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Auto loan: must make X payments before payoff | Paperwork prevails. What you have is a dealer who get a kickback for sending financing to that institution. And the dealer pretty much said "We only get paid our kickback at two levels of loan life, 6 and 12 months." You just didn't quite read between the lines. This is very similar to the Variable Annuity salespeopl... |
Treatment of web domain ownership & reselling for tax purposes: Capital asset, or not? | As others have said, please talk to a professional adviser. From my quick research, domain names can only be amortized as 197 intangible if it's used for the taxpayer's business. For example, if Corp A pays $200,000 for corpa.com and uses that to point to their homepage, they can amortize it over 15 years as a 197 inta... |
Why would a public company not initiate secondary stock offerings more often? | What prevents a company from doing secondary public stock offerings on regular basis? The primary goal of a company doing secondary public offering is to raise more funds, that can be utilized for funding the business. If no funding is needed [i.e. company has sufficient funds, or no expansion plans], this funding crea... |
What is a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) & how is it different from plain stock? | I was hesitant to answer this question since I don't own MLP even though I'm aware of how they work. But hear crickets on this question, so here goes. I'll try to keep this as non technical as possible. MLPs are partnerships where a shareholder is a partner and liable for the partnership's taxes. MLPs don't pay corp... |
What choices should I consider for investing money that I will need in two years? | Are you going to South Africa or from? (Looking on your profile for this info.) If you're going to South Africa, you could do worse than to buy five or six one-ounce krugerrands. Maybe wait until next year to buy a few; you may get a slightly better deal. Not only is it gold, it's minted by that country, so it's easi... |
Buying a house for a shorter term | There are two main factors at play to consider. Also, realize that no advice is universal. You need to evaluate your exact situation and do what is best for you. |
Data source for historical intra-day bid/ask price data for stocks? | Check the answers to this Stackoverflow question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/754593/source-of-historical-stock-data a number of potential sources are listed |
What evidence exists for claiming that you cannot beat the market? | The reason for this is arbitrage. In an free and open market, investments that are certain to generate above-average profits would do so by being sold cheaply, while having a high return on investment after that. But in a free market, prices are set by supply and demand. There is a high demand and little supply for inv... |
How to avoid getting back into debt? | I'm going to subtly and cheekily change the obvious advice. There are three ways to deal with negative cashflow, not two: You're currently studying for a degree. You don't say what country you're in or how your studies are funded, but most people in the US, UK, and a fair number of other countries, run up debts while s... |
Do I need multiple credit monitoring services? | Monitoring all three is good practice. That way, you will be notified as soon as there is a hard pull on any of your reports. Most financial institutions only pull one of your three reports to open new credit. If you're only monitoring one, you won't be alerted to new accounts until about a month passes and they are re... |
why do energy stocks trade at lower prices compared to other sectors? | I don't know why stocks in some industries tend to have lower prices per share than others. It doesn't really matter much. Whether a company has 1,000,0000 shares selling for $100 each, or 10,000,000 shares selling for $10 each, either way the total value is the same. Companies generally like to keep the share price re... |
1040 or 1040NR this time? | Since you were a nonresident alien student on F-1 visa then you will be considered engaged in a trade or business in the USA. You must file Form 1040NR. Here is the detailed instruction by IRS - http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxation-of-Nonresident-Aliens |
How to build a U.S. credit history as a worker on a visa? | Credit is important for many reasons. Establishing credit is an important step and should be no challenge for someone who already has good habits. The same lessons and advice that you would find for a student to establish credit would be applicable to your case as well. Factors that influence credit score, Since you a... |
Stock Certificate In two names | The common way to frame the "should I sell" question is ask yourself "would you buy it today at the current price". If you wouldn't, sell it. Is sounds like this may be a paper certificate. You will have to research how to present the certificate to a broker to trade it, or if the company has a direct shareholder pr... |
