Book Review: Origins of the Crash
Today I'm reviewing the book Origins of the Crash by Roger Lowenstein. It's on my Recommended Reading List. See my other book reviews on this list.
This book is about the 2000-2002 stock market crash. If you weren't an investor then, it's a good read to understand what the crash was about. If you lost a lot of money during the crash, it's good to understand why it happened, and more importantly if a crash will happen again.
Roger Lowenstein is a columnist for Smart Money magazine. He wrote for Wall Street Journal for over 10 years. This book is very well researched. Every chapter is backed up by tons of footnotes for further exploration. This quote, at the end of the book provides a good thesis of the book:
Carnival of Personal Finance #79
Carnival of Personal Finance #79 is up at A Penny Saved. My entry was comments on the best ways to invest a small amount (less than a few thousand dollars). These are my favorite posts in the carnival:
- How to Do Great Work – Hamming's Take at Watch Your Wallet. While it's important to spend less, save and invest money, doing a good job at work and increasing your income helps a lot too. There is a follow-up part 2 of the same topic as well.
- Love and Marriage – Impress yourselves not your friends at My Two Dollars. Great ideas on spending less for a wedding.
- How to be the CFO of your own life at Consumerism Commentary
- Send and receive free faxes at ProBargainHunter.com
Best Brokerage Firm for Bonds
This is a part of the TFB Awards for Best In Class in Financial Services series.
Fidelity Investments wins the TFB Award for Best Brokerage Firm for Bonds.
Although the TFB Award for Best Mutual Fund Company went to The Vanguard Group, I don't like Vanguard's brokerage service as much. I use a brokerage account for buying T-Bills, TIPS, and Agency/GSE bonds. For this purpose, Fidelity has the best service at the lowest cost ($0).
I'm Invited to Celebrity Conference But I Will Not Attend
I received in the mail two VIP tickets, said to be worth $69 each, to "the nation's #1 conference on Real Estate Investing & Total Asset Protection." The expert speakers in this conference include Robert Bluhm and Wayne Gray, neither of whom I've heard of. So who are Robert Bluhm and Wayne Gray? I used I'm Feeling Lucky on Google for Robert Bluhm and I got this link:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff110180.htm
Scam. Searching for Wayne Gray got me this:
Did Sunk Cost Fallacy Kill James Kim?
In the book Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them the authors Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich had an example for illustrating the Sunk Cost Fallacy which goes like this:
There is a basketball game tonight. It's snowing and the roads are dangerous. You already bought ticket to the game for $150 and there is no way to sell it or give it to anyone else. Do you decide to go or stay home? What if you haven't bought the ticket yet but you can get in for free if you go now?
Carnival of Personal Finance #78
Sorry for the late post. Carnival of Personal Finance #78 has been up since Monday at kirkwalsh.com. As usual, there are many great posts. My entry was about my recent experience of selling my used car. These are my favorite posts in the carnival:
- I Know What You Did This Christmas at The Digerati Life
- Inflation: The Nerd Out, The Reality, The Choices at No Credit Needed
- Personal Finance Writers Are Worthless… at Personal Finance Advice
- Online Mortgage Quotes at Searchlight Crusade
Giving Gift Cards as Holiday Gifts
Many people are buying gift cards as holiday gifts. I read somewhere that gift cards will account for something like 30% of the gift spending this holiday season. Apparently financial services companies and retailers are catching on and trying to make some money on this trend. American Express, Discover, and some banks sell gift cards that can be used in multiple places, but they add on purchase fees, shipping fees, inactivity fees, etc. and make it really expensive if you didn't pay attention to the fine prints. Gift cards issued by a specific retailer have fewer fees but they can be used only at that retailer. There must be a percentage of gift cards that end up not being used, so called breakage, just like unclaimed rebates, that fall directly to the retailer's bottom line.
This Wall Street Journal article, Cash: a Gift Unrestricted, says cash is the ultimate gift card. Come to think about it, it really is. There are no fees for giving cash and cash can be used on anything. Why do you want to give something with so many strings attached? If you look at the chart referenced in that Wall Street Journal article, you might want to think twice before you buy a gift card. I think giving cash (or check) is a great idea. It's more likely to be used on something more useful than gift cards.
You think giving cash is too cold? If you must buy a gift card, consider buying from a place that has broad selection with good prices. I think Amazon.com gift certificate is one of the best, because: » Read more …
CreditCard.org Top 100 Blogs to Watch in 2007
I'm surprised to find out that this blog was named as one of the Top 100 Blogs to Watch in 2007 by CreditCard.org. Considering the fact that this blog is fairly new and not many people know about it, I'm very happy about the recognition. I also started reading some blogs on the list I haven't read before. Thank you CreditCard.org!
About CreditCard.org » Read more …
Investing a Small Amount
Jonathan Clements is my favorite columnist. He writes a column Getting Going on Wall Street Journal every Wednesday and Sunday. I always seek out his column online every week and see what he has to say. A week ago he wrote about investing a small amount. Here's the link:
Start Small, Think Big: How to Launch Your Financial Life With Just a Few Bucks
Although I usually like with what Jonathan writes, I disagree with his suggestions in that column. Here's what he suggested for investing a small amount (less than $3,000). » Read more …
Carnival of Personal Finance #77
Carnival of Personal Finance #77 is hosted at Money and Values. I'm pleased that the host selected my post about ESPP as one of the informative posts she especially liked. Thanks Penny!
Here are some of the posts I liked:
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