Case study: Par tech 401 K position

April 30, 2019

Introduction

It is my vacation day. I have to work on my tax return. I also like to document my transactions on my par tech 401K, and I have to start to build good habit, make a quarter review, rebalance the account, and also go over the website to get familiar all product features inside the 401 K supported by Charles Schwab

My position

Total Market Value:  $6,291.74

Vested Amount:  $6,291.74

  Expand, Collapse Account Detail

	NAME	SYMBOL	MARKET VALUE	QUANTITY	PRICE	% OF ACCOUNT
	American Funds 2030 Trgt Date Retire R5E	RHETX	$0.03	0.002	$14.60	0%
	Pioneer Equity Income Y	PYEQX	$515.15	14.689	$35.07	8.19%
	T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth	TRBCX	$515.13	4.424	$116.44	8.19%
	Fidelity 500 Index	FXAIX	$732.24	7.157	$102.31	11.64%
	T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Growth Adv	PAMCX	$257.54	2.899	$88.84	4.09%
	Hartford Small Cap Growth HLS IB	HBSGX	$257.56	7.942	$32.43	4.09%
	Wells Fargo Special Mid Cap Value Inst	WFMIX	$257.57	6.606	$38.99	4.09%
	Fidelity Mid Cap Index	FSMDX	$257.58	11.468	$22.46	4.09%
	Fidelity Small Cap Index	FSSNX	$257.22	12.535	$20.52	4.09%
	American Funds Europacific Growth R3	RERCX	$257.57	5.016	$51.35	4.09%
	Delaware Emerging Markets Instl	DEMIX	$257.57	13.535	$19.03	4.09%
	Fidelity International Index	FSPSX	$257.57	6.276	$41.04	4.09%
	Cohen & Steers Real Estate Securities I	CSDIX	$515.15	31.033	$16.60	8.19%
	Western Asset Core Plus Bond I	WACPX	$923.57	79.963	$11.55	14.68%
	PIMCO Income Instl	PIMIX	$772.71	64.179	$12.04	12.28%
	Fidelity US Bond Index	FXNAX	$257.58	22.417	$11.49	4.09%
	Subtotal		$6,291.74			100.00%
	Total		$6,291.74			100%

Comparison study: union find algorithm learning in 2017 vs 2019

April 29, 2019

Introduction

It is very challenging to learn union find algorithm. I like to compare my learning through 2017 on Hackerrank contest to learning in 2019 based on weekly contest top 50 ranking submission of union find algorithm.

Comparison

Here is the link to look up my previous study of union find algorithm.

Here is the link to look up my 2019 study on union find algorithm.

Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG)

Here is the link.

Product summary

• Seeks to track the performance of the CRSP US Large Cap Growth Index.
• Provides a convenient way to match the performance of many of the nation’s largest growth stocks.
• Follows a passively managed, full-replication approach.

Vanguard Small-Cap Value ETF (VBR)

Here is the link.

Product summary

• Seeks to track the performance of the CRSP US Small Cap Value Index, which measures the investment return of small-capitalization value stocks.
• Provides a convenient way to match the performance of a diversified group of small value companies.
• Follows a passively managed, full-replication approach.

Case study: I opened individual TFSA account on questrade.com | 2019

April 29, 2019

#53YearOld #TFSA #50000CanadianDollars #2010To2019 #InterestOnly #InvestmentLesson #20PercentSalary #VacationToChina #Canadian #FinancialWorries #FinancialWeakness #2019

Introduction

It is my personal fiance research and it changes my life. I just opened individual TFSA account on questrade.com today.

Case study

I started personal finance research from November 2018. I tried to solve my housing problem in Vancouver area. I do not learn how to build wealth and grow rich from 2010 to 2018, and I only can save less than 20% of my salary and my savings is only around $50,000 dollars.

I have to push myself to learn how to invest based on the fact that I only have interest income in Canada. I do not spend time to figure out how to generate passive income from 2010 at all. Instead I wasted money on vacation, please my mom and my relatives through vacations.

One thing I have to push myself is to change my life style. Be frugal and be a minimalist.

I feel so bad since I cannot afford a one bedroom condo in my age over 50 years old, full time work near 9 years. But my personal finance research leads me to new ways thinking and analysis. I learn how to build wealth and grow rich, I like to try all kinds of ideas.

