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Tools for comparing costs between different healthcare providers? | When I had a high-deductible healthcare plan, I used http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ to do comparisons among the plans. As far as comparing the costs of specific procedures across providers, I'm not aware of any good ways either. |
Interest on security deposits paid to landlords, in Michigan? | No. The full text of the Landlord-Tenant Act (specifically, section 554.614 of Act 348 of the year 1972) makes no mention of this. Searching the law for "interest" doesn't yield anything of interest (pardon the pun). Specifically, section 554.604 of the same law states that: (1) The security deposit shall be deposited... |
H&R Block says form 1120 not finalized? IRS won't take it yet? | This form is due March 15. This year, the 15th is Saturday, so the deadline is Monday March 17th. Keep in mind, the software guys would have two choices, wait until every last form is finalized before releasing, or put the software out by late November when 80%+ are good to go. Nothing is broken in this process. Keep... |
Legal requirements to sell design content, artwork and also freelance in India? | There is no requirement to open a company. You can work as freelancer. You need to report income and file returns. If your income is more than exempt limit, pay taxes. Apply for a PAN number if you don't have one yet. |
Are personal finance / money management classes taught in high school, anywhere? | In Houston, Texas USA where I went to a private high school they had a half-semester class in personal finance, but it was optional and didn't give you any credits towards graduation. You are right though, it should be a standard class. After all, who doesn't need that information in their adult lives, and not everyone... |
Benefits of Purchasing Company Stock at a Discount | If your purchases are done at year end, but the money withheld over that 12 month period, the 17% return is for an average time of 6 months, and the return annualizes to 38% or so. All due respect to Alex B, the return would be 100/85 as he states, if the investment were funded in January and sold in December. But this... |
What are the opportunities/implications of having a designated clearing bank in my home country? | For an individual there will not be much impact immediately. This arrangement will help Corporates and Banks settle payments more easily. - It would typically help companies dealing with Yuan [Buying or selling to China or Countries that accept Yuan as payment] to make payments at a cheaper cost & in less time. - In th... |
Can I convert spread option into regular call or put? | Just so I'm clear- the end result is a long call, and you think the stock is going up. There is nothing wrong with that fundamentally. Be aware though: That's a negative theta trade. This means if your stock doesn't increase in price during the remaining time to expiration of your call option, the option will lose som... |
Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | The simple answer is absolutely. With the parameters you quote, if you will pay off the loan in 82 months or less, you will be ahead taking the variable rate. You have put your finger on the important question as well. The higher initial interest is buying insurance against rates rising if you don't pay off the loan w... |
How to get 0% financing for a car, with no credit score? | Is it possible to get a 0% interest rate for car loan for used car in US? Possible? Yes. It's not illegal. Likely? Not really. $5K is not a very high amount, many banks won't even finance it at all, regardless of your credit score. I suggest you try local credit unions, especially those that your employer is sponsori... |
How does historical data get adjusted for dividends, exactly? | I had both closing price and adjusted price of Apple showing the same amount after "download data" csv file was opened in excel. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/history?period1=1463599361&period2=1495135361&interval=div%7Csplit&filter=split&frequency=1d Its frustrating. My last option was to get the dividends his... |
Which is the better strategy for buying stocks monthly? | It would seem that you are in a position where you are able to save money and you hope to have your money work for you. From your statement above, it is implied that you are a professional with a steady income not related to the finance field. With that said, it is better to diversify your portfolio and have your money... |
Splitting Hackathon Prize Money to minimize tax debt | I would just take $2000 and multiply by your marginal tax rate, weight that between the 5 other people according to their share of the prize money and ask them to give you that. From your question it seems like you all have a good working relationship, I'm sure the other partners would agree to that. I think it's the s... |
How did this day trader lose so much? | Learn something new every day... I found this interesting and thought I'd throw my 2c in. Good description (I hope) from Short Selling: What is Short Selling First, let's describe what short selling means when you purchase shares of stock. In purchasing stocks, you buy a piece of ownership in the company. You buy/sell ... |
Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? | I had a colleague turn down a raise once because he believed that female colleagues were already being paid well below his salary and it was unfair to further increase this gap. For very public figures raises are often declined as a form of leadership: showing that management is willing to forgo bonuses and salary incr... |
Can I sell a stock immediately? | You have no guarantees. The stock may last have traded at $100 (so, the market price is $100), but is currently in free-fall and nobody else will be willing to buy it for any more than $80. Or heck, maybe nobody will be willing to buy it at all, at any price. Or maybe trading on this stock will be halted. Remember, the... |
Who puts out buy/sell orders during earnings reports or other scheduled relevant information? | The early bird catches the worm. The first person who makes use of the information gains! That is why hedge funds pay billions of dollars to place their routers right at the center of wall street. Moreover, the information is not always correct. The article you are reading may be a rumor spread by someone on wall stree... |
Can I buy only 4 shares of a company? | One of my university professors suggested doing this systematically to get access to shareholder meetings where there is typically a nice dinner involved. As long as the stock price + commission is less than the price of a nice restaurant it's actually not a bad idea. |
Formula that predicts whether one is better off investing or paying down debt | I ended up writing a simulation in R. Here is my code: It produces a plot like this: This code assumes you have a lump sum and either wish to pay down a loan or invest it all immediately. Feedback welcome. |
Determining current value for real estate for inheritance purposes | how is this new value determined? According to Publication 551: Inherited Property The basis of property inherited from a decedent is generally one of the following. The FMV of the property at the date of the individual's death. The FMV on the alternate valuation date if the personal representative for the estate cho... |
What's the difference between Market Cap and NAV? | I think the key concept here is future value. The NAV is essentially a book-keeping exercise- you add up all the assets and remove all the liabilities. For a public company this is spelled out in the balance sheet, and is generally listed at the bottom. I pulled a recent one from Cisco Systems (because I used to wor... |
Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score? | No, don't open a credit card. Get used to paying cash for everything from the beginning. The best situation you can be in is not to have any credit. When it comes time to buy a house, put down %30 percent and your 0 credit score won't matter. This will keep you within your means, and, with governments gathering more an... |
Why are stop order called "stop" when it is in fact a "start" condition? | Historically they were conceived as a way to cut losses when the market turned against you. You would tell your broker something like "buy me 100 shares of Anaconda and stop me if it goes below $110" You can read references to this in old books like Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the ABC of Options pricing, or the ... |
Dispute credit card transaction with merchant or credit card company? | As a rule of thumb, go in the order of proximity to the transaction. This would typically mean: Side note: I own a website that provides an online service that accepts PayPal and credit cards (via PayPal), and I personally have experience with all 3 of the above options. I can tell you from the merchant's point of view... |
What are the important differences between mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)? | Behind the scenes, mutual funds and ETFs are very similar. Both can vary widely in purpose and policies, which is why understanding the prospectus before investing is so important. Since both mutual funds and ETFs cover a wide range of choices, any discussion of management, assets, or expenses when discussing the diff... |
Which online services offer logarithmic charts for equities such as index funds and ETFs? | The charts on nasdaq.com are log based, if you look closely you can see that the spacing between evenly incremented prices is tighter at the top of the chart and wider at the bottom. It's easiest to see on a stock with a wide price range using candlestick where you can clearly see the grid. I'm also not seeing the "... |
Starting long-term savings account as a college student | Great question and great of you to be paying attention to this. Right now having the ability to save $2K per year might seem very out of reach. However with the right career path and by paying attention to personal finance saving 2K per month will become possible sooner than you may think. As a student you are alread... |
How To Assign Payments Received Properly In GnuCash? | When I receive a check from a customer whom I previously sent an invoice, I go to the customer report for that customer, click on the link "Invoice" for that invoice, then click on the Pay Invoice button (very far right side). I then do a customer report and see that there is no balance (meaning all the invoices have b... |
