Parchayi.com - Personal Finance Simplified

A recent newsgroup post that I found led me to this businessweek article - The Best E-Broker For You. Their slideshow compares several online brokerages, some of which I didn’t know existed. Here are two more cheap options other than SoGo that I mentioned in the previous post:

Firsttrade - $6.95 per trade market and limit
TradeKing - $4.95 per trade market and limit including broker assisted trades!

Also in the previous post I mentioned something about Trading for Free - Well here comes!!
Zecco - Free stock trades (maximum 10 trades a day up to 40 a month. After that, only $3,50 per trade)
Unlike the other brokerage firms, Zecco seems to be supporting itself partly from ads shown on its website, blog and forums. They also claim to save money from not advertising.

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I just saw an ad for these guys on this blog and I had to check them out - !

Now Scottrade is being given a run for its money and if SoGo succeeds, hopefully we will see all around fee slashing and maybe, just maybe the days of free trading will be back.

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Over at Yahoo Finance today, I found this article - Negotiate a Lower Credit-Card Rate from the Wall Street Journal. The artice goes on to say that credit card companies will lower your interest rate if you ask for a lower rate. Most of my credit cards are low fixed rate cards, plus I haven’t paid interest to cards for a long time, however I would agree that credit card companies are customer friendly.

I have forgotten to pay my bill on time twice or thrice and I have called and had late fees waived with both Citibank and Chase (or maybe it was FirstUSA before being acquired by Chase). I call and say - ‘ I got my statement today and it has 35$ of late fees. I have never paid late before, can you please waive the fee’ and they have done so without any questions asked. Also in both cases the late payment was not reported to the credit bureaus.

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Sirius Satellite Radio gave Howard Stern a bonus of 22 million SIRI shares valued at about 83 million! In 2005 they gave him 34 million shares. All this is over and above his 5 year 500 million dollar contract! If I were an investor in SIRI, I wouldn’t be too happy at all. For once I agree with Jim Cramer and would sell SIRI, which I thankfully do not own any. According to this article from Reuters, Stern filed to sell this entire 22 million shares and it seems he did the same thing with last years shares. If Stern doesn’t believe in his own ability to help Sirius at all (he files to sell everything, not just some part of it), why should anyone else?

Arguing the other way - Sterns bonus was based on new subscriber signup rate. Analysts predicted sirius to have 3.5 million subscribers by the end of 06 and the bonus would be triggered if the estimates were beaten by 2 million. Sirius ended with 6.1 million subscribers. How much do 2 million subscribers pay in a year?? - over 300 million!! If Sirius manages to retain all these customers, then maybe the deal is worth it with Stern (if he was what caused this increase in the first place).

My Take after looking at both sides of the story - still staying away from SIRI for now.

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The only auto stock I own is Nissan Motor (NSANY) and that has been relatively flat for a while and so far I have never commented on the auto industry. 2006 was a not a great year for Nissan (US sales down 5.3% compared to 2005), while both Toyota and Honda managed gains. However December was a good month as Nissan launched several redesigned models and managed US sales gains of 4.4% over 2005 against analyst estimtes of a drop in sales. I think 2007 will show a continuation in this trend as the Hybrid Altima should hit any time soon and the sexy new 2008 Altima coupe will be launched mid year. I hope to see the NSANY ADR hit atleast 27$ this year.

Toyota sales crossed Chrysler for 2006 and narrowly missed crossing Ford. In 2007 Toyota is widely expected to leap over both Ford and GM to become the number 1 automaker in the world. Worldwide auto demand seems to be increasing as US demand reduces and you probably can’t go wrong investing in Toyota, Honda or Nissan. I picked NSANY because it sported a lower P/E, has a good dividend growth plan and I like their cars!

Just as a side note, the strongest growth in 2006 % US sales was from Suzuki, worlds no 7 auto maker after (GM, Ford, Toyota, Chrysler, Honda, Nissan). Also Suzuki was the no 3. automaker by sales in the Japanese market in 2006 (after Toyota and Nissan) and sold more vehicles than Honda. Suzuki has done well otherwise too and it would be nice to have a Suzuki ADR on the US exchanges.

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As world markets opened to an upbeat note today, I spent some time researching what analysts feel is the outlook for 2007. I was surprised that everyone feels the same - slowing but still growing US economy, continued strong growth in China, India (though not as much as 06). Follow the links below for reading more and for the outlook for the rest of the world.

What’s Ahead for 2007? Knowledge@Wharton
Wachovia Economics: 2007 Economic Outlook
Deloitte Global Economic Outlook 2007

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