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10234
irr calculation on stock with dividends
[ "517637", "393987" ]
[ "\"Re. question 2 If I buy 20 shares every year, how do I get proper IRR? ... (I would have multiple purchase dates) Use the money-weighted return calculation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return#Internal_rate_of_return where t is the fraction of the time period and Ct is the cash flow at that time perio...
10238
What's the smartest way to invest money gifted to a child?
[ "493034", "221990", "567079" ]
[ "I was in a similar situation with my now 6 year old. So I'll share what I chose. Like you, I was already funding a 529. So I opened a custodial brokerage account with Fidelity and chose to invest in very low expense index fund ETFs which are sponsored by Fidelity, so there are no commissions. The index funds ha...
10240
Do stock prices really go down by the amount of the dividend?
[ "23446", "171645", "461425" ]
[ "Ex-Dividend Price Behavior of Common Stocks would be a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and University of Minnesota if you want a source for some data. Abstract This study examines common stock prices around ex-dividend dates. Such price data usually contain a mixture of observations - some wit...
10244
Do those who invest large amounts of money in stocks pay typical brokerage commissions?
[ "494351" ]
[ "\"Other than the brokerage fee you should also consider the following: Some brokerages provide extra protection against the these and as you guessed it for a fee. However, there could be a small bonus associated with your trading at scale: You are probably qualified for rebates from the exchanges for generating li...
10248
Upcoming company merger with company I have stock in, help me interpret what is happening
[ "13908" ]
[ "\"The \"\"par value\"\" is a technicality that you can ignore in this case, and it has nothing directly to do with the merger. When a company issues stock, it puts a \"\"par value\"\" on the shares. If it later issues more shares, they cannot be issued at less than par value. The rest of the notice seems to be a...
10250
What do stock market index future bid/ask quotes mean?
[ "493012" ]
[ "\"Well, futures don't have a \"\"strike\"\" like an option - the price represents how much you're obligated to buy/sell the index for at a specified date in the future. You are correct that there's no cost to enter a contract (though there may be broker fees and margin payments). Any difference between the contr...
10254
How to mitigate the risk of Euro Stoxx 50 ETF?
[ "214723", "488830" ]
[ "While you would reduce risk by diversifying into other stock ETFs across the world, Developed Market returns (and Emerging Markets to a lesser extent) are generally highly correlated with another (correlation of ~0.85-0.90). This implies that they all go up in bull-markets and go down together in bear markets. You...
10256
How to buy stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange?
[ "433809", "253847" ]
[ "You probably bought the cross listed WestJet stock. If you wanted to buy shares on the TSE, I'd suspect you'd have to find a way to open a brokerage account within Canada and then you'd be able to buy the shares. However, this could get complicated to some extent as there could be requirements of Canadian tax st...
10258
How do I find the mappings between sedol and isin codes?
[ "343294", "423841" ]
[ "There is a relatively straightforward transformation explained on the Wikipedia page here and on the links from that page. Note that this only applies to SEDOLs for instruments listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). To convert SEDOL to ISIN you pad leading zeroes onto the SEDOL until you have 9 digits. Then ...
10260
Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit?
[ "590879", "361976", "594159", "234002", "67124", "531505", "98555" ]
[ "I would go even farther than Victor's answer. There is little evidence that candlestick patterns and technical analysis in general have any predictive power. Even if they did in the past, of which there is some evidence, in modern times they are so easy to do on computers that if they worked algorithmic traders...
10261
Can I lose more on Forex than I deposit?
[ "101343", "425204", "588877", "168639" ]
[ "\"If you don't use leverage you can't lose more than you invested because you \"\"play\"\" with your own money. But even with leverage when you reach a certain limit (maintenance margin) you will receive a margin call from your broker to add more funds to your account. If you don't comply with this (meaning you do...
10264
How much will a stock be worth after a merger?
[ "27416", "142401", "491899" ]
[ "\"For the first and last questions, I can do this multiple ways. For the middle question, I'll just make up values. If you want different ones, you will have to redo the math. I am going to assume that you participate in the merger exchange, swapping your share for their offer. If you own one share, it depen...
10268
What is the daily rebalanced leverage ratio that is ideal for the S&P 500 based on past performance?