Is a debt collector allowed to make a hard inquiry on your credit report? | According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act: any consumer reporting agency may furnish a consumer report [...] to a person which it has reason to believe [...] intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the exte... |
question about short selling stocks | If you had an agreement with your friend such that you could bring back a substantially similar car, you could sell the car and return a different one to him. The nature of shares of stock is that, within the specified class, they are the same. It's a fungible commodity like one pound of sand or a dollar bill. The o... |
Why buy insurance? | Apart from legal requirements to have insurance, e.g. 3rd party car that other answers have covered well. We can think of all insurance as protecting our “usable” income, as we can use cashflow to pay the costs of a loan to replace whatever we decided not to insure. So for example, if I don’t insure my house content... |
Contract job (hourly rate) as a 1099: How much would I be making after taxes? | In addition to taking into account your deductions, as mentioned by @bstpierre, you also need to account for vacation, and other time off such as sick days. You also need to estimate what percentage of the year you expect to be working and pro-rate your salary accordingly. For example it is not uncommon to use 40 week... |
How to deal with the credit card debt from family member that has passed away? | Sorry for your loss. Like others have said Debts cannot be inherited period (in the US). However, assets sometimes can be made to stand for debts. In most cases, credit card debt has no collateral and thus the credit card companies will often either sell the debt to a debt collector or collections agency, sue you for i... |
Does an index have a currency? | More importantly, index funds are denominated in specific currencies. You can't buy or sell an index, so it can be dimensionless. Anything you actually do to track the index involves real amounts of real money. |
What should my finances look like at 18? | If you're making big money at 18, you should be saving every penny you can in tax-advantaged retirement accounts. (If your employer offers it, see if you can do a Roth 401(k), as odds are good you'll be in a higher tax bracket at retirement than you are now and you will benefit from the Roth structure. Otherwise, use a... |
A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea? | You can start investing with any amount. You can use the ShareBuilder account to purchase "partial" stocks through their automatic investment plan. Usually brokers don't sell parts of stock, and ShareBuilder is the only one allowing it IMHO using its own tricks. What they do basically is buy a stock and then divide it ... |
How to measure the cost/value of an Asset in the Financial Statement | I suggest that you use your own judgement on this. You can assign a reasonable percentage since it is impossible to monitor the hours using those assets. Example: 40 personal and 60 for business. It's really your call. I also suggest that you should be conservative on valuing the assets. Record the assets at it's lowes... |
Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics? | One rule of thumb is that having regular activity on at least three different revolving accounts will improve your score: I agree that it may not be a great idea to have too many open credit accounts (Trade Lines) reporting on your credit report but if you don’t have enough active accounts, it will prevent you from be... |
Emulating a 'long straddle' without buying or selling Options? | Based on what you wrote, you would be better off with no position to start, and then enter a buy stop 10% above the market, and a sell stop 10% below the market, both to open positions depending on which way the market moves. If the market doesn't move that 10%, you stay flat. However, a long option straddle position r... |
How to distinguish gift from payment for the service? | Most people will never need to pay federal gift taxes. The federal gift taxes start after giving away 5.34 million over the course of your life. This number is adjusted annually for inflation. There are only two states that I know of which impose state gift taxes (Connecticut and Minnesota); in Connecticut, you need to... |
What are support and resistance of a stock? | Support and resistance points indicate price levels where there have been a large amount of trading activity, usually from institutions, that tend to stabilize the price of a stock. Support is a temporary FLOOR, where people have been buying in large quantities. That means there's a good chance that the stock won't go ... |
What foreign exchange rate is used for foreign credit card and bank transactions? | A lot of questions, but all it boils down to is: . Banks usually perform T+1 net settlements, also called Global Netting, as opposed to real-time gross settlements. That means they promise the counterparty the money at some point in the future (within the next few business days, see delivery versus payment) and collec... |
