patrick.net

astrid:

When Hamilton Bank in Miami failed in 2002 more than $46mm in 3300 accounts were uninsured. Since then the FDIC has been selling Hamilton assets to cover the uninsured deposits. They've restored about 85% to each of them to date.

I don't know how promptly insured deposits were addressed, but the time it takes them to address uninsured deposits may be behind reports of audits and delays.

Politicians bug me almost as much as Realtors.

Leinenkugel? They still make those? Outstanding!

I remember "Little Kings Cream Ale" (those were extree good)

I realize Michelle (Malkin) isn't exactly pop pop popular here but her message is to 1) Report threats to law enforcement, and 2) Keep' on blogging! Refuse to be bullied by anonymous cowards. I think we can all agree on that.

Lex,

A few posts back I kind of dramatized the issue but I think there's little denying that "most" in America just "want this behind them". Personally I'm a little ashamed for them? They've had a decade long run of nothing but flipper profits and MEW extraction yet STILL seem to be against the ropes?

Now durn'it I can see if we had ten years of ever DECLINING values and seeking some form of "relief" but this is ridiculous! What's the msg. here?

Save us from ourselves?

When a bank fails, the FDIC usually taps a healthy bank to step in and take over the insured deposits. Depositors have access to their insured funds the next business day.

Loan terms cannot be changed by a bank failure.

Sarasota Herald Tribune, March 28, 2007

Bruce,

Thanks, so only the uninsured funds are affected, right?

astrid:

Please note they describe the simplest possible case - a healthy bank.

But AFAIK it's only uninsured funds subject to these particular delays.

How was the sourdough?

Just as Randy predicted, we now have a noticeable peppering from goldbugs and a sense of paranoia creeping into this thread...

Same article outlines strategies and pitfalls of expanding FDIC coverege for married couples. Loners are pretty much SOL:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070305/BUSINESS/703050572/-1/140154

I must look into tinyurl.

Buying T-Bills through a broker like Schwab or ETRADE or TD Ameritrade is the safest way to park your money, safer and more convenient than buying CDs.

I have a chunk in T-Bills as well, but I bought directly through the Treasury. It's actually pretty easy to set up an account and use it, and you can buy multiple product types, including bonds, bills, and TIPS.

"directly through the Treasury"

As a matter of fact I believe it's called "Treasury Direct". :)

DinOR,

Yeah, yeah, always the comedian...

For those interested, www.treasurydirect.gov

skibum,

Well...? It was one of those obvious ones.

I direct clients this way b/c it keeps ROA down especially when it's nothing they couldn't do for themselves. Particularly charitable accts. etc. What escapes a lot of people is that if you start investing early enough in life you really don't have to take much if any risk.

OT, but here's a transcript of Bendover Ben's testimony in Congress that has caused some of the market turmoil today.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/28/news/economy/bernanke_remarks/index.htm?postversion=2007032810

This is getting more and more interesting...

Jon and astrid, Thanks for your suggestions.

I will download OpenOffice and keep Microsoft Office in mind. There is not much of a discount on eBay even for an old version of Office like 2003.

I downloaded something called Star Office once, never installed it… :|

I think StarOffice is similar to OpenOffice. Thanks for mentioning anyway. :)

I need a strong word processor with good real-time spell checking because I am a horrible typist. (I use only 4 fingers to type.)

Benover said that economic expansion would continue and the market reacted badly. Hmm....

Benover said that economic expansion would continue and the market reacted badly. Hmm….

He didn't *really* say that. IMO, he spouted all these reasons for a recent economic slowdown, particularly housing (yeah!), and despite all this bad news, the economy would continue to hum along. No one believed him, is what happened. Who can blame them?

what’s your email address?

I just sent you an email.

Office 2007 is great. The UI is so much better than what went before and what is out there.

I heard great things about it too. However, I do not have Vista. I think it should run on XP SP2 but I am not sure.

This seems like a somewhat on topic hijack. I am considering rolling a 401k from a former company into a WellsTrade IRA. They offer free trades to accounts with certain "combined" balances (checking, savings, CDs etc). Does anyone have any experience with WellsTrade. I currently have some accounts with Wells"There is no subprime problem here"Fargo. Is rolling over a 401k fairly easy to do?

More wheels come off and the sparks from the rims are starting to show.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&sid=alOjASNOLKcQ&refer=home

P.S. Regrettably, DinOR is completely wrong about index versus active funds. There is no evidence that active managers have any timing skills, nor is there any evidence that advisors have any timing skills either. Buy some low cost funds, appropriately diversified among asset classes, and sleep like a baby. If minor fluctuations bother you, then you need to be reminded that there is no such thing as a free lunch, expected returns come from taking some risks, and if you really cannot stand it, accept that you're going to get less buying CDs - spreading the money around if you've got more than $100k - or Treasuries.

