Financial Samurai

Like clockwork, I top-ticked the markets when I wrote “The Good Times Are Back Again” this past April.  The markets have since fallen about 9% as the Euro Zone goes bonkers over debt problems.  But, at least the message from the post is that it’s exactly during the good times where we need to be more disciplined in our finances, because we never know when the bad times will return.  Now that the bad times are back, is now the time to party like it’s 1999 and spend counter-cyclically?  Nope, because with the amount of volatility, by the time you finish reading this post, the markets might be surging again!

With this market correction, it’s pretty clear that everything isn’t peaches and cream.  US leading indicators have turned downwards, unemployment figures have stopped improving, and people are wondering whether Europe will be like the US, but much worse.  If you’re American living in America, look at the bright side of things: the US dollar is strengthening, and the 10-year yield has declined to 3.1%, which is leading to lower rates yet again!  The 10 year yield and all its glory really is the most beautiful figure to watch.  It can tell the story of everything and anything.

The USD will always be a global safe haven currency, no matter how hard we try and mess things up.  It’s good to see that we aren’t the only basket cases as investors sell the Euro faster than they can say tapas!  What’s going on now is that money is shifting towards US assets, namely the property market.  Combine an asset shift with cheap debt, and rental yields above the current risk-free rate of return (3.1%), you realize why smart money is moving into the US property market again.  Only a minority will agree with the attractiveness of the US property market, and therein lies the opportunity.

During bad times, it’s always good to re-evaluate your finances.  I’m not convinced the bad times are back and am actually quite sanguine about the economy.  All the same, here are some suggestions just in case things get ugly for longer.

TOP 5 THINGS TO DO WHEN THE BAD TIMES ARE BACK AGAIN Read more…

Michael Moore thinks he is pointing out injustices through his latest documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story“.  Instead, Michael simply reminds us that life isn’t fair in a free market economy where those who work hard sometimes get the short end of the stick through no fault of their own.

I find it ironic that one of the wealthiest documentary filmmakers is bashing Capitalism.  Despite highlighting that 33% of “young Americans” now believe in Socialism (37% for Capitalism, 30% undecided), it’s hard to argue for a better system.  It’ll be interesting to see if these young Americans still believe in Socialism by the time they reach their thirties and make some money.  Socialism just creates a new set of problems for society.  Is it really that bad buying a foreclosed property from someone who can’t pay their debt on time?  Property vultures are necessary to provide a floor in many devastated markets or else things go to zero and more people suffer.

There is a sense of self-righteousness when Michael tells the viewer that he can’t fight the system alone and encourages all to rise up.  Michael you aren’t alone.  Thousands upon thousands of us fight for what we believe in every single day.  I wish Michael would put his money where his mouth is and donate all his proceeds to helping victims he continues to highlight.

A STRANGE PLACE Read more…

Imagine two similar investors, Leslie and Bob.

• They each retire with a $500,000 portfolio.
• They each withdraw 4% of their portfolio in the first year of retirement, then adjust that amount upward each year to account for inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index).
• Their portfolios are identical: 60% in Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund and 40% in Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, rebalanced at the end of each year.
• The only difference is that Leslie retired at the end of 1994, and Bob retired at the end of 1999.

The Result? Read more…

The Rock Of Gibraltar, Only Backwards

Anybody want to guess what happened on Wed, January 19th right before the market fell off a cliff?  If you guessed Obama delivered a politically charged speech to rally for his own support and crucify others, you’re right!  On Wed, January 19th, Obama went on national TV to tell the world, “we want our money back” and “if they want a fight, a fight is what they’ll get.” The “they” of course, are “greedy rich” people.  The markets immediately started to sell-off and the S&P 500 is now down about 6% since.

Good old fashion class warfare is never good for the economy, neither is continuous political jibber jabber.  Do you ever remember a president being on TV as much as our current president?  The risk of overexposure is very real, and the record low approval rating for any president at this point in his term shows this.  The State of The Union address is supposed to be an opportunity to unify the people.  Besides the typical feel-good rhetoric, what I heard was a continued attack on others, protecting personal interest groups, and maintaining giant silos.

YOU SO CRAFTY NEBRASKA Read more…

The government introduced new legislation to tax all “big banks” 0.15% of their assets to recoup about $120 billion in TARP money.  What’s interesting is that the government is also taxing banks who did not receive TARP money, while conveniently leaving out AIG and the auto industry!

