A Few Quick Notes

Some things I've been doing over the past couple weeks:

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I just went over 100 blog posts! Hopefully many more to come!

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After truly enjoying the The Kite-Runner by Khaled Hosseini, I picked up his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and have nearly read the entire book in about a week (which is fast for me). Although it’s a fiction novel, many of the locations, landmarks, themes, etc, are culturally correct, which help paint a vivid portrait of the struggles in Afghanistan. I highly recommend both books for anyone with an interest in other cultures.

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As my fiancée and I rapidly approach our wedding day—June 14th—I discovered the need for another credit card. The reason I say “another” card is because I have a Capital One no hassle card. However, there are no benefits associated with that particular card; I wanted to get something for making purchases—such as points or cash rewards that can be used towards airfare, hotels, rental cars, etc. I settled on the Blue Sky card from American Express—for a couple reasons:

Zero percent introductory APR on purchases. Many cards offer zero percent APR on balance transfers, but very few have zero percent on new purchases. Moreover, many of the cards offering cash back incentives or thousands of free bonus points for signing up carry yearly fees ranging from $10-$100—another thing I didn’t want.

Travel incentives. As someone that travels a fair amount, and knowing I’ll be traveling even more in the future, I can’t think of a better way to keep cash in my pockets than special deals for doing something I’d be doing anyway. Why not pay yourself back for making these purchases?

The zero percent introductory APR lasts for six months, which gives me plenty of time to earn points and other rewards for travel until marriage, when I'll pay off the balance in full. The card allows me to pre-pay for the wedding, honeymoon, and other expenses without making a huge dent in my checking account. All I have to do is make the minimum monthly payment until the end of the introductory period and there is no additional interest.

Creditcards.com is a great resource to compare based on your individual needs.

What credit cards do you carry?

What Will Happen To Stocks if a Democrat Wins?

I came across an interesting article today compiled by Mick Weinstein who publishes The Best Stock Blogs every Friday on Yahoo Finance. Various people have written opinions in an attempt to determine what an Obama led White House may mean for the American economy (Obama has a five-point lead over John McCain, according to RealClearPolitics):

• From the left: Kris Tuttle of Research 2.0 believes a November Obama victory could "materially change the world perception of the United States, which has suffered terribly under the Bush/Cheney administration." For Wall Street, that would mean "a little less uncertainty and an improved appetite for things American, including the dollar, [to] help the market recover over time."

• From the right: Donald Luskin at SmartMoney, an "unpaid economic advisor to Senator McCain," compares data from prediction market Intrade.com to equities' performance over the past couple months to conclude that "stocks have absorbed the high probability that the next president will be a Democrat. ... at first stocks were frightened by the rising prospect that the Democratic nominee might be Barack Obama. But ... stocks have now changed their minds -- they now prefer Obama to be the nominee instead of Hillary Clinton."

• San Diego-based portfolio manager Gary Gordon sees value in analyzing both the candidates' voting records and what they're saying on the campaign trail. Obama's vocal support for alternative fuels leads one to expect alternative fuels to pop higher; that could mean exchange traded funds such as the Market Vectors Alternative Energy ETF (GEX) and Powershares Global Clean Energy Fund (PBD) will outperform.

Gordon also notes that "in Obama's Wisconsin victory speech, he spoke about shifting tax incentives away from multinationals that ship jobs abroad. And he wants to give tax incentives to upstarts and smaller firms that invest in Americans." Good news for small-cap stocks? Talk? Words? Perhaps," says Gordon, "yet the day after the Potomac primary victories the iShares Small Cap Value (IJS) gained 2 percent to the S&P 500's (SPY) 1 percent." And "the day after [Obama's] Wisconsin/Hawaii victories, IJS outperformed SPY once again."

• When you look at corporations and stocks all day, they begin to take on personalities -- and those, in turn, can become useful political metaphors. Portfolio.com's Matt Cooper, likens Obama to Apple Inc. and Clinton to Dell. Cooper says the Clintons, like Dell, are still a strong brand with a thriving following, but they lack that special something: "The first woman president is arguably as radical a step, as big a moment on the world stage, as the first African-American one. But she's not a new brand. She's Dell, strong, solid, formidable -- but lacking Apple's immense coolness."

