Roth IRA and JSDA

Once I start receiving paychecks, I'm going to gradually make the maximum contribution to my Roth IRA. I'm starting to think about how I plan to invest the funds in the IRA. For the first year or two, there's only going to be a few thousand dollars. If I invest in individual stocks, I do want to buy at least 100 shares. This means that my IRA for the first few years would be made up of only a few stocks. I could also invest in ETF's for the first few years and then gradually select certain stocks.

Then I started thinking generally about investing, and I'm hoping you will share your opinion.
Here's the question: would you invest your Roth IRA in a more conservative way or a more aggressive way?

I've read various articles in the past and have heard opinions of financial managers. Some say that since all the capital gains can be taken out tax-free, it's best to go with a more conservative approach. This way, the probability of the IRA losing value over the years will be minimal and you can enjoy the tax benefits.
Others say that you should be more aggressive because of these tax benefits. By choosing to use an aggressive approach, you have the chance of great gains and keeping all of these gains.
What would you do, or for those who have IRA's, what do you do?

Note: you can also blend the two, either by using both at the same time (10% aggressive, 90% conservative, etc.) or by being more aggressive at a younger age and then turning more conservative.



Jones Soda
I listened to the conference call (stockdiva, what did you think?) and I wasn't thrilled, but saw some potential. I wrote down some notes and hopefully I got all the figures correct. Sales increased by 21%, but the bottom line was hit by an increase in expenses. The quarter ended with a net loss of 1 cent compared to a 3 cent profit last year. So far things are just looking so-so, but the increase in expenses was due to brand awareness and marketing costs for promotions with Target. They seem positive with their Target results, so these expenses will probably be worth it in the long run. But they better be right with their expectations of the Target program.
Sales did increase at a strong rate, but the increase in expenses of $1.1 million was huge when compared to the increase in sales. So these operating expenses were to increase brand awareness and boost their Target sales. The next few quarters will be important to see if this increase in op expenses were worth it (especially the figures for the summer months).

Other notes:

• They talked more about expanding, and I think they should definitely use more outlets. Target is a huge chain, but I think that it will be important to continue with Kroger and other chains as well.
• The organic tea line is exceeding expectations
• The gross margins held fairly well and they intend to lower freight costs
• It seems that they are banking on nice growth figures for the near term future because they had greatly higher operating expenses (mentioned above) and they are increasing their inventory (inventory turnover went form 49 to 61 days). From one side, it looks like a big risk, but from another side it also looks like they have full confidence in their numbers and estimates for strong growth.
• They plan to move to Nasdaq and will provide benefits for the future. In the near term, this could make the outlook appear fuzzy because of the increase in expenses. I looked on the Naz site and the fees for listing as a small cap can't exceed $50k (they also noted this during the CC). The annual fees will also be $21k per year. These expenses, along with other promotional expenses could hinder the chance of profitability for the near future.
• They are going to do a Halloween promotion where they are hoping people will buy small cans and give them to trick-or-treaters. Honestly, I'm not so sure about this one (I rather get candy). Hopefully they aren't putting too much money into this, and I'm not sure if they said any estimates.
• One caller talked about the pricing of cans of soda vs the bottle prices. I think this was a strong point, because it could become a cannibalization of sales. Rather than adding to sales, people who originally bought the bottles would now buy the cheaper cans. Definitely something to watch.
• They were able to increase their prices, which just shows the strength of the brand. They had good top line growth with an increase in price, nice.

Okay this is getting a little long, if you're interested in more just email me.

Templates for Savings

Well nothing exciting happened in my portfolio except for LB. It took a huge hit, declining 7.44% on no news and heavy volume, definitely something I don't want to see. I'll see how it reacts for the next few days.


I know a few other finance blogs track their expenses with excel spreadsheets and I think this might be a good idea. It will allow me to see where exactly my money is going and if I can limit certain expenses. I was going to take some time to make my own spreadsheet, but I might use Microsoft's Templates site. I browsed for a few minutes and was able to find a few good spreadsheets.
I guess August will be my test money for my all my savings assumptions, excel spreadsheets, and monthly goals. I will also be browsing more personal finance goals in order to see how they deal with expenses, savings, and other related things.

