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- How I feel entering finance for the first time in my profession life right now amid coronavirus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkgP0od6iSE.
- Lost an hour last night, daylight savings started and clocks moved forward. This means my internal clock is now 4 hours off, since I’m still on PST.
- Signed up and customized a lot of marketwatch stuff.
- Leaning more toward fixed since interest rates are so low right now. Holding an ARM in 5 years when we’re back on the rise might get sticky. Leaning 30 not 15 because the rate difference is half a percent. I can do a lot better with that extra money in personal investment.
- Some average numbers:
- 250k salary would take home ~12k after taxes. Dividing by 2 is usually accurate.
- 1m home with a 30yr fixed under 3.5% and 100k down is ~5.5k monthly payment (4k for mortgage, 1.5k for property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, etc).
- Found my old rent/buy calculator.
- The interest rate actually doesn’t change the monthly payment a ton, usually a couple hundred bucks. Over time though, this obviously adds up.
- Finished the application for Roger BoA. Reached out to Brian FSB since I hadn’t heard after the other day.
- Sent the Delta companion cert expiring this month to Corey.
- Citadel sign-on should arrive at the end of the first pay period 2/27 and SpaceX should arrive on 2/24, both in time for home purchase closing.
- Standard tax deduction 6500/yr.
- Final primary exploration day.
- 5 hours, 10 miles walking.
- Did the whole south of manhattan, the villages.
- Subway. Red train from theatre district to greenwich. 1 is local, 2/3 are express.
- Neighborhoods: West village, greenwich, east village, little italy, chinatown, lower east side, NYU, financial district, tribeca, soho.
- Streets: canal, hudson, houston, bleecker.
- Bridges: williamsburg, manhattan, brooklyn.
- Parks: washington state park, union square park, tompkins square park.
- Food: katz, john’s of bleecker st, donut plant for a coffee cake donut.
- Lots of blacked out brunchers!
- As the midtown slice and the central park slice, I liked the west better than the east.
- Comedy cellar.
- Apartment from friends. Apartment from sex and the city, carrie bradshaw’s.
- World trade center memorial, and the new world trade center.
- Lots of fire and brimstone jesus folks with megaphones on broadway today.
- More homeless people in the east village and lower east side.
- It’s warmer down south. The wind among the high rises is brutal.
- Much younger crowd down there.
- NYC center for aerospace and applied math.
- East side has more boxy buildings and large identical resident complexes.
- Supreme court building. Gorgeous architecture.
- Saw >10 separate people in separate places just walking around smoking cigars today. Weird.
- Talked to some bikers. They rode into the city from Jersey. They said that riding season begins about now and goes to nov. The months off are Dec Jan Feb. They also confirmed that lane splitting is illegal, and cops will actually ticket it.
- The multiple swipes from my airport train took all $20. The guy didn’t refund. Lesson learned.
- Set up google pay to enable the tap-to-pay on the subway using your phone. Added 2 cards. Tried both. Neither worked.
- Subway to work from west village would be 20min nonstop ride on the E train. Around 3 miles.
- Checked out the sky club at my building. 65th floor. Only open thursdays, 11am-7pm. Pool, terrace, etc.
- Sent my refined preferences to my realtor. Collecting some more listings and we’ll do a marathon of tours on Tuesday.
- Season finale of The Outsider. Was good, not great.
- That’s one full week here!
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- The guy who did the music for Trey Parker and Matt Stone on Book of Mormon is Robert Lopez, the same guy who wrote all the songs for Frozen!
- The protestors outside the west side story theatre last night were #metoo – one of the leads (Amar Ramasar) allegedly sent naked pictures of his girlfriend to another girl.
- Exploration day 2.
- Basically 23rd to 54th, all the way across. Zig zagged most neighborhoods.
- ~8 miles, ~3 hours.
- Buildings: empire state, flatiron, metlife, chrysler.
- Parks: madison square, bryant.
- Grand central station.
- Rockefeller center.
- Radio city music hall.
- Madison square garden.
- Times square.
- Offices: bleacher report, barstool sports.
- Saks on 5th.
- Areas: koreatown, hell’s kitchen, midtown, chelsea, diamond district.
- I like the west side of manhattan more than the east for this middle slice as well, just like the upper. Chelsea and Hell’s kitchen were similar to SF.
