The Amazon Inflation Rate is Running at 68% Per Year

by Fred Fuld III

You might have noticed price increases at the pump. In California, if you can find gas for less than $5 a gallon, even regular, it’s a bargain.

Or maybe when you checkout at the supermarket, you noticed that your bill is a bit higher than normal.

If you have noticed these things, then you are starting to feel the effects of inflation.

According to the United States Government Bureau of Labor Statistics, in October, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose by 6.2 percent over the last 12 months.

I personally think that that rate may be a bit too low. Why? I did my own analysis of a random sample of purchases made through Amazon (AMZN) over the last twelve months, comparing what I paid in the past to what the current price is now, and the results were shocking.

These items included such things as office supplies, food, vitamins, toothpaste, book, disposable masks, garden hose, and even a robot vacuum.

The lowest increase in price was for a 40 ounce bag of raw whole natural Blue Diamond almonds, which increased in price by only 5%.

The next lowest increase had a substantially higher price rise. Scotch Heavy Duty Shipping Packaging Tape went up by 15%.

Now for the big increases. Surprisingly, snack foods had the greatest rise in prices. Crunchmaster Multi-Seed Crackers almost tripled in price by rising 194% and Sensible Portions Garden Veggie Chips spiked by 173%.

Both BROOKSIDE Dark Chocolate Candy with Acai & Blueberry, and a 21 Ounce Bag Dulzura Borincana Sesame Seed with Honey and Almonds doubled in price. (I guess now you can see the kinds of snacks that I like.)

However, what is most interesting is the overall average of the price increases. Based on the rate of increase in cost over the last year for more than 25 different items purchased on Amazon, the average of those percentage increases is 68%!!!

Even if you exclude the high increase outliers, the ones that more than doubled, the overall average price increase of the remaining items is 38%, still extraordinarily high, and way above what the government reported.

Here is a list of the items below:

Anycolor Compatible Label Tape Replacement for Brother M Tape	39%
Blue Diamond Almonds, Raw Whole Natural, 40 Oz	5%
BROOKSIDE Dark Chocolate Candy , Acai & Blueberry, 21 Ounce Bag	148%
BUMBLE BEE Premium Light Tuna in Water, Ready to Eat Tuna Fish	21%
Columbian Clasp Envelopes, 10 x 13 Inches, Brown Kraft, 100 Per Box	44%
Crunchmaster Multi-Seed Crackers, Artisan Cheesy Garlic Bread, 4 Ounce	194%
Disposable Filter Masks, Eventronic 3 Ply Face Masks, For Home & Office (50 Pcs)	20%
Dulzura Borincana Sesame Seed with Honey and Almonds	134%
FIJI Water Artesian Water, 16.9 Fl Oz (Pack of 6)	34%
Filexec, 93630, Art Presentation Book, 24 Pocket, 11″ x 14″, 1 Each Black	25%
Hammermill Paper, Copy Plus Paper, 8.5 x 11 Paper, Letter Size, 20lb Paper, 1 Ream	53%
Hermard 50ft Expandable Garden Hose with 9 Function Nozzl	32%
KIND Bars, Dark Chocolate Mocha Almond, Gluten Free, 1.4 Ounce, 12 Count	26%
Krazy Glue Home and Office Brush-On Glue, 0.18 oz	74%
NOW Supplements, Vitamin D-3 5,000 IU, High Potency, 240 Softgels	32%
Polysporin First Aid Topical Antibiotic Ointment with Bacitracin Zinc	54%
Puritans Pride Lutein 20 mg with Zeaxanthin Softgels, 120 Count	94%
Samsung POWERbot R7040 Robot Vacuum	159%
Scotch Tape Heavy Duty Shipping Packaging Tape, 1.88 Inches x 800 Inches, 1 Pack	15%
Sensible Portions – 30357 Garden Veggie Straws, Sea Salt, 1 oz. (Pack of 8)	20%
Sensible Portions Garden Veggie Chips, Sea Salt, 7 oz.	173%
Sensodyne Pronamel Intensive Enamel Repair Toothpaste for Sensitive Teeth	62%
Seresto Flea and Tick Collar for Dogs, 8-Month Flea and Tick Collar for Large Dogs Over 18 Pounds	38%
The Family Upstairs: A Novel	114%
Triple Leaf Tea Jasmine Green Tea, Decaffeinated, 20 Count	25%
V8 Juice, Original 100% Vegetable Juice, 11.5 Ounce Can (Pack of 24)	138%
AVERAGE RATE OF INCREASE	68%
AVERAGE RATE OF INCREASE excluding doubling outliers	38%

If you are an avid Amazon shopper like me, you can do your own analysis. Just click on the Orders link, choose 2020, click on View Order Details to get the price you paid, then click on the Order Again button to see what the current price is. Once you have that, subtract the price paid from the current price, then divide that result by the price paid, and that is your percentage increase.

