Sarah Palin's Seventeen Year Old Unmarried Daughter Pregnant: McCain Knew Of This Prior to Making Sarah Palin His VP Pick

Recent rumors are flying on the internet and TV this morning about Alaska governor's daughter, "Bristol," being pregnant. The rumor has been confirmed. Gov Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, is seventeen years old, pregnant and unmarried. Here's the link to a news article where McCain's Campaign Chief Steve Schmidt discusses this. You can go to google news and find similar articles from TV and newspapers nationwide.


In the picture below, Bristol is 2nd from the right between her mother and father.

What is My Military Pension Worth? Posting Also Useful to Potential Civil Service Pensioners or Others Trying to Monetize Passive Income Stream(s)

Many of you may want to know what your civil service or military pension is worth today. Some may even want to try and monetize other passive income streams. Determining the value of a pension or other income stream is either a two step or one step process. It's one step if you're in (or near) day one of retirement or just established a passive income stream. It's a two step problem if you still have a number of years to work.

Well, I want to know what my military pension would be worth today if I enjoyed a successful career and retired as a Captain / Colonel after 30 yrs of military service. This situation would give me $7287 / month which would be 75% of my base pay (ref: proposed 2009 pay table, O-6 over 26yrs).

Here’s two methods to determine the value of my pension (Method #1 using a basic calculator, Method #2 using a finance calculator).

Assuming a personal discount rate / IRR of 0.4% per month (equal to 4.91% APY) and a life expectancy of 30 years (360 months) past my retirement date.

1. Using a simple calculator with an exponential “^” function (minimum requirement)

(a) First find the present value of an "immediate annuity." Using the formula

PV immediate annuity = [ 1 – (1 + R)^-n] (P/R)
R = interest rate in decimal form
P= payment
N= number of periods

Filling in numbers you get:

PV immediate annuity = [ 1 – (1 + 0.004)^-360] (7287/0.004)
PV immediate annuity = [ 1 – 0.2376] (1,821,750)
PV immediate annuity = $1,388,885

This is the present value of the stream of pension payments the day I retire. This equation alone may suffice if you're at retirement or very close to retirement age.

However, I have 18 more years to work till retirement. To get the Present Value today, you have to discount the value determined above ($1,388,855) over the time I have left till retirement (18 yrs or N = 216 periods).

Present Value With Zero Payments Formula:

PV= FV (1+R)^-N
PV= $1,388,855 * (1+.004)^-216
PV= $1,388,855 * 0.4222
PV= $586,375

$586,375 is what my retirement is worth to me today assuming a discount rate of 0.4% per month or 4.91% APY

2. Using a financial calculator like a Texas Instruments BAII, you get a two step problem.

Step 1:

a) Assuming a 4.91% discount rate (~ 0.4%/month)
b) Assuming 30yr life expectancy once I hit retirement

N= 360 months
I/Y= 0.4%/month
PV= $0
PMT= $7287/month
FV= ?

Plugging into a financial calculator, you get a future value of $5,845,249. Now working backwards in step 2:

N= 576 (360 months for length of retirement + 216 months left till I retire)
I/Y = 0.4%/month
PV= ?
PMT= $0/month
FV= $5,845,249

Solving for PV you get $586,387

The difference between the financial calculator method and the basic calculator method is simply due to round-off error. The biggest determinant in figuring the present value of any stream of income is what interest rate you use for your "discount rate." Your present value (PV) will be smaller if you use a discount rate higher than 4.91% APY or 0.4% per month. I figured that 0.4% per month is reasonable and close to what one can get on CDs, I-Bonds and 30 yr Treasuries.

Keywords / phrases: how much is an annuity worth

Car/SUV, $25k Free Gas, and $100k Giveaways at Fuse TV, Progressive Insurance, Lifetime TV / Entertainment and Better Homes and Gardens

Below are four premium online contests with grand prizes of a car/SUV, $25k in gas, 2009 Ford Mustang and$100k. Entries can be made ever day. Before posting this, I traced each online entry form back to the parent site to ensure the contests were not an effort to capture your info from a less that reputable source. No guarantees that your info won't be shared with "marketing partners" of the companies offering the prizes.

(1.) Fuse TV (Music TV): Kia keys to the ride sweepstake for either a Kia Spectra or Sportage. Max one entry per household, per day. Sweepstakes valid only for continental U.S. (48 states). Entry period ends 1159pm EST on Sept 30th. Wiki's summary of what Fuse TV.

