Programmer's Investing Notebook         :: Investing notes from a software developer :: | About Me |

I fell for it. Have $25K in your accounts and you will get 30 free trades every month -- that's the offer from Bank of America (BoA). Because I had that amount with some cash and money from my Interactive Brokers account, I went for it. Now that my account is transferred to BoA it turns out I’m charged $10 for each trade!

The catch?

You have to have $25K outside of your investing account! Wholly shit! Who the hell is going to keep $25K in their savings/checking accounts? Definitely not me! I don’t need more than $5-10K in my savings account. I want to have my money invested, not sitting idle in an account.

I am going to look elsewhere and transfer my assets out of Bank of America.

One possibility is Zecco. They also have free trades and it seems like a good offer. I don’t see any catches – not yet, at least. :-) If that does not work out, I’m going to go back to Interactive Brokers ($1 per trade; 10 trades/month minimum), where I had my account for the past several years.

I guess the lesson for me is to read the fine print.

A great set of links on various topics related to investing. Check it out and select the ones you like. I'm sure you'll find something for you.

Reference
The Investor's Toolset: 57 Must-Have Web Resources, Ask The Advisor blog (excellent blog, BTW)

This is a good entry, link below, about the different cheap brokers out there. I am a fan of dollar-cost averaging, where you buy the same stock every month. That's how ShareBuilder works. Now, according to the post, SogoInvest is a good competitor to it. I use InteractiveBrokers, which costs me $10 per month and I get 10 free trades. However, dollar-cost averaging is difficult, since I cannot buy portions of the share, as you can with ShareBuilder. In any case IB is cheap and I like it but I might consider SogoInvest later.

Reference
SogoInvest.com - New Discount Brokerage, $3 Trades, MyMoneyBlog

I went to a local library right after work today. This has become a weekly activity for me. Why? To read the latest S&P Outlook newsletter, and the latest issue of Value Line Investment Survey. These two newsletters are probably the best you'll find. No question about it. They're expensive, though. So that's why I go to the library.

S&P Outlook (you can try it on-line for 30 days) ranks around 1000 stocks. Each stock has a rating of 1 to 5. 5 is the best (strong buy) and 1 is a strong sell. I've been following S&P Outlook for couple years now. I think I'm a better investor because of it. It just gives you a little bit more confidence in a company which you know has either a 4 or 5 rating. S&P Outlook is my favorite stock-picking resource.

I've always wanted to see Value Line stocks. Why? Because of the advertisement I receive from them, and also advertisements found in the SmartMoney magazine (which I also like). But over the last couple of weeks (several trips to the library), I've started to like Value Line more and more. I'm going to rely on it more from now on.

S&P Outlook gives you a list of good stocks. Value Line probably does as well. You know what I'm thinking. :-) If I find stocks that are recommended in both resources, I might do even better. Not to mention the added confidence boost.

Did I find any valuable information from them? You bet, check out my latest stocks "of interest," below.

The Wall Street Journal has an article about personal finance blogs. I subscribed through couple of them with Bloglines.com. Some of them look good, so take a look.

By the way, WSJ.com is my favorite daily newspaper. I read it every day before work. It's not cheap ($80/year; I pay $40 because I also have a subscription to Barron's), but it is worth every penny. I like to get my information from the most reliable source.

I used to love MSN Deluxe Charts. I still think they're good, but not for me. I switched to the Firefox browser and Firefox and Microsoft's ActiveX controls do not talk to each other. What I used to do is switch to IE if I wanted to see the big chart. It's cumbersome to do that. I want to see my charts in a new tab in Firefox. Guess what? I found such a chart: PerfChart at StockCharts.com. It takes a little time to get used to it, but I find myself using that instead of MSN Charts and I'm happy. (See image, below.)

ADP's chart is shown in the detached mode. It's a very interactive chart. If you maximize it, you see it on the whole screen. You can increase the date range by dragging the range to the left (up to 1506 days). It shows you performance during the selected period. That's exactly what I was looking for.

If you use Firefox, make sure you set up the following bookmark:

Location: http://stockcharts.com/webcgi/perf.html?%s
Keyword: dc

Just like the following.

Now when I type "dc adp" in the address bar, I get the chart of ADP (see the first image). It is a big time saver.

I used to like Scottrade a lot. Where else do you get free Mutual Fund investing? Where else do you get no inactivity charge? No longer at Scottrade, I'm sorry to say. :-( Scottrade limited the number of no-transaction mutual funds from 9000 to 900. I found out about this yesterday. For a while, I thought that I might have to stick to the 900 they have. Just wait, Stas. :-) I found out about FirstTrade. You basically get old Scottrade: $7 trades; FREE mutual-fund trading; no inactivity fee. I am switching over my IRA accounts and one other personal account to FirstTrade. (I use InteractiveBrokers as my main account, of course -- can't beat $1 trades.)

Here are the four best indicators for tracking the economy, as recommended by Money magazine.

Follow these indicators and you'll be as well informed as many professional investors.

Bureau of Labor Statisticts employment report (available bls.gov/ces), which tracks job creation.

The ISM Reports on Business (ism.ws), which take the pulse of the nation痴 industrial and service sectors by surveying executives in fields ranging from agriculture to retailing.

Consumer Confidence Index (conference-board.org), which gives a sense of consumers� willingness to spend and thus spur economic growth.

U.S. Leading Index (also at conference-board.org), a compilation of 10 economic indicators designed to predict how the economy will be behaving three months down the road

InvestorGuide.com pulls content from the best financial sites on the Web. News and commentary are posted on the front page, with links to additional news sites. A simple portfolio is provided by Barchart.com, and a drop-down list takes you to a wrap-up of current market activity. Enter a ticker symbol, and you can choose from a list of sources that provide pretty comprehensive research data, linking directly to the appropriate page. If you don't have a favorite research site and would prefer to sample the best, this is a great place to do it. [Excerpt from Barron's]

This is my favorite business magazine. It is published weekly, so it gives you timely information on the economy and the markets. It is very reliable (I'm subscribed to other magazines, but this one stands out as the winner in that category). It covers other areas, like news & technology. And it gives you yearly company rankings and lots more. If I had to pick one financial magazine, I would pick Business Week.

If you want to get it, search for it on Ebay (~$10/year); or get it free for 6 months from MagazineOutlet.com; or, even better, get a year free from My Bonus Center here. For the latter two, you must pay up front and call before the term expires to get your money back.

Investopedia.com: Financial Dictionary

For those of you who need to understand financial and accounting terms in
English this financial dictionary will be extremely useful. The dictionary has
several categories including buzz words (phrases whose meaning is unrelated to the words that make up the phrase) and terminology related to trading and taxes, among others.

Elsewhere on the Investopedia.com site are tutorials and lessons on finance and
investments for students and others interested in the topic.

Pretty good resource -- I came across it recently.

StockScouter gives you a 1-10 rating on a stock. I just found out about it recently, but it seems like a good investing-resource: it gives you a short company summary, pros & cons, outlook, and more. Not bad -- try it out.