"appropriately diversified among asset classes"

"sleep like a baby"

"no such thing as a free lunch" (yawns)

Actively managed funds/portfolios don't HAVE to outperform year in and year out to establish their value to clients. Even one break out year can have a meaningful impact to your net worth over time.

Punchbowl, since no one here has shared that they will be inheriting huge gobbs of cash is your position that if we were born without money then we weren't meant to have any? Younger investors SHOULD be more aggressive! Why is that such a revelation to you?

The media has the tail wagging the dog by being solely focused on expenses. If you think starting, operating and managing a COMPLIANT fund is THAT cheap I certainly invite you to do so. Good luck telling the NASD there's no need for auditing or compliance b/c afterall you're just a feel good index fund. Let me know how that works out.

My instinct tells me that a passive, buy-and-hope, index-investment strategy is not very good.

Peter P: You can try the similar route of buying a few good companies and ignore them for a few decades.

In a zero-sum game, you have to go out and (legally) snatch money from other market participants in order for you to have any real growth. Index-investing is quite far from that. True, you will be compensated for puting your money at risk, but that is merely compensation, not profits.

You can try the similar route of buying a few good companies and ignore them for a few decades.

That is not index-investment but a buy-and-hope strategy nonetheless.

Peter P,

I'm not by any means totally dismissing the value (or strategy) of indexing. There aren't a lot of "stock pickers" working at insurance companies. They need quantifiable, predictable returns to manage risk. So they definitely have their place.

Most of our discussions here (where money mgmt. is concerned) revolve around "post popping cash parking". That aside the last time I heard this much debate about the merits of CD's and mmkts I was giving a fixed income presentation at an old folk's home!

We have chocolate chip cookies and (warm) orange juice at the back!

They need quantifiable, predictable returns to manage risk. So they definitely have their place.

Do they invest in "disciplined" hedge funds with focused strategies (risk arb, long-short, etc.)? I think some HFs are very popular among university endowments.

Open Office has a decent spellcheck, it's quite different from Word so it takes some getting used to, especially with the autocomplete feature on.

Is it wrong to believe that a healthy portfolio should include at least some short positions?

astrid, are you a proponent of open source software? :)

Peter P,

I've never had a lot of luck penetrating that market. I've gotten a few appointments but you're never really sure if they weren't just being polite. Typically endowments have layers of fiduciaries and it can be tough to get to an actual decision. If they DO have HF exposure I'd be willing to bet that it was former grads that put together a HF for that EXPRESS purpose.

In that case, Punchbowl would actually be right. Management for the sake of management.

Peter P: Of course not; pretty much all of my positions in the last month or so have been puts. I'll resume buying for the long haul once the current fun sorts itself out.

Word 2007 seems to have contextual spell checking, which can be useful. But sometimes I can be too cheap to spend $200 for Word even though it worths every penny.

I tried WordPerfect last night and I hated it. I will try OpenOffice tonight and see how it goes. If I do not like it then Microsoft will get my business. :)

Err, make that all /new/ positions. My buy-and-hope shares are still around, though I did trim down some Chinese ADRs.

Peter P,

Well, nothing is necessarily "wrong" and even firm believers in trad. fin. architecture say that 3 to 5% can be adjudicated toward "speculative" positions.

Does that include shorts? In a lot of cases just by charter (articles of incorporation) charitable inst. and IRA's shorting isn't usually possible. However "I" see absolutely nothing wrong or counter productive if you have the stomach for it. In a generally appreciating market shorting has more peril to it than basically any other form of trading.

Btw, for those that haven't been over to SDCIA (San Diego Creative Inv. Assoc.) ALL talk has turned away from flips and 1031's to shorting builders and lenders. Weird huh?

In a generally appreciating market shorting has more peril to it than basically any other form of trading.

True. I remember reading Market-Neutral Investing : Long/Short Hedge Fund Strategies. Looks like Equity Hedge has been generating some pretty decent returns.

I know then from than, but something that properly checks for singular/plural and verb tenses would be very useful for me. I never quite gotten a hang of proper English grammar.

I prefer open source and web based applications. Faster updates and greater reliability, also sidesteps the stupid rights issue. I hate copyrights - I think they should get 15 or 17 years just like patents.

My short in CFC is the only thing that made money today. :D