March 2009

Product Review: Nuru Personal Finance Cards

Posted by on March 16, 2009 in Investment Products

Nuru is a company based out of Salt Lake City, Utah with a mission to “provide portable, performance-enhancing knowledge to the masses.” Its latest product is the Nuru Knowledge for Real Life Personal Finance Cards. As the name implies, the Nuru personal finance cards are a set of 28 double-sided cards dealing with all things [...]

The bailout examined

Posted by on March 13, 2009 in editorials

A few notes before this week’s editorial/rant. For those entrerpreneurs who want to minimize tax, I guest blogged on Canadian Tax Resource yesterday on tax savings strategies.This blog is one of those hidden gems so please do subscribe to it. Today is also the 400th post of this blog! Thanks for everyone for reading and [...]

Would you invest in Facebook- an update

Posted by on March 12, 2009 in Investment Products

Last May, as a hypothetical question, I wondered if I would invest in Facebook if I even had a chance. The answer was no. On the cusp of Facebook’s latest version being launched next week, Fortune Magazine had a cover article on Facebook and asked, upon other things, whether Facebook would ever make money. To [...]

Job search tips: how NOT to get a job

Posted by on March 11, 2009 in Jobs

I hired an entry level employee in December who passed probation last week. Job searching is not particular fun for either the potential employee or the employer. I would describe job searching from an employer’s viewpoint as more of a weeding process than picking the right flower (to continue the analogy). Unfortunately, given the sheer [...]

Stock Investing: 5 signs of financial slight of hand

Posted by on March 10, 2009 in Investment Information

History has a way of repeating itself in stock investing. When the dot com boom crashed, there was a lot of criticism leveled at the amount of financial slight of hand that occurred to pump up earnings; stock investors chased earnings. But, upon second and third looks, there was next to nothing behind those earnings [...]

Does the bank have to reimburse if I am a victim of fraud?

Posted by on March 9, 2009 in Investment Information, Misc.

Last Tuesday, my brokerage account made an unauthorized withdrawal from my bank account. I saw the transaction on-line Thursday morning and called my advisor to inform him of this fact. To his credit, he immediately responded and said that they had no record of my authorization to the withdrawal and they would reverse it. It [...]

Mortgage worth more than your house?

Posted by on March 6, 2009 in Real Estate

Collectively, we tend to obsess over the value of our homes. Even though we have no intention of moving, we like to know what the neighbors listed their homes for and, more importantly, what they got for their homes.  With tools like Zillow, we can become a nation of real estate voyeurs. Thus, yesterday, the [...]

The end of buy and hold?

Posted by on March 4, 2009 in Investment Strategy

I received a cold call last Thursday from an investment advisor that went along the lines of the following (please speak slowly if you are cold calling me!): Hi I am Todd from XYZ brokerage house and I represent Mr. Big Time Trader. We are holding a seminar on March 16 on trading strategies now. [...]

Job search made easy?

Posted by on March 3, 2009 in Jobs

When a high-tech company announces a lay-off, the numbers can sometimes be deceiving. For the last several years, high-tech companies have asked many employees to go from being employees to independent contractors. The monetary compensation is approximately the same; the company is basically saving on benefits (which can be a runaway expense in an aging [...]

Dividend stock investing: more dividends, less appreciation?

Posted by on March 2, 2009 in Dividends

Robert Siegel recently noted that from 1981-2007 dividend stock returns has bucked historical trends. From 1871-1981,  dividends stocks paid 64.7% of its earnings in dividends (i.e. 64.7 cents of every $1 of profit was paid as a dividend) while experiencing relatively modest earnings per share (EPS) growth of 1.56%. However, from 1981-2007, one sees the [...]

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