moving family deposits away from Greece (possibly in UK) | I think you can do it as long as those money don't come from illegal activities (money laundering, etc). The only taxes you should pay are on the interest generated by those money while sitting in the UK bank account. Since I suppose you already paid taxes on those money in Greece while you were earning those money. Ab... |
Definition of gross income (Arizona state tax filing requirements) | Disclaimer: I am not a tax professional. Please don't rely on this answer in lieu of professional advice. If your sole source of Arizona income is your commercial property, use the number on line 17 of your federal form 1040. This number is derived from your federal Schedule E. If you have multiple properties (or other... |
Possible Risks of Publicizing Personal Stock Portfolio | 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-time... |
Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | Invest in other currencies and assets that have "real" value. And personally I don't count gold as something of real value. Of course its used in the industry but besides that its a pretty useless metal and only worth something because everybody else thinks that everybody thinks its worth something. So I would buy land... |
Financing with two mortgages: a thing of the past? | Depends on where we are in the credit cycle. When banks are scared like in 07 to 11, good luck. Now (13), they'll probably start begging you. There are more regulations that prevent it now, but they'll probably be eased as they usually are during good times. If the banks won't help you, private investors might. Just... |
Stocks given by company vest if I quit? | Vesting typically stops after you quit. So, if your plan vests 20% per year for 5 years, and you received a one-time stock grant as part of this plan (i.e., ignoring the fact that these often involve new grants each year that vest separately), and you were hired in 2014 and leave at the end of 2016, then you vested 2... |
What's the point of Ford loosening financing requirements? | Why then did Ford (and the auto industry in general) suddenly decide to court such buyers? Clearly when they felt they had a viable solution to the financing and could open up the market of buyers they were previously ignoring. If more sales are desired, surely the same can be accomplished with simply lowering prices?... |
Tax benefits of recycling | If a business incurs expenses in the process of its trading, generally those expenses are deductible. Disposing of waste is generally held to be a deductible expense. |
Snowball debt or pay off a large amount? | My advice: IMO, all things being somewhat equal, you should always try to retire debts as quickly as possible in most cases, so start with the small cases. The method of calculating credit card interest is written on the statement. Usually it is "average daily balance method". Don't sweat the details. Just pay the thin... |
What is good growth? | There isn't a single hard and fast return to expect. Securities, like all things in a free market, compete for your money. As the Fed sets the tone for the market with their overnight Fed funds rate, you might want to use a multiple of the 'benchmark' 10-year T-note yeald. So let's suppose that a good multiple is four.... |
Company stock listed in multiple exchanges? | It doesn't matter which exchange a share was purchased through (or if it was even purchased on an exchange at all--physical share certificates can be bought and sold outside of any exchange). A share is a share, and any share available for purchase in New York is available to be purchased in London. Buying all of a com... |
Value investing | One aspect of this - no matter which valuation method you choose - is that there are limited shares available to buy. Other people already know those valuation methods and have decided to buy those shares, paying higher than the previous person to notice this and take a risk. So this means that even after you have calc... |
Buy index mutual fund or build my own? | One thing I would add to @littleadv (buy an ETF instead of doing your own) answer would be ensure that the dividend yield matches. Expense ratios aren't the only thing that eat you with mutual funds: the managers can hold on to a large percentage of the dividends that the stocks normally pay (for instance, if by holdi... |
Clarify Microsoft's explanation of MIRR | The value does change from 12.61% to 13.48%. The difference between re-investing cashflows at 14% vs 12% is not big enough to change the rounded value. Edit: The initial cashflow is discounted at t0, meaning it's already equal to its present value and the finance rate doesn't have an effect. It does impact future outgo... |
Why not just invest in the market? | Index funds do leech a "free ride" on the coattails of active traders. Consider what would happen if literally everyone bought index funds. For a company there would be no motivation to excel. Get listed; all the index funds are forced to buy your stock; now sit on your derriere playing Freecell, or otherwise scam/lo... |
What is the P/E ratio for a company with negative earnings? | 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 for ... |
