Money Matters

Monday, July 31, 2006

Buffalo Small Cap: Keep It Or Dump It?

BUFSX has been part of my taxable investment portfolio since the beginning of 2002 when I started to invest. Since then, I have been dollar-cost-averaging $100 into this fund every month and the fund's return was superior: 51.2% in 2003 and 28.8% in 2004.

However, the fund started to lag not only its peers, but also the benchmark since 2005, when it lost its one manager. Meanwhile, the total assets balloned to $1.6B, the size that becomes a burden for a small cap fund in finding quality companies to invest. On top of its size, the fund also has an expense ratio of 1.01%. Now, BUFSX is the worst performer in my portfolio.

I am a big fan of small cap funds and have owned several small cap funds in the past. At the beginning of this year, I trimmed my holds and now only have two: BUFSX and CGMFX. If I want to dump BUFSX, I need to find a replacement small cap fund and that won’t be an easy job after small cap has outperformed large cap for more than five years.


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VWELX Closed To Brokage Firms

I owned Vanguard Wellington Fund in my IRA account with Scottrade since 2001 and I am very happy with the fund's performance. The only problem I have is Scottrade.

I have both my taxable account and retirement account with Scottrade for more than five years, and they used to be very good: low fee, online fund transfer, local branch offices. Though I am not a day-trader by any means, the $7 commission Scottrade charged for real-time market order was the lowest when I opened my account. For mutual fund investment, they didn't charge any extra fees for NTF funds. For several years, I was able to contribute only $50 a month into those funds that usually require a minimum of $100.

However, things are getting worse since about one and a half years ago when they started to charge fees for even some most popular funds, such as Vanguard funds, and Dodge & Cox funds. To minimize the expenses of the funds I already own, I set up the automatic investment plan for $2.00 per trade and only make contributions on a quarterly basis, which adds another 1% on top of the fees charged by the fund company.

After I made my third quarter purchase on July 25th, I noticed that my scheduled purchase of VWELX didn't occur. So I called Scottrade this morning to ask why and was told that the fund was closed to investors, existing and new.

Closed? I never heard the news that it is closed. To confirm, I called Vanguard and learned that the fund is closed to investors who own the fund through a brokage firm. However, new investment is still possible by going to Vanguard directly.

Maybe it's time to move my IRA account to Vanguard. Four out of five funds in the account are Vanguard funds after all.


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Paid Surveys I Completed

I have been doing online paid survey since July 2006 and here’s a list of surveys I completed so far:

  1. Movie survey from SurveySpot, 07/22/06, $3.00
  2. Credit card survey from SurveySpot, 07/26/06, $3.00
  3. IT survey from SurveySavvy, 07/31/06, $5.00


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Friday, July 28, 2006

Stock Market's Roller-Coaster Ride


Though there is one more trading day left for the month of July, the stock market was nothing but volatile. For the past twenty sessions, the Dow has seen triple digits gain/loss 7 times (7th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 19th, 24th, and 28th)!

Yet, despite the huge ups and downs, we are not too far away from where we started, a mere 69 points.

Looks like we just made a U-turn.

These days, it seems that the big market up swings were entirely driven by the speculation of a possible pause of the interest rate hike in August.

Will we get it?


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Buy and Sell

I ordered two items today, a disk enclosure for $15.99 AR and a FireWire card for $5.99 AR. Do I really need them? Probably only the enclosure if I have to keep it. The card is definitely to be put up for sale on Amazon, which I plane to do right when I receive it. I feel that for electronics, a quick sell is the key as they can become obsolete in the matter of months.

So far I only tried to sell those stuff Amazon carries and it’s possible that some may get stuck in my hands since there are many competitive offers from other sellers as well, though I set up my price really low for most of the items I sell, if not the lowest. Listing those on EBay is another option, though I am researching on it.


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Thursday, July 27, 2006

Paid Survey. Will You Do?

During the internet boom of the late '90s, you could find all kinds of money-making websits that pay you to simply click links on their websites, or install a small banner on your computer and let it run when you are surfing the internet. Easy money indeed. I can still remember a couple of names, such as Alladvantage.com, Surfing2cash.com, and Utopaid.com. Sometimes it made me wonder how these compaies can make money by paying you do nothing other than clicking some links. Sure the advertisers got some traffic to their sites, but what else did they gain? I never bought anything through those links and I believe I am not alone.

After the internet bubble burst, these companies all vanished.

Now if you want to get some free money, it won't be an effortless job and the payouts don't come close to those of the go-go days. Yet, free money is free money.

One way to get a few bucks once in a while is to join some survey panels and do online paid survey. The trick is you have to qualify. These surveys usually come with a screener and you will only get paid if you pass the screen and complete the survey. The payout is anywhere from $2.00 to $6.00 per survey. If you don’t qualify to take the survey, you will get an entry to the sweepstake.

From my short experience (I only started to do survey this month), I like Brand Institute and SurveySpot. Brand Institute only sent me two surveys so far, but they were all paid surveys. I got several survey invitations from SurveySpot, as well as from Greenfield, every day, but most of rewards are sweepstake entries, which I am not very enthusiastic about.

