Author: stlplace

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401k and Personal Finance

Credit card series I: Amazon Visa Card

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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).

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Fun Life

World cup 2010 thoughts

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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.

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401k and Personal Finance

What is American Funds and my 401k choice

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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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Stocks

Valuation of Yahoo’s Alibaba stake

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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:
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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

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401k and Personal Finance

Don’t be stingy on windshield wiper

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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).

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401k and Personal Finance

Rent a car instead of buying/leasing

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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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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.

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401k and Personal Finance

Buying mutual fund for Scottrade IRA account

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So I opened an IRA account in mid March, deposit some money there, but I have not bought any mutual fund until today (theoretically tomorrow).

Why? Two reasons:
1) The market has been hot lately, and I was waiting for a dip, that dip did not come until recently the Goldman scandal surfaced, and Greece (Europe) debt crisis deepened.

2) Picking a good mutual fund is hard. I did not realized it because in the past, I only bought mutual funds in 401k plan, which usually has 10 mutual funds. Now, it’s a big pond (or ocean).

I remember David Swansen (the Yale endowment investment chief) once said, individual investor usually “buy high, sell low” on mutual funds, what he meant was individual investors usually did not get the good results from “good performance” funds. I also remember Warren Buffett suggested individual investors stick to index fund. Because most mutual funds lagged behind index benchmarks. With that in mind, I am still pulling my head and try to find a fund that will outperform. The first source I can think of is the WealthTrack TV program (which I listen to via Podcast) in which the hostess interview many mutual fund or hedge fund managers. I googled “WealthTrack mutual fund” and foundthis program guide (PDF). I found “ron muhlenkamp” on the guest list, and looking at his fund web site, it looks ok. So I placed an after-hour order at my Scottrade IRA account.

WealthTrack Consuelo Mack

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Categories
gadgets Life

The missing iPhone

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By now all the people who are into gadgets should have heard about this iPhone Gizmodo gate: this is apple’s next iPhone .

I don’t know about the fate of this Apple engineer, as Gizmodo did not say a word about him/her (Why Apple Couldn’t Get the Lost iPhone Back). I hope he/she won’t get fired for this (assume this whole thing is not an Apple stunt). Because a while ago, if we recall, a young Chinese engineer died from iPhone leak(HuffingtonPost: Sun Danyong, Chinese Engineer, Kills Himself After Losing ‘4G’ iPhone Prototype).

After all, life is much more important than stupid iPhone, if we can put things in perspective.

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401k and Personal Finance

Enroll in Ohio College Advantage 529 Plan and receive $50 bonus

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(Update 08-01-2010) It seems the referral still works. Feel free to use my referral code 2568778, and email me after you enroll. I will send you the $25 Amazon gift card as soon as I receive the referral bonus from Ohio 529 plan.

(Update 06-29-2010) My mistake, there is not limit in terms of the number of referral. But the deadline (to get referral bonus) is still valid, June 30, 2010.

(Update 06-22-2010) 10 Referral used. 2 more remaining. Note the offer expires on June 30, 2010. Send me a note after you enroll, if you like the Amazon gift card 😀

(Update 04-27-2010) First referral bonus received and the $25 Amazon gift card sent. Please note this offer is limit to first 12 accounts opened using my referral code.

CollegeAdvantageReferralBonus2010-04-27 AmazonThankYou2010-04-27

Why should I worry about my kid’s college now? She/he is just 3 years old, it’s 15 years away.
I know I know I know. I am a procrastinator too. A little more than a month ago, my daughter was born. I joked I would worry about her college tuition because I will be near retirement age when she goes to college.

But seriously, from my own 10 years 401K savings experience, “start early, and invest in high quality investments regularly” is the right thing to do. The other day, I found Nightly Business Report (NBR) folks at PBS did a nice job on this topic. They have a series of planning 101: paying for college covers the rising college costs, and how the parents can prepare well before kids going to college, very impressive reports. The only thing left for us, the parents (new or old), is action.

What is 529 Plan?
Obviously you can google and find the answer. Here is some explanation from SavingForCollege.com: A 529 Plan is an education savings plan operated by a state or educational institution designed to help families set aside funds for future college costs. It is named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code which created these types of savings plans in 1996. According to the 529 plan interview at NBR (PBS), the tuition does not have to be college, it can be graduate school or re-training. I think the tax treatment of expenses other than higher education might be different (read more from Wiki and other material if you are interested).

What are the factors when we consider the plans (in-state vs. out of state; can we transfer the money later)?

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