Archives for October 2006

I don’t know how long this has been out, but I just noticed in my Scottrade brokerage account that there is a new service called Money Direct that allows you to electronically deposit money from a bank account. Note that I said deposit only, because you can’t use the service to withdraw. What’s up with that? How disappointing.

The service appears to use Yodlee Funds Transfer as the back end, which is similar to the CashEdge service banks like HSBC and Bank of America use. You can basically link any savings or checkings account as long as you have a routing number and account number. Verification is either via website login information or trial deposits.

Here is some more useful info from the Money Direct FAQ:

Q. What is Money Direct?
Money Direct allows you to electronically deposit funds from banks, credit unions, and select brokerage accounts into your Scottrade account. Money Direct utilizes the Automated Clearing House Network (ACH) process.

Q. How soon will funds be available for trading after I initiate a deposit using Money Direct?

Deposit Initiated On *	Your Checking/Savings Account Debited On	Your Scottrade Account Credited On **
Monday	Tuesday	Thursday
Tuesday	Wednesday	Friday
Wednesday	Thrusday	Monday
Thursday	Friday	Tuesday
Friday	Monday	Wednesday
Saturday	Monday	Thursday
Sunday	Monday	Thursday

*Deposits requested after 8:45 PM EST will be initiated on the following business day.

**Money Direct takes three business days to settle. In the case of a bank holiday, Money Direct may take four business days to settle.

More transfer delays, boo. Sigh… I suppose this service is better than nothing. However, if you have $5,000 with Scottrade you can already get checkwriting access and use that information to link up your account for both deposits and withdrawals through various online savings accounts. And there is less ‘lost’ time between debits and credits. This is what I have been using for months now as a workaround, I’ll make a more detailed post on it if there is interest.

For my other experiences with Scottrade brokerage overall, please refer to my Scottrade review.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I have been enjoying a free trial courtesy of George of Fat Pitch Financials Contributor’s Corner and here is my review.

Basics
The main premise behind Contributor’s Corner is to provide “arbitrage and special situation opportunities in the stock market for small time investors.” One of the more common examples of this is a company trying to “go private” by buying back all the existing publicly traded shares.

For example, let’s say BigBob Enterprises (BOB) has 100,000 shares currently trading at $9.00 each. If it wants to go private, it has to buy back all the shares at a price that the current shareholders as a whole would approve. So maybe it files with the SEC that it would like to buy back at $10.00 a share, giving the potential for profit.
[Read more…]

Just as surely as there will be an article entitled “Lose 10 lbs On 10 Minutes A Day” or “Easy Abs For You” on the cover of Men’s Health magazine this month, there will also be an in big letters “Six Stocks To Own Right Now” or “5 Mutual Funds To Protect Your Money” on the cover of one of the personal finance magazines this month. I guarantee it!

Why? Because “Low Cost Index Funds A Good Idea… Again” every month would get very stale and would stink at selling magazines! In addition, even the construction of the articles themselves is very predictable. It’s almost like they use a Mad Libs form (remember those?):

1. Give me the name of a recently successful mutual fund manager.
2. Give me the name of a formidable-sounding management company.
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