Tag:

howto

How to make a dividend tracking spreadsheet

by Yoda December 11, 2020

I am sure you would agree when I say tracking your dividends and portfolio performance is one of the most challenging aspects of dividend investing. Most excel formulas work for few months before having issues with data providers leaving you helpless.

What if we get the data directly from the source? IEX is an exchange that provides an Application Programming Interface(api) to get dividend data for free and reliably.

In this blog post we will make use of a google sheets, latest IEX cloud api and google finance api to create your own dividend tracking sheet.

So head over to google sheets and start a new sheet to follow along.

Just give me your version of dividend tracking spreadsheet

FYI if you do not want to go through the whole process of creating a new sheet from scratch, adding formulas, formatting it etc, you can just go to the last section and download my own google sheet. Then you can use it to do dividend tracking of your own portfolio. For other’s who want to be more adventurous, please follow along.

Stock Data sheet

Let’s first work on the Stock Data sheet, this sheet will have info like stock ticker, current price, current yield, yield on cost, quantity you own, etc. So, on the top row, let’s have these headers on a new google sheet: (I added things like Ticker, Name, Quote, Avg Cost per Share, Cost Basis, Dividend Yield, Dividend income, PE ratio, eps etc.)

Our next step is to get data populated in this sheet. in order to do so, we will make use of google finance function in sheets. Basically syntax for getting anything from google finance function is:

GOOGLEFINANCE(ticker, [attribute], [start_date], [end_date|num_days], [interval])

So, the ticker name is mandatory and after that you can have 1 or more attributes.

Going back to our sheet, you need to populate the column A with ticker of your stock. To populate its name, you can use =GOOGLEFINANCE(A2,”name”) under B2 shown below

Similarly, you can use formulas like given below to get other details about the respective stock:

Function & Syntax	Description
=googlefinance(A2,”price”)	To get the latest price
=googlefinance(A2,”pe”)	To get the Price earnings ratio
=googlefinance(A2,”eps”)	To get the earnings per share
=googlefinance(A2,”high52″)	To get 52 week high price
=googlefinance(A2,”low52″)	To get 52 week low price
=googlefinance(A2,”marketcap”)	To get market cap of the stock

After I fill some of these values for my first row, I get the following:

When it comes to quantity purchased, avg cost basis per share, total cost basis, those depend from person to person and these values can easily be obtained from your brokerage account. After you get those you can very easily fill the following using formulas mentioned here:

Column in Excel Formula

Market Value =C2*D2

Change $ =G2-F2

Change % =(H2/F2)*100

After that, our sheet looks something like this:
Now coming to dividends, I have observed Google’s function is not that great. Its hit or miss. Sometimes it shows dividends sometimes it doesn’t. However, I found another api we can use to get the data related to dividend columns which is more reliable than Google’s api. Its called IEX cloud API. Up until mid June 2019 they used to allow to get the dividend data for free without any registration. But now they require you to register and get an api key.
So, lets try to do that. Head over to the IEX Cloud registration page and create account.
Next choose the START plan which is free. It provides 500K requests to the API every month which is more than enough for a pretty big portfolio. Even if you request to get data from it multiple times a day every day for the whole month.
Verify your account from your email and then login to the iex cloud api account. After verification, log on and from the home page of iex cloud api account, head over to API Tokens section as shown:
Under the API Tokens section you will find your key which you can use in google sheets. Copy the publishable token as shown using the copy button. Now here I have 3 options to get dividend amount into your sheet:

Current Dividend (Easy to setup)

In this method, you will need to copy this code and paste it into the script editor of your google sheet as shown:

Once you do this, you are mostly done. The formula to use this script in a cell to get the dividend amount is:

=if(isblank(A11),,GETDIVIDEND2($A11,”xxxx”))

Again, you will need to replace the xxxx with your personalized api key from the last step. A11 will be the field of the ticker you are trying to get dividend info for. This should get you the current dividend for most US listed stocks. For e.g. for AAPL this will return the current latest dividend. I wrote a function that uses your key to get the dividend from IEX cloud api. Then use that and the dividend frequency to get the annual dividend amount.

Sometimes a company has just announced the most recent raise and not paid it out. In such cases, IEX returns the trailing 12 month dividend. For some stocks like BUD which pays out twice a year and has payouts where one is larger and next is smaller, this might not work. For these 2 use cases, you can take a look at the next method. Please let me know if you come across any other stocks for which this script fails below in comments. I will try and improve the script code to account for any issues you may notice. This particular formula usage is shown in line 2-4 of my sheet if you download it. Do remember to replace the xxxx with your API Key, since IEX no longer allows users to share the same key to get this data.

Current Dividend Scraping Finviz (Easiest)

In this method, we will just use the IMPORTHTML function google provides. We will then get the dividend paid out annually from a finance website and populate it in appropriate column as shown. We use the following formula in this approach:

=REGEXEXTRACT(SUBSTITUTE(index(IMPORTHTML(“http://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=”&A3,“table”, 10),7,2),“*”,“”),“(.*) .*”)

sometimes the formula doesn’t get copied properly. So try to enter this formula manually in your google sheet.

where A3 has the ticker of the stock. I have used this in the row 5-8 of my google sheet provided. You may use this method whenever the first one fails(like in case of stocks like BUD). This method also gets the latest forward looking dividend yield just like the last one.

Current Dividend Scraping Stock Analysis (Easiest)

In this method, we will just use the IMPORTXML function google provides. We will then get the dividend paid out annually from StockAnalysis.com and populate it in appropriate column as shown. We use the following formula in this approach:

=IMPORTXML(“https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/”&A9&”/dividend/”,”//*[@id=’main’]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div”)

sometimes the formula doesn’t get copied properly. So try to enter this formula manually in your google sheet.

where A9 has the ticker of the stock. I have used this in the row 9-12 of my google sheet provided. This method also gets the latest forward looking dividend yield just like the last one.

You can get dividend for etf’s based in USA using the below formula with slight tweaks: =IMPORTXML(“https://stockanalysis.com/etf/”&A7&”/dividend/”,”//*[@id=’main’]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div”)

If you want to get dividends for stocks listed in TSX try the formula below: =IMPORTXML(“https://stockanalysis.com/quote/tsx/SU/dividend/”,”//*[@id=’main’]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div”)

You can use any of the three methods for any number of rows in your google sheet depending on what works or doesn’t. I will make sure at least one of the methods mentioned above works at any given time.

With the information about dividend per share, you can easily get information about columns on dividends as follows:

Column Formula

Annual Div Income =D2*J2

Yield on Cost =(K2/F2) format as percent

Annual Yield =(J2/C2) format as percent
In addition to this, I have 2 columns that I added at the end, Actual Shares Purchased & Actual Cost Basis. These are completely optional and will be used to calculate your real returns on original investment. So, if you do DRIP, this will be very helpful. These columns must be filled manually, and you need to go to your brokerage website to find this info. For instance, I have some WFC stock which I bought 3-4 years back and turned DRIP on. Now last year I bought some more WFC stock out of my own pocket so my WFC holdings in my broker account look like this:So, what I know is all my DRIP transactions are anything with fractional shares in quantity column and my whole number quantity transactions are made with actual out of pocket money. Therefore, I just add up the quantity columns for whole numbers to get the Actual Shares Purchased column. I add up the cost basis for those transactions to get my entry for the Actual Cost Basis column. Important thing to remember is you must update these 2 columns any time you increase position in a stock with actual money or sell some of your positions. Those transactions will affect values in these 2 columns. When you buy any new stock, value will be easy to calculate first time. It should be same as D(quantity) and F(Cost basis). So, ideally you shouldn’t be trading much and this update will be very rare.
And now, our first row is completely done:
Now, in order to add new stocks, your work keeps getting smaller and easier. For instance, let’s add some tickers like BLK, DIS, MO, PSX,SO,QCOM, VFC, ZBH etc.
After adding the tickers from your portfolio, all you need to do is drag down from bottom right of the cell of first row in a column. That will basically call the same formula for that column for all your tickers. I have highlighted the columns for which you can do this. After doing it for all these columns here is what we get:
Now enter information in columns D, E, F, P,Q and R in that order. Rest of the columns you can again drag down as show in previous screenshot. So now we are starting to get all of our data in the stockdata sheet.
Now, lets add some totals and calculate returns and format the table to get some colors in:Notice how the return incl. dividends is a tad bit higher mostly because of some highlighted rows where I assumed, I bought some shares after receiving dividends using DRIP. Please also note these are just numbers I made up, they might not be factually correct, but this is just to give an example of how you can use the last 2 columns in the sheet. This is the end to the stockdata sheet for our dividend tracking.

Pie Chart showing your Sector allocation

Now that our stockdata sheet is ready lets do some graphs. Let’s say you want to be aware of which sectors you are allocated into and how much of your total portfolio.

Lets add a new sheet called sectorallocation and add the sectors you want to track as shown:
Now, under the percentage column, in order to get the correct allocation we are going to add this formula for utilities := ((SUMIF(StockData!P2:P12,”Utilities”,StockData!G2:G12))/StockData!G13)*100
What it will do is, see the sectors we assigned in our main stockdata sheet for any of the rows say Utilities, if so add the values in those rows up and divide by the total value to get the percentage allocated to that sector. Similarly, do this for all the other rows. You can copy the formula, but you will need to replace the Utilities with the sector of the row. So, we get this:
Now, lets add a pie chart to the sheet and add your data ranges from A2:A11,B2:B11. After that, we get the following:
At the end you get a pretty nice pie chart showing your allocation in different sectors. This can help you be aware in what sectors you are more exposed and if you decide to buy a new stock, you can see what sector you are very less exposed to and maybe look at a company there.

