Archives for February 2015

Index Funds vs. Hedge Funds: Buffett $1,000,000 Bet Update 2015

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chips

It is now 7 years in on the 10-year bet between Warren Buffett and a successful hedge fund manager. In 2007, Warren Buffett challenged any hedge fund to a long-term bet against the S&P 500. He found a taker.

Fortune magazine announced “Buffett’s Big Bet”, where $1,000,000 would go to the charity chosen by the winner. The bet would run from 2008 to 2018. Buffett would take the S&P 500, represented by the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund (Admiral shares). Protégé Partners would stand behind hedge funds, represented by the average return of five hand-picked hedge funds.

Carol Loomis has just posted the 2015 update in Fortune. The hedge funds were in the lead early on, but started lagging behind in the 2012 update. In 2013, the performance gap widened to about 30%. The gap has widened even more. In 2014, the S&P 500 index fund went up 13.6%, whereas the hedge funds only rose 5.6%.

Through the entire 7-year period that runs through the end of 2014, the S&P 500 index fund is up 63.5%. The hedge fund marker only went up an average of 19.6%. That’s now a gap of over 40%. With three years left, the hedge funds have some serious catching up to do.

Through the seven years, Vanguard’s 500 index fund, as represented by its Admiral shares, is up 63.5%. That’s the portfolio carrying Buffett’s colors. Protégé’s five hedge funds of funds are, on the average—the marker the bet uses—up an estimated 19.6%. (The “estimated” takes into account that not all of the five funds have final figures for 2014).

Will this collection of hand-picked hedge funds be able to outperform a simple, low-cost index fund over the long run? Hedge funds may employ some bright minds but also charge hefty fees of roughly 2% of assets annually + 20% of any gains. At the start of the bet, the past performance of the hedge funds were excellent – from inception in July 2002 through the end of 2007, the Protégé fund gained 95% (after all fees), soundly beating the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund’s 64%. But lots of funds have good performance when looking backwards. It is much harder to pick out winning managers ahead of time (and harder on those managers when everyone is looking and there is too much money to deploy).

Read the terms of the bet and each side’s opening arguments at LongBets.org. This carefully-tracked bet was part of the inspiration for my transparent Beat the Market experiment. Too often, people are not honestly and accurately tracking the performance of their portfolios… again, starting ahead of time! It is natural to point out your winners and conveniently forget the losers.

Read my original 2008 blog post and halfway 5-year update here.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Verizon Wireless Drops Most Data Plan Prices by $10, But Existing Customers Must Opt-In

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

vzwnewprice2Verizon Wireless positions itself as a premium service. They have the biggest 4G LTE footprint, but they also seem to cost more across the board. For people that depend on reliable phone and data service for their work, the extra price is often worth it. However, Verizon just announced a price drop for many of their data plans.

From their press release, Verizon puts it this way:

Beginning Thursday [2/5/15], Verizon’s MORE Everything plans with data allowances of 1GB to 3GB (or from $40 to $60 per month) will include 1GB of additional data for the same price. A new $70 plan with 6GB will be available. […] Verizon is also adding new 12GB, 14GB, and 16GB options to its MORE Everything plans for customers with greater appetites for data and all that it enables, like streaming video or sharing large files.

But really, this is a $10 price drop if you are happy with your current data limits. This graphic from Recode summarizes it best:

vzwnewprice

However, the real reason I am mentioning all this is that existing Verizon customers must opt in to this “new” plan to get the savings. This a potential $120 a year savings without changing your behavior, but you won’t get it automatically!

To save $10 every month (or get an increased data allowance at your current price), either call customer service or log into your Verizon Wireless account online and pick the option to change your plan. You will be told that your existing plan is “no longer available” and that you must choose a new plan. Verify that your new monthly bill is $10 less than before (excluding taxes and fees).

Side note: If you just want to take advantage of Verizon’s good voice coverage, you can use the Page Plus Prepaid MVNO which uses Verizon towers but may not have the same roaming agreements in certain areas. You can get a Pay-as-you-go plan for as little as $10 every 120 days. They offer 4G LTE now as well, it ends up being big savings for single plans but less so for family plans with multiple lines. If you’re ending a Verizon contract and are still happy with your “old” phone, this may be something worth considering.

Side note 2: Oh, and don’t forget to check if you can get an employee or student discount with just your e-mail address.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Viewing Stock Market Risk Over The Long Run

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

stockslongrun3The following is a chart that I usually like to pull out during a crisis when people are scared of investing in the stock market, but since I just found a nicely updated version of it, I had to share. It is taken from Jeremy Siegel’s book Stocks for the Long Run and found via this Vox article about how most people incorrectly view real estate as the best long-term investment*.

