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Is it better for a public company to increase its dividends, or institute a share buyback? | I would prefer a dividend paying company, rather than share appreciation. And I would prefer that the dividends increase over time. |
How long can a company keep the money raised from IPO of its stocks? | You realize that most of the money raised through the IPO process doesn't go into the company's bank account? Those shares were shares that were held by the investors and original owners and it's those prior pre-IPO shareholders that got their money back along with a tidy profit. The cash on its books was there before the IPO, and after. The IPO process was more about a change in stock owners ship than anything else. Edit - as the SEC disclosure mentioned in comments below states, the Facebook IPO raised $6.7B for facebook's use, the rest of the transaction was from the investors selling their shares. Mark Zuckerberg still owns more than 55% of shares outstanding. The $6.7B is still about 10% of the company value. Nothing to ignore, but clearly, 'most' of the money from the IPO didn't go to the company. |
Does anyone offer no interest loans? | Such loans are of course possible. They exist because the lender gains something other than interest from them: What would happen to the economy if these were common? These are common, common as anything. In fact where it's not banks lending the money, these are the default. So, nothing would happen to the economy, this is one of the ways the economy works all over the world. If you're more interested in a loan from a bank or other financial institution, made to you for whatever purpose you want - here's $10,000, have fun, give it back ten years from now - ask yourself what the bank would get from that? Perhaps they could do it as a perk when you do something else with them like get a mortgage or keep $1000 in your chequing account all the time. But in the absence of any other relationship, what would be their reason for taking on the overhead and paperwork of approving you for a loan and keeping track of whether you're paying it back or not, for no return, whether financial or intangible? No return? It doesn't happen. |
I've got $100K to invest over the next 2 to 7 years. What are some good options? | Well, a proper answer needs a few more details: 1) What's your marginal tax bracket? (A CD is just plain silly for someone in a high tax bracket and in a high tax state) 2) What's your state of residence? 3) Do you have a 401k to draw on for a house loan in case of badly timed volatility? 4) What does will the rest of our investment portfolio look like in case of a sudden rise in interest rates? Depending on the answers to those questions, the mix of investments could be anywhere from: Tell me more about bracket/state/other investment mix and I can suggest something. |
Why do some people say a house “not an investment”? | There's an old saying: "Never invest in anything that eats or needs maintenance." This doesn't mean that a house or a racehorse or private ownership of your own company is not an investment. It just points out that constant effort is needed on your part, or on the part of somebody you pay, just to keep it from losing value. Common stock, gold, and money in the bank are three things you can buy and leave alone. They may gain or lose market value, but not because of neglect on your part. Buying a house is a complex decision. There are many benefits and many risks. Other investments have benefits and risks too. |
Trading on exchanges or via brokerage companies? | Yes when I place an order with my broker they send it out to the exchange. - For individual investors, what are some cons and pros of trading on the exchanges directly versus indirectly via brokers? I may be mistaken(I highly doubt it), but from my understanding you cannot trade directly through an exchange as a retail investor. BATS allows membership but it is only for Your firm must be a registered broker-dealer, registered with a Self Regulatory Organization (SRO) and connected with a clearing firm. No apple (aapl) is listed on the NASDAQ so trades go through the NASDAQ for aapl. Caterpillar Inc (CAT) is listed on the NYSE so trades go through the NYSE. The exchange you trade on is dependent on the security, if it is listed on the NYSE then you trade on the NYSE. As a regular investor you will be going through a broker. When looking to purchase a security it is more important to know about the company and less important to know what exchange it is listed on. Since there are rules a company must comply with for it to be listed on certain exchanges, it does make a difference but that is more the case when speaking about a stock listed Over the Counter(OTC) or NYSE. It is not important when asking NYSE or NASDAQ? Selecting a broker is something that's dependent on your needs. You should ask your self, "whats important to me?", "Do I want apps(IE: iPhone, android)?" "Do I need fancy trading tools?". Generally all the brokers you listed will most likely do the trick for you. Some review sites: Brokerage Review Online Broker Review 2012 Barron's 2012 Online Broker Review |
Are warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club worth it? | Silly as it sounds, we belong to both BJ's and Sam's club (we don't have Costco in this area). The produce at our local Sam's is top-notch, especially in the winter. The prices on fruit there are unbeatable in the winter time, and more than cover the membership cost. I also find the price/quality of canned/box grocery items like tomatoes, flour, etc is better than our supermarkets. Our local BJ's has an excellent meat department, and we tend to buy alot of non-perishable groceries like ketchup, cheese, etc as well as soap/cleaning stuff because they accept coupons. They are closer to my home and also have a member-only gas pump that is $0.10-0.30 cheaper. |
Where are all those unsold vehicles? | Other than being reduced to clear as others have suggested quite a few get sold to large motor stores. You can often go in and find last years model with around delivery mileage at a very knocked down rate because most people would prefer the latest model direct from the dealer. Doing this allows dealers to clear old stock incredibly quickly so they can promote the newest model exclusively. |
How should one refuse to father in law (Chinese) when he wants to borrow money? | In these situations, one solution is to use the "I was just about to ask you the same thing..." response. This is kind of a famous way to deal with people asking you for money, whether it's someone asking to borrow "$10 at lunch time" or "$3000 for a car" or the like. So: Person X asks you for money, say $2000. Your reply: Ah, that's bad luck, I was just about to ask you the same thing... Follow this immediately - just keep talking - by launching in to a really incredibly detailed discussion of why you need to borrow money (pick a slightly larger amount, slet's ay $3500). Just "keep talking" and don't let the other person get a word in. Go in to great detail about just what you need the $3500 for and why. It's a good trick. |
