Need help......


My dad set up a roth-IRA for me a few years ago. It has gone up and down over the years but sits at around $3000 now. I am tired of paying the broker we originally set-up the account with at Wachovia $65 a year to do nothing! What are my options on moving this money to an online trading company. How does one even go about this?

Thanks for your help!

8/25/2011 10:33:25 AM

You'll have to fill out a form to xfer it over to Scottrade, Vanguard, etc.

8/25/2011 11:41:45 AM

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-truth-about-bank-of-america-2011-8

Good read from business insider today. Summarizes a lot of the potential issues for BoA and some of their balance sheet.

$73B of Level 3 assets
$67B in derivatives
$500B in Level 2 assets
$78B of subjective goodwill

Wow

8/25/2011 1:41:58 PM

A bank worth 200b with 78b of goodwill levered 15 to 1, SOLD. Cramer likes them though.

8/25/2011 1:57:01 PM

Article authored by....The same guy who said JPM was going to aquire bofa by the end of this week...the same guy that earned a lifetime ban from the SEC.

Bove and Whitney...the same two analysts that called the 2008 crash and were openly critical of banks (particularly bofa) are on record as saying no capital raise is needed.

You guys believe what fits your paradigm.

8/25/2011 2:28:23 PM

You have the banks mark to market tonight, nobody opens tomorrow. You act like the sec is some legit agency, best i can tell, they are some sort of porn monitoring firm.

8/25/2011 2:49:52 PM

Dick Bove is a frickin idiot. He consistently tries to call the bottom and is consistently wrong

Quote :

"On March 18th of 2008, about a month from the end of a bear market rally that Mr. Bove called a "generational buying opportunity", BAC closed at $38.93. "

[Edited on August 25, 2011 at 4:01 PM. Reason : .]

8/25/2011 4:00:38 PM

Maybe this is Buffets way of taxing the rich. Enough with this senile fuck, Lets talk Jackson Hole.
What will the FED do? I still think nothing from the bets i've seen.

8/25/2011 6:30:43 PM

didn't pull the trigger on C @ 31.5 today. oh well, still up about 10%.

8/25/2011 11:18:39 PM

You're right bank of America didn't need any capital, that's why they just accepted a punitive 6% interest rate on a loan at effectively a 9% interest rate (when you back the warrants value out) that has a 5% premium attached on prepayments.

Nothing to see here, just the standard cost of capital for a healthy business in a zero rate environment.

When buffet is the only one at the table and he comes in guns drawn only after getting behind the curtain assurances from the federal government you know things are bad.


We can only continue to paper over these problems for so long. Eventually the tip of the cock hits the cervix.

8/26/2011 8:52:12 AM

The Bernank extends the Sept meeting to 2 days so FOMC members can look at a wide range of tools? Will they be arranged by length or girth?

8/26/2011 10:39:45 AM

if by length you mean in terms of dated maturity, and by girth you mean yield...

i think this time around it will be according to length.

8/26/2011 11:28:30 AM

It's actually length times girth divided by ya

8/28/2011 11:33:14 AM

Amusing Read

6 People Who Single Handedly Screwed Entire Economies

http://www.cracked.com/article_19357_6-people-who-single-handedly-screwed-entire-economies.html

8/29/2011 9:59:42 AM

No volume, trading vapors. I'm gonna try and sell some 1200 back up 10 bucks and repeat. Rally for no reason on no volume=gay

8/29/2011 11:04:25 AM

^i picked up some DIA puts at DOW+100 and again at DOW+200.

8/29/2011 2:21:16 PM

^ i like it This is the area we bounced off and went back down to 1120 a few weeks ago, I don't think anything has changed, just don't sell it all at once, back up and try and sell higher.

8/29/2011 2:56:16 PM

I'm loving this market. Making a killing with options.

8/29/2011 3:05:41 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576535211589514334.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Quote :

