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4971
Wisest option to pay for second career education
[ "68417", "161010", "560681" ]
[ "Tl;dr by anecdata I paid for my master's degree from investments/savings with a HELOC backstop It appears you don't have the 62k cash needed for tuition and living expenses so your decision is between financing a degree by selling your investments or a loan. Ultimately this comes down to the yes/no sell decisio...
4972
How to compute for losses in an upside down trade-in of a financed car?
[ "162519", "30800", "416606" ]
[ "\"Numbers: Estimate you still owe around 37000 (48500 - 4750, 5% interest, 618 per month payment). Initial price, down payment, payments made - none of these mean anything. Ask your lender, \"\"What is the payoff of the current loan?\"\" Next, sell or trade the current vehicle. Compare to the amount owed. Any sho...
4973
Currency exchange problem
[ "135220" ]
[ "\"For the purposes of report generation, I would recommend that you present the data in the currency of the user's home country. You could present another indicator, if needed, to indicate that a specific transaction was denominated in a foreign currency, where the amount represents the value of the foreign-denomi...
4975
Solid reading/literature for investment/retirement/income taxes?
[ "136825", "462671", "161309" ]
[ "For the mechanices/terms of stock investing, I recommend Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch. I also like The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle. It explains why indexing is the best choice for most people. For stock picking, a good intro is The Little Book of Value Investing by Chris Brown. And then the...
4976
Can I use an HSA to pay financed payments for LASIK?
[ "366288" ]
[ "From HSA Resources - I understand that I can reimburse myself from my HSA for qualified medical expenses that I pay out-of-pocket but is there a time limit? Do I need to reimburse myself in the same year? You have your entire lifetime to reimburse yourself. As long as you had your HSA established at the time the ...
4977
Auto loan and student loan balance
[ "167213", "7597" ]
[ "I don't understand the calculations in the comments by the OP. He says My monthly savings after mandatory expense is around USD 2000. This includes rent, expenses, emergency fund savings, and the monthly required payment of my auto loan. (emphasis added) He has $2000 USD left over after monthly expenses (which in...
4978
Multi-year profit/tax question
[ "298387" ]
[ "\"This is called \"\"Net Operating Loss\"\", and it is in fact applicable for individuals as well. You can, under certain circumstances, have NOL even as an individual. But it is far more common in the corporate world. What happens is that you can carry it back or forward, and get refund on taxes paid or adjust in...
498
Should I file taxes or Incorperate a personal project?
[ "333954", "227757", "113776" ]
[ "Normally, incorporation is for liability reasons. Just file your taxes as a business. This just means adding a T2125 to your personal return. There's no registering, that's for GST if over a certain threshold. There's even a section in the instructions for internet businesses. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/...
4980
Where do online stock brokers get their real-time data from?
[ "6826", "557770" ]
[ "Generally Google gets their data, directly from the exchanges (Nasdaq, NYSE). This is really expensive -- tens of thousands of dollars a month just for the license from the exchange, and lots of telecom costs on top of that.", "As another answer started, this information comes straight from an exchange and ge...
4982
What to make of historical stock market volatility?
[ "535593" ]
[ "\"The first thing to realize is that the type of chart you saw is not appropriate for long-term comparisons. The vertical axis uses a linear scale, where each unit occupies the same amount of space. This is visually misleading because the relevant information at any point in the chart is \"\"how much is the valu...
4983
Effective interest rate for mortgage loan
[ "351698" ]
[ "With the $2000 downpayment and interest rate of 11.5% nominal compounded monthly the monthly payments would be $970.49 As you state, that is a monthly rate of 0.9583% Edit With the new information, taking the standard loan equation where Let Now setting s = 98000, with d = 990.291 solve for r" ]
4984
How to calculate the price of a bond based with a yield to Maturity, term and annual interest?
[ "152265", "166394" ]
[ "\"Like all financial investments, the value of a bond is the present value of expected future cash flows. The Yield to Maturity is the annualized return you get on your initial investment, which is equivalent to the discount rate you'd use to discount future cash flows. So if you discount all future cashflows at ...
4985
How can I compare the performance of a high dividend funds with other funds and or an index
[ "584128" ]
[ "Vanguard (and probably other mutual fund brokers as well) offers easy-to-read performance charts that show the total change in value of a $10K investment over time. This includes the fair market value of the fund plus any distributions (i.e. dividends) paid out. On Vanguard's site they also make a point to show ...