December 2005 Goal

First thing: for this week, the Carnival of Personal Finance is at Free Money Finance, and I suggest you check it out. I check FMF's site on a daily basis, and I'm always learning something new.

WSJ article: In my inbox today (my profile has a new email address by the way, just for the blog) I was emailed a link of a Wall Street Journal article about the rise of individual currency traders.
Some of the quotes remind me quotes I read during the internet bubble. I think I've mentioned that I do want to learn more about currency trading, but I definitely don't want to open an account with a few thousand dollars and see what happens, which these guys seem to be doing.

I took some time today to calculate a end of year 2005 goal. I made some estimates based on my take-home pay after taxes.
Assumptions

• Rent for my one room, a max of: $550/month
• Bills and groceries (not restaurants): $200/month
• The bills are on the low side because if I live in a 3 bedroom apartment, the bills will be split three ways.
• Working and transportation: $140/month

I then will set an amount to be in my bank account and I think I can put away $1000/month into my ING account. When I have investments available I will either transfer money over from ING to my brokerage account, or if I need to make a quick transaction I will buy on margin and then transfer the money over. I'm doing this so I can keep the maximum amount of free cash in a 3.15% account rather than a 0.50% account. The margin charges will be nominal.

I will make an assumption of my net worth for August 1st and this will be $25,000. The amount should be higher, but I need to buy more work clothes and the car repairment was expensive!

One note about the working and transportation. I found out that this amount can be reimbursed to me at the end of every month. This is a great thing because I will get the money back and it will have some tax benefits. Under the plan $140 will be taken out before taxes and thus reduce my taxable income. So I will be able to reduce my taxable income and get reimbursed the money, which comes out to $1,680/year.

Okay, finally on to the goal. It sometimes takes me awhile to get to the point.

December 2005 Goal
$32,000

This goal is based on the above assumptions, savings from work, and then I added a 6% growth to the money from August 1 till the end of the year. The 6% figure reflects increases in capital gains, dividends, as well as any extra savings that I may accumulate.

Offer Letter and Benefit Package

I received my offer letter and benefit package today. I'm still reading through things and filling out all the paperwork, so I should have it completed tomorrow to send back to them. I did read a few things that were interesting. The first one is that I can have a 401(k), but I can't contribute to it until I've been working there for one year. I was a little bummed about that, but I still have my IRA.
My health and dental will be fully covered by the employer and I still need to read up on the details about this. This one could save me a good amount of money because I've been checking out health plans and they were around 70-90/month I believe.

One of the benefits that I was happy to see was a transportation and parking reimbursement. They will reimburse up to $125/month for transportation and $200/month for parking. The parking one seems high, but parking in the financial district is extremely expensive. I'm going to check out some parking prices, but as of right now I will be taking public transportation.
I'll be taking BART and this will cost $140/month: $2/day for a parking fee and $35/week for transportation (a round trip is about $5). I'm really glad that I will be able to cover most of my transportation costs.

I'm still reading the other material, so I might read about a few other good benefits tomorrow.
I estimated my net take home pay by deducting medicare, federal, state and assuming I take one deduction. I think this figure will be accurate and I will be using it to make some goals.


Market News
FRX received some bad news, but it went down only 1.73%. LB rose 2.93%.
Hopefully tomorrow I will look into SLE (Sara Lee).
Portfolio YTD: +15.50%

Weekend Update

Just a quick rant: my car wouldn't start the other day so I had to tow it to a repair shop.
I got the car back today and the repairs were $800. My net worth took a hit because of this, but at least it happened before I started work.

Job Details and Preliminary Thoughts

My job is a newly created position at a hedge fund in the financial district of San Francisco. Some of my duties are undefined as of right now, but here's what I know so far. The position was listed as a finance/trading/operations assistant; which means I will be helping anyone involved in those functions. I'll be working with the two main traders doing trade settlements and other duties; with the finance part I will be helping the CFO with quarterly/yearly reports and other things involving the financial aspect of the firm itself; then I'm assuming the operation duties will have to do with account maintenance and client requests/questions.

