Investing for the Fed Up

The founders of investing site Motley Fool appeared on Yahoo! Finance saying investors should stick with stocks. Obviously they have their perspective, but just as after the tech bubble imploded in the early 2000s, may investors are turning their backs on equities.

But many business news outlets are caught in a trap. You can't sell a monthly, much less daily, publication with boring ideas like asset allocation or index funds. Plus, their advertisers are often the brokers and actively managed mutual fund companies.

At the same time, many young potential investors either don't have a 401(k) through their jobs, or don't even know where to begin. Thought this was a great NYTimes article about investing for those fed up with the stock market.

For those either thinking about pulling out of the stock market or not sure where to begin, here is what I personally would recommend:

1. A Single Bond Mutual Fund. If you are just starting a 401(k) or an IRA, just start with one fund. Lould look at either a Vanguard U.S. Bond Index fund or ETF, or a broad bond-based fund like PIMCO's Total Return Fund. These funds are less volatile than stocks, and you should at least be getting some interest payments. While you won't beat the market, you won't have to worry about what the S&P 500 is doing (or not doing). When you have more than a few thousand dollars in your IRA or 401(k), then you can think about a Lazy Portfolio approach with a half dozen funds.
2. Real Estate. People sometimes say they want to buy a home or condo because they are 'missing out' on something, whether it's a buyer's market, low interest rates, etc. The easiest way to invest in real estate is through a Real Estate Investment Trust, which is like a mutual fund of properties, usually apartment buildings, malls and office buildings. Like a bond fund, REITs usually have a healthy dividend, so you are making money even if they go down in value. I've put some money in the Fidelity REIT Index Fund and it's never lost money. Another way to get into real estate would be to look at a cheap second home or investment property. But my perspective is, if you make less than $70,000 a year, I wouldn't worry too much about buying a home to live in. You should just rent, stay flexible and focus on your career and personal life.
3. Online Banking. I am constantly amazed by the $3 ATM fees charged by many convenience stores and banks for non-customers. Then your own bank sometimes hits you with another fee. Get a checking account with Ally Bank, and just keep $100 or so in it. Ally refunds your fees at any bank. Otherwise you will probably be paying $50-$100 per year to access your own cash. They also have high-interest rate CDs, if you have a few hundred dollars that you aren't sure what to do with, including a no-penalty option.
4. Credit Cards. One way to bolster your investing, is to get a credit card that pays you to invest. Fidelity has cards that give you 2% back on all purchases. Let's say you spend $500 per month on groceries and gas (which would be pretty low). At 2% back, you'd be looking at $10 per month to put into a regular IRA, and you'd even get a tax write-off. It's not hard to imagine that you could end up with $200-$300 in your investing account just for using your credit card on things you already buy. Another idea would be to use your credit card cashback to pay off student loans. The Citi Forward Card offers an option to use your points for a check to send to your student loan provider. It also rewards you for staying under your credit limit and paying on time.

Ron Lieber's article mentions a few other ideas, but these are the handful that I find myself repeating over and over when I get into conversations about this.

The Impending Decline of Apple Stores

A friend of mine worked as an Apple Store Genius for almost a decade. There were apparently some urban myths among the employees about Steve Jobs himself coming to the Manhattan store. Obviously the day that a new iPhone or iPad were released were insane for him.

Another friend of mine works for a company that makes cell phone cases, and he made it clear that not having a presence in the actual Apple Stores surely hurt his companies ability to appeal to the rabid customers.

You've seen Samsung and Microsoft essentially copy Apple Stores, in the hopes of inspiring some of the passion and loyalty that Apple enjoys.

But the rumor is that Apple is looking to cut back on their staff or somehow rework Apple Stores, supposedly to make them more profitable.

I actually was not very impressed when I bought my most recent iPhone from the Georgetown Apple Store. The Genius seemed to have a hard time migrating my contacts, so I probably might have preferred to just order it online, and save myself a trip. But I couldn't imagine buying an iPhone at an AT&T store or Best Buy either.

I do think they could probably close a few locations. The first Apple Store in D.C. is in a somewhat struggling quasi-strip mall, so if it were closed, I would not be at all surprised.