- Had hipster coffee and a french toast muffin in hell’s kitchen. Also had my first indian food here. Cool area.
- Talked to Richard and Derek for a bit. They’re in Mexico right now but will visit soon.
- Finished the first season of Sex Education. This show surprised me a lot, it’s better than I expected by a decent amount.
- My credit score has dropped by ~20 points due to the hard inquiries from the lenders.
- UFC 248!
- Baneil Dariush fight, wow. So close to choking, a little cheating on Klose’s side allegedly, then trading hands for a crazy finish.
- Joanna vs Weili was incredible. 5 rounds to a split decision. Biggest forehead mouse I’ve ever seen.
- Israel Adesanya is annoying. The dogma, the dancing, the arrogance, the excuses, the acting like his resume is longer than 2 years. Trash decision as usual, should have been 48-47 romero. His gameplan worked. Slow the pace, land bombs as counters. Israel’s gameplan didn’t work. He didn’t come here to land a few legs kicks and win a decision by a hair.
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- FOMC = federal open market committee. They meet regularly to adjust rates, among other things. There is a forecast for probabilities: https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html.
- Federal reserve dropped the rate again to 100-125 earlier this week, 50 basis points (remember, 100 basis points = 1%). Now, there’s a high likelihood it will drop again in 2 weeks. There was already a swarm of mortgage refinancers I’m fighting against for time with my lender for the home purchase. There’s going to be even more now? Will it make my rates a little lower? Maybe a little. Banks are already at capacity, so they don’t need to attract more borrowers. At the end of the day, it may be busy, but this is a great time for me to buy.
- Federal funds rate – interest when banks lend their reserves to others. All time low was 0.25% in the 08 recession.
- 10yr treasury bonds were at 0.92. yesterday, 3yr at 0.61%.
- Again, dropping rates is usually done in attempts to give the economy a little surge in times of need, so the market usually rises. Our current state of affairs isn’t behaving accordingly because there are many other factors, coronavirus being the main. Contagions don’t really care how much you’re spending.
- Lil Dicky’s show aired with the first two episodes.
- Had to unfollow 4 people today on ig because of baby pics!
- VIX = an actual ticker, but tracks the current market volatility. You don’t want it high.
- A few daily routines I find very valuable:
- Subscribe to content you find interesting. Hacker Newsletter, Medium Digest, Python Weekly, YouTube channels. Consume this information when you wake up.
- Keep To-Do lists. Make one every night for the next day. Review and adjust it in the morning. Make one for the next day. Punt tasks as necessary.
- Blog. Record what you did. Even if it’s just keeping copies of the old completed To-Do lists. I obviously combine these two together.
- Exercise. Meditate. Do something that moves your mind and your body outside of its habitual straight line.
- Got the reference number, forwarded to Roger. FICO score 791.
- Filled out the financial statement for Peter. Went through more co-ops, range 600s, studios or 1BR. Picked out about 5 I liked best in the village. You can easily get 1BR and more space for the same price in the upper west side.
- BoA isn’t planning on adjusting rates due to the recent fed cuts, Fe says.
- Few more packages. Blender. Filled some custom mason jars with hand some. Kitchen and bathroom standards.
- Saw Book of Mormon on broadway!
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- You can transfer assets between brokers without liquidating them first, incurring tax etc. This service is called ACATS, Automated Customer Account Transfer Service. The old broker will usually charge you a fee, but the new broker will usually cover it.
- The vegetables are better in California than New York.
- The requests lib has a session.BaseUrlSession so you don’t have to retype the root every time. You can also mount adapters that do all sorts of things, like retry strategies.
- A very commonly used style guide: https://github.com/airbnb/javascript.
- Went through a ton of listings. Condos are gonna be 1m. Co-ops can get down in the 500s and 600s for studios, 1BRs more in the 7s and 8s. Worked with the realtor, went over more preferences and questions. Fine with a studio at this point in my life. Location still probably my biggest factor.
- FSB.
- Smaller bank, preferred lender. You’ll get better customer service, they’ll move more quickly, and it’s more personal in general. You’re a client, not a number. BoA might get better rates.
- ARM is much closer to fixed right now because rates are so low.
- Exploration day!
- Basically covered a full square, 50th-80th and 1st-12th.
- Walked ~8 miles, ~3.5 hours.
- New York Institute of Technology, Juilliard, Lincoln Center. Didn’t get as far north as Columbia.
