What's overpriced and disappears in the 4th quarter? Institutionally held stocks.
Ah, the final days of the year. When Homo economicus turns to moving money from one account into another to reduce tax bites, among other things. Also, did you know that this is a great time of year to pick up certain stocks?
We wrote about this on Investopedia. Fund managers drop underperforming stocks from their portfolios so that they don’t show up in the end-of-year docket, and thus forever mark the managers as somehow deficient. When those shares flood the market, a patient investor can pick up some bargains. (But not without reading the stocks’ fundamentals, of course.)
Time for another edition of the most entertaining blog carnival known to man, the Carnival of Wealth. Personal finance blasts from around the world. If you’ve got a blog and want to submit, follow the directions here. Otherwise, just lean back and enjoy. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin:
Paula Pant at Afford-Anything bats leadoff this week, and rhetorically asks if you should repay your debt or invest that cash. Two personal finance camps are having a classic argument between risk and reward. The anti-debt camp focuses on your risk – the guaranteed loss of interest. The pro-invest camp focuses on the potential reward – the opportunity to accelerate your gains. (Also, Paula? It’s “egg” and “vanilla”, respectively.)
Corey at 20s Finances helpfully points out that college graduates often require jobs and places to live.
What tax bracket are you in? You mean you don’t know? You should – it’s fairly important. And by fairly, we mean “exceedingly.” Fortunately, you’ve only got 6 choices. (At least until Ron Paul gets elected president, when you’ll have just one.) Jim at Bargaineering explains how to find out where you are, and how much of that marginal dollar you get to keep.
Money Reasons has an interesting idea: when his kids reach the age of majority, he’s going to retroactively charge them for all the room and board give them most of their allowance in the form of dividend-paying stocks. We like what’s he getting at, we just wonder if they’d be better off learning the lessons of passive income even earlier. (Note: That last line was written by a childless man. Take it for what it’s worth.)
Trivia question: which country exports the most oil to the United States?
Iraq? Not even close. United Arab Emirates? Hardly. Saudi Arabia? Try again.
We’ll give you a hint. Boomer of Boomer & Echo lives there. This week, she lists some of Canada’s most important raw materials and names companies that extract and refine them.
101 Centavos is back! And he’s farming out his content. This week, at any rate. Does guest poster Nina Bernice have the same funny style and attention to detail? We’ll let you be the judge regarding her post about the history of insurance. Our favorite part is where she talks about ancient Egypt, 689 years in the future.
The estimable Odysseas Papadimitriou of Wallet Blog returns with a heads up on a new scam. He called what he thought was American Express customer service, missed by one digit, and narrowly averted catastrophe. He even recorded his findings and posted them for our pleasure. And warning.
Back-to-back sanity from people with awesome names: Madison Du Paix at My Dollar Plan has 17 tips for end-of-year tax planning, every one of them worthwhile. Heed her advice.
We had seen this, and weren’t sure if it was a great idea or a horrible one. Philip at PT Money gives details about a toy rental service. Does it make sense to rent toys if you know your kids are eventually going to tire of them? And if it does, then how much should you pay for the privilege?
A new entrant this week, Penny Pinching Professional. She, maybe he (we didn’t search the archives for a definitive answer) is an engineering grad student. With a maiden submission that draws a bizarre analogy between cell phone contracts and soup. It’s thought-provoking. That is to say, it certainly made us think.
Another rookie? Yes. A Control Your Cash welcome to Begging To Retire. On first glance, we like what we see…beautiful graphics, superb layout, and worthwhile information written well. (See? That last one is really all we ask for here.) Michael explains how investing money before you even have a chance to spend it is one of the smartest things you can do.
Some great, actionable advice in a single recommendation from David Bakke, who guest posts at Free Money Finance this week about how to run a successful reselling business.
How masochistic can one person be? Journalistically trained Miranda Marquit at Financial Highway is recalibrating the scale. Last week, she submitted a brutal post that she’d already submitted 2 months earlier. We criticized it the first time, and then last week we took it into the shower at the Penn State football building and did unspeakable things to it. Miranda remains undaunted, and served it up nice and raw again this week. Instead of giving us 4 ideas for home-based businesses, she’s giving us 50 (FIFTY). Every idea of hers is woeful, but it’s the sincerity with which she writes them that cracks us up the most. For instance,
26. Massage therapy: If you have the right certifications, and the right licenses, you can provide massage therapy services from your home.
Wait…so this LMT designation that I had spent thousands of hours working toward…you’re telling me I can use it to earn money with? No way! Until now, I thought all those classes I took were just an incredibly expensive series of coffee dates. Only with textbooks and homework instead of coffee.
Miranda, maybe you don’t get the subtlety, but anyone who’s licensed to practice massage already freaking knows this.
You think she’s done? Not even close.
8. Presentations: If you have skill at putting together presentations, you can create presentations for others.
The best part about that sentence is that you can substitute literally any noun for “presentations” and it still works. Let’s try one:
8. Camshafts: If you have skill at putting together camshafts, you can create camshafts for others.
That was fun. How about another?
8. Sex tapes: If you have skill at putting together sex tapes, you can create sex tapes for others.
See?
Try it yourself! Maybe you can even start a noun-substitution business out of your home and make money.
Here’s one more:
17. Guide: Do you know your local area?…You can start a business guiding people in the area. Even if it’s just a restaurant tour of the tastiest places in town, your guide efforts can be profitable.
No, Miranda, they can’t. No one is going to pay me, or you, or anyone else, to take them on a “restaurant tour”. Even Ruth Reichl couldn’t do this.
44. Scrapbooks: Put together albums for others. Create scrapbooks and other memory books for those who want to capture the essence of life.
Miranda, your originality is shocking. You said the same thing last week (and, as we pointed out, 2 months ago.) But please, keep it coming.
At least, it’s good to know that Miranda can’t possibly be reading our blog.
/washing off the dirt
/reapplying more disinfectant
/burning down the Carnival and moving to another piece of land where hopefully things can grow
Alright…we haven’t heard from Joe Plemon in forever. He appears on Christian PF this week with his usual thoughtfulness, and a depressing story. Joe recently spoke with a single mom who was planning to mortgage her paid-for house to ease her children’s college burdens. Her logic? “I just can’t let them accumulate all of those student loans. What kind of a mother would?”
Well, if her kids are adept at scrapbooking, or have skill at putting together presentations, they might not need student loans.
Thanks for visiting. See y’all next week.
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