One thought is that Apple may be looking to avoid unionization efforts, which is one of the issues Wal-mart faces.

It's interesting to note that Apple recently ran a somewhat controversial series of commercials, specifically featuring the Genius Bar.

But I think it's hard to understate the competitive advantage that Apple has over other phone companies and computer companies, that customers know they can go to any store, get help, and not get ripped off.

So it'd be sad to see that go away.

Flight of the Conchords Do New Song 'Feel Inside' for Charity

The stars of HBO's 'Flight of the Conchords' quit after just two seasons. But they are still doing their thing, with Bret McKenzie earning an Oscar for his work on the recent Muppets movie.

Saw this on Vulture and BuzzFeed, but thought it was worth posting.



I hope the movie happens.

Is CNBC Losing It's Mojo?

When I worked for what was then called AOL Personal Finance (more recently DailyFinance and WalletPop), we watched CNBC at our desks all day long. It was our equivalent of a Bloomberg machine. When the Fed cut rates or the monthly employment numbers were released, we saw it on CNBC first.

They also had big names like Jim Kramer, Suze Orman and Louis Rukeyser.

So it was with great interest that I saw this post: Has CNBC Lost It's Mojo, which then links to CNBC Ratings at 7-Year Low.

One of the things that made CNBC compelling in those days was a great partnership with the Wall Street Journal. Some of their anchors like Becky Quick eventually came over from the Journal.

When Rupert Murdock bought the Journal and launched Fox Business News, there was certainly some concern that CNBC would be facing it's greatest challenge. Then Bloomberg launched it's own TV channel, and also bought BusinessWeek.

Last year, CNBC lost both of the anchors to the Squawk on the Street program, with Erin Burnett jumping to CNN, and Mark Haines passing away. Dylan Ratigan also left for MSNBC and then left NBC entirely.
While the FastMoney format still works with Melissa Lee at the helm, Squawk on the Street is still a mess.

I have a few observations on why CNBC has lost some of it's luster, some of which are fixable, others of which are structural.

• During the recent Olympics, CNBC would regularly pre-empt shows. This is indicative of a larger problem that comes from being part of NBC and now Comcast. On the weekends, CNBC usually shows infomercials. Bloomberg or Fox Business would likely not do this.
• The web and text seem to come more naturally to Bloomberg than it does to CNBC.
• Introducing the New York Times' equivalents of the Wall Street Journal, such as Paul Krugman and Andrew Ross Sorkin, has not offset the loss of that relationship with the Journal. If anything, it has made it worse.
• CNBC and now CNN are going to bet on reality TV to boost their rankings, including home flipping shows. If anything, this will potentially alienate their core audience without attracting new audiences. Leave the bad reality shows to A&E and Bravo.
• CNBC needs new blood. Darren Rovell recently returned to ESPN after six years at CNBC. I find Jim Kramer's Mad Money and Kudlow and Company unwatchable. Another thing I like about Bloomberg, they seem to focus more on the West Coast based tech scene, rather than being driven by the New York Stock Exchange and the big banks.
• The reality is that CNBC does better when the markets are not doing well, with their peak days coming in 2008 during the financial crisis.

I wouldn't be at all surprised for CNBC to go away in the next decade, perhaps merging with MSNBC or being sold off. But it seems clear that the network's best days are behind it, when it was the unrivaled champion of TV business news

Case Study: Washington Post Announces New 'Games' Section

In my time with AARP, it was well known that the Games section was by far the site's biggest page view driver by a wide margin. Thousands, if not millions of users, had bookmarked their favorite free games, whether it be Solitaire, Mahjong, Soduku etc. Of course, these users also spent much more time on the site, compared to a user who would read an article or two and then move on to something else.

So I wasn't totally surprised to see that the Washington Post is getting into the same 'game' at least online, offering many of the same games in addition to their own crossword etc. One thing to note, these games are all Flash-based, so most will not work on mobile. In the comments on the blog post above, one user notes that their employer is blocking Flash-based sites.

