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[Thank you for the queries sent into the Personal Finance Clinic. We received 27 questions that I, Money Gardener and Triaging My Way will be answering (most of them anyway) over the next little while. Today's post is in response to a question received from SG of Toronto who wondered how to invest in gold [...]

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You may have been seeing a bunch of purple ads for something called Ally Bank recently. Actually, this “new” bank used to be GMAC Bank. But besides a cosmetic name change, they have revamped the website and tweaked their product offerings. Their pitch: “No minimum deposits. No monthly fees. No minimum balance. No sneaky disclaimers.” Here are the products that are most compelling:

2.80% APY 12-month CD
2.80% APY is the best rate available for a 12-month CD with no minimum deposit restrictions. Interest is compounded daily.

2.50% No-Penalty 9-month CD
No early withdrawal penalty, daily compounded interest. With an uncertain future rate outlook, this seems like a good compromise between a savings account and a CD. If rates stay low (or get lower?!) you can stay in the CD and get 2.50% APY. If rates start rising, you can keep earning 2.50% up until you withdraw without penalty.

2.25% APY Online Savings Account
A competitive rate for an online savings account, a la ING Direct and such. No minimum balance, no fees, as you’d expect. Daily compounded interest. A differentiating factor to this account is their fast and easy transfers between Ally and your other banks. If you want checkwriting ability and ATM fee rebates, you can go with the similar Money Market Account at a slightly lower 1.90% APY.

FDIC Coverage & More
I noticed that they now also offer 24/7 telephone customer service and even share the current wait time online. Neat idea, I wish more sites did this:

Ally Bank is FDIC-insured, which means accounts are insured at least to $250,000. The new $250,000 limit was recently extended to at least the end of 2013, after which it is still $100,000.

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Here’s a another little fact from The Snowball that I found interesting. When Warren Buffett set up his first investing partnerships where he agreed to manage other people’s money, he wanted a compensation agreement that was fair and equitable.

I got half the upside above a four percent threshold, and I took a quarter of the downside myself. So if I broke even, I lost money. And my obligation to pay back losses was not limited to my capital. It was unlimited.

The last part meant he could lose more money than he put actually invested into the partnership. He would cover a quarter of all losses from his partners, even if it meant selling his house or other assets. Now that is what I call a true alignment of interests.

Sure, half of the upside past 4% is a lot, but can you imagine any modern hedge fund agreeing to such a fee structure that would expose them to losses? Nope, they get “2+20″, which means 2% of assets no matter what plus 20% of profits, which really encourages them to just swing for the fences. If they implode (which many did recently), they simply pack up and open a new fund down the street.

It’s hard enough these days to find a mutual fund manager where a substantial part of their net worth is invested in the fund they manage.

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A quick reminder that the deadline for getting $25 for each of your kids from the Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 program is May 31st, 2009. I contacted them about the referral program, and they said that just the application must be submitted by Sunday, May 31st. The opening deposits don’t have to post by then, but they will have to post eventually in order to get the bonus. This agrees with the fine print below. When you fill out your application, you immediately get an account number.

A new account with a valid referral code provided in the application must be established by May 31, 2009 in order for both the referring Account Owner and new Account Owner to be eligible for the $25 bonus.

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Here are some neat links from readers and interweb wanderings. I want to expand on them later as well.

Petrofix: Hedge and cap gas prices
A website that will let you control your cost of gasoline in the near future – for a price. If gas prices rise, they pay you the difference. If they fall, you are out the hedge price. The risk? Well, first I haven’t checked out the prices. Also you pay now, but who knows if the company will be around to fulfill their promises in the future. I’d rather hedge against higher gas by buying an oil ETF or use real options with better liquidity. (Disclosure: I did buy some OIL in my fun portfolio at end of 2008.)

The Great Commodities Debate with Larry Swedroe and Rick Ferri
A long multi-part series on HardAssetsInvestor about the role of commodities within a portfolio. Should you add them to your asset allocation? Swedroe and Ferri flesh out their arguments in a moderated battle, and I still don’t know who wins. However, I am glad I didn’t buy commodities the last two years or so when they were in vogue.

Jeremy Grantham / GMO 7-Year Asset Class Forecasts
Each month, Jeremy Grantham and GMO publishes on the web its predictions of the future return for various asset styles over the next seven years. You must register for free on his site to download them. Grantham has gotten increased publicity recently due to how accurate his previous predictions have been. You can read his 2009 Q1 newsletter “The Last Hurrah and Seven Lean Years” without registration. In the end, he’s just another guy with an opinion, but at least he is forthright about it.

Breakdown: The Credit CARD Act of 2009
Cap of StopBuyingCrap has a nice concise list of the changes to credit card laws coming in February 2010, in case you didn’t feel like reading the entire thing. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I think that rumors of annual fees or eliminating grace periods for people who don’t carry balances are just scare tactics by credit card lobbyists. They’ll continue to make money from merchant transaction fees, as always.

Google PowerMeter
An online tool that monitors your home’s power usage in real time. Currently only available in very limited areas where people have the right “smart meters” already installed. Sounds even cooler than my Kill-a-Watt energy meter.

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