[ "457584" ]
[ "\"The reason that UltraLong funds and the like are bad isn't because of the leverage ratio. It's because they're compounded daily, and the product of all the doubled daily returns is not mathematically equivalent to the double the long-term return. I'd consider providing big fancy equations using uppercase pi as t...
10278
What are my options other than stock piling money in a savings account?
[ "411669" ]
[ "I think you need to understand the options better before you go around calling anything worthless... $11k in a 1% savings account gets you just over $100 each year. Obviously you're not buying Ferraris with your returns but it's $100 more than your checking account will pay you. And, you're guaranteed to get yo...
10279
What should I consider when selecting a broker/advisor to manage my IRA?
[ "70702", "245484" ]
[ "\"This is not a direct answer to your question, but you might want to consider whether you want to have a financial planner at all. Would a large mutual fund company or brokerage serve your needs better than a bank? You are still quite young and so have been contributing to IRAs for only a few years. Also, the wor...
1028
Tax Implications - First 2-Family Rental Property
[ "61768" ]
[ "\"You should really be talking to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about taxes and to a lawyer about the liability protection. You won't find answers from neither of theses here. Besides the liability protection, how do these 2 options affect taxes? There's no liability protection difference between t...
1029
SEP-IRA doing 1099 work on the side of a W2 employee job
[ "406561" ]
[ "\"The limit on SEP IRA is 25%, not 20%. If you're self-employed (filing on Schedule C), then it's taken on net earning, which in your example would be 25% of $90,000. (https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/retirement-plans-for-self-employed-people) JoeTaxpayer is correct as regards the 401(k) limits. The elective...
10294
Simultaneous long/short India
[ "450760" ]
[ "\"I know its not legal to have open long and short position on specific security (on two stock exchanges - NSE/BSE) There is nothing illegal about it. There are prescribed ways on how this is addressed. In Cash Segment / Intra Day trades: One can short sell a security. If by end of day he does not buy the secur...
10297
My employer is switching 401k plan providers. How might this work in practice?
[ "490867", "168320" ]
[ "Having gone though this type of event a few times it won't be a problem. On a specific date they will freeze your accounts. Then they will transfer the funds from custodian X to custodian Y. It should only take a day or two, and they will work it around the paydays so that by the time the next paycheck is released...
1030
What taxes are involved for LLC in Georgia?
[ "158058" ]
[ "Your best course of action is to gather your paperwork, ask around your personal network for a recommendation for a good CPA, and pay that person to do your taxes (business and personal). Read through the completed package and have them walk you through every item you do not understand. I would continue doing th...
10302
Pros and cons of investing in a cheaper vs expensive index funds that track the same index
[ "460347", "107462", "340143" ]
[ "As has been pointed out, one isn't cheaper than the other. One may have a lower price per share than the other, but that's not the same thing. Let's pretend that the total market valuation of all the stocks within the index was $10,000,000. (Look, I said let's pretend.) You want to invest $1,000. For the time bein...
10304
Are there limits on frequency of withdrawal from Roth 401K?
[ "490497" ]
[ "Back in the late 80's I had a co-worked do exactly this. In those days you could only do things quarterly: change the percentage, change the investment mix, make a withdrawal.. There were no Roth 401K accounts, but contributions could be pre-tax or post-tax. Long term employees were matched 100% up to 8%, newer em...
10307
Possible Risks of Publicizing Personal Stock Portfolio
[ "430498", "551747" ]
[ "I am considering making my investment history publicly available online What is the benefit you are looking for by doing this? Just to establish that you are a successful investor, so in long run can predict things ... have tons of followers? If so yes. Go ahead. Updates to the portfolio would have to be near real...
10310
How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup?
[ "234889", "48691", "165659", "201222", "550440" ]
[ "if you bought gold in late '79, it would have taken 30 years to break even. Of all this time it was two brief periods the returns were great, but long term, not so much. Look at the ETF GLD if you wish to buy gold, and avoid most of the buy/sell spread issues. Edit - I suggest looking at Compound Annual Growth Ra...
10311
What are the pros and cons of buying a house just to rent it out?
[ "269770", "295688", "325722", "32784", "536126" ]
[ "Lets consider what would happen if you invested $1500/mo plus $10k down in a property, or did the same in a low-cost index fund over the 30 year term that most mortgages take. The returns of either scenarios cannot be guaranteed, but there are long term analyses that shows the stock market can be expected to retu...
