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stocks
personal finance
Mint.com's Plans For Portfolio Recommendations
I asked Mint.com whether they would be adding some features to their new investment tracking tool similar to what they do with credit cards and banks. When you add your credit cards and banks to Mint, it has a section where they recommend different credit cards to switch to and show you how much savings or lower APR you can get. In response, CEO Aaron Patzer said that in the future they will identify the lowest cost brokerage for you based on how often you trade and with how much money, as well as, and, this is very important, exposing management fees and expense ratios.Very cool. Investors could really benefit by such transparent access to investing-rleated feesFor a good perspective on how fees can really chew up your nest egg, read our post, "How Your 401(k) Is Ripping You Off"
personal finance
Review Of Mint.com's New Investment-Tracking Features
I got to check out personal finance management site Mint.com's new investment-tracking component before the private beta launches tomorrow. You can now add Brokerage, IRA, 401k and 529 assets. The two biggest things it offers are line graphs, and a way to see all the fees, dividends, deposits and withdrawals in one, clear, organized window. Unlike with the credit card tracking, they don't seem to be making any suggestions about how you might save money by switching to a different investment firm. You also can't yet push assets between accounts through Mint. As before, you will have to give up your username and password to your various financial services to let Mint scrape the data. The new brokerage features are hardly mind-blowing, but by having investment-tracking now Mint can basically be your entire financial dashboard, you just can't touch all the levers yet. Sexy screenshots, inside... More »
Personal finance management site Mint.com is launching a beta for its new investment tracking system on May 6th. [Mint]
The 33 biggest corporate implosions of all time. We like that they included The South Sea Company, whose stock price collapsed after reaching an artificially inflated peak in the 1720. It was called the "South Sea Bubble" and its collapse sent many investors, who had purchased the stock on credit, into bankruptcy. [HR World]
subprime meltdown
Real Estate Speculation: From A Trailer Park To Foreclosure On 4 Homes
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a fascinating article about real estate speculation in Minnesota. The article focuses on Bradley and Sarah Collin, a couple with three children who were living in a trailer park when they were suckered by a local "property management company" that (illegally) paid the couple $20,000 cash to buy 4 houses in a new subdivision. More »
videos
Dateline Investigates Shady Annuity Salesmen Targeting Seniors
Dateline did a hidden camera investigation into the world of shady annuity salesmen targeting seniors and playing on their emotions to lock their life savings away in funds they may never live to receive the benefit from, or pay stiff penalties, not disclosed in the sales pitch, for early withdrawal. In this clip, Dateline producers attended "Annuity University," a two-day session run by Tyrone Clark to teach them how to sell to elders. He settled with the state of Massachusetts after he published a sales pamphlet that told salespeople to treat seniors "like they were selling to a twelve year old" and to hit their "fear, anger, and greed buttons" to make the sale. He also sells questionable self-promotional tools and services. In one of them, a fake radio guy will call up the salesperson and interview them like they're a financial expert on the radio. The session is recorded and the salesman gets CDs to pass out, so they can pass themselves off as legitimate financial advisers. Video, inside...