(2.) Progressive Insurance $25k gasoline giveaway. One entry per day, per household up till 12/31/2008. Three grand prizes of $25k gasoline awarded.

(3.) Better Homes and Gardens $100k Grand Prize Sweepstakes. You don't have to list your phone number on the registration form! Contest thru Feb 15th, 2009, One entry per day, valid on 50 states.

I entered into all of the above sweepstakes and will likely enter again in subsequent days as I remember.

Generating Income From My Blog

Did you know that Amazon.com is offering $12 referrals in its Amazon Associates Program? I've been an Amazon Associate for 2 years but have never used it. I'm giving it a try since there adds are very clean and it is certainly trusted content. The $12 referrals are offered until October 31st for Amazon Prime referrals.

Over last 30 months, I earned about $200 from Linkworth and about $41 in non-dispursed Yahoo Publisher earnings. In my defense, I recently did one year in Afghanistan where it was "illegal" for me to blog (U.S. Army directive for that area). Thus, I didn't blog and my traffic and established link exchange friends erroded away.

Today, I now have diversified advertising across Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher & Amazon Associates. My goal is to earn $241 over the next year. This will equal what I've earned over the last 30 months. This is small change and should be doable. For now, I'm going to keep my content on Blogger.com. In the future I may migrated to a dedicated website. Anybody find success in other trusted advertisers?

Link Exchanges

I love to blog about finance and share my ideas with others. Please email if you have similar interests and would like to do a link exchange.

I've been blogging since 2006 but was offline during an unexpected tour of duty in Afghanistan. I'm in a stable, non-deploying job for the next 2 years and should be hard at work online as primary hobby.

Looks like my spouse may also be joining the fray and start blogging about Thai Cooking sometime soon.

Best of luck to my fellow bloggers!

A Paradigm Shift for My Financial Goals

When I first created pluggedinfinance I started with an original goal of $80k / year in passive income and a retirement age of 47. Retiring at 47 would have allowed me to beat my Grandfather who retired at the age of 48.

Recently, I changed my goals to $125k / year in passive income and deferred my retirement age to 51. I increased my passive income goal in a first attempt to incorporate what I forecast $80k in 2006 dollars to be equal to in 2025. I also am deferring my retirement age by 4 years not because I think it's necessary to meet a financial goal, but to factor in the fact that I want to make every attempt to stay in the Navy for the maximum of 30 years and retire at the rank of Captain (equal to Colonel in other services). I could stay in beyond 30, but it would require making the rank of Admiral which is only a 1 in 20 possiblity. Attaining this rank and serving 30 years would be a significant life achievement and would ensure that I never second guessed myself in retirement as to whether or not I realized my potential. Hey, and a 30 year Captain's Pension is about $84k/year.

Updated Prosper Lending Strategy / Tips Prefaced By Comments on Prior Lending Failures

This post is nearly two years in the making. I haven't posted about my Prosper lending strategy since November of 2006. My November posting hit the mark and was my best collection of tips up till late 2006. If you have a short attention span, look at my prior November 2006 posting first and come back to this as time permits. In today's posting I tell you my search criteria and include several new tips at end.

In November, I was near the peak of my stupidy with LENDER RISK TAKING. Prior to this, I had made 78 loans and all of them were performing (non-late), giving me an average portfolio interest rate of 17.8%. Around the time I hit 78 performing loans, I was also “volun-told” that I was being ripped from my desk job in Tennessee (just bought a house there) and deploying to Afghanistan. I coped with some of my disappointment surrounding the deployment by throwing a lot of money at something that made me happy in the past, prosper lending, where I previously enjoyed great success. I got cocky, took on a number of high interest rate loans and shifted my average loan portfolio interest rate to somewhere between 21.5 and 22%. For awhile, money was coming in and I was very happy with most of the high interest rate loans. Soon afterwards I was hit with an onslaught of non-performing loans. Realizing this, I was overcome with disgust and started to withdraw funds from my prosper account.

I returned from a very rewarding tour in the middle-east in October of 2007. Now, I would even consider volunteering to go back.