• Dan Gross at Slate extends the comparisons: Obama is the alternative-energy sector, while Clinton is Citigroup. Obama is "hybrid, next-generation upstart, unafraid of entrenched market leaders, and embraced by corn-growing Iowans, Silicon Valley venture capitalists, and East Coast moneymen." Clinton, meanwhile, is a "New York-based, enormously well-capitalized, longstanding market leader whose name is synonymous with the sector it dominates. A powerhouse in the 1990s is having difficulty reclaiming past glory. “

Read the first comment at the bottom of the full post—definitely slanted way left…

The Secret Ingredient for a Successful Marriage

In the book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell sheds some light on the scientific methods used by University of Washington professor Dr. John Gottman regarding his insightful in predictions of successful marriages. Amazingly, in about five minute’s time, Gottman can predict the future success or failure of a marriage with an accuracy rate over 90 percent.

Gottman’s ideas are followed up again in the book I’m currently reading in the chapter titled: The Secret Ingredient in Every Satisfying Marriage. Here is a quick excerpt that makes complete sense, but probably overlooked by many couples:

“You’re undoubtedly thinking, How does he do it? Dr. Gottman has identified specific behaviors that are marriage destroyers and others that are marriage protectors. Far and away, the most significant marriage protector boils down to one word (are you ready to be underwhelmed?): friendship. Not money, not exotic getaways, not creative romantic rendezvous. No, merely friendship.”

After years of research, Gottman arrives at this conclusion:

“The determining factor in whether wives feel satisfied with sex, romance, and passion in their marriage is, by 70 percent, the quality of the couple’s friendship. For men, the determining factor is, by the same 70 percent, the quality of the couple’s friendship. So men and women come from the same planet after all….Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial towards your spouse.”

This simple concept came as a little bit of a shocker to me. I expected something more elaborate—something more elusive. Especially when you think that we all have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be a good friend. It isn’t some magical combination of profound acts that create great marriages. In fact, they all stem from friendship. We have learned over time how to be good friends. Now take these basic principles and apply them to your marriage—make your spouse your best friend first.

Why You Should Get Married

As I get closer and closer to marriage, I’ve found myself reading and researching more so I’m well prepared. I don’t want to get married and realize I should have spent more time understanding the different needs of both sexes. Moreover, I think it’s imperative to understand the toughest issues facing newly weds. I started reading a book yesterday called The Most Important Year in a Man’s Life by Robert Wolgemuth & Mark Devries. My parents gave it to me for Christmas.

The basic idea so far is that couples must take time to “invest” in each other and in the marriage, and they must do this diligently for the first year. Here is a list of some great statistics for those pondering marriage:

1. People with satisfying marriages live longer, enjoy better health, and report a much higher level of satisfaction about life in general.

2. Married men report a deeper satisfaction about life in general than do single men. Forty percent of married couples say they are very happy, compared to 18 percent of those divorced and 22 percent of those never married or of unmarried couples living together.

3. Despite the myths about single life, married men enjoy much more frequent sex (almost twice as often) than single men.

4. Even if you are a bottom-line kind of guy who likes to think in dollars and cents, check this out: Recent statistics show that the average married couple in their fifties has a net worth nearly five times that of the average divorced or single person.

5. Divorce dramatically increases the likelihood of early death from strokes, hypertension, respiratory cancer, and intestinal cancer. Astonishingly, being a divorced nonsmoker is only slightly less dangerous than smoking a pack (or more) of cigarettes a day and staying married!

“Research guarantees it: A satisfying marriage can bring you more happiness, more money, less sickness, and better sex. I think we’ve just redefined a no-brainer!”

All this is fine and dandy, but statistics also show that 1/2 of all marriages fail. Tell me again how you can statistically prove in a variety of ways that it is better to get married and stay married, and yet marriage classes are not a mandatory subject in public schools?