1032
Reason for “qualified” buyer requirements to exercise stock options/rights spun off from parent company?
[ "75762", "570046", "248235" ]
[ "\"The fact that your shares are of a Canadian-listed corporation (as indicated in your comment reply) and that you are located in the United States (as indicated in your bio) is highly relevant to answering the question. The restriction for needing to be a \"\"qualified institutional buyer\"\" (QIB) arises from th...
10327
What happens if my order exceeds the bid or ask sizes?
[ "595941", "116121", "459650" ]
[ "Sure. Depending on how you configure your order, it will either be fulfilled partially or wait until it can be fulfilled. You can set a time limit on your order (usually its either 1 day or 60 days, but may vary between brokerages), and allow or disallow partial fulfilment.", "You should check with your broker. ...
10330
How do I adjust to a new social class?
[ "63365", "468755", "307226", "76257", "264996", "41445" ]
[ "Beware of keeping up with the Joneses. Many of your free-spending neighbors are broke. Basically, the prices of things like what you're noticing will rise as incomes in the area rise. A great example of this can be found in state capitals and college towns, where battalions of government workers or students all ma...
10331
Why don't boards of directors try to produce results in line with estimates?
[ "244305" ]
[ "First off, some companies do something like this. Microsoft for example was well-known for consistently hitting earnings estimates every quarter - nearly never missed them, and most of the time didn't exceed by much either. In order to do this and not be prosecuted for accounting fraud, you typically have to be ...
10333
How do I know if my mutual fund is compounded?
[ "210939" ]
[ "\"When we talk about compounding, we usually think about interest payments. If you have a deposit in a savings account that is earning compound interest, then each time an interest payment is made to your account, your deposit gets larger, and the amount of your next interest payment is larger than the last. There...
10335
Is there an application or website where I can practice trading US stocks with virtual money?
[ "555047" ]
[ "I traded futures for a brief period in school using the BrokersXpress platform (now part of OptionsXpress, which is in turn now part of Charles Schwab). They had a virtual trading platform, and apparently still do, and it was excellent. Since my main account was enabled for futures, this carried over to the virtua...
10337
Technical Analysis not working
[ "432608", "527105" ]
[ "\"You cannot just read one book and some articles on Technical Analysis and some indicators and expect to be an expert and everything to just start falling into place and give you signals that will tell you when to buy and sell with precision and massive profits all the time. It is like someone reading a book on ...
10338
Buy or sell futures contracts
[ "289073", "266480", "305676", "108" ]
[ "\"Buying (or selling) a futures contract means that you are entering into a contractual agreement to buy (or sell) the contracted commodity or financial instrument in the contracted amount (the contract size) at the price you have bought (or sold) the contract on the contract expire date (maturity date). It is im...
10346
Superannuation: When low risk options have higher return, what to do?
[ "47795" ]
[ "The long term view you are referring to would be over 30 to 40 years (i.e. your working life). Yes in general you should be going for higher growth options when you are young. As you approach retirement you may change to a more balanced or capital guaranteed option. As the higher growth options will have a larger ...
10350
ESPP: Share vs Payroll withholding
[ "306688" ]
[ "Note that you're asking about withholding, not about taxing. Withholding doesn't mean this is exactly the tax you'll pay: it means they're withholding a certain amount to make sure you pay taxes on it, but the tax bill at the end of the year is the same regardless of how you choose to do the withholding. Your ta...
10353
What are Vanguard's Admiral Shares?
[ "88823" ]
[ "\"Vanguard's Admiral shares are like regular (\"\"investor\"\") shares in their funds, only they charge lower expense ratios. They have higher investment minimums, though. (For instance, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund has a minimum of $3,000 and an expense ratio of .18% for the Investor Shares class, b...
10354
What happens to dividends on stock held in TFSA or RRSP account?
[ "27671" ]
[ "\"For an RRSP, you do not have to pay taxes on money or investments until you withdraw the money. If you do not reinvest the dividends but instead, take them out as cash, that would be withdrawing the money. For mutual funds, you would normally reinvest the dividends if holding the investment inside an RRSP. For s...
10362
What are some simple techniques used for Timing the Stock Market over the long term?
[ "320778", "170247" ]
[ "Buy low, sell high - the problem, of course, finding a crystal ball that will tell you when the highs and lows are going to happen :-) You could, for instance, save your money in cash and wait for the occasional sharp drop, but then you've lost profits & dividends from having that cash under the mattress all those...