4987
What happened to buyers of ABT right before the split?
[ "304304" ]
[ "The trades after that date were Ex-DIV, meaning after 5 pm Dec 12, new trades did not include the shares that were to be spun out. The process is very orderly, no one pays $60 without getting the spinoff, and no one pays $30 but still gets it. The real question is why there's that long delay nearly three weeks to...
4988
Fair Value of a monthly payment given two Bank Payment structures
[ "65578" ]
[ "There is one basic principle to apply here: to compare money paid at different times, all the amounts must be compounded or discounted to the same point in time. In this case, the moment of the initial $225,000 loan is convenient. At that moment, you get $225,000 You then make 30 payments on the 40% mortgage. T...
4989
Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car?
[ "336240", "313057", "113516", "302678", "180295", "60282", "474184", "45729", "77697" ]
[ "\"If you are going to finance a used car, it is frequently best to arrange financing before you even pick out the car. The easiest way I recommend is to talk to a local credit union or two. They'll be able to tell you your interest rate and terms without having to talk to the dealer at all. Most likely, they...
499
Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use?
[ "346444", "482332", "316490", "347637" ]
[ "What I should have done in the first place was just ask them. From their customer support team: Thanks for writing in and for your interest in Square. It is perfectly acceptable to use Square for personal business, such as a yard sale. You do not need to have a registered business to take advantage of Square and ...
4991
What's the best use for this money? Its only a small amount but can make a big difference to me
[ "185541", "241189" ]
[ "First and foremost, it's about changing habits. It seems like you've learned a painful lesson with the car financing. That's a good start. I'd work on developing the habit of making a budget every month before you spend a penny. As for this money, I would pay off the Apple loan and put the rest in savings. The...
4992
How and where to get the time series of the values USDEUR?
[ "16961" ]
[ "The Federal Reserve Bank publishes exchange rate data in their H.10 release. It is daily, not minute by minute. The Fed says this about their data: About the Release The H.10 weekly release contains daily rates of exchange of major currencies against the U.S. dollar. The data are noon buying rates in New York ...
4993
Does it make sense to refinance a 30 year mortgage to 15 years?
[ "384185", "217636", "576609" ]
[ "You don't say what the time remaining on the current mortgage is, nor the expense of the refi. There are a number of traps when doing the math. Say you have 10 years left on a 6% mortgage, $200K balance. I offer you a 4% 30 year. No cost at all. A good-intentioned person would do some math as follows: Please look...
4994
Biggest stock price gain vs. biggest mkt cap gain
[ "86408" ]
[ "\"When you look at those results you'll see that it lists the actual market cap for the stocks. The ones on the biggest price move are usually close the the $1B capitalization cut-off that they use. (The don't report anything with less than $1B in capitalization on these lists.) The ones on the biggest market ca...
4995
Books, Videos, Tutorials to learn about different investment options in the financial domain
[ "283971", "445113", "301813" ]
[ "Those are some very broad questions and I don't think I can answer them completely, but I will add what I can. Barron's Finance and Investment Handbook is the best reference book I have found. It provides a basic description/definition for every type of investment available. It covers stocks, preferred stocks, var...
4996
Currently a Microsoft Money user on PC, need a replacement suitable for Mac
[ "78430", "183960", "427229" ]
[ "I haven't found a drop-in replacement for MS Money, but I've tried a few of the Mac desktop programs. I settled on Iggsoftware's iBank, which seems to do what I need it to do. It also appears to be able to import transactions from MS Money if you export your accounts as QIF files at the MS Money end, but I never t...
5
Starting a new online business
[ "69306" ]
[ "Most US states have rules that go something like this: You will almost certainly have to pay some registration fees, as noted above. Depending on how you organize, you may or may not need to file a separate tax return for the business. (If you're sole proprietor for tax purposes, then you file on Schedule C on yo...
500
Differences in taxes paid for W2 employee vs. 1099 contractor working on sites like ODesk.com?
[ "165645" ]
[ "Yes, you've summarized it well. You may be able to depreciate your computer, expense some software licenses and may be home office if you qualify, but at this scale of earning - it will probably not cover for the loss of the money you need to pay for the additional SE tax (the employer part of the FICA taxes for W...