- Central park, strawberry fields.
- Upper east side, Bloomberg’s house, 72nd.
- Upper west side, all the way to hudson river.
- Liked the west much better than the east.
- Citadel, 53rd all the way down to the east river.
- Pigeons actually do make that noise from Grand Theft Auto.
- Lots of yarmulkes.
- Halal guys and starbucks on every corner.
- Duane Reade is their rite aid.
- Fewer homeless people than California, understandably.
- Saw a few more motorcycles, which is a great sign. A few horse-drawn carriages as well.
- Received first package delivery, they just hold it in the lobby backroom.
- Finally got the preapproval from Fe. Asked for the credit reference number from CoreLogic to pass on to Roger so they don’t have to pull my credit and drop my score again. Emailed Roger the update and asked about BoA loyalty rates (for account value, years member, etc).
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- Bought a ticket for the book of mormon on friday night.
- George Hotz is the guy who jailbroke the iphone, runs the company that can turn your car into an autonomous vehicle, and has a few great youtube videos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz.
- Some cool cameos in Billions: Stipe Miocic, Deontay Wilder, Bob Menery.
- Federal reserve emergency rate cuts -> lenders drop interest rates too -> encourages spending and investing outside the government -> stocks usually rise a little. There’s some panic involved that can have the inverse effect, but usually a little rise is seen.
- Started talking to Bruey.
- I pulled out of DIS at the perfect time but I should have shorted. Don’t know why I didn’t place puts when I left.
- Increased position in most faangish companies. I’ll liquidate soon for a home before corona gets too crazy.
- Reached out about ghSMART feedback, areas for improvement observed by keen eyes.
- Used wordpress on my phone for the first time, via browser at the /wp-admin route. There’s a wordpress app, but I don’t think it’s for self-hosted instances.
- BoA.
- Met with another banker out here, since Fe has been less than responsive.
- Don’t wanna pull credit again. It reduces your score increasingly, not diminishing each time. 3 pulls in 30 days, 5 in 90 – these have marginal effects. Any more gets fairly bad.
- Finally got a hold of Fe. Told her to send me an update and the credit ref # by end of day.
- Can close in 60 days, but will be tight. Lots of people are refinancing right now because of low rates.
- ARM is great for <10yr stay.
- About 75% of the nyc market is co-ops, not condos. You basically have equity in the company that owns the building, you don’t own the deed for your property.
- Villages are more expensive. Midtown cheaper.
- All bankers aren’t the same, even at the same bank. Seniority, premium markets. Can manifest as cheaper rates, waiving points, providing 5k credit to closing costs, etc.
- I have the other lender call tomorrow as well.
- Another amazon order with soaps, coasters, household items.
- Got assigned my real estate agent. Set up a call for same day.
- Around $1500/sqft in the south parts of Manhattan.
- Pros for Co-ops: ~25% cheaper, more communal, less transient (condos airbnb usually).
- Cons for Co-ops: more communal, longer process, more scrutinizing approval.
- Employer might extend temp housing if you’re closing.
- Start looking at places next week.
- Can put in contact with lawyers if need be.
- Real estate agents get the commission, about 2.5-3% of the sale price for both the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent. The seller pays these fees.
- The buyer pays closing costs, which includes: lender’s fee, attorney, homeowner’s insurance, etc.
- Finished Billions. Season 5 starts in 2 months on May 3rd.
- Had my first pizza and my first bagel. Been most impressed with the sandwiches so far.
- No towels in the sauna downstairs. Takes about 15 minutes to get from 110 to 160F, so go in early before the end of the workout to turn it on.
- Went to see The Late Show with Stephen Colbert live.
- 3 guests: a political guy (average), a chef (cool), and a special guest Neil deGrasse Tyson! Such a goofy guy. Just like on JRE, Tyson kinda takes over so the host gets a break, but he speaks at length about things that are actually interesting. Much more direct and discerning, especially juxtaposed with the prior political conversation.
- I’ve been to a few live tapings now (afv, etc) and this one was the most smooth. Only 1 small retake, everything else is filmed exactly as you see it on the show.
- 4 hours total. 2 hours waiting outside, 30m enter and seating, 90m show. There was a hypeman comedian for a little, then Colbert came out for Q&A, then band introductions, then the main part with a few monologues and a few guests. Band plays during commercials, as you’d expect.