Best way to day trade with under $25,000 | The T+3 "rule" relates only to accounting and not to trading. It does not prevent you from day trading. It simply means that the postings in you cash account will not appear until three business days after you have executed a trade. When you execute a trade and the order has been filled, you have all of the informat... |
Could one person with a card with no spending limit pay off everyone's debt? | The problem would not only be that of Kyle but also that of American Express. When Kyle pays by credit card, American Express pays the bills out of their pockets on his behalf and then forwards the bill to Kyle. The issuer of a credit card takes the risk that the holder of the card won't pay the credit card bill. In pr... |
I am a contractor with revenue below UK's VAT threshold. Should I register for VAT? | If I remember correctly, once you're about to exceed the threshold you really don't have a choice and have to register for VAT. As DumbCoder mentions, the quarterly VAT returns isn't that much of a hassle, plus if you fall under a certain threshold, you can sign up for the annual accounting scheme for VAT, which means ... |
How to change a large quantity of U.S. dollars into Euros? | Be careful of transferring through the large banks. They may say no/low fees, but they hide their cut in the spread, or worsen the exchange rate, to their favor. Try: - http://fxglobaltransfer.oanda.com/ |
In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house? | Property in general tends to go up in value. That's one advantage you won't get if you rent. |
Conservative ways to save for retirement? | It has been hinted at in some other answers, but I want to say it explicitly: Volatility is not risk. Volatility is how much an investment goes up and down, risk is the chance that you will lose money. For example, stocks have relatively high volatility, but the risk that you will lose money over a 40 year period is vi... |
Should I sell my stocks to reduce my debt? | I'd get rid of the debt with the stock money. Stocks are at a high for the year. Get out while the getting's good and get your financial house in order. |
Buying from an aggressive salesperson | This is way too long for a comment, so I am posting this as an answer. My bet is that you're buying a new piano. It is the only instrument that makes sense. The rest of this answer are going to assume this, but this should apply well if you're going after a violin or marimba for example. For those readers that do not k... |
Should I invest in the world's strongest currency instead of my home currency? | First, currencies are not an investment; they are a medium of exchange; that is, you use currency to buy goods and services and/or investments. The goods and services you intend to buy in your retirement are presumably going to be bought in your country; to buy these you will need your country's currency. The investmen... |
If I have all this stock just sitting there, how can I lend it out to people for short selling? | You just disclosed that you are new investor to the stock market. I'd advise that you first understand investing a bit better, as most will advise that investors need to be above a certain level before picking individual stocks. That said, most stocks trade in high enough volume and have low enough short interest that... |
If I had no income due to a net operating loss, will I be refunded the Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld? | If you have a CPA working for you already - this is a question you should be asking that CPA. Generally, NOL only affects the tax stemming from the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26 Subtitle A of the US Code). Social Security and Medicare, while based on income, are not "income tax", these are different taxes stemming fr... |
In the stock market, why is the “open” price value never the same as previous day's “close”? | What most of these answers here seem to be missing is that a stock "price" is not exactly what we typically expect a price to be--for example, when we go in to the supermarket and see that the price of a gallon of milk is $2.00, we know that when we go to the cash register that is exactly how much we will pay. This is... |
What mix of credit lines and loans is optimal for my credit score? | Over time, you'll have more loans, maybe a few store cards, mortgage, car loan, etc. I'm a fan of maximizing one's wealth, and the small rebate/reward adds up over time, so I'm not against the store cards, so long as you always pay the bill in full. As far as FICO is concerned, what they 'like' to see may not necessa... |
Break Even On Options Contracts | I found the answer after some searching online. It turns out that when talking options, rarely is the current P/L line considered when talking about making adjustments/taking trades off. From Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/breakevenpoint.asp "... For options trading, the breakeven point is the market... |
Is there a limit on the dollar amount of a personal check? | Because of the way checks are processed, you can't write a check for $100 million or more: http://www.bankingquestions.com/checksyoureceived/q_limitfunds.html The field used for 'amount' has 10 digits, so anything at/above 10^10 cents (which would require 11 digits) can't be processed, at least not by normal means. |
