Kevin Slater

5 hours ago, mike carey said:

My take on the indices is the same as @Kevin Slater's that the Dow is not a good representation of the overall state of the market, and that the wider S&P is better. That doesn't mean that they will offer divergent scores of where the market is, just that using the Dow brings the risks that any small sample size has for measuring a larger 'population'. Picking a different index (such as the Nasdaq) as the basis for an investment strategy is a different decision process. It's a discrete share of the overall market, and concentrating on such a slice of the market is not an unusual strategy.

All of that, and the moronic way it weighs the components (by ticker price rather than the far more rational market cap).  So if a stock splits say four-for-one, it loses three quarters of its weighting in the DJIA.  And many stocks simply cannot be added to the index because their nominal stock price would override all other components of the index.  Apple was excluded from the Dow until it issued a seven-for-one split which just happened to put make it eligible for the index.

Kevin Slater

I hate the Dow as a metric.  How 'bout the S&P at 5,000?

Kevin Slater

Moderator's note:  the gun debate stops here.

Sex Workers Have Been Shunned by Banks, Even When Their Work Is Legal - The New York Times

WWW.NYTIMES.COM

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Financial service companies often avoid what they deem high-risk industries like adult entertainment. When workers lose their accounts, they are left with...

I've seen this happen a bit.

Kevin Slater

Stop the personal barbs and stick to the subject at hand.  Several posts edited. 

Reminder that this forum is about personal investing, not politics.  Several posts have been hidden.

Can he just claim it's his vacation home?  Or a rental?  I've never had an insurance company drill down on who occupies the insured unit.

Kevin Slater

Retailers are oft eager to blame inventory shrinkage on shoplifters, but the true problem is more often their own employees.  And by definition, the stuff has disappeared, so most of the time you truly don't know.

Kevin Slater

42 minutes ago, Lucky said:

My account shows no interest earned at all, 15 months after purchase.

Drill down a bit.  On the main page (where it appears just to show your purchase price), click on the savings bonds link under current holdings.  There you should see the current total.  If you want more detail, click on the radio button next to Series I Savings Bond and hit submit.

Kevin Slater

Gents, let's get this forum back to personal finance and investing, and away from political bickering.  If you have a take about how to invest in a given environment, post it here.  If your post is simply to laud one administration or blame another, don't.  The investing forum is not your cudgel for political spats.

1 hour ago, Pd1_jap said:

Also Schwab is absorbing fidelity.

Huh?

Kevin Slater

My Fidelity ATM card charges nothing, reimburses any ATM fees, and gives me the spot exchange rate.  So does the Schwab checking account.

Kevin Slater

I held Phillip Morris back in the day, which has subsequently turned into shares of Altria, Phillip Morris International, Kraft and Mondelez.  I suspect ten or so of my holdings are the results of spinoffs from previous, larger entities which I held.

Wall Street seems to be waiting for Amazon to split off Amazon Web Services under the presumption that the two parts would grow faster if separated.  I expect the stock will get a very healthy bump the day that's announced.

Kevin Slater

Also, often the ATM will prompt you with a screen saying something like "the conversion rate we're offering you is XXX" which is invariably worse than the spot rate your bank will give you.  You have the option to accept (meaning the charge will go through as dollars but at their bad rate) or to decline (meaning the charge will go through as ,say, Euros and then get your bank's exchange rate).  You're best off declining their proffered rate of conversion.

Kevin Slater

Appears to be back.

Kevin Slater

Never met him, but have heard good things.  He has a lot of porn out there, if that helps.

Kevin Slater

Just met with him for fun, not work.  Good guy.

Kevin Slater

16 minutes ago, BuffaloKyle said:

Just saw on the treasury direct site:

• The Virtual Keyboard will be removed the week of May 7th to improve the customer experience.

Yay! I hate entering my password with that thing! I read awhile back too but didn't post on here they made it easier to change your banking information as well.

It was also really stoopid because they required your password to have at least one uppercase and one lowercase letter, then the virtual keyboard didn't make a distinction.

Kevin Slater

3 hours ago, BuffaloKyle said:

But I already spent $10,000 on an i bond in January! 😭

Dang that 0.9% fixed rate would have been nice. It hasn't been that high since November 2007. Now I gotta wait and see what this November will bring.

That's why we recommended 5000 & 5000!

Kevin Slater

So over the long haul, these new bonds will pay better than the previous offering. 
One play would be to keep your funds in a high yield money market fund (currently earning more than 4.3%) until mid-October, then purchase these new bonds to lock in the nice fixed rate and getting interest from the first of the month. 
Kevin Slater

I don't think you get ferry tickets in advance.  I never did.

There will be a couple of vans waiting for you at the train station to take you to the ferry for like $10 or so.  Same in reverse.

Kevin Slater

Most financial advisers and brokerages will have some financial planning tool, usually accessible online.  It'll ask you about your situation and give you the opportunity to input predicted expenditures.  I'm sure the tool doesn't mind if you mislabel hookers as something else.

Kevin Slater

6 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

I am also not into twinks....but I do know many porn performers have Twitter accounts where you can contact them directly. Obviously you're not going to be the first person there to ask about in-person meet ups. They will either say no or yes. But be prepared for sticker shock if they answer yes.

And, because discussing such arrangements over Twitter may violate some terms of service or something, perhaps include your number when you first hit him up, so he doesn't risk losing his account with 70,000 followers.

Kevin Slater

Folks who have an Apple credit card (that titanium one issued through Goldman Sachs) can now open a savings account in their Apple wallet.  By default, your daily Apple cash (the 1 to 3% you make back on purchases) would then be swept into the savings account unless you opt to have it continue going to Apple Pay.  The account currently pays 4.15%, but for me the big draw is to quit getting these measly $5 here, 8¢ there additions to my Apple Pay balance.

Kevin Slater

My impression is that one rarely gets the full value of gold once it's been made into jewelry.  Somehow that's different than just walking in with bullion or Krugerrand.  I'm open to be corrected.  But yes, shopping around would be a great idea in this case.

Kevin Slater