"Let's say you were given a year to kill Hewlett-Packard. Here's how you do it: Al Lewis looks back at all the missteps that have led have added up to a disastrous year for Hewlett-Packard. Fire well-performing CEO Mark Hurd over expense-report irregularities and a juicy sexual-harassment claim that you admit has no merit. Fire four board members, as publicly as possible. Foment a mass exodus of key executives who actually know how to run the giant computer company. Hire new a CEO from German competitor, SAP, which sells business software, not consumer products. Tell the new CEO, Leo Apotheker, that Mr. Hurd "left H-P in great shape." Draw public criticism from a major corporate-governance advisory firm, alleging Mr. Apotheker filled board openings with cronies. Pursue pricey mergers and stock buybacks. Allow expenses to run out of control. Try to blow through billions of dollars in cash reserves before the next global economic slowdown. Provoke partners Microsoft and Oracle by threatening to put H-P's own operating software on PCs. Then decide not to. Remember that promising webOS software H-P bought in a $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm last year? Sideline it. Bristle when Oracle's Larry Ellison tells the New York Times: "The H-P board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs." And file lawsuits when Mr. Ellison hires Mr. Hurd. Boast that you're going to attack Apple's iPad with your $499 TouchPad. Then dump your TouchPad in a $99 fire sale and announce you're just not going to offer it anymore. Telegraph to the world that you are just too dumb to make smartphones. Raise your financial estimates, twice. Then miss them, twice. Make sure Mr. Apotheker's memo gets leaked to the media -- the one that says "watch every penny and minimize all hiring." Announce plans to buy British business software company Autonomy for $10 billion, because it makes enterprise software just like SAP, which is what Mr. Apotheker knows best. Announce plans to maybe sell the PC business. Or maybe spin off PCs as a stand-alone company. Uncertainty will damage the price. Never mind the years of effort H-P spent -- including a controversial merger with Compaq -- becoming the world's largest PC maker. Never mind that the PC business feeds H-P's more profitable businesses. Dumping it is a beautiful absurdity that one analyst, Jayson Noland of Robert W. Baird & Co., described as "like McDonald's getting out of the hamburger business." Watch Moody's threaten to downgrade H-P's credit. Act surprised as H-P's stock plunges more than 40%. Go to Wall Street and tell long, confusing stories about how you are transforming H-P from a low-margin to a high-margin business. From former CEO Carly Fiorina's spectacular flame-out, and former chairwoman Patricia Dunn's illegal spying scandal, to Mr. Hurd's alleged sex scandal that apparently didn't involve any sex at all, this sort of dysfunction has become "the H-P Way." It has been a year since H-P fired Mr. Hurd. Jack Kevorkian couldn't have devised a better plan for euthanizing a company. But like the good doctor used to say: "Dying is not a crime." "

8/30/2011 9:04:42 AM

Yikes


SAP makes shitty products. I don't understand the logic of hiring someone who currently is not making a good product. On the whole, American companies don't know how to pick or appropriately pay executives.

[Edited on August 30, 2011 at 9:12 AM. Reason : .]

8/30/2011 9:10:05 AM

^

8/30/2011 9:17:43 AM

^^

True story. My dad worked for a chemical company in Greensboro for 25 years that was acquired by a larger company. A few years after the acquisition, the parent company moved to SAP for ERP and the implementation was such a failure. They spent tens of millions over a couple of years to get it functioning properly and ended up making the company go bankrupt (mostly due to the ensuing lost sales caused by supply chain failures).

My dad was subsequently laid off, and the company in greensboro was sold off, and now has a different name.


--
tl;dr my dad was a layoff victim of SAP

8/30/2011 9:29:01 AM

Implementation failure has nothing to do with a product being bad. Typically ERP implementation failures happen when IT people define the processes and not the functional experts.

8/30/2011 9:39:18 AM

I was pretty young when my dad's former company failed, so I don't know the specifics. The tl;dr was not really meant to be that serious, sorry if it came across that way.


That said, a system so complex that the supposed benefits of said system are often difficult to realize is often a sign of a bad product. I see it ever day with products that my own company makes. I'd recommend you read The Complexity Avalanche.

8/30/2011 10:03:34 AM

I was not commenting on your dad's situation or HP situation. I just made a comment about implementation failures. ERP disasters were dime a dozen in 90s.

SAP has its issues. But it is the leader. It is the microsoft of ERP world. A lot of people hate it, but haven't found anything better either.

On the side note, I hope HP doesn't kill its printer business too. There is a lot of of money in it.

[Edited on August 30, 2011 at 10:29 AM. Reason : a]

8/30/2011 10:28:16 AM

Biggest collapse in consumer confidence, EVER. Want to get shorter for fri NFP but being patient.

8/30/2011 11:08:32 AM

^ aren't the market makers/those closest to the action getting square before the long weekend?

i mean, i guess you could front-run any fresh new shorts that you're anticipating ahead of next week.. Tuesdays do suck in general.

8/30/2011 11:56:03 AM

^NFP is 7:30am fri central, I'll have all day to buy em back. Last couple of # have missed big, im just looking to sell this low volume creep and see if it shakes out.

8/30/2011 2:38:58 PM

I liked the failed rally at the end of the day, got to think this rally is portfolio managers driving up stocks for an end of month print. Still selling futures. Looking at the september straddle (ATM P+C) is still 60.00 for 15 trading days if I get in any trouble short ill sell that.