Of course, maybe I have a tendency to only buy things that happen to have a way of significantly rising in price. Or maybe not.

This increase in prices certainly doesn’t come close to Zimbabwe’s previous hyperinflation, whereby $100 trillion dollar bills were issued. However, it is a wake-up call.

Let me know what your Amazon inflation rate is.

Disclosure: Author owns AMZN and also has a short vertical call position in AMZN.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence: Can You Invest In It Now?

by Fred Fuld III

Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by humans.
AI applications include advanced web search engines, recommendation systems, speech recognition, self-driving cars, and much more. Now AI is involved in the areas of writing, both fiction and non-fiction, and graphics.

This Woman Does Not Exist

First, let’s start out with art. The woman that you see above was created with artificial intelligence (and a little input from me). This person does not exist in real life.

I don’t consider myself an artist, but with the help of a website called ArtBreeder.com, I was able to adjust such things as the ethnicity, eye color, hair color, happiness, age, and many other features.

I could have even added eyeglasses, different earrings, makeup, and various aspects of the picture itself, such as color hues, brightness, and sharpness.

And that is only the beginning. I could have even merged her image with another image.

The best part is that you can try it out for free.

Let me give you one more example. I took the image of Benjamin Franklin, from the $100 bill, and made him younger with some facial hair.

Notice the difference? Incredible technology. You should give it a try.

Who Wrote This?

Now I’m going to give you one more example of AI, this time in the form of writing. You can actually use AI to write non-fiction articles and even fiction.

Check out the following in italics. It is an article that I had a website called ShortlyAI.com write, that based on a starting informative sentence, will write a passage or article for you.

Read it and see if you think a software program could have written this.

It is amazing what artificial intelligence can do now. Websites created by researchers have been able to write text and create pictures that seem like a person wrote them. This is the future of AI and it is amazing what we can learn in this new point in history.

Artificial intelligence can perform amazing tasks, from writing articles, pictures, music, etc. The future of AI will bring us closer to robots taking over many jobs from humans. In the future artificial intelligence may be capable of all these things without any help from a human being.

This futuristic idea is not new and journalists have been talking about this for years. The problem with all this new technology is that it may take away certain jobs from humans and make them obsolete. So robots and computer programs could replace humans at some point in the future.

The AI industry has grown rapidly in the past few years and people are still trying to figure out how to use it correctly. The things that artificial intelligence can do today are amazing and we will look back on this time as the beginning of a new revolution.

The future of AI will also bring us to the point where AI will think for itself, not just work on specific tasks. AI is able to learn and grow and help humans with projects. AI will be able to do things by itself that we cannot even imagine at this time.

Artificial intelligence will continue to get better at more tasks, from writing articles, pictures, music, and other media.

Not bad for a computer. Obviously, it could use a little tweaking and some additional information, but it should give you a good idea of what AI can do. Give it a try.

How to Invest in AI

Unfortunately, there are not really any pure plays in the artificial intelligence arena. Most of the major companies are involved in AI in some way. These stocks include:

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG)
Apple Inc. (AAPL)
Amazon (AMZN)
Twilio Inc. (TWLO)
ServiceNow, Inc. (NOW)
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)
QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM)
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Splunk Inc. (SPLK)
DocuSign, Inc. (DOCU)
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (CRWD)
and many others.

One of the closest pure plays is C3.ai, Inc. (AI), with the appropriate stock ticker symbol. The company is an enterprise artificial intelligence software company with customers around the world. This $4.7 billion market cap company is currently generating negative earnings. Revenues for the latest reported year rose by over 17%. The company has no long term debt. 18% of the float is short.

Another pure play is Remark Holdings (MARK), markets its AI-based products and services under the Remark AI brand in the United States; and under the KanKan brand in China. The stock has a market cap of $228 million. Revenues for the latest reported year rose by over 100%. The short percent of float is 12%.

Maybe one of these days, AI will come up with a way of beating the stock market.

Disclosure: Author owns AAPL, AMZN at the time the article was written.

Affiliate links on this page.

