More water cooler discussion. My colleague and I were discussing summer reading the other day and I disclosed that I was reading up on personal finance. She chimed in that she had gone through an investment book called “Chicks Laying Nest Eggs”. Uh-huh. Not “The Intelligent Investor”, “The Four Pillars of Investing”, but a book on… poultry? In her words, it is a true story about a group of women who started an investment club and how they made lots of money beating the pros consistently. I guess the book is supposed to be women friendly and speak in terms in which we can relate. Frankly, I’m not sure how I feel about marketing to a specific gender. Not having read the book, my hackles started to rise. Are they dumbing it down for women? Am I being oversensitive without just cause? Then self-consciousness takes over. Do I blog like a girl? And if I do, what’s wrong with that?

Since I started blogging, I now know a little bit about niche markets. However, I don’t understand why if the financial advice is good, you would alienate half the population? Perhaps it’s a matter of the personal finance pie being so big, you just want to get your slice. Just look at David Bach’s bestseller, “Smart Women Finish Rich”.

I’m not going to explore the psychological differences between men and women regarding money, because I don’t want to be labelled like an astrological sign. However, I did review my reading habits of finance blogs. I have to admit that the blogs I like are primarily authored by women. From my observations, women tend to dispense financial advice in the form of a diary which promotes readership loyalty. Men mainly blog about facts to become a trusted source of financial matters. Both methods work; it’s just a matter of taste. And of course, the super successful bloggers use a combination of both techniques.

Recognizing my personal preference made me less snobbish about my book reading habits. After all, if you learn something from it, isn’t that all that matters?

Blogging :: 25 Comments »

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Wooly Woman from Clawing Our Way to Financial Health tagged me with Moolanomy’s My One Money Advice (MOMA) Meme.

Ooh, I got invited to play reindeer games! My financial suggestion would be to “just do it”. Far too long, people have abdicated their financial responsibilities to settle for mediocrity. Mediocre banking services, interest rates, financial advisors, etc. As long as our lives are not inconvenienced, we settle for the status quo. The financial industry preys on this. Bloody leeches.

Why don’t we want better for ourselves? We are the ones who truly has our best interest in mind. So my advice is to take action now. Change for the better and get informed. Do your home work, do your due diligence, read the fine print, whatever. You’d be surpised how far you can stretch your boundaries of knowledge. And if finances really isn’t your thing and you leave it to a professional, at least set up regular reviews. You don’t want to end up like some sad, broke child actor, do you?

I will tag Growth in Value, and uh… Dang, the people I read have been tagged already or don’t know I exist! Can I just slap myself a few times and call it even? Such is the life of a new blogger.

I will do drive-by tagging.

I will tag Trent from the Simple Dollar because he did the Carnival of Personal Finance #114. Thanks for the backlinks and I’m doing likewise!

I just stumbled onto the MoneyNing today because of the headline free copy of MS Money 2007 Deluxe. I will tag David because linking to the post will give me a free entry. But his blog seems very professional and well written. I will return!

Krystal has been tagged so I will finish off tagging the rest of my blogroll: A Canadian and Her Money and the Canadian Capitalist. Throwing out link love but good reads!

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There certainly has been a lot of water cooler conversation at my place of work regarding the market volatility from the last week. I mentioned that my portfolio had gone down so one of my colleagues advised me that I should not invest in anything so risky. Okay, so if you have read about my trials and tribulations in investing, you know I’ve made some bad stock picks but I am trying to learn from them. I’d also like to say that my stocks account for a whopping 3.8112% of my portfolio. The majority of my money is in index funds with a few mutual funds thrown in. I’ve ignored the ABCP troubles, and I’ve been putting extra money into a money market fund. It’s not like I’ve been gambling my future away.

Therefore, I hate it when people go on a power trip saying they leave their money to their brother-in-law financial advisor so they don’t worry about “that stuff”. Then they regurgitate the same drivel that at their age, they have a conservative portfolio for their impending retirement. If they are so concerned about their retirement, shouldn’t they be more knowledgeable about the state of their financial affairs? Wouldn’t the avalanche of bad financial press merit a curious phone call to say, “how am I doing”? I also have concerns doing business with family.

Maybe I’m just griping from my experience with my ex-advisor and I’m sure there are very good ones out there who have their clients’ best interest at heart. But for goodness sake, don’t put your head in the sand when your retirement is only a few years away and lecture me about my investment decisions.

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As someone who has never taken an economics course, I’m fascinated by the domino effect of what is now going on in the financial world. First there was the sub-prime issue, and then it spilled into asset-backed commercial papers and now I read about something called a yen carry trade?

For those not familiar with what this is, this is a strategy where investors borrow the Japanese yen at near zero interest rates to invest in other global assets which have higher yields. Sounds great, sign me up! But as with all borrow to invest strategies, things can go awry when events occur to disrupt the standard ebb and flow. Events such as… oh, the global credit crunch.

In times of uncertainty, traders exited the yen currency trade which lowered liquidity in the global market. In doing so, repurchasing the yen to cover the loans resulted in the currency’s appreciation. The higher currency and the threat of a slowdown in the US economy sent big time Japanese exporters into a tailspin. The Nikkei index dropped a whopping -5.42% Friday, despite a third injection of liquidity by the Bank of Japan within a week.

Okay, so what are the implications of this?  Japan is the second largest economy and with a dry up of liquidity, the global buyouts we are so used to seeing will happen less frequently. Oh, and those high growth emerging markets? Don’t be surprised if they have taken out yen denominated loans and the leverage play is now less profitable. The ramifications are endless.

What does this have to to with a small-time beginner investor like me?  Probably nothing; just as the sub-prime and the ABCP have little effect on the buy and hold investor.   I have faith in the ability of humans to rebound as countless historical stock market charts will tell you. In fact, I’m looking at entry points to companies and ETFs. However, I will not invest more money in market uncertainty. The Fed’s cut on discount rate this past Friday has helped soothe liquidity concerns but I’m looking for further assurance to what the Bank of Japan does on August 23.  Until the dust settles, I’m going to wait on the sidelines.

Definitions, In the news :: 1 Comment »

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A lot of brain cells have been hurt the past few days trying to figure out the bottom of the sub-prime correction. I’d love to know myself but alas, I’m a mere mortal. Instead, I assembled a few articles on shopping market timing – the best days to buy stuff in case we still had cash.

SmartMoney.com offers an article entitled: The Cheapest Days to Buy Certain Items

MSN Money has a bolder claim with: The best time to buy – anything

But CNN Money just trumps it: The best time to buy everything

Everything > anything?

Anyways, I always bookmark these sites for reference in case I’m about to buy a big ticket item. If you have any insights in the retail or service industry, please share. I figure we all need a refresher as we are probably poorer than we were before the whole credit crunch thing.

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