5000
If I have AD&D through my employer, should I STILL purchase term life insurance?
[ "490948", "172251", "209159" ]
[ "Most likely, yes. AD&D is insurance against a specific type of peril. Life insurance is, too, but there are fewer exceptions to payout. I'd imagine that you'd have to die by accident, or be dismembered but not die, for it to pay out. The exceptions in the policy are what you need to be concerned about. If loss ...
5002
Can you please explain what the information in this stock quote means?
[ "478772" ]
[ "Yes, that's what it means. Also, it tells you that the share price went up by $0.39 yesterday, which was an increase of 1.43% from the previous day's price, and that the total value of all of Microsoft's shares is $232.18 billion (from which we can deduce that there are a bit less than 10 billion Microsoft shares ...
5003
How do you access an OFX server?
[ "276890" ]
[ "\"This page, under the \"\"OFX\"\" section, has pointers to an OFX 2.0 spec (pdf). You're looking for the info starting at page 18, section 1.2.1: Clients use the HTTP POST command to send a request to the previously acquired Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the desired financial institution. The URL presumably ...
5005
What is a good service that will allow me to practice options trading with a pretend-money account?
[ "255455", "287437", "44521" ]
[ "Try wallstreetsurvivor.com It gives you $100k of pretend money when you sign up, using which you can take various courses on the website. It will teach you how to buy/sell stocks and build your portfolio. I am not sure if they do have Options Trading specifically, but their course line up is great!", "Try https:...
5006
Investment for beginners in the United Kingdom
[ "218285", "345943", "23819", "398278", "225239", "57841" ]
[ "I'd go to specialist community web sites such as The Motley Fool and read their investing articles, and their forums, and everything. You cannot get enough information and advice to get going, as it is really easy to think investing is easy and returns are guaranteed. A lot of people found that out in 2008 and 200...
5007
Stock Dividends & Splits: Are they always applied over night?
[ "370304" ]
[ "I've never seen a dividend, split or other corporate action during the day, but I have seen trade suspended a few times when something big happened. The market opening price is not in general the same as the close of the previous day. It can gap up or down and does frequently. I don't know of an api to find out if...
5008
What is the ticker symbol for “Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Trust Plus”?
[ "175927" ]
[ "\"Use VTIVX. The \"\"Target Retirement 2045\"\" and \"\"Target Retirement 2045 Trust Plus\"\" are the same underlying fund, but the latter is offered through employers. The only differences I see are the expense ratio and the minimum investment dollars. But for the purposes of comparing funds, it should be prett...
5009
Pay bill now or later?
[ "550274", "416661" ]
[ "If you've got the money to pay the bill today, do it. They are giving you a 25% discount if you do. You won't find an investment that will beat that. Let's look at the details of your scheme. Instead of paying $1696 today, you decide that you will pay $2261 over 60 months, or $37.68 per month. You also decide t...
501
If I invest in a company that goes bankrupt, is that a gain or a loss?
[ "482464" ]
[ "I'll give the credit to @Quid in the comments section of the question. You put out $10k, you got back $20k, that's a cash gain of $10k, how the asset was valued between your purchase and sale isn't relevant. From an accounting perspective, the company is the only party that is realizing the loss (as they have sol...
5010
What does negative Total Equity means in McDonald's balance sheet?
[ "399191" ]
[ "\"what does negative Total Equity means in McDonald's balance sheet? It means that their liabilities exceed their total assets. Usually is means that a company has accumulated losses over time, but that's just one explanation. But, isn't McDonald a very healthy company, and never lost money? Just because a comp...
5011
still have mortgage on old house to be torn down- want to build new house
[ "381610", "272798" ]
[ "You're effectively looking for a mortgage for a new self-build house. At the beginning, you should be able to get a mortgage based on the value of the land only. They may be willing to lend more as the build progresses. Try to find a company that specializes in this sort of mortgage.", "I could be wrong, but I...
5012
Financing a vehicle a few months before I expect to apply for a mortgage?
[ "132920", "489501", "486791" ]
[ "If your debt will all be less than 25% gross (yes, I see you said take home) you are in great shape. I'd get the car and not worry. The well written mortgage is 20% down, with a housing payment (which of course includes prop tax and insurance, as noted by mhoran, below) under 28% and total debt under 36%. You are...