More to come on this topic…

One Difference Between College and the Real-World

Since graduating from the Air Force Academy this past May, I’ve been thinking of differences, similarities, ideas, lessons learned, etc, between college and the real-world. One of the big differences is the lack of shared common experiences. I think the main reason for this is because the workplace contains various people going through different stages in their lives.

First of all, why do most people go to college? If you are like most students, it boils down to the desire for a comfortable life, a decent job, a mate, etc. Most students go to college because they think they have to. After all, it’s statistically proven that college graduates make more money (on average) than people with only a high school diploma. If you go to college and graduate, you’ll likely make more money, allowing you to buy more things on your journey towards happiness.

Ahh, but now you graduate, and you’re faced with some new realities: School loans, possibly a job you don’t like, a life you aren’t used to, new friends, a different work environment, etc. However, I’m not saying it’s worse than scraping by on Ramen noodles working two jobs in college—it’s just different.

One of the biggest differences between college and the real-world is the “bubble” you live in as a student attending an institution of higher learning. This “bubble” gives students an environment for shared common experiences. The different groups, clubs, gatherings, parties, etc, create a gathering place for students that give them common experiences. This is one of the quickest ways to make new friends—spend quality time partaking in common experiences. Let me give you a quick example. A group of students that barely know each other wind up joining an outdoor group that plans to go white water rafting. This is an awkward situation at first, but soon the trip evolves into an adventure full of situations requiring mutual trust and understanding. One of the rafts tips over, and people are forced to help reconcile a tough situation. After this event however, the group is forever bound by this common experience. Even if a person finds out they don’t like everyone, this shared context provides safe haven for future endeavors and new relationships form based on trust. The group begins forming an identity. This identity grows strong with time and more shared common experiences.

In the real-world, you must actively seek these environments. Most people in the workplace are in completely different stages in their lives, so it makes it hard to get into situations where you can truly understand someone and their background. Some people are married. Some are single. Some are young. Some are old. Workplace identity is not enough to form strong ties and lifelong friendships. This will only form “casual” friendships. There must be off-site common experiences that allow you to create stronger ties.

I’ve been trying to reconcile why the above happens after graduating college and to the best of my knowledge it’s because of the clash between people going through different stages in their lives. However, this isn’t all that bad—it’s just different. This environment allows you to find out who you truly are as a person rather than what you may have been conforming to during group interactions. Now, it’s what you do with your new environment that makes all the difference.

What do you think are some similarities and differences between college and the real-world?

How to Live Your Life

One quote I’m working to live by:

“Live for today, dream for tomorrow”

Think about what this means in your life...

What I've Been Doing Lately

I just finished reading The Kite-Runner by Khaled Hosseini—an excellent book if you’re looking for a fast paced story that grips you from start to finish. I’m excited to read A Thousand Splendid Suns—Hosseini’s second novel.

I began Blink by Malcolm Gladwell a few days ago, and I can honestly say I’m a little disappointed thus far. He brings up some interesting arguments; however, the book jumps around a lot and doesn't follow through.

The infamous GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test) study guides have been filling a hefty portion of my free time. I took a full practice test last Saturday and the book scoring had me around 580—I'm looking for a 650+. The data sufficiency and sentence correction questions have been giving me the most trouble.

Of course I’m always bouncing new ideas, thoughts, etc, off of other people waiting for a business idea to fully grab my attention. I’ve done some market research for a couple different ideas—and hey: Even if they don’t pan out, at least I’m keeping my entrepreneurial mind actively engaged.

Financial markets have certainly been a serious concern for many people; however, I haven’t changed a thing. I have continued investing for the long haul—buy, buy, buy—mainly in the form of the S&P 500 Index in my Roth IRA (expense ratio .19%).

Friends and family have been cycling through my condo near Phoenix, AZ. No surprise here—I wouldn’t want to be in Minnesota right now either! Things are crazy though with the Super Bowl in town this weekend—hopefully the Patriots and Giants will give us a great game. And of course, I always enjoy the new commercials…