If you own stocks in a taxable brokerage account and make charitable donations, consider donating your stocks this year instead of just writing a check. Why? Given the all-time market highs, your stocks, mutual funds, and/or ETFs probably have unrealized capital gains. When you donate an appreciated security that you’ve held for at least a year, you’ll both avoid paying long-term capital gains tax AND get a tax deduction for the full current market value. This HCR Wealth Advisors graphic shows the benefit using the example of donating $50,000 of stock to charity with an original cost basis of $30,000. It assumes the highest long-term capital gains tax rate of 23.8% (20% plus the 3.8% Medicare surtax for high-income … [Read More...]

The big news while I was on vacation was that Schwab bought TD Ameritrade for $26 billion in an all-stock transaction (press release). Well, first Schwab shaved off 17% of TD Ameritrade’s value by cutting their trade commissions to zero, and then they bought AMTD at a multi-billion dollar discount to what it would have cost just a month earlier. Nice move. Now that trade costs have gone to zero, and index fund expense ratios are also pretty much zero, what’s left? Vanguard funds now have a greater market share of all funds and ETFs than that of its next three biggest competitors combined, per this Marketwatch article: That doesn’t include Schwab funds, which aren’t even on the chart. Vanguard dominates … [Read More...]

Investment research firm Morningstar has released their annual 529 College Savings Plans analyst ratings for 2018. While the full ratings and plan analysis for every individual plan are restricted to paid premium members, the vast majority are mediocre and can be ignored. You choices are pretty much (1) your in-state plan for the tax benefits or (2) the best overall plan if you don’t have good in-state perks. Here are the Gold-rated plans for 2019 (no particular order). Morningstar uses a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rating scale for the top plans and Neutral or Negative for the rest. My529, formerly the Utah Educational Savings Plan Invest529 College Savings Plan, Virginia Bright Start College Savings, Illinois Scholarshare 529 College Savings Plan, California The top 3 were Gold … [Read More...]

Here’s my monthly roundup of the best interest rates on cash for November 2019, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. There was another Fed rate cut last week. I track these rates because I keep a full 12 months of expenses as a cash cushion and also invest in longer-term CDs (often at lesser-known credit unions) when they yield more than bonds. Check out my Ultimate Rate-Chaser Calculator to get an idea of how much extra interest you’d earn if you are moving money between accounts. Rates listed are available to everyone nationwide. Rates checked as of 11/5/19. High-yield savings accounts While the huge megabanks like to get away with 0.01% APY, it’s easy to open a new “piggy-back” savings… [Read More...]

(New promo: Get 20% off Lyft rides from now until February 18th, 2020 when you link your SoFi Money debit card as the default payment method. No other activation or promo code required. Up to $1,000 cash back. Don’t open a new account through that link though, read below and get a $50 bonus.) Updated with new Direct Deposit bonus, referral offer details. SoFi (“Social Finance”) is expanding from students loans into a cash management and stock brokerage account. Both are competitive and modern app-first products, but enter a crowded field. To get your attention, they are offering $50 and $100 bonuses to try them out, and if you have a spouse/partner, you can refer each other to grow the total bonus … [Read More...]

One of the common reasons given for only investing the S&P 500 or only US-based companies is that the businesses operate globally. “McDonald’s and Coca-Cola sell burgers and soda everywhere. Disney is everywhere. ExxonMobil sells energy around the world.” I understand the sentiment, but how about some real numbers? The Morningstar article Investing Close to Home Is Overrated breaks down the revenue by region for some popular ETFs that track broad US and International stock indexes. A few quick takeaways: Companies in the S&P 500 or Total US index get about 65% of their revenue from the United States and 35% from the rest of the world. Companies in a Total World ex-US index only get about 15% of their revenue … [Read More...]