How do I figure out if I will owe taxes | Do you have a regular job, where you work for somebody else and they pay you a salary? If so, they should be deducting estimated taxes from your paychecks and sending them in to the government. How much they deduct depends on your salary and what you put down on your W-4. Assuming you filled that out accurately, they will withhold an amount that should closely match the taxes you would owe if you took the standard deduction, have no income besides this job, and no unusual deductions. If that's the case, come next April 15 you will probably get a small refund. If you own a small business or are an independent contractor, then you have to estimate the taxes you will owe and make quarterly payments. If you're worried that the amount they're withholding doesn't sound right, then as GradeEhBacon says, get a copy of last year's tax forms (or this year's if they're out by now) -- paper or electronic -- fill them out by estimating what your total income will be for the year, etc, and see what the tax comes out to be. |
Trading when you work for a market participant | Ask someone in Human Resources. I seriously doubt you are the first person to ask this question for their company and they should be more than happy to help. |
Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year? | Wealth gained hastily will dwindle but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. Proverbs 13:11 (ESV) Put another way... "Easy come, easy go" You cannot sustain 100% annual ROI. Sooner than you think you will hit a losing streak. Casinos depend on this truth. You may win a few rolls of the dice. But betting your winnings will eventually cause you to lose all. |
Medical Bill Consolidation | There are definitely ways to retroactively consolidate medical bills -- there's an entire industry of companies offering debt consolidation (many of which are scummy/predatory, be careful! See https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0150-coping-debt and some decent articles at http://blog.readyforzero.com/are-there-legitimate-debt-consolidation-loans and http://blog.readyforzero.com/how-to-find-a-reputable-debt-consolidation-company). In general, what you are looking to do is take out a loan, possibly at a better interest rate than whatever you are being charged currently, and pay off the medical bills. If you are not paying interest on the medical bills and are just being allowed to spread out the payments, you are already golden and should just put up with the ups and downs. If you have any equity in a home, take out a home equity loan or line of credit, pay off your medical bills. Rates are still great right now. Even if you have no home equity to tap, if you have a steady job you might be able to get a nice small loan from a local bank or peer-to-peer lending site. Do your homework and only work with reputable companies, especially if doing things online. |
What are the costs to maintain an Inc? | According to this FAQ published by the state of Delaware, your annual filing fees will be: Anything above and beyond that is based on company income. If you decide to file an LLC in Delaware instead of a Corporation your annual tax is $300. As others have mentioned in comments to your original question it's worth exploring your home state or other states. Delaware is commonly used to incorporate, but if you're very small or just starting out then often times your home state can be more favorable and less costly. |
Approximation of equity value for company in default | Generally "default" means that the company cannot pay off their debts, and since debt holders get paid before equity holders, their equity would be effectively worthless. That said, companies can emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy (reorganization) and retain equity value, but it is rare. Most times, stocks are de-listed or frozen on stock exchanges, and company's reorganization plan will cancel all existing equity shares, instead focusing all of their attention on paying back as much debt as possible. If the company issues new equity after reorganizing, it might provide a way for holders of the original equity to exchange their shares for the new equity, but it is rare, and the value is usually significantly less that the value of the original equity. |
How to increase my credit score | Do you have the option of paying cash for the phone? To answer your question though: Essentially, you have to use credit RESPONSIBLY. That doesn't mean go get a slew of loans and pay them off. As Ratish said, a credit card is a good start. I basically buy everything with a card and then pay it off every month when the bill comes out. I actually have two and I alternate but that's getting nitpicky. It should be noted that simply getting a card won't help your score. In fact, it may go down initially as the inquiry and new account opening may have a negative effect. The positive effect will happen as you develop good payment behavior over time. One big thing you can do, in your case, is always pay your mobile bill on time. Having a good payment history with them will go a long way to prove you are responsible. |
Should I re-allocate my portfolio now or let it balance out over time? | I would not sell unless the stock is starting to fall in price. If you are a long term investor you can review the weekly chart on a weekly basis to determine if the stock is still up-trending. Regarding HD below is a weekly chart for the last 4 years: Basically if the price is making Higher Highs (HH) and Higher Lows (HL) it is up-trending. If it starts to make Lower Lows (LL) followed by Lower Highs (LH) then the uptrend is over and the stock could be entering a downtrend. With HD, the price has been up-trending but seems to now be hitting some headwinds. It has been making some HHs followed by some HLs throughout the last 2 years. It did make a LL in late August 2015 but then recovered nicely to make a new HH, so the uptrend was not broken. In early November 2016 it made another LL but this time it seems to be followed by a LH in mid-December 2016. This could be clear evidence that the uptrend may be ending. The final confirmation would be if the price drops below the early November low of $119.20 (the orange line). If price drops below this price it would be confirmation that the uptrend is over and this should be the point at which you should sell your HD shares. You could place an automatic stop loss order just below $119.20 so that you don't even need to monitor the stock frequently. Another indication that the uptrend may be in trouble is the divergence between the HHs of the price and the peaks of a momentum indicator (in this case the MACD). The two sloping red lines show that the price made HHs in April and August 2016 whilst the momentum indicator made LHs at these peaks in the price. As the lines are sloping in different directions it is demonstrating negative divergence, which means that the momentum of the uptrend is slowing down and can act as an early warning system to be more cautious in the near future. So the question you could be asking is when is a good time to sell out of HD (or at least some of your HD to rebalance)? Why sell something that is still increasing in price? Only sell if you can determine that the price will not be increasing anymore in the near to medium term. |