10365
How much can I withdraw from Betterment and be considered long-term investment?
[ "257625", "536390" ]
[ "\"This question and your other one indicate you're a bit unclear on how capital gains taxes work, so here's the deal: you buy an asset (like shares of stock or a mutual fund). You later sell it for more than you bought it for. You pay taxes on your profit: the difference between what you sold it for and what you...
10369
Is an RRSP always “self-directed”? What makes a “self-directed” RRSP special?
[ "331268" ]
[ "The term self-directed generally refers to RRSP accounts where the account holder has not only the ability to determine a basic investment asset mix (such as can be accomplished even with a limited selection of mutual funds) but, more specifically, the self-directed account holder has a much wider choice of financ...
10370
Does the uptick rule apply to all stocks/ETFs and other securities, or only specific ones?
[ "300709" ]
[ "The uptick rule is gone, but it was weakly reintroduced in 2010, applied to all publicly traded equities: Under the terms of the rule, a circuit breaker would be triggered if a stock falls by 10% or more in a single day. At that point, short selling would only be allowed if the price is above the current national ...
10373
GNUCash: How to count up equity?
[ "28758", "226519" ]
[ "I would say when starting with Gnucash to start with the level of granularity you are comfortable with while sticking to the double entry bookkeeping practices. So going through each one: Refund for Parking Pass. Assuming you treat the Parking Pass as a sunk cost, i.e. an Expense account, its just a negative entry...
10376
How to transform dividends into capital gains?
[ "259341", "110983" ]
[ "\"Some investment trusts have \"\"zero dividend preference shares\"\" which deliver all their gains as capital gains rather than income, even if the trust was investing in income yielding stocks. They've rather gone out of fashion after a scandal some years ago (~2000). Good 2014 article on them here includes the...
10378
What is an effective way to invest in electric car industry?
[ "51334", "510022" ]
[ "At this time I would say that the electric car industry as a whole is too new to be able to invest in it as a sector. There are only a handful of companies that focus solely on electric cars to create a moderately diverse portfolio, let alone a mutual fund. You can invest in mutual funds that include EV stocks a...
10380
I'm in Australia. What should I look for in an online stock broker, for trading mostly on the ASX?
[ "31703", "31936", "110608", "436652" ]
[ "It depends what you want to do with them. If you are just simply going to drip-feed into pre-identified shares or ETFs every few months at the market price, you don't need fancy features: just go with whoever is cheaper. You can always open another account later if you need something more exotic. Some brokerage...
10381
What are the ramifications of lawsuits over “breaches of fiduciary duty” for the average shareholder?
[ "387188", "241894" ]
[ "\"As an investor, I try to interpret the suits as an attempt to in some way influence the actions of the company - and not, usually, as a serious legal threat (or as likely to lead to serious legal consequences). My (shallow) understanding (as a non-lawyer) is that the requirements for a lawsuit to be filed as cla...
10383
Should I include retirement funds in calculating my asset allocation?
[ "313493", "335857", "476054", "294855" ]
[ "Personally, I do asset allocation separately for personal investing and for retirement investing, as I the two have vastly different purposes and I have vastly different goals for each. YMMV depending on how you view your non-retirement investments, and how close you are to retirement.", "\"You probably want to ...
10385
When should I start saving/investing for my retirement?
[ "417787", "463043", "468010", "392371", "45174", "430014" ]
[ "Start as early as possible and you will want to kiss your younger self when you get to retirement age. I know you (and everyone else at that age) thinks that they don't make enough to start saving and leans towards waiting until you get established in your career and start making better money. Don't put it off. Sa...
10387
How to choose a company for an IRA?
[ "44578", "67741", "434734" ]
[ "\"I use TIAA-Cref for my 403(b) and Fidelity for my solo 401(k) and IRAs. I have previously used Vanguard and have also used other discount brokers for my IRA. All of these companies will charge you nothing for an IRA, so there's really no point in comparing cost in that respect. They are all the \"\"cheapest\"\...
10388
Does Joel Greenblatt's “Magic Formula Investing” really beat the market?
[ "292480", "299327", "516726", "356454", "541578" ]
[ "While it is true that this formula may have historically outperformed the market you have to keep one important thing in mind: once the formula is out in the open, the market inefficiency will disappear. Here is what I mean. Historically there have always been various inefficiencies in the market structure. Some p...