Monthly dividend tracking sheet

So far, we created our stockdata sheet which shows our yield on cost, annual dividends, return with and without dividends etc. Our sectorallocation sheet shows how much or less are you exposed to various sectors. In addition to these, let’s create a sheet to track our monthly dividends. This sheet will help us to create more data and understand our monthly cash flows from dividends. It can also eventually allow you to plot your dividend gains over few years/months of investing. You can see yourself on your way to living off dividends.

To do this, add a new sheet and enter the columns as shown till December:Now for the first 2 columns, get the data from your StockData sheets and populate them. Once that’s done, now you need to manually fill in what dividends you got every month from different stocks. This process can be a bit time consuming. Although, you should be able to get all the data from your broker. On my broker’s website, I just login and go to the transactions screen. Then filter to only show dividend transactions. This allows me to go through a few months of transactions at a time and fill this sheet quickly. In addition, we can also enter information for 2018 and previous years if possible, in new sheets. However, this depends on if you can get the data from your broker for previous years. Then using that data, we can add some YOY(Year Over Year) percentage increases for your dividend stocks as shown:
Now, this gives you better idea of how fast your dividend is growing every month. You can even play around with some extra rows and add Year end increase in dividends year over year for the full total etc. Now lets create a graph to show dividends received form companies in Q1 2019. Lets add a bar chart to the sheet for 2019 Monthly dividends and use the following data ranges:
Again, you can play around with the data ranges to change this chart from quarterly to annual ranges. That way you can get different type of graphs. Please feel free to check out my real money dividend portfolio which uses this google sheet in practice.

Check out this article on creating your own dividend tracking sheet using IEX and google api's. Makes it look pretty easy! Click to Tweet

Dividends over time sheet

If you have been using this dividend tracker for a couple of years, you will have enough data for a new chart. You can track your dividends month over month and year over year. This allows us to see the dividend compounding effect over long term.

Add a new sheet titled MonthYearSumm. Next we will just copy data from our other sheets like 2020Monthly, 2019 Monthly into the following format:
Again remember, you need to copy the monthly dividends you made over past years in the table above. Once you have filled in the table, you can then create a new chart of type column chart with no stacking.
You can use the customize tab to change look and feel on the chart. Once finished, the new chart looks like this:
As you can see, this chart allows you to look at your progress over time. You can see your dividends increasing month over month, year over year. Really gives perspective into long term compounding effect of dividends if you stay the course.

OK this is great! Now give me this sheet!

I do realize making your own excel from scratch can be daunting even with the above given steps. So, in case you just want a copy of the sample google sheet. Please enter your email below and I will send you the sheet with easy to follow instructions on how you can set it up for your portfolio. Again, I think if you are buying individual stocks for dividends, its utmost important to track and measure your performance. So you know how you perform against the market and can see the effects of compounding in real time. I usually update my personal sheet once a quarter and publish my quarterly results on this blog.

If you liked this article, it will be great help if you can share it with your social circle using any of the share buttons on the post.

Also check out how I get my financial news using a free Barron’s & wsj subscription.

December 11, 2020 18 comments

Dividend Investing

Selling covered calls for income for beginners

by Yoda September 27, 2020

Curious about selling covered calls for income ? Not sure what are options, what is a call and where to get started? In this article we will discuss what are options contract, what is a covered call and how to sell covered calls for income. We will also look at risks associated with such a strategy.

What are Options?

An option is a contract between 2 parties. There are 2 types of options contract:

Call Options

Buyer of an option gets the right (not obligation) to buy the stock at a particular price (strike price) by a date(expiry date). On opposite side of the trade, seller of call option has an obligation to sell the stock at strike price by that date.

Let’s say stock XYZ is trading at 50$. Now, call buyer might expect the stock to go to 55$. But, he doesn’t want to pay 100*50(5000$) to own stock and wait to get to 55$. So, they will look for a call option on the stock. Let’s say its for 52 strike price for .50 a contract (each contract is 100 shares), 1 month expiry into future. So, they will end up paying about 100*.50 = 50$ for the option on stock XYZ. Option buyer was able to buy the right to buy these 100 shares of XYZ for 50$ in commission/premium. Commission goes to the seller of the option. 2 things can happen till expiry:

If at any time until expiry, price of XYZ reaches 52$ (strike price), buyer will be thinking his bet is turning true. When it reaches 52.50 (his commission plus strike price) then any price above it is pure profit on the stock. So, buyer can exercise their right to buy XYZ from seller at 52*100= 5200. Sell it all to book their profit. In such situations, contract is In The Money (ITM).
Price stays below 52$. In such cases, buyer still has the right to buy the sellers stock for 52*100=5200$. But, if they can get it for 51.99*100 = 5199, why would they exercise their call option? Thus, the contract option expires worthless and is Out of The Money (OTM).

Put Options

Gives the buyer of the option contract right (but not obligation) to “sell” a stock at a specified price(strike price) within a fixed period of time(expiry date). On the other side of this trade, the put seller takes on the obligation to buy that stock at the strike price. The put seller also gets some commission to take on the obligation for the put option. I won’t go into more details with an example since we only need to learn about call options for covered call.

What is a Covered Call?

Covered call is just a simple call option in which the seller already owns the underlying stock. As the call option seller has the obligation to sell the stock, the seller has two options: either sell the call option first and think about buying the stock later when the buyer of the call exercises their right to buy the stock at strike price(naked call). Or else, they can first buy or have an existing position of a stock and then sell the call option based on that. In this case, they already have covered the part of them being able to sell the stock at strike price if the buyer exercises their right.

Advantages of Covered Calls

Income! You get to keep the premium/commission from each covered call you sell. It also helps you reduce your cost basis. You can sell them every month or 45 days to boost your annual returns.
Exiting a stock position. Lets say, you have 100 shares of stock ABC and its currently trading at 39. You want to exit out at 41.50. You can look for a call around that strike price. This way, you make some commission by selling the call plus also get exactly 41.50*100 $ for your stock. Obviously for this to happen your stock needs to go at that price and call exercised. If that doesn’t happen you can always sell another call and collect the commissions waiting for it to reach that strike price.

Disadvantages of Covered Calls

You cap your profit potential. Speaking of the previous example, if the stock goes to 45 by expiry, you still get 41.50 for your stock and the call buyer will probably buy your stocks and make profit on the difference.
During the period between your selling of covered call and its expiry, you cannot trade away the underlying stock. Since the call buyer has the right to those stocks, they can buy it form you anytime before expiry.
You might end up selling a stock you are long on.

Selling Covered Calls for Income

Now let me walk you through the process of selling covered calls for income on an existing stock position via Schwab.

Make sure you can trade options on your broker’s platform. Different brokers have different ways to approve you. Schwab’s application can be found here. Each broker has levels of access that comes with options. First level is enough at most brokers for selling covered calls for income. Here is an explainer on Schwab’s levels. Depending on your broker, it will take 1-3 business days for them to approve you for selling covered calls for income.
Next, search for the stock for which you are selling covered calls for income. Make sure you have at least 100 shares of that stock within one account. You should also come out positive on your cost basis if your stock gets sold at strike price. We do not want to end up making a loss on overall cost basis. For me, this stock was Kontoor Brands (KTB), find it and hit trade: Depending on if you are enabled for options trading, you will see options under strategy. We want to choose Call here under strategy. So we are saying I want to trade (buy or sell) a call option.
Next, we need to figure out what expiry date options do we want to sell covered calls for. For this we need to look at the options chain for this stock. Most brokers will provide you the chain right there when making the trade. Click the link icon and then go to options chain:This is from a very recent screenshot, so numbers might not be accurate. Stock price was around 23$ at this time. What you see on left of the strike column are details for selling covered calls.
Bid is maximum price any call buyer is willing to pay at that time. Ask is the minimum price a call seller will accept at that time. Volume is the number of options contracts bought or sold any day. OI (open interest) refers to number of open contracts.
Eventually, I was able to find a 30$ strike price call contract with expiry date of 16th October 2020. As you can see below, the bid was about .15 cents and ask was about .45 cents per contract. So I entered a limit price order of about .25 cents for 1 contract. What this means is, if someone enters a contract to buy a call for KTB stock for .25 cents or higher with expiry of 16th October, my contract will get sold. The buyer will then have right to buy my 100 shares of KTB at pre-agreed strike price of 30$ anytime by 16th October. For that right, I get .25*100 = 25 $ commission. This part of selling covered calls for income matters to us, the call sellers.
The action will always be sell to open. It means you are selling a call to open a contract position for the underlying stock.Once, you place the order and it gets filled, then you will see the commission in your account immediately. The contract gets assigned against your existing 100 shares. That’s it!

Learn to sell covered calls to make some extra income on the side on your existing stock positions. Click to Tweet

Risks when selling covered calls for income

Most of us dividend investors are long on our stocks. Main aim is to hold stocks, get dividends and let compounding do its magic. Selling covered calls for income makes you technically short on the stock. You are hoping for your stock to stay down in price so it doesn’t get called and you get the dividend on the side.
You are literally betting here. Betting on where the price of the stock will be by expiry date. As we all know this can go either way. So, be ready to part with your stock position if your stock reaches the strike price.
Be aware of dividends and earnings dates. Sometimes, if a stock is paying dividends and the current stock price plus dividends will allow the buyer of your call to make even a few cents (even if the current stock price is lower than strike price). Buyer might call your stock and sell those shares. Similarly, earnings announcement leads to some volatility for most stocks. So, its possible your stock crosses the strike price and gets called by the buyer and you loose those shares and some potential extra profit.
Figuring out what stocks to use for selling covered calls for income and at what price and expiry date requires research in itself. You need to make sure the options for a stock have enough volume, open interest and you make a good commission when selling covered call for it. Usually, options near expiry date and with higher difference in current price and strike price will give very less commissions. So, you need to maintain a balance between commission and strike price and expiry dates. Otherwise, you may end up with a call options trade that doesn’t get filled. This is beyond the scope of this post, but you can check more about it here.