Is it possible to borrow money to invest in a foreign country? | Most likely, this will not work they way you think. First things first, to get a loan, the bank needs to accept your collateral. Note that this is not directly related to the question what you plan to do with the loan. Example: you have a portfolio of stocks and bonds worth USD 2 million. The bank decides to give you a loan of USD 1 million against that collateral. The bank doesn't care if you will use the loan to invest in foreign RE or use it up in a casino, it has your collateral as safety. So, from the way you describe it, I take it you don't have the necessary local collateral but you wish to use your foreign investments as such. In this case it really doesn't matter where you live or where you incorporate a company, the bank will only give you the loan if it accepts the foreign collateral. From professional experience with this exact question I can tell you, there are very few banks that will lend against foreign property. And there are even less banks, if any, that will lend against foreign projects. To sum it up: Just forget banks. You might find a private lender to help you out but it will cost you dearly. The best option you have is to find a strategic partner who can cough up the money you need but since he is taking the bigger risk, he will also take the bigger profit share. |
The best credit card for people who pay their balance off every month | PenFed Platinum Cashback Rewards Visa Card is another good choice. Pros: Cons: |
Ask FBI permission to withdraw large sums from your checking or savings? | Is it true you have to file papers with the government in the US to withdraw large sums of cash at your local bank branch? It's true that a currency transaction report (CTR) gets filed with FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) when you make a cash transaction in excess of $10,000. Banks have systems that do this automatically, so you don't have to really do anything other than provide some tax info if not already on file with the bank. The teller can flag your CTR if they think the transaction is suspicious, but there shouldn't be a delay on the withdrawal unless the bank has to make arrangements to have enough cash on hand. Some people don't like the idea of CTR's being filed and therefore make multiple smaller withdrawals, but that can be considered illegal structuring, and can result in confiscated money. |
Ongoing things to do and read to improve knowledge of finance? | I'm another programmer, I guess we all just like complicated things, or got here via stackoverflow. Obligatory tedious but accurate point: Investing is not personal finance, in fact it's maybe one of the less important parts of it. See this answer: Where to start with personal finance? Obligatory warning for software developer type minds: getting into investing because it's complicated and therefore fun is a really awful idea from a financial perspective. Or see behavioral finance research on how analytical/professional/creative type people are often terrible at investing, while even-tempered practical people are better. The thing with investing is that inaction is better than action, tried and true is better than creative, and simple is better than complicated. So if you're like me and many programmers and like creative, complicated action - not good for the wallet. You've been warned. That said. :-) Stuff I read In general I hate reading too much financial information because I think it makes me take ill-advised actions. The actions I most need to take have to do with my career and my spending patterns. So I try to focus on reading about software development, for example. Or I answer questions on this site, which at least might help someone out, and I enjoy writing. For basic financial news and research, I prefer Morningstar.com, especially if you get the premium version. The writing has more depth, it's often from qualified financial analysts, and with the paid version you get data and analysis on thousands of funds and stocks, instead of a small number as with Motley Fool newsletters. I don't follow Morningstar regularly anymore, instead I use it for research when I need to pick funds in a 401k or whatever. Another caveat on Morningstar is that the "star ratings" on funds are dumb. Look at the Analyst Picks and the analyst writeups instead. I just flipped through my RSS reader and I have 20-30 finance-related blogs in there collecting unread posts. It looks like the only one I regularly read is http://alephblog.com/ which is sort of random. But I find David Merkel very thoughtful and interesting. He's also a conservative without being a partisan hack, and posts frequently. I read the weekly market comment at http://hussmanfunds.com/ as well. Most weeks it says the market is overvalued, so that's predictable, but the interesting part is the rationale and the other ideas he talks about. I read a lot of software-related blogs and there's some bleed into finance, especially from the VC world; blogs like http://www.avc.com/ or http://bhorowitz.com/ or whatever. Anyway I spend most of my reading time on career-related stuff and I think this is also the correct decision from a financial perspective. If you were a doctor, you'd be better off reading about doctoring, too. I read finance-related books fairly often, I guess there are other threads listing ideas on that front. I prefer books about principles rather than a barrage of daily financial news and questionable ideas. Other than that, I keep up with headlines, just reading the paper every day including business-related topics is good enough. If there's some big event in the financial markets, it'll show up in the regular paper. Take a class I initially learned about finance by reading a pile of books and alongside that taking the CFP course and the first CFA course. Both are probably equivalent to about a college semester worth of work, but you can plow through them in a couple months each if you focus. You can just do the class (and take the exam if you like), without having to go on and actually get the work experience and the certifications. I didn't go on to do that. This sounds like a crazy thing to do, and it kind of is, but I think it's also sort of crazy to expect to be competent on a topic without taking some courses or otherwise getting pretty deep into the material. If you're a normal person and don't have time to take finance courses, you're likely better off either keeping it super-simple, or else outsourcing if you can find the right advisor: What exactly can a financial advisor do for me, and is it worth the money? When it's inevitably complex (e.g. as you approach retirement) then an advisor is best. My mom is retiring soon and I found her a professional, for example. I like having a lot of knowledge myself, because it's just the only way I could feel comfortable. So for sure I understand other people wanting to have it too. But what I'd share from the other side is that once you have it, the conclusion is that you don't have enough knowledge (or time) to do anything fancy anyway, and that the simple answers are fine. Check out http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Simple-Financial-Strategies-People/dp/0743269942 Investing for fun isn't investing for profit Many people recommend Motley Fool (I see two on this question already!). The site isn't evil, but the problem (in my opinion) is that it promotes an attitude toward and a style