Moomin Valley

With potentially large expenditures in the next year or two we need to have more liquidity. So going forward I'm going to focus discreti...

It looks like the chairman and a bunch of other directors of Qantas went out and bought shares on the market. It's nice to see a vote of...

I saw an ad in the Australian Financial Review today to invest in the US Masters Residential Property Fund . I already invest in US property...

A reader asks the Sydney Morning Herald : "Q The money that an employer ''compulsorily contributes'' to my super * come...

If you ever have to do a security clearance - at least in this country - these are some of the things you'll need: 1. Everywhere you eve...

The Vice Chancellor (i.e. President) of the University of Queensland is resigning . But what shocked me in the story was that he was paid ov...

When measured in terms of median wealth per individual in US Dollars at $220,000. Switzerland is richest in terms of mean wealth per individ...

Yes our rate of return in USD was 15.01% for October which is a record. But it was largely due to the rebound in the Australian Dollar. In A...

Finally a positive month... The MSCI World Index gained 10.74% for the month while the S&P500 total return index gained 10.93%. But the ...

Thanks to high house prices and compulsory superannuation the average Australian household is much wealthier than the average American hous...

Seems like it was hard to get both Yoyo and the Hollywood sign in focus.

We went to the (relatively) new Costco store at Canberra airport today. You have to buy a membership ($A60 p.a.) before you can look inside...

Another month of negative returns. Seven straight months of losses. Returns in USD terms were heavily affected by the rise in the US Dollar ...

I just heard that Steve Jobs died at age 56 . I felt sad but my immediate thoughts were that he got on with doing the big things he wanted t...

The portfolio got slammed this month by a double whammy - stock markets fell with the MSCI World Index falling 9.4% and the US Dollar rose s...

Google finally opened Google Plus to anyone who wants to join rather than by invitation only. So I joined to see what it was about. I get th...

I was just invited to come and talk in Rome. But I turned it down. I think I will have done enough traveling for the year and I don't f...

How much should I charge as a consultant? My employer allows us to spend 20% of our time on consulting. So I figure I should take my salary ...

We arrived in Australia four years ago today. From today Snork Maiden can apply for Australian citizenship, though now she doesn't seem...

Cambria manages the GTAA ETF . Manager Mebane Faber also writes an interesting blog . Now they have http://www.indexuniverse.com/sections/ne...

A recent paper by Wade Pfau really overturns some standard ideas about retirement planning. The usual story includes picking a "number...

This is a graph of our three Australian superannuation (retirement accounts). The green is Snork Maiden who has now been working for four ye...

If you ever wondered how much money to give as a gift at a wedding, there is an "app" for that if the wedding happens to be in Isr...

Six losing months in a row now... The accounts for the month look like this in USD terms: Non-investment income was very high as was ...

An interesting article in the NY Times about whether investors should have had a lost decade - losing money over the last ten years or ...

Most large cap tech stocks now have fairly low price earnings ratios and some are even paying big dividends: Historically, tech stock...

I've actually been buying shares recently. Adding $A5,000 to the CFS Geared Share Fund (large cap Australian shares with in built borr...

I finally got my job contract and have signed and returned it, so now I have a permanent job. As I discussed , I decided to make no addition...

The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Core Hedge Fund Index is a hedge fund index that is updated daily. This allows real time tracking of hedge fund ...

Another month has flown by... I'm getting tired of losing money. In Australian Dollar terms the last 5 months have all had negative retu...

HSBC lost a lot of money from it's venture into North America. Now they are withdrawing and have sold their upstate New York branches to...

I can't submit my tax return yet as I don't have details of the tax treatment of a couple of distributions I received. But I did all...

When http://moominhouse.blogspot.com/2011/07/yoyo-tackles-korean-food.html">I posted a picture of Yoyo looking at Sushi I said that...

Bibimbap can be served in a sizzling bowl which you are supposed to add soup and hot sauce to complete the preparation. But, then, sometimes...

A bar with a river of alcohol! The traditional Korean drink makoli to be precise: This was in the Sinchon neighborhood. You can drink as mu...

With all the talk about the U.S. credit rating possibly being lowered to AA from AAA due to the debt ceiling debate debacle, I was wondering...

We found lots of attractions and places to eat in Seoul by following a guidebook that Snork Maiden bought at Hong Kong airport. First she ha...

Time for the annual report on Snork Maiden's taxes. For some reason, these are some of my most popular posts. For comparison here is las...

Soros to return all outside money to investors . I didn't realise that it was down to just $1 billion in outside money. The Alchemy of F...

At this place, in the Sinchon neighborhood, the staff cook your food in a big pan built into your table. It is supposedly chicken, but was m...

Namdaemun (Nan da men in modern Mandarin Chinese - South Great Gate) is a market area in the centre of Seoul. We had lunch one day in a res...

We went to a restaurant in the Insadong neighborhood that claimed to serve "temple food". This meant that the food was vegetaria...

Yoyo takes on a Korean melon: Yes, they are really small. Snork Maiden thought that the skin was edible. I wasn't so sure. Yoyo wasn...

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 ...