LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS & PASSIVE INCOME

China just released a 10 Kilo Gold Coin to commemorate the 2008 Olympics that are currently being held in Beijing. 10 kilos of .9999 Fine gold is a staggering 321 ounces, more than 22 pounds and its more than a half foot in diameter! Not only is it the largest gold coin, it’s the rarest as well: Only 29 have been struck for the entire world and all have been sold.

This spectacular museum piece is housed in an exotic African Blackwood presentation case, which is crowned with a 35 pound carved stone dragon. The coin is legal tender with a face value of 100,000 Yuan and is Proof struck, which means it has an ultra-high relief, frosted design set against a flawless mirror background.

About 5 weeks ago I suggested that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going bankrupt and their shares were going to hit single digits in 12 months. Well it looks like the market believed that too and their shares were punished. Instead of having to wait a year, the stocks dropped like bricks within the month!

According to Nouriel Roubini, renowned Professor of Economics & International Business at NYU’s Stern Business school, this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst U.S. Recession in the last few decades.

The FDIC that has already depleted 10% of its funds in the rescue of IndyMac alone will run out of funds and will have to be recapitalized by Congress as its insurance premia were woefully insufficient to cover the hole from the biggest banking crisis since the Great Depression

A few of my readers have emailed me asking when I’m going to post the Passive Income numbers for June. Apologies for the delay; I’m going to be starting my full-time MBA at UCLA pretty soon and I’ve had to look for apartments in Los Angeles so I’ve been pretty busy since the beginning of this month.

As reported earlier, April was a been a record breaking month for me with total “passive” income amounting to $2,811.42. I haven’t posted May’s break-down but it was a lot lower at $2,330.00.

However, June’s income has broken all previous records and was a whopping $3,354.51! I’ve finally attained my goal of $3,000/month in passive (or semi-passive) income. Let’s hope I can maintain it!

This is a strong 19.6% jump against my previous monthly high in April. Since I’ve been neglecting my sites this month, I expect July income to again drop significantly. But the number of sites that I’ve created is increasing every month, so hopefully it’ll all balance out eventually.

I saw a news clip on Fox saying that Al Gore has made $100 million from his scare campaign on Global Warming. But he’s just really a poser - his research center says that his Alabama mansion uses 20 times more energy than the national average!

While I think his global warming campaign is a scam, his movie is a work of fiction, and that carbon credits will not have any effect on reducing pollution, I must tip my hat to Al Gore, the businessman.

Since his election defeat, apart from winning a Nobel Peace prize and an Academy Award, he’s landed numerous $175,000 speaking gigs and his stock in Google and Apple that he received as a board advisor is reportedly worth nearly $35 million. Plus he’s started a carbon credit trading company and his networth is supposedly north of $100 million!

The lender has filed a Notice of Default on my condo. I knew this was coming. Ever since I sold the condo in summer 2005 at the peak to an investor who rented it back to me, I suspected I’d be able to buy it back for less than what I paid for it. I found out when the mortgage company sent a letter that said “You Will Lose This House If You Do Not Take Part In the Mortgage Reinstatment Program” which was delivered to me instead of the new owner.

The investor paid $352,000 for the 920 sq ft condo or $382/sqft, (and I paid 3.25% buyers agent commission to her niece - I sold it FSBO or For-Sale-By-Owner, so there was no sellers agent commission). The first lender filed an NOD for $283,000. The seller has been pocking my rent and not paying the mortgage since March 2008. Not applying the rents to the mortgages is called rent skimming, and is only illegal in California during the first year of acquiring a property. Unless the sellers cures the default, the house will be foreclosed upon and the second mortgage of about $35,000 will be wiped out.

A couple of years ago, I went to a real estate seminar and met a successful businessman. He was in his sixties and I was amazed to learn that he had more than a dozen small businesses going and was also trying to start his own bank.

Since I wanted to find out how did he manage to run so many different ventures, I offered to buy him lunch. (Incidentally, that’s a great way to cheaply pick the brains of someone who normally wouldn’t give you the time of day!)

Most of the various businesses he ran were some how interconnected and did a lot of business amongst themselves. Since they were in somewhat related fields, the management was a lot easier. For example, one of his businesses was writing newsletters for Trade Unions and another one was printing & mailing services.

Online retailers have been fairing better than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. One school of thought is that affluent buyers make up a bigger portion of online buyers and they fare better during recessions, which means online retailers are likely to do better.

Another line of reasoning suggests that there is a perception among buyers that there are better deals online than in stores. So its the bargain hunting, not the higher incomes that is driving people to shop online. I think there’s some truth to this.

Last week, I needed to replace the battery on my motorola KRZR cellphone. The battery was no longer holding charge and had developed a slight bulge in the middle as well. I went to the Verizon store and they told me I was out of luck, and would have to buy a new battery for $40 plus tax.

A couple of days ago, legendary investor, commodity bull and one-time partner of George Soros, Jim Rogers, was interviewed by Betty Liu of Bloomberg’s Singapore office. It seems that Jim Rogers is also of the opinion that Fannie Mae is going to lose a lot of money along with other investment banks.

He’s still bullish on commodities like oil and food grain and he’s bearish on the US Dollar. Surprizingly, he’s also bullish on Arline stocks.

Here’s an excerpt of the relevant portions of the interview:

Financial Sector

According to this short video from the Wall Street Journal, the mortgage crisis is no longer limited to sub-prime loans. Its spreading to other loans and even construction loans.