5013
Is there a term for total money owed to you?
[ "556314" ]
[ "\"Is there a word for that $20k owed? Trade Receivables, Accounts Receivables, or just Receivables Is there a different word for that $30k \"\"hypothetical\"\" total? Current Assets (Includes Inventory and other short term assets)\"" ]
5014
Am I entitled to get a maintenance loan?
[ "183450", "530114" ]
[ "According to GOV.UK, you can only apply for Student Finance if: Since you don't fulfill the criterion 2 and 3, you are technically not eligible for Student Finance. Since you have received information from Student Finance England that you can apply for the maintenance loan, you should either write to them or call ...
5015
Rate of change of beta
[ "151902", "402690", "395481" ]
[ "\"This is (almost) a question in financial engineering. First I will note that a discussion of \"\"the greeks\"\" is well presented at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks_(finance) These measures are first, second and higher order derivatives (or rate of change comparisons) for information that is generally insta...
5017
I'm an American in my mid 20's. Is there something I should be doing to secure myself financially?
[ "137708", "415432", "285887", "9957" ]
[ "First of all, make sure you have an emergency fund. Ideally this should be at least 6 months of living expenses in an easily accessible place. Do you have any credit card debt, school debt, or other debt? Work towards becoming debt free, especially of higher interest debt and debt on things that are only depreci...
502
Getting financial advice: Accountant vs. Investment Adviser vs. Internet/self-taught?
[ "498631", "549435", "181678" ]
[ "\"Do I need an Investment Adviser? No, but you may want to explore the idea of having one. Is he going to tell me anything that my accountant can't? Probably. How much expertise are you expecting from your accountant here? Do you think your accountant knows everything within the realms of money from taxes, insur...
5022
Which institutions in Canada offer true read-only guest accounts?
[ "266826" ]
[ "Converting fideli comment to answer I don't think any Canadian bank offers this capability for online banking. However, there seems to be a fierce push right now at most banks to improve their online banking platform so they may be open to the suggestion of guest accounts" ]
5023
Can I profit from selling a PUT on BBY?
[ "37116", "31432", "160169" ]
[ "Yes. You got it right. If BBY has issues and drops to say, $20, as the put buyer, I force you to take my 100 shares for $2800, but they are worth $2000, and you lost $800 for the sake of making $28. The truth is, the commissions also wipe out the motive for trades like yours, even a $5 cost is $10 out of the $28...
5024
Am I eligible for a student maintenance loan?
[ "362645" ]
[ "Looking at https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/who-qualifies, it says: You can only apply if: As you meet all three requirements I think you are counted as a English student in every respect. I would advise applying as soon as possible though to verify this. EDIT: also, getting a British passport anyway might not h...
5025
Possible pro-rated division of asset strategies without a prenup?
[ "47904" ]
[ "\"Absent a pre-nup, it's a case of \"\"lawyer vs lawyer,\"\" you can't count on protecting what you came into the marriage with. In theory, what you propose sounds fair, but the reality of divorce is that everything is fair game. much depends on each spouse's earnings and impact of child-raising. For example, a wo...
5029
Reinvesting earnings increases the book value of equity?
[ "42738" ]
[ "The book value is Total Assets minus Total Liabilities and so if you increase the Total Assets without changing the Total Liabilities the difference gets bigger and thus higher. Consider if a company had total assets of $4 and total liabilities of $3 so the book value is $1. Now, if the company adds $2 to the asse...
5031
Margin when entered into a derivative contract
[ "520098", "55022", "356388" ]
[ "\"A derivative contract can be an option, and you can take a short (sell) position , much the same way you would in a stock. When BUYING options you risk only the money you put in. However when selling naked(you don't have the securities or cash to cover all potential losses) options, you are borrowing. Brokers fo...
5032
When I ask a broker to buy stock, what does the broker do?
[ "477683", "327941", "123958" ]
[ "Here are a couple of articles that can help highlight the differences between a broker and an online investment service, which seems to be part of the question that you're asking. Pay attention to the references at the end of this link. http://finance.zacks.com/online-investing-vs-personal-broker-6720.html Investo...
5033
Where is “Cash Credit from Unsettled Activity” coming from?
