Anyone interested in having their money managed by me personally?

My current plan is to use the platform at interactivebrokers.com. Your assets will be owned under your name, and under the custody of interactivebrokers.com. I will just have the trading permission.

The fee structure will be

1. Basic fee: 1% of your account size, charged quarterly.
2. Performance fee: If your account returns less or equal to 10% after interactivebroker’s commissions, there is no performance fee. Otherwise, for every 5% additional return beyond 10% return, the fee increases by 1%, and it will be prorated. This fee is charged annually for every annual period.
For example, if your account returns 23%, then the performance fee is (23-10)/5=2.6%.

I don’t plan to get a stock broker license yet (reasons at the end of post), but according to the state laws of California, I can manage up to 5 individual clients without a license. Because I only have 5 limited spots in total, I will rank the preference of the accounts in the order of potential account size, and then on a first-come first-serve basis.

If you’re interested, send me an email to 1stMillionAt33 # gmail.com (changed # to @), with the subject of “Money Management”. Let me know your estimated net worth (including your home equity value), and the account size that you would like to open. The net worth number helps me to decide how aggressively I will act in your account. Make sure that LESS than 15% to 20% of your net worth will be in this account for the sake of diversification. I don’t have a minimum account amount yet, but it’s likely that I will decline if the account size is less than $50K, unless you plan to add more cash after a short period.

I believe this year could be a banner year for commodity in general. Don’t miss the train. I’ve also back-tested my own proprietary buy/sell indicators for a long period, and it out-performed the ETF by about 600%.

P.S. Assume that I have 5 clients of $50K each, returning 10% annually, the total fee that I will get is just $2500. That will be just enough money to pay for stock broker license fee, and I haven’t counted incorporation, tax and accounting services. Are you going to work for a whole year and just get $2500 for it? So if it’s a terribly bad deal for me, it’s probably a good deal for you. Obviously and unfortunately, I cannot guarantee a good performance, but you can look around on this website for my past recommendations and performance.
By the way, to match my current wage, I will need to manage 10+ million. That’s one of the reasons that I haven’t been more pro-active, since going from 0 to 10 million asset will really take some time.

Today we have a new guest contributor on 1stM@33. If you are interested in participating too, simply email me with a subject titled “Guest Writer”. Heather will be writing a few articles from time to time. Please welcome her contribution. Here is a short introduction on her.

Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and credit writer, as well as a regular contributor for BusinessCreditCards.com site for comparing small business credit cardsShe welcomes questions, comments, and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com

I won’t be posting this week. I don’t get much break if at all. I decided I will just take a break. I will be back posting next Tuesday, January 1st 2008. I will see you next year. Some of my previous posts from last week are pre-written. In case you find them out-of-step with the market, just move the timing by one to two weeks earlier.

In any case,

Happy New Year. May you all have a prosperous year.

Frugal

No regular post today. I hope everyone has a happy Xmas.

This is a family time to get together with your loved ones, excluding your computer.

Best regards,

Frugal

Are there any good mechanical engineers out there to join me for a new invention?

Video-taping my children has become a pain in the arm. I have thought about this a couple of times. If a person can mount the camcorder on the shoulder (probably not on the head due to a weird feeling), one can easily record videos with very few physical efforts. Of course, the biggest problem is that when you move and walk, the video quality will be terrible. But I think I may know how to solve that.

The answer is similar to those anti-noise earphones, where it cancels high noise. I’ve learned that trick in my senior year in college. That’s very old technology. Definitely decades ago.

Anyone out there, care to brain storm a little?

This is a reminder that there is the last money bomb for 2007 this Sunday on Dec 16, 2007. I have pledged myself to donate $100 or more on that day at TeaParty07.com. But even if you just donate $5, that’s a mass democracy in action. Stand up and join together. Don’t let the big wallstreet and corporates to take over our government.

A money bomb for Ron Paul is a way to garner media attention to create the most donation per calendar day. This is to combat the deliberate disregards from the traditional media. On the previous successful money bomb in November, Ron Paul raised about 4 million dollar in a single day, breaking the records for all presidential candidates. I didn’t know about the November money bomb, and didn’t participate in it. But I expect that this December money bomb will make new history. Be part of the this history in making by donating just $5 or $10 here.