I'm definitely going to have to get used to the hours. I will be working from 6am to 3pm and this might be tough. I'm not exactly sure when I will have to wake up, but taking into account time to get ready and transportation time, I think it might be around the 4am area. At my last job I was usually awake by 5:45, so this one will be tougher. I think I'll get used to it, but I plan to wake up early a few days before my first day to get comfortable. I've been known to have sleeping problems (sometimes I go to bed and it still takes a few hours before I fall asleep) and I might use some over the counter sleep pills for awhile to get used to my sleep schedule.

Now that I finally have a job, I've been slowly thinking about expenses and savings. I know I will have some upfront expenses: I need more work clothes. I also know that I will have some weekly expenses and I'm going to think of ways to limit these expenses. For instance, right now I'm living at home and to get to work I have to drive to a BART station (for those who don't like, bart is like the bay area subway system) and this involves a $2/day parking fee and the roundtrip ride totals a little under $5. So the total transportation expense will be $7/day, $35/week, and $140/month. I will look into parking lots nearby, but I doubt they will be less than $140/month. To put things into perspective I've seen some parking lots in the financial district charge $2.50 for every fifteen minutes! I'll try to figure something out.

I'm also slowly looking for an apartment to move into by searching Craigslist. I'm not looking to rent out a full unit, but just one room. My goal is to find a place with people around my age with a maximum rent for my one room of $550/month. I've found a good amount of listings, but I don't know when I will follow-up. There is also a chance that I will move in with some friends.
If I move closer into the city (I'm living just south of San Francisco right now) I will be able to cut down on some of the commute time.

Savings: I haven't spent too much time thinking about things, but I plan to make full contributions to my Roth IRA, set up an emergency fund, and set some goals for myself.
My job is going to FedEx me the offer letter and benefit package, so I don't know the details about a 401(k) or anything like that. I also don't know what my pay will be after taxes and expenses. I made a few estmates and I think I might be able to save around 40% of my after-tax pay. The rest would be used for expenses and spending. This is definitely not set though, just some ramblings. Once I see how things turn out, I will be able to set more defined goals.

I got a job!

I normally post at night, but I wanted to share some good news. Job 2 left me a message to call back and I called them back. I was really excited when she said that they were offering me a job! I was really happy, but I also wanted to see what happened with Job 1 so I asked for a little time to think about the offer. She said to call back by Friday and I agreed. I got in touch with Job 1 and they continued to say that I was a top candidate, but still had more round 1 interviews set up for what seems like the rest of this week and next week. She said that a decision probably wouldn't be made for another few weeks or so, and I thought that it was best to take the Job 2 offer since it also seems like a really great job.

I plan to call them tomorrow to let them know that I'm accepting the position. I believe I start August 1st, so I will have one more week off. I'm fairly sure my hours will be from 6:30am -3pm so I will need to adjust my sleeping schedule.

I think the salary is great for an entry level finance person and my next few posts will deal with setting up goals, an emergency fund, and some words about savings.
I'm excited!

Just to note about my health: I had another check-up, and they used a machine on my legs and checked out my lungs- the technician (or I guess he was a doctor) thinks that there is no clot in my leg. I'm definitely glad about this good news as well.

The Game of Gin

Have you ever played a game of gin and you know you are two or three moves from going out and winning the game but need one or two particular cards? Like: I need to pick up that 5 of diamonds there, but only if the other player discards another card I can use so I can go out all at once. If they discard a card I don't need, then I need to pick up and hope for a 3, 8, or Jack of spades...then I can go out. All these moves based on what card is discarded or what card I pick up, is reminding me of the job situation.

So job #3 called me to confirm that I am not accepting this position. She remained upbeat though and wished me the best of luck in the future. It seems they are going back to square one with the interview process and I wished them the best of luck.

The interview with job #2 went okay. It was definitely not my best interview and I think I was a little shaky. Basically I got up real early and went to interview with the president/owner for a short fifteen minutes. He said up front he won't have too much say in the hiring decision and then I went through my resume and answered a few questions. He said he thought I would make a good fit, and hopefully he meant it. Then the original two who interviewed me (the CFO and the head trader) and we talked a little about the process and time issue. They said they would get back to me by tomorrow. I'm not sure how the other candidate did, but I also don't think I aced the entire process.