[ "554853" ]
[ "\"The Cash Credit from Unsettled Activity occurs because AGG issued a dividend in the past week. Since you purchased the ETF long enough before the record date (June 5, 2013) for that trade to settle, you qualified for a dividend. The dividend distribution was $0.195217/share for each of your six shares, for a tot...
5034
Who performs the blocking on a Visa card?
[ "456147", "291793", "313441" ]
[ "It is the people who you bought the ticket from. Blocking is frequently done by hotels, gas stations, or rental car companies. Also, for anything where the credit card might be used to cover any damages or charges you might incur later as part of the transaction. In essence, they are reserving part of your credit ...
5035
How can I find out what percentage the publicly traded shares (float) are of the total company?
[ "585139", "563151" ]
[ "I think you're looking for the public float: Public float or the unqualified term may also refer to the number of outstanding shares in the hands of public investors as opposed to company officers, directors, or controlling-interest investors. Assuming the insider held shares are not traded, these shares are...
5036
Identity theft?
[ "164262" ]
[ "\"Assuming you live in the US, it is quite normal when you are applying for a loan that the application will ask you to confirm your identity. One of these methods is to ask you which of the following addresses you have lived at, with some of them being very similar (i.e. same city, or maybe even the same street)....
5037
Are the AARP benefits and discounts worth the yearly membership cost?
[ "480181", "139230" ]
[ "\"Note: this answer was provided when the question was only about Life Insurance, therefore it does not address any other \"\"benefits\"\" Term Life Insurance is very easy to evaluate, once you have determined how much you need and for how long. For significant amounts of coverage they may require a physical to be...
5038
Online sites for real time bond prices
[ "329582", "37959" ]
[ "Bonds are extremely illiquid and have traditionally traded in bulk. This has changed in recent years, but bonds used to be traded all by humans not too long ago. Currently, price data is all proprietary. Prices are reported to the usual data terminals such as Bloomberg, Reuters, etc, but brokers may also have pr...
5039
Why does a long/purchased call option have a long position in the option itself?
[ "349974", "21768", "238474" ]
[ "\"It will be helpful to establish some definitions: Long \"\"Long\"\" is financial slang for \"\"to have possession of an asset\"\", legally, and \"\"to debit an asset\"\", financially. Short \"\"Short\"\" is financial slang for \"\"to be liable for an asset\"\", legally, and \"\"to credit an asset\"\", financia...
5040
Rate of return of stock index
[ "223277" ]
[ "The return from one day to the next is based on the Day's closing price. To be clear - opening prices can be quite different from the prior day close. In your example, they are pretty close, but this is not always the case. Just pull a larger data set to observe this. The above aside, dividends are not reflected...
5041
Mortgage loan and move money to US
[ "385310" ]
[ "Let me restate question for clarity. Facts: Question: Are there any taxes for this transaction? Answer: (Added improvements provided by Eric) Generally No. Generally, it is not considered income until you sell and the sale price is greater than the purchase price. But with currency differences, there is an additio...
5042
Why do some companies (like this company) have such a huge per share price?
[ "80024" ]
[ "\"Simple answer is because the stocks don't split. Most stocks would have a similar high price per share if they didn't split occasionally. Why don't they split? A better way to ask this is probably, why DO most stocks split? The standard answer is that it gives the appearance that stocks are \"\"cheap\"\" again ...
5043
How do used vehicle exchange programs at car dealerships work?
[ "242425", "425444" ]
[ "\"You are correct to be wary. Car dealerships make money selling cars, and use many tactics and advertisements to entice you to come into their showroom. \"\"We are in desperate need of [insert your make, model, year and color]! We have several people who want that exact car you have! Come in and sell it to us and...
5044
How to find trailing 5-year stock returns for 1980s?
[ "376396" ]
[ "I dont know if this data is available for the 1980s, but this response to an old question of mine discusses how you can pull stock related information from google or yahoo finance over a certain period of time. You could do this in excel or google spreadsheet and see if you could get the data you're looking for. ...
5047
Need a loan to buy property in India. What are my options?
[ "407017", "357184", "474173" ]
[ "Getting the line of credit would likely be a bit easier than the loan but realistically the best option is getting a mortgage through an Indian bank. With a long term mortgage your monthly payments would be a small portion of your income (maybe as low as $500) so currency fluctuations are likely to be minor blips...