I wonder if the analyst believes that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to fail?

Popularity: 3% [?]

After leading the company’s stock price down 60% in a year, Freddie Mac’s CEO, Richard Syron, is doing the rounds trying to prop up the stock with feel-good stories. He tried to reassure investors that the worst is in the past and that the future will be brighter than ever.

According to Forbes,

Syron reiterated previous expectations, saying the company expects revenue growth of 15 percent to 20 percent this year, but expects to see losses from bad mortgages rise to as much as $6 billion this year.

“Weakening housing prices and housing activity have led to a punishing deterioration of credit which has hurt our results, along with those of other market participants,” Syron said.

However, the company is well-suited to ride out the housing bust because the home loans that Freddie Mac holds or guarantees are far less risky than those held by other lenders, he said.

This post is a follow-up from a previous post about Going Long The Dollar. There were some valid arguments for being bullish on the dollar, however, based on yesterday’s economic news, they no longer sound very convincing.

The jobless claims came out and the national unemployment rate is now at 5.5% (and this is after the bogus birth-death model numbers that are used to under-represent the actual unemployment figures).

Oil prices shot up 8.4% to $139/barrrel, marking the highest ever one day gain for oil prices. This occurred after the U.S. dollar nosedived on speculation that the European Central Bank would raise its key lending rate and on worries that a bigger-than-expected spike in unemployment meant the U.S. economy was far weaker than feared.

I actually had taken a small position in RYBSX, but I closed it for a small loss after hearing Friday’s news.

Regular readers know I’ve been pretty pessimistic on the outlook of the US economy and bearish on the US dollar as well. However, since it seems like everyone is echoing the same sentiment, could it be that we’re due for a short (or medium) term spike in the US Dollar?

According to Lou Basenese, editor of the The Alpha Intelligence Alert, think it’s time to go long the USD.
Here are some of the reasons he cites:

1. Bernanke & Paulson Rediscover “Verbal Intervention.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke finally got off their duffs to defend the dollar. Paulson got things started in Qatar on Sunday. Speaking to the leaders of the Gulf oil states, he urged the countries to think twice about abandoning their dollar peg, as “ending the peg is not the solution to the inflation problem.” And Bernanke stepped up today. Speaking, via satellite, to an international monetary conference in Spain he insisted Fed policy will be a key factor, “ensuring that the dollar remains a strong, stable currency.” After such a long silence, this week’s tag team approach is nothing but a positive development.

I was so busy in May that I completely forgot to post April’s passive income summary. On the bright side, April was a been a record breaking month for me with total “passive” income amounting to $2,811.42. On the flip side, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t been paying attention to my sites and May’s income will probably be lower.

If you recall, the income for March 2008 was $2, 667.18, so this is $144 jump is a 5.4% increase. However, one of my stocks is a Japanese REIT, and it paid out a quarterly dividend amounting to about $230, so the $140 increase isn’t a real increase - it’s going to disappear for May. Besides, the jump from February to March’s passive income was 11.9%, so this isn’t as good. (In case your wondering why I’ve invested in a Japanese REIT, here’s a good posts on why Japan’s real estate is a good investment.)

Previously I had mentioned several ways to invest for a recession or a major downturn in the US economy. In that post, I stated that one of the ways to hedge against the declining dollar (apart from my favorite method of buying gold) was investing in foreign currencies.

Several people emailed me asking how to buy foreign currencies.

A few were concerned that they would have to travel overseas and open a foreign bank account. Luckily, it isn’t so difficult. You have 3 choices.

1. Buy Currencyshares ETFs. You can choose between several currencies like Australian Dollar (Ticker: FXA), Swiss Franc (Ticker: FXF), Japanese Yen (Ticker: FXY), Euro (Ticker: FXE), etc. If you have a brokerage account, its as easy as buying stock. This is probably the easiest method. They also pay monthly dividends and are quite similar to buying a foreign currency CD.

The debate over renting versus owning isn’t dead. According to the WSJ, you can buy a 2 bedroom condo in Miami with a  wrap-around  balcony and stunning, jaw-dropping views for $400,000 (and this is after the market has already correctedly significantly). Apparently they come fully loaded too!

“You’ll have at least one private pool in the building, along with saunas and fitness centers and all sorts of other conveniences. Of course, you have a 24-hour concierge and valet parking. Many have private cinemas, bars, restaurants, spas and the like. They’re like cruise liners on dry land.”

But these facilities cost money. About $1,100 every month or $13,200 a year!

Assuming you put down 20%, and finance the remaining 80% at 6% interest rate, that’s going to cost you $19,000 per year. Then you still have 2.25% property tax which is another $9,000. Add everything up and your annual costs are $41,200.

As I mentioned 5 weeks ago when oil breached $115/barrel, demand for the black gold will cause the price to keep on rising. On Wednesday, I drove to USC where I had an interview at the Marshall School of Business for the full-time MBA program. While driving there, I heard that Oil had exceeded $133 per barrel. I had a great interview (where I spoke about my background, my interests, the state of the economy, what a moron George W. Bush is, and the current elections) and then proceeded to a friends’ place to spend the night.

I later heard that oil prices hit $135/barrel. That news was broadcast incessantly on all the news channels and I kind of felt that it was being overdone. Whenever everyones saying that the price of something is breaking all records, it usually pulls back. I think thats why the US Dollar had shown some strength this year. I woke up on Thursday and bought