Investing Guide

I learned that investors should shun pride and accumulate regret instead of the reverse, which is what people normally do.
I’ve been reading The Only Three Questions that Count by Ken Fisher.  Ken is a good writer.  He has written a column on Forbes for over 20 years.  Being the son of the great Philip Fisher couldn’t hurt as well.  He’s CEO of Fisher Investments and is #281 on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans.  It is one of the most entertaining and educational investment books I have read in awhile.  What makes this book so great is that it challenges conventional wisdom that we all take as fact.

Some examples of false truths that we do not investigate include:

High P/E stocks are riskier.

America has way too much debt.

Stock markets do better in countries with faster growing economies than slow ones.

A tax cut causes more debt, which is bad for stocks.

Big government budget deficits are bad.

Cheaper stocks do better than less cheap stocks.

Ken Fisher teaches his readers how to think for themselves.  Reading Wall Street Journal, Barrons, Bloomberg, blogs or  Forbes will not make you a better investor because all of that information is already discounted in the news.  An investor must be willing to come to their own conclusion and use the 3 questions to uncover something others do not know. Yet most investors (speculators!) gamble instead of research.  They forget their big losers and brag about their winners.  It’s the overall performance that matters in the end.

Read The Three Questions that Count if you want to become a better investor.

By Loi Tran

I currently use Yodlee to keep track of all of my accounts. Yodlee is an account aggregator that lets a user keep track of all their accounts in one page. It’s a very helpful tool to use because I can see all my bank account, credit cards, and investment accounts all in one page. Some people worry about the security of the site because Yodlee needs all the accounts user name and password log on information to access the accounts. If someone got a hold of the log on information for Yodlee, they may have access to all the other accounts listed on Yodlee. I’m not really worried about identity theft though.

I keep track of my portfolio at finance.yahoo.com. The portfolio tracker is simple and easy to use.

I use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of all my financial data. I downloaded MSN Money Add-In that enables excel to get stock quotes from the internet. I can update the value of my portfolio with the update button. I keep track of all my financial data on an excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has a lot of different tabs that are linked together to display my networth.
The tabs include:

Stocks Universe - This tab displays all the stocks that I currently watch. When they get into buying range. There are about 100 stocks. Data for the stocks include, Price/52 week high, latest price, price change, how many shares I should buy for position in my portfolio, and s&p dividend ranking. I update the list once in awhile. I keep a list of a few stocks above that are good candidates for a buy.

Current Holdings - This tab displays all the stocks and mutual funds that are in my portfolio. This tab displays the holding percentage of each position, cost basis, current market value, price/share, shares owned, current gain/loss %, and total gain/loss %,

Trade Records - Shows all the stocks I have bought and sold in the past and dividends received.
The average holding time is displayed and calculated using the days and today function. It displays the gain in working capital, market value/cost basis % difference, and market value/working capital % difference. It shows the cash flow of my portfolio too.

Credit Cards - Displays all the credit cards I have as well as the balances I owe for each card. It shows when each of my balance transfers end. Other data include credit card’s credit limit, the last time I tried to increase the credit limit, minimum payment amount, and the last payment date and amount. I currently pay about $750 a month over 6 cards that have balance transfers on them. I need to repay 2 citibank cards in October, so that will be the time when I will open a few more credit cards. Phone numbers for the credit cards are listed so I can contact them when needed.

Net Worth - Has all of my account balances. The accounts are divided up into different sections. The retirement/tax deferred accounts, taxable accounts, and cash accounts(online savings accounts). This spreadsheet takes data from other tabs. It takes the liabilities I owe from the credit card tab and investments from the current holdings tab. It then computes my net worth and change in networth every month. Below the networth data is my networth goal for the month. The internal rate of return for my portfolio is calculated using the IRR function.

Sit and Go - This tab held my texas holdem record for sit and gos. I stopped playing and took out all my money. I will start playing again if they give me some free money. I’m going to take this tab out soon.

Rules - This sheet displays some investing and trading rules.

Goals - Lists my short term and long term goals. Main one right now is just studying for the CFA.

I still need to change and modify my spreadsheet. It does the job, but I need to make the spreadsheet look nicer and add some more features once I can think of some more.