News sites have often tried to create original games, such as Marketplace's Budget Hero, with varying levels of success. I'm sure the New York Times Crosswords section is a huge driver of repeat traffic. In fact, it appears to be a decent revenue driver and it's own iPhone app. There's a documentary called 'Wordplay' that is almost an infomercial for the hallowed NYT crossword.

Features like weather, games, and to a certain extent, comics and photo galleries, are not always sexy, but they are often crucial to building repeat visitors.

HT: Potomac TechWire

ESPN Films on Netflix Streaming

Happy to see that almost all of the movies from the ESPN Films collection, including the 30 for 30 series, have been finally added to Netflix. Some of them, including The Announcement, are fairly recent, and more should be on the way.

My favorites include Unguarded, Pony Excess and Once Brothers. But even something like Into the Wind, a story I had zero familiarity with, was pretty interesting.

Most of them are less than an hour long and well worth your time.

When people say there's 'still nothing good" on Netflix's streaming library, either they aren't looking very hard or they aren't open to seeing something that wasn't a huge box office hit. Although Netflix is certainly doing better in the latter department, adding movies like Thor and Captain America in the past few months, the sweet spot is more for documentaries and indie movies you probably wouldn't go way out of your way to see in the theater.

It is also great for "binge watching," where you get into a TV show that you've never seen. Plus, there's no commercials! I doubt I would have gotten through Arrested Development or Battlestar Galactica without Netflix streaming.

If anything, I find it annoying that Netflix only has season one of shows like The Walking Dead, but Netflix and AMC don't particularly get along.

Comedians in Cars: Seinfield's Still Got It

Watched the first episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and loved it. Great to see such a simple, yet well executed concept for web video.

There's also a bootleg copy of Seinfeld's HBO show Talking Funny on DailyMotion if you haven't checked that out.

Have We Reached Peak Iron Man?

I was watching the original Robert Downey Jr. "Iron Man" recently. The origin story was done very well, but you didn't have non-stop pointless action or lame villains the way that "Iron Man 2" did.

So, when I hear about a sequel for both Thor and Captain America, both of which were pretty lame in their first iterations, then a third Iron Man, a second Avengers, an Ant-Man movie, plus a movie for a more obscure group of heroes called the Guardians of the Galaxy which include a raccoon and a talking tree, it seems to me there's a growing bubble of inflated expectations for Iron Man and the many related offshoots of the Marvel Universe.

If you aren't familiar with the idea of a "peak," here's a post about the most famous: peak oil.

This is not particularly surprising, given how poorly thought out the Batman iteration was in the '90s, which finally ended in the abomination of "Batman + Robin," which hardly any one ever brings up to George Clooney now (and also may have been "peak Chris O'Donnell," an actor who people may tend to forget was a pretty big deal in that decade, then didn't do a single movie for four years and is now mostly known for an NCIS spinoff.)

In the same vein, the "Fantastic Four" movies seemed to flame out pretty quickly, with the second movie being horrible. The Matrix trilogy also comes to mind.

At one point last year, there were literally four Iron Man-related cartoons on basic cable. There are still two that remain, and an animated Avengers reboot that is already in the works. There was even talk about doing another release of Avengers in some kind of Director's Cut because $600 million wasn't enough for the studio.

To some extent, you see the same thing with the Wolverine character and the X-Men, where no one is particularly interested in another X-Men movie about any one except Hugh Jackman's character, although there is supposedly a "First Class" sequel in the works. There were also three Wolverine-related cartoons last year, none of which were particularly successful.

At this year's Comic Con in San Diego, Robert Downey Jr. seemed to intimate that "Iron Man 3" will likely be the last in the current run. But, right now, there seems to be no limit to the potential prequels and sequels, some of which could even be done direct to video.

But I wouldn't be surprised if either one or all of these movies under-perform at some point, especially after the big budget flops of "Green Lantern," "Battleship" and "John Carter." At a minimum, there has to be diminishing returns.

This post at IO9 essentially makes a related point, that there are only so many viable super heroes, and Guardians of the Galaxy likely aren't one of them: There are only a half dozen A-list superheroes.