For a car, would you pay cash, finance for 0.9% or lease for 0.9%? | If you want the new car, pay cash for it. Here's why: By paying cash for the car, you immediately save $2,500 off the price of the car. That is not insignificant, it's 8.3% off. By paying cash, you'll never be upside down on the car, and you can sell the car anytime you want. You said that all you need to do is beat ... |
File bankruptcy, consolidate, or other options? | I think you're asking yourself the wrong question. The real question you should be asking yourself is this: "Do I want to a) give my parents a $45,000 gift, b) make them $45,000 loan, or c) neither?" The way you are talking in your question is as if you have the responsibility and authority to manage their lives. Wh... |
Why is the highest quintile the only quintile whose wealth exceeds its income? | There are a lot of forces at play here, one of which is addressed in your second bullet point. Housing, transportation, food, and healthcare are pretty much the staple expenses of a modern day human. While these expenses all have a range from minimum required to function and luxurious all humans incur these costs. Th... |
Can a Covered Call be called away before the expiration date? | Yes. If I own a call, an American call option can be exercised at my wish. A European call can only be exercised at expiration, by the way. Your broker doesn't give you anything but a current quote for a given strike price. There are a number of good option related questions here. A bit of searching and reading will h... |
Is it wise to invest in a stock with a large Div yield? | BHP Billiton has room to answer doubters as commodities rout batters debt notes in part: There has been speculation that the company could cut its shareholder dividend, while Liberum Capital analyst Richard Knights has suggested BHP might look to raise as much as $US10 billion ($14.3 billion) in new equity capita... |
401k compound interest vs other compound interest | 1a. It isn't. Compound interest is compound interest. It works no different within a 401(k). 1b. Yes. 401(k)'s are made up of the same underlying assets that you could invest in with a regular brokerage account. |
Does a market maker sell (buy) at a bid or ask price? | I think your confusion has arisen because in every transaction there is a buyer and a seller, so the market maker buys you're selling, and when you're buying the market maker is selling. Meaning they do in fact buy at the ask price and sell at the bid price (as the quote said). |
Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed? | The basic idea is that the average person can't deduct health care costs unless they're really onerous. But a business can, and as a self-employed person, you can deduct those costs from the businesses earnings... as long as the business is really generating enough profit to cover the health insurance costs. That's why... |
Get a loan with low interest rate on small business | I am going to assume your location is the US. From what I am seeing it is unlikely you will get a loan other than some government backed thing. You are a poor risk. At 7k/month, you have above average household income. The fact that all of your income "is being washed off somewhere" is a behavior problem, not a mathe... |
How much hassle is it inheriting shares? | If you prefer the stock rather than cash, you might find it easier to take the cash, report it, and then buy the same stock from within your own country. |
Which market orders to meet this recommendation : 'Take a position on the purchase of the fooBar share, protect your capital by placing a stop' | You would place a stop buy market order at 43.90 with a stop loss market order at 40.99 and a stop limit profit order at 49.99. This should all be entered when you place your initial buy stop order. The buy stop order will triger and be traded once the price reaches 43.90or above. At this point both the stop loss marke... |
I was given a 1099-misc instead of a w-2 what are my next steps? | I agree that you should have received both a 1099 and a W2 from your employer. They may be reluctant to do that because some people believe that could trigger an IRS audit. The reason is that independent contractor vs employee is supposed to be defined by your job function, not by your choice. If you were a contractor ... |
Determining the basis for capital gain [duplicate] | If you make money in currency speculation (as in your example), that is a capital gain. A more complicated example is if you were to buy and then sell stocks on the mexican stock exchange. Your capital gain (or loss) would be the difference in value in US dollars of your stocks accounting for varying exchange rates. ... |
Is Cost of Living overstated? | I do not believe there is a strong correlation between CPI (Consumer Price Index) and housing value appreciation. Take, for example, New York City which has the highest CPI in the US. A great deal of the CPI number is skewed by Manhattan. One can live in Brooklyn or Queens and avoid some of NYC's high CPI. I would s... |