Three Takeaways From Asymmetric Regulation:

1) Because the government is imposing a tax on assets for all big banks, they are encouraging all banks to take excessive risk and accept hand outs in the future.  If a non-bailed out bank is getting punished, why not join in on the fun too?  Friends at government-owned Citibank all went down to the Rose Bowl using free $500 face value company tickets ($1,000+ in the after market) with tax payer’s blessings.  Meanwhile another friend who works at a non-TARP bank can’t spend more than $100 for a client dinner total, without having to get approval.  Message to friend: tell your bosses to party it up if Citibank is having a great time!

2) AIG is exempt from new taxation because AIG is 80% owned by the government.  If the government punishes AIG, they are punishing themselves.  Federal government employees are raking it in, and I’ve spent about one hour so far learning how be a $170,000 a year Department of Transportation employee if my blogging career doesn’t make it in three years.  So exciting to have such a lucrative back up!  Back off people, the job is mine!

3) The auto industry, which has paid back absolutely nothing, and is the biggest contributor of the $120 billion in tax payer losses is protected because the rank and file auto worker is deemed more precious than the rank and file finance worker.  I’m all for helping out hard working people who had nothing to do with the collapse.  But, what did your local TARP bank teller do? Nothing, just like the factory man at GM had nothing to do with the latest horrible design and corporate strategy of the 2010 Buick LaCrosse.  Remember when GM executives flew in their private jets to the Congressional hearings?  We need to support private jets for auto execs like we need to support higher taxes for more pork spending.

CONCLUSION Read more…

Craigslist is such a fun place to surf and save money.  I’ve sold a lot of junk, found some last-minute tennis partners, and even purchased some cool retro Air Jordans on the site.  There’s a sale everyday on Craigslist, hence why would you ever pay full retail?

I admit that I’ve clicked on some of the “Personals” section links in the past for fun (you know you have to), but no “Woman Seeking Man” post is funnier than the one you are about to read (originally posted circa 2007).  The great thing about the post is that it’s all about personal finance!

Thoughts That Crossed My Mind When Reading:

Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

Does she really think her first post wasn’t a little over the top?

Wow, she is a woman who knows what she wants!  Sexy.

So this is where gold diggers roam.  Must take notes.

Damn, that guy is funny, but what a prick, no wonder why I didn’t major in finance.

KAPOW, good counter, but why does she have to talk about receding hairlines, that hurts.

Is the counter response someone else?  “She” writes a lot, and needs to type shorter paragraphs.

She has a trader boyfriend already!  What’s she doing seeking more men?!

Hmmm, better find a way to make more than $500K a year!

Enjoy and happy first weekend of the decade!

WOMAN SEEKING MAN: “What Am I Doing Wrong?” Read more…

What is this blasphemy you say?  One of our main tenets is to observe what people DO with their money, and not what they preach.  The public clearly loves Bank of America and Wall Street again because how else would Bank of America be able to raise $19 billion from us, to pay us back?

In an “Open Letter To Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup” we urged Vik to sell the 34% government stake back to the very public that bailed Citigroup out before year-end. Why?  So Citigroup can pay their employees big bonuses in 2009 by saying they are no longer under the government’s stewardship.  Sure, paying back $45 billion in TARP sounds like a lot, but Bank of America just did it!

In fact, joining Bank of America are Bank of NY Mellon Group, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and State Street who’ve all been able to pay back their TARP loans and pay their people handsomely this year.  This begs the question, what’s wrong with Citigroup, one of my main “go broke banks” used to optimize my finances.

SORRY, I DONNO

Read more…

I thoroughly dislike watching CNBC for investing purposes due to all the noise.  When the markets are up, they bring on every single pundit to talk about how the market is going higher.  When the markets are down, they bring on all the bearish pundits to tell you why the world is coming to an end.  I remember when the S&P hit the ominous 666 level earlier this year, they brought in a “famed” technical analyst who said to expect S&P 200 by year-end.   What was her name again? I forget.  Watch CNBC for entertainment purposes mainly, and a little bit of learning.  Don’t watch CNBC to get rich.

Sometimes though, CNBC puts together something great.  And that great feat was bringing Warren Buffet (Columbia B-School Alum) and Bill Gates together in a town hall with all their business school students to ask them questions.