10390
What is the P/E ratio for a company with negative earnings?
[ "592907", "590980" ]
[ "Usually their PE ratio will just be listed as 0 or blank. Though I've always wondered why they don't just list the negative PE as from a straight math standpoint it makes sense. PE while it can be a useful barometer for a company, but certainly does not tell you everything. A company could have negative earnings...
10392
Insider trading of a linked security like an ETF your company has a heavy weighting in
[ "195206" ]
[ "If you are in a position to have information that will impact the shares of a stock or index fund and you use that information for either personal gain or to mitigate the losses that you would have felt then it is insider trading. Even if in the end your quiet period passes with little or no movement of the stock...
10395
Who is the issuer in a derivative contract?
[ "206342" ]
[ "While the issuer of the security such as a stock or bond not the short is responsible for the credit risk, the issuer and the short of a derivative is one. In all cases, it is more than likely that a trader is owed securities by an agent such as a broker or exchange or clearinghouse. Legally, only the Options Clea...
10399
Can I save our credit with a quickie divorce?
[ "479454", "209063" ]
[ "If you're not insolvent, doing something like this is both a moral and legal hazard: When you are insolvent, the tax and moral hazard issues can be a non-issue. Setting up a scenario that makes you appear to be insolvent is where the fraud comes in. If you decide to go down this road, spend a few thousand dollars ...
10401
Saving money in college while paying for college
[ "354551" ]
[ "I wouldn't recommend trying to chase a good return on this money. I'd just put it into a savings account of some sort. If you can get a better interest rate with an online account, then feel free to do that. I'd recommend using this money to pay for as much of college out of pocket as you can. The more student...
10406
Can you use external money to pay trading commissions in tax-free and tax-deferred accounts?
[ "569953", "361639" ]
[ "According to Publication 590, broker's commissions for stock transactions within an IRA cannot be paid in addition to the IRA contribution(s), but they are deductible as part of the contribution, or add to the basis if you are making a nondeductible contribution to a Traditional IRA. (Top of Page 10, and Page 12, ...
10407
Investment property refinance following a low appraisal?
[ "446646", "520430", "517633" ]
[ "Definitely don't borrow from your 401K. If you quit or get laid off, you have to repay the whole amount back immediately, plus you are borrowing from your opportunity cost. The stock market should be good at least through the end of this year. As one of the commentators already stated, have you calculated your...
10408
Which types of insurances do I need to buy?
[ "169312", "431028", "527618" ]
[ "\"Evaluate if the Rs 5 million term insurance is sufficient. Typically the term insurance provided by employer is in the range of 1 to 3 times the gross. Generally one should be covered in the range of 5 to 10 times the Gross. The sooner you start the lesser the premium and you can get insured for a large amount f...
10409
Where are open-end funds traded?
[ "201361", "374204" ]
[ "\"I assume that mutual funds are being discussed here. As Bryce says, open-ended funds are bought from the mutual fund company and redeemed from the fund company. Except in very rare circumstances, they exist only as bits in the fund company's computers and not as share certificates (whether paper or electronic...
1041
What's the appropriate way to signify an S-Corp?
[ "289833", "480992" ]
[ "\"S-Corp is a corporation. I.e.: you add a \"\"Inc.\"\" or \"\"Corp.\"\" to the name or something of that kind. \"\"S\"\" denotes a specific tax treatment which may change during the lifetime of the corporation. It doesn't refer to a legal status.\"", "\"Subchapter S Corporations are a special type of corporatio...
10411
Why have U.S. bank interest rates been so low for the past few years?
[ "531551", "596914", "420484" ]
[ "\"These rates are so low because the cost of money is so low. Specifically, two rates are near zero. The Federal Reserve discount rate, which is \"\"the interest rate charged to commercial banks and other depository institutions on loans they receive from their regional Federal Reserve Bank's lending facility--th...
10412
Are there disadvantages to day trading ETFs?
[ "159822" ]
[ "\"ETFs are well suited to day trading, but you should be mindful of the bid-ask spread. See article: Commission-free ETFs are a great way to save money, but watch the bid-ask spread too. Bid-ask spread is largely a function of liquidity, or the volume of buyers and sellers for an asset during a particular moment...
10416
Most Efficient Way to Transfer Money from Israel to the USA?