The biggest reason that I stand behind Ron Paul is because of his fiscal and foreign policies. This country has gone too far and too long in the wrong direction, and it’s time to down-size the big government and streamline the operations without wasting even more taxpayers’ money. Ron Paul’s understanding and his actions behind the fiscal and foreign policies are unparalleled and unmatched by ANY presidential candidates. I have registered myself as a Republican (converting from a Democrat) so that I can vote in Republican Primaries next year in California. I hope you will also join me because the future of this country is at stake.

If you are a citizen, you should love this country. If you love this country, you should support your presidential candidate. Be PATRIOTIC. Don’t be apathetic. Donate what you can, and take a stand, and vote. A democracy without participation is the same as having no freedom of voices. The big money and corrupted political power fosters and grows from the apathy of every voter. Ron Paul is one of the very few candidates that garner all grassroot supporters from all walks of lives. Be part of it.

As many of you know, 2008 is a presidential election year. The presidential elections in American represent in great part windows of opportunity to change the course and direction of the nation, and as such they deserve your careful attention.

After much thoughtful consideration, we bloggers have decided to endorse Ron Paul for President. Paul is a ten term congressman running for president on the Republican ticket. Paul is renowned on Capital Hill for his integrity. In fact he has been called the “One exception to the gang of 535” and the “Most honest man in politics” by former treasury Secretary Simon and current Senator John McCain.

For bloggers, Congressman Paul’ represents the best choice among the current White House contenders. Paul has consistently voted in favor of protecting the unregulated nature of the web and has never voted to tax internet commerce. Like many of you, we think it’s important that the web remain a free and open environment and recognize that a politician who supports these principles is deserving of our vote.

Not only does a Paul presidency offer the opportunity for protection of the internet, Paul has taken a firm stance regarding honest governance and fiscal prudence. In his career as a congressman, Paul has taken the least amount of lobbying money and he has never voted to increase taxes or cast his congressional ballot for an unbalanced national budget.

Like most people, you may also be concerned about taxation and your financial futures. Ron Paul advocates phasing out the IRS and reducing the size and scope of the federal government. In addition, Paul has proposed allowing participating in the social security system to be optional. And – like you we trust more in our own self reliance than in the wisdom of a sluggish and inefficient federal bureaucracy.

In 2008 the best choice may indeed come from within the finest traditions of America - integrity, fiscal prudence and free choice. With strongest conviction, we urge our fellow members of the personal finance community to vote for Ron Paul in 2008.

With Confidence,

James, dinksfinance.com
Frugal, 1stmillionat33.com
Nirav, livingoffdividends.com
Matthew, financeispersonal.com
Alan, successwarrior.typepad.com
Laura, redstateeclectic.com

I have cleaned up my blogroll. Those that don’t meet my criterion of posting twice a week were taken off. I tried to be generous in my pruning, so some are left there even though they didn’t strictly meet my criterion. Some were left there because they were guest contributors to the site. I have always wanted to help the new bloggers to get started, when I have time. Unfortunately, I have been extremely busy to work on anything related to blogroll.

Sometime next year I will try to make my time available to accept blogroll link again for a period of two weeks. Anyone who has been taken off, or anyone new is welcomed to exchange blogroll links with me via email (please don’t email me now, because I don’t have time to read them.)

I always wish I have more time for everyone around me, whether I know them personally or not. But I just have 24 hours a day.

I still keep all those removed blogroll links but only mark them invisible. I hope that there is no hard feeling. I just needed to make it more fair to any other bloggers who work hard.

Of course, my site is not one of the very top PF blog site. But again, anything that I can do to help, I truly wish to do them and help you out.

Regards,

Just a note to all the readers who have left comments or send emails to me. These days I usually review my comments/emails at about Monday 1am. That means I won’t get to look at your comments/emails until an entire week is over (assuming that you leave comments on Monday’s post). I know all of my posts are pre-posting at 5am PST or 8am EST, but the actual time that I write my posts is usually 1am, or in this case 2:31am in the morning for this particular post and the regular Friday’s post. So I hope it is obvious to you that I really have very little time for anything, and you could understand that sometimes I just can’t reply to every email that I get, or get to respond to every comment that I receive.

