SMI Visitor's Weblog

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Big Brother is watching... and compiling... and selling

The Information Age seems to have taken us full circle back to the days of hunters and gatherers — only now they're digital hunters and gatherers. Massive bureaucracies and corporate entities are all too happy to hunt down the details of our lives, scoop 'em up, and sell 'em to a willing bidder. And it's only going to get worse.

Don't believe me? Read this piece from Consumer Reports and you'll be enlightened. It outlines eight ways Big Brother is behind the scenes, quietly rummaging through life's daily transactions. Sure, some of these are supposed to be for our protection, but mostly they're for Big Brother's.

Remember that ill-fated sweater you bought for your wife last year, the one that she returned to Kohls? Big Brother remembers it:

Your purchase returns
The Retail Equation maintains information on merchandise returns made to an undisclosed number of national retailers...

What’s here?
It can include a record of your past returns at participating stores, the purchase prices, and whether or not you had receipts.

How is the information used?
Retailers are on the lookout for certain fraudulent and abusive practices.... If your pattern of returns at a particular store raises red flags, you might not be able to get your money back the next time you try. (emphasis added)

Yikes! Makes me a little nervous about my next home improvement project when I'll inevitably buy the wrong thingamajig — many times. Will I have to kowtow at every trip to the return register, praying I don't hear the dreaded, "No return for you!"?

If there's an upside, perhaps it's a potential business opportunity. I'm not sure how it would work, but there's a mint to be made for a company that can sell anonymity. If you have any ideas on how to make this happen let me know, I would love to go into business with you. But first I'd need to access your credit report, run a criminal background check, examine your insurance-claim history...

In scary times, looking to the God who gives a "sound mind"

Here is an interesting tidbit from former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's new book, On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System.

Back in my temporary office on the 13th floor, a jolt of fear suddenly overcame me as I thought of what lay ahead of us. Lehman was as good as dead, and AIG's problems were spiraling out of control. With the U.S. sinking deeper into recession, the failure of a large financial institution would reverberate throughout the country — and far beyond our shores. It would take years for us to dig ourselves out from under such a disaster.

All weekend I'd been wearing my crisis armor, but now I felt my guard slipping. I knew I had to call my wife, but I didn't want to do it from the landline in my office because other people were there. So I walked around the corner to a spot near some windows. Wendy had just returned from church. I told her about Lehman's unavoidable bankruptcy and the looming problems with AIG.

"What if the system collapses?" I asked her. "Everybody is looking to me, and I don't have the answer. I am really scared."

I asked her to pray for me, and for the country, and to help me cope with this sudden onslaught of fear. She immediately quoted from the Second Book of Timothy, verse 1:7—"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

The Wall Street Journal has a longer version of this excerpt, courtesy of the Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Fidelity one-ups Schwab on no-fee ETFs, stock-trading fees

Just weeks after Charles Schwab shook things up in the ETF world by introducing its own brand of commission-free exchange-traded funds, Fidelity has unveiled a commission-free model for 25 ETFs from iShares (managed by BlackRock). Schwab currently has only eight commission-free ETFs.

The no-fee ETFs from Fidelity include some of the most popular ETFs on the market, including the iShares S&P 500 Index, iShares Russell 2000 Index, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index, and the iShares Barclays Aggregate Bond fund.

A Reuters report characterized Fidelity's move into commission-free ETFs as a belated recognition that exchange-traded funds have gained a significant presence in the mutual-fund marketplace.

[Fidelity's] new alliance with BlackRock of New York marks a final acknowledgment of the growth of ETFs and their importance to retail investors, said Paul Justice, an analyst who follows the industry for Morningstar in Chicago.

Although the industry has more than doubled since 2005, to $1 trillion globally by BlackRock's count, ETFs will continue picking up market share, Justice said. Following Fidelity and BlackRock's move "you will see a great deal of competitive response," he added.

The rapid growth of ETFs offered by iShares, State Street Corp and others is in stark contrast with the skepticism investors have shown traditional stock mutual funds, which saw high outflows as stock markets sank.

Fidelity introduced a single ETF of its own in 2003, but never followed up with additional products....

Tom Lydon, editor of the ETF Trends newsletter, said he expects ETFs to continue to grow as investors realize their fee benefits. ETFs also have room to gobble more assets in 401(k) retirement-savings plans, where they have been little used to date, Lydon said.

Fidelity also announced it is replacing its current tiered-pricing model for stock trades with a flat $7.95 fee for online trades — $1 less than the stock-trading fee recently implemented by Schwab.

