The Sun’s Financial Diary

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Free Taxes & Trading E-Book from TradeKing
2009-03-13 20:21:00
Did you trade stocks or ETF/mutual funds in 2008? If you did, do you find it’s sometimes confusing about your investment cost basis,  taxes on capital gains, or capital losses carry-over? It wasn’t easy for me at tax time a few years ago when I first started to trade stocks while using pen & paper ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Free Taxes & Trading E-Book from TradeKing
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Bank Bonus Deals
2009-03-13 16:48:00
Looking for incentives to open a bank account? Following are some bonus offers valid for this month (March 2009) only. All of them are for checking accounts though. M&T Bank is offering $100 bonus when opening a M&T Direct Checking, Classic Checking (with interest), Select Checking or Power Checking or $25 bonus for M&T Totally Free ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Bank Bonus Deals
More About: Personal Finance , Banking

What I Checked Before Buying Loans from Lending Club
2009-03-12 19:27:00
I have been gradually building up my Lending Club loan portfolio in the past few weeks. Currently I have bought 29 loans through Lending Club Note Trading Platform, with loan returns from 10.20% to 15.68%. So far three payments have already been received with no late payment, which is a good and encouraging start. However, ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus What I Checked Before Buying Loans from Lending Club
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Credit Karma Free Credit Score Service Can Help You in This Economic Enviro
2009-03-11 16:50:00
The first time I wrote about Credit Karma was in January 2008, shortly after the web site which provides its customers with free credit scores, was launched. Initially, I was a little skeptical about their service, because they are giving one of the most important pieces of personal information, the credit score, for free, while ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Credit Karma Free Credit Score Service Can Help You in This Economic Environment: An Interview with CEO Ken Lin
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1.6 Million Maytag Refrigerators Recalled
2009-03-10 18:06:00
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Maytag  today announced a major recall of Maytag refrigerators under under brand names Maytag, Jenn-Air, Amana, Admiral, Magic Chef, Performa by Maytag and Crosley after the manufacture received 41 reports of fire hazard on side by side and top freezer refrigerators. The recall affects 1.6 million units of ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus 1.6 Million Maytag Refrigerators Recall ed
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February 2009 Score Card ? Part I: Net Worth
2009-03-10 17:00:00
I was very surprised when I finished calculating our net worth at the end of February. With major stock indices losing more than 10% for the month, our net worth, with everything considered, only saw a moderate loss of $5,955.99 (1.32%) over a month ago to a total of $446,280.10 on February 28th. Details of each ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus February 2009 Score Card ? Part I: Net Worth
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Can You Use a $5 Texaco Gift Card?
2009-03-10 03:02:00
I mentioned last month my unpleasant experience with PNC Bank over the business checking account I recently opened with them. The branch manager later sent me a $5 Texaco gift card as a gesture for the trouble I went through. It’s nice that the bank values my business and wants me to be a happy ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Can You Use a $5 Texaco Gift Card ?
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Free FICO Credit Score Alive Again
2009-03-10 02:06:00
Update: This offer has expired. But you need to act quickly. Equifax is offering free FICO score again through Free FICOScore .com again is  to the first 10,000 people who request their scores. I got my free FICO score last time when the promotion was ran in January. The process of requesting your score was quite simple, taking only a ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Free FICO Credit Score Alive Again
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Bought 600 Shares of Citigroup
2009-03-05 20:05:00
Well, I didn’t get it when the stock was traded below $1 a share for the first time ever, I actually got in a little early. I sold 360 shares of HTX that I bought on December 4 last year (made a little profit from the trade) and used (part of) the money to buy ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Bought 600 Shares of Citigroup
More About: Investing , Stock

Citi Launched New Forward Visa Card: Get Rewarded for Keeping a Good Credit
2009-03-04 21:15:00
This could be a hot credit card. Citi bank launched a brand new credit card today, called Forward, which the bank claims will “help you see rewards of maintain healthy credit.” After a quick glance, it does seem to be a very rewarding card because card member will not only enjoy rewards (in ThankYou Points) with this ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Citi Launched New Forward Visa Card : Get Rewarded for Keeping a Good Credit
More About: Credit Cards , Personal Finance