Yeah, I only have 24 hours a day, like you do. It’s really not my intention of not engaging with you, since I highly appreciate all of you being here. But because of my extreme limited time, I can only do so much. Everyday, I try very hard to split my time between my job, my kids, my wife, my investment, and my blog. Oh, and my sleep time too.

Best regards.

Life changes rarely happen alone. I mentioned here the birth of my daughter in February. My mother-in-law has been staying with us since then. However, she’s leaving next week. After some long discussions, my wife and I decided that I’ll be the one staying at home to take care of our daughter for a couple of years.

There are many, many dimensions for this decision. Foremost on our minds is the well being of our daughter. I’m thrilled with the prospect of spending time with her and teaching her all I know. There are obvious financial implications in this decision given the loss of my income and associated benefits. Fortunately, my wife has a good job and supports my decision.

Looking at salaries alone, it would make more sense for my wife to stay at home instead if one of us has to. However, I’ve been mulling a career change and this is a great opportunity. As a research scientist I’ve built up expertise in a narrowly focused field that is, unfortunately, not very transferable. My wife, on the other hand, has a job that is in demand in most of US. Furthermore, my job demands a greater amount of time commitment than my wife’s. So we agree that it makes more sense for me to do this now and restructure our life for maximum flexibility down the line.

I’ve been writing mostly on concrete options in investing/personal finance, but big picture issues like where to live and what kind of job to take actually have far greater influence on the quality of life and overall well-being. Unfortunately, most of us are so bogged down by the pressures of daily living that we feel powerless in affecting our situation. For our working lives, my wife and I have been living beneath our means and investing diligently. We were not delaying the instant gratification of buying NOW in order to hoard, rather we were acutely aware of the freedom that a solid financial foundation can provide. It’s this freedom we’re cashing-in now.

Quit-lag mode
I’m leaving my company on very good terms. There is no sense burning the bridges even though it’s unlikely that I’ll go back. I gave more than a month of notice although my employment contract requires only two weeks. It’s also unusual that management let the news out over three weeks ago. I guess it was because I have a large number of tasks to hand over. Anyway, I have been in this quit-lag mode for a while now. This was a term that I first came across in this Business Week article. A quote:

When I went back to my desk, the piled-up papers looked like annoying debris. Now that I was leaving, my projects-in-process were meaningless to me. But I had two weeks to kill, so I went to work. I started creating a manual for the person who came after me. I wrote down procedures and lists of contacts and important events coming up in the future. That took about three days. Then I got to work cleaning house.

I threw out papers and cleaned out files. I reorganized employee records and made sure vendor contracts were current. I walked around the office and visited employees who had pending benefits issues or other matters that needed attention. Boy! they said. You are really on the ball this week! Heh, heh, I said to myself. What else do I have to work on?

I’m not sure if I was that much more efficient. But I’m certainly no longer sweating the things I can’t control. Several people commented on that I look relieved, and that’s on about six hours of discontinuous sleep per night!

Preparations for leaving
I’m not sure how common my experiences are, but I want to share my financial to-do list nonetheless.

• I got supplemental disability insurance. The disability coverage (65% of income, to age 65) I receive through my employer will end shortly, so I work with an agent (my sister-in-law actually) to get some supplemental insurance. You may have to do this well ahead of the final date.
• I re-read my employment contract so I’m clear on my rights and obligations.
• I still have company stock options that I have 3 months to exercise after departure. I have been exercising them gradually this year. I will continue with cash-less exercises at certain price targets. I decided against exercise-and-hold because of the AMT implications and the high expense of put options I would need to purchase to guard my profits.
• I set aside one year’s worth of cash needed to pay for living expenses (in addition to my wife’s income) and put it in our HSBC online savings account.
• I started investigating income generating securities. [If you were wondering why I was writing about those high yielding closed-end funds, this is why.]
• I started a self-employed 401(k) account at Fidelity in preparation for rolling over the 401(k) at work. [See why I’m not rolling it into an IRA here.]

Friday is my last day at work. This is going to be a whole new experience for me. Wish me luck!