OptionsXpress has been around since year 2000 and the company has been steadily expanding and gathering customers. Do you have an account? What do you think of them as a stock broker? Let’s take a look today at what they have to offer.
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“There’s going to be a second recession. You have to get out of the market NOW!” Said my friend. “It’s going to be a double-dip recession, and the second dip will be REALLY bad. Even treasuries won’t hold up if there’s a triple-digit inflation. You should do what I did. I gave a big chunk of my money to an Australian guy that buys real gold for you and holds it in underground shelters.”
This was a real conversation with a real life friend, and as depressing as it was, the conversation also got me thinking about how fear can lead to irrational behavior and how I should prepare myself to not get sucked into such behavior.
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An apartment lease is a contract just like any other: there is no one set contract that you have to always adhere to if you want to rent an apartment. As long as the landlord is willing, you can negotiate the terms and make sure that you get the best deal possible.
It’s significantly easier to negotiate if you know at least a little about what is happening with local rentals: if you’re living in an area where there just aren’t a lot of apartments available right now, you can negotiate yourself right out of an apartment if you’re not careful. But if you know a landlord is having difficulty keeping all of his apartments full, you’ll be aware of opportunities to get the most out of the deal.
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One of the most difficult things to figure out in investing is when to sell something. The decision to switch things up can be a difficult one to make. What if you get rid of an investment, and it takes off? You’ve just lost out on big profits. Another concern is that you keep an investment that spirals downward, resulting in big losses when you finally decide you have to sell.
When it comes to mutual funds, though, many people don’t even think about switching things out. This is because many mutual funds are held in retirement accounts that don’t get a lot of scrutiny. However, it is a good idea to check your mutual fund holdings periodically to determine whether or not it is a good time to change things. Here are four situations that might warrant getting rid of a mutual fund:
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Poor spendthrifts don’t get a lot of love on personal finance blogs and websites. We tsk-tsk at their irresponsibility and try to show them the joys of being prudent and frugal but maybe there are lessons that we can learn from our more free spending cousins.
Of course, it’s all about balance and if the scales are too tilted towards wild abandon it can end in disaster but I’m a firm believer that there are positive ways to express almost any personality trait. And in the interest of complete disclosure, I have a spendthrift streak in me a mile wide and have found that it gives me a few advantages over my friends that come by their frugality naturally.
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Prescription drugs are one of those items that we know are necessary, but the cost can make them a real budget buster. Some medications cost in excess of $100 each month, and for those people who take several drugs at once, the price tag quickly exceeds their ability to pay.
Before you opt out of taking medications you need, let’s look at some ways you can reduce your expense.
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