Archive for January, 2007
« Previous EntriesThe SEC Guide to Mutual Fund Fees and Expenses
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007While doing some research earlier this evening, I came across a pretty good tutorial on the SEC website regarding mutual fund fees and expenses. They do a good job explaining each fee and what is supposed to be for.
Mutual Fund Managers Are Happy to Leave 2002 Behind!
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Assuming that 2007 turns out to be a good year for the stock market, mutual fund managers will be happy to forget about 2002. What am I talking about? Well, according to this Wall Street Journal article ($), the most often-used gauge of mutual fund performance is the 5-year average. As of […]
Charles Kirk’s Stock Market Lessons
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Charles Kirk of the Kirk Report has posted a list of stock market lessons he learned from his readers (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). I’m not a “trader” but that doesn’t mean that some of this stuff is applicable to me.
Why 12b-1 Fees Are Evil!
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007First off, what’s a 12b-1 fee? According to Investor Words, a 12b-1 fee is:
An extra fee charged by some mutual funds to cover promotion, distributions, marketing expenses, and sometimes commissions to brokers. A genuine no-load fund does not have 12b-1 fees, although some funds calling themselves “no-load” do have 12b-1 fees (as do some […]
UPS “Mail Innovations” - What the?…
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Lately I have noticed that some of the stuff I order online that was normally shipped with UPS is now being shipped via “UPS Mail Innovations.” I don’t see anything “innovative” about this program:
So, UPS picks up the package from the merchant and then hands it off to USPS for delivery. Wow! […]
Scott Interviews Rachel Kesel of “The Compact”
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007Scott over at MoneyBloggerPodcast has posted his interview with Rachel Kesel, founder of The Compact. What’s “The Compact” you ask? Well, according to their website:
We are a group of individuals committed to a 12-month flight from the consumer grid (calendar year 2007).
The Compact has several aims (more or less prioritized below):
To go […]
The Winner of Last Week’s Drawing
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007First off, I want to tell everyone thanks for their comments on my “How Am I Doing?” post. I was surprised by how “nice” the comments were until I went back and reread the part of my post that said, “leave a nice, CONSTRUCTIVE comment…” I didn’t mean that the comments had to […]
How Much House Can You Afford?
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007If you are thinking about buying a house, either for the first time or upgrading, it is a good idea to calculate how much of a mortgage payment can you afford. It’s best to calculate these numbers BEFORE you start looking for a house. Otherwise, you run the risk of clouding your judgment […]
What Percentage of Your Income Goes to Pay Your Rent or Mortgage Payment?
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007Here’s today’s Question of the Day:
What percentage of your monthly net income goes to pay your monthly rent or mortgage payment?
Be sure to include property taxes, insurance, and PMI. I also would include any home-equity loan payments.
I just ran our numbers and it came to 16%. WOO HOO! My wife and I […]
A Look at the Dow Jones Total Market Index Sector Performance
Monday, January 29th, 2007I remember seeing a periodic table of Dow Jones Total Market Index sector returns a few years ago but now I can’t find it anywhere. So, I decided to build my own. I downloaded all the historical data from DJIndexes.com, computed the total returns in Excel, ranked the returns for each year, and […]
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