Canada saving

I just opened TFSA account on questtrade.com and transferred $1000 dollars from Scotia bank checking account. I like to learn how to invest long term 10 - 13 year growth fund like VBR, VUT, VXF, VUE, VBE, VT.

Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA): Top 10 Questions and Answers

Here is the article.

Personal finance research progress report 2019-04

April 29, 2019

Introduction

It is time for me to write a progress report for my personal finance research. I started from Nov. 2018, and I was so busy to work on so many projects; I like to write a progress report.

Progress report

I did a few things this weekend. One thing I did is to send external transfer form to Ameritrade, I need to transfer IRA CDs and CD from New york community bank to Ameritrade. Currently I have six year term 1.2% interest.

I like to continue to research personal finance; One thing I learn every day is to understand my job to manage my asset. I need to learn finance investment vehicles and then start to work on short term interest and middle term and long term interest. I need to build a portfolio and seek long term growth, beat inflation and also understand Vanguard total market index ETF VTI performance from 2010 to 2019.

I like to continue to learn more concepts, strategies; I have to learn basic problem solving skills, and slowly put 60% of my asset in equity, and then 40% on bond.

I understand that I am still in wealth accumulating stage, it is better for me not taking too big risk to purchase inflated real estate in Vancouver area.

Check list to put $10,000 dollar into VTI

I am thinking about put $10,000 dollar into VTI in IRA account. Should I invest once or make it a dollar cost average plan to reduce the volatility?

How to stay on the course this time?

If market crashes in next 12 months, how can I stay on the course? I understand that it is better for me to dollar cost average to invest when the price goes down.

Canada savings 80% into equities?

I need to learn how to manage my Canada savings.

Plain Vanilla Definition

Here is the link.

Investing Insights: Morningstar's Top Picks for Retirement Portfolios

Here is the link of 38 minutes interview.

Five year time horizon -

4:00 / 38:15

Baird aggregate bond inst BAGIX  ****

Case study: My 401 K and IRA performance vs Vanguard total market index VTI ETF

April 28, 2019

Introduction

It is my personal finance research. I like to do a case study of my 401 K compared to VTI ETF performance.

Case study

Let me put all my deposit of 401 K into github for me to look up first.

I just could not believe that I have not done any research on 401 K portfolio research starting from 2002 to 2019. It is over two decades. I just could not believe that I have such difficulty to learn new thing on investment.

My 401 K and IRA managed by myself

Here are blogs by searching IRA CD on my blog. I put my IRA CD staying with New York community bank from 2006 to 2019, here is the blog.

1999 Atlantic Entertainment   $1880
2000 Atlantic Entertainment   $3610
2000 Trendium                         $650
2001 Trendium                       $5490
2004 IRA deposit                   $3000
2006-2007 Siva, par siva       $8000

I experienced two recession, 2002 and 2008. And I decided to pull all funds out of stock market in 2009. I just could not believe that my decision and I could not explain myself the behavior.

Facts:

1. I do not actively learn how to invest. I do not study my 401 K Par technology Charles Schwab account, I do not even know what funds are available for 401 K investor after 2009.

2. I do not pay attention to stock market, and I do not do any study on my 401 K fund performance at all from 2010 to 2019.

3. I do not question myself the way I manage the asset I have.

And VTI ETF performance is unbelievable.

Vanguard total stock market ETF VTI

Here is the web page to look up VTI.

Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF SCHD

Here is the page to show ETF.

It is better to invest in IRA account since dividend is a tax issue for stock account.

2012 $10,000 dollars on SCHD, the value of 2019 is $25,340.

Investing Insights: 3 Good Ideas for IRAs, Housing, and More

2:20/ 21:10

Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF SCHD  *****

4:30/ 21:10
Vanguard Short-term infl-prot Secs ETF VTIP

4:53/ 21:10
Vanguard Inflation-Protected Secs Inv VIPSX

5:19/ 21:10

Loomis Sayles Bond Instl  LSBDX   ****

12:47/ 21:10

Vanguard total stock market ETF  VTI
10,000, annual management fee $4, Expense ratio 0.04%

Active manager overcomes the fee to beat index fund.
Invest not on one basket.
IRA - US stock dividend 2% - you do not have to pay tax right away.

10 Year Annualized TR 16.17%, 4 years almost double the value.

14:57/ 21:10
iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol USA ETF USMV  ****

16:10/ 21:10
iShare Edge MSCI Min Vol EAFE ETF EFAV  ****

minimum volatility

17:48/ 21:10
Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF VYM

Seven Keys to Successful Retirement Plans - Christine Benz

Here is the link of 46 minutes MoneyShow talk presented by my favorite personal finance director of Morningstar Christine Benz.

