Tuesday 9 January 2007

Day 9 down, 356 to go

A no spend day, I ate healthily (is that a real word?) and did 5.5 "laps" (418 steps) of the "tower of terror" (aka. "stairway to hell" - see pic below). On the financial front the Australian stock market went back up by 80 points (around 1.5%) today, after falling by a similar amount yesterday. As each point change translates to around $90 change in my NW this would be hair-raising if I wasn't planning to hold on to my stock portfolio for the next 20+ years. As it is I just get a laugh listening to the business news "explaining" the changes - apparently yesterday there was either negative "market" sentiment, "more sellers than buyers", or the stock market was overpriced. Today either the "bargain hunters" were out in force (at 2.5% below a recent all time high?), or everyone had decided inflation was suddenly under control because the oil price had dropped a little bit. Ah well, nice to see "Mr Market" is alive and well.

A credit card offer from HSBC addressed to "The Householder" arrived in post today. Nice to see that "Householder" was "conditionally approved" for a card! I may apply for a card as they are offering 0% interest on balance transfers until 1 October 2007, and no fees for the first year. Presumably I could cancel the card after paying off the balance transfer in September and avoid paying any fees. If I get $10,000 transferred to my normal CC account I can then withdraw the money as a cash advance (for a $10 fee) and invest the money at 6% in an online savings account for 8 months, netting $400, or around $240 after taxes. Every little bit helps.

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