Should I buy a house with a friend? | No. This amount of money is not appropriate for friends to go in on. Although you could consider buying a house with a business partner, have the contracts drawn up, see an attorney, read up on the penalties if one of the partners doesn't hold up their end from the law's point of view. Also, since this is a business a... |
What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland? | Some of the advantages of Switzerland: Not everything is about money. |
Please explain the relationship between dividend amount, stock price, and option value? | 4) Finally, do all companies reduce their stock price when they pay a dividend? Are they required to? There seems to be confusion behind this question. A company does not set the price for their stock, so they can't "reduce" it either. In fact, nobody sets "the price" for a stock. The price you see reported is simply... |
What market conditions favor small cap stocks over medium cap stocks? | In general, small cap stocks are exposed to more downside during recessions and when credit is tight, because it is more difficult for small companies to raise capital, and minor variations in cash flow have a bigger impact. Coming out of recessions or when credit is cheap, small companies generally perform better than... |
Best Time to buy a stock in a day | The best thing to do is not worry about what time is best to buy but put in a conditional order before the market opens. If your conditions are met during the trading day your order will go through and you will buy the shares. This keeps your emotions out of your trading and will stop you from either chasing the market... |
What happens to public shareholders when a public stock goes private? | If a deal is struck, you're part of that deal because you own shares. If someone offers $10/share for the entire company, you'll get that. If the stock price is $1.50 and someone offers $2/share, you'll get that. |
Tax implications of exercising ISOs and using proceeds to exercise more ISOs | That is a weird one. Typically one never needs to layout cash to exercise an option. One would only choose to use option 1, if one is seeking to buy the options. This would occur if an employee was leaving a company, would no longer be eligible for the ISO (and thereby forfeit any option grant), and does not want to... |
I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment? | I am very surprised no one mentioned the Stock Repair Option Strategy which has real benefits and is one of the mainstream Option Strategies. Quote: Who Should Consider Using the Stock Repair Strategy? In a nutshell, you are buying call options with current strike price (at-the-money) and sell call options with higher ... |
When is it worth it to buy dividend-bearing stocks? | You should never invest in a stock just for the dividend. Dividends are not guaranteed. I have seen some companies that are paying close to 10% dividends but are losing money and have to borrow funds just to maintain the dividends. How long can these companies continue paying dividends at this rate or at all. Would you... |
How much lump sum investment in stocks would be needed to yield a target stable monthly income? | If your requirements are hard (must have $1000/month, must have the same or bigger in capital at the end), stocks are a poor choice of investment. However, in many cases, people are willing to tolerate some level of risk to achieve the expected returns. You also do not mention inflation, which can take quite a lot out ... |
Multiple accounts stagnant after quitting job. | Adapted from an answer to a somewhat different question. Generally, 401k plans have larger annual expenses and provide for poorer investment choices than are available to you if you roll over your 401k investments into an IRA. So, unless you have specific reasons for wanting to continue to leave your money in the 401k ... |
On what dates do the U.S. and Canada release their respective federal budgets? | To the best of my knowledge, there's no firm date requirement. The fiscal year for the US Federal Government starts on October 01, but if my memory serves me right, last time a budget was approved before the fiscal year started was during the Clinton administration. |
My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking? | That "something" you are signing means you are liable for the mortgage payments - yes, all of them - if he can't or won't pay at any point. The limit on what the bank will lend him based on his salary is there for a reason - they don't expect him to be able to keep up repayments if they lend him more (or more precisel... |
Are stock index fund likely to keep being a reliable long-term investment option? | A diversified portfolio (such as a 60% stocks / 40% bonds balanced fund) is much more predictable and reliable than an all-stocks portfolio, and the returns are perfectly adequate. The extra returns on 100% stocks vs. 60% are 1.2% per year (historically) according to https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/saving-inv... |
