The latest book review here at Richer by the Day is A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel.

In this book, the author systematically disproves virtually all methods of predicting future stock performance.  He goes beyond discrediting both technical and fundamental analysis to include more exotic methods as well.  He shows how consistently beating the average return of the market is rare, if not impossible.  Mr. Malkiel presents a reasonable and believable case for efficient market theory.  Rather than prove that the market always sets the price correctly,

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This week, a fellow blogger at the Lending Club blog asked whether shopping on Woot is financially responsible and gave advice on how to make sure that it is.  To his commentary, I’d like to add how to make money using Woot, or what I affectionately call Woot Arbitrage.

For those of you who don’t know, Woot sells one product each day at a typically unbelieveable price.   Once the item is sold out, you’ll have to wait until the next day for the next deal.  They occasionally hold Woot-offs as well, in which they dump excess inventory by offering a product until it sells out, then moving on to the next product until it sells out, etc.

So how can you make money from the phenomenon that is Woot?  The product offered

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My wife and I recently cut back to having only one car instead of the two we have traditionally owned.  This isn’t the first time we’ve gotten by with just one car, but it is more difficult.  The last time we lived downtown in a small city and could easily walk to shopping, restaurants, and entertainment.  After we moved to the suburbs, we decided that a second car was necessary.

Our regression to one car had nothing to do with gas prices, cost of insurance, or anything like that.  We’re going to be moving again and took a recent opportunity to move the car ahead of time.  So now, until we move, we’re living far from everything with only one car. 

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