Here is a chart showing the historical range of real (after-inflation) returns for US stocks, long-term bonds (bonds), and short-term bonds (T-bills) from 1802 to 2012.

stockslongrun

The chart shows that over bried time periods, the stock market has been historically more of coin flip than anything else. Over a year, you could get anywhere from +70% to -40%. With bonds and cash, the swings are much less wild. But as you lengthen your holding period, your risk of losing money over that time decreases significantly. For time horizons of 20 and 30 years, only stocks never lost you money after inflation.

Note that the average annual returns for each respective asset class remains the same across all time periods. Via the CFA Institute:

stockslongrun2

This supports the advice that it doesn’t really matter as much what your plan is, but more that you pick one and stick with it. Going heavy on stocks and then bailing out when they are in a funk, or going heavy on bonds and bailing out when they are in a funk, all that is worse than doing NOTHING and simply riding it out. As they say, it’s not about timing the market, it’s about time IN the market.

I believe it was one of William Bernstein’s books that suggested that young folks who understand this should put as much money now into stocks as possible, as to increase your time horizon. Put 100% of your money into stocks now, and then as you get older put more of your money into bonds to get a balanced mix eventually. This can be hard though, as you’re asking the people with less experience and smallest assets to hold the thing that is most volatile. Going 80/20 or 70/30 from beginning to end is also a reasonable approach in my opinion (and personal experience with my own portfolio).

Now, another well-known professor Robert Shiller reminds us that the period above includes the most economically successful century of the most economically successful country in the world so far… and will not necessarily repeat itself. I’m not saying that you should expect 6% real returns from stocks. Shiller’s CAPE ratio model itself forecasts a 3% real return for stocks over the next decade. I’m focusing on the fact that stocks are investments in productive businesses and that the volatility of the pricing of such businesses will stabilize when held across longer holding periods.

* I would actually argue that the long-term return of real estate is actually not that far behind that of stocks, if you add in the imputed rent from the house. Yes, it may be true that the value of a house doesn’t increase that much over inflation over the long run. But houses are also productive in that they can create their own income! If the value of the rent that you could get from that house is included, that could add another 4% to 6% to the return historically. 5% real return would be smack dab between bonds and stocks.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


DietBet and HealthyWage: Can I Get Paid to Lose Weight?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

weightbetA few well-publicized academic studies have shown that financial incentives can be very effective in helping people lose weight. In order to combine the carrot and the stick, there are two websites now where you can bet on your weight loss. If you lose enough, you get paid. If you don’t meet your weight loss goal, you’ll lose the money you committed.

I tried both and here are links to my reviews of each site:

My HealthyWage Review

  • You can place a bet as an individual, or join a team challenge.
  • With the individual bet (Healthy Wager), you tell them your body details, how much you want to bet, how much you want to lose, and they’ll calculate what prize to offer you. For me, if I bet $100 a month and lose 10% of my body weight within 9 months, I would get $1,000 ($100 prize plus my $900 back). 11% potential return combined with the risk of losing it all, I’m not sure what I think about that.
  • The $10,000 Team Challenge is a competition between teams of 5 people during preset 12-week intervals, with the top prize being $10,000. The entry fee is $25/month per person for three months ($75 total).
  • The new Jackpot Team Challenge is a competition between teams of 5-9 people to lose 6% of their body weight. Each participant contributes $33 per month for 3 months ($99 total) into the “pot”. Teams that collectively average a 6% weight loss in a given contest will split the total Jackpot with any other winning teams. Healthywage does take a 25% cut of the pot first.
  • No smartphone apps available.

My DietBet Review

  • Everyone has to join a group. Start your own or join a friend’s or stranger’s group.
  • Everyone puts money into the pot for that group. Your goal is either to lose 4% of your body weight in 4 weeks, or 10% in 6 months. All the winners in that group split the jackpot (basically your money back plus splitting the losers’ bets).
  • The average “win” is 50% to 100% of your contribution (i.e. put in $30, win $45 to $60 back). Dietbet does take a cut of the pot before distribution, between 10% to 25%. If everyone “wins”, their cut will be reduced so that nobody will lose money on the bet.
  • Available as both an Android and iPhone app.

With both sites, you can verify your weight at home using a scale and a smartphone camera. With HealthyWage, you can also go to visit a fitness or medical professional (health club worker, doctor’s office).

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Jet Shopping Club Promo: Free 6 Month Membership ($25 Value)

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

jetOnline shopping club Jet.com has been hyped as “part Costco, part mall, and all anti-Amazon” by Businessweek. It’s not even live yet, but it will be like Costco in that Jet plans to make their profit only from membership fees and make no money on actually selling the merchandise to you.