Why do stocks gap up after a buyout is announced? | The "random walk" that you describe reflects the nature of the information flow about the value of a stock. If the flow is just little bits of relatively unimportant information (including information about the broader market and the investor pool), you will get small and seemingly random moves, which may look like a ... |
How to share income after marriage and kids? | My own personal point of view. I earn about twice what my wife to be earns. We are planning on getting married next year. I ultimately do all the finances (basically because she hates that kind of thing) not because I'm in charge or whatever. To work out how we do this I wrote a spreadsheet: At the top it has my mont... |
What is a decent rate of return for investing in the markets? | Seems like you should be aiming to beat the professionals, otherwise why not let them handle it? So 4.01% is a logical start. Perhaps round that up to 4.05% |
Investment strategy for a 20 year old with about 30k in bank account | Thanks for your service. I would avoid personal investment opportunities at this point. Reason being that you can't personally oversee them if you are deployed overseas. This would rule out rentals and small businesses. Revisit those possibilities if you get married or leave the service. If you have a definite t... |
Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth? | I transfer all their funds to my bank account Are they paying tax on that transfer? Gifts under $14,000 are excluded from taxation in the US, but they're going going to have a hard time arguing that it is a gift (since they expect it back). The taxes are almost certainly going to exceed the amount you can make from y... |
Auto balancing portfolio through new purchases | Finding the "optimal" solution (and even defining what optimal is) would probably take a lot of searching of all the possible combinations of stocks you could buy, given that you can't buy fractional shares. But I'd guess that a simple "greedy" algorithm should get you close enough. For any given portfolio state, look ... |
New car: buy with cash or 0% financing | I'd finance the car (for 60 or 48 months), but stash enough money in a separate account so to guarantee the ability to pay it off in case of job loss. The rationales would be: Note that I'd only do this if the loan rate were very low (under 2%). |
How can I trade in U.S stock exchange living in India by choosing the broker in U.S? | i have been trading with dollarbird Trading firm for past 1 year there is absolutly no problem everything is fine you can google them to find anything about them.they have provided me with LASER trading platform which requires a bit of training as in to know the software but i can say one thing trading in US Equity mar... |
Looking for advice on rental property | You say that one property is 65% of the value of the two properties and the other is 35%. But how much of that do the two of you actually own? If you have co-signed mortgages on both properties, then your equity is going to be lower. If you sold both properties, then your take away would be just half of that equity.... |
Stock Option Value correlated to net worth of company | There could also be some degree of dilution at play here. If they are rapidly expanding and hiring, or if they took on another round of funding each share may have a lower amount of value though the company might be worth more than they were previously. The newly issued options may also be of a different class. |
Should I always pay my credit at the last day possible to maximize my savings interest? | Mostly ditto to Dillip Sarwate. Let me just add: I don't know how you're making your payments, whether through the biller's web site, your bank's web site, by mail, in person, etc. But whatever the mechanism, if there is a chance that waiting until the due date to pay may mean that you will miss the due date: don't. Th... |
Little hazy on how the entire RSU's and etrade works | Is the remaining amount tax free? As in, if the amount shown (which I can sell) on etrade is $5000 then if I sell the entire shares will my bank account be increased by $5000? The stocks they sell are withholding. So let's say you had $7000 of stock and they sold $2000 for taxes. That leaves you with $5000. But the ... |
Making an offer on a property - go in at market price? | First piece of advice: fire your agent. A pushy agent is a bad agent. From what you've told us, he's actually given you poor advice regarding mortgage interest rates. Rates are already at historic lows. That and the precarious state of the world economy mean that further rate cuts are more likely in the near term.... |
My mother's name is on my car title, how can I protect my ownership of the car in the event of her death? | 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. |
How does the value of an asset (valued in two different currencies) change when the exchange rate changes? | The value of the asset doesn't change just because of the exchange rate change. If a thing (valued in USD) costs USD $1 and USD $1 = CAN $1 (so the thing is also valued CAN $1) today and tomorrow CAN $1 worth USD $0.5 - the thing will continue being worth USD $1. If the thing is valued in CAN $, after the exchange rate... |
Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | For some studies on why investors make the decisions they do, check out For a more readable, though less rigorous, look at it, also consider Kahneman's recent book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow", which includes the two companion papers written with Tversky on prospect theory. In certain segments (mostly trading) of the in... |
Home (re)Finance and Providing Additional Information | I have never had a lender ask my budget, only my income, savings, credit rating and value of the collateral. That's considered adequate info to estimate risk for most ordinary loans. Yes, they may want the income proven by evidence from your employer or via a copy of your tax returns. They don't care what you buy as lo... |
Is my employee stock purchase plan a risk free investment? | There would be small generic risk that the company stock goes down real fast by more than 15% in a specific event to the company [fraud, segment company operates suffers a shock, etc] or a generic event to the stock market like recent events of Greece etc. |
Investing in income stocks for dividends - worth it? | As a general rule of thumb, age and resiliency of your profession (in terms of high and stable wages) in most cases imply that you have the ABILITY to accept higher than average level of risk by investing in stocks (rather than bonds) in search for capital appreciation (rather than income), simply because you have more... |
Employer 401K thru Fidelity - Investment options | The target date investment will automatically reduce equity exposure and increase bond exposure as it approaches retirement date. If you are unlikely to make adjustments as you get older, you may be setting yourself up for more risk down the road. Only you can decide what level of risk you can tolerate as you chase h... |
Is it true that more than 99% of active traders cannot beat the index? | That is such a vague statement, I highly recommend disregarding it entirely, as it is impossible to know what they meant. Their goal is to convince you that index funds are the way to go, but depending on what they consider an 'active trader', they may be supporting their claim with irrelevant data Their definition of ... |
Using stop-loss as risk management: Is it safe? | A stop-loss does not guarantee a sale at the given price; it just automatically triggers an unlimited sale as soon as the market reaches the limit. Depending on the development, your sale could be right at, slightly under, or deeply under the stop-loss limit you gave - it could even be it is never executed, if there ar... |
In the USA, why is the Free File software only available for people earning less than $62k? | Regardless of the source of the software (though certainly good to know), there are practical limits to the IRS 1040EZ form. This simplified tax form is not appropriate for use once you reach a certain level of income because it only allows for the "standard" deduction - no itemization. The first year I passed that ... |
Should I buy a home or rent in my situation? | If I were you, I would rent. Wait to buy a home. Here is why: When you say that renting is equal in cost to a 30-year mortgage, you are failing to consider several aspects. See this recent answer for a list of things that need to be considered when comparing buying and renting. You have no down payment. Between the... |
Hedging against Exchange Rate Risk | You can calculate your exposure intuitively, by calculating your 'fx sensitivity'. Take your total USD assets, let's assume $50k. Convert to EUR at the current rate, let's assume 1 EUR : 1.1 USD, resulting in 45.5k EUR . If the USD strengthens by 1%, this moves to a rate of ~1.09, resulting in 46k EUR value for the sam... |
Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car? | Given the state of the economy, and the potential of a rough near future for us recent grads (i.e. on/off work), I would recommend holding off on large purchases while your life is in flux. This includes both a NEW car and purchasing a house. My short answer is: you need a reliable vehicle, so purchase a used car, fro... |
What's the smartest way to invest money gifted to a child? | American Century has their Heritage Fund: https://www.americancentury.com/sd/mobile/fund_facts_jstl?fund=30 It has a good track record. Here are all the mutual funds from American Century: https://www.americancentury.com/content/americancentury/direct/en/fund-performance/performance.html A mutual fund is a good wayway... |
Long term investment for money | What explains the most of the future returns of a portfolio is the allocation between asset classes. In the long term, stock investments are almost certain to return more than any other kinds of investments. For 40+ years, I would choose a portfolio of 100% stocks. How to construct the portfolio, then? Diversification ... |
I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget? | To me, this question is really about setting and meeting goals. The process is the same, whether it's about exercising regularly, or saving, or whatever. You need to have clear, personally-relevant reasons for doing something. Write down: Exactly why you want to save. It may seem trivial, but if you can't visualize th... |