Many Losing Unemployment Benefits this Month but Amazon Helping to Pick Up the Slack

by Fred Fuld III

Yesterday, the jobs report came out from the Labor Department showing job growth of only 235,000 versus an expectation of 720,000.

However, the bigger problem is that next week, it is estimated that 7.5 million unemployed people will lose their unemployment benefits.

Amazon (AMZN) is one of the companies that is coming to the rescue. The company’s goal is to hire 40,000 people in the United States and 15,000 in the rest of the world.

Amazon has been one of the leaders in providing employment for Americans. Last year, the company, which is the second largest American employer in the private sector, hired 500,000 last year.

The largest, Wal-Mart (WMT), is planning to hire another 20,000 employees, which should help provide some support to the unemployed.

Disclosure: Author owns AMZN.

Who Owns the One Letter Domain Names?

by Fred Fuld III

Domain names have become a hot investment over the last 20 years, with several selling for over a million dollars. In case you are not familiar with them, domain names are, in very simple terms, the website address. For example apple.com, facebook.com, and google.com are all domain names. The most common ones end in .com but some end in .net, .org. .biz, .co, and other top level domains.

Did you ever wonder who owns a.com, b.com, or c.com. There are only twenty six letter domains that are even possible, but getting those one letter domains is even more difficult to get than one letter stock ticker symbols.

To start with, the dot com letters ‘a’ through ‘p’, ‘r’ through ‘w’, and the letter ‘y’ are all controlled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, also known as the IANA, the organization which oversees the allocation of IP addresses and domain names.

In case you were wondering about the zero dot com through 9.com domains, they are controlled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

Some companies were lucky enough to register one letter dot com domains before December 1, 1993 (or buy them from someone who registered them by that date), as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority put a restriction on single character domains at that time.

But there are still a few that are owned by companies.

a.co is owned by Amazon (AMZN).

g.co is owned by Google (GOOG)

s.co is owned by Snapchat (SNAP)

o.co and o.info are both owned by Overstock.com (OSTK).

0.co (that’s a zero dot co) is owned by Overstock.com (OSTK).

0.info (that’s a zero dot info) is also owned by Overstock.com (OSTK).

q.com is being used by Quantum Fiber.

t.co is owned by Twitter (TWTR).

x.com has been owned by x.commerce, which was developed by eBay (EBAY). Current ownership shows up as being private.

x.co has been owned by GoDaddy to be used as a URL shortener..

y.co is owned by XBN Ltd., formerly YCO Group, a luxury yacht company, which is a subsidiary of Fifty Four Four Ltd..

z.com used to be owned by Nissan North America Inc., which is owned by Nissan Motor (NSANY), which trades on NASDAQ. It is now owned by GMO Internet, Inc. (GMOYF), a Japan based Internet services company which trades on the Tokyo exchange and the US OTC Market.

i.net is owned by Future Media Architects, a privately held company based in the British Virgin Islands.

c.tv, h.tv, k.tv, l.tv, o.tv, q.tv, s.tv, t.tv, w.tv, y.tv, and z.tv are also owned by Future Media Architects.

d.tv has been owned by Worldwide Media, Inc. publisher of TheDomains.com.

u.tv is owned by ITV plc (ITVPY), a British media company. The company trades on the London Stock Exchange and the US OTC Market.

Want to know what companies have one letter stock ticker symbols? Here they are:

Agilent Technologies Inc. (A)

Barnes Group Inc. (B)

Citigroup, Inc. (C) formerly the symbol for Chrysler

Dominion Energy, Inc. (D)

Eni SpA (E)

Ford Motor Co. (F)

Genpact Ltd. (G) formerly the symbol for Gillette

Hyatt Hotels (H)

Jacobs Engineering (J)

Kellogg Company (K)

Loews Corporation (L)

Macy’s, Inc. (M)

Realty Income Corp. (O)

Ryder System, Inc. (R)

SentinelOne (S) formerly the symbol for Sprint Nextel Corp. and formerly the symbol for Sears Roebuck

AT&T, Inc. (T)

Unity Software (U)

Visa, Inc. (V)

Wayfair (W)

United States Steel Corp. (X)

Alleghany Corp. (Y)

Zillow (Z) formerly the symbol for Woolworth, now known as Foot Locker (FL)

Stocks that May Benefit from Mother’s Day

Today, Sunday, May 9, is Mother’s Day. According to a National Retail Federation survey, American’s are expected to spend over $220 on average on their mothers this year. With spending in the tens of billions of dollars, several companies will benefit from all that cash flow.