SmartMoney: 10 Things Your Credit Card Companies Won?t Tell You
2009-03-04 18:25:00
SmartMoney yesterday published an article on 10 practices that credit card companies use to get more money out of us, their customers. Even though some of them, such as universal default and two-cycle billing, will be banned when the new credit card rules take effect, which is still more than a year away, we should ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus SmartMoney: 10 Things Your Credit Card Companies Won’t Tell You
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Is the Stock Market Like a Tracking Poll in Politics?
2009-03-04 04:19:00
President Obama is definitely trying very hard to boost the nation’s confidence. After his massive economic stimulus plan failed to impress investors about the prospective of a speedy recovery, the President himself  came out today to suggest that stocks at the current level are cheap enough such that “buying stocks is a potentially good deal” ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Is the Stock Market Like a Tracking Poll in Politics ?
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Variable Annuities: The Fee Factor
2009-03-03 19:01:00
This is a guest post from Laurence P. Greenberg, who is President and CEO of Jefferson National, which developed the first flat insurance fee variable annuity. In today’s environment, “fee transparency” is the mantra for all kinds of financial products. Unfortunately, it?s been slow in coming to variable annuities. Some real progress has been made with simple, ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Variable Annuities : The Fee Factor
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Tuesday Deals: Acer 23? Widescreen LCD Monitor for $199.99
2009-03-03 16:17:00
TigerDirect has Acer X233H 23″ Widescreen LCD Monitor for $199.99 after $30 instant savings. Buy.com has Fantom GreenDrive 1TB USB 2.0 and eSATA External Hard Drive for $89.99 after $20 mail-in rebate (expires 03/31/2009) with free shipping. Buy.com has Western Digital Elements 400GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive for $69.99 shipped free. Newegg.com has TOSHIBA Satellite L305-S5933 ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Tuesday Deals: Acer 23″ Widescreen LCD Monitor for $199.99

Recent Bank Findings: Redneck Bank 3.10% APY and Danvers Bank 3.00% APY
2009-03-03 05:14:00
Stocks are down (another 300-point plunge of the Dow today closing below 7,000 for the first time in 13 years) and savings account interest rates are declining too. Are you wondering where to put your money these days? Treasuries are safe, but you won’t get much from buying bonds/bills unless safety is your absolute concern. ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Recent Bank Findings: Redneck Bank 3.10% APY and Danvers Bank 3.00% APY
More About: Personal Finance , Banking

Weekend Linkage - March 1, 2009
2009-03-02 05:33:00
Market Recap As I mentioned yesterday, February turned out to be a very bad month for stocks. In the last week of the month, stocks retreated to below the November 2008 lows. For the week, the Dow dropped 4.11% to 7062.93, the S&P 500 tumbled 4.54% to 735.09, and the Nasdaq declined 4.40% to 1377.84. Precious ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Weekend Linkage - March 1, 2009
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Random News: 252 Banks on FDIC Problem List, Worst February for the Dow, an
2009-02-28 17:18:00
Yesterday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) released its last quarter banking profile (PDF) of 2008 and the banking sector is still very weak, despite hundreds of billions of dollars infusion from the government. At the end of 2008, a total of 252 banks were placed on the FDIC’s problem bank list, up from 171 ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Random News : 252 Banks on FDIC Problem List, Worst February for the Dow, and Gold Pullback
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Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus
2009-02-27 16:50:00
Only one week into the peer-to-peer lending business, I already received my first payment of $0.80 ($0.60 principle plus $0.20 interest, that’s equivalent to 10.2% yield). It’s from a $25 loan I purchased last week using Lending Club Note Trading Platform (check out my Lending Club Note Trading Platform review for details). The loan isn’t ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus

Consumer Reports 2009 Best New Car Picks
2009-02-27 05:04:00
Shopping for a new car? Make sure you check out the Consumer Reports 2009 Top Picks. In the latest issue of Consumer Reports , the magazine published its annual best car list. In total more than 300 models were tested and 10 new models were chosen as the top picks in 10 categories based on road test ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Consumer Reports 2009 Best New Car Picks
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Book I Read: Come Into My Trading Room by Alexander Elder
2009-02-26 21:47:00
When I bought my first stock Nortel, (NT) which filed for bankruptcy protection recently,  more than six years ago, I didn’t know much about investing or trading stocks. The reason I bought NT was simply because it was cheap in dollar amount. That’s right. How much could I lose with a stock at $0.47 a ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Book I Read : Come Into My Trading Room by Alexander Elder