of investing that isn't objectively justifiable for practical reasons. Essentially I don't think optimizing for making money and optimizing for having fun coexist very well. If investing is your chosen hobby rather than fishing or knitting, then Motley Fool can be fun with their tone and discussion forums, but other people in forums are just going to make you go wrong money-wise; see behavioral finance research again. Talking to others isn't compatible with ice in your decision-making veins. Also, Motley Fool tends to pervasively make it sound like active investing is easier than it is. There's a reason the Chartered Financial Analyst curriculum is a few reams of paper plus 4 years of work experience, rather than reading blogs. Practical investing ("just buy the target date fund") can be super easy, but once you go beyond that, it's not. I don't really agree with the "anyone can do it and it's not work!" premise, any more than I think that about lawyering or doctoring or computer programming. After 15 years I'm a programming expert; after some courses and a lot of reading, I'm not someone who could professionally run an actively-managed portfolio. I think most of us need to have the fun part separate from the serious cash part. Maybe literally distinct accounts that you keep at separate brokerages. Or just do something else for fun, besides investing. Morningstar has this problem too, and finance.yahoo.com, and Bloomberg, I mean, they are all interested in making you think about investing a lot more than you ought to. They all have an incentive to convince you that the latest headlines make a difference, when they don't. Bottom line, I don't think personal finance changes very quickly; the details of specific mutual funds change, and there's always some new twist in the tax code, but the big picture is pretty stable. I think going in-depth (say, read the Chartered Financial Analyst curriculum materials) would teach you a lot more than reading blogs frequently. The most important things to work on are income (career) and spending (to maximize income minus spending). That's where time investment will pay off. I know it's annoying to argue the premise of the question rather than answering, but I did try to mention a couple things to read somewhere in there ;-) |
What would I miss out on by self insuring my car? | Convenience, and of course money. In case of an event, you'll have to spend the full worth of money to fix/replace, while if you're insured - you get the insurance to pay for it. It is up to you to decide, if the money saved on the lower premiums worth the risk of paying much more in case of an event. Of course, the cheaper the car the more it makes sense not to pay the premiums. Many people do that. Regarding the bargaining power, I actually think that you would pay less if it is not going through insurance than the bill the insurance pays. I fixed a nasty dent for like $300 at one shop, while at the other they said "It's $1200, but what do you care, your insurance will cover it" (I had $500 deductible, so in the end it was cheaper for me to pay $300 without the insurance at all). |
How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser) | There was a study last year -- it was all over the news -- that concluded that experiences, not stuff, is what makes people happy. The satisfaction from going on vacation lasts even after the holiday is long over. That new gadget only gives fleeting satisfaction. To that end, I recommend splurging on the affordable luxuries that give you a better experience. For example, I'm a big believer in paying the skycap a few dollars to check my bags at the curb rather than wait in line at the airport because I HATE airports. Valet parking is another affordable luxury when the alternative is circling a busy parking lot for 15 minutes. Pay for the better seats at the show. Get a room at the nicer hotel. Eat out a bit more often. I can't imagine willingly spending hours with customer support, though. They can have my $5. |
How can I trade in U.S stock exchange living in India by choosing the broker in U.S? | OptionsXpress includes India in the list of countries where is possible to open an international account to invest in the US Stock Market. They just merged with Charles Schwab and they have a nice online trading platform. Stocks and ETFs are little bit pricey.. Get in touch with them to get more information. |
Transferring money from 403B to 401K? | You can move money from a 403b to a 401k plan, but the question you should ask yourself is whether it is a wise decision. Unless there are specific reasons for wanting to invest in your new employer's 401k (e.g. you can buy your employer's stock at discounted rates within the 401k, and this is a good investment according to your friends, neighbors, and brothers-in-law), you would be much better off moving the 403b money into an IRA, where you have many more choices for investment and usually can manage to find investments with lower investment costs (e.g. mutual fund fees) than in a typical employer's 401k plan. On the other hand, 401k assets are better protected than IRA assets in case you are sued and a court finds you to be liable for damages; the plaintiff cannot come after the 401k assets if you cannot pay. To answer the question of "how?", you need to talk to the HR people at your current employer to make sure that they are willing to accept a roll-over from another tax-deferred plan (not all plans are agreeable to do this) and get any paperwork from them, especially making sure that you find out where the check is to be sent, and to whom it should be payable. Then, talk to your previous employer's HR people and tell them that you want to roll over your 403b money into the 401k plan of your new employer, fill out the paperwork, make sure they know to whom to cut the check to, and where it is to be sent etc. In my personal experience, I was sent the check payable to the custodian of my new (IRA) account, and I had to send it on to the custodian; my 403b people refused to send the check directly to the new custodian. The following January, you will receive a 1099-R form from your 403b plan showing the amount transferred to the new custodian, with hopefully the correct code letter indicating that the money was rolled over into another tax-deferred account. |
Why do credit card transactions take up to 3 days to appear, yet debit transactions are instant? | When you swipe your credit card, the terminal at the store makes a request of your bank, and your bank has only a few seconds to accept or reject the transaction. Once the transaction is accepted by your bank, it appears in the Pending transactions. At the end of the business day, the store submits all of the final transactions for the day to their bank in a batch, and the banks all trade transactions in a batch, and money is sent between banks. This is the process that takes a couple of days, and after this happens, you see the transaction move from your Pending transactions into the regular transactions area. Most of the time, the pending transaction and the final transaction are the same. However, there are cases where it is different. A couple of examples: With a credit account, the fact that the final amount is not known for a few days is no big deal: after all, you don't have any money in the account, and if you end up spending more than you have, the bank will happily let you take your time coming up with the money (at a steep cost, of course). With a debit card tied to your checking account, the transaction is handled the same way, as far is the store is concerned. However, your bank is not going to run the risk of you overdrawing your checking account. They also are not going to run the risk of you withdrawing money from your account that is needed to cover pending transactions. So they usually treat these pending transactions as final transactions, deducting the pending transaction from your account balance immediately. When the final transaction comes through, they adjust the transaction, and your balance goes up or down accordingly. This is one of the big drawbacks to using a debit card, in my opinion. If a bad pending transaction comes through, you are out this money until it gets straightened out. |