These stocks include Hershey (HSY), Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Inc. (RMCF), Nestle (NSRGY), 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. (FLWS), and Amazon (AMZN).

One of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world is the Hershey Company, headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It controls around 45% of the domestic chocolate market. Its products are offered in about 80 countries including the United States, China, Brazil, India, and Mexico.

The company has a market cap of $35 billion and pays a dividend yield of 1.91%. The stock trades at 25 times trailing earnings and at 24.6 times forward earnings.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Inc, a company that manufactures chocolate candies and confectionery products. Founded in 1981 and based in Colorado, it operates in the United States, Japan, Canada, Philippines, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Inc. has a low market cap of $36 million and has a trailing price to earnings ratio of 24.

Nestle, a famous chocolate producer founded in 1866. By sales, the Swiss company is the world’s largest food and beverage company.

The company has a market cap of $336 billion and pays dividend yield of 2.53%. It trades at 25 times trailing earnings and at 26 times forward earnings.

Another company that might benefit from Mother’s Day sales is 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. Based in New York, the company was founded in 1982. 1-800-Flowers.com offers flowers, candy, stuffed animals, gift baskets, and candles.

The company has a market cap of $2 billion and does not pay a dividend. Its stock trades at 18 times trailing earnings and at 17 times forward earnings.

Of course, there is Amazon, which sells all sorts of Mother’s Day gifts. The stock has a $1.66 trillion market cap, trades at a trailing P/E ratio of 63, and a forward P/E of 55. The company does not pay a dividend.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Disclosure: Author owns AMZN.

How to Invest in Space Exploration

by Fred Fuld III

If you have ever thought about traveling to the moon or to Mars or even just to the Earth’s atmosphere over 50 miles, that opportunity may be on the horizon.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is selling tickets to travel around the Earth. For only $1,000, you can put a deposit down on a space flight with Virgin Galactic (SPCE). Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon (AMZN) has created Blue Origin, which is attracting space tourists.

However, if you are looking to invest in the space industry, there are many stocks to choose from but a better alternative may be to invest in one of the space ETFs.

The exchange traded fund Direxion Moonshot Innovators ETF (MOON), which is up 19.85% so far this year. It has an expense ratio of 0.65. It was established in November of last year.

Procure Space ETF (UFO), founded in 2019, has increased by 18.99% this year. The expense ratio os 0.75.

SPDR Kensho Final Frontiers ETF (ROKT) has been around since 2018. It is up 5.27% so far this year, but it also pays a yield of 0.47%. It has an expense ratio of o.45.

The youngest space ETF on the block is ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX), which went public a couple days ago.

If you are looking for individual stocks, Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (SPCE) and Maxar Technologies Inc. (MAXR) are a couple companies that appear in at least two of the space ETFs.

Hopefully, one of these ETFs will take your portfolio to th moon.

Disclosure: Author owns AMZN.

Will Drone Stocks Start Flying Higher?

The number of pure play drone stocks is shrinking, since Lockheed Martin (LMT) agreed to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne (AJRD). There aren’t many other drone stocks to choose from.

Drones are a technological advancement that have been sometimes been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. They have been spotted flying too close to airports, and they have been caught smuggling drugs into prisons. They have even been used to spy on neighbors that are sun bathing in the nude in their backyard. When used in the right wy, drones are a great form of technology. They are helping businesses to make great strides and stay ahead of the competition, and have significant usage by the military.

Drones may soon be used by businesses that provide goods to customers. They will be able to deliver customers’ packages right to their very own doorstep on a regular basis, and on a large scale. This will greatly change the world of home deliveries. No longer will customers have to go through the hassle of picking their goods up from a store. This would bee a great advantage during the pandemic.

This form of technology is also being used by oil and gas companies. It allows companies to do routine inspections. The drone will also be able to do surveying for a variety of other businesses. All in all, these will work to make the lives of businesses easier.

Of course, drones are even available for recreational use. There are several rules that a person must abide by, however, such as not be flown in close proximity to an airport. Plus they must be registered.

So how does an investor take a flyer on a drone stock that won’t crash and burn? One of the purest plays in the drone industry is AeroVironment (AVAV), which produced the Pointer drone in 1987, considered to be the first small unmanned aircraft system, also referred to as a UAS, unmanned aerial vehicle, and UAV, for military use. The company now makes severals UASs, including the Puma, Raven, Wasp, and Shrike, for business and governmental use.