Conclusion

My strategy for all stocks I own is to be long on them. However, selling a covered call allows me to make some extra income. Although, I could be selling my shares at strike price. I could be generating tax events. I could potentially end up selling my stocks at less than cost basis generating loss. So, my plan is to sell covered calls for income at very high strike price. Its possible that I will get very less commissions because strike price is high, but I am interested in making sure my stock doesn’t get assigned/called away by call option buyer. I also want to make sure the strike price will always be greater than the cost basis of the stock. Plus, I want to do this in my IRA account to not create any taxable events. Let me know in comments about your thoughts on this.

Disclaimer: The above are just my opinions expressed in the article. I am not your fiduciary or an investment advisor. Do not consider this as investment advice to you. This article is just for informational and entertainment purposes. Options are a risky product so do your due diligence before buying or selling any options.

September 27, 2020 0 comment

Taxes

Don’t forget investing tax-efficiently

by Yoda July 18, 2020

Ben Franklin once said, there are only two things certain in life: Death & Taxes. Both you cannot avoid but you can try and defer them as much as possible. I am no medical expert, but I am sure everyone wants to stay healthy and live as long as possible. Taxes are something that not a lot of people try to avoid or defer or do anything about. Especially when it comes to investing, its imperative that you are investing, tax-efficiently. Here are some reasons why taxes matter and why you should focus on reducing them:

Taxes reduce your available income to invest

Even before you begin investing with your hard-earned money, you pay income tax. Depending on your annual salary it can be anything from 0 to 37%. So even before you start investing, you are losing a huge cut of your income! Why should you pay taxes again when investing?

There are ways like investing in employer 401K plans, solo 401K’s, HSA’s that help in reducing your taxable income, hence reducing the taxes that come out of your paycheck. There are other considerations: if you want to pay taxes now, then invest in Roth flavors of retirement accounts. But point is you need to and should reduce your taxable income as much as possible.

Taxes are frictional costs in trading

Warren Buffet always says his favorite holding period is forever. The biggest reason for this is because buying and selling stocks generates lot of tax liability. Every time you sell at a gain, you owe Uncle Sam some capital gains taxes. Every time you sell at a loss, you need to track it and make sure you claim on your tax returns. Not only is it cumbersome, but if you trade stocks very often, you end up loosing a lot of your gains to the IRS as taxes in short run. In the long run then, you would be left with very little wealth to show for it. Mutual funds are very notorious for this. A lot of times the fund manager will try to keep trading in order to improve performance and just pass on the taxes and commission costs to you as fee. This is opposite of investing tax-efficiently.

Inflation already an enemy

Inflation is your biggest enemy. Managing the rate of inflation is often the job of the Federal Reserve. Currently they plan on a 2% rate of inflation every year. What this means is, say this year you buy x amount of groceries with 100$. Next year that same x amount would cost you 102$. Now I am sure you have heard about compound interest and how it can be your best friend long term. But similarly, inflation “compounds” and the effect can be very negative over long term. So, when you already have this big force working against you which you can frankly not do much about, why would you want to further lessen your gains by paying taxes? Lets say you make around 10% on an investment, 2% of that gets eaten up by inflation, now if it was a short term on, you are probably looking at another 1.0 to 3.7% in taxes based on your annual income. If it was a long term gain, then looking at 0-2% off on your gains. But you can easily avoid this. Just do not sell “every year” to realize the gains and buy something else from the proceeds. Invest for the long term. Imagine not giving up on those 1-3.7% gains every year and allowing them to compound. Results will be wonderful by the time you retire.

Incorrect tax decisions can cost you over your lifetime

Filing a tax return is definitely great to make sure you paid least amount of tax previous year and get back if you paid in excess. Similarly when you make investing decisions, you need to also account for taxes in your decision. Things like your income level, timing of transactions in your taxable accounts, special tax treatment on some type of investments etc. need to be considered before buying any investment. If you do not consider such factors, you may as well end up paying a huge tax bill when the tax man cometh. These decisions might seem small, but will impact you over your lifetime in the long run and can be very costly!

Investing, Tax-Efficiently

While it’s not possible to avoid taxes completely, they should be deferred. Taxes are like speed bumps on your road to financial independence! They slow you down and might even derail you if you are not smart about your investing decisions. However, each person’s tax saving strategy must depend on their own situation. Like your age, income, retirement age, future after retirement etc.

In the days of online brokers like Robinhood and Webull which gamify investing, encourage short-term trading, there is an even bigger need to understand investing, tax-efficiently. There are a lot of ideas like retirement accounts, tax deductions, tax credits on foreign investments etc. Don’t worry! they are all easy to understand and follow & completely legal! I discuss them in my guide below. Sign up below to get a free copy of comprehensive strategies and ways to reduce taxes on your journey to financial independence!

July 18, 2020 0 comment

Investing Tips & Tricks

Choosing an Online Broker for investing

by Yoda July 18, 2020

Are you ready to start investing? Choosing an online broker is a very important decision before investing. A lot of it depends on your investing style. Some people might be dividend investors, some growth/value investors, some just do index fund investing etc. Based on your requirements, you need to understand what all features various brokers offer and then go about choosing an online broker for yourself.

Factors to consider when choosing an online broker

1. Account Offerings

There are different types of investment accounts. Like retirement accounts (401K’s IRA’s), individual investment account, checking account etc. Not all brokers offer all types of accounts. There are certain types of investments you should buy inside specific tax-sheltered accounts to maximize tax free returns. Most retirement accounts also have limits on amounts you can contribute yearly. Depending on your requirements you might need all types of accounts or maybe just one. But usually for a sound retirement strategy people have both retirement and individual investing accounts.

2. Account features

Not every broker offers all type of features. Ability to reinvest dividends(DRIP) is very useful to keep your investing on auto pilot. Automated Customer Account Transfer(ACATS), helps in transfer of securities from one broker to another. Some brokers do not have the ability to transfer in. This could be much needed if another broker of yours decides to shut down abruptly. You might need ACATS-in ability in your second broker to move stocks. Real time quotes, analysis/research on stocks, ability to place different kind of orders like limit, stop etc. and schedule execution are all also very important features. Ease of moving money from and into accounts. Is the broker fast enough to move money? Since many times you will only get a buying opportunity for a day or two and you need the money then to buy stocks.

3. Fees

This includes fee to buy or sell an individual stock. Any fees to start the brokerage account? Annual fee on the account? (this should not even exist). Any minimum balance requirements to maintain? Some brokers have different fees to buy individual stocks and different fee for ETF’s/index funds etc. So, make sure when you make your decision you do know about the fee charges. Also, a reminder free is not always the best route to go. You might be compromising on some other features in exchange of no commissions. More on this later.

4. User Interface

This includes the website UI as well as a mobile application UI. Ability to look at charts, create watch lists, create stock screens is important. Availability of educational resources which you can read through in your time. Security settings and brokers emphasis on keeping data safe. Ease of access to historic records/statements for tax purposes, to calculate or look at how you are performing is helpful to track your progress over time.

5. Research Reports

Many online brokers offer free access to research reports from popular analysts. It allows you to view their detailed commentary on a stock you are researching. Their star ratings, information on moats, historical data, ratios etc. This information can definitely help you in your research before buying a stock. So do make sure this is also a factor when you are choosing an online broker.

Based on above factors, best online brokers are:

1. Schwab

Key highlights:

Now commission FREE (0$ to buy/sell stocks and ETF’s) starting 7th October 2019
$0 – $76 for index & mutual funds only to buy, no fee to sell (this only applies to non-Schwab funds, which makes sense since they want to encourage you to buy more of Schwab owned funds).
For non-Schwab ETF’s fees may be $0-$20 depending on the ETF, but the most popular ones you want to buy are free!
Schwab ETF’s & index funds both cost 0$ to buy or sell.
$0 annual fee on most individual accounts, $0 – 1000$ minimum balance, check more here. I would suggest the standard Schwab one account for individual account and their standard IRA accounts which come with 0$ minimums.
Free access to research reports from Morningstar, CFRA, Credit Suisse, Argus & Reuters.
Their checking account ATM card doesn’t charge you any fee to use at ATM’s around the world!

This brokerage has been around since 1975. Their customer service is top notch. Not only can you ask questions about your account, you can even get advisors to talk to, ask about transferring your brokerage from other places etc. They are helpful on every doubt you have. Their chat support is phenomenal. I haven’t had to call in at all even once! Other features I mentioned above are also offered by Schwab. Before 1975, trading fees were fixed regardless of the size of your trade. The government abolished this practice in May 1975. Schwab was the pioneer to introduce discounted trades at that time. The company has a history of making decisions and introducing changes in favor of the individual investor. Schwab was one of the best online brokers in 1990’s and continues to be today. Currently they also have a 100$ sign up bonus to sign up for new account. Also a fair warning, Schwab usually does a hard credit pull if you open an account with them for first time ever(without any prior relationship / account). But I think it’s totally worth it.

Good For:

People who want a person on other end to ask any questions. Really good customer service.
Those who want to do DRIP investing. Set your dividends to DRIP and forget about them.
People who like to buy index funds, as Schwab has cheap expense ratio index funds.
The checking account comes with a debit card that doesn’t have any fees when used abroad anywhere!
People who like to visit a physical branch once every while. Schwab has a big network of physical locations where you can walk in and chat with advisors, make deposits have some snacks, all on the house.

Shortfalls:

Although Schwab provides ACH in and out functionality and a checking account, it holds deposits into any account for 2-4 business days. This kind of holds your funds for some time if you want to move it to another account within Schwab or outside.
It is still a for profit publicly traded company that has other ways to make money irrespective of fee-free trades it provides.

