Investment comment

The recent stock market ups and downs have caused me to think about our investments. I've decided not to make any changes for now. So this means that we remain invested in a fairly diversified way, but with an overweighting in international stock mutual funds. Because of the rules of our 401K and 403b retirement plans, we are mostly restricted to Fidelity mutual funds (largest holdings are FEMKX, FSIIX, FICDX, FSTMX), but we also have a Vanguard REIT index fund (VGSIX) and some CREE stock, which is a semiconductor company involved in LED lighting. With our regular (non-retirement) savings, we are "rate chasing", taking advantage of various promotions and bonuses at a variety of banks and credit unions scattered around the US. This gets us a high and safe yield on our short-term savings.

A good source of information for rate chasing can be found at the Bankdeals blog. This is where I found out about the Wachovia way-2-save accounts (9% yield for the year if opened last Feb.), WaMu savings-for-success (6.5% yield if opened last March), a Patelco credit union 7% CD special, and several others. I check Bankdeals a few times a week, the web address is http://www.bankdeals.blogspot.com

Its been a pretty rough ride lately, but I am cautiously optimistic that if we just stay the course and don't sell into panics, then things will eventually work out.