some very good advice on http://www.steampunk.com/sfch/writing/ckilian/ by Crawford Kilian.
Hoping to put it to use some day :)
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Ordered My new machine!!
This vacation is proving to be very expensive; after ogling at the new dell PCs for last couple days, i finally ended up ordering one!
Its interesting what those "25% off" offers make you do :) Because of that stupid offer I had to think hard picking between 24 inch wide screen monitor v/s regular 19inch lcd. finally i settled for 19 inch one, and saved some $400.
ok, here are the specs:
Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E6400 (2.13 GHz)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center,CD and Single TV tuner,Remote
19 inch Ultrasharp™ 1907FP Digital Flat Panel
2 GB RAM
160 GB HD
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
Total including Tax:1,170.18
Interesting to note; DELL doesnt allow to pick up TV tuner anymore, it comes as a bundle with the OS. too bad :(
cant wait for machine to get shipped, and start running vista!!
Its interesting what those "25% off" offers make you do :) Because of that stupid offer I had to think hard picking between 24 inch wide screen monitor v/s regular 19inch lcd. finally i settled for 19 inch one, and saved some $400.
ok, here are the specs:
Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E6400 (2.13 GHz)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center,CD and Single TV tuner,Remote
19 inch Ultrasharp™ 1907FP Digital Flat Panel
2 GB RAM
160 GB HD
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
Total including Tax:1,170.18
Interesting to note; DELL doesnt allow to pick up TV tuner anymore, it comes as a bundle with the OS. too bad :(
cant wait for machine to get shipped, and start running vista!!
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Accout overhaul this year.
Earlier this year, i cleaned up my vanguard account. it was opened on one fine day about 4/5 years back after reading too much on fool.com :) I was soo impressed by the indexing philosophy that I invested all the 16K i had in a vanguard S&P 500 fund. Turned out that i picked the worst timing..the market went south for next 2 years! But i hold on, and continue to invest $500 per month automatically into the same fund. anyways, because of the 2 years of downturn, i barely managed to break even in this account. I still believe in indexing, and index funds, but i dont think i need vanguard anymore. Now that I have more money I am now better off with ETFs. I am quiet happy about this decision; although vanguard is not bad, why do they charge so much for trading fees.
earlier this year, i also consolidated all my investments into my fidelity account. I moved all my holding from ameritrade. it was easy process, but boring. I had to submit a form at fidelity detailing my account number from ameritrade. and then i had to wait for about 10 days for the holding to get transferted. finally had to make that call to fidelity to credit my account with the amount that ameritrade charged for the move. now one problem with ameritrade is I can not log on to the site anymore, so i am not clear about any capital gains/losses incurred there. although i am sure i didnt trade in that account, since being in fidelity..the actual numbers would have been useful. Guess I need to call ameritrade folks sometime. net net this year tax returns are going to be pain. Hopefully next year end will be much easier, with only one investment account to worry about.
earlier this year, i also consolidated all my investments into my fidelity account. I moved all my holding from ameritrade. it was easy process, but boring. I had to submit a form at fidelity detailing my account number from ameritrade. and then i had to wait for about 10 days for the holding to get transferted. finally had to make that call to fidelity to credit my account with the amount that ameritrade charged for the move. now one problem with ameritrade is I can not log on to the site anymore, so i am not clear about any capital gains/losses incurred there. although i am sure i didnt trade in that account, since being in fidelity..the actual numbers would have been useful. Guess I need to call ameritrade folks sometime. net net this year tax returns are going to be pain. Hopefully next year end will be much easier, with only one investment account to worry about.
Harvesting Capital Losses..
now that year end is commiing near, i have started thinking about optimizing my capital gains/losses this year to prepare for tax man.
rules are:
net short term gain (STG) = short term gain - short term loss
net long term gain (LTG) = long term gain - long term loss
net gain = STG + LTG.
1) if you have +ve gain in both category; you are taxed per the catetory (STG is considered ordinary income, and LTG is taxed at 15 % (or 10% for poor people :) )
2) if you have -ve gain in both category. you can use upto $3000 of STG to offset the ordinary income..thus saving $1000 in taxes for 33% tax category. you can carry over those rest of the losses to next year.
3) If you have a gain in one category and a loss in another, but have a gain overall, that overall gain will be the same category as the category that had the gain. If you have a loss overall, that overall loss will be the same category as the category that had the loss.
artical about capital losses harvesting on MSN Money.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/PreparationTips/GotLongTermStockGainsAndLosses.aspx
A paper on harvesting loss strategies:
http://www.economics.pomona.edu/msmith/papers/HarvestLosses.pdf
I will think about my exact stragety this year some other time..Logging off now.
rules are:
net short term gain (STG) = short term gain - short term loss
net long term gain (LTG) = long term gain - long term loss
net gain = STG + LTG.
1) if you have +ve gain in both category; you are taxed per the catetory (STG is considered ordinary income, and LTG is taxed at 15 % (or 10% for poor people :) )
2) if you have -ve gain in both category. you can use upto $3000 of STG to offset the ordinary income..thus saving $1000 in taxes for 33% tax category. you can carry over those rest of the losses to next year.
3) If you have a gain in one category and a loss in another, but have a gain overall, that overall gain will be the same category as the category that had the gain. If you have a loss overall, that overall loss will be the same category as the category that had the loss.
artical about capital losses harvesting on MSN Money.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/PreparationTips/GotLongTermStockGainsAndLosses.aspx
A paper on harvesting loss strategies:
http://www.economics.pomona.edu/msmith/papers/HarvestLosses.pdf
I will think about my exact stragety this year some other time..Logging off now.
starting a blog
I have a week off. after spending whole day watching CNBC, and sleeping, I decided to do something new..so decided to start a blog. I am thinking I will write about my passions, movies, investments, and gadgets here.
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