5048
I'm upside down on my car loan and need a different car, what can I do?
[ "110371", "503940", "290879", "262028", "138148" ]
[ "There are a few things you should keep in mind when getting another vehicle: DON'T use dealership financing. Get an idea of the price range you're looking for, and go to your local bank or find a local credit union and get a pre-approval for a loan amount (that will also let you know what kind of interest rates yo...
5049
Should I use my non-tax advantaged investment account to pay off debt?
[ "373554", "278290", "115267" ]
[ "If what you are paying in interest on the debt is a higher percentage than what your investments are returning, the best investment you can make is to pay off the debt. If you're lucky enough to be paying historically low rates (as I am on my mortgage) and getting good returns on the investments so the latter is t...
5051
Is there any reason not to buy points when re-financing with intent not to sell for a while?
[ "303557", "145862", "500695" ]
[ "The math is pretty simple. You can spend less overall if you pay points. Things to remember are:", "In such a situation, is there any reason, financial or not, to NOT pay as many points as mortgage seller allows? I can think of a few reasons not to buy points, in the scenario you described: If interest rates...
5052
Using multiple bank accounts
[ "543921", "214248" ]
[ "There is nothing conceptually wrong with it. If you like it that way, go ahead. The only thing to watch out for is bank policies that effectively penalize having many small accounts. For instance, some banks charge you a fee for checking accounts with a balance below a certain minimum, but will waive the fees fo...
5053
What is this fund?
[ "459152" ]
[ "SMID CAP FUND is Fidelity's way of saying SMALL to MID CAP FUND. Small to Medium is self explanatory. Cap is capitalization, and it basically means how much the sum of all the existing shares of the company are worth. Fidelity names the funds inside their 401k plans according to who provides the fund. They als...
5056
How to get 0% financing for a car, with no credit score?
[ "307131", "268049" ]
[ "Yes, of course it is. Car dealers are motivated to write loans even more than selling cars at times. When I bought a new car for the first time in my life, in my 40's, it took longer to get the finance guy out of my face than to negotiate and buy the car. The car dealer selling you the used car would be happy to ...
5057
Can a Line of Credit be re-financed? Is it like a mortgage, with a term?
[ "41293", "455488" ]
[ "HELOCs typically have a 10 year draw and 5 year payback. During the draw time you can pay interest only if you wish. The rate can range from Prime minus 1.5 to Prime plus (quite a bit). Of course, you can always shop around for a better deal than you currently have so long as you have equity in your home.", "Yo...
5059
Who could afford a higher annual deductible who couldn't afford a higher monthly payment?
[ "554856", "585790", "493580" ]
[ "Your title question, Who could afford a higher premium who couldn't afford a higher monthly payment?, contrasts premium with monthly payment, but those are the same thing. In the body of your question, you list monthly payment and deductible, which is entirely different. The deductible is paid only if you need th...
506
How does Robinhood stock broker make money?
[ "368008", "285997", "30959", "431754" ]
[ "Robinhood seems interesting. Some say it's a gimmicky site with a nice UI not an investing or trading platform. From investopedia: 1. For now, the app stays afloat for mainly two reasons. First, the business itself is extremely lean: no physical locations, a small staff, no massive public relations campaigns and...
5060
Loan math problem
[ "415976", "388899" ]
[ "The price inflation isn't a percentage, it's a fixed amount. If the dealer adds $R to the price of both the trade-in and the purchased car, then everyone ends up with the right amount of money in their pockets. So your formula should be: D + T + R = 0.1 * (P + R)", "\"Lachlan has $600 cash and a car worth $500. ...
5062
help with how a loan repayment is calculated
[ "57305", "260569" ]
[ "\"It appears the interest is not compounded daily. Each period of interest has the loan amount calculated on the \"\"capital\"\" remaining on the start of period, for each day in the period. The Excel finance functions don't handle irregular periods that well, but I can reconstruct the interest calculations:\"",...
5065
When to hire an investment professional?
[ "106578", "331553", "59670" ]
[ "I don't know what you mean by 'major'. Do you mean the fund company is a Fidelity or Vanguard, or that the fund is broad, as in an s&P fund? The problem starts with a question of what your goals are. If you already know the recommended mix for your age/risk, as you stated, you should consider minimizing the expen...