I started lending again on Prosper.com in February 2008. So far, my lending has been restricted to reinvesting returned principal and interest payments. Since Feb 2008, I’ve originated 20 performing loans with zero late ones. The following are general characteristics of my recent 20 loans:

-Inquiries over the last 6 months: 1.6
-Average debt-to-income: 23.2%
-Average interest rate: 15.3%
-Average credit rating: Between A and B, more closely to B. Zero E, HR and NC loans

I’m focusing on a narrow range of borrowers. Here’s my search criteria

Credit grades and minimum rates: AA (10%), A (10.5%), B (11%), C (11.5%), D (12%)

Debt/income ratio: 0% to 50%

Loan amount: $0 to $25k

% Funded: 33% to 100%

Inquiries in last 6m: 0 to 5

Occupation: Civil Service, Doctor, Military Enlisted, Military Officer, Nurse (LPN), Nurse (RN), Nurse’s Aide, Pharmacist, Police Officer/Correction Officer, Postal Service, Principal, Professor, Teacher

I’m now focusing on the above occupations because I feel these jobs are more protected in harsh economic times. Does anybody else focus on other occupations and why? Of my last 20 loans, I’ve deviated from the above search criteria about 25% of the time.

Sometimes, I also give preference in cases where a borrower’s friends are also bidding on the listing.

Finally, here are few new tips in addition to those I listed in November 2006:

-The value of any new lending strategy can only be determined once you have originated a significant number of loans (at least 30) under that strategy and the loans have had time to mature (>12 months). DON’T assume early success as a reason to assume more risk. In my opinion, borrowers may not have yet had an opportunity to fully utilize the money you lend them in the first few months after the loan is made.

-Most lenders can easily understand the importance of screening for current/past delinquencies and debt-to-income, but also consider a borrower’s bankcard utilization percentage. Think of it this way, do you want to lend money to people that may only be borrowing to increase their spending / consumption? Whether they say it or not, some people with high bank card utilization rates have problems with spending and may be originating a loan to pay off credit cards, only to continue building high credit card balances. Also, people that have high percentages are waiting until the last minute. Do you want to loan to somebody that isn’t proactive? Looking at bankcard utilization rates are not useful though when you’re considering new college graduates, divorcees who assumed the ex-spouses’ debt or people with small lines of credit.

-Spreading your risk across multiple listings is the key to any diversification strategy. But you “shoot yourself in the foot” when you invest all of your money over a short period of time. Think of it this way, are you taking advantage of your instincts / gut feeling when you lend money every day on Prosper? I highly recommend you take your investment capital and spread it out over longer periods of time. This way, you can exercise due diligence in using search criteria, asking borrowers questions, generating “watch lists” of preferred listings and finally loaning to an individual that you feel confident in. At the peak of my lending stupidity, I was originating new loans on the rate of one every day or two. Now, I’m doing one new loan about every 6 days.

-This is common sense, but you must believe in the borrowers’ story and they convinced you in their ability to repay. If this doesn’t happen, there is little value in the credit rating associated with the listing.

-If you're into statistics, consider looking at LendingStats.com for studying average and individual lending statistics. This site is a little better than Eric’s Credit Community.

Finally, if you chose to read this far, you skipped the first paragraph option of clicking straight to my November strategy posting. If you've came this far, I recommend you read my November strategy posting.

Do Not Call and Do Not Mail Listings: Just Signed Up With Both Services, You Can Too

I just registered our home phone with the do-not-call registry and am finalizing my PERMANENT OPT OUT registration in the Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion pre-approved credit card marketing agreement.

Both are pretty easy. Here's a breakdown of what you have to do:

(1.) Do not call:
- Got to the National Do Not Call Registry
- click on the register now button
- submit your phone number and email address
- go to your email and click on the provided link to confirm your registration.
Doing this took a total of 1-2 minutes.

(2.) To Opt Out of Pre-Approved Credit Card Offers:
- Go to www.dmachoice.org
- Click on "suite of preference services," you may also see other opt out services at the suite of preference services. So far, i've only elected to opt out of the credit card offers. You may also elect to opt out of "DMA Member Prospect Lists" too! This latter option may prevent you from receiving mail you want / don't want, such as new catalogs, coupons, announcements about new businesses in your community, and notices of special offers.
- Click on link to www.optoutprescreen.com
- Once you click on this, you'll be prompted for your name, address, SSN, birthday and phone number. I would normally be a bit leery about this. However, this website has a number of referrals to it adding to it's appearance of legitimacy.
- You'll be given a choice of opting out of pre-approved credit card offers for 5 years or permanently. Select the option you want and print out the form.
- Sign and date the form and mail it in.
This takes a few minutes but should prove well worth the time.