Setting up auto-pay. Should I use my bank that holds mortage or my personal bank? | One factor to consider is timing. If you set up the automatic payments through the bank that holds the mortgage (I'll call them the "receiving" bank), they will typically record the transactions as occurring on the actual dates you've set up the automatic payments to occur on, which generally eliminates e.g. the risk of having late payments. By contrast, setting up auto-pay through your personal bank (the "sending" bank) usually amounts to, on the date you specify, your bank deducts the amount from your account and sends a check to the receiving bank (and many banks actually send this check by mail), which may result in the transaction not being credited to your mortgage until several business days later. A second consideration (and this may not be as likely to occur on a loan payment as with a utility or service) is the amount of the payment. When you set up your auto-pay through the sending bank, you explicitly instruct your bank as to the amount to send (also, if you don't have enough in your account, your bank may wait to send the bill payment until you do). This can be good if finances are tight, or if you just like having absolute control of the payment. The risk, though, is that if some circumstance increases the amount that you need to pay one month, you'll have to proactively adjust your auto-pay setting before it fires off. Whereas, if you've set the auto-pay up through the receiving bank, they would most likely submit the transaction to your bank for the higher amount automatically. I'll give an example based on something I saw fairly often when I worked for Dish Network on recovery (customers in early disconnect, the goal being to take a payment and restore service). If you had set up auto-pay through your bank based on your package price, and then the price increased by $2/month, you might not notice at first (your service stays on, and your bill doesn't have any red stamps on it), but the difference will slowly add up until it exceeds a full month's payment, at which point a late fee starts being assessed. From there, it quickly snowballs until the service is turned off. Whereas if you had set that auto-pay up through the provider, when the rate increased, they would simply submit an EFT for the new, higher amount to your bank. On the opposite side of the spectrum: if you've set up the auto-pay through the sending bank, and you're not paying close enough attention when you finally pay off the mortgage, you might accidentally overpay by either making an extra payment or because the final payment is smaller than the rest. Then you'd have to wait a few days (or weeks?) for the receiving bank to issue a refund, leaving those funds unavailable to you in the interim. For these reasons, I personally prefer to always set up automatic payments through the receiving bank, rather than the sending bank. |
is the bankruptcy of exchange markets possible? | It might be easiest to think of stock exchanges like brokers. If you buy a home, and your broker goes bankrupt, you still own your home, but you could not sell it without the aid of another broker. Same with stocks, you own the stocks you buy, but you would be unable to either purchase new stocks or sell your stock holdings without an exchange. |
How best to grow my small amount of money starting at a young age? [duplicate] | Congrats! That's a solid accomplishment for someone who is not even in college yet. I graduated college 3 years ago and I wish I was able to save more in college than I did. The rule of thumb with saving: the earlier the better. My personal portfolio for retirement is comprised of four areas: Roth IRA contributions, 401k contributions, HSA contributions, Stock Market One of the greatest things about the college I attended was its co-op program. I had 3 internships - each were full time positions for 6 months. I strongly recommend, if its available, finding an internship for whatever major you are looking into. It will not only convince you that the career path you chose is what you want to do, but there are added benefits specifically in regards to retirement and savings. In all three of my co-ops I was able to apply 8% of my paycheck to my company's 401k plan. They also had matching available. As a result, my 401k had a pretty substantial savings amount by the time I graduated college. To circle back to your question, I would recommend investing the money into a Roth IRA or the stock market. I personally have yet to invest a significant amount of money in the stock market. Instead, I have been maxing out my retirement for the last three years. That means I'm adding 18k to my 401k, 5.5k to my Roth, and adding ~3k to my HSA (there are limits to each of these and you can find them online). Compounded interest is amazing (I'm just going to leave this here... https://www.moneyunder30.com/power-of-compound-interest). |
Are tax deductions voluntary? | Legally: gods know. I would strongly recommend asking the Law asre of Stack Exchange to advise on that. Practically: What's the worst that happens? They audit, you say "Yeah, I could probably have claimed these deductions but I didn't want to; is that a problem?", they decide and either nothing happens or they issue you the unwanted refunnd. They aren't going to fine you for overpaying. Unless this would expose something criminal -- or you're a public figure and it would be embarassing -- this strikes me as falling firmly within the bounds of "no harm, no foul". |