I called job #1 and the portfolio manager was still out due to sickness. I talked for awhile with the head of HR and it went great. She was sorry about the delay and she did give me good news. Of all the people she has talked with she said she really liked me and that I was the top candidate. She also thought the portfolio manager had the same feelings. I told her this was a golden opportunity and I hope things will work out. She told me to call tomorrow and hopefully the portfolio manager will be there. I'm hoping to set up a quick second interview sometime this week.
Now job #2 is going to call tomorrow for sure. If I didn't get the job, then I'm going for #1 with full confidence. If I did get the job, then I'm going to try to get as much time as possible and see if there's anyway I can work something with #1.
Plus a recruiter from awhile ago called me and said that her firm wanted to interview me for a Fixed Income position. I set it up for Tuesday and explained my current job situation so she knows where I am standing.
This is definitely feeling like a time and balance game.

On top of that, I do have a health issue that I will have to deal with. A few weeks ago I was injured playing basketball. I found out today that there is a 50/50 chance that I have blood clots in my leg. Great. There is also the possibility that this could turn into a bad situation, but I don't think it will.

Greater the risk, greater the reward?

First of all, I hope this simpler template works out well. I like the white background, and I think I will keep the layout for awhile. I also added another blog, The Bean Counter, and took out a few that were no longer there. I might add a few more changes in the near future.

The title of this post relates to my job situation. Today I found out some new information about job #1 and job #2. Job #3 called me this morning to see if I had made a decision, but I told them I was sticking to my Tuesday deadline. I'm going to call them tomorrow morning to let them know I will not be taking the position.
Why? Because I'm going to make a risky choice and go for jobs 1 and 2.

I called job 1 today to see the status of the position. The head of HR told me the portfolio manager was out today and that they were trying to set up a few more interviews, but had some scheduling problems. I let them know about my situation and told them that as long as I had a chance, I would turn down #3 to take that chance. So that's what I'm going to do. She told me to call back tomorrow in the afternoon, when she can give me some more details. She also said that they are probably going to have a second interview.

Job #2 left me a message and I quickly called them back. I made it to the third and final round! It's now down to me and this one other girl. I was very excited to hear the news and we set up the final interview for tomorrow morning. The other candidate will be interviewing right after me, and I rather go first.

I have a chance at both jobs and I think that makes it worth the decision to turn down job #3. Although it's a bit risky, I really don't think job 3 is for me. It seems more like a one-task role where I will do the same thing over and over. The other two jobs will provide me roles where I will be able to do many different tasks and a good possibility of moving into higher roles.
One other small benefit is that jobs 1 and 2 are in San Francisco, which will make the commute a lot easier.

More details tomorrow.

A semi-productive day

The market had a pretty good day and FRX is hopefully going to stabilize over the $40 level (it closed today at $42.40). Right now I'm struggling towards using my time for job stuff, CFA readings, and searching for stocks. I normally spent a good amount of my free time reading about stocks and the market in general. Lately, I haven't been doing this and I guess it's okay since I don't have too much available cash to invest.

The CFA studying is going okay, and I'm going to spend tomorrow to get some reading out of the way. I'm a little past half way in terms of reading and taking notes on the suggested parts, but I'm definitely not close to being ready. I'm hoping to be done with my notes soon and then I can concentrate on doing the problems, reviewing my notes, and taking practice tests. The material over the last week hasn't been too interesting.

Job update: the junior trader job is about to finalize an offer and I think it will be emailed to me tomorrow. I'm going to try to ask if I can make a decision on Tuesday. I think it might give me enough time to hear from the other two jobs. One said they will contact me tomorrow (and if they don't, I will call them tomorrow afternoon). This firm is not sure if they will hold a second interview since they are only meeting with a few people. The other firm is meeting with five people this week and will make a decision on Monday about a third round (where it will be down to two candidates). If I'm in the running with the other two firms, then I'll decide on Tuesday if I should take the chance and turn down the offer while hoping to receive an offer from the other two.

Layout: I picked a new layout/template, but I'm not going to use it yet till I find a few more things for this blog. I'll try to get some time for this one as well.

Second Interview Recap

Today was my second interview for the finance/operations assistant position and I think it went well. I first met with the guy in charge of compliance and legal issues. We started off with a pleasant chat and it was going pretty well. He was actually fairly new to the company as well so he gave me a brief overview of his duties. Part of my duties, if I get the job, is to help him out as well. He gave me a few ideas about how I would help him out, but that part of the role is still really undefined.