Here are some of the most memorable lines paraphrased from the show: Read more…

One of the points I write in “Party Like It’s 1999 – 10 Takeaways From This Recession” is that people have short memories.  Back in the first quarter of 2009, there was massive populist outrage over Wall St. bonuses.  Who could blame the people, when folks such as Andrew J. Hall collected $100 million despite Citigroup taking tens of billions in assistance from the government and is now 1/3 owned by us.

The Wall Street Journal reported that 2009 Wall Street compensation will breach 2007 levels, and Goldman Sach’s average compensation per employee will reach $734,000 vs. “only” $364,000 last year and 12% higher than 2007 peak!  WOW!  Sign me up!  I almost spit out my Honey Nut Cheerios when I read the news.  Yet, after scanning over 200 blogs yesterday not one decided to highlight this story.  Meanwhile, take a quick search of posts 10 months ago and you can see the outrage that populated the media. Read more…

Partying With Prince

In the past 10 years we’ve come full circle and finally re–re-breached Dow 10,000 yesterday!  Bust out the party hats and call up your favorite car dealer, because money is now raining from the sky!  I fully admit that being defensive so far this October has been wrong.  Instead, I should have taken the illusory $400,000 in home equity increase Zillow told me, dumped it in my E-trade brokerage account, levered it up to $1.2 million and bought 35,000 shares of DDM (Ultra Dow30 ProShares ETF)!  Too bad, I’m too conservative and not smart enough to realize the world has changed.

This year’s rally has been outstanding, and the more I get to know the personal finance community, the more I realize that A LOT of you are making a lot of money.  From one PF blogger who writes his site helped lead him to a job earning  50% more, to another’s proclamation of a 10% net worth jump in September, it’s clear that a lot of people are doing very well in this recovery.  I’m watching all of you, especially those who provide such transparent net worth updates!

I rarely hear negative anecdotes about job losses and foreclosures anymore.  Instead, there are a bunch of you who are buying new homes (congrats and good timing), steadfastly paying off debt, and finding new wealth.  The bus is like a can of sardines every morning, and I can no longer walk into my favorite restaurants without a reservation.  If that’s not the best indicator of a bull market, I don’t know what is.

10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS RECESSION Read more…

A reader writes in:  “FS, not sure if you heard the news, but Ken Lewis is stepping down as CEO of Bank of America by year end!  My colleagues and I work for a boutique bank, and were all hoping Ken would go on an acquisition binge again and take us out at a huge premium just like he did with Merrill Lynch.  What are we going to do?  A couple of us have already made plans to buy nice presents for our wives this Christmas on hopes that big Ken would show us the money!  Who do you think will be the new Ken to take us out?  Thanks, Jeff”

Slicing Response: Hey Jeff, we heard! We consider Ken Lewis to be one of America’s greatest Empire Builders of this century.  After swallowing Countrywide Financial, Ken’s decision to pay $50 billion for Merrill Lynch BEFORE the market opened when futures showed a 5% decline, rather than AFTER the market close was amazing!  What’s overpaying by at least $25 billion more among shareholders?  Ken was a great hero to thousands of Merrill employees for bailing them out.  Ken was also seen as the savior for many others in the industry who knew that so long as there was someone out there paying huge premiums, there was a chance at striking it rich. Read more…

Wall Street Bull

The following is a guest post by Elaine of Apprentice for Life. Elaine worked on Wall St. for 15 years after business school and provides some interesting thoughts on the much debated topic of Wall Street pay.  Elaine is a self-proclaimed “Lady of Leisure” (LoL) who enjoys traveling the world and experiencing life to the fullest.  I know Elaine personally, and she is one of the best examples of someone who has studied hard, worked hard, practiced good savings and investing habits, and decided to walk away on her own terms.

Please feel free to ask Elaine anything on the topic of Wall St. too, including the getting in and out process!  The topic of Wall St. pay will build steam especially as we head into the home stretch of the year when pay is determined.  Enjoy!

Wall Street Pay Regulation – How to Create a Win-Win Situation

Much has been written and debated over whether the government should regulate Wall Street bankers and traders’ compensation. The proponents and the detractors each have valid arguments to support their thesis. It is all but certain that some form of government regulation will be in place sooner rather than later. At the end of the day, the biggest question remains will the regulations work? The government can mandate certain rules to be met but as we all know, rules can be broken or circumvented. So here are my thoughts on how the Fed can help create a WIN-WIN situation: Read more…