Neither Schwab nor Fidelity has announced any changes in their pricing structure for traditional mutual funds.

It's not how much you earn...

While searching for something else, I stumbled across this ABC News story from October: "Latest Celeb Money Meltdown: Nicolas Cage." The article recounts the financial trials of various celebrities and semi-celebrities who have seen the the financial rewards that accompanied professional success somehow slip away.

Among those on the list:

• photographer Annie Leibovitz ("has struggled to stay out of debt");
• actor Stephen Baldwin (he and his wife "defaulted on over $824,000 in payments to their mortgage");
• baseball great Lenny Dykstra ("foreclosure sale of [his] $18 million California mansion");
• mob-boss daughter Victoria Gotti ("apparently owes $650,000 to JP Morgan Chase Bank");
• actor Willie Aames, former star of 1970s and '80s hit shows Eight is Enough and Charles in Charge ("filed for bankruptcy last year, and his home is in foreclosure");
• actress Jodie Sweetin of Full House fame ("house is in foreclosure...water has been shut off twice").

As for Nicholas Cage, one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars, the ABC report says he "owes the IRS more than $6.6 million in income taxes." A CNN story quotes the actor's former attorney (against whom Cage has filed a lawsuit) as saying Cage needed to earn $30 million a year "just to maintain his lavish lifestyle."

In a court filing, the attorney noted that in 2007 Cage went on a "shopping spree" that included "the purchase of three additional residences at a total cost of more than $33 million; the purchase of 22 automobiles (including nine Rolls Royces); 12 purchases of expensive jewelry; and 47 purchases of artwork and exotic items." Cage also reportedly bought two castles, one in England, one in Germany.

Nicholas Cage may earn millions of dollars a year, but I'm reminded of a line from Dickens:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

The numbers, of course, are relative. Annual income $20 million, annual expenditure $20,600,000 (or more), result misery.

Financial security/stability is far less about how much you earn than it is about how much you spend — and, of course, how you choose to invest any surplus.

How do your money habits compare to the Jones's?

There's a site in beta that allows you to compare your spending (and soon, saving) habits with the proverbial Jones's. It's called Bundle.com. That's more interesting than it may sound at first, as you can slice the data any which way — by geography, age group, income, type of household...you name it. You can even see which business end up with the most of your hard earned money.

It's quite interesting to see the story Bundle tells via its data. But it also comes with a warning label. When I reviewed Mint.com (membership required) I said the following:

The second "Trends" section is what they call "SpendSpace." Here you can choose a category and a geographical location and see how your spending compares to others across the country. You can even compare your spending by merchant.

Caution #7: This is one of the most interesting, addictive, and useless features in Mint. Why should I care if I spent less on "Hair" than someone in Cleveland? Or more at Old Navy than your average Alaskan? I shouldn't. It's not going to change my spending decisions one cent. Nevertheless, like much of the Web, it's a fascinating time waster.

This type of reporting is more-or-less the point of Bundle. Yes, there are other features like "Discoveries" which is a blog aggregate, and a spending quiz that groups you into a "spendtype." But the primary reason to visit Bundle is to, as the site says, "... see how people like you spend and save money...".

I'm not sure how actionable the data is (though it probably has its uses). But it's certainly interesting, and a little bit addictive. So consider yourself warned.

Keep your money fund or dump it?

It's no secret that interest rates for money market funds are scraping bottom. Even the top recommendation in our current money rates table (subscription required) is paying a scant 0.30%. Vanguard Prime, one of the best-known and most popular MMFs available, is yielding a barely noticeable 0.05%.

So is it time to abandon the money-fund ship and move your savings elsewhere?

Russel Kinnel, editor of Morningstar's FundInvestor newsletter (and director of the company's mutual fund research), is advising MMF investors to hang on rather than bailing on MMFs and moving to short-term or ultrashort bond funds.

We're still wary of ultrashort funds [following the implosion of several such funds in 2007 and 2008]. Short-term bond funds can work if some losses in the short run are acceptable — for example, if you are parking money between investments, plan to hold for a year or two, or just want a conservative bond holding in your long-term asset-allocation scheme....

But for other uses, such as emergencies or upcoming big-ticket expenditures, I'd stay with money market funds. Think about what will happen when interest rates start to rise. Bond funds will initially lose money because their superlow-yielding bonds will be discounted in the face of new higher-paying bonds. On the other hand, money market funds will quickly start to have higher yields, yet they won't lose money when rates go back up.

Kinnel concedes that MMFs aren't exciting, "but money market funds are there to serve in an emergency. Insurance always costs you money, and that's how I'd look at money markets."