AeroVironment is currently trades at 110 times trailing earnings, and 53 times forward earnings. In spite of the high P/E ratio, the company does have a couple things going for it. First of all, it has no long term debt. Second, the company is sitting on $302.6 million in cash, amounting to $13.41 cash per share. No wonder the stock is up over 12% today.

AgEagle Aerial Systems (UAVS) is another drone company that markets to the agricultural industry. It is currently generating negative earnings, but it debt free.The stock is up over 22% today.

Another way to play the drone market, although in a small way, is Amazon (AMZN), which is involved in drones two different ways. It is developing Amazon Prime Air in several countries, which will provide 30 minute delivery services using small drones. In addition, Amazon actually sells drones to the consumer. Do you think if I order a drone from them, that they would deliver it by drone?

Keep an eye on this industry, because there is great potential for drone stocks to go higher and higher.

Disclosure: Author owns AMZN.

Top Valentines Day Stocks

by Fred Fuld III

There are just a few days left to do your shopping for Valentine’s Day. A Valentines stock would make a great gift, such as those that sell chocolate, jewelry, greeting cards, and gift wrap.

The perfect gift stock used to be the stock that makes the stuff that gifts come in. CSS Industries Inc. (CSS) markets gift wrap, gift bags, boxed greeting cards, gift tags, tissue paper, decorations, and decorative ribbons and bows. Unfortunately for investors, the company is in the process of the being taken over by IG Design Group, a UK based company that trades on the London Stock Exchange. However, there are other stocks you can choose from.

Flowers make a great Valentines Day gift. 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. (FLWS) is the largest publicly traded marketer flowers. In addition, it also sells cakes, cookies, candy, wines, and gift baskets. The stock trades at 25 times trailing earnings, 24.8 times forward earnings, and a price to sales ratio of 0.83.

Almost every valentine likes chocolate. The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Inc. (RMCF), based in Durango, Colorado makes and markets many types of chocolate candy including caramels, creams, mints, and truffles. The company was founded in 1981, and has over 300 franchise locations. The price to earnings ratio is 27. Rocky Mountain pays a very delicious dividend yield of 5.7%.

What valentine doesn’t like jewelry? Something like a Vintage Inspired Round Ruby Pendant with Diamond Halo in 14K White & Yellow Gold (8mm Ruby) would make a nice gift. The price is only $37,709 and is available through Amazon (AMZN).

Tiffany (TIF), founded in 1837, is one of the largest jewelry companies in the world, with over 60 U.S. stores and numerous international locations. The stock trades at 26.7 times forward earnings. This stock also pays a dividend, with a yield of 1.7%.

For more stocks that could increase sales from the Valentine experience, such as candy and chocolate stocks, check out the free lists here at WSTNN.com.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

Let’s Say You’re Dead: Give Your Heirs a Break

by Fred Fuld III

Most people who think about estate planning are aware of and have probably set up wills and living trusts, and possibly medical advance directives and durable powers of attorney.

However, because so much is done online, your heirs may not be aware of all your cyber accounts. Are they aware that you have PayPal (PYPL)? Do you have any savings accounts with an online bank? What about online brokerage accounts where you have opted out of paper deliveries?

There are a lot of issues to consider beyond the will and trust. Here are just some of the tasks that you should consider to make things easier for your heirs with regards to online accounts.

Keep Track of All Your Online Accounts

The first place to start is identifying all the online accounts that you have along with logins and passwords. Some people like to type out a list on a Word document or text document. I personally don’t like that idea, unless the file is well protected and encrypted. Otherwise, if your computer is hacked, the hacker will have access to everything.

Others just write down a list of all those logins and passwords on a piece of paper. I have a friend who’s list is currently three pages long. I don’t like this practice either as it takes a long time to search through, since it is not alphabetized, and find the particular website that you are looking for.

I personally like using an Email and Website Password Logbook. These journals have alphabetized pages, so that all the accounts that begin with A are in the first section, all the Bs in the second section, and so forth. That way, I don’t have to look all over the place to find the password I want.

Since everything is handwritten on a hard copy, it can’t be hacked. (Just don’t lose it.) It is also a central repository for all your online accounts, which will make it simpler for your heirs to find everything.