I also put all slides in github folder of JuliaPersonalFinance repository. Here is the link.


13:40/ 46:26

Savings and bonds will not support us enough since longevity.

18:30/ 46:26

20:32/ 46:26

21:00
Dividend stocks may cut the dividends, like 2008 recession.



Key 3: Inflation protection

Equity fund to beat the inflation in the long run. But it should be long term over 10 years investment.

Inflation -> rent goes up -> REITs is a good candidate for long term investment to beat inflation.

Design the Twitter timeline and search

Here is the link.

It is time for me to learn system design and prepare for my challenging projects to work on. I have to start from the basics again, and continuously work on one thing a time.

A few things I learn from the above article.

Anastasia Soare

Here is the wiki page.

Here is the song I like to learn "I''m outta love"

802 - 2763 Chandlery Place

802 - 2763 Chandlery Place   $299,000

Vancouver, Fraserview Ve

• 1 Bed
• 1 Bath 
• 619 sqft
• Here is the list webpage. 
• 
  

13353 108 AVE SURREY V3T 5T5

Here is the video.

$389,980 1 bd, 2ba, 827 sqft, built in 1995.

Portfolio spring cleanup, solid dividend, and more

Here is the video called Investing insights: Portfolio spring cleanup, solid dividend, and more.

I like the problem solving mindset. The volatility is such great research topic and the problem solving can be so challenging. I also like to look into the issues for me to catch up some basics in order to follow up ideas shown in the talk. 

I like to get myself best business education through self-learning process. 

Here are a few funds to look into:

USMV

SPLV

9:20/ 25:29
SCHD - dividend


ABMD stock - medical company 


volatility 

5:44/ 25:29

USMV 
Low volatility ETF - look to create least volatile portfolio. 

8:00 / 25:29
SPLV
Invesco S&P 500 Low Volatilty ETF - 500 stock least volatile 

interesting approach - overweight utility and real estate sector

Dividend

9:23/ 25:29

My happy hour new definition

April 27, 2019

Introduction

It is my personal finance research. I like to have a happy hour every day. What  I can do is to watch morningstar video, and then I like to push myself to learn from Christian Benz and understand more about portfolio, and look into ideas shared by those videos.

My happy hour

5 minutes video, I watched twice, 10 minutes. Now it is 11:57 PM.

Here is the video called Give your portolio a fresh start this spring.

Here is the video called Investing insights: Portfolio spring cleanup, solid dividend, and more.

Commission-Free ETFs on TD Ameritrade

Here is the article.

Here is the folder to contain my excel sheet used for analysis on JuliaPersonalFinance github repository. 

It is time for me to look into mid-cap growth ETF vanguard. I have to learn how to read the economy and then take some action on purchase of the ETF after last year dip on stock market. 