2. Vanguard

Key Highlights:

$0-$25 to buy or sell stocks/etf’s depending on account size (Not free yet).
$0 to buy or sell Vanguard ETF’s and mutual funds plus some third party etf’s.
Some Vanguard mutual funds have 1-3K USD minimum requirements to start buying.
Incentive aligned with average investor. Not a for profit company.
Free analyst reports from Argus and Market Grader.

Before Oct 2019, I used to have Robinhood as my second choice broker. Mostly because of their fee free stock trades. I used to recommend them over other big brokers for most beginners in investing. However starting 2019 October, most big & best online brokers decided to offer fee free trades. So Robinhood is now out of the picture. In comes Vanguard. This company has also been around since 1975. I mentioned above in shortfalls of Schwab that they are still a for profit, public company and need to generate profits. Vanguard is a company that is held by investors who invest in Vanguard funds. So there is no incentive to generate any profits. You can read more about their structure here. J L Collins also wrote a very nice article on why he trusts Vanguard with his money. Vanguard’s ownership structure allows it to operate at cost and charge minimum expense ratios to make sure it covers expenses. This is what separates Vanguard from rest and makes them one of the best online brokers.

Good For:

People who want to invest in index and mutual funds only. Vanguard’s funds are the most famous and have some of the least expense ratios.
Vanguard is a big proponent of long term investing in index funds. So their platform is really focused on dissuading people from trading in individual stocks. Their fee structure, research, basic guides are all focused on long term investing. In my opinion this is a big positive for us everyday retail investors.

Shortfalls:

Not the best online broker if you buy individual stocks.
Their mobile app/web application is very basic. No frills, no big features. Good to check balances and place a trade. That’s about it. Don’t expect Vanguard to provide latest features you see elsewhere in other broker mobile apps.

How to go about choosing an online broker to start investing and our suggestions! Click to Tweet

Pitfalls about commission free trading

With most of the best online brokers offering commission free trading, there are things to be aware of. Commission free model encourages trading. It removes a psychological block in your mind and encourages you to be more open to sell/buy stocks based on daily stock prices. A lot of my friends who started with Robinhood app, buy and sell daily because they feel there are no problems since the fee is 0$. They are inadvertently day trading/short term trading. Selling as soon as it goes up a bit. Selling even if it goes into huge loses etc. Not realizing the enormous tax liabilities, they create in process. This is just a warning, you can obviously invest any which way you want. All I am saying is you need to have an approach and be disciplined when investing.

Another problem for brokers is they still need to make money. They are not in charity business after all. Most brokers like Schwab, Fidelity etc. already have banking divisions. They make money using the interest rate spreads on the cash in your trading account. You get very low interest on the cash you save with them for investing. They lend it to people at higher rate, pocketing the difference. Vanguard is a rare anomaly here as it moves all of the cash in your trading account to a money market fund that gives you market interest rate while it waits to be invested. Brokers also have an incentive to make money on spread between bid and ask prices for any order you place. When you place an order they might direct your order flow to high speed frequency traders and get some commission from them. This might result in you not getting the best price for your order. These might not be a huge concern if you do not trade often and invest for long term. Just be aware that brokers still have to make money and they are probably making you pay one way or another.

In Conclusion

Apart from these 2 picks, there are a few others who always feature in most lists of best online brokers I found during my research. However, I haven’t used them so I cannot write helpful descriptions on them. If you would like you can also look to Fidelity (for best retirement planning/investing) TD Ameritrade (for good data and options platform). Another pro-tip is a lot of big brokers allow for fee free ACATS-IN transfer of securities (they will even reimburse fees charged by your existing broker to ACATS-in to their service). Some also give you a fixed number or duration during which you can trade for commission free. They might even give you bonus money to move your account. You can always ask check with your broker if they offer any commission free trades if your account balance is above certain limits.

At the end of the day, choosing an online broker comes to your requirements, investment style & philosophy etc. If you like the customer service and more options available to you, go with either Schwab/Vanguard. Schwab has more features and research if you would like to venture into individual stock investing. Vanguard is the best solution to keep everything on auto pilot and investing in index funds without applying much brains. You can even have both accounts. No harm in that. I do! My aim was to just elucidate some factors on which you can base your decisions.

July 18, 2020 0 comment

Tips & Tricks

3 Ways to Get free Historical Stock Data for analysis

by Yoda May 3, 2020

Importance of looking at historical stock data in your stock analysis cannot be overstated. There are countless websites where you can find real time stock quotes, pe ratio, dividend yield etc. for a stock you are interested in. However, trying to get 10-15 year historical stock data on the same stock is difficult. Sometimes you must pay, some free data is not reliable. Some data doesn’t include splits etc. Read on to find how you can get free historical stock data for your analysis.

Importance of Historical Stock Data

Before we look at ways to access historical stock data, lets look at some benefits:

It helps you judge value of your investment. Whether the stock is trading at a high value compared to past or relative to normal value according to historical averages.
There is a very popular reversion to mean theory which suggests that most asset prices revert back to their long-term historical averages. Meaning a stock can be considered overvalued if it’s at a higher pe ratio than historical stock data would suggest. And undervalued inversely. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to all stocks. But, gist is that you can use historical stock data to try and buy undervalued stocks for your portfolio.
Sometimes, you might develop a strategy to invest and historical stock data can help you back test this strategy.
You can even use historical stock data to understand trends in company of your interest. Are sales increasing over 10-15 years? Maybe the company is cyclical and a better time to buy would be when they hit a downturn. Do increase in sales show a big increase in expenses also? Is the dividend increasing over time?

You can get insight into questions like these using historical stock data.

The trick: Free Public Library Card

In the US, many cities have multiple public libraries. These libraries are funded via public tax dollars. Whatever area you live in, you can go to public library and get free membership by presenting a valid address proof. Many such city library systems offer books, internet access to resources, training programs etc. free of charge! Most times, this includes free online access to Morningstar, Value Line and Factiva. Just go to your local area library website and search for virtual library or research and databases access. You can alternatively just directly search for Morningstar or Value Line.

austin library morningstar access

austin library value line access

nyc library morningstar access

In my research, I see most US local city public libraries offer these databases access with free membership. In case, your local library doesn’t, there are some city libraries that give non-residents a membership at some amount of annual fee every year. Do call to make sure Morningstar/Value Line access is included in such a non-resident subscription if you have to go for it.

1. Exploring Morningstar Access

When you click on “access now” from your library site. It takes you to a special URL where you can enter your library card number and password to log in to Morningstar:

After you login, you can explore Morningstar as a paid subscriber! You can search for any company under the companies tab and look at its star rating. Morningstar rating is just a measure of how undervalued the stock is according to their fair value. For some stocks they provide a full analyst report which you can look at by clicking the “Read Full Analysis”. The analysis is pretty detailed with comments on current business challenges, management, fair value etc.

courtesy Morningstar Inc.

For historical stock data, lets first look at Financials tab. This gives you past 10 years of income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements data. You can look at revenue, net income, free cash flow trends over last 10 years. You can even export this historical stock data into excel if you want to do more analysis on it.

Coming to Operating Performance tab, here you can look at 10-year gross margins, operating margins, return on assets, ROIC etc. trends. Similarly, the Valuation tab shows the 10-year price/earnings, price to cash flow, price to book value historical stock data.

Coming to Ownership tab, here you can see what funds or institutions hold the stock. Have they been buying or selling over the last 8 quarters? This is great if you have certain institutions you know or who you follow. Maybe there is a fund that is famous for long term investing in good dividend companies. If you spot them in this tab, it’s good to know if they are buying or selling the stock you are looking at.

Your free Morningstar access from the library also allows you to look at funds and ETF’s like individual stocks. You can look at expert reviews of specific funds/ETF’s.

Free Morningstar newsletters!

If the above was not enough to convince you to get your free library membership, you also get access to Morningstar newsletters. You get access to past 12 issues of their newsletters related to dividends, funds, ETF’s and individual stocks. You can open any issue, look at their portfolios across all 4 newsletters and get some expert commentary on a few ideas for that month. Isn’t this simply awesome? So many ideas for you to research and look at and all for free. Morningstar charges about 200$ a year for premium access to all these features and I just showed you how you can get this for free!

2. Value Line Historical Stock Data

Morningstar works great for looking at historical stock data. However, you must click on different tabs to get to the information you want to see. PE ratio is at a different place, Dividend trends are somewhere else etc. I like Value Line because it displays all this data in one pdf! They even update these pdf’s once a quarter. Their pdf research reports on individual stock includes up to past 15 years of historical stock data. This includes things like pe ratio, dividend yields, cash flow, net income, return on equity, revenue etc.

Once you access Value Line through your library website, you see the following home page. Here you can enter any stock ticker and select it to know more about it:

On the next page, you can see the timeliness, safety and financial strength rating from Value Line analysts. Do research on how they get to these ratings. Under the pdf reports button, you can open the latest pdf.

Now, here is the magic! The pdf shows historical stock data for MMM since 2004! You can see average annual pe ratios, revenue, eps, dividends etc. You also get a 1-2 paragraph description of the business. Plus, some commentary on the most recent quarter.

Get free Morningstar & Value Line access via your public library! Click to Tweet

3. Free Historical Stock Data using Macrotrends

If you cannot get a free library membership or your library does not have access to Morningstar or Value Line, then there is Marcotrends. Here, you can just search for the stock symbol and it will show you things like revenue, gross profit, cash trends over 10 plus years. Lets try to look at the dividend yield trends for MMM. I can see, macrotrends has a 31 year historical stock data available:

You can see if dividend is rising or when it fell etc. Similar graphs are available for other historical stock data metrics as well.