The other one is the so-called paid email. The paid click arrives in your mail box every day and you can earn 3 to 5 cents by clicking the link. I currently use SendEarnings and InboxDollars. Both of them also offer sign-up bonus.

Relatively speaking, paid email sounds easy and requests much less time. Some surveys, on the other hand, can take you up to 40 minutes. That’s kind of long for only a couple of bucks.

If you have some spare time, it may not be such a bad idea of getting some extra cash, like an email from Survey Explosion says:

… if you just want to have fun and make a little extra cash then you can start slowly and put just a few hours per week into this effort.

If you really have a lot of time

… if you want to replace your current job income with survey income then you will need to put as many or more hours into this effort to be successful.

That I will never do.


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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Why Buy Used?

I got another item sold on Amazon today. This time, it was a cable kit, which I got for $1.00 AR, and the price I asked for was $5.35.

While my sale on Amazon has been going great so far, I can’t help thinking why people want to buy used stuff, especially computer hardware and electronics. Aren’t there also very cheap, brand new ones on the market?

For example, the cable kit I just sold was on Buy.com early this month, with a listing price of $29.00 and a rebate of $28. I saw the potential of selling it on Amazon and making a profit. Even if I can’t sell it, one dollar won’t be a waste of money. So after checking the availability and prices on Amazon, I bought it. And only a couple of weeks later, I made several bucks from it.

This only reason I can think of people buying used stuff is that they buy it in a hurry. They have to use it right away, so can’t wait a good deal to come up. However, for the cable kit, it’s hard for me to see what the rush is. Another possibility, people hate rebates. Sure some rebates cause troubles and seem taking forever to get the check, but a good rebate from a reputed retailer shouldn’t prevent you from getting the product you want at a favorable price. Otherwise, you may end up paying much more.

If there is anything I want, I will take the wait-and-search approach. There are plenty of places where you can find good deals. My favorites include Ableshoppers.com, Dealsea.com, and Dealuniversity.com. Of course, Fatwallet.com and Slickdeals.net are always full of bargains.


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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Sold on Amazon.com

A couple of years ago, my Linksys router was damaged because of a power glitch. Without any backups, I had to buy a new one at the regular price, which was much more expensive than those you would get when they were on sale.

Since then, I always bought a backup one when the price was right, either free-after-rebate or less than $10 after rebate. I had gone through wired router, 802.11b wireless router, and 802.11g wireless router, and I have a backup for each of them. Oddly enough, none of my router ever gave me any problem since the Linksys router, and the three backups were sitting in the closet only to collect dust.

Last month, when I was browsing the Fatwallet forum, an idea came up to me after reading some posts about selling stuff on Amazon.com. Why not sell my spare routers on Amazon as well? Not just the routers, I also have a bunch of items I want to get rid of. Wasted no time, I went to Amazon.com and began the process of listing my stuff.

I am not sure about Ebay, but becoming a seller on Amazon is quite simple. Since I already have a buyer’s account, the only extra steps are 1) provide a valid phone number so Amazon can call the number immediately to verify you indeed own the number; and 2) provide the checking account number so Amazon can deposit the proceeds to your bank account directly. Actually, you can list your item you want to sell first and provide your bank account later when the first item is sold.

The first item I listed on Amazon was a textbook I no longer needed. After specifying the condition of the book and giving a sale price, Amazon told me how much commission I would have to pay if the book is sold and the shipping credit Amazon will return to me. If I agree with the terms and conditions, I can list the book right away.

Since it was my first attempt to sell and I didn’t have any ratings, the price I asked for was the lowest among the prices from other sellers. I just wanted to test the water first. Surprisingly, a little more than 24 hours later, the book was sold!

A rather painless process!

In less than a month, I have sold all my three spare routers, an inkjet printer, and another book and collected about $235.

Not bad at all.

If you also want to sell your stuff on Amazon, the following are what I thought you may want to know:
  1. Only those items Amazon currently sells on its website can be listed for free;
  2. To list your own items, you have to setup a pro account and pay monthly fee;
  3. Free listing for 60 days;
  4. Amazon collects payment for you and credits you some of the shipping cost so you avoid the hassle of dealing with the buyer, but you are responsible for the difference between the actually shipping cost and the shipping credits Amazon pays.
  5. Proceeds will be sent to your bank account directly on a biweekly basis;
  6. The commission is quite steep though no listing fee, for example, the commission for a $69.99 book is $12.72 and the commission for a $74.99 printer is $8.19.


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Monday, July 24, 2006

Fight with Ebates.com

My Ebates.com account was created nearly three years ago. However, I haven't used it for a while (for more than two years) until recently I re-discovered this site and decided to use it whenever possible. I already spent the money, why not get some back?

So early last month, I opened two Sharebuilder.com accounts, one for myself and one for my wife, all through my Ebates account. The reward from Ebates is worth $20, meanwhile, there are $50 promotions from Sharebuilder as well. That made the total free money to $70.

So I went ahead and opened the two accounts and was patiently waiting for my cashbacks from Ebates and Sharebuilder for a month. After making an initial deposit and a stock purchase at Sharebuilder, the $100 promotion reward from Sharebuilder finally got into my pocket last Monday. Then, there came the fight with Ebates.