I have savings and excess income. Is it time for me to find a financial advisor? | Many of my friends said I should invest my money on stocks or something else, instead of put them in the bank forever. I do not know anything about finance, so my questions are: First let me say that your friends may have the best intentions, but don't trust them. It has been my experience that friends tell you what they would do if they had your money, and not what they would actually do with their money. Now, I don't mean that they would be malicious, or that they are out to get you. What I do mean, is why would you take advise from someone about what they would do with 100k when they don't have 100k. I am in your financial situation (more or less), and I have friends that make more then I do, and have no savings. Or that will tell you to get an IRA -so-and-so but don't have the means (discipline) to do so. Do not listen to your friends on matters of money. That's just good all around advise. Is my financial status OK? If not, how can I improve it? Any financial situation with no or really low debt is OK. I would say 5% of annual income in unsecured debt, or 2-3 years in annual income in secured debt is a good place to be. That is a really hard mark to hit (it seems). You have hit it. So your good, right now. You may want to "plan for the future". Immediate goals that I always tell people, are 6 months of income stuck in a liquid savings account, then start building a solid investment situation, and a decent retirement plan. This protects you from short term situations like loss of job, while doing something for the future. Is now a right time for me to see a financial advisor? Is it worthy? How would she/he help me? Rather it's worth it or not to use a financial adviser is going to be totally opinion based. Personally I think they are worth it. Others do not. I see it like this. Unless you want to spend all your time looking up money stuff, the adviser is going to have a better grasp of "money stuff" then you, because they do spend all their time doing it. That being said there is one really important thing to consider. That is going to be how you pay the adviser. The following are my observations. You will need to make up your own mind. Free Avoid like the plague. These advisers are usually provided by the bank and make their money off commission or kickbacks. That means they will advise you of the product that makes them the most money. Not you. Flat Rate These are not a bad option, but they don't have any real incentive to make you money. Usually, they do a decent job of making you money, but again, it's usually better for them to advise you on products that make them money. Per Hour These are my favorite. They charge per hour. Usually they are a small shop, and will walk you through all the advise. They advise what's best for you, because they have to sit there and explain their choices. They can be hard to find, but are generally the best option in my opinion. % of Money These are like the flat rate advisers to me. They get a percentage of the money you give them to "manage". Because they already have your money they are more likely to recommend products that are in their interest. That said, there not all bad. % or Profit These are the best (see notes later). They get a percentage of the money they make for you. They have the most interest in making you money. They only get part of what you get, so there going to make sure you get the biggest pie, so they can get a bigger slice. Notes In the real world, all advisers are likely to get kickbacks on products they recommend. Make sure to keep an eye for that. Also most advisers will use 2-3 of the methods listed above for billing. Something like z% of profit +$x per hour is what I like to see. You will have to look around and see what is available. Just remember that you are paying someone to make you money (or to advise you on how to make money) so long as what they take leaves you with some profit your in a better situation then your are now. And that's the real goal. |
Does an option trading below parity always indicate an arbitrage opportunity? | Defining parity as "parity is the amount by which an option is in the money", I'd say there may be an arbitrage opportunity. If there's a $50 strike on a stock valued at $60 that I can buy for less than $10, there's an opportunity. Keep in mind, options often show high spreads, my example above might show a bid/ask of $9.75/$10.25, in which case the last trade of $9.50 should be ignored in favor of the actual ask price you'd pay. Mispricing can exist, but in this day and age, is far less likely. |
Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than “highest interest” first? | There are a number of bona fide reasons to consider here. If there is a cost to discharging a security packet, or a mortgage, it may not be convenient if we are advanced in the repayment schedule. Early exit fees may apply, or the interest may be "pre-determined". As a rule of thumb, when we are talking about rates above 10% p.a. then arrangements should be short (bridging finance - keep it short and charge 'em heaps), and for personal arrangements, small. |
Is it necessary to pay tax if someone lends me money to put into my mortgage? | This answer is specifically for the UK, but one building society has an account set up specifically for this. You actually refer your friend/family member to set up an account and then it can be linked to your mortgage. They don't get any interest for their account as it's all offset against your mortgage. If you then happen to give them a cash gift (up to £250 or possibly £3000 per year, I can't work out which is the reliable number, as of 2015) then it's all completely above board. |
Are services provided to Google employees taxed as income or in any way? | Others have pointed out that many benefits offered by employers "for free" are actually taxed; the employee must pay taxes on the value of what they're receiving (usually services of some kind). This is called imputed income. Also pointed out was that healthcare is an exception; a specifically protected class of benefits that aren't taxed. But sometimes they are. Many companies now offer domestic partner health coverage as well, regardless of whether the couple is in any kind of civil union or other arrangement. The costs to the employee vary, but it's often that they simply pay double of what their individual coverage contribution would be. Independent of the employee's direct contribution for their domestic partner, they must also pay taxes on the value of the employer's cost of the coverage. This can be significant, as typically the employer is paying the lion's share of the healthcare cost. |
Where should I park my rainy-day / emergency fund? | I would suggest your local credit union or local bank for security and liquidity. Liquidity is probably the most important issue for a emergency fund. |
What price can *I* buy IPO shares for? | Some brokers have a number of shares they can offer their customers, but the small guy will get 100, not as many as they'd like. In the Tech bubble of the late 90's I was able to buy in to many IPOs, but the written deal from the broker is that you could not sell for 30 days or you'd be restricted from IPO purchases for the next 90. No matter what the stock opened at, there were a fair number of stocks thay were below IPO issue price after 30 days had passed. I haven't started looking at IPOs since the tech flameout, but had I gotten in to LinkedIn it would have been at that $45 price. Let's see if it stays at these levels after 30 days. Edit - This is the exact cut/paste from my broker's site : Selling IPO Shares: While XXX customers are always free to sell shares purchased in a public offering at any time, short holding periods of less than 31 calendar days will be a factor in determining whether XXX allocates you shares in future public offerings. Accordingly, if you sell IPO shares purchased in a public offering within 30 calendar days of such purchase, you will be restricted from participating in initial and secondary public offerings through XXX for a period of 3 months. (I deleted the broker name) I honestly don't know if I'd have gotten any LI shares. Next interesting one is Pandora. |
