By 2 Cents on July 31st, 2010 | Category: BJ News | I’d like to thank the editors at Seeking Alpha for inviting me to become a contributing author. That just means that they can republish any investing or market-related articles I write here on Balance Junkie over on Seeking Alpha. If you’re not familiar with Seeking Alpha, but are interested in the markets, investing, or economics, it’s a great way to gain access to a lot of information and opinions all at once. I like it because I can quickly find both sides of any debate articulated very nicely.
Whether you’re new to investing, you’re an avid market-watcher, or you just want to take a more active role in managing your money, you may want to browse through the articles and see what you can learn. I’m new to Seeking Alpha, both as a contributor and a user, so I’m still learning about all that the site [...]
Read on and enjoy … Balance Junkie Joins Seeking Alpha
By 2 Cents on July 30th, 2010 | Category: Investing | A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
~ Yogi Berra
Update: This article was chosen for the Best of Money Carnival, #Sexty-Two at Budgets Are Sexy. Thanks! It was also included in the first ever Carnival of Wealth posted at Personal Dividends. Thank you!
When we looked at the current pros and cons of investing in commodities and real estate, it became quite apparent that there are some pretty good arguments on both sides of the debate. We often hear contradictory truisms. Cash is trash. Cash is king. Which is it?
The correct answer is likely “it depends”. There are times when it’s prudent to hold more cash, and there are times when it makes sense to move more money into riskier assets like the ones we’ve been discussing this week. Today, we’ll take a look at the case for each and [...]
Read on and enjoy … Cash: Is It Trash or King?
By 2 Cents on July 28th, 2010 | Category: Investing | No man acquires property without acquiring a little arithmetic also.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Update: This article appeared in the Carnival of Financial Planning #153 at The Skilled Investor.
We continue our look at the prospects for various asset classes in the current market environment today with a survey of the commodities and real estate landscape. Both of these are usually considered hard assets. As Dennis Gartman always says, “if you drop them on your foot, they hurt”.
Generally speaking, hard assets like commodities and real estate tend to appreciate during inflationary times and depreciate during deflationary climates. So your view on whether to allocate money to these two may hinge on your position in the inflation vs. deflation debate. I tend to be in the camp that says we are currently in a deflationary environment, and likely will be for some [...]
Read on and enjoy … Commodities and Real Estate: Pros and Cons
By 2 Cents on July 26th, 2010 | Category: Investing | A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to us than the 99 which we had to work for, and the money won at Faro or in the stock market snuggles into our hearts in the same way.
~ Mark Twain
Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance #268 hosted by Ultimate Money Blog. Thanks!
I was going to do a single article on the pros and cons of investing in different asset classes right now, but I decided that there was too much information there, so I’m going to break it up into 3 articles which I’ll post this week. Today, we’ll take a look at the two asset classes you probably hear the most about: stocks and bonds.
The idea of this series is not to provide recommendations about which asset allocation is correct, but to [...]
Read on and enjoy … Stocks and Bonds: Pros and Cons
By 2 Cents on July 23rd, 2010 | Category: Investing | Invest a few moments in thinking. It will pay good interest.
~ Author Unknown
Update: This article appeared in the Canadian Personal Finance and Investing Carnival posted at Investing Thesis. Thanks!
We’ve been talking about bubbles all week. So far, we’ve outlined 5 financial bubbles and 5 socioeconomic bubbles that could affect your money and your quality of life. It looks like we may have a bubble of bubbles on our hands. Does that have to be a bad thing? How can we prepare for the popping of these bubbles? What does all of this mean for your investment strategy?
Traditional Advice
One perennial piece of advice is that diversification can smooth out fluctuations in your investment returns. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. That way, if you have 3 baskets and one is dropped or [...]
Read on and enjoy … No Respite in Diversification
By 2 Cents on July 21st, 2010 | Category: Economics | Socialism failed because it couldn’t tell the economic truth; capitalism may fail because it couldn’t tell the ecological truth.
~ Lester Brown
Update: This article was selected for the Best of Money Carnival #61 posted at Canadian Personal Finance Blog. Thanks Big Cajun Man!
On Monday, we looked at 5 financial bubbles floating around our economy and asked whether the proliferation of bubbles could mean that we’re in a bubble of bubbles. We defined a bubble as a structurally tenuous entity with nothing of substance at its core. Today we’ll look at 5 socioeconomic bubbles that could easily be viewed as both causes and effects of those financial bubbles.
The current version of capitalism seems to be based on the idea that growth is always good. Is that realistic? Is it desirable? Is it even capitalism? The very fact [...]
Read on and enjoy … The Culture of More: 5 Socioeconomic Bubbles Ready to Pop
By 2 Cents on July 19th, 2010 | Category: Economics |  Economic advance is not the same as human progress.
~ John Clapham
Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance #267 at Beating Broke. Thanks!
We’ve heard a lot about bubbles in the economic world over the past decade – so much, in fact, that it seems like we might be facing a bubble of bubbles. But what does that mean to the average person? We’ll take a look at some of the issues and implications of our bubblicious culture this week and try to figure out how to handle it all.
What’s a Bubble?
The term bubble has been tossed around pretty liberally of late, with just about every asset class having been labeled a bubble at one time or another. All the while some analysts keep insisting that some of these bubbles are just bugaboos [...]
Read on and enjoy … 5 Financial Bubbles: Are We Facing a Bubble of Bubbles?
By 2 Cents on July 17th, 2010 | Category: BJ News | Last week I posted a book review on Smart Tips for Estate Planning by Marvin Toy and Jim Yih. Jim was kind enough to offer a free copy to one reader. I included anyone who commented on the review itself or the free book post that went out the next day. I numbered the comments and had my son choose a number from 1 to 13. (There were 13 comments.) The winner was Gail. I hope you enjoy the book!
Financial News Roundup: Too Big for Your Britches Edition
This past week was pretty eventful in the world of finance and economics, so I thought I might try to sum up the relevant information for you here. As I went through some of the key events for the week, a sort of too big for your [...]
Read on and enjoy … Book Winner & Financial News Roundup
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