What is the difference between fund and portfolio? | A "Fund" is generally speaking a collection of similar financial products, which are bundled into a single investment, so that you as an individual can buy a portion of the Fund rather than buying 50 portions of various products. e.g. a "Bond Fund" may be a collection of various corporate bonds that are bundled togethe... |
At what point should I begin paying off student loans? | All great answers. The only thing I didn't see mentioned was that student loans are not dischargable in a bankruptcy. So for example if you took money that could have gone to student loans and poured it into other debt, then for some reason declared bankruptcy later, your student load debt would remain while other debt... |
Mortgage vs. Cash for U.S. home buy now | I wondered about this problem too, so I looked into the maths and made this app :- http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/BuyOrRentInvestmentReturnCalculator/ (It uses the free Wolfram computable-document format (CDF) Player.) If you try it out you can see what conditions favour renting vs buying. My own conclusion was to ... |
Dollar Cost Averaging (Or value averaging) vs Lot sizes, what am I missing? | Don't take it so literally. 100 is close to 98, so if your formula calls for 98, buy 100. |
Accepting personal "donations" (not as a non-profit) | I would be inclined to back the 'tip jar' weblink idea, this is very prolific within the Twitch community, as a method of tipping and thereby supporting content creators. I know that there are numerous tutorials on how to set up 'tip' sites for such usage, so that may point you in the right direction. Also you could tu... |
Do I have to pay the internet installation charges for my home's company internet? | Of course you don't have to pay them - you just might not like the result. As a matter of law - given that I am not a lawyer - I am not aware of any requirement for a company to pay employees business-related expenses. An example might be having a cell phone, and according to this article companies aren't required to p... |
How can a Canadian establish US credit score | set up a US company (WY is cheap and easy), go south and open a personal and business bank account, ask for the itin form. file for the itin. set up your EIN for the company. get a credit card for both. pay some mail forwarding service with it. file for taxes in the next year using your itin. prepaid cards do not link ... |
In what circumstances will a bank waive the annual credit card fee? | See if the bank has other credit cards they offer. Many banks have multiple ones: some cards have great benefits, others do not; some cards have high rates, some do not; some cards are secured, some do not. If they have a card that you like ask them to switch you to the card you want. They should be able to do so very... |
How do I get into investing in stocks? | Read "The intelligent Investor" book before you do anything. I started when I really didn't understand anything about stocks. I bought an internet stock for $150 per share which sold at 75cents a year later. I sold it for a profit but would've been a disaster. |
What to do if a state and federal refund is denied direct deposit? | Publication 17 Your Income Tax top of page 14 If the direct deposit cannot be done, the IRS will send a check instead. When your girlfriend gets the check, she can endorse it over to you for deposit into your account. |
If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything? | It's important to remember what a share is. It's a tiny portion of ownership of a company. Let's pretend we're talking about shares in a manufacturing company. The company has one million shares on its register. You own one thousand of them. That means that you own 1/1000th of the company. These shares are valued b... |
Buying USA Stocks from Sri Lanka | I'm not aware of any method to own US stocks, but you can trade them as contract for difference, or CFDs as they are commonly known. Since you're hoping to invest around $1000 this might be a better option since you can use leverage. |
I am Brasilian resident, how to buy shares on NYSE? | I am not sure what a Brazilian equivalent is but you could just do an ADR. Keep in mind that when you are investing in a foreign company there are certain currency risks that you may need to consider. |
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house | No one has considered the tax write off at the end of the year? Will the house be in the parent's name or his, and can one of them take a write off for taxes and interest at the end of each year? On a small salary this may mean he has no tax liability for the four years, and can possibly make up the extra buying costs.... |
Should I Have Received a 1099-G? | If you don't itemize your deductions, your state tax refund is not considered income to you. Even if you didn't receive the actual 1099-G, you know how much refund you got, so you can calculate if you need to add it back to your income this year using the worksheet on page 23 of the instructions. |
How to select a bank based on availability in two areas? | Asking a bank for which ATM/branch network it belongs to and where those networks are would be your best bet. |
