SHORT INTERESTS: TIPS, TRENDS, OBSERVATIONS

Playing the shame game

Holding a major company up to ridicule can really open some doors, at least for TheStreet.com. Just one day after editor in chief Dave Kansas wrote a column lambasting Janus for giving the online news service the brush-off in favor of “dead-tree” publications, the 18-month-old Web mag ran an interview with — voila — Scott Schoelzel, manager of the $78.7 billion-asset Denver company’s Twenty fund. Mr. Schoelzel called Mr. Kansas to say “that he felt the policy had been a mistake and went on to state that his fund is intensely interested in many things related to the Internet,” writes a triumphant Mr. Kansas.

Rollover redux

After combing the tax code, Mervin M. Wilf, a Philadelphia lawyer with an obvious flair for linguistic analysis, concludes that the $100,000 limit for adjusted gross income required for rollovers into Roth individual retirement accounts should apply to individual taxpayers instead of filers of both individual and joint returns.

Mr. Wilf writes in the newsletter Estate Planner’s Alert that the Internal Revenue Code’s Section 408A reads the “taxpayer’s AGI for the year of the rollover should not exceed $100,000.” And “taxpayer,” Mr. Wilf asserts, refers to “any person subject to internal revenue tax.” There is nothing else in the code that would give the impression that the term refers to more than one taxpayer, Mr. Wilf writes. He quickly adds the IRS doesn’t agree with his interpretation.

“She’s very much the brains of this operation.”

Travel by heir

Heirs to frequent fliers may not be getting enough mileage out of their estate lawyers. Literally. A recent travel feature in the New York Times notes few estate planners have a clue how to obtain bonus miles earned by the deceased when doling out the booty. Helping clients navigate the various programs can be tricky.

The best suggestion comes from Chicago lawyer Jonathan T. Howe. He tells the paper that frequent fliers should give the miles
to family and friends before they take that final big trip. “You won’t need them to get to heaven.”

Is Valentino overvalued?

What do stuffed animals have to do with stocks? A lot, when the stuffed animals are Beanie Babies, says Kenneth M. Sobolewski, a principal with Barclays Global Investors in Chicago.

His wife — dubbed the “queen of Beanies” by a local newspaper — went from being an incidental buyer of the toy a few years ago to editor in chief of Mary Beth’s Beanie World, a magazine with a circulation of 500,000, reports sister publication Pensions & Investments.

Like the stock market, speculators are driving prices higher. “It’s the same principles at work.”

Mr. Sobolewski hasn’t contemplated designing a Beanie Baby index, and emphasizes that he doesn’t get involved with his wife’s business.