Conclusion

A good understanding of the historical stock data like average pe ratios, average dividend yield of a stock is an important step in investment process. You could have bought MMM at 220$ when its PE was 31, dividend yield was 2.07% thinking it was a good buy. But both of those ratios were way above average for MMM across its history and a year later you were getting it at 140’s at pe of 15-17 and near all-time high yields of 3.90%+. More information about any stock before buying helps you make a more informed decision. This is not the only information you should focus on but one of the many things to look at before making an informed decision.

If you liked this post on free access to Morningstar and Value Line, check out my other post on getting free access to barron’s and wsj subscriptions. Please also support us by sharing this content with your social media audience in case you would like to see more such articles.

May 3, 2020 0 comment

Principles

7 Ways to Build Credit History & Credit Score

by Yoda February 21, 2020

Are you someone with 0 credit history embarking to be self-reliant individual in society? Are you someone with a poor credit score? Maybe you just started college or moved from another country. You might be running into issues getting a simple lease/utility connection setup or signing up for a cellphone plan. All because you do not have any credit history. Some of us have been in such situations and in this article, I am going to discuss ways to build credit history and improve your credit score.

What is Credit History ?

Credit history is a record of your debt repayments to various financial/non-financial institutions. It shows how many lines of credit you have open at any time. How much of your credit lines are you utilizing? Any bankruptcies or not in the past. If you made repayments on time in the past or not.

In the US, there are 3 big credit reporting bureaus TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. They collect above mentioned data on you from thousands of sources like your credit card provider, bank, utility, rent company etc. They then try to form an overall financial picture of you.

What is Credit Score?

A company called FICO then looks at these reports & provides a credit score for any 3^rd party. These 3rd parties might want to judge your ability to borrow and pay back money. They have their own propriety algorithm that helps give out scores based on credit history. They give some basic factors on their website. Similar to FICO scores, there is Vantage Score by the above mentioned 3 bureaus. Basic concept is the same, to judge a borrowers credit worthiness. Now that we know credit history definition and credit score, let’s look at its importance.

Why is credit history important?

It allows any financial institution you approach to borrow money to look at your credit worthiness. They can see how much money you already owe to other companies. Decide on whether to lend you money or not. This could be a new mortgage, auto loan, personal loan etc. Each place will look at your credit history to decide on the interest rate for the loan.
Many non-financial institutions such as apartment complexes, Telecom & utility companies also look at your credit history. They are trying to judge if you are managing your finances properly or not. If not, then they might decide to charge some extra refundable deposit before moving in to an apartment or to sign up for a new utility connection etc.
Even credit card companies look at your credit history before letting you open a new card with them. If they see you have not been a good borrower, to cover their risk, they might charge a higher interest rate on unpaid balances on your card.

Ways to build credit history & credit score

Now obviously if you are someone starting young or just moved to the US from another country, your credit history and credit score is going to be 0/negligible. So, you might have a hard time getting anything done. You might have to put down unnecessary deposits and lock up the money at many places of business for no good reason. So here are 7 ways you can build credit history.

1. Sign up for secured credit cards

Most non-secured credit cards at low end need about 6 months of credit history to approve an application. To circumvent this, you can apply for a secured credit card just to build credit history. In such a card, you can deposit let’s say 1000$ to the credit card company. They keep it as collateral and give you a credit card which you can use for the same limit. As you make payments on it every month, your credit history builds up. Later you have the option to convert that card to a non-secured card with the provider or close it outright and get new ones. Obviously, this method comes with the drawback of locking in your money with the company as collateral. So, do this only if you have the money to spare. My favorite one is Discover It Secured (no affiliation or referral).

2. Add yourself as an authorized user to somebody’s credit card

Credit card companies like Discover, Amex and Chase etc. report authorized users on their cards to credit bureaus. Sometimes they even report the primary users old payments on your credit history. So, this helps in building credit history quickly. You can ask your close personal friends, relatives, parents to add you as an authorized user on one or two of their credit cards. Another thing is you do not need to necessarily use the card. You can just be an authorized user and let the company report your name as one of the people involved. That is enough to build credit history. So, do make sure the person you request themselves have good credit score. However, remember to make sure to pay in full any amount if you use it to whoever added you as an authorized user. This impacts them as well as you, if you miss any payments. So be responsible for your and other person’s sake.

3. Retail store credit cards

Retail stores like Walmart, Target, Gap offer their own open loop credit cards. Stores have incentive to approve people with lower credit history. Since, once you get a card approved, you are more likely to shop there. Plus, they help retailers boost their financials with more interest income. Disadvantage is that interest rate is usually very high. So make sure you pay off these cards in full. These cards usually come with low credit limits. You do need some minimal credit-history to show up in the stores application verification. Also, make sure you get a open loop credit card with a VISA or MasterCard logo on it.

4. Unsecured Credit Cards for Immigrants, Students Or low credit history

Staying in line with credit cards, a very young person or an immigrant might have 0 credit scores or history. In such cases, try the Petal Visa Card, Journey Capital One Card, Deserve Classic card. These cards usually approve people with little or no credit history and report your activity to credit bureaus. This, in turn helps to build credit history.

5. Look for small loans from your place of education

This happened to me. I needed about a 1000$ loan from the university and I had 0 credit history. The loan was for some ceremony at the university and so they had a department that would offer 0% interest loans for this. Since the money would eventually go back to the college and I was paying my tuition fees, they were open to lending me money. And guess what it even showed up as the very first loan on my credit history and helped me to a good credit score once I paid it off. So, if you are a student who just started college, do look out for such opportunities at your university. Of course, don’t just take on loans for the sake of building credit history. Take them only if you need them.

6. Co-sign a loan

Cosigning a loan is big step for you and your cosigner. The other person is liable for any unpaid amount on the loan. But cosigning with a person who has good credit score helps you get approved for the loan. At the same time once you start making payments towards it, it builds your history.

7. Build credit history using bills you already pay!

Assuming you are renting and paying your rent every month, usually there is a payment processor for each apartment like RentTrack, Paylease etc. You pay the rent to them and they pass it on to your apartment complex. But they also have ability to report this rent payment to credit bureaus. Do inquire about this and sign up for this feature. Once you do, they will start reporting your payments and help you build credit history. This is a pretty hidden method but it works great for me! Vantage Score which is increasingly being used by many lenders already reports utility and rent payments. Similarly, FICO scores version 9 will start taking rent payments into account.

Additionally, there is a service called Experian boost. If you sign up for it, you can yourself report your cellphone plan, rent and utility payments to Experian. This only works with Experian, but at least you get to build some history with them. Any financial institution that looks at Experian will be able to see these payments under your record. They also claim this eventually boosts your credit score.

Boost your credit history and credit score using these awesome techniques! Click to Tweet

How to maintain a good Credit history

So far, we only discussed ways you can start building credit history from 0 or improve it. But, how to maintain it and make sure you get good credit score?

1. Pay in full and on time

Any kind of credit card payment, mortgage/loan payment needs to be paid in time and in full. This is the highest factor to get a good credit history and credit score. This shows you can be reliable to lend money to.

2. Have a low credit card utilization

Once you have a credit card on your own name, it comes with credit limit. Try to stay below 15-20% of it every month. Having a low utilization signals you don’t need much credit. It shows you are not living your life only on borrowed money. This helps with opening new lines of credit in future.

3. Keep credit cards open

The average age of all your credit card accounts is a small factor for your credit worthiness. So try to keep your first few credit cards open. They help in showing a good length of credit history and increases credit score.

4. Do not apply for credit cards or credit too frequently

If you apply for 2-3 credit cards in span of 2-3 months. The credit card company might think something is wrong if the person is needing so much credit. They might reject your application, and this might show up on your credit history as a negative point. So make sure you do not open new lines of credit frequently.

5. Track your credit history and credit score using free resources

Websites like Credit karma, Experian Boost provide you ways to check your credit score. This way you can see if you are doing a good job or not. Chase and Discover even show you your estimated credit score using various sources for free if you have an account with them, I find these sources incredibly useful to track my credit history and also to make sure there is not some mistake on it. If there is, you can try to request credit bureau to fix it.

You also have the option to get your credit report from each of the 3 bureaus once a year for free. It should be sufficient to check up on any inconsistencies etc. In case you get rejected for a new loan or credit card application, you also have the right to request for the credit report from the institution that rejected you within 60 days of your request.

In conclusion

I understand and have personally been in situation when I was young with a zero credit history. I know it can be incredibly hard to even sign up for basic utility services without a good credit score. It took me a few weeks to a couple of months for most of the methods mentioned above to start showing up on my credit history. In a few months I had a good score and was able to navigate any request from any institutions successfully.

Do understand that all companies involved in financial ecosystem benefit from you having a good credit history. It allows them to lend you money and make money on the interest. So it is in their best interest for you to have a good credit history and a good credit score. Then they can lend you money. Companies do understand that young people or people new to US might have 0 credit history. Now they are requesting credit bureaus to look at other payment data like rent payments etc to judge the credit worthiness of individuals. It might take a few weeks to months but you can improve or build a good credit history using above mentioned methods.

Please let me know how any of these methods worked for you in the comments below. If you have any methods, I might have missed to build credit history, please mention them too. That would help the community grow as well.

If you know someone who might need to read this article, I urge you to share it on your social media using any of the buttons on page.

