The other day I went down to the mall and happened to arrive during a shift change at the customer service desk. I wandered over to a row of couches and sat down to watch a Microsoft Store employee playing a game using the store's virtual reality set-up. Seeing as I had 15 minutes to kill, I asked him if I could try it out. I believe the system they had set up was … [Read more...] about Free Business Idea: Virtual Reality Saloons
What goes into a good active savings strategy?
A headline passed across my Twitter feed yesterday that seemed like a good bank account signup bonus: "$500 Bonus for New Money Market Account at Capital One." $500 is a lot of money, so I clicked through to check out what the requirements were. As usual, there were some deposit requirements, in this case a $50,000 deposit of outside money, held in the account for 6-8 weeks … [Read more...] about What goes into a good active savings strategy?
Winners and losers from changes to Consumers Credit Union Free Rewards Checking accounts (and why it matters)
I've been an enthusiastic fan of high-interest checking and savings accounts ever since you could earn 6% APY on your PayPal account balance back in the early 2000's (unfortunately I was in college at the time and barely had two quarters to rub together at 6% APY). The boring reason is that the more work your risk-free assets are able to do, the less work your riskier … [Read more...] about Winners and losers from changes to Consumers Credit Union Free Rewards Checking accounts (and why it matters)
Index construction is the most important, least understood part of the indexing revolution
Modestly improved investor education and extensive marketing have made investors today more conscious of the costs of their investment decisions, and helped promote the use of index-tracking mutual funds and exchange-traded funds as opportunities to reduce expenses and allow investors to keep more of their investment returns. While cost-consciousness is a clear positive for … [Read more...] about Index construction is the most important, least understood part of the indexing revolution
Vanguard commission-free ETF trading is here
I wrote last month about Vanguard's announcement of commission-free ETF trading coming "in August." Well, it's August, and commission-free ETF trading is here! Which ETF's are commission-free to trade? You can find the full list of commission-free ETF's here, but as a rule of thumb, it is supposed to include essentially all non-inverse and non-leveraged ETF's. Potential uses … [Read more...] about Vanguard commission-free ETF trading is here