LOST MONEY IN YOUR ACCOUNT AFTER CONVERTING TO A ROTH? YOU CAN UNDO YOUR ROTH TO AVOID PAYING TAXES. HERE'S HOW.

You can undo a ROTH conversion. This is powerful information if you are stuck paying taxes on capital gains from a regular account that has dived in value after your conversion to a ROTH. The trick is, you have to act quickly (same tax year). Read this.

Just Got $35 In Olive Garden / Red Lobster Gift Cards. You Can Also Get Gift Cards To Many Popular Businesses Through This

I just redeemed my reward points at Mypoints.com for $35 in gift cards to Darden Restaurants. Darden Restaurants includes Olive Garden & Red Lobster.

You accumulate reward points with Mypoints.com simply by doing one of several things:
(1.) Open advertisements received at your email account from Mypoints.
(2.) Take surveys from Mypoints
(3.) Shop online via Mypoints
(4.) Use a Mypoints credit card

I've been a member for several years and have accumulated $178 worth of gift cards from Mypoints by almost exclusively doing #1 above (receive email advertisements). Receiving and opening the Mypoints advertisements are easy. You don't even have to read the advertisements that you open to get credit.

On occasion I have shopped via Mypoints and have earned about 2 or 3 points for every dollar spent on one of many popular national chains advertising via Mypoints.com.

I'd love to refer any of my readers to Mypoints. People that I refer automatically get 250 points added to their account (I also get 250 points for doing a referral). To put 250 points into perspective, I cashed in the following point totals today:

- 1400 points for a $10 Red Lobster / Olive Garden gift card
- 3400 points for a $25 Red Lobster / Olive Garden gift card

Once a member, you typically qualify for about 25 points a day in email advertisements, 60-120 points a week in possible surveys and unlimited points in shopping with the Mypoints credit card or online through companies that adverstise with Mypoints.

There are tons of other options for gift cards (i.e. Wal-Mart, Shell Gas, Old Navy, Circuit City, etc.).

Finding the Cheapest Gas: Just Became A Member With Gasbuddy.com

This is an excellent site for people who want to know the cheapest price of gas in their area or along whatever route they are planning to drive.

I have been using Gasbuddy.com for about a year now and enjoy its mapping feature. On my recent trip from Louisiana to Washington, I routinely saved 10-20 cents per gallon by finding several gas stations along my route that offered significantly lower gas prices.

I became a member tonight (now able to report on gas prices) because I feel it's important to identify and promote local gas stations that offer the best price on gas. I feel that if more people frequent the cheaper gas stations, then the higher priced stations would be more pressured to lower their prices to get business traffic.

The added perk of being a Gasbuddy.com member is that you become eligible for contest entries on their site. As an example, Gasbuddy.com has a gas card contest running through 1 September where people can win one of four $250 gas cards.

Check Engine Light: $80 I Could Have Saved If I Knew Before Going To Dealership

I recently brought my 98 Acura to the dealership to troubleshoot my check engine light. They charged me $80 up front just to hook up there computer, download the error code and translate it for me.

It turned out that my problem was a "low flow" indication for my catalytic converter. The dealership then quoted a price of $1000 to fix the problem and then told me:

(1.) It's far cheaper to go to a muffler shop. I compared 3 shops and found one that quoted me $479 to replace all piping, catalytic converter and muffler.
(2.) You could have originally gone to Autozone and had them tell you the trouble code on the car, saving you the $80. You would then have to go home and look up the trouble code on your computer.

I looked under the car and found that I had rust holes in the piping before my catalytic converter. I think that this is the main reason for the problem. From what I understand I could probably do a $5 temp fix to patch the leak in the exhaust pipe before the converter... I can also disconnect my car battery and reset the check engine light.

Since my car is getting old (only has a trade in value of $2k), it isn't worth spending $479 to repair the problem. I'm going to default to the temp fix and will go to Autozone if the check engine light comes on again. If I can't fix the problem, I can just go to Autozone periodically to get an engine reading to see if any new error/trouble codes have cropped up.

