Moomin Valley

If you think it is not important to go to a good university then read this first . Some PF Bloggers recommend to just go to a cheap school. ...

Cambria's GTAA ETF has raised $72 million so far and so is lowering the expense ratio to 0.99% . In other news, hedge fund assets hit a...

Google Earth has now added 3D trees in some parts of the world, including San Francisco. Here is a random street in SF in 3D view: And in S...

When I cam back from Europe I found I was 2-3kg lighter at least than when I left and I decided to try to keep losing weight. I had been try...

I had a phone interview with one college in the US but I heard on Saturday that I'm not being invited to the on-campus interview unless ...

I'm starting my new job and looking at the contract details. I was a bit surprised that my employer will only pay 9% of my salary (i.e. ...

The MSCI All Country World Gross Index gained 13.21% for the year while we only gained 9.78% in USD terms. But over the last two years we ga...

With the exception of short bias, all styles gained in December and for 2010 as a whole. Both the month and the year saw strong stock market...

In contrast to the USD version investment returns were negative, even in currency adjusted terms.* Still, we did manage some gain in net wo...

Part I is here and last year's report here . This year was not as spectacular as last year financially but still pretty good. Expenditu...

I hadn't seen this scam before: The attached cover e-mail was more illiterate than this.

As usual some data will lag for a month or more but here are the accounts based on the information I have at the moment. And as usual everyt...

An update on the famous chart , that I first saw in Unexpected Returns : Returns are measured relative to inflation. Here is the key: For ex...

From Paul Kedrovsky : Being long a bunch of commodities would have been a good idea. But Australian stocks fell . I'm assuming that that...

This month, world stock markets performed strongly with the MSCI index rising 7.35%. Moominmama's portfolio only gained 2.81%: Bonds, St...

Well, there's still some printing, copying, and mailing to do. I wrote a check for $30.10. I had $98 withheld from dividends in 2008 but...

So, I'm finally working on my 2008 US tax return in the Christmas break. The main reason why I have put this off is that it is going to...

A nice piece on the advantages of closed-end funds . The downsides include: 1. If you need to sell but the fund is trading at a discount to...

UBS and HFR have launched an ETF that tracks the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index . Prices are available on Yahoo . These seem to indicate that ...

I wish I could be better at this . I accused Timothy Ferriss of being too good at it.

This time in the nearest big city in a month and a bit...

Two months to go from today until I teach my first class. Three months till the next deadline for grant applications - though the real deadl...

I always wondered how accurate lists such Forbes are. The payout to the Madoff trustee that Jeffrey Picower's widow is making shows that...

The chart breaks down net worth into four components - net money saved in retirement and non-retirement accounts and the profits on both tho...

HFRI came in with a preliminary 0.26% gain for November compared to a small loss for HFRX . Most of the results for the different hedge fund...

I am still waiting to get a formal contract, but this is based on what has been discussed. I should have a job for one year doing teaching a...

The HFRX daily hedge fund index lost 0.27% for November. Systematic diversified was particularly bad with losses of 3.47% (which explains Mo...

As usual some data will lag for a month or more but here are the accounts based on the information I have at the moment. And as usual everyt...

As I'm working on November's accounts I was checking out which of our investments are at all time highs in profits gained: CFS Devel...

I finally got answers on the two jobs I interviewed for at the beginning of November. I didn't get either. So looks like I will be takin...

Moominmama lost 2.51% this month against a 2.80% loss in the MSCI World Index. The US Dollar strengthened causing losses in terms of US Doll...

It's good I didn't do too much research on the new funds available from TIAA-CREF . It turns out that, because I don't live in t...

So I had two interviews and haven't heard back yet. I have now sent 4 applications out to the US - 2 on the West Coast and two on the Ea...

It came in pretty close to my estimate at $A 4231.81. The money will go towards reducing margin debt and maintaining my monthly $A500 inves...

I had the interview I mentioned before on Thursday. It went OK. It wasn't my best performance in an interview but I wasn't horrible...

I got a rather threatening sounding letter today from the IRS regarding my 2008 tax return. But they did invite me to phone them to discuss ...

As usual some data will lag for a month or more but here are the accounts based on the information I have at the moment. And as usual everyt...

I haven't updated Moominmama's portfolio for a while due to my world travels . So this update covers the months of August, September...

Following my new investment I thought I'd update our allocation to stocks and funds: Where possible I have given the ticker code. But a...

I have been a follower of Mebane Faber's blog World Beta for a while. Mebane is chief investment officer at Cambria Investment Managem...

Two of the TIAA-CREF funds I am invested in are being frozen which means that I can't transfer money into them in future. I am not clea...

After accidentally overwriting a file with an older version that was inside a newer version of a folder that I was backing up I wondered why...

Revanche posted a link to a website where you can produce maps of the countries and states you have visited. Here is my world map: visited ...

I'm going to give up waiting for a tax statement from EAIT . It's not like I've received the distribution itself either and my g...

I now have an interview lined up here for early next month. The original deadline for the job was early this year but they advertised for a ...

The main venues to eat out in Bangkok are in waitered restaurants, food courts in malls, and in the street. Upscale malls might have waiters...

Snork Maiden tells me she has more pictures of Israeli food. Maybe they will follow. There are a few main influences on Israeli food: Centra...

I've just completed drafting my tax return for this year. Our tax year ends on June 30. That's presumably because the agricultural y...

As usual, not all the final numbers are in but this is roughly what the accounts for September look like. Also, as usual, everything is in U...

Preliminary performance figures for HFRI show an overall gain of 3.37% for hedge funds in September, which is very strong: There was strengt...

I'm gradually digging out of the financial mess that awaited me here in Australia. The most worrisome thing is that the US IRS is still ...

We found during our trip that Commonwealth Bank charges enormous fees for using ATM's overseas. Anything from AUD 6 to 14 depending on t...

We're finally back from our "World Tour" and now into getting back up to speed mode here. Last stop was Bangkok. At some point...

The best food to be had in Germany, in my opinion, are the cakes and breads: This is a cherry cake at a café on Marienplatz in München. On t...

Chocolate for sale: This bread is called "Zopf": We bought a 700g loaf. I thought it might be a bit sweet like some hallah but it ...

The traditional Swiss dish, Rösti, at the Altestramdepot restaurant in Bern: This is basically a lot of grated potato plus heaps of cheese. ...