[ "59411", "276882" ]
[ "Check with stock brokers. Some of them will offer ILS->USD conversion at a very beneficial rate (very close to the official), without any commission, and flat-priced wire transfers. For large amounts this is perfect. I know for a fact that Gaon Trade used to do that ($15 for a wire transfer of any amount), but the...
10417
Exercising an option without paying for the underlying
[ "151587", "367928", "293959", "288289" ]
[ "This is dependent on the broker according to The Options Industry Council. Your broker will specify what they would do upon expiry (or hours before last trade) if you did not indicate your preference. Most likely they will conduct a probabilistic simulation to see whether exercising the contracts may result in ma...
10421
IRA contributions in a bear (bad) market: Should I build up cash savings instead?
[ "109455", "133000", "589602" ]
[ "\"You have heard the old adage \"\"Buy low, sell high\"\", right? That sounds so obvious that you'd have to wonder why they would ever bother coining such an expression. It should rank up there with \"\"Don't walk in front of a moving car\"\" on the Duh scale of advice. Well, your question demonstrates exactly why...
10422
Anonymous CC: Does “Entropay” really not hand my personal data over to a company - are there alternatives?
[ "130104" ]
[ "\"Do you guys know any options that are accessible to any global citizen? Prepaid and stored value cards are anonymous. For an arbitrary reason, the really anonymous ones only allow you to load $500 but there is no regulation that dictates this amount. In the USA, these cards are exempt from being declared at bord...
10423
Why IV and stock price are inversely related
[ "50726" ]
[ "\"people are willing to pay higher premiums for options when stocks go down. Obviously the time value and intrinsic value and interests rates of the option doesn't change because of this so the miscalculation remainder is priced into the implied volatility part of the formula. Basically, anything that suggests th...
10425
How does the Pension system work in Poland?
[ "257674", "145334" ]
[ "\"Pretty simple actually. This is a state-run defined benefit plan, where the benefit is calculated based on the length of the employment and the contributed amounts. This is what in the US is known as the Social Security. This is a defined contribution plan, where the employee can chose the level of risk based o...
10426
How to manage $50k in Savings?
[ "164908" ]
[ "In today's market being paid 1% for risk and free access money is pretty darn good. If 50k is what you feel comfortable with an emergency fund, then you are doing a fine enough job. To me that is a lot to keep in an emergency fund, however several factors play into this: We both drive older cars, so I also keep e...
10428
Should we invest some of our savings to protect against inflation?
[ "373697", "581635", "483777" ]
[ "\"Are there still people who keep significant amounts of money in a bank savings account? You could get ~1% by just choosing the right bank. ING Direct, for example, gives 0.8%, 4 times more than your credit union, with the same FDIC insurance! If you do want to invest in something slightly more long-term, you can...
10430
Are there any other investing methods I should look into?
[ "534795", "452126" ]
[ "401Ks and IRAs are types of retirement accounts. They have rules regarding maximum amount of investments per year; who can invest; destructibility; and the tax treatment of the growth. Stock, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs are all types of investments that can exist either inside or outside of the retirement account. ...
10431
When to liquidate mutual funds for a home downpayment
[ "37880" ]
[ "\"This question is calling for a somewhat subjective answer. What I would recommend is liquidate now, since it is a stock fund and stocks have performed very well this year, no need to be greedy and hope that they do as well in 2014. Since it is not an enormous amount of money, put it in an interest yielding savin...
10432
Employee stock option plan with undefined vesting?
[ "576503" ]
[ "\"An option without the vesting period and the price at which one can exercise the option is of not much value. If vesting is determined by board, then at any given point in time they can change the vesting period to say 3, 5, 10 years any number. The other aspect is at what price you are allowed to exercise the o...
10435
The board of directors in companies
[ "482276" ]
[ "Boards of Directors are required for corporations by nearly all jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions have almost self-defeating requirements however, such as in tax havens. Boards of Directors are compensated by the company for which they sit. Historically, they have set their own compensation almost always with ti...
10436
Is the best ask price the ask at the “top” of the order book? What is the “top” of the book?
[ "146125", "546493" ]
[ "The best ask is the lowest ask, and the best bid is the highest bid. If the ask was lower than the bid then they crossed, and that would be a crossed market and quickly resolved. So the bid will almost always be cheaper than the ask. A heuristic is that a bid is the revenue of the stock at any given time while th...