5066
How do annual risks translate into long-term risks?
[ "424079" ]
[ "\"The short answer is the annualised volatility over twenty years should be pretty much the same as the annualised volatility over five years. For independent, identically distributed returns the volatility scales proportionally. So for any number of monthly returns T, setting the annualization factor m = 12 annua...
5068
My mother's name is on my car title, how can I protect my ownership of the car in the event of her death?
[ "364138" ]
[ "It's her car. Unlike what Ross said in the comments she can't sign it over to you--she doesn't own it yet. The best you'll be able to do is have her leave it to you in her will--but beware that you very well might need to refinance the loan at that point." ]
5069
Guide to save money in all-time life
[ "489480" ]
[ "You will find lots of rules of thumb but there is no universal truth to how much you should save. There are factors you DO need to consider though: you should start as early as possible to set money aside for retirement. You should then use a retirement calculator to at least get an understanding of the amount you...
507
Credit Card Approval
[ "70156", "119104", "182758" ]
[ "Banks use quite a few parameters to arrive at the decision for card approval. The credit score is just one input. There are multiple other inputs it would source, for example total years in job, the number of years in current job, income streams, etc ... the exact formula is a trade secret and varies from Bank to ...
5070
Is a car loan bad debt?
[ "373691", "594051", "547558", "483185", "489729", "252019", "256362" ]
[ "Here is another way to look at it. Does this debt enable you to buy more car than you can really afford, or more car than you need? If so, it's bad debt. Let's say you don't have the price of a new car, but you can buy a used car with the cash you have. You will have to repair the car occasionally, but this is gen...
5071
Should I make partial pre-payments on an actuarial loan?
[ "85783" ]
[ "The contract is not very clear. As much as I can understand it will still help if you make part prepayments. In an Rule 78 or Actuarial method, the schedule is drawn up front and the break-up of interest and principal for each month is calculated ahead. At the beginning both the reducing balance method as well as ...
5072
How long to wait before refinancing a high interest car loan, after improving credit history?
[ "487776" ]
[ "Between half a year and a year should be enough to improve your interest rates drastically on car loan refinance. Make sure that your new credit card has already been reported to the agencies, and that the credit/debt ratio is lower than 30% on your revolving (credit card) accounts. That also means that you should...
5073
Where can I find historic performance data on Barclays Aggregate Canadian Bond Index?
[ "286335" ]
[ "I couldn't find historical data either, so I contacted Vanguard Canada and Barclays; Vanguard replied that This index was developed for Vanguard, and thus historical information is available as of the inception of the fund. Unfortunately, that means that the only existing data on historical returns are in the lin...
5075
give free budgeting advice
[ "457395", "75510", "580661" ]
[ "They've asked you, so your advice is welcome. That's your main concern, really. I'd also ask them how much, and what kind of advice. Do they want you to point them to good websites? On what subjects? Or do they want more personal advice and have you to look over their bank accounts and credit card statements, ...
5077
What is meant by the term “representative stock list” here?
[ "259948" ]
[ "The meaning is quite literal - a representative stock list is a list of stocks that would reasonably be expected to have about the same results as the whole market, i.e. be representative of an investment that invests in all those stocks. Of course, you don't want to invest in all stocks individually, that would b...
5078
moving family deposits away from Greece (possibly in UK)
[ "403559", "150543" ]
[ "I can't comment about your tax liability in Greece. You will have to pay tax on interest in the UK. If you are earning massive amounts of interest, unlikely with the current interest policies from Merv, then you might be bumped up a tier. The receiving bank may ask for proof of the source of the funds, particularl...
5079
Are there good investment options to pay off student loans?
[ "327700", "98920" ]
[ "Paying off your student loan is an investment, and a completely risk-free one. Every payment of your loan is a purchase of debt at the interest rate of the loan. It would be extremely unusual to be able to find a CD, bond or other low-risk play at a better rate. Any investment in a risky asset such as stocks i...
508
When should I start an LLC for my side work?
[ "362778", "157233", "580817", "138065" ]
[ "The major reason to start an LLC for side work is if you want the additional personal liability protection afforded by one. If you're operating as a sole proprietor, you may be exposing yourself to liability: debts and judgments against your business can put your personal assets at risk! So, if you're intending t...