Buyers of 2009 VW Jetta TDI Get $1300 Tax Credit

The IRS just announced that the 2009 TDI meets its requirements for the Advanced Lean Burn Technology Motor Vehicle Credit. Buyers of a new 2009 VW Jetta TDI qualify for a $1300 tax credit.

Turns out that diesel drivers can now enjoy tax credits similar to what hybrid drivers have been getting for the past few years.

Related Car and Driver Article.

VW Special Offers / Financing

105 Hypermiling Tips

Ecomodder is an excellent site for the driver who wants to be thrifty with gas. This evening I came across a posting of 105 hypermiling tips posted on its site.

How Can You Spend Less Money on Fuel?

This is by far the most intelligent webposting on fuel economy that i've come across. It adds a little of the science behind fuel economy. If it does not address your interests in the subject, take the time to read the cited articles at the very end.

Also, try going to youtube.com and searching for hypermile, hypermiler or hypermiling.

There are obviously more ways to save money and they include not driving, using gasbuddy.com and using gasoline credit cards.

Enjoy.

41% Improvement in my Acura's MPGs

With today's gas prices, I've been thinking a bit more about practicing gas saving techniques. I have already been conservative in my driving over the past 2 years and routinely exceed EPA ratings.

Before gas prices exceeded $3/gallon, I was already:
1.) Coasting to red lights
2.) Gently accelerating about 1/2 the time. Rest of time accelerating as schedule required.
3.) Using cruise control religiously
4.) Minimizing use of brakes

Now that gas has gone "thru the roof," I've been keeping an eye out for some additional techniques.

About 2 weeks ago, I had the opportunity to drive from central Louisiana to Washington state. I'm moving my household to the Northwest and had my car loaded down with approximately 800 lbs of household goods and self.

My car is a 1998 Acura 2.3 CL, automatic. The 2.3 stands for 2.3 liter (4 cylinder). The EPA rates it at 19 city / 27 hwy. I regularly get 30-31 mpg hwy using techniques 1-4 above. However, on this trip I took one leg of my trip to test the following techniques:

5.) Observing speed limit. Basically, not exceeding it.
6.) Drafting. To minimize the danger of drafting, I kept about 1 car length distance for every 10 miles of speed. My favorite vehicles to draft were the RVs with the one-piece rock guards that went behind both sets of back tires. RVs were also more apt to maintain steady speeds on hills, as compared to 18 wheelers.
7.) Coasting in neutral down hills. This dropped my rpm from 2500-3000 rpm to about 900 rpm. Warning: This is illegal in some states and could get you hurt. The famous "click and clack" brothers who talk about cars advise against doing so.
8.) Ceased using cruise control when going up some steep hills. In doing this, I would remember my cars RPM while cruising before the hill. Once I reached the hill, I would listen for when my car was trying to apply more fuel and increase rpm. I would then immediately cease cruise control and maintain RPM vice speed. I would maintain RPM until I crested the hill. After cresting the hill, I would decide as to whether or not the downward slope was long enough to coast down or whether or not I would accelerate and reset cruise control.

Over the course of this experiment I averaged 68 mph and 37.98 mpg.

This represents an 11 mpg increase (40.7%) over my rated 27 mpg and with 800lbs of household goods in my car!

... It's about 2 weeks later now and I'm currently on travel and using a rental car. I've have / will experiment with two additional techniques with the rental car (4 cylinder Hyundai Sonata):

9.) Cutting off engine at stop lights. This mimics what hybrids already do.

This is my first time trying #9 and it's also being done in an unfamiliar area where I'm not fully aware of cycle times for red lights. It's probably best to test this on my route to work where I'm most familiar with which lights are long.

10.) Inflating tires to maximum tire pressure. I'm trying this tomorrow in a drive between Norfolk, VA and Washington D.C. I typically keep my tires at 32 psi but will try inflating them a little more after reading the manufacture's max tire pressure. Many "hypermiler" websites recommend increasing to max tire pressure. I'll raise the tire pressure somewhere between 32psi and the max pressure while leaving the pressure a tad below max pressure. Aside: my friend tried this technique with his Jetta TDI and lost one tire from tread separation (thus my reason for not going to max pressure but something close).

BMW: 59 MPG / 0 to 60 in 8.8 sec

BMW brought its 118d not for sale in U.S. diesel to New York City to accept the 2008 World Green Car Award.

