Moomin Valley

I'm at the airport in Cloud Cuckoo Land on my way home. The internet at the airport is free as is university education in this country. ...

More interesting statistics from the US IRS . 34,000 estates needed to pay estate tax in 2009 and the average value of these estates was $5....

The US IRS puts out an annual report on the top 400 US taxpayers . In 2007, the average federal tax rate paid on adjusted gross income was o...

The Dow Jones/Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index rose slightly in March in contrast to the HFR indices which fell. There were some similar patt...

The HFRX index fell 0.88% for March whereas the MSCI World Index rose by 0.72%. Equity market neutral, macro, event driven, and special situ...

I don't know if any other personal finance bloggers have more than twenty years of data, but I haven't seen it posted. Now and then ...

Distributions from managed funds (Australian mutual funds) fell dramatically in the wake of the financial crisis. Some funds are now beginn...

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD rose again to 103.6 US cents. This improved our returns in USD terms and reduced them in AUD terms. W...

We now have enough data to compute the rate of return over 8 years on Moominmama's portfolio. This table compares it to the MSCI World I...

I bought the ticket for the interview in Cloud Cuckoo Land - $2947. That's a bit over the budget they gave me of Euros 2000. A direct f...

Buffett speaking in India In a recent post I referenced the Credit Suisse report that argues quite reasonably that long-term bonds are unli...

Just heard. About one month's time.

We (my brother and I) are planning to reduce the allocation to bonds a bit. If you read the Credit Suisse Investment Returns Yearbook I thi...

iSoft (ISF.AX) suspended its shares pending an "announcement". I just wish companies would explain something about why they are ha...

I thought I was just editing and improving my Facebook profile. It already said I was married but not to whom. So I updated that information...

The Japanese stock market fell more than 16% in two days. If that reaction is rational it means that the net present value of the future pro...

I did a wire transfer of AUD 10,000 from my Australian to my US HSBC bank account. The exchange rate turned out as USD 0.9808 per Australian...

Credit Suisse-Dow Jones provide some preliminary results: These show stronger overall performance and more variation among strategies than t...

The HFRX hedge fund index gained 0.73% for February compared to 2.16% for the MSCI World stock index. All strategies saw gains and it is har...

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD rose a little from 99.8 US cents to 101.7 US cents. This improved our returns in USD terms. World sto...

As I mentioned I just got paid out $A7,500 or so from EAIT. With that and my next paycheck I'm going to buy $10,000 worth of US Dollars...

I got a another letter from the US IRS. The good news is that they accept the tax return that I prepared and my payment of $30.10 in taxes ...

The Australian government has finally released the draft of legislation intended to replace the FIF rules . From my reading of the informati...

Everest Financial is winding up . I should get a payout of $A800 next month as part of the run-down. Now I got a letter from One Managed Inv...

Overall hedge funds gained 0.56% in January according to the HFRX index. In comparison MSCI World Index gained 1.59%. Equity hedge and marke...

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD fell a little from 102 US cents to 98. This hit our returns in USD terms. World stock markets gained ...

The MSCI World Index gained 1.59% in January. Moominmama gained 0.98% but not because of equities performance. The gain is mainly due to the...

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...