10438
Should I invest or repay my debts?
[ "304277", "410564" ]
[ "You didn't mention how much is the interest rate of your debts. It is a very simple rule. If you think you can make more money by investing (the best way you can) in spite of having debts then go ahead and invest. Else, if you donno what you're doing and can't make sure you earn more than what you're paying off ...
10439
Home loan transferred to Freddie Mac — What does this mean?
[ "110769" ]
[ "Lenders may sell your mortgage to other lenders for a fee. For example, your lender might sell your mortgage to the highest bidder who may want to purchase your mortgage by making a one time payment. For your lender that's a quick profit, for the new owner of your mortgage, that's long term returns for a one ti...
1044
CEO entitlement from share ownership?
[ "42558", "96008", "599003" ]
[ "\"In its basic form, a corporation is a type of 'privileged democracy'. Instead of every citizen having a vote, votes are allocated on the basis of share ownership. In the most basic form, each share you own gives you 1 vote. In most public companies, very few shareholders vote [because their vote is statistically...
10440
Is my financial plan for buying a house logically sound
[ "97948" ]
[ "\"As a rental, this is not an ideal set of numbers. You manage to show a $255 'gain' but $275 is from payment to principal. So, from the start, you're out $20/wk. This ignores the $170K down payment, which has an opportunity cost, however you calculate it. You can assign the same rate as the mortgage, and it's ne...
10441
Could capital gains from a stock sale impact my IRA eligibility?
[ "127622", "494813" ]
[ "Yes, eligibility for contributing to a Roth IRA is determined by your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) which is based on your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). Now, AGI includes the net capital gains from your transactions and MAGI adds back in things that were subtracted off (e.g. tuition deductions, foreign earn...
10442
How to reach an apt going against inflation
[ "550637" ]
[ "Inflation of the type currently experienced in Argentina is particularly hard to deal with. Also, real estate prices in global cities such as Buenos Aires and even secondary cities have grown significantly. There are no full solutions to this problem, but there are a few things that can really help." ]
10443
Accounting Entry for Selling a Covered Call
[ "383930" ]
[ "Option contracts typically each represent 100 shares. So the 1 call contract you sold to open (wrote) grants the buyer of that option the right to purchase your 100 shares for $80.00 per share any time before the option expiration date. You were paid a gross amount of $100 (100 shares times $1.00 premium per share...
10449
Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate]
[ "274108", "159762", "352363", "202987", "44895" ]
[ "Can I pay $12,000 extra once a year or $1000 every month - which option is better? Depends when. If you mean 12K now vs 1K a month over the next 12 months, repeating this each year, now wins. If you mean saving 1K a month for 12 months then doing a lumpsum, the 1K a month wins. Basically, a sooner payment saves yo...
10456
Should I cash out my Roth IRA to pay my mother's property tax debt, to avoid foreclosure on her home?
[ "175200", "204943", "278025", "56610" ]
[ "@foreverBroke - Ok, here are the questions - Is mom's house paid for in full? If there's any mortgage, is it current? If not, what are the numbers? Is it underwater, i.e. owe more that it's worth? Will the tax department talk to you and negotiate? Maybe let you make payments over time? If you have that kind of ca...
10457
What is needed to be a “broker”?
[ "287322" ]
[ "You must understand that: So, if you -- the prospective buyer -- are in Waukegan, do you take the train all the way to New York City just to buy 100 shares of stock? No. That would be absurdly expensive. So, you hire an agent in NYC who will broker a deal for you in the exchange. Fast forward 100 years, to the ...
1046
How did Bill Gates actually make his money?
[ "518526", "35557" ]
[ "Bill was the founder of Microsoft, so he did indeed have a large number of shares as the company was growing exponentially. He has previously donated a large share of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, so his fortune would be even greater were it not for the philanthropy. He is still a large h...
10463
If I'm cash-flow negative, should I dollar-cost-average the money from my bonus over the entire year?
[ "272486", "201495" ]
[ "\"Essentially, your question is \"\"lump sum vs DCA\"\" and your tags reflect that. In the long run, lump sum, say a Jan 2 deposit each year, will beat DCA by about 1/2 the average annual market return. $12,000 will see a 10% return, vs, $1,000/month over the year seeing 6%. What hurts is when the market tanks in ...