It's a bit disappointing that BMW isn't selling this car in the U.S.. It's also more disappointing that the legislature is not more aggressive with our Nations' energy policy to promote cars like this. Sort of makes me think that Congress would much rather prefer low-economy cars so that they generate more income from fuel taxes.

Here's the link.

ZERO / LOW COST METHOD FOR LONG TERM INVESTING IN 5 STAR RATED COMPANIES

Read this if you are interested in establishing no/low cost long term investments via DRIPS.

I own 23 DRIPS and strongly believe in using them as a component of a diversified portfolio. I like DRIPS because of their low cost method of investing. I also find them useful in that they force you to buy and hold (not as liquid as stocks in regular brokerage account).

There are several useful sites for DRIP investors. They are:
(1.) Moneypaper INC's DIRECTinvesting.com
(2.) Computershare
(3.) Bank of New York-Mellon
(4.) Mellon Bank (in process of merging w/ "3" above)
(5.) Wells Fargo

The Moneypaper is a great starting point to find out what holding company carries the DRIP you are interested in. Then, you can either go to their website and buy, or purchase through the Moneypaper if the holding company does not allow direct initial purchase.

The title alludes to 5 star rated companies. I did a search on my Morningstar account for 5 star rated (highest Morningstar rating) DRIPS then compared it against the Moneypaper's no/low cost list. Morningstar's ratings are dynamic and change periodically when staff updates a stock's analysis. When I say no/low cost, I mean zero or negligible fees for dividend reinvestment, auto-purchase or cash purchase. Here's the result:

Finance
Bank of America
Capital One
Cathay General Bancorp
Comerica Inc
Regions Financial
Morgan Stanley
Synovus Financial
Wachovia
Wilmington Trust

REIT
Brandywine Realty Trust
CapitalSource Inc
Corporate Office Properties

DRUGS
Johnson & Johnson
Mylan Laboratories
Schering-Plough
Valeant Pharmaceuticals

Natural Resources
Alumina
Marathon Oil
Southern Union

Discretionary
Anheuser-Busch
Brown-Forman
General Mills
Kellogg Company
Limited Brands
Wal-Mart

Other
3M
Boeing
Consolidated Edison
Graco
ITT Corp
Masco
McGraw-Hill
Paychex

Of the companies listed, I own McGraw Hill, 3M, Graco, Wal-Mart, Limited Brands, Anheuser-Busch, Johnson & Johnson & Bank of America via DRIPS. I've been eyeing Boeing. I own Alcoa, Baker Hughes and Exxon DRIPS for exposure to Natural resources, but would also consider Apache. I own the Southern Company DRIP for exposure to utilities. In lieu of some of the industrials above, I own the Manitowac, Pentair and Cummins DRIPS. I've been avoiding the food stocks and have instead gone long Agriculture via ADM and JJG (ADM and JJG not via DRIPS).

Aside: My employer provides us with a free subscription to Morningstar. If you don't already have access, you can frequently find Value-line and Morningstar at your local library.

U.S. Stock Market Crash Prevention Mechanisms

Watching the European and Asian stock markets plunge this Monday and Tuesday (their time) prompted me to research what mechanisms are in place to prevent a market crash here in the U.S.

According to about.com the following mechanisms are in place:

- The market will halt trading for an hour if the Dow drops 10% before 2 pm.
- Trading will halt for two hours if there is a 20% drop in the Dow before 2 pm.
- If the Dow drops 30%, trading is halted for the day.

DOW futures are pointing to a 5%+ drop tomorrow morning. This is coming at the heels of market drops around 7-10% overseas.

I'm Back to Personal Finance Blogging

In the coming days I will start posting new content. During my time away from blogging I finished 13 months of training and deployed time in Afghanistan. In hindsight the tour was very rewarding.

In the coming weeks I will get back to posting on topics related to:
1.) Our recent purchase of a used car via ebay
2.) Our prosper.com loan portfolio
3.) Our new dividend reinvestment plans
4.) What we're doing with our other investments.

If I were you, I'd keep my eyes tuned to tomorrow's stock market. It's likely to gap lower significantly. We've been in bonds, for the most part, since mid December and have also enjoyed some gains shorting the market. I'm seriously considering dipping my toes into the market this week if Monday's Asian & European market bloodbaths (i.e. German DAX down 6% on Monday alone) continue with the U.S. on Tuesday.