The idea sounds hard to implement online, but the founder is the guy that sold Diapers.com to Amazon for oh, just half a billion dollars.

All this supposedly means that Jet prices will be 10% to 15% lower than anywhere else, including Amazon! Given that a membership will be $50 a year, I was interested to learn that Jet is giving out a free 6-month membership to anyone who signed up via a Jet Insider referral link. The more you refer others, the more perks you can get. Given that I only found out about this today, I’m currently ranked #303,977, and there is only 3 days left in this promotion, it is unlikely that I’ll get the coveted free shares of Jet stock given to the top 10. Ah well. Maybe just let me in on the IPO? 🙂

The Jet Insider program will end on February 6th, 2015, at 11:59 am ET.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Amazon’s (Positive) Free Shipping Policy Change

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Amazon has made a subtle change to their free shipping on orders over $35 policy (for users that don’t pay extra for Amazon Prime). Via LA Times and krutis of FW.

There are now more than triple the number of items you can use to meet Amazon’s minimum $35 order for free shipping, making it easier to fill up your shopping cart and qualify for free shipping. Find eligible offers by looking for items with “FREE Shipping” listed on the product detail page.

azfreeship

Previously, in order to get free shipping on orders over $35, they all had to be fulfilled by Amazon (meaning they are shipped out of an Amazon warehouse). Usually these products were also eligible for Amazon Prime subscribers (who could buy it without any minimum purchase size). Now, any product from any merchant that offers “FREE Shipping”, even if they ship it themselves, counts toward the $35 requirement. According to Amazon, adding these third-party folks effectively triples the number of items available.

This isn’t a huge change, as you could probably already buy those non-Amazon-warehoused items with free shipping by themselves, but it is handy to know as now combining certain things together can help you meet the $35 minimum.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Time Again to Reconsider Refinancing Your Mortgage?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

If you have a mortgage with an interest rate over 5% or even 4%, hopefully you have explored refinancing it to a lower interest rate. Yes, it can be a bit of a pain, and that is why many people leave tens of thousands of dollars, if not over a hundred thousand dollars, on the table. A one-time hurdle now is better than worrying about skipping lattes forever! Here are some useful nuggets of information that will hopefully motivate you to pursue it further.

Mortgage rates are back near record lows and refinance applications are spiking. From the NY Times on 1/20/15:

The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.8 percent at the end of last week. That is down from 4.5 percent as recently as last spring, the lowest since May 2013 and far below the 5 percent-plus rates that prevailed as recently as early 2011. […] Homeowners who secured their current mortgage in late 2013 or early 2014, or anytime before mid-2011, may want to at least plug their numbers into an online calculator to see if the potential savings are worthwhile.

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Home price appreciation may mean you can refi and get rid of private mortgage insurance. Home values have been rising, so you may now be eligible to refinance when you weren’t in past years, which could reduce your interest rate and/or enable to you stop paying for mortgage insurance.

20% of people who could benefit from a refinance didn’t… From a NBER paper and this CBS Marketwatch article

For example, in the period they study, December 2010, 20 percent of households that would have benefited from refinancing and had the ability to refinance did not do so. The median amount of unrealized savings was approximately $160 per month, or $11,500 per household over the remaining life of the loan.

… and they could have saved big bucks.

… a household with a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage of $200,000 at an interest rate of 6.5 percent that refinances when rates fall to 4.5 percent will save over $80,000 in interest payments over the life of the loan, even after accounting for typical refinancing costs. With long-term mortgage rates at roughly 3.35 percent, this same household would save roughly $130,000 over the life of the loan by refinancing.

Shop around! People spend more time comparison shopping for a $500 computer than a mortgage that could save you $10,000. From Bloomberg:

Mortgage interest compounds the cost, and over the life of a loan, small differences in an interest rate really add up. The best way to save, then, is to shop around for the best rate possible, but a new survey by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finds that half of homebuyers consider only one lender or mortgage broker. That’s particularly unimpressive considering that typical shoppers will spend at least four hours choosing a new computer.

There are new tools to help you comparison shop. Forget average interest rates. You want the interest rate for your situation. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) has a new rate checker tool that takes into account your credit score, state of residence, house price, and down payment size to see what other interest rates people are getting. I like they show an actual distribution of rates and the number of lenders offering that rate:

refi2

In the end, you will have to gather lots of paperwork and probably deal with a couple hiccups to get your refinance done. I never said it would be fun, but it is profitable. You can try the big networks like and Quicken Loans, or you can ask around for a referral to a reputable mortgage broker. The CFPB recommends that you get quotes from three or more lenders. That way you can compare and even negotiate one off the other. “Rates often change from when you first talk to a lender and when you submit your mortgage application, so don’t make a final decision before comparing official Good Faith Estimates.”

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.