Next, I met with two other people: the person in charge of operations and one of the head traders. Overall I thought it went good, not great, but good. I was able to show through my past experiences that I've done a good amount of the duties of this new position. I made sure to think of a past example that would relate to some of the duties they were talking about, and I think this was a good move.

Finally, I met with the CFO who is also acting as the lead HR person for this position. She asked me about any other potential jobs and I was upfront about the situation with the other two places. I then found out a little more about the interview process. This week they are holding their second interviews with candidates and they plan to have 5 or 6 interviews (including me). I'm fairly certain I was the first to be interviewed. On Monday they are going to decide from the group and narrow it down to 2 candidates. It seemed there was a slight possibility of just picking one on Monday, but it also seems she wants two candidates to come in for a third round of interviews (meeting with the head portfolio manager and the person in charge of research).
She also mentioned the pay, and it was more than I expected. This job pays 25% more than the junior trader role and that's not counting the yearly bonus. Factoring in the potential bonus, my best guess is that his job would pay between 37 and 50% more than the other one. That's a pretty big difference!

As of today I'm still waiting for the junior trader role to get back to me, but I hope they take a few more days. By Friday I should expect to hear back from another position. Then on Monday I should hear back from today's firm.
Just to note: if the junior trader position offers me a job, but the other two firms do not- I will then see if I should take the job or continue searching. But I really don't want to be in that situation.

Words to remember

I finished the latest issue of Kiplinger's and there was a decent article about investing and mistakes made by Andrew Feinberg. The overall article is okay, but I thought the last few lines were worth mentioning.
"Mistakes are opportunities in disguise. By examining them carefully and drawing rational conclusions, you can significantly enhance your returns."
A well written important piece of advice.

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Forest Labs (FRX) had a great day by rising almost 5% on news of an upgrade from Citigroup. Recently, a few firms have come out and said that they expect FRX to have a great earnings report. When firms come out with their guidance FRX gets a nice bump up, but now I'm wondering what's going to happen when earnings come out. If it's great, it might not be great enough with these expectations being built into the price.

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Job stuff

So I heard back from the junior trader position after a month of waiting (and thinking I didn't get the job). They went through all the candidates and want me for the position. I was first happy when I heard the news, and then wondered on how to juggle the other two jobs. I think I should hear back from the other two jobs by the end of this week or the beginning of next. The junior trader position still needs to check my references and do a background check, so I have a little time there. I definitely want to see how the other two positions turn out.
Tomorrow I have a second interview for one of the other jobs, and I'll write about this one tomorrow.
Hopefully I'll have a job somewhere by the middle of next week.

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Just a few other updates.
I'm going to try to change a few things about this blog. First, I might use a different layout because I'm getting tired of the current one. I'm also going to try to have specific weeks about certain topics. One week might be about IRA's (as well as my personal finance).
Right now the blog is set up for mainly my personal finance writings and a little towards other writings. Over time, I want to get it to a 50/50 mix between the two.

Portfolio Update

The markets had a pretty good day today, with the Nasdaq leading the way by gaining 1.07%.
I was going to do a Net Worth update, but not too much has changed lately. My portfolio has been gaining lately and this is increasing my net worth, while I'm trying not to spend too much at the same time.

So I thought to comment on my portfolio. Year to date my portfolio is up 12.6%.
The S&P is up 0.62% and the Dow is still in negative territory (down 2.44%). We're into the second half of the year and I'm meeting my two main objectives.
1. Beat the S&P 500
2. End the year with positive returns
I have #2 in there because if the S&P returned -5% and I returned -3%, even though I did better than the S&P I still lost money. I invest to make money while beating the S&P (so maybe I should switch #1 and #2 around).

Overall I'm pretty happy with the returns, and I hope the returns continue for the rest of the year.

On to the specific positions.
EBF: +4.7% I'm feeling just so-so about this one. The last earnings report was pretty good, but I might be able to find a better place for my money.

UNTD: -6.5% I'm going to give this one some more time, and I'm not that far away from being break-even.

FRX: +12.3% I like this stock still, although 40 is becoming a tough area to breakthrough. A few days ago Morgan Stanley raised estimates and said that FRX bottomed out, and they put a $50 price target on it.

