First, my apologies to those of you who are not geeks (and just wish you were).
Because… it’s a good time to be a geek. Tech stocks are performing well, and there is no one better to take advantage of this rally than fellow geek investors like you. Even the NASDAQ is back with a vengeance.
There is a lot of talk these days about a new tech stock rally. Below are just a few of the reasons tech stocks are getting so much attention these days.
Our feed has moved to a new location! Subscribe now at http://feeds.feedburner.com/InvestorGeeks. Also, you can find our feed link in our Main Menu at the top of every page. Thanks!
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past week working with the Morningstar Premium Fund Screener, a tool used to search for mutual funds based on filtering criteria. Think of a screener as both a search engine and a pair of blinders. Not only will it help you discover new funds but it will also keep you away from funds that may post high short-term results but have a lot of inherent risks.
This screener is the best I’ve seen for mutual funds and in addition to access to Morningstar analyst reports, makes the Morningstar Premium subscription worth every penny of the $135/yr fee. If you can get a friend or two to split it with you, all the better! Think of it this way, if you have $15,000 invested in mutual funds and this subscription lets you pick up an extra 1% annually, it has more than paid for itself.
Just wanted to let you know that this week’s carnivals are up. Read and Enjoy! Carnival of Investing at Free Money Finance Carnival of Personal Finance at AllThingsFinancial
A week or so ago I wrote an article about the Money Market. As I mentioned then I’ll be in an out of it for awhile. After looking back at that article I’ve realized that even though I posted something, it wasn’t of any value, and was confusing at best. Rather than edit the original article and erase any trace of my mistakes, I’d rather leave it as is and take a second shot at it.
In my last article, I discussed starting my portfolio, and a strategy for allocating assets efficiently while keeping the number of accounts and fees manageable. As I stated in that article I think it’s very important for those of us who want to eventually become more involved with individual stock investing to have only a small portion of our funds in a brokerage account. Because we’re very inexperienced, risking too much of our portfolio with individual stocks can leave us open to a lot of unnecessary risk. That’s why I advocate starting simply by learning the basics then building a foundation of a few stock and bond mutual funds, before allocating more to individual stocks.
This strategy may not be exciting, but to paraphrase Ben Graham, author of The Intelligent Investor, true investing should be boring. By learning the basics we can understand the full range of investments available and how to maximize their returns. We can then invest in relatively safe but consistently well-performing mutual funds. Not only do mutual funds provide instant diversification, but they also give us focus as we continue to learn about more advanced investing topics. As I will mention again, we have a lot to worry about when we’re just starting out. There’s no need to add risky investments to that list before we’re ready.
As part of my forthcoming portfolio strategy, I was trying to find information on the best S&P 500 Index funds. As you may or may not be aware, Vanguard created the first S&P 500 index fund in the 1970’s. An S&P 500 index fund aims at tracking the performance of the S&P 500, regarded as one of the best (if not the best) total market indexes out there.
If you have less than $50,000 to invest in securities you kinda get screwed. All of us here at InvestorGeeks are just starting out, in our Mid-20s and have less than $50k in investments. Now I love to learn about investing, but I’m nobody’s fool, and so I want to build a foundation of safe diversified funds until I master selecting value stocks. However, because of my low account balances, I get whacked with maintenance fees that can be pretty stiff. This is a problem because I’d like to diversify my portfolio, but lose more and more of my returns because of these fees. So I’ve come up with an action plan, and I’m hoping you’ll provide feedback before I go ahead an implement it in the next couple weeks.
I woke up this morning wanting to answer one question more than any other. Why is the yield on a 2-year bond (4.37%) higher than the 10-year yield of 4.35%? [1]
After some research, I have to admit I’m still a little lost. Understanding how our economy runs is not my strong suit (you’d be better off reading Chris’s posts). But I’ll take a stab at this.
I’ve become very interested recently in fellow investment blogger Phil Town’s site, and so I’ve been reading it from start to finish. After reading much of his site, I’ve come to enjoy his style of writing and investing. Ever the skeptic though, I wanted to make sure he’s not just some shill on the web hawking his wares to an unsuspecting public. Everything I found has been good, and I was even able to find a new resource that he recommends frequently called the INVESTools Investor Toolbox.
About Phil Town
It’s important when investing to pick your advisors carefully. I have kind of a rating system for investment advice.
Poor – Any guy on the web. Pay little attention.
Fair – What he says passes the reason test. I’ll listen skeptically.
Good – Good track record, good advice. I’m listening, but still fact checking.