Symbol	ETF Name	Asset Class	Total Assets ($MM)	YTD	Avg Volume	Previous Closing Price	1-Day Change
IWP	iShares Russell Midcap Growth ETF	Equity	$10,844.49	24.62%	534,648	$141.46	0.85%
VBK	Vanguard Small Cap Growth ETF	Equity	$8,974.69	23.74%	164,705	$186.09	0.97%
VOT	Vanguard Mid-Cap Growth ETF	Equity	$6,163.80	23.53%	140,442	$147.61	0.81%
IWO	iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF	Equity	$9,350.38	21.01%	590,359	$202.98	1.11%
VXF	Vanguard Extended Market VIPERs ETF	Equity	$6,955.78	20.07%	404,905	$119.52	0.78%
IWV	iShares Russell 3000 ETF	Equity	$9,552.24	18.18%	368,534	$172.99	0.53%
VOE	Vanguard Mid-Cap Value ETF	Equity	$9,259.24	17.71%	351,169	$111.59	0.50%
VBR	Vanguard Small Cap Value ETF	Equity	$13,588.72	17.64%	279,066	$133.57	1.06%
IWS	iShares Russell Midcap Value ETF	Equity	$11,009.19	17.54%	591,483	$89.34	0.61%
IJS	iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Value ETF	Equity	$6,394.23	16.97%	196,270	$153.64	0.88%
IVE	iShares S&P 500 Value ETF	Equity	$15,617.26	16.21%	779,862	$116.88	0.48%
ACWI	iShares MSCI ACWIETF	Equity	$10,748.36	15.91%	2,928,964	$74.37	0.38%
IWN	iShares Russell 2000 Value ETF	Equity	$9,130.21	15.85%	801,903	$124.06	0.87%
VT	Vanguard Total World Stock ETF	Equity	$12,788.53	15.84%	2,610,625	$75.54	0.48%
VGK	Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF	Equity	$13,816.09	14.26%	3,516,800	$55.24	0.22%
FXI	iShares China Large-Cap ETF	Equity	$6,288.56	14.12%	28,774,536	$44.60	0.59%
SCZ	iShares MSCI EAFESmall-Cap ETF	Equity	$9,643.77	14.07%	1,031,286	$59.11	0.42%
JNK	SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF	Bond	$9,784.96	9.46%	13,668,484	$36.25	0.22%
EWJ	iShares MSCI Japan ETF	Equity	$14,250.59	9.29%	8,074,709	$55.40	0.91%
EWZ	iShares MSCI Brazil ETF	Equity	$8,639.64	7.98%	31,630,064	$41.25	0.41%
BIV	Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond ETF	Bond	$11,608.12	3.87%	682,678	$83.82	0.24%
MUB	iShares National AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF	Bond	$12,567.19	2.91%	802,955	$111.49	0.14%
TLT	iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF	Bond	$12,585.40	2.56%	7,886,922	$123.81	0.34%
VMBS	Vanguard Mortgage-Backed Securities ETF	Bond	$8,685.76	2.09%	787,667	$52.17	0.13%
IEI	iShares 3-7 Year Treasury Bond ETF	Bond	$6,816.20	1.76%	854,370	$122.86	0.20%

1035. Uncrossed Lines

I like to share the link of my discussion post.

Algorithm 1035 Uncrossed lines is here.

I also like to write down my feelings after I wrote and completed the solution after the weekly contest 114. I studied discussion post, and there is a trick to design dynamic programming array size to remove m - 1 out of range edge case, just apply start index = 1 instead of 0. 

Another thing is for me to argue that the cross case is the maximum case if the last number of both arrays are the same. 

Algorithms 3 is a dynamic programming. I have to learn some tip to avoid the edge case. I also asked question about the most popular post the question. The post is here, the question is the following, I did ask some one before more than a year ago, I also wrote a blog about it.

May I ask you how to argue the following statement is correct?
dp[i][j] = 1 + dp[i - 1][j - 1];
The above statement is based on the fact that dp[i - 1][j] <= 1 + dp[i - 1][j - 1] and dp[i][j -1] <= 1 + dp[i -1][j - 1]. How to reason those two formulas?

Follow up 

May 3, 2019

I got response back from the author.

Weekly contest 114

April 27, 2019

Introduction

It is my favorite weekly contest. I solved two algorithms, but I came out the third algorithm using dynamic programming solution. I could not complete the third on since I only had 10 minutes left to work on the solution.

Case study

I should be able to complete the third algorithm dynamic programming in less than 10 minutes. But I have not written a dynamic programming solution for long time. I wrote one solution after the contest using List<int> to help, but the first one is so messy with redundant if/ else and isEqual discussion.

I like to share the links of my discussion posts.

Algorithm 1 is here.
Algorithm 2 is here.
Algorithm 3 is here.

I stuck on first easy level algorithm, as shown in the above image, I spent 41 minutes to play with submission and test cases, and then I made it work.

I did not have time to read the fourth algorithm at all. I need to work on my reading skills. Sometimes I have to think carefully before I write the code, I had to hack the code and then figured out what was asking. Life is tough to play weekly contest.

Algorithms 3 is a dynamic programming. I have to learn some tip to avoid the edge case. I also asked question about the most popular post the question. The post is here, the question is the following, I did ask some one before more than a year ago, I also wrote a blog about it.

May I ask you how to argue the following statement is correct?
dp[i][j] = 1 + dp[i - 1][j - 1];
The above statement is based on the fact that dp[i - 1][j] <= 1 + dp[i - 1][j - 1] and dp[i][j -1] <= 1 + dp[i -1][j - 1]. How to reason those two formulas?

Follow up 

May 3, 2019

I got response back from the author.

Weekly contest 113

It was a big mistake since I was distracted in the contest, I chatted with two friends on wechat in the contest, so I could not solve any problem.