Another practical matter is simply: Is it worth the trouble to switch? A Los Angeles Times story (titled, "Look, Ma, Nearly No Yield") quotes Peter Crane, head of money-fund research firm Crane Data: "My general rule is, if you're not going to make $100 more [in interest] by switching, don't bother."

Although 2009 was the toughest year on record for money funds, the MMFs recommended by SMI outperformed the overall field (for the 12th year in a row). Details are available for SMI web members in our February Level 2 article.

"Yesterday's winners, tomorrow's losers"

In an article on passive vs. active approaches to mutual-fund investing, the Wall Street Journal quotes Vanguard founder (and passive indexing guru) John Bogle on what is perhaps the biggest challenge facing active investors: "Yesterday's winners," said Bogle, "are far more likely to be tomorrow's losers."

In other words, many actively managed funds are loaded up with stocks that did well in the past (that's why managers bought them) but that are in the process of becoming underperformers. Active managers are constantly playing a game of "move ahead, then fall behind" — which generates expenses, but not much to show in terms of actual profits in comparison with low-cost indexing.

Two observations: 1) Bogle is right — this is the general case with active management; 2) Nonetheless, many actively managed funds have runs of outperformance that can stretch for many months (even years in rare cases).

Identifying these outperforming funds and investing in them until their success begins to falter is the essence of our Upgrading strategy. Upgrading isn't perfect, but that's okay. There is no perfect strategy. What Upgrading has been able to do is generate annual returns that have strongly outperformed indexing in recent years (although not every year; as noted in our just-released February issue, indexing eclipsed Upgrading ever-so-slightly in 2009).

We're all for indexing for those investors who want to follow that approach — and we're thankful that Mr. Bogle's Vanguard firm offers a terrific mix of index funds that we use for our Just-the-Basics indexing strategy. But we're also glad that Upgrading offers a way to meet the "yesterday's winners, tomorrow's losers" challenge and (usually) come out ahead.

House ≠ Happiness

I recently read Stop Acting Rich...and Start Living Like a Real Millionaire, the latest book by Thomas Stanley, author of the 90's best-seller The Millionaire Next Door. There was one specific part that jumped out as something to share here.

First, let me point out an underlying truth, that hopefully most SMI readers will immediately recognize: there's a lot more to true happiness than incomes, spending habits, and such. Without Jesus, the rest isn't worth anything, whether a person thinks they are "happy" or not.

With that said, though, it's important to also point out that Christians are not immune to the correlations between money usage and happiness. So don't be too quick to discount the way you handle money as a strong influence on the degree of happiness you feel. The great news in this regard is it's the way you carry out your stewardship duties (my choice of wording) that is found to be predictive of happiness in study after study, not the absolute level of wealth or income you possess.

Back to Stanley's book. Throughout it he illustrates the contrast in spending habits between two groups: those with high incomes but low net-worth (big earners but big spenders), versus those with high net-worth who may or may not also have high incomes.

In his chapter on housing, Stanley goes into some detail about the degree of happiness these groups (and some subsets within those groups) report. Most happiness studies find that factors such as health, loving families, and enjoyable jobs are the most important ingredients to overall happiness. But in his studies, even when these other factors were present, there was still a noticeable split in happiness among the high-income group.

Stanley explains:

Much of their dissatisfaction is found in certain choices the have made. Two key choices are neighborhood and house. Both of these elements influence consumption patterns. What if you earn $200,000 a year but spend like neighbors who earn $300,000? You are likely living above your means. As my surveys and studies have found, those who live above their means tend to be dissatisfied with their lives. Conversely, those who live below their means are significantly more likely to report that they are happy.

He goes on to develop the point that the price of the home is only the beginning. When you live in a more expensive neighborhood, the cost of everything seems to creep up, if for no other reason than the spending habits of your neighbors tend to pull yours upward. Few are immune to that tug (and those who are probably are less likely to buy into the more expensive neighborhood in the first place!).

Stanley is hitting on a theme here that we've mentioned before in this blog, namely that absolute income is not as good a predictor of happiness as relative income. To illustrate this simply, someone making $100,000 is statistically more likely to report they are happy if they live in a neighborhood where most of the neighbors make $75,000. In fact, it's quite likely that person could make more money, say $150,000, and wind up reporting they are less happy — if they live in a neighborhood where most of the neighbors make $200,000.

In case you're tempted to think you would be happy in any of those scenarios, given the high incomes I'm talking about, guess again. The same pattern holds whether you cut all the numbers in the prior paragraph in half or double them.

