Updated offers. TradeUP 5 free stocks. I have the strange hobby of trying out new fintech apps while also collecting their sign-up incentives. Here are several different brokerage apps that offer some variation of free stock trades, modern user interface, real-time quotes, and social sharing. Many are structured like a free lottery ticket with a minimum payout – the odds are that you’ll get a stock valued on the lower end of the ranges mentioned, but I have gotten a few big shares like AAPL before the recent split. They all require a referral link, which means I can get some free stocks as well. A couple are offering 2X to 4X their usual bonuses right now. TradeUP 5 Free Stocks Offer (Open in mobile browser) … [Read More...]

May 2021 predictions confirmed. The fixed rate will indeed be 0% for I bonds issued from May 1, 2021 through October 31st, 2021. The variable inflation-indexed rate for this 6-month period will be 3.54% (also as predicted). See you again in mid-October for the next early prediction for November 2021. Don’t forget that the purchase limits are based on calendar year, if you wish to max for 2021. (I’m going to max out by the end of May.) Original post: Savings I Bonds are a unique, low-risk investment backed by the US Treasury that pay out a variable interest rate linked to inflation. With a holding period from 12 months to 30 years, you could own them as an alternative to bank certificates of deposit (they are liquid after 12 months) … [Read More...]

Here are my notes on the 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting (YouTube, transcript). It was nice to see things nearly back to “normal” with Buffett offering up some lessons and going into some side details, while Munger just gets to the point (and says the stuff Buffett probably secretly wants to say but doesn’t due to the potential blowback). Preshow comments. First up, a good observation by Karen Wallace of Morningstar during the Yahoo Finance Preshow (of the Super Bowl for Capitalist?!): Buffett and Munger Don’t really like to speculate with their shareholders’ money. The thing about Warren Buffett is that he didn’t strike oil or develop software, inherit a big pile of money. He built his fortune by picking really solid businesses that… [Read More...]

Updated. My favorite option in the now-crowded “robo-advisor” category is technically not a registered advisor at all, it is M1 Finance. Here’s a quick rundown of what makes them different: Fully customizable. You pick your own target asset allocation “pie”. (You can add ETFs or individual stocks.) You can simply copy one of the many model portfolios out there, or customize it as you like. You have full control! M1 handles the boring stuff, like rebalancing or dividing a $100 contribution across 8 different ETFs. Here is my pie which I named the My Money Blog Portfolio. No commissions. Free stock/ETF trades with a low $100 minimum account size for taxable accounts and a $500 minimum for retirement accounts. 0.00% management… [Read More...]

While my April 2021 portfolio asset allocation is designed for total return, I also track the income produced. Stock dividends are the portion of profits that businesses have decided they don’t need to reinvest into their business. The dividends may suffer some short-term drops, but over the long run they have grown faster than inflation. Here is the historical growth of the S&P 500 absolute dividend (source): This is true despite the fact that the S&P 500 yield percentage are again near historical lows, along with interest rates (source): I track the “TTM” or “12-Month Yield” from Morningstar, which is the sum of the trailing 12 months of interest and dividend payments divided by the last month’s ending share price (NAV) plus any capital gains… [Read More...]

The 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting was on May 1st, 2022 and is now available as a recorded video on Yahoo Finance and a handy Rev.com transcript. I expect the podcast version to be updated shortly. I recommend listening or reading on your own, as I always find valuable tidbits outside the media highlights. Buffett started out with the 2021 version of his annual advice for the average investor that doesn’t read 10-K SEC filings, shareholder annual reports, and multiple newspapers in their entirety every day: buy index funds. Buffett created a few slides for those “new entrants” who might think stock market investing means trading 25 times a day on Robinhood. Here are the 20 most valuable companies in the world as of March 31st, 2021. The list … [Read More...]

The WSJ article How to Know if Your Retirement Savings Are on Track tries to answer what is likely a very common question: My wife and I are in our early 50s. We hope to retire in about a dozen years, and we are trying to figure out if our nest egg is on track. How large should our savings be at our age? Obviously, everyone’s situation is different, but the WSJ appears to have collected the rules of thumb from a few big financial firms – including Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and JP Morgan – and averaged them into this chart: The chart indicates that a couple with a gross household income of $75,000 should target a nest egg of $412,500 at age 55, with that … [Read More...]

When talking about constructing an investment portfolio, you’ll often hear about diversification and buying low-correlation or non-correlated assets. A positive correlation means that the assets tended to move in the same direction. A value of 1 is perfect positive correlation. A negative correlation means that they tended to move in opposite directions. A value of -1 is perfect negative correlation. A zero correlation means that they had no relationship. Morningstar recently released its 2021 Diversification Landscape Report (free download with e-mail) which includes a lot of great information about the correlations between key asset classes from 2001-2020, including the March 2020 COVID-related market crash. I try not to look too finely at historical numbers, but noticing the overall historical trends can be helpful. The lower the correlation … [Read More...]

Here’s my monthly roundup of the best interest rates on cash as of April 2021, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. There are many lesser-known opportunities to improve your yield while keeping your principal “safe” (FDIC-insured or equivalent). Check out my Ultimate Rate-Chaser Calculator to see how much extra interest you’d earn by moving money between accounts. Rates listed are available to everyone nationwide. Rates checked as of 4/5/2021. Fintech accounts Available only to individual investors, fintech accounts oftentimes pay higher-than-market rates in order to achieve high short-term growth (often using venture capital). I define “fintech” as a software layer on top of a different bank’s FDIC insurance. Although I do use some of these after doing … [Read More...]

As an extension of High-Yield Crypto Accounts: 6% Interest in Bitcoin or 9% Interest on Stablecoin, I’m trying to better understand the potential scenarios that might cause loss of principal. Even if you’re tired of crypto talk, you should be aware that newer “savings account” apps exist that advertise high interest rates to mainstream customers while playing down their lack of FDIC-insurance and reliance on cryptocurrency markets. Traditional bank lender model. You deposit your cash into a bank. The bank lends that money out for things like business loans and mortgages, charging them interest. The bank passes on some of the interest to you, and keep the rest as profits for itself. However, if the bank makes enough bad loans, it may … [Read More...]

This WSJ article is the first mainstream financial article that I’ve seen discuss the high interest rates paid on Bitcoin and stablecoin (cryptocurrency backed by a “stable” asset like the US dollar). I am (again) not a cryptocurrency expert, but it does seem appropriate to educate and warn other curious investors about the risks. Here’s my take: The price of Bitcoin can vary a lot. It probably went up or down by a hundred dollars in the time you took to read this sentence. Stablecoin prices tend to vary less because they promise to be backed by a stable asset. USDT (Tether) and USDC (USD Coin) are both currently trading exactly at US$1.00, so it appears that the public believes this claim. However, US … [Read More...]