Start a Holding Company? | If you are trying to invest in closely held / private companies (things that don't trade on the stock market), you will run into a variety of regulatory problems. For various reasons, most private companies only raise funds with accredited investors. To be an accredited investor you basically have to have $1,000,000 in net worth - NOT including your primary residence, OR you have to make over $200,000 a year for the last two years and expect to keep making that much. This is a class distinction the Federal government created, you will see different but similar wealth and investment classes worldwide. So your best most organized opportunities are left out, unless you do qualify as an accredited investor. There are tons of other companies, things you will find locally, that will let you invest in their smaller time operations. (Think like a local yoga studio looking for $20,000 and willing to split the profits with you). But the problem here is lack of accountability, where partners skip town or just stop answering your calls, and the legal remedies cost you more than your claim. That being said there are people that provide capital to smaller publicly traded companies on the bulletin boards and pink sheets. They have opportunities do much better than the actual stock market investors in these companies, because you can negotiate contracts that let you cash out in their inevitable financing death spirals with very little risk to you. You can do these things as an individual or as a holding company, but the holding company will limit your liability to the amount your holding company invested, instead of your personal assets, in case your financing starts to incur liability with the company. |
Death and Capital Gains Taxes (United States) | Stocks (among other property) currently is allowed a "stepped-up basis" when valuing for estate tax purpose. From the US IRS web page: To determine if the sale of inherited property is taxable, you must first determine your basis in the property. The basis of property inherited from a decedent is generally one of the following: The fair market value (FMV) of the property on the date of the decedent's death. The FMV of the property on the alternate valuation date if the executor of the estate chooses to use alternate valuation. See the Instructions for Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return. If you or your spouse gave the property to the decedent within one year before the decedent's death, see Publication 551, Basis of Assets. Your question continues "the person that died still has to pay taxes on their profits in the year they died, right?" Yes. The estate would be subject to tax on realized gains/losses prior to death. |
Trouble sticking to a budget when using credit cards for day to day transactions? | You can fairly simply make a spreadsheet in your favorite spreadsheet application (or in Google Docs if you want portability). I like to make an overview page that shows how much I take in per month and what fixed bills come out of that, then break the remaining total into four to get a weekly budget. Then, I make one page per month with four columns (one per week), with each row being a category. Sum the categories at the bottom, and subtract from your weekly total: voila, a quick reference of how much you can spend that week without going over budget. I then make a page for each month that lists what I bought and how much I spent on it, so I can trace where my money's gone; the category total is just a summation of the items from that page that belong in that category. Once you have a system, stop checking your bank balance except to ensure your paycheck is going in alright. Use the spreadsheet to determine how much you can spend at any time. Then make sure you pay off everything on the card before the end of the month so you don't incur interest. |
Selling on eBay without PayPal? | I've definitely seen a similar conversation about this, I personally don't buy from eBay (Amazon for me). So I turned to the internet to see what I could find to offer you any additional information (albeit not my personal experience). I first read this article: CodeNerdz Article and was pretty horrified by the scamming that can happen by buyers. Then, this article by another regular user of eBay, Selling on eBay without PayPal : eBay Guides confirmed the trouble people have with PayPal & eBay. Payment Services permitted on eBay: Allpay.net, Canadian Tire Money, cash2india, CertaPay, Checkfree.com, hyperwallet.com, Moneybookers.com, Nochex.com, Ozpay.biz, Paymate.com.au, Propay.com, XOOM Have you looked into any or all of these? |
Smart to buy a house in college? | If you don't plan to stay in it, it is never good money to try to buy a house in a bad neighborhood. The question you want to be asking is probably "Is it smart to buy this piece of real estate," not "is it smart to buy a house in college." In this case, it's probably not smart because you won't actually have revenue from the property (you'll break even compared to renting), you may face some expensive repairs (water heater or other appliances going out, etc.), and you may find that your startup costs in things like lawn mowers, etc. is not worth the hassle (or cost of lawn service if you have someone else do it.) On top of that, can you get a loan with your proven income and assets? Don't forget to factor the cost of selling the house again into it -- and how long can you leave it on the market after you move out if it doesn't sell without going bankrupt yourself? In my opinion, it'd be a giant albatross around your neck. |
How can a company charge a closed credit card? | You should contact the Company who purchased your visa balance and ask/write the following questions: 1. Dispute the charge from Emusic.com as invalid. 2. Instruct that no future charges will be accepted. 3. How come Emusic.com was allowed to debit your account? 4. When did they purchased your visa account? 5. Ask for written verification that they purchased your account from the original company? such as a bill of sale? 6. Ask if the company is a registered debt collector in your state? 7. The FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT (FDCPA) may apply to your circumstance(s) and provide for $1,000 in damages to the consumer and $1,000 attorney fees from a third party debt collector per violation. You may want to seek the advice of an attorney to help determine if you have a good cause to sue the company and Emusic. If you did not receive anything form Emusic.com or your contract/agreement ended without a cancelation/early termination fee, ALso, file a written dispute with Emusic.com. Check your credit report. Many companies automatically charge your accounts through automatic payments after termination of the agreement because they get away with it in the U.S., if the consumer does not take steps to dispute the current charge and stop future charges from occurring in the future. Never use auto pay unless required and the service is essential. When using auto pay use a dedicated account not your main checking account. It is less of a pain in the neck to close the account if its your 2nd or 3rd checking account and not your only account. |
