• You don’t need to be rich to enjoy the best things in life (Jonathan Clements at the Humble Dollar) shares his list of the finest things in life. I might add “finding a great resource that you can share with thousands of personal finance teachers.” One of my favorite questions to ask my podcast guests is “what is the best thing that you ever bought for $10?” which proves time and again that the best things in life are often the least expensive (or FREE)!

• Vanguard is growing faster than everyone else combined (NY Times):

In the last three calendar years, investors sank $823 billion into Vanguard funds, the company says. The scale of that inflow becomes clear when it is compared with the rest of the mutual fund industry — more than 4,000 firms in total. All of them combined took in just a net $97 billion during that period, Morningstar data shows. Vanguard, in other words, scooped up about 8.5 times as much money as all of its competitors.

• Big changes coming to credit scores : When John Uhlzheimer, an NGPF podcast guest, says something big is happening, we should all listen:

Using what’s known as trended data is the biggest change. The phrase means credit scores will take into account the trajectory of a borrower’s debts on a month-to-month basis. So a person who is paying down debt is now likely to be scored better than a person who is making minimum monthly payments but has been slowly accumulating credit card debt.

“This is a really big deal,” said John Ulzheimer, an expert in credit reports and credit scoring. Ulzheimer said taking trended data into account has long been considered by the credit score industry, but hasn’t been implemented on a meaningful scale. He expects more lenders to adopt it.

People with high credit scores may be affected the most, since the goal of trended data is to see warning signs long before a borrower actually gets into serious trouble.

• Target Date Fund landscape (Morningstar); Target-Date funds (TDFs for those in the know) are gobbling up market share in the 401(k) space. The reason: simplicity. Chart shows the growth in an asset that didn’t exist a decade ago and is nearing a $1 trillion.

• AMEX challenged by Chase is losing the snob war (NY Times) describes how the Chase Sapphire has achieved “cool” status and how AMEX is trying to regain their mojo for the up-and-comers:

That blue card, executives at American Express knew, was the Chase Sapphire Reserve, a wedge of plastic and metal that was already giving the Amex brass night terrors. In August, Chase released the Sapphire Reserve with an audacious sign-up bonus of 100,000 points and a smorgasbord of cardholder benefits, setting off an avalanche of applications from millennials and a flood of social media postings exalting the awesomeness of Chase.

A credit card, mystifyingly, had suddenly become cool. And what really got under Amex executives’ skin was that Chase was succeeding by, essentially, copying the American Express playbook and chasing the same up-and-coming elites who had traditionally joined Amex’s ranks.

• What sets successful CEOs apart? (Harvard Business Review). Skim the article to find out the four behaviors that set them apart. See if you agree with what makes a strong leader.

• Fingerprint sensors come to credit cards (ZDnet):

Swipe-to-pay. Chip-and-PIN. What next? Credit cards with fingerprint sensors? Turns out that is MasterCard’s latest invention: A new credit card with an integrated fingerprint sensor, which aims to fight in-store fraud. The card, currently under trial in South Africa, includes a sensor embedded in the plastic of the credit card. It allows customers to authorize a payment with a fingerprint, rather than a PIN code or a signature.

• You can build a great portfolio with just three index funds (Jonathan Clements at the Humble Dollar). Which three?

Total U.S. stock market funds. You can buy mutual funds such as Fidelity Total Market Index Premium Class (0.045%), Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund (0.03%) and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Admiral Shares (0.04%). Alternatively, you might purchase exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF (0.03%), Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (0.03%) and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (0.04%).

Total international stock funds. The mutual funds on offer include Fidelity Global ex U.S. Index Premium Class (0.11%) and Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-U.S. Index Admiral Shares (0.11%), while ETF buyers might consider iShares Core MSCI Total International Stock ETF (0.11%) and Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-U.S. ETF (0.11%).

Total U.S. bond market funds. Mutual fund buyers can invest in Fidelity U.S. Bond Index Premium Class (0.05%), Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond Index Fund (0.04%) and Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Admiral Shares (0.05%). ETF investors should check out iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (0.05%), Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (0.04%) and Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (0.05%).

• Scott Galloway on how Amazon is disrupting retail (L2 Inc.) is an engaging 24 minute presentation that provides compelling data to describe the upheaval occurring right now in retail. Here’s an amazing stat, more people have Amazon Prime account than own a landline phone!:

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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