What is an “International Equity”? | Assuming you're in the United States, then International Equity is an equity from a different country. These stocks or stock funds (which reside in a foreign country) are broken out seperately becuase they are typically influenced by a different set of factors than equities in the United States: foreign currency swing... |
Is there any flaw in this investment scheme? | You didn't win in case B. Borrowing shares and then selling them is known as "selling short". You received $2000 when you sold short 100 shares at $20. You spent $1000 to buy them back at $10, so you come out $1000 ahead on that deal. But at the same time, the 100 shares you already owned have declined in value from... |
Is the need to issue bonds a telltale sign that the company would have a hard time paying coupons? | People borrow money all the time to buy a house. Banks will lend money on one (up to 80%, sometimes more), because they consider it an "investment." If you own a large company and want to expand, a bank or bond issuer will first look at what you plan to do with the money, like build new factories, or whatever. Based on... |
Can I profit from anticipating a drop in value? | To expand on the comment made by @NateEldredge, you're looking to take a short position. A short position essentially functions as follows: Here's the rub: you have unlimited loss potential. Maybe you borrow a share and sell it at $10. Maybe in a month you still haven't closed the position and now the share is trad... |
What do brokers do with bad stock? | You have to consider a case where you just cannot sell it. Think of it as a bad piece of real estate in Detroit. If there are absolutely no buyers, you cannot sell it (until a buyer shows up) |
Is it a good idea to rebalance without withdrawing money? | There will quickly come a time when buying to rebalance is impractical. Consider, you save 10%, and at some point, you have 5x your income saved. (you earn $50K and have accumulated $250K). A simple allocation, 50/50, so $125K stock, $125K bonds. Now, in a year the market is up much over 4%, your $5K deposit will not b... |
What is the cost of “free” trades? | In the case of Wells Fargo, I believe that free trading is linked to your overall banking relationship with the firm. So if you have a checking account with a balance of $X, or a total relationship with the bank ("relationship" is usually defined as loan balances + deposit balances) over a certain amount, they give yo... |
How can I help others plan their finances, without being a “conventional” financial planner? | In the UK there is a non-profit called the Citizen's Advice Bureau which provides free advice to people on a wide range of subjects, but including debt and budgeting. Consumer Credit Counselling Service provides explicit help but again, in the UK. A search for "volunteer debt counsellor" reveals a whole host of organiz... |
Over how much time should I dollar-cost-average my bonus from cash into mutual funds? | Canadian Couch Potato has an article which is somewhat related. Ask the Spud: Can You Time the Markets? The argument roughly boils down to the following: That said, I didn't follow the advice. I inherited a sum of money, more than I had dealt with before, and I did not feel I was emotionally capable of immediately dump... |
How good is Wall Street Survivor for learning about investing? | I find this site to be really poor for the virtual play portion, especially the options league. After you place a trade, you can't tell what you actually traded. The columns for Exp and type are blank. I have had better luck with OptionsXpress virtual trader. Although they have recently changed their criteria for a... |
How can I remove the movement of the stock market as a whole from the movement in price of an individual share? | As others have pointed out, the value of Apple's stock and the NASDAQ are most likely highly correlated for a number of reasons, not least among them the fact that Apple is part of the NASDAQ. However, because numerous factors affect the entire market, or at least a significant subset of it, it makes sense to develop a... |
After Market Price change, how can I get it at that price? | The price of the last trade... Is the price of the last trade. It indicates what one particular buyer and seller agreed upon. There is absolutely no requirement that one of them didn't offer too much or demand too little, so this is nearly meaningless as an indication of what anyone else will be willing to offer or dem... |
First time home buyer. How to negotiate price? | As far as the specific price - it depends so much on the area and the house and other things. 70k could be a perfectly reasonable offer, or it could be an insulting lowball. If they just lowered it from 95 to 85 for example, 70 is pretty low to start off. But who knows. To answer the closing costs side of things, th... |
What does it mean for a normal citizen like me when my country's dollar value goes down? | One more effect that's not yet been mentioned is that companies based in Australia and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, but which do most of their business overseas, will increase their earnings in AU$, since most of what they earn will be in foreign currencies. So their shares are likely to appreciate (in... |