- Colbert was very energetic, seemed like a genuine character. Used Purell more than 10 times during the show, from my count alone.
- Denim is made from 100% cotton!
- PMI = private mortgage insurance. Extra monthly payment. This is usually avoided if you have a good lender or a good down payment. It’s more common for government-backed loans, like FHA and USDA.
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- Went through full welcome packet. Club hours 5am-11pm. Full cleaning service every other Tuesday, 9am-5pm. Packages and amazon fresh are fine. Was missing the wifi password. Reached out, got it configured.
- First motorcycle spotted in Manhattan. Riding in early March. Good sign.
- Connected both smart tvs to wifi. Created a roku account. Added xfinity. Signed in to Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Showtime, Fox Sports, and HBO. Hulu wouldn’t allow because the zip and IP weren’t in the home location. Once you have the channels on one roku tv set up, you can just copy them to the next, but you still have to sign in to all of them. Annoying. Tried downloading the roku app on my phone and connecting to use it as a remote, but it couldn’t find the devices. Overall, this was a pretty average experience.
- Doubled my position in a few pharma securities. Increased a few other ETFs.
- Super tuesday. Democratic primary.
- I have 2 companion certificates with Delta remaining. One expires March 31st in 4 weeks, the other 1 year from then.
- Dorsey getting pressure from investors because of dual-CEO with twitter/square.
- Liberia and Myanmar are the only other 2 countries that don’t use the metric system.
- All relo expenses must be paid back if you leave within the first year – a pretty common approach.
- Downloaded a weather app for the first time in my life.
- Each metro ride is $2.75, no matter how far. Swipe on entry. Unlimited pass is $33 for a week (worth if if doing 12 rides) and $127 for a month (worth it if doing 46 rides). So if you’re riding to work every day, and using it maybe once every weekend, it’s worth it. That’s $1500/yr for commuting; cheaper than a car but not cheaper than my motorcycles. Reduced fare is 1/2, eligible to all above 65 or with disability.
- Placed amazon order for a lot of the basic household essentials I didn’t travel with.
- Finished season 2 of Altered Carbon, mostly from the flight yesterday. Season 1 was much much much better.
- It’s weird having the markets be open throughout the whole business day.
- Reread the benefits and relo package.
- Commuter spending account, Commuter Check Direct (CCD). (1) Pay for metro pretax. (2) Citadel subsidizes $50/mo.
- Reached out to karen for purchase agent contact, then reached out to the mortgage broker directly.
- Reached out to a preferred lender to compare pricing to boa. The guy’s name is Brian Kolstedt – I’m not gonna ignore that. The Federal Savings Bank. Started the preapproval app online and created an appointment for Thursday.
- Resubmitted the flight expense report, and added the meals one as well.
- Checked out and used the whole gym/pool/lounge/sauna/basketball/etc area. Very nice.
- Asked the front desk about parking. The garage in my building doesn’t have any special deals shorter than a month for residents.
- I get kinda weird service in my building.
- Unpacked everything.
- Requested tickets on the waitlist for the late show with stephen colbert, since it’s right nextdoor. Did the 3 open days: tomorrow (wed the 4th), the day after (thurs the 5th), and next tues (10th). All through 1iota.
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- Admirals club at LAX for the first time, was nice. Breakfast, coffee, lounge, shower. I had a few hours after dropoff so it was worth it.
- Suitcase was 65lbs (and not even packed full) but with the first class ticket they waive the excess.
- Cleaned up, color coded, did some organization in my Google Keep notes.
- Remember the threshold to call bear, officially, is 20%.
- 24hr fitness cancellation was processed and confirmed. There was prorated refund.
- Robinhood was down for 20 hours yesterday, yikes. Large oversight. There were multiple issues, but a glaring one was a calendar.isleap() bug, since yesterday was the first trading day after feb 29th, and the system went down right after opening bell. The same error happened 4 years ago on their platform.
- Arrived in NYC! AirTrain from JFK to the Jamaica station, then E train nonstop into manhattan. Took about 2 hours from landing to door, maybe 30min less if you don’t have a checked bag to claim.
- The place is very nice. Gonna need to do some additional furnishing, but the sauna/gym/pool/basketball/lounge/packages/golf/etc amenities are great.
- I’m 20ft from the late show with stephen colbert.