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insiders
Confessions Of A Hedge Fund Manager Redux
n + 1 has a published a sequel to their much-beloved-by-us anonymous interview with a hedge fund manager. In this episode, HFM explains what went wrong with Bear Stearns:n+1: So can you tell me what happened with Bear Stearns? What were the steps?More »
Warren Buffett invests like a girl, and you should too. [The Motley Fool]
inventions
Best Buy Starts Venture Capital Fund
Best Buy leveraging its business acumen into the exciting field of venture capital investing. Called Best Buy Capital, it will, according to several job postings, "serve as a source of innovative growth options for the enterprise rooted in smaller, more innovative, and potentially disruptive opportunities." Sounds great! I have an idea for a new kind of digital tortilla chip clip. You know how you get down to the bottom of the bag of tortillas and you get the chip pieces that are small? And then when you try to dip them in salsa you get salsa all over your fingers? Well with my chip clip you would be able to grab a bunch of the chip pieces together. All dip, no drip! Plus, your fingers won't start to burn from the salsa exposure, irregardless of how long you use it. It would also have a digital timer and be USB-powered. Best Buy Capital, if you're interested, drop me a line. Inside, via DiversityInc Careers, a job posting for Best Buy Capital so maybe one of our readers can get a job there and then invest in my project... More »
stocks
Why You Shouldn't Invest in Your Company's Stock
Stories are emerging of Bear Stearns employees with significant losses in their company stock-based retirement holdings. Examples: a nine-year employee has reported losing $600,000 and a seven-year veteran lost $400,000. Similar stories are likely to emerge in months to come. And though subsequent reports may not feature staggering amounts like these, there are sure to be many with losses that are devastating to their personal finances. This situation underscores a basic guideline of investing: don't put more than 10% to 20% of your portfolio value into your company's stock. Why? More »
whoops
Jim Cramer Told Viewers "Don't Move Your Money From Bear! That's Just Being Silly!"
Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's Mad Money is now something of a laughingstock, after telling viewers on March 11th not to "move" their "money" from Bear Stearns. More »
investing
Don't Sell Your Stocks In A Bad Market
If you're a stock or mutual fund investor, odds are you've had second (or third or fourth) thoughts about what to do in this mostly down rollercoaster of a market. Between episodes of popping Tums and chugging Pepto-Bismol, it's likely that you've contemplated selling your stocks and waiting on the sidelines until things settle down a bit. CNN Money says that while this might seem like a wise path, it's exactly the wrong thing to do. They list four reasons why you shouldn't sell now, but the one that stands out among the pack is their reason no. 3 — you underestimate the risk of being out of stocks: More »
scams
Is Your CEO Getting Kickbacks Off Your 401k Fees?
Author David Loeper over in the WiseBread forums explains how your CEO could be getting a kickback from excessive fees on your company's 401k. The "administration fees" on some company's 401ks are sometimes 20 times as much as what it actually costs to run the fund. Part of these fees go back to the 401k admin via "revenue sharing." Usually the admin keeps it but sometimes they're so big that they go back to the employee's accounts. But instead of being credited back equally...
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ebay
What Can You Do If PayPal Holds Your Funds For 21 Days? Gamble With It In Their Money Market Fund
EBay's highly criticized fee changes—lower listing prices but a 67% increase in seller fees—kicked in last week, and next month eBay's payment service PayPal will start holding certain deposits for up to 21 days if PayPal considers the transaction "high risk." PayPal earns interest on any money it holds—and it's perfectly legal because PayPal is a deposit broker and not a bank. If you do find your money stuck in "high risk" detention, there's only one way you can attempt to earn money from the delay, and that's by sticking it in PayPal's Money Market Fund. More »
investing
Should I Invest In My Company's 401(k) Or Get It Alone?
Crapple writes:
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I'm 27, looking to start planning for retirement. My company has an arrangement through The Hartford group for our 401K and I read your article on Fund Level Expenses and how the broker will be earning compound interest on MY compound interest. I also ran across this article while researching:(and it also links to a Mutual Fund Expense Analyzer that might be handy for other Consumerist readers). The article is talking about getting yourself involved in an Index Fund that would have fee's of around .19% or so and going it alone.Most of the 16 investment options I have through The Hartford have a fee of over 1% (many over 1.25%)...
investing
Study Links Speeding Tickets And Risky Trading
People who get a lot of speeding tickets also engage in risky investing behavior, according to a new study. Finnish researchers compared a speeding ticket database and a database of all the trading portfolios of Finnish households. Their findings suggest that for these speeders, a sensible long-term investment strategy simply isn't interesting enough for them. They crave the thrill and excitement of churning over their investments more frequently. Each successive speeding ticket and investor received correlated to an 11 percent increase in their portfolio turnover. On average, the stocks they bought didn't do any better than the ones they had just sold.
Sensation Seeking, Overconfidence, and Trading Activity (PDF) [via NYT]
(Photo: Getty)