Is expense to freelancers tax deductible? | If it's a legitimate cost of doing business, it's as deductible as any other cost of doing business. (Reminder: be careful about the distinctions between employee and contractor; the IRS gets annoyed if you don't handle this correctly.) |
My account's been labeled as "day trader" and I got a big margin call. What should I do? What trades can I place in the blocked period? | The SEC considers a day trade to be any trade that is opened and closed within the same trading day, and considers a day trader to be any trader that completes 4 or more day trades within 5 business days. If so they would label you day trader and in the US you are required to have at least $25K in your account. Maybe t... |
Why are American Express cards are not as popular as Visa or MasterCard? | American Express was originally a mail business that moved into money-orders. Traditionally their cards have been charge cards instead of a credit card (though they have credit products now as well). They've been marketed specifically as a "premium" product for people who have a significant amount of money (and are wil... |
Online tools for monitoring my portfolio gains/losses in real time? | I use Google Finance too. The only thing I have problem with is dividend info which it wouldn't automatically add to my portfolio. At the same time, I think that's a lot to ask for a free web site tool. So when dividend comes, I manually "deposit" the dividend payment by updating the cash amount. If the dividend comes ... |
Buying an investment property in Australia - what are the advantages and disadvantages of building a house vs buying an existing one? | When buying investment properties there are different levels of passive investment involved. At one end you have those that will buy an investment property and give it to a real estate agent to manage and don't want to think of it again (apart from watching the rent come in every week). At the other end there are thos... |
What is 'consolidating' debt and why do people do it? | This can mean a few things to me. Some of which has been mentioned already. It can mean one (or all) of the following to me: You take out a new credit card and transfer ALL other credit balances to it. (Only good if you destroy the others, this is a 0% offer, AND you plan on paying this card off furiously.) You do the... |
What's the difference, if any, between stock appreciation and compound interest? | If you mean, If I invest, say, $1000 in a stock that is growing at 5% per year, versus investing $1000 in an account that pays compound interest of 5% per year, how does the amount I have after 5 years compare? Then the answer is, They would be exactly the same. As Kent Anderson says, "compound interest" simply means ... |
Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard/Visa? | Car rental agencies typically accept only credit cards for the rental (you can pay at the end with debit, but the securing during the rental must be a credit card - or a high cash deposit). Hotel advance-bookings - even if many months in the future - will work fine with a credit card, but - as explained by others - on ... |
As a contractor, TurboTax Business-and-Home or Basic? | Assuming you file state tax returns, you shouldn't buy Basic. Ever. Your choice is probably between the "Premier" version and the "Business and Home" version. Price difference is insignificant (I have a comparison on my blog, including short descriptions as to who might find each version useful the most). The prices ha... |
Why do 10 year Treasury bond yields affect mortgage interest rates? | The simple answer is that, even though mortgages can go for 10, 15, 20 and 30 year terms in the U.S., they're typically backed by bonds sold to investors that mature in 10 years, which is the standard term for most bonds. These bonds, in the open market, are compared by investors with the 10-year Treasury note, which i... |
Why are daily rebalanced inverse/leveraged ETFs bad for long term investing? | If you want to make a profit from long term trading (whatever "long term" means for you), the best strategy is to let the good performers in your portfolio run, and cull the bad ones. Of course that strategy is hard to follow, unless you have the perfect foresight to know exactly how long your best performing investme... |
Borrowing money and then investing it — smart or nart? | The biggest concern is how you get $250,000 in unsecured credit. It's unlikely that you will be loaned that amount at a percentage lower than what you expect to earn. Unsecured credit lines are rarely lower than 10% and usually approach 20%. On top of that, for a bank to approve you for that credit line, you have to ha... |
How to reconcile a credit card that has an ongoing billing dispute? | You could make an entry for the disputed charge as if you were going to lose the dispute, and a second entry that reverses the charge as if you were going to win the dispute. You could then reconcile the account by including the first charge in the reconciliation and excluding the reversal until the issue has been res... |
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