February 21, 2020 0 comment

Deals

Motley Fool Stock Advisor/Rule Breakers for 20$ or Free per Year

by Yoda October 6, 2019

My thoughts about Newsletters

You and thousands of other people have the same information every time a newsletter comes out. Buying solely on recommendation of an email at that point is useless. Stock price would have driven up already by the buying from all the people.
A lot of people just use the newsletter as stock tips. You tell me, and I will buy it. They do not put any other effort into researching the stock. Most do not understand the approach of investing newsletter (long term, shorting, dividend based etc.) They do not understand if the newsletter philosophy matches or compliments their investing style.
Never rely on single source of information. Be it a newsletter, stock advisor group, news article or some tip you read on twitter etc. I believe in the concept of idea funnel. Once you start researching a stock. You need to look at various sources of information. It can be company’s website, blogs, company’s 10K, product reviews on eCommerce website, expert newsletters etc. Reading and looking at as many sources as possible helps you to get a complete idea of the stock.
I do believe Newsletters at the right price and of the right investing style can be of great value for the information they provide. They are, after all written by experts who put in many hours to write and recommend stocks. I genuinely feel they can add a lot of value to your own stock research. It can help you screen new stocks or go back to some stock you looked at the past and revisit it.

So keep the above points in mind before subscribing to a newsletter service. Today we will discuss a great deal I have come across recently if you are in the market for the Motley Fool Stock Advisor or Rule Breakers service.

What is Motley Fool Stock Advisor?

It’s a service from Motley Fool that recommends 2 stocks every month.
Their philosophy is to invest in companies that have competitive advantage. Plus, have a long term trend tailwind behind them.
They also focus on companies with solid financials and whose management are shareholder friendly.
They provide access to their forums with the membership which is full of very insightful discussions.
You can also look at past recommendations and check out the performance of their picks.
You also get access to some bonus reports/articles they write which could have lots of useful information, like tax guides, wealth creation, imp guides on new trends, companies etc.

Check out some reviews from : StockGumshoe, Chris Reining, Saving Advice, Day trade Review

What is Motley Fool Rule Breakers?

It’s a service from Motley Fool that recommends 2 stocks every month.
The philosophy here is to invest in upcoming companies. These companies are doing something new and trying to break things in an older industry.
It mostly focuses on high growth companies. Because of this, they are often very expensive by most evaluations.
Again you also have access to forums, few good research reports and ability to look at past picks and performance.

Check out some reviews from : StockGumshoe, WallStreetSurvivor

Personally, I have tried both these services and prefer motley fool stock advisor. Since I am a dividend investor I prefer stocks which are less expensive, have reliable cash flows and can keep paying me that dividend.

What’s the deal?

Earlier, with Rebates me, you could get about an 80$ discount when you signed up for one of the Motley Fool services. Click the arrow for old method which doesn’t work any longer.

Recently Rebates Me site has tied up with Motley Fool to give 85% cashback on purchases. Rebatesme is a cashback site that helps customer drive to their site for purchases. To incentivize customers, they offer cashback on purchases. They get some cut of the purchase you make on the eventual website. Currently they are offering 85% of your money back in form of cashback if you make any purchases on the motley fool website going through them!

Currently Stock Advisor membership is being sold for about 99$ on Motley Fool website:

So technically, if you buy this via the Rebatesme link, you can get about 85$ back in cash deposited to your Paypal account or to your credit card. Also do note that their Faq’s do say it will take about 3 months for them to pay out the 85$ since they want to make sure you do not cancel the subscription after getting the 85$ cashback. This doesn’t concern me that much however since Rebatesme seems to be recognized in the marketplace to honor their commitments.

Steps

Here are the steps in detail, please follow them properly to ensure that you do get the cashback (don’t worry, it’s no rocket science):

Go to Rebates Me and create an account. Once you enter the details and account gets created, confirm your account by clicking on the verification link in email.

Disable Adblocker: Rebates me works and motley fool work by tracking that you came to the Motley fool website via Rebates Me site. To make sure that happens, disable ad blocker from the browser for these 2 sites. Once you go to the site one by one just click on ad blocker symbol and select “disabled on this site”. Make sure to do that on both Motley Fool and Rebatesme sites.

Shop!
Log into the rebates me account and search for motley fool. Make sure that the cashback shows up as 85% as shown above. Once you click shop now, the browser should open a new window with the motley fool website. In the previous tab on the rebates me site, you can click on my account and go to shopping trips and you should be able to see the most recent click to motley fool with the 85% rebate as shown :

This just makes sure that Rebates me has recorded your visit and you can now shop on Motley fool. Now in the next tab where Motley Fool had opened, you can proceed to buy the Stock advisor subscription. Currently the subscription shows up for 100$ so if you buy that, after a few days, on your rebates me account you should get a 85$ cashback making the price of 1 year of Motley fool Stock Advisor for only 15$!!

Here is my account for proof. I did this when it was 50% cashback and I thought it was a great deal then. Imagine my mind when the cashback jumped to 85%. I think it takes 30-45 days for the cashback to go from pending to payable. Once it is payable then you can deposit in your paypal account!

In Conclusion

As I mentioned before, right price and for the right type of newsletter can be great value for money. It can be an excellent source of idea. I think 15$ for 1 year of motley fool stock advisor is an impossible deal to beat! In no time would it be worth it!

UPDATE 1

I received my cashback rebate, here is the proof:

from rebatesme acct:

and my paypal account with some other extra rebates:

UPDATE 2

Rebatesme has reduced the offer of cashback from 85% to 80% which will still bring you about 80$ on a 100$ motley fool stock advisor subscription. In my opinion it is still great deal! Especially since I have confirmed that cashback is being paid out 3 months after the transaction.

However, I recently found another reputed cashback portal: Extrabux which is offering 80$ cashback on motley fool Stock Advisor or Rule Breakers service. Extrabux is a site that helps drive traffic to sellers like Motley Fool by offering cashback to its customers (people like me & you). They incentivize us by providing cashback on purchases we make and they make some % of the revenue we shop for via their portal. If we check, currently they are offering 80$ cashback on purchases made from Motley Fool.

Here are their conditions:

Currently both Stock Advisor & Rule Breakers membership is being sold for about 99$ each on Motley Fool website:

So technically, if you buy this via the Extrabux portal, you can get about 80$ back in cash back. You can withdraw it to your Paypal account or to your credit card. Also do note that their Faq’s do say it will take about 3 months for them to pay out the 80$ since they want to make sure you do not cancel the subscription after getting the 80$ cashback. This doesn’t concern me that much. Since, Extrabux is big, popular player in the marketplace which honors their commitments.

Steps

Here are the steps in detail, please follow them properly to ensure that you do get the cashback (don’t worry, it’s no rocket science):

Go to Extrabux and create an account by clicking join for free. You can enter the details and your account gets created. Little pro tip here, you can even google referral link for Extrabux and try to join using that to get 15-20$ in extra bonus. I usually do not post referral link, so my link is just the standard signup page with no affiliate or any referral on it. But I did sign up using someone else’s referral link.

Disable Adblocker: Extrabux and motley fool work by tracking that you came to the Motley fool website via Extrabux site. To make sure that happens, disable ad blocker from the browser for these 2 sites. Once you go to the site one by one just click on ad blocker symbol and select “disabled on this site”. Make sure to do that on both Motley Fool and Extrabux sites. Here are some more instructions Extrabux mentions one can try to do to make sure their purchase is tracked and they get the cashback. Nothing special in my opinion.
Shop!
In a new window, log into the Extrabux account and search for motley fool. Make sure that the cashback shows up as 80$ as shown above.

Once you click start shopping, the browser should open a new window with the motley fool website. Now make your purchase. Both stock advisor and rule breakers cost 99$ for the first year. This time around I bought rule breakers service from Motley Fool .

After making the purchase, go back to the window with the Extrabux site, you can click on Purchases on top and you should be able to see the most recent click to motley fool with the msg saying “awaiting for information from store”:
The next day itself I got an email from Extrabux confirming my purchase and showing details about 80$ cashback to be deposited in 90 days in my account.
If I check my purchases section again now it shows up with 80$ cashback in pending status:Time for another pro tip, for new users who signed up to Extrabux just for this, seems like I can click the Boost Cashback to 100$ button and now I can see 100$ owed in back to me!! This makes my motley fool subscription absolutely free.

Learn how you can buy motley fool stock advisor or rule breakers for 20$ or free for an year! No Catch! No Gimmicks! Best deal in a while! Click to Tweet

UPDATE 1

So, it took 5 months instead of the promised 3 months wait for cashback, but I am happy to report I got all 100$ back as I paid part of my subscription:

I was then able to withdraw it to my choice of payment method:

So, looks like using the above method it is possible for us to get motley fool stock advisor or rule breaker service for 0-20 USD. This in my opinion is a great deal! I wouldn’t mind throwing 20$ for expanding my circle of ideas to research into. A word of warning: I signed up for this service in October 2019 and received my cashback in Mar 2020, so it took 5 months.

UPDATE 2

looks like even Extrabux has reduced cashback from 80$ to 10$ since Jan 2020. So here is the website which I keep tabs on to identify the next portal that will give me good cashback:

If you notice, currently Citibank, Dollar Dig are offering 60 to 65$ back respectively. Some sites offering miles or their own currency. So you still have the option to go to any of these sites and sign up for motley fool from a link on there. The process in most places will be similar to what I described here. But do make sure you read reviews of some of these sites before actually using them.

If you liked this article, check out how I get free Barron’s and WSJ subscription for my financial news fix and how you can do it in 5 simple steps.

Disclaimer: None of the links in this article are my referral links or affiliate links. I do not get any benefit of purchases you make. Signed up personally and found the forums and tax resources section highly useful. I genuinely feel this is a great deal and so have decided to share with my readers.

October 6, 2019 0 comment

Deals

Barron’s and WSJ subscription for free

by Yoda September 5, 2019

I am sure many of you just like Warren Buffett agree reading goes hand in hand with investing. The more you read and think, more you expand your circle of competence. Reading, especially business and finance news helps you gain knowledge and keep a tab on issues companies face daily. Some of the best sources of good unbiased financial information comes from Wall Street Journal(WSJ subscription), Barron’s and other publications.