Quicken Online Adds Cash Tracking Feature to Help You Manage Cash Transacti
2009-02-25 22:34:00
Quicken Online is improving. The online money management site just added a new feature to make tracking and managing your cash transactions easier. The new feature is called My Wallet. With My Wallet, you can manually enter cash transactions in Quicken by providing such information as Payee, Transaction Amount, and Category, as you can see from ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus Quicken Online Adds Cash Tracking Feature to Help You Manage Cash Transactions
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ShareBuilder Promotion: $25 Bonus to Open a New Account
2009-02-25 20:28:00
Are you still interested in ShareBuilder? If you are, then you can get $25 bonus when opening a new account. This offer is only good for joint, individual and custodial accounts, not for IRA or ESA accounts. The bonus will be credited to your new account within four to six weeks after the first transaction is ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Bonus Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus ShareBuilder Promotion : $25 Bonus to Open a New Account
More About: Investing , Stock

My Lending Club Portfolio
2009-02-25 04:58:00
I wasted a little time to build up my Lending Club portfolio. Only a few days in the peer-to-peer lending business, I already have, believe it or not, 20 loans (notes) in my portfolio 8 of them are $25 loans and the rest are $50 loans at a total value of $794.68. Right now, I ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary My Lending Club Portfolio
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Got AMEX Credit Cards You No Longer Need? Turn Them into $300 Cash
2009-02-24 18:04:00
Credit card issuers are getting more and more proactive in dealing with credit card holders these days. They want to protect themselves against default by increasing APRs on credit cards for some card members, then closing inactive cards without any warning. Now they will just give you cash to close your accounts, whether they are ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Got AMEX Credit Cards You No Longer Need? Turn Them into $300 Cash
More About: Personal Finance , Credit

Lending Club Note Trading: Another Way for Peer-to-peer Lending
2009-02-24 03:20:00
I have been thinking of getting into peer-to-peer lending as alternative way to invest for quite some time, but the idea has been put off repeatedly because I wasn’t sure about the prospect of making meaningful money from it. Even though the returns on loans at peer-to-peer lending sites such as Lending Club and Prosper, ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Lending Club Note Trading : Another Way for Peer -to-peer Lending
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Learn How to Use Stop Effectively to Profit and Preserve Your Capital
2009-02-20 17:02:00
Are you using stop in your trading to make money, and more importantly, to preserve your capital if the trade doesn’t go your way? In this educational video from INO, you will know what the three widely used stops, dollar stop, percentage stop, and chart stop, are how they work. The video will also teach ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Learn How to Use Stop Effectively to Profit and Preserve Your Capital
More About: Investing , Stock

Dow Jones Dropped to New 6-Year Low - Chart of the Day
2009-02-20 04:43:00
Major stock indices dropped to new multi-year lows on Wednesday as financial, again, and tech stocks weighed on the market. At the close, Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 89.68 points to 7,465.95, breaking the November 20, 2008 low. The last time the Dow closed lower was on October 10, 2002 when the blue-chip benchmark was ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Dow Jones Dropped to New 6-Year Low - Chart of the Day
More About: Investing , Stock , Charts

Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Referral Bonus
2009-02-19 15:05:00
It’s alive again! Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan , the plan that was rated as one of the best college savings plans by Morningstar in 2007 which is also the one we’re using to save for our daughter’s future education, has reinstated the $25 referral program. The program was first launched last December and from what I ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan $25 Referral Bonus
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Facts about Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan
2009-02-18 22:43:00
As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was passed by the Congress over the weekend and signed into law by President Obama yesterday, the Treasury Department today released a fact sheet on details of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan (PDF file) that will help struggled homeowners to fight foreclosure. ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Facts about Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan
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Reader Question: When Will Social Security Recipients Receive $250 Payment?
2009-02-18 19:26:00
A reader, Brenda, today commented on my American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Breakdown post with the following question: When will we get the 250.00, those of us that are on S.S. or will we. When I read those articles on the stimulus plan after it was passed over the weekend, I didn’t see a mention ...Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Reader Question : When Will Social Security Recipients Receive $250 Payment?
More About: Economy , Personal Finance