By 2 Cents on November 29th, 2010 | Category: Investing |  Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
~Jonathan Swift, A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind, 1707
Update: This article was included in the 10th Edition of the Canadian Personal Finance and Investing Carnival at Personal Dividends as well as the Carnival of Personal Finance #286 at Prairie EcoThrifter. Thanks!
Have you read about the massive insider trader probe being conducted in the U.S. at the moment? Recent news reports of numerous FBI raids on hedge funds and at least one arrest have been met with mixed reactions and much debate. I thought I might as well throw my two cents in the hat as well, and of course, ask you what you think about all of this.
Perspective Matters
As with any [...]
Read on and enjoy … Insider Trading Probe: Misplaced Justice?
By 2 Cents on November 26th, 2010 | Category: Book Reviews |  Our generation might have grown up in an era of relative opulence, but as I make use of a closet full of second-hand baby clothes and a hand-me-down crib, I can’t help but feel lucky that we had the chance to learn some of that old-school frugality.
~ Kimberly Palmer
Today’s opening quote comes from a new book by Kimberly Palmer, the Alpha-Consumer blogger and columnist for US News & World Report. It’s called Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing, and Giving Back. It hit the shelves shortly after Kimberly and her husband welcomed their first child, so she’s knee-deep in all of the opportunities and challenges she discusses in the book. You can win a free copy by leaving a comment below. (Sorry, but this particular draw is only available to U.S. readers.)
The “generation” referred to in the title and [...]
Read on and enjoy … Book Review: Generation Earn
By 2 Cents on November 24th, 2010 | Category: Planning |  Having a proper plan makes everything easier and increases the likelihood of success.
~ Frank Wiginton
Frank Wiginton has written an e-book called Financial Planning: Helping You Sail Successfully into the Future. He recently asked for my comments on the book and I thought you might be interested in the e-book as well, so I’ll offer a quick review here. You can download the PDF for free by clicking on the title or the image to the left. (For the record, I don’t have a formal business relationship with Frank, nor am I receiving any compensation for writing this review. I just found the e-book interesting and I thought you might too.)
Frank is a personal finance speaker, educator, coach, and a Certified Financial Planner with TriDelta Financial. You may recognize his name from media appearances on Business News Network (BNN), Citytv, Global TV, CBC Radio [...]
Read on and enjoy … Financial Planning: Free e-Book
By 2 Cents on November 22nd, 2010 | Category: Economics |  Even when we know what is right, too often we fail to act. More often we grab greedily for the day, letting tomorrow bring what it will, putting off the unpleasant and unpopular.
~Bernard M. Baruch
We all knew the GM Initial Public Offering was coming. I was not a fan of bailing out the auto companies, but I thought I would feel at least a little happy to see them exit bankruptcy and list their shares again. After all, I live right across the river from Detroit. GM used to have a sizeable presence here in Windsor.
In fact, just a short drive from my home, I can stand at the edge of the Detroit river and look directly at GM headquarters. It used to be called the Renaissance Center. I can remember when it was built, although I was only in Grade 2 at the time. [...]
Read on and enjoy … Thoughts on the GM IPO
By 2 Cents on November 19th, 2010 | Category: Book Reviews |  Synchronized markets warp perception and force politicians and investors alike into historic errors – but eventually collapse under their own contradictions.
~ John Authers
John Authers, investment columnist for the Financial Times, explains why so many market orthodoxies were smashed during the financial crisis in The Fearful Rise of Markets: Global Bubbles, Synchronized Meltdowns, and How to Prevent Them in the Future. Published by FT Press, the book offers a comprehensive treatment of the factors that led to the global synchronization of markets as well as some cautions for those who still cling to these orthodoxies. More than that, Mr. Authers has some concrete suggestions for how to prevent these synchronized bubbles in the future.
5 Trends from the Fearful Rise of Markets
Mr. Authers weaves five main themes throughout the book. Over and over we see these trends borne out in the [...]
Read on and enjoy … Book Review: The Fearful Rise of Markets
By 2 Cents on November 17th, 2010 | Category: Economics |  The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
~Daniel Webster
Update: This article was featured in the Carnival of Wealth #13 posted at Personal Dividends. Thanks!
I used to think that accounting principles were sort of set in stone like 2 + 2 = 4. You take account of how much you have and how much you owe. End of story. Dealing with my own finances and watching some of the voodoo accounting to which we’ve borne witness over the past few decades has caused me to realize that there is more art than science to accounting practices.
What is my net worth? That depends on the value I assign to my assets. I might say my house is worth $300 000, but if I can’t find [...]
Read on and enjoy … Are Public Pensions the Next Bubble?
By 2 Cents on November 15th, 2010 | Category: Investing |  The following is a guest post by Rob Bennett. I encourage you to think about and comment on his ideas. I’m a big fan of Robert Shiller’s work myself. - 2 Cents
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Here are some words put forward by Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller in his book Irrational Exuberance:
“The valuation of the stock market is an important national — indeed international — issue. All of our plans for the future, as individuals and as a society, hinge on our perceived wealth, and plans can be thrown into disarray if much of that wealth evaporates tomorrow.”
We all have political views. And we all have investing views. Most of us don’t think of the two types of views as intersecting. Politics is the process by which we decide where we want to go as a society. Investing is personal. It’s the process by which each of us [...]
Read on and enjoy … Stock Investing Is a Political Act
By 2 Cents on November 12th, 2010 | Category: Investing |  I’m away for a few days, so I’ll have a couple of guest posts for you today and Monday. Today’s post comes from Rachel at MomVesting. She’s got an interesting take on my What Is a Balanced Portfolio post. I enjoyed this and I hope you will too.
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Our esteemed host is an advocate of balance, and honestly we are too. We believe diversification is good, but only when it’s good diversification. Let me explain. Even in the case of a well-diversified portfolio, sometimes all you’re doing is guaranteeing worse returns than you’d expect otherwise. If anything was failsafe in investing, then everyone would do it.
What is Balance?
In her post about balance, 2 cents looks at how she can claim to be balanced when she doesn’t own any stocks. There’s no inherent lack of balance in lacking a certain [...]
Read on and enjoy … In Praise of Imbalance
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