Double, thanks for the suggestion. I’ve actually been through all of the free chart schools and it’s a great resource. My personal favorites are MACD in conjunction in candlesticks and moving averages.

http://www.stockcharts.com.

One of my favourite technical to us is MACD histogram.
Stockcharts has a free chart school.

As I said, as long as you pay them before they begin to accumulate penalties, they can be treated as an expense. This is the same way that you treat credit cards, or any other bill that has some penalty for carrying a balance associated with it.

The strategy provided by dc is also sound. Basically just budget for a semi-annual, annual, or quarterly payment. No big deal – I don’t think the net worth would take a hit either way, but it just seems bizarre to take an item that incurs no penalty and place it as a liability.

Ultimately, my bank deals with the taxes as it is rolled into my mortgage payment. Technically we pay the town in June and September but I don’t see that transaction… come to think of it, I don’t get interest either, I should really hold that money myself like dc.

(Well, in business speak it would probably be an Accounts Payable liability, but for personal finance that seems a little too much micromanaging since you typically don’t have an Accounts Receivable on the asset side)

I actually select and buy stocks based solely on valuation and other fundamental analyses. However, take a favourite of everyone’s GE for example. Certainly one could critique this conglomerate as having some underperforming departments (like their recently sold off financial services division), but the Co.’s history of strong dividend growth and consistent and moderate gains in revenues while maintaining low debt ratios is attractive from any front.

If you look at the company from a valuation perspective, its been trading well below average PE for quite some time now, so any long-term investors might say that buying it anytime from Feb when it was trading at $32-33 would be a good deal. But, looking at some of the technical metrics, one would have been able to snap some up at $26-28.

Understanding that psychological barriers exist, and people will buy up at those prices will help me decide when its BETTER to add to my position, although I would be comfortable buying at anything below $35.

DAvid

This way, I track a monthly expense for property taxes and have the funds available (earning a bit of interest along the way). Technically, it is a wash from a net worth perspective, as your asset and liability net out and you show it as what it really is – an expense.

As long as you pay it before it goes into arrears, it’s just an expense.

It would likely make a small difference, but over the long term it really doesn’t matter, and that really is the point of tracking your net worth: to see the change over time. If you look back on the numbers in a year or two to watch your progress, the 1 day discrepancy won’t matter in the slightest.

ETFs rule!

Mike