Moomin Valley

Traditional pictures of food coming up soon. No you can't actually take a train to Pyeongyang from this station. 50m down the tracks th...

The government announced its climate policy package today. It's expected to get through parliament. The carbon price will apply to only ...

The HFRX hedge fund index lost another 1.59% in June and is down for the year by 2.12%. By comparison, the MSCI World stock index was down b...

It looks like I'll be going there soon too . Two new countries this year then. It's going to be an even crazier year, travelwise . ...

The Australian financial year ends on June 30. Investment results for June are always delayed due to this. But here are the preliminary acco...

I blogged that we wanted to buy shares in the Cambria GTAA ETF for my Mom among other investments we were making in the portfolio. But the ...

Does it make sense to make non-concessional superannuation contributions? These are after tax contributions to a retirement account in Austr...

Back in 1989 I got my first full-time professional job after I completed my master's degree. The salary was initially £10,500 p.a. I was...

In Australia, individuals who earn more than $A75k a year and households who earn more than $A150k per year need to pay an extra 1% of tax o...

I got an offer of a continuing/permanent job. It's only an informal offer at this stage but a formal offer is guaranteed pretty much. We...

The bracelet on my old watch kept breaking - it was made of aluminium - getting it fixed cost $5 a time. So I gave up and bought a new watch...

Been trying to book a trip to visit the DMZ/JSA while I'm in Korea. I was too late for the USO tour. So now I'm trying with this ope...

Following up on the post on changes to my Mom's portfolio . The bank suggested some more investments. Two funds of REITs: UBS Global Rea...

Following on from yesterday's post on retirement savings , here is the chart of our non-retirement savings: Again, it's not adjusted...

I was curious how our current retirement saving rate compared to past years. Digging into my account spreadsheets I came up with this. This ...

The broad Credit Suisse/Dow Jones Hedge Fund Index did not perform as badly as the more narrow indices in May :

This Wall Street Journal article goes on about how an exchange traded managed fund like the proposed PIMCO Total Return ETF is not big deal...

According to the Credit Suisse/Dow Jones Core Index, hedge funds performed almost as badly as stocks in May: The MSCI World Index lost 2.06...

I went to a seminar by our superannuation (retirement fund) provider at my employer today. The presenter referenced a recent Australian surv...

Holders of units in the EAIT fund of hedge funds recently received an offer to buy their shares for $0.70 a share: As you can see, the unit...

On Friday I bought about 5000 shares in Platinum Capital (PMC.AX) at $1.21 which is close to the net asset value. Usually this closed-end fu...

We have now made a bunch of moves in my Mom-s portfolio. First we sold down two bond funds and increased our investment in the Man-AHL diver...

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD fell for a change to 106.6 US cents from 109.4 US cents. This reduced our returns in USD terms and in...

Lot of moves this month reflected in these figures. World stock markets fell and the US Dollar rose negatively affecting Moominmama's re...

Like HFRI vs. HFRX the broad Credit Suisse index shows stronger gains than the narrower core index this month, with the index rising 1.8% o...

I just booked my trip to Korea. Later in the year I may go to the US. And I already visited Cloud Cuckoo Land (CCL). It will be my busiest f...

There is a trend to earlier and earlier reporting each month of the results of the various hedge fund indices. Credit Suisse, now has a ...

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD rose yet again to 109.4 US cents. This improved our returns in USD terms and reduced them in AUD term...

The portfolio had nice gains in April, though largely due to the fall in the US Dollar. The MSCI World Index rose 4.15% and the portfolio 3....

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 ...