Requirements for Account Liquidation Upon Death

It might be helpful to make your heirs aware of the requirements to liquidate online monetary accounts and stock brokerage accounts. For example, the requirements for PayPal are:

A cover sheet from the Requestor (or a person who is duly appointed or authorized to administer the estate of the deceased customer) identifying the account by the primary email address and request to have PayPal account closed
A copy of the death certificate for the account holder
A copy of a government issued photo ID (such as a driver’s license, passport or state-issued ID) of the Requestor
Legal documentation or a copy of the will that identifies the executor of the estate
State issued documentation if a living will is not present

Most online bank and brokerage accounts will require similar documents.

Facebook Accounts After Death

Social media accounts have special requirements in the event of death. As an example, Facebook (FB) has two options upon the death of the accountholder. You can either have your account permanently deleted, which you can setup now while you are still alive, or you can have a Memorialized Account and it can be controlled by a legacy contact. Your legacy contact can be identified now also.

Twitter Accounts After Death

Twitter (TWTR) allows the removal of the account of a deceased person or an incapacitated person, with the submission of appropriate documents.

LinkedIn Accounts After Death

LinkedIn has an online form that can be filled out in order to remove the profile of someone who has passed away.

Instagram Accounts After Death

Instagram has similar options to Facebook. The account can be memorialized or it can be removed. For removal, they request the following:

The deceased person’s birth certificate
The deceased person’s death certificate
Proof of authority under local law that you are the lawful representative of the deceased person, or his/her estate

For other social media accounts, check out their Help link.

Email Accounts After Death

In terms of the deceased emails, this can be a delicate issue. You probably want your heirs to have access to your email accounts, especially those connected to bank and brokerage accounts, and accounts that are exclusively phone app based.

If there are any emails that you are uncomfortable with your heirs seeing, they should obviously be deleted, now.

Then there is the issue of if and who to contact about your passing. A friend of mine who I hadn’t contacted for a couple months had passed away shortly after I last called him. I received no email notification about his passing or the memorial service, even though I was on his email contact list. I only found out about it a month and a half later after reaching one of his relatives when I discovered my friend’s phone was disconnected.

Therefore, it would be helpful to provide a list of who you want contacted upon your death, along with emails, and possibly phone numbers.

You probably don’t want your heirs to do a mass email of all contacts, including the plumber you emailed two years ago, all the email newsletters that you subscribe to, the restaurant that you made an online reservation with, and so forth. So some filtering will be necessary.

Online Bank Accounts and Bills After Death

If you receive many of your bills by email, your heirs will need access to both your email account and your online bank account. Many bank customers have set up their account to autopay various bills.

Heirs need to review all bills, contact the bank right away, make sure that important bills, such as mortgage payments, are continued to be paid, and determine which other accounts may need to be cancelled, such as cable TV bills.

Online Stock Brokerage Accounts After Death

Remember that some brokerage accounts may be exclusively app based, such as Robinhood or WeBull. Most brokerage account liquidations will have similar requirements for submitting documents, however, the big issue is the sale of the stocks and bonds in the portfolio; in other words, when and how it is that done, or can the existing stocks be kept and transferred to the heirs. I suggest that you contact your own broker to get the details on the requirements and policies, if you want that info available for your heirs.

Your Cell Phone After Death

If you use dual-factor identification, access to your cell phone will be necessary. But even if you don’t, you will probably want your heirs to have access to it. Important phone calls may come in for a while, and heirs may need to access some of your finance related apps.

In your central password holding resource, don’t forget to include your cell phone’s passcode. I use this Password Logbook which sells for less than $7 on Amazon (AMZN).

Living Trusts

If you haven’t already, talk to an attorney about setting up a living trust and transferring your online bank accounts and your online brokerage accounts into the trust.

Anyone who has dealt with the death of a parent or other close relative knows the hassles involved. If you want to help out your heirs, it is a good idea to be proactive, especially when it comes to online accounts.

Disclosure: Author owns PYPL, AMZN, and TWTR. Affiliated links.

How to get Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss for Free

If you have never read the book Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss, you owe it to yourself to do so, and now is your chance to read it for free.

For those of you who don’t know, Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, best-selling author, speaker, and podcaster. He has invested in and/or advised numerous startups, including Shopify, EverNote, StumbleUpon, Uber, Facebook, Twitter, and TaskRabbit.

The book, Tools of Titans, contains the ideas, tactics, and tools of over 200 of the world’s experts in their fields.

Currently, Amazon (AMZN) has a promotion whereby you can get the Kindle version of the book for free. ( I believe this offer is only for Amazon Prime members.) This deal is expected to be available for just a week or so, so if you are interested, I suggest that you get it now.