Do companies only pay dividends if they are in profit? | Yes the company can still pay dividends even if they aren't making a profit. 1) If the firm has been around, it might have made profits in the past years, which it might be still carrying (check for retained earnings in the financial statements). 2) Some firms in the past have had taken up debt to return the money to s... |
Why would I want a diversified portfolio, versus throwing my investments into an index fund? | Diversification is extremely important and the one true "Free Lunch" of investing, meaning it can provide both greater returns and less risk than a portfolio that is not diversified. The reason people say otherwise is because they are talking about "true" portfolio diversification, which cannot be achieved by simply sp... |
What should one look for when opening a business bank account? | Yes, it's a good idea to have a separate business account for your business because it makes accounting and bookkeeping that much easier. You can open a business checking account and there will be various options for types of accounts and fees. You may or may not want an overdraft account, for example, or a separate bu... |
Calculate a weekly payment on a loan when payment is a month away | Using the standard loan formula with 21% APR nominal, compounded weekly. Calculate an adjusted loan start value by adding 31 - 7 = 24 extra days of daily interest (by converting the nominal compounded weekly rate to a daily rate). For details see Converting between compounding frequencies Applying the standard formula ... |
Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed? | COBRA premiums are not deductible on 1040 line 29; to qualify, the IRS says the insurance plan must be in your name (COBRA is in your former employer's name). H&R Block confirms this. |
How are bonds affected by the Federal Funds Rate? | I'll answer your question, but first a comment about your intended strategy. Buying government bonds in a retirement account is probably not a good idea. Government bonds (generally) are tax advantaged themselves, so they offer a lower interest rate than other types of bonds. At no tax or reduced tax, many people wi... |
How can I find hotel properties to buy other than using Google? | Probably the easiest way to invest in hotel rooms in the U.S. is to invest in a Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT. REITs are securities that invest in real estate and trade like a stock. There are different REITs that invest in different things: some own office buildings, some residential rentals, some hold mortg... |
What is the “Bernanke Twist” and “Operation Twist”? What exactly does it do? | To understand the Twist, you need to understand what the Yield Curve is. You must also understand that the price of debt is inverse to the interest rate. So when the price of bonds (or notes or bills) rises, that means the current price goes up, and the yield to maturity has gone down. Currently (Early 2012) the shor... |
Will Indian young ones lose 18% of their EPF with new tax as per Budget 2016? | Are these calculations correct? These are approximate calculations and are with the assumption that entire corpus will be taxed. The assumption was valid as the wording in the budget speech was not very clear. Subsequently the finance ministry has clarified that only interest generated will be taxed and not the contrib... |
Including the region where you live in your investment portfolio? | Diversification is just one aspect in an investment portfolio. The other aspects in Investment are Risk Taking Ability, Liquidity, Local Regulations, Tax benefits, Ease & Convenience, Cost of carrying out transactions etc. Investing in other regions is prone FX risk and other risks depending on the region of investment... |
What do “cake and underwear” stocks refer to? | I interpret that to mean "vice" stocks and necessities. "Cake" may just be a nicer way of saying "sin" (see The Virtues of Vice Stocks) and includes "lesser sins" like sweets and soda in the group. "Underwear" likely means things that people are going to buy regardless of the economy - daily staples, which are general... |
Is Cash Value Life Insurance (“whole life” insurance) a good idea for my future? | I have an answer and a few comments. Back to the basics: Insurance is purchased to provide protection in case of a loss. It sounds as though you are doing well, from a financial perspective. If you have $0 of financial obligations (loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc.) and you are comfortable with the amount that woul... |
How to estimate federal and state taxes likely to be due on my side income? | Most states that have income tax base their taxes on the income reported on your federal return, with some state-specific adjustments. So answering your last question first: Yes, if it matters for federal, it will matter for state (in most cases). For estimating the tax liability, I would not use the effective rate b... |
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