The Advanta Corporation has announced that effective on May 30, 2009, all accounts will effectively be closed.  This means that no further activity will be allowed on any existing accounts, whether they be purchases, balance transfers, or via convenience checks.  While no account will be allowed to incur new charges, none of the accounts are being required to be paid in full at this time. In addition, according to the company, any promotion or special rate pricing that commences prior to the May 30th closing date will be honored, as will the rewards program earnings.

More detailed information can be found here

For those who are interested, and even those who aren’t, the Carnival of Financial Planning for March 21, 2009 is now up and live on the Skilled Investor’s blog.  I have to say thank you once again for including my post Read This Before You Trade Any More Stocks in the carnival! infant motrin

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For some reason, the idea popped into my head to look into how the consumer sentiment is figured. You know, those surveys done by the University of Michigan and The Conference Board which tell us what consumers feel about their situations and the economy, and which ultimately turns the markets one way or the other based upon the results. The last part is what bothers me. The fact that a simple survey can affect so many is fairly unsettling to me, and I was curious as to just who these people were that have the power to change the direction of our investments.  The answer almost knocked me off of my chair. rate rapid cozaar heart

I thought that maybe there was some scientific approach to the survey, and that the sample set would be representative of the nation as a whole, but the reality was much different. The University of Michigan and Reuters partner to publish one of the most influential pieces of economic data. The interesting part is that the procedure is to select a minimum of 500 households which will answer 50 questions designed around financial matters, and which will influence millions of people’s immediate futures.  These aren’t specially designated experts or scholars, but random households.  There is apparently no screening process for eligibility, so there is no way to know if the respondents will even be financially literate, or have the ability to process the information in a logical and rational manner.  The Conference Board is a little broader in that it selects 5,000 households for inclusion in its survey, but that is still too small a sample to attempt to project it as snapshot of the nation. side geodon effects

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The most interesting thing that I discovered was on the survey information section of the University of Michigan page under the description heading.  A full explanation of the survey was provided, as was a series of charts comparing responses with actual events.  Of course if you take the results of the survey and plaster the information on every single financial news outlet, then the rest of the people will react in a similar fashion.  That is the way the economy and media works today:  if you publish the information, it will be held as gospel.  The problem is that sentiment is based on emotion.  Emotion tends to be illogical, and therefore is the enemy of finances which are ideally supposed to be rational, cold, hard facts and figures.  Once the emotions of a select few enter the picture, it essentially corrupts the data, and makes it way to the masses, thereby corrupting them as well and their actions dictate what direction the economy will go.

In fact, I will go so far as to say that these surveys do not present very reliable or fundamentally sound guidance at all.  It makes me wonder why experienced and educated professional would even use this type of data at all.  I would liken it to asking random people on the street about a medical condition: you don’t know what their backgrounds are to be able to answer the question but you still take their (possibly) uneducated or uninformed opinions under advisement.  Especially in tough times it is imperative to use fundamentally sound data and guidance, which these types of surveys obviously cannot provide.

The funny thing is that these days whenever you turn on the television or read a periodical, the common advice is to be extremely cautious of where you get financial advice from, yet these types of unscreened, random surveys are not only allowed to have a major impact upon the economy each month when they are released, but are heavily anticipated and trusted.

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The other day I wrote a post called Do People Even Have A Clue When It Comes To Investing? in which I commented about an article I read on MSN Money Central.  The article, and my post dealt with the fact that people are panicking and taking every piece of news at face value rather than taking the time to dig a little deeper in order  to find their own guidance.  This post is just an extension of the problem I have with people who follow the crowd or who throw darts when it comes to investing in stocks.

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First I have one simple question to ask: Why do you own the stocks you do?  Take some time to think about the answer for a minute or two.  It’s not the simplest question to answer is it?  Maybe it’s difficult because you don’t even know why your portfolio contains what it does.  That is, at least in my humble opinion, the biggest problem among those who invest in stock.  A great majority hear something on CNBC, Bloomberg, or some other media outlet, or from a family member or colleague and invest in that company simply based on a recommendation.  In a time when people are choosing to be more frugal and efficient with their money why would anyone want to throw money around in a brokerage account and more specifically in a retirement vehicle?

There is a school of thought among some advisors that investors should keep a journal and jot down a few notes about their feelings and thoughts involved in every trade, whether buying or selling.  This is something that I absolutely agree with and recommend to people with whom I come in contact.  The point of this exercise is to actually think about each trade and record the reasons behind each transaction.  This way, when it comes time for your periodic review of your portfolio, you will have a better understanding of your allocation and why you possess each security.  In addition, it will give you some insight into your investor profile as well as your level of risk tolerance which can be of great assistance especially if you decide to bring in an advisor at any point in the future.

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Keeping a journal and actually spelling out your rationale for every trade will help you in another vital manner.  In times of rough periods such as this, when certain companies see no significant change in their business strategy or performance, yet still suffer a loss in share price, you will be reminded of exactly why you purchased or sold it off  it in the first place.  You will be reminded that if you bought the stock for it’s strong balance sheet or high dividend yield, or strong cash positioning, a sell-off or a little bad news won’t affect you as much.  On the other hand, if you sold a particular stock for any particular reason, and the situation is still the same, you will have the written reminder to avoid that company regardless of how attractive a value it may be until the circmstances change to one that you are more comfortable with. rebate singulair

By keeping track of the reasons behing your investmentment decisions, you will be in a better position to withstand unexpected changes in market attitude.  You will also be able to dismiss most of he information and rumors that are tossed around if it has no impact on any of the reasons for either acquiring or disposing of any particular stock.  This approach to investing also has a more sublte result: it will help you curb your emotions when choosing to invest by making you take a more analytical and thoughtful approach and assist you in becoming a more wise investor.

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Earlier today I decided that I had had enough of the added expense of paying for cable television.  This was far from a frugality choice or a consequence of the downturn in the economy.  I really do not use it on an everyday basis, and there are even some evenings during which the television remains off the entire time. I simply reached the point where I got tired of having hundreds of channels of nothing (in my opinion).  And, to make matters worse, my cable company only serves 2 cities with limited features, and doesn’t carry either the Major League Baseball Extra Innings or the National Hockey League’s Center Ice packages so for my purposes all of the extras are fairly useless.  I still get all of the basic channels since my homeowners association fees include basic cable, but will be taking the approximately $50 monthly savings and putting it toward other things like my IRA, taxable investing or savings accounts, or put it towards some other use which I will actually take advantage of and gain benefit from.

I’ve heard it from plenty of sources that I will regret the decision, that I will get bored without it after a while. To be honest I really have no interest in any of the reality shows that populate a majority of prime-time programming, and many of the regular series I have never even seen so I won’t be missing much there.  The only thing I will be lacking is the ability to watch sporting events in HD, but then again, the local sports stations didn’t broadcast every Panther or Heat game in HD to begin with, and I can always watch on the standard versions or even online. Additionally, once the digital conversion takes place, I will receive an automatic upgrade in quality over the basic package that I normally get at no additional charge (or at least I hope  not!)

The way I see it, not only will I be saving the money directly from the cutback in programming, but I will also be saving indirectly on my electric bill by not having the cable box drawing power constantly and from the television and receiver being off more often.  I’m certainly not naive enough to think that my electric will magically be cut in half or anything that drastic, but there will be a noticeable difference is consumption and over time the savings will add up nicely.  Basically, this was more of a decision based not so much on money, but more on factors such as using my time more productively and the lack of interest in the current state of television programming.

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