FINANCIAL HOUSEKEEPING | Make (or update) a household inventory
If you do not have a list of your possessions, you’re at risk that an insurer will not compensate you adequately for losses in the event of a disaster.
Your inventory should contain as much detail as possible about purchase dates and prices, current value of an item and more, but that doesn’t make it a horrible chore.
Rather than a written record, take a video camera and film from one end of your home to the other, making a travelogue of your possessions. You can spice up the commentary with instructions for your relatives, like which niece gets the heirloom painting.
If you prefer to take a written inventory – and they are easy to update, copy for your insurance agent and fit in a safe-deposit box, visit www.knowyourstuff.org, a website created by the Insurance Information Institute. It features a free software program that will make it easy for you to complete the process.
SHORT COURSE | Tape racing
An illegal practice in which a broker, money manager or other financial intermediary takes advantage of a large customer order by transacting business in their own personal account before making the trade for the customer. If the customer’s order is so big that it could move the price of the stock, racing the tape would allow the dishonest broker to grab an extra profit.
Also called “front-running,” tape racers typically buy options on the securities just before the client’s big trade.
In commodities, traders often deal in their own account and their customer’s account at the same time, a practice called dual trading. Critics have long maintained that dual trading creates opportunities for a dishonest trader to profit from tape racing or front-running.