8/30/2011 6:59:06 PM

Quote :

"http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576535211589514334.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read"

I guess you can add this to the long list of how to kill H-P.

Quote :

"Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will temporarily resume manufacturing of its ill-fated tablet computer just 11 days after killing its iPad rival as part of a sweeping corporate overhaul."

Quote :

"The introductory model of the TouchPad costs $306 to manufacture, according to an estimate from research firm IHS iSuppli, suggesting a loss of roughly two-thirds if it is sold for $99."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903352704576540982671537062.html#ixzz1WcgXcjKL

8/31/2011 12:03:01 PM

posted this in the unemployment thread:

Anyone interested in a junior analyst position at an IB in RTP?

Not sure of pay but would be entry level.

Would work in credit risk management where you would review/rate countries and banks, eventually trade approvals. Would be a good way to get foot in the door at an investment bank.

If you are interested pm me...tryin to get dat referral bonus

9/1/2011 2:04:41 PM

picked up 250 shares of SandRidge today @ 7.00

9/2/2011 11:57:22 AM

My work retirement account is such a waste of money. My biggest return is from the company matching. Otherwise, the assets themselves are not appreciating in value.

9/2/2011 5:55:15 PM

Who manages it? What are your investments? Over what time period?

9/2/2011 7:30:12 PM

Happy labor day, futures down 26, Europe imploding.

9/5/2011 10:53:49 AM

My prediction for the week is PAIN hahaha

9/5/2011 11:45:34 AM

Ok. Good contribution, face.

9/5/2011 12:11:31 PM

um whatever that line never gets old.


Plus, Europe is crumbling this week. Greece hard default and dissolving the EU looking like the only option.

9/6/2011 12:12:52 AM

How about my contribution when I said Groupon was fucked months ago. Looks like they are

9/6/2011 10:40:10 AM

Buying another 10k worth of gold. Thanks to whoever is dumping today.

Forced selling or central bank??

9/7/2011 10:56:06 AM

When you say buying gold, do you just buy GLD?

9/7/2011 11:02:12 AM

The qe buzz levatates the market higher on no volume. What a junky market.

9/7/2011 9:56:56 PM

What QE buzz was there today? Also, it's "levitates".

Quote :

"How about my contribution when I said Groupon was fucked months ago."

Was anyone here ever bullish on Groupon? Shall I pat you on the back for agreeing with consensus?

9/8/2011 12:19:59 AM

Yes and no it was not the consensus before details of their ponzi scheme came out.

It was one of the hottest private companies in the world until a few months ago.

I know a few people really getting burned by it that were early investors in their fund.

[Edited on September 8, 2011 at 9:13 AM. Reason : a]

9/8/2011 9:08:41 AM

^^ Former and current fed governors and their channels releasing a storm of dovish remarks to anyone who will listen. Stocks higher, credit spreads still in distress mode and Europe not close to fixed. I'm gonna play it as a range and try and sell some better than 1230, back up and repeat, maybe buy some silly upside call to have if the Bernank goes full retard.

9/8/2011 11:29:53 AM

I've been researching options for the past month or so. I have a couple questions for people who have experience when dealing with options and the conventional stock market.

-When you enter a covered call and are the seller, how is the premium determined. I assume it is based on the strike price, but who sets these parameters. Also, how do you go about writing calls and engaging with buyers. I assume it's done through some e trade like site, but am just curious about some of the selling (as well as buying) of options.

-Like I said I am just beginning and have been following the indexes, reading articles on companies, but am still unfamiliar with how to judge a certain index by a P/E ratio or yield. I know what they are, but do I just compare them to other companies in the same business?

-Where do you all get most of your information from? Articles linked to stock indexes on finance sites? Do yall suggest subscriptions to sites like the montley fool?

[Edited on September 9, 2011 at 10:06 AM. Reason : d]

9/9/2011 10:03:19 AM

^ I can answer the premium question. Market makers use a model to determine pricing, real basic it's a bell curve. This is the theory, market moves are random so they will be distributed in a bell curve shape around the at the money strike. Market makers each have their own models and stream quotes to the exchange creating a bid ask for all of the option months and strIkes. That's how you get the premium. Info- I like zero-hedge, it's advanced but read it and search what you don't understand.

9/9/2011 10:42:31 AM

Getting ugly now

9/9/2011 11:44:16 AM

136.5 euro

9/9/2011 11:57:03 AM

^^^ any of your model based on Black-Scholes?

9/10/2011 11:13:28 AM