However they are not free anymore. Both WSJ & Barron’s subscription cost about 19$ and 10$ per month after discounts. That’s a whole lot of money to get good financial news. Plus after discounts end, prices go up a lot!

I like free. I have found a very legal way to get physical/print access to WSJ and Barron’s subscription for 0$. In this blog post we will discuss how you can use your airline miles to get free access to WSJ and Barron’s subscriptions using a service called MagsForMiles. I hope you will like this post just as much as the one about getting Motley Fool Stock Advisor subscription at a steep discount.

But first I wanted to give a short review of both sources.

Wall Street Journal Subscription Review(WSJ)

WSJ is published daily (except on US national holidays and Sunday’s). It has great analysis of day to day news. Its like a traditional newspaper having standard sections like:

US News: With info on hurricane Dorian and rise of online sports betting recently as examples.

Political: Things like election candidate coverage for upcoming sections.

World News: For e.g. Brexit, Argentina crisis & Hong Kong protests.

Life & Arts: I rarely read this. But you get the idea.

Sports: 1 page section on latest happenings in sports.

Opinion/Editorials: Most recently articles on electric vehicle subsidies & Air BnB bills in various state parliaments on short term rentals.

The above sections are about the first 18 pages and have some financial info sprinkled in between. I usually read some topics in each section which I like or am interested in.

Then comes the biggest section

Business & Finance: This is 10 pages of pure business and financial news of top quality journalism. I read mostly all stories in this section. Some examples from most recent issues include Europe’s unrelenting quest to tax tech companies, P&G’s tide dry cleaning business etc. to name a few.

It’s great service to keep you updated with current events and news in business, financial & non financial world.

Barron’s Subscription Review

Unlike WSJ, Barron’s is published only once weekly. It also is heavily focused on investing. Infact they do not have sections other than finance and investing.

They publish 1 very detailed (about 5 pages) article on some sector or a company every issue. For e.g. their issue dated Sept 2nd 2019 had a detailed analysis on drugs using mRNA to cure diseases and companies in that space. They waked through the basics of the technology, discussed pros & cons, feasibility of technology etc. That’s some very great info right there!

It focuses more on fundamentals and long term trends about industries. You can very easily pick out 2-3 ideas and the do your own research by just reading Barron’s every week. They also have a market week section which discusses companies that were active during the week. It tries to give good profiles on what companies are doing. To be honest I find Barron’s really helpful to grow my circle of competence. I almost read every article from Barron’s subscription every week.

How to get WSJ subscription for free?

So we are going to use our unused airline miles to get this. Even if you flew 2-3 flights in last 2-3 years, you probably have some airline miles in your frequent flier account. Most of the time these airline miles just expire and go to waste. Not anymore! I recently came across this site called magsformiles. It allows you to exchange your miles for subscription to a wide variety of newspapers and magazines. Once you head over to its site,you notice you can use most US airline miles:

1. Select your airline to start

I went with American Airlines, since its miles were expiring for me.

2. Choose your subscription

I went with the 304 issue WSJ subscription for 3200 miles. There was also an option of 228 issues for 2700 miles. You can choose whichever one you like. Next hit Add to Bag as shown below:

3. Checkout

Once you hit check out, it will ask you if you are a current Wall Street Journal subscriber. Hit no and please make sure you are not currently subscribed to WSJ. If you are this offer may not be for you. Although from my research, I did come to know some people who cancelled their existing subscription for which they were paying and started this subscription a week later.

Once you hit No, you will be taken to a page where you would enter your first name, last name address where your subscription will be delivered and in my case, my AA Advantage loyalty number. Please enter information correctly since it will be used to match your loyalty record and your address to confirm subscription. Then hit Place Order.

Also notice the red underline at the bottom says your order will be processed in 6-12 weeks. But do not fret. My order was processed and I got my WSJ subscription first issue in about 2 weeks.

4. Get Confirmation and avoid addons

Once you hit place order, on the next page, you will get a confirmation followed by asking to enroll in other subscriptions for 2$ and enabling auto enroll.

Now all these guys are trying to do is get your cc number. Do not give it or choose any other offers under any circumstances. You do not need to give your credit card to get your wsj or barron’s subscription. You can simply click no thanks as shown below. Your order for wsj subscription is already completed.

5. What Next?

Just wait. Since this is almost a free way to get WSJ or Barron’s subscription, this is an obvious drawback. You might have to wait for 2-4 weeks in my opinion. Personally, I started getting WSJ delivered to me on my doorstep every morning 2 weeks after I ordered it. Here is the pic of the first one:

How to get Barron’s subscription for free?

Its literally the same process. Same as WSJ subscription described above. As you can see MagsForMiles also has Barron’s subscription as an option. Its 1900 miles for 52 issues. 1 a week for the whole year.

I did the whole process a second time. I entered a second email address just to be safe. Other details were the same. I started getting my Barron’s subscription delivered after about 2 weeks of ordering it.

What happens after subscription expires?

Now this is mostly uncharted territory. Mine only started in last month so I am not too sure. But in my research from various blogs, several people mentioned MagsForMiles might send some renewal offer maybe ask for money etc. I would just reject all those. I did see some people were able to use different airline miles (for e.g. use Delta miles if you used American first year etc. ) a couple of weeks after current subscription expired to order a new subscription again.

Some people just let their subscription expire and start a new one using spouse’s account.

There is also an option to gift subscription, maybe you can ask your friend/relative to start one using their account and you return the favor.

I also came across their sister site MagsForPoints . Its the same as MagsForMiles, but offers even hotel points to use towards a subscription. Maybe using this to subscribe might work with a second year Barron’s or WSJ subscription.

All techniques above for starting a new subscription for second year are things I found in my research. I can only test it myself next year when my current subscriptions expire.

How in the world is this legal ?

So let’s see why this method is legal from horse’s mouth itself. Here is a url to the company that owns MagsForMiles & MagsForPoints. Looks like Synapse is a marketing company which is probably doing lead generation for big publishers. I suspect they have a deal with Dow Jones Company (yes they own both WSJ and Barron’s) to bring them high quality subscribers and give an introductory offer which is free! Its absolutely up to your discretion to continue the subscription into the second year using whatever renewal MagsForMiles sends you or not.
Please share your experiences if you tried to order WSJ or Barron’s subscriptions using this method and how it went for you below in comments section. I am sure it will help out the community.

If you found this article useful, I would really appreciate if you can share it on social media and among your friends who might be interested. That would really help support this blog. If you can sign up below, you would even go a mile further in supporting this blog.

UPDATE

Looks like WSJ is no longer available on offer at magsformiles or at MagsforPoints. But, they do still have Barrons.

Disclaimer: The above is just my experience expressed in the article. Your experience may differ and I am not liable for it in anyway. This article is just for informational and entertainment purposes. Also I have no affiliation with any of the parties mentioned in the article. I do not get paid for any subscriptions you buy or gift. I just wrote this to help out the investing community get good news from reputable sources.

September 5, 2019 1 comment

Investing

REIT Investing: What, How and Why

by Yoda October 1, 2018

As you all know from my previous articles, dividend investing is my favorite style of investing. Although along with that, I also like to make sure my portfolio has different type of assets. One way to do this is via real estate. However not all of us have the money to pay every month for mortgage. Here is where Real Estate investment Trusts (REIT) come in.

What are REIT’s?

A REIT is a company that owns, operates and manages real estate assets around the world and collects rent to make money. There can be publicly traded or privately held REIT’s. The good thing about public REIT’s is that they are required by law to pay out at least 90% of their taxable income in form of dividends. This makes them excellent alternative to just normal dividend stocks. Public REIT’s usually operate in a single industry. For e.g. Data Center, Telecom towers, industrial, storage, healthcare properties etc. This is not a hard and fast rule though. Some REIT’s do invest in all types of properties. There are also some REIT’s which invest in mortgages and make money using the interest payments on mortgage instead of collecting rents and managing properties. They are called mREIT’s but we will only be focusing on Publicly traded normal REIT in this article.

Advantages of REIT’s

Juicy Dividend Yields

Since REIT’s are legally mandated to pay at least 90% of their taxable income, they have high dividend yields. Most REIT’s can pay 4-5 or even 7% sustainable dividend yields. As compared to the average 2-3% dividend of rest of the S&P 500, REIT’s dividends are amazing! These yields are also usually very stable since most tenants are in long term leases which have increases priced every year as per inflation at least. However, check out various ways to ensure/safeguard you keep getting dividends at the bottom of the article.

Instant Diversification

Since we know its very important to diversify in various asset classes in your portfolio. REIT’s help in this regard. REIT’s indirectly make you owner of real estate. They usually have low correlation with stocks so, helps with reducing risk in your portfolio. Plus, best part is you get to be a real estate owner without doing the hard work in maintaining or collecting rents or paying any mortgage. Agreed they do trade like stocks, but REIT underlying asset that produces income is real estate.

Liquidity

Publicly traded REIT’s can be bought and sold just like stocks. So its easier to re balance your portfolio if needed. There are other private platforms like Fundrise and Real Estate Mogul that allow you to invest in REIT’s. But they are bound by extra rules on when you can sell and how much you need minimum to invest. So, publicly traded REIT’s are what I would suggest buying.

Proven long term performance

REIT’s over the last 25-30 years have returned over 11% annually reinvesting dividends. That is a great rate of return for any asset class given the fact we have had 2 recessions in that time. (courtesy NAREIT)

This kind of performance has been almost second to no other group of equities.

Risks/Disadvantages of investing in REIT’s

Sensitivity to Rising rates

In a rising rate environment like today’s, REIT’s compete with other asset classes. For e.g bonds and US treasury rates increase which are usually safer than REIT’s. So a 3% bond would be appealing to people as compared to a 4% REIT with amount of risk involved and REIT usually under-performs. However, having said that if you are a young investor with retirement after a decade or two or more. Then what is there to worry about! Just relax and reinvest the dividends and watch your income from REIT stocks keep growing. Over long term even rising rates usually benefit economy and help in raising rents across most properties and helping REIT’s.