Stanley has this advice for those caught in this trap, or possibly inching towards it without even realizing what they're about to do:

How can these Smiths [those with relatively lower incomes than their neighbors] find happiness? Get out of Jonesville [i.e., neighborhoods with houses that are a struggle for them to afford]! This is an especially urgent message now with real estate prices plummeting and some tempted to grab a so-called bargain in or around an exclusive neighborhood. Never forget that that nice house in the prestigious community will cost you considerably more than the price of the mortgage, real estate taxes and insurance.

Your ego may take a bit of a bruising by admitting that you don't have the income to live among the glittering, but bruises fade with time, and it's almost guaranteed that your satisfaction with life will increase once you are no longer fighting to keep up with those who can simply run faster.

Where has all the money gone?

Citing stats from the Investment Company Institute, USA Today reports that investors withdrew a net $490 billion from money market funds during the first 10 months of 2009. Most of went — where?

If you guessed "into stock funds," you're wrong. Nearly two-thirds of the money went into bond funds.

Normally, investors chase after stocks during periods of red-hot returns, and this year has produced rip-snorting returns for many stock funds. The average stock fund has soared 27.4% this year, according to Lipper, which tracks the funds. And 36 funds have soared 100% or more in 2009.... But investors aren't chasing hot returns.

Instead, they're "chasing" the perceived safety of bonds. Plus a significant number of investors apparently are cashing out and using the money for "non-investing" purposes.

"More money is flowing out of money funds than is going into bond funds — something that's only happened twice in 26 years," says Vincent Deluard, strategist at TrimTabs.com, which tracks fund flows. "It shows how deep the recession is: They may be taking money out to pay the bills or the mortgage."

Unfortunately, the story doesn't break down — for the dollars going into bonds — just how that money is being spread among funds of different average durations. Given current low rates, short- and intermediate-term funds would seem to be the safest bond funds to be holding now. People buying into funds with long durations may be setting themselves up for a major disappointment.

Bond prices typically rally when interest rates fall and tumble when interest rates rise. The yield on the bellwether 10-year Treasury note is just 3.54%. "If rates rise, that would be bad," Deluard says.

Indeed, as we warned in the January issue of SMI, the "potential for rising inflation to hurt bond values by pushing interest rates higher is one of the more important big-picture ideas for investors to be mindful of going into the next decade."

For more on this, read Mark's recent article, Re-Evaluating the "Safe" Part of Your Portfolio.

The Wall Street Journal has also taken note of the heavy inflow into bond funds, speculating that the shift from stocks to bonds is influenced by the fact that "[b]aby boomers...are bulking up on bond funds as they approach retirement."

In November, only three of the 20 best-selling funds were diversified U.S.-stock funds (one index mutual fund, two index ETFs).

The Ghost of Christmas Budgets Future

By now you've worn it, played with it, smelled it, ate it, listened to it, watched it, cut with it, mixed in it, served on it (or in my case, because I didn't really know what to ask for, broke something on purpose and then Mighty Puttied it), or some combination of the above. Some of you have already returned it for whatever it was you really wanted.

But my question is this, "How'd your budget do? Does it need a little Mighty Putty of its own, or did it hold up pretty well?" Or perhaps a better question is, "What, if anything, will you do differently next year?"

As for me, next year I'll do a better job of looking at sites like dealnews.com (slogan: "Where every day is Black Friday") before I go out shopping. But I have to say, using these online saving tips paid off, especially Bing Cashback.

I'll also continue to use cell phone apps like have ShopSavvy which kept me from overpaying on more than one occasion. With ShopSavvy, you simply take a picture of a product bar code with your phone's camera, and within a few seconds you're shown a list of the best local and internet prices for that item.

And perhaps next year, I'll focus our September-November shopping on the non-toy presents. According to Dan de Grandpre, founder and chief executive of dealnews, the best time to buy toys is at least two weeks after Black Friday (or about two weeks before Christmas) when retailers, such as Toys 'R' Us, Wal-Mart and Amazon.com, slash prices to clear out unsold inventory.

I'm also going to push for drawing names on my wife's side of the family. It's so much more enjoyable (and quite a bit less expensive) to worry about buying gifts only for one or two people. Plus, they get better presents 'cause we can afford a little bit more.

The downside is if you draw you-know-who's name (a.k.a. MrOrMrsImpossibleToBuyFor - because they either don't like anything or they're just going to take it back, or they're taking it back because they don't like anything), you're up a creek for a bigger present.

But all and all, if we keep to the same intentional and pro-active strategy next year, will we let our budget scare us? Not a ghost of a chance.

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