This is just a quick note to let everyone know that I made it through the month of June with all of my Lending Club loans intact. This isn’t particularly surprising, as most notes are paid on time when they’re new, regardless of quality.
Taken together, my high and low risk portfolios are providing a net [...]

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This is a guest post by Neal Frankle, a CFP and author of Wealth Pilgrim. If you like what you see here, please consider subscribing to his RSS feed.
Imagine that you just heard Jim Cramer talking on CNBC about a “guaranteed” way to make a fortune with your investments. Upon hearing this, you have three [...]

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This is just a quick update to say that I’ve received the initial payment on four of the forty Lending Club loans in which I’ve invested. Because these loans funded over a period of weeks, the repayment dates are somewhat staggered, and have just started coming due.
Thus far, everything has been paid on time, though [...]

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Not quite a year ago, I highlighted SmartMoney’s rating of the best online brokers. Today, I thought I’d take a closer look at the results of their 2009 survey.
As you skim through the list (reproduced below), you’ll notice that it’s quite similar to last year’s version. There are, however, some differences. Here’s a quick rundown [...]

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Did you know that you can convert directly from mutual funds to exchange traded funds (ETFs) without incurring taxes? I didn’t. I’ve been operating under the impression that selling the mutual fund shares would be a taxable event.
What I didn’t realize is that, at least with Vanguard equity funds, the conversion of conventional shares [...]

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As a followup to yesterday’s post about mutual funds, I thought I’d talk today about the merits of exchange traded funds (ETFs) vs. low cost index funds. Which is a better choice and why?
What are index mutual funds?
Index mutual funds are simply mutual funds that track a market index such as the S&P 500, Wilshire [...]

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The term “mutual fund” is so widely used in investing circles that few people ever bother to define it. That’s all well and good if you’re “in the know,” but it can be problematic if you’re not. With that said, I thought it would be worth taking a step back and providing a (very) brief [...]

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As a followup to my recent posts about investing through Lending Club, I thought it would be interesting to crunch some numbers related to historical loan performance. One obvious concern when it comes to peer-to-peer lending is that the borrowers will default. At best, this will severely dent the return of your overall portfolio. At [...]

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This is a just a quick note to say that my Lending Club portfolio is now fully funded. I have twenty $25 notes in my “Low Risk” portfolio with an average rate of 9.85%, and twenty $25 loans in my “High Risk” portfolio with an average rate of 15.16%.
Since these loans didn’t all fund at [...]

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What would you say if I told you that, on average, the majority of stocks lose money over time? Would you call me crazy? After all, we all know that the stock market has done nothing but increase over the long term. Right? Well…
According to an interesting piece in the latest Money Magazine by William [...]

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