5081
Credit card transactions for personal finances
[ "353915", "15262" ]
[ "I use mint.com for tracking my finances. It works on mobile phones, tablets, and in a browser. If you don't mind the initial hassle of putting in the credentials you use to access your account online, you'll find that you're able to build a comprehensive picture of the state of your finances relatively quickly. ...
5082
Where can I get interesting resources on Commodities?
[ "334909", "160030" ]
[ "Here are some pretty big name news agencies which have a section dedicated to commodities: CNN Bloomberg Reuters", "I would recommend that go through some forums where commodities topics be discussed so that if you have some issues related any point in commodities investment you will easily get your question sor...
5084
Strange values in ARM.L price data 1998-2000 from Yahoo
[ "55820" ]
[ "This is just a shot in the dark but it could be intermarket data. If the stock is interlisted and traded on another market exchange that day then the Yahoo Finance data feed might have picked up the data from another market. You'd have to ask Yahoo to explain and they'd have to check their data." ]
5087
How to invest 100k
[ "470117", "133120", "211713" ]
[ "\"How to spend the money is up to you. That includes spending money on your house. (This is a safer way to look at it than an \"\"investment\"\". Not that it can't ever be treated as such, but that doing so often makes it easy to justify bad decisions and overspending on the house.) So with regards to the mortgage...
5088
How to calculate the closing price percentage change for a stock?
[ "115079" ]
[ "The previous day's close on Thursday 10th October was 5,000.00 The close on Friday 11th October is 5,025.92 So the gain on Friday was 25.92 (5025.92 - 5000) or 0.52% (25.92/5000 x 100%). No mystery!" ]
5089
Why doesn't GnuCash auto-reconcile non-bank accounts?
[ "256693" ]
[ "\"The answer is just close your eyes and ignore it (in your words). I'm right there with you, the amount of detail that I track in my personal finances would be called obscene by some people. But as you look at these features in any accounting application, you need to ask the question \"\"What does this informati...
509
Can I open a personal bank account with an EIN instead of SSN?
[ "377152" ]
[ "\"According to IRS Publication 1635, Understanding your EIN (PDF), under \"\"What is an EIN?\"\" on page 2: Caution: An EIN is for use in connection with your business activities only. Do not use your EIN in place of your social security number (SSN). As you say your EIN is for your business as a sole proprietor, ...
5091
Is there a term that better describes a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) when it is negative?
[ "145143", "37987", "87675" ]
[ "\"Not sure why CAGR is a problem for both directions. I used to be a physicist, and, when I taught classes in graduate school, students always wanted to use the terms \"\"accelerate\"\" and \"\"decelerate\"\" to describe \"\"speeding up\"\" and \"\"slowing down\"\". But acceleration is just a vector with magnitude...
5092
How do I buy bundled insurance policies?
[ "457956" ]
[ "You have 3 companies now that you work with. I would start there. Ask one of them to show you what would happen if you bought the other two policies from them. This may not be something that they will show via the quotes generated on the web page. So you would be better off talking to a person who can generate a ...
5093
What forms (S-1, 8-K, etc) and keywords in news headlines signify dilution?
[ "457532" ]
[ "Possibles: stock offering, secondary placement, increase authorized number of shares, shelf registration." ]
5094
Unable to understand logic behind why there is no exit load on liquid fund
[ "127958", "138352" ]
[ "I think you are having trouble understanding what 'liquid' means. Liquidity refers to how easily an asset can be converted to cash. More liquid = more easily converted to cash, less liquid, less so. Any kind of exit load is going to make an asset less liquid due to the penalties associated with making the sale. So...
5097
Strategy to pay off car loan before selling the car
[ "572420" ]
[ "As far as ease of sale transaction goes you'll want to pay off the loan and have the title in your name and in your hand at the time of sale. Selling a car private party is difficult enough, the last thing you want is some administrivia clouding your deal. How you go about paying the remaining balance on the car...
5098
Stock trading models that use fundamental analysis, e.g. PEG ratios?
[ "194240", "317803" ]
[ "\"One idea: If you came up with a model to calculate a \"\"fair price range\"\" for a stock, then any time the market price were to go below the range it could be a buy signal, and above the range it could be a sell signal. There are many ways to do stock valuation using fundamental analysis tools and ratios: divi...