TechBargains: Cord Cutters Prefer Netflix, Youtube

HackingNetflix highlights a survey by TechBargains of what streaming services do most cord cutters use. As you can see, they must have allowed people to enter more than one service, but the clear winners are Netflix and Youtube.

I've never used VUDU or Blockbuster, but if I had to chose one streaming service, it would likely be Netflix.

Obviously YouTube has the advantage of being free, so I'm surprised that isn't closer to 100 percent, but then Netflix is built into almost every TV and DVD player sold these days.

The one thing I think is not mentioned enough in the media is the free movies and TV available to Amazon Prime members. A combination of the free Prime Video and the paid Amazon streaming could be a fairly compelling streaming solution.

I have noticed more free streaming options on iTunes, including the season premiere or pilot of a few TV shows.

Hulu Plus Offering 2-Month Free Trial

Thanks to Lifehacker, I signed up for a two-month free trial of Hulu Plus today.

I'm already not sure if this was worth it, as hardly any of the shows that I normally watch appear to be available. I'd be one thing if there were new episodes of Happy Endings etc. but I don't see Walking Dead, Louie, or any of the cable shows that I would watch.

The most popular show is E! News Now? Wow, I don't know if I will even wait two months to cancel it.

The only possibility to me is the original content, but I believe that is free without Hulu Plus. Catching up on Community or Parks and Recreation might be an option.

For $8 a month, I'd much rather look at a season pass on Amazon Video or iTunes, as it could take me a month to watch a full season of some shows.

Previously: 2M People on Hulu Plus ... But Why?

Comedian Streaming 250 Netflix Movies in 30 Days

His name is Mark Malkoff and here is his blog.

I want to see how much value I can get for my $7.99 a month. For example if I watch 200 films that works out to about four cents per film.

Malkoff makes an excellent point: Is the all-you-can-eat streaming from Netflix a much better deal than their 1-DVD at a time which is the same price?

If you were able to watch every movie that came in the mail the day that you got it, the maximum number of movies would still be approximately 10 per month, or 90 cents per movie. A more realistic estimate might be 1.5 movies per week, which translates to about $1.33 cents per week.

And what if you wait all week to watch a movie, and then the disc is scratched?

While people often complain about the selection on Netflix Instant Watch, it certainly makes more sense to watch a TV series like Walking Dead or Battlestar Galactica from the beginning using Instant Watch rather than watching one DVD, mailing it back, then watching the second or even third disc in the series.  

So, if you end up watching a TV series or two, plus 5-6 other movies over the course of a month, Instant Watch could be a better deal for you. But if your priority is to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol etc as soon as it's on Netflix, then stick with the by-mail option

HT: Hacking Netflix

Five Reasons Why Used TV Prices Should Be Even Lower

I mentioned this blog post on used TVs by Priceonomics a few times over the weekend, so wanted to post it here.

1) An old TV is worth less than nothing. If you have tried to get rid of a television recently, you may have been unpleasantly surprised to find out that you often have to pay to get rid of it, because there are so many toxic materials inside it. Best Buy will take any TV that is less than 32 inches, otherwise you may want to consider.
2) New TV prices just keep falling. Priceonomics showed that the average discount for used TVs is merely 14%. Unless your TV was bought in the last 30 days, some one can probably go on Amazon and buy the same TV for 20% less than what you paid, so I would start your pricing at 40% below what you paid.
3) TV demand is collapsing. I've met a lot of people in the past two years are 'cord cutters' who don't have cable tv and/or watch most of their video content on a laptop or an iPad.
4) 3D and Smart TVs aren't worth it. Most of the apps that your 'smart' TV may come with (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube) are a worse experience than the same service on a computer or iPad. A Roku costs $50 and adds 70-80% of the smart TV features. And 3D is pretty lame, as you have to pay extra for the channels, the glasses, etc. So anyone who bought a TV in the past three years is more or less fine for now.
5) Waiting on Apple. If Apple rolls out a TV this year, you can imagine people just dumping their TVs en masse.

If you are looking to buy a tv, I suggest checking out The Wirecutter for simple recommendations.