10464
How to interpret a 1,372.55% dividend payout ratio (GSK)?
[ "558635" ]
[ "I don't think it makes sense to allow accounting numbers that you are not sure how to interpret as being a sell sign. If you know why the numbers are weird and you feel that the reason for it bodes ill about the future, and if you think there's a reason this has not been accounted for by the market, then you migh...
10465
When investing, is the risk/reward tradeoff linear?
[ "186928", "350850", "309387", "473936" ]
[ "The relationship is not linear, and depends on a lot of factors. The term you're looking for is efficient frontier, the optimal rate of return for a given level of risk. The goal is to be on the efficient frontier, meaning that for the given level of risk, you're receiving the greatest possible rate of return (rew...
10467
Money market account for emergency savings
[ "349139", "252358", "257754", "276805", "457994", "282623" ]
[ "Depends on how urgent your need for the emergency savings might be. If the money market account allows you to get your money in the same amount of time as the savings account then there is no real downside, but if the account takes a few days for you to access and you need your money sooner then you probably shoul...
10471
Long-term capital gain taxes on ETFs?
[ "486974", "350317" ]
[ "Generally speaking, each year, mutual funds distribute to their shareholders the dividends that are earned by the stocks that they hold and also the net capital gains that they make when they sell stocks that they hold. If they did not do so, the money would be income to the fund and the fund would have to pay tax...
10473
gnucash share fractions
[ "196640" ]
[ "As BrenBarn stated, tracking fractional transactions beyond 8 decimal places makes no sense in the context of standard stock and mutual fund transactions. This is because even for the most expensive equities, those fractional shares would still not be worth whole cent amounts, even for account balances in the hun...
10474
Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do?
[ "593962", "365661", "34986", "448544", "117845", "30159" ]
[ "In my opinion, the fee is criminal. There are ETFs available to the public that have expenses as low as .05%. The index fund VIIIX an institution level fund available to large 401(k) plans charges .02%. I'll pay a total of under 1% over the next 50 years, Consider that at retirement, the safe withdrawal rate has...
10479
401k vs. real estate for someone who is great at saving?
[ "57960", "204579" ]
[ "Apples and oranges. The stock market requires a tiny bit of your time. Perhaps a lot if you are interested in individual stocks, and pouring through company annual reports, but close to none if you have a mix of super low cost ETFs or index fund. The real estate investing you propose is, at some point, a serious ...
10481
How does a delta signify the probability of expiring in the money
[ "195824" ]
[ "Just for clarification, delta and probability of expiring in the money are not the same thing. What the guy meant was that delta is usually a close enough approximation to the probability. One way to think about it is to look at the probabilities and deltas of In the Money, Out of the Money, and At the Money optio...
10483
Differences in conditions on shares to private vs. public shareholders?
[ "432727" ]
[ "\"Shares sold to private investors are sold using private contracts and do not adhere to the same level of strict regulations as publicly traded shares. You may have different classes of shares in the company with different strings attached to them, depending on the deals made with the investors at the time. Since...
10485
Where to start with finding good companies to invest?
[ "473586" ]
[ "\"There obviously is not such a list of companies, because if there were the whole world would immediately invest in them. Their price would rise like a rocket and they would not be undervalued anymore. Some people think company A should be worth x per share, some people think it should be worth y. If the share pr...
10487
Unrealized Profit & Loss for Non-Stock Securities
[ "374905" ]
[ "\"Suddenly its not just comparing the current price to the price of the contract, or is it? Sure it is. Suppose you bought 100 option contracts (each for 100 shares) and paid a $1 per share premium ($10,000 total). Now those options are trading for $1.50 per share. You have an unrealized $0.50 gain per share, o...
10488
I trade options in the U.S. using Schwab. How could my wife do the same in Canada?
[ "596567" ]
[ "Your wife could open a non-registered margin trading account with a Canadian full-service or discount broker. An account at one of the top Canadian brokers should provide access to trade U.S.-listed options. I've traded both Canadian and U.S.-listed options with my own broker. On the application, you'd need to ind...
10491
Difference between IRR and ROR
[ "375929" ]
[ "There may be differences in different contexts, but here's my general understanding: Rate of Return (or Return on Investment) is the total gain or loss of an investment divided by the initial investment amount. e.g. if you buy stock for $100 and later sell it for $120 you have a 20% Rate of Return. You would hav...