 🙂

Categories
Master Series

Why Buffett bought BNSF and did stock split?

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Last Updated on May 7, 2010 by stlplace

buffett burger
(Source: lsnhs.leesummit.k12.mo.us)

I can think of a few reasons:

1) He sees value in BNSF;

2) He want to use some cash so that his successor won’t have too much cash to squander (this is legit considering his age, and a lot of times people make mistake when they are rich);

3) Last but most important, financial crisis taught Buffett a lesson: liquidity is very important. GE and GS got his endorsement and got cash by issuing stocks in one day. Buffett could not do that before buying BNSF and the stock split. Now he can. BRK is S&P component, much more widely held. “Get access to capital market” is one reason Goldman went public in 1990s.

I think Buffett only said 1. But I think 2 and 3 are also the factor here. Remember Buffett was against stock split up to this BNSF deal. Although he said publicly splitting Berkshire stock is for small BNSF shareholders, a valid point. Nonetheless I would be astonished that was the only reason to overthrow 40 years belief/rule in one deal.