It's a long story, so read on.

After the 30-day period has passed and no sign the Ebates cashbacks will appear in my account any time soon, I contacted Ebates, asking about the status of my cashbacks while providing the Sharebuilder account numbers on July 7th. Ten days later, I was notified that my acount has been credited. Indeed, but only one $20 cashback. Where was my other cashback?

When I questioned Ebates the cashback, I got a reply saying:

We do apologize for this misunderstanding. However ShareBuilder $20.00 cash-back offer is only a one time offer. Since you have already been credited for a ShareBuilder purchase you are ineligible to receive cash-back from this merchant.
Where's the misunderstanding? When I opened the accounts, there was no condition whatsoever about the "one time offer." I then challenged them to give me the exact like to the "one time offer" condition. I am 100% sure I followed the rules. To prove what I said was true, I even made a copy of the Sharebuilder offer from Ebates. Well, later on, it turned out this copy indeed saved my cashbacks.


From another CSR, Ebates reiterated the claim they made in the last email:

Please note that only one Ebates account can earn cash back from a sharebuilder.com purchase. You may review our FAQ page for more information. Unfortunately, sharebuilder.com does not issue cash back on multiple accounts created by a link from one Ebates account. This is part of our Affiliate Agreement with Sharebuilder.com.

We apologize for any confusion and appreciate your understanding.

They again failed to provide the link and there was nothing in the FAQ regarding the Sharebuilder offer. I hope they knew what they were talking about before they talked. On July 18th, one day after I demanded the exact terms on Sharebuilder, I was directed to the Sharebuilder offer page on Ebates website. However, this was not the one I saw a month ago when I opened the account, not even the one I copyed 24 hours ago. The new page reads the following:

The difference? One line was added:

(Only new paid Sharebuilder members will receive the one time rebate.)

Now they really tried to make things happen, in the wrong way though. And this was not the end of it.

Outraged by their little play, I sent back the two screens I saved and demanded an explaination of what happened on their website and this time my message got into the hands of a manager. In the reply, I was asked to provided the confirmation emails from Sharebuilder after the accounts were opened and proofs that the accounts were both funded, which I have provided already. Added a little twist to the problem they were dealing now, the manager accused me of having two Ebates accounts, in the first apparent attempt to deny me:

Please let me know the email address you use for your two Ebates accounts. Also, please let me know why you would need two Ebates accounts, and two ShareBuilder accounts. Currently, Ebates does not allow any member to have two Ebates accounts.
I don't know where this impression was coming from, but it was absolutely not true. Rejecting the manager's claim, I told Ebates there is always one account. The manager then said

We are currently investigating with ShareBuilder to find out why Ebates did not earn commission for either of your registrations with ShareBuilder.
After two days of silence, during which I assumed they were really doing the investigation, the manager brought up a new issue:

Can you please let me know the amount that was funded into each of these ShareBuilder accounts that did not earn Ebates cash-back?
What they were doing? Why should they care how much I made the initial deposit if Sharebuilder didn't care? Were they trying to come up with a new excuses?

Well, since they asked, so I told them I deposited $5 into both accounts, which caused absolutely no problem with Sharebuilder. What really shocked me throughout this event was the reply from manager following my latest email:

Thank you for your reply. I think we now understand this issue. ShareBuilder does not consider any new account "funded" unless at least $20.00 is added upon activation. Therefore, neither of the two Share Builder accounts that you started qualified for Ebates to earn commission. We are glad to leave the $20.00 credit that Thomas gave you in your Ebates account, however, the other Share Builder registration will not qualify to earn cash-back in our program. We are very sorry for any misunderstanding.

Thank you for using Ebates every time you shop online.

Meanwhile, the Ebates website was updated to

with the new addition:

(One time only. Requires new ShareBuilder account to be initially funded with at least $20.00)

You can never underestimate the creativity of a sales person! In the matter of 3 days, Ebates manipulated their website twice, desperately trying to deny the cashbacks I deserved. Not just that, all of sudden, I became the bad guy try to steal 20 bucks from them, and they were doing me a favor by giving me $20!

I shook my head in debelief of they said. How could they be so dishonest? Where is the integrity of doing business?

In my furious reply, I attached all three screen copies and threated to use them, together with the emails exchanged, as evidence for further action against them if I didn't get two $20 cashbacks and let everybody shoppes online knew what they did in the past three days.

In the end, Ebates backed off:

Thank you for your reply. We certainly understand your point. It turns out that we did not know the rules for the ShareBuilder offer prior to your complaint. Based on your emails to us, we were able to find this information out during our investigation. Due to these discoveries, we have been updating the rules on our site over the course of the past few days. In all cases, if Ebates does not earn any commission then we have no funds to pass along to you as cash-back. However, we do value you as an Ebates shopper, and today I have added another $20.00 to your Ebates account.
Looks like I might just help them fixed a loophole as well.

Lessons I learned from this incident:

  • Sometimes, you just have to fight for your right;
  • Always keep the evidences.


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