Industry Risks

Most REIT’s operate in a specific industry and are susceptible to business risks weighing down respective industry. For e.g. recent fears over retail apocalypse over slowing sales in 2016-2017 lead to huge decreases in stock prices of most retail-oriented REIT’s. However, if you just focused on fundamentals and bought/invested then, most REIT’s are way more up since then this year.

Tax treatment for you

As we know publicly traded REIT’s are required to pay out at least 90% of their taxable income and they are exempt from paying any income taxes. But then for this reason, you get taxed at full income tax rate on unqualified dividends you receive from REIT. Instead of the favorable tax treatment at lower tax bracket for normal dividend stocks. So, its important to understand what type of investing account they should go in to minimize taxes/eliminate taxes. Yes! its possible to pay absolutely no taxes on REIT’s and get the high dividend yield they offer.

Different Type of REIT Sectors

As mentioned, REIT’s can operate in different industries and business. Type of industry has a lot of impact on REIT’s ability to earn rents. Here are some examples:

Industrial: These invest in making warehouses, distribution centers, logistics center for housing any kind of equipment’s, process, materials required by customers. Some examples include Prologis Inc, Plymouth Industrial etc.
Telecom: These invest in creating tower sites that which network operators use to provide cell services. Some examples include American Tower, Crown Castle Inc etc.
Data Center: These invest in building huge infrastructure for data centers which big tech companies rent. They are usually fitted with features like extra cooling, 24*7 power supply and extremely secure environment. Some examples include Digital Realty, Cyrus One etc.
Retail: These invest in single standing or mall like shopping centers. Some examples include Realty Income, Store Capital etc.
Healthcare: Theses invest in creating hospitals, nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities etc. Some examples include Omega Healthcare Inc, Sabra Healthcare etc.

Other sectors include Office, Residential, Timber based REIT’s etc. You can find more about them here. Its important to know that at any given time, its easily possible that one sector of business is booming and REIT’s involved in that sector will also be booming.

In Conclusion

There are a lot of other factors like adjusted funds from operations AFFO, management etc to look at when choosing REIT’s. Factors to ensuring/safeguarding that dividend yield. Correct investment accounts to buy REIT’s in etc. To know more on how to go about choosing best REIT’s please consider subscribing below for free to help support the blog.

October 1, 2018 0 comment

Tips & Tricks

Using Chase Collision Damage Waiver Benefit

by Yoda August 25, 2018

The I am sure many of you have heard credit cards provide collision damage waiver coverage when you rent a car. Some of you might have been in unfortunate situation when you had to use it. I am sure applying for a claim is a confusing process. Do you pay the rental company for damages? Get reimbursed by your credit card company later? What if the amount is too much to pay out of pocket?

Do not worry, I recently had the unfortunate necessity to file a claim with Chase for collision damage waiver on a rental. Read on to find out the process to make sure you do not end up paying for the damages yourself.

On a recent trip to Utah I had a small rock chip come out of nowhere and hit the windshield on my rental car. Thankfully no major harm was done to us. However, the windshield was left with a small hole shown below. Luckily for me, I had rented using my Chase Sapphire Reserve(CSR) card. As they mentioned I had declined my Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) coverage from Enterprise and paid in full using my CSR. So, when this happened I was at least relaxed knowing that CSR would be able to reimburse me for any damages. I called to make sure what the process was. I just wanted to create this guide for anyone who rents using CSR or any of the chase premium cards and ends up needing to file a claim:

What is Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ?

Chase as part of its cardholder benefits provides cdw coverage on rental cars. They cover up to 75000 USD in damages for theft or collision on a rental car. All you have to do is decline the CDW coverage provided by your rental company and pay for the full rental using your chase card.

Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) and Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) offer primary Collision Damage Waiver. It means you can just go through them to claim for insurance in case you need to. Most other Chase, Discover and Amex cards provide secondary CDW coverage. Meaning, you also need to involve your car insurance provider first and then credit card provider might step in to cover rest of the bill.

Start a claim online as soon as possible

Chase outsources their claims process to a company called eclaimsline. Head over to the following website: https://www.eclaimsline.com/ start the claim:

Hit new claim and enter your card number and the name on card:

We will select Collision Damage Waiver since we are trying to claim for a rental car incident. Enter your address and personal info on next screen:

Give details on the incident, rental car and if you made the payment at the counter, then choose yourself as the benefits payee. You can change this later. Upload the required documents in the next screen. You can submit some documents later as well:

Once you hit submit, you should get a confirmation about the claim. You should also get an email from the site with the details.

Decide whether to pay for damages out of your own pocket

Next step is while returning the vehicle decide whether to pay for the damages on your own or not. In my case the damage was small (317$) so I paid it while returning the car. However in case when the damage is huge, it might not be possible to pay out of your pocket. In such cases make sure to let Enterprise/rental company know that you started a claim with eclaimsline. Its possible that you might have to pay a deductible that the car rental has set depending on the type of damage. They might even ask to put a hold on your card for the damages. This depends and varies from rental agency to another agency. But do not worry, take receipts and document anything you pay.

Documentation for Collision Damage Waiver Claim

Get as much documentation as you can. Things like original rental agreement that shows you declined collision damage waiver. Itemized receipt for any payment you paid. Photos of the damage. Police report if you have any. Incident report from car rental company. I even have this list in one of the screenshots above. In addition to this, the claim website also asks for a copy of your card statement with any payment charge. Upload all the documents to the claim website against your claim.

Now waiting begins

Now that you uploaded all documents, the ball is in the claims website court. Usually you get a response after 5-7 days. However this is when I realized that that there are 2 other documents that the eclaimsline website needs to complete the claim. Its the demand letter and itemized bill/estimate of repair. Its according to this estimate that they payout. I learned that the rental car company needs to send this demand letter and estimate. However getting this form the rental company turned out to be easier said than done.

More waiting

I kept getting reminder emails from eclaimsline website asking me to submit the demand letter and estimate. I had to call Enterprise a few times but they seemed clueless. All they seemed to say was it will take at least 30 days for them to generate the demand. At this point I kind of felt taken for a ride when I paid for the damages myself. And was not getting proper responses for the demand and estimate.

Respite at last

I finally got an email from enterprise stating claim was processed and my case closed. It mentioned no payment was needed from my side since I had already paid for damages. However I actually had to call enterprise again to remind them to send me the demand letter and estimate since I still needed those to get myself reimbursed. I eventually received the demand and estimate form Enterprise via email. To my surprise the demand and estimate were only for 185$ when I had paid 317$ for the damages while returning. On calling enterprise once again, I found that the original cost was indeed a deductible. Eventually they returned me the 117$ via a check and I had to submit the demand and estimate for the rest(185$) to the eclaimsline website as part of collision damage waiver claims process.

Got my money back!

After about a week of submitting the demand letter and estimate, I got an email form eclaimsline asking for my electronic deposit information to reimburse me for the remaining 185$. The process lasted 75 days from the day of incident to getting my money back.

Pros:

The process works as expected. Its simple enough to follow.
You have 365 days of to submit all documents from the date of incident. So you do have ample time to make sure you get through the whole process right.

Cons:

I wish there was more transparency in the process.
Communication on the process is poor. Had to follow up with Enterprise to get the demand letter and estimate. Had to follow up to understand why the demand was for lesser amount than what I paid. There was no communication about a check from Enterprise at all!
Need to follow up to make sure things are moving along. I think the usual process takes about 2-3 months. But constant reminders from eclaimsline regarding demand and estimate. Along with poor communication from Enterprise forces you to follow up. Although I do think 2-3 months should be enough for the process to complete. Do keep in mind that if you paid for any part of the damages while returning your vehicle, you will not bee seeing that money for at least 2-3 months.

Check out step by step process to file a claim for collision damage waiver benefit on an auto rental using your chase credit card. Click to Tweet

In Conclusion

As I mention in my other article, Chase Sapphire Reserve is one of my all time fav cards despite the 450$ annual fee. The benefits you get are just too good for the price. Having saved so much money on my trips before by not paying for insurance I have already made it well worth the fee. This time I even used the claim process and was able to get my money back from Chase within 2-3 months of the incident. Here is a summarized list of things you need to do if you get in some incident (Or in general to make sure you are prepared for any situation):

Make sure to decline collision coverage on your rental and put all amount on the CSR card. (This is a must condition for Chase to take care of your collision coverage in case of an incident)
Take pictures of your car at the shop before picking it up.
Do a detailed walk through and report any problems on car if you find any.
Make sure you check out the gas tank level before driving off.
Make sure to get the Rental agreement hard copy/email before driving off.
In case of an incident inform and start a claim as soon as possible.
Take pics of damage.
Either pay the charges out of pocket/ask rental agency to follow up with claims website with details of claim info.
Upload all documents requested by claims website.
Call the rental agency if you need the demand/estimate of repairs.
Wait for the process to complete and make sure all parties are happy with the outcome.

This is just a generic guide and an account of how my experience was while claiming for car rental damage. I got my collision damage waiver through the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. But I do think the general process for most other primary coverage cards is the same. Little things or steps during the process may differ from person to person and base don incident. But I am sure this account will be helpful for all. Head over to the respective credit card provider website to make sure you understand all the terms to use collision damage waiver coverage.

August 25, 2018 0 comment

Column in Excel	Formula
Market Value	=C2*D2
Change $	=G2-F2
Change %	=(H2/F2)*100

Column	Formula
Annual Div Income	=D2*J2
Yield on Cost	=(K2/F2) format as percent
Annual Yield	=(J2/C2) format as percent