LB: +82% This stock is on a roll as you can see here. The uptrend is fairly strong and good news continue to come out. I'm going to let this one run for awhile.

NCC: +4.6% My opinions on this one hasn't really changed.

NTE: +1.8% I still think this one is going back up to $28, but what do I know.

Interview Recap

Today I had my interview at the second hedge fund and it went really well. I got there nice and early (way too early, I walked around downtown for a bit). The offices were really elegant and I immediately met with the portfolio manager I would be working for. He was a great guy and very friendly, so that put me at ease. We talked for a bit about the position and then I went into depth about my resume. He asked a good amount of questions and then we talked about the CFA test for a bit. He was also really candid about the interview process. Apparently he looked through many resumes and only saw a few he liked. I was the first to be interviewed and he has another one set up for next tuesday. The HR manager wants him to interview a third person, but he's not sure if he will even do that. Just from the math side, my chances seem pretty good!

He said he didn't want to get my hopes up, but he thought I was a great candidate for the job. Now I'm just hoping the guy coming in on Tuesday isn't better than me. I also talked with another portfolio manager for the same team and that went well. We actually spent most of the time talking about the CFA test. Lastly, I met with the HR manager who was incredibly sweet. We only talked for a few minutes as she recapped the process. I'm hoping I will hear back from them at the end of next week or the beginning of the following week.

I also received an email for the junior trading role in Oakland. I sent a few emails awhile back and I figured that I didn't get the job considering they didn't call back. Well, it turns out I was the first one to be interviewed and they interviewed a lot of candidates. The HR person wants to know if I'm still interested in the job, so that looks promising.

Right now I hope I get the job at the hedge fund today, or the other hedge fund position. Those are my two top choices.

A few articles

I decided to use part of today to catch up on some articles as well as read news reports about the London bombings.

Jubak from MSN wrote a decent article on five opportunities to buy on dips. I do try to keep my eye out for events that will send a sector down by big percentages. In many of these situations the leading companies of the particular industry are oversold by scared investors.

This article is about some of the big tech companies and what they plan to do with all their cash. Some of these companies definitely have a ton of cash, and it will be interesting to see in what ways they use this cash in the future. Can they find investments/projects greater than their opportunity cost to add value to the company? Will they acquire smaller firms to add growth-by-acquisition (and hope this strategy works out)? Or will they choose to return the cash to shareholders in the forms of dividends and buybacks?


Enhanced index funds? This firm is going to try to have ETF's that beat the index return by overweighting towards certain stocks/sectors. Also, the expense ratios are higher than normal ETF's. An odd idea considering people go towards ETF's to basically match the index and pay small fees. ..


Tomorrow is my first interview for a junior position on a credit derivatives team. It's basically a job where I will help in any way possible (operational, finance, etc), and I think it will be a great entry level position. I'm going to spend some time tonight reviewing my limited credit derivative knowledge even though I don't think they will ask anything about this topic.
I will write about the interview in tomorrow's post.

Just a quick update

I can only post a quick update tonight.

Job Stuff
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The second hedge fund contacted me about an interview, so the first interview will be set for this Friday. I'm excited about this one (it's to be a junior member of a credit derivatives team), and I found out that both hedge funds are in the same building! It's a huge building in the financial district and they are about eight floors apart.

Market News
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The market had a bad day, but I didn't get too much time to read anything. LB announced a decent contract and that sent the stock up 5.76%. Besides that, nothing really interesting happened.

A nice 4th of July

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I had a great time in Livermore (small "city" in CA) and they put on a great show. My weekend was pretty full of activities so I really didn't get any CFA stuff done or continue with the job hunt.

I did get some good news on Friday that I'm pretty excited about. The one job at the hedge fund (finance and operations) called me back and asked if I wanted to come in for a second interview. I immediately said yes and set up an interview for next Wednesday. I'm not sure why they are waiting an extra week to begin the second round, but hopefully they don't invite too many people back for second interviews. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

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The market had a nice day and my portfolio rebounded to almost +9% for the year. I wasn't really paying attention to my stocks, but I was keeping my eye on Boston Scientific (BSX) as it finished the day up over 6%. It has been trending down for awhile, so maybe this is a sign that some of the judicial news is cleared up and the stock can gain some footing.

That's it for right now.