Could the loan officer deny me even if I have the money as a first time home buyer? | A financial institution is not obligated to offer you a loan. They will only offer you a loan if they believe that they will make money off you. They use all the info available in order to determine if offering you a loan is profitable. In short, whether they offer you a loan, and the interest rate they charge for that loan, is based on a few things: How much does it cost the bank to borrow money? [aka: how much does the bank need to pay people who have savings accounts with them?]; How much does the bank need to spend in order to administer the loan? [ie: the loan officer's time, a little time for the IT guy who helps around the office, office space they are renting in order to allow the transaction to take place]; and How many people will 'default' and never be able to repay their loan? [ex: if 1 out of 100 people default on their loans, then every one of those 100 loans needs to be charged an extra 1% in order to recover the money the bank will lose on the person who defaults]. What we are mostly interested in here is #3: how likely are you to default? The bank determines that by determining your income, your assets, your current debts outstanding, your past history with payments (also called a credit score), and specifically to mortgages, how much the house is worth. If you don't have a long credit history, and because you don't have a long income history, and because you are putting <10% down on the condo [20% is often a good % to strive for, and paying less than that can often imply you will need mandatory mortgage insurance, depending on jurisdiction] the bank is a little more uncertain about your likelihood to pay. Banks don't like uncertainty, and they can deal with that uncertainty in two ways: (1) They can charge you a higher interest rate; OR (2) They can refuse you the loan. Now just because one bank refuses you a loan, doesn't mean all will - but being refused by one bank is probably a good indication that many / most institutions would refuse you, because they all use very similar analytical tools to determine your 'risk level'. If you are refused a loan, you can try again at another institution, or you can wait, save a larger down payment, and build your credit history by faithfully paying your credit card every month, paying your utilities, and making your car and rent payments on time. This will give the banks more comfort that you will have the ability to pay your mortgage every month, and a larger down payment will give them comfort that if the housing market dips, you won't owe more than the house is worth. My parting shot is this: If you are new in your career with no income history, be very careful about buying a property immediately, even if you get approved. A good rule of thumb is to only buy a property when you plan on living there for at least 5 years, or else you are likely to lose money overall, after factoring closing costs and maintenance fees. If you are refused a loan, that's probably a good sign that you aren't financially ready yet, but even if a bank approves you for a loan, you might not be ready yet either. |
How can I find a checking account that allows for automated transfers of dynamic amounts? | Almost any financial institution has the technical ability to do this (simply called sweeps, auto sweeps, or deposit sweeps); the issue you face is finding an institution that is willing to do it for you. I think you will have the most luck at your primary financial institution where you currently keep the majority of your banking relationship. You will have better luck at small-town banks and credit unions. The mega banks will likely not waver from their established policies. Deposit sweeps are common for business accounts. They are usually tied to a savings account, which is usually held within the same institution, however this is not a requirement. The sweep can send money to any US bank if you can provide the routing number and account number. The sweep will establish a peg balance, or floor balance, on the checking account. At the end of the day, any amount above the peg is swept into the savings account automatically. I doubt you will find what you’re asking for within an online banking system. You will likely have to go into a branch and speak with a personal banker. Explain to them you want to establish a sweep on your checking account and want to send the funds to another financial institution. You will have better luck asking for a peg of $100, or some other small amount. They may not take your request seriously if you want to completely empty the checking account to zero. |
Do “Instant Approved” credit card inquires appear on credit report? | It is not delayed and if it didn't show yet - will not show on that agency's credit report. However, you may find it on another agency's report. There are three major agencies, and creditors don't always check all of them (each inquiry costs them money). |
Making a big purchase over $2500. I have the money to cover it. Should I get a loan or just place it on credit? | There are a couple of things to consider here that are relevant to your situation: |
How to convince someone they're too risk averse or conservative with investments? | Remind him that, over the long-term, investing in safe-only assets may actually be more risky than investing in stocks. Over the long-term, stocks have always outperformed almost every other asset class, and they are a rather inflation-proof investment. Dollars are not "safe"; due to inflation, currency exchange, etc., they have some volatility just like everything else. |
Dealer Financing Fell Through on vehicle purchase: Scam? | There's a good explanation of this type of scam at the following link; It's known as a Spot-Delivery scam. https://www.carbuyingtips.com/top-10-scams/scam1.htm Also, I read this one a while back, and immediately this post reminded me of it: http://oppositelock.kinja.com/when-the-dealership-steals-back-the-car-they-just-sold-1636730607 Essentially, they claim you'll get one level of financing, let you take the car home, and then attempt to extort a higher financing APR out of you or request more money / higher payments. Check your purchasing agreement, it may have a note with something along the lines of 'Subject to financing approval' or something similar. If it does, you might be 'out of luck', as it were. Contact an attorney; in some cases (Such as the 'oppositelock.kinja.com' article above) consumers have been able to sue dealers for this as theft. |
If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting? | If you get counterfeit money, then you're dealing with the criminal who is going to be punished by the law for doing that. The portion of the total sum that was paid with the counterfeit currency is considered unpaid and you can claim the money from the criminal and sue him, while he's in jail. He'll work hard on those license plates to pay you off. However, making false statements and assisting in a tax evasion scheme compromises your ability to go to the law enforcement in case of any wrongdoing, and then you should worry about the counterfeit money, because the law won't be on your side to help you. And you don't even get anything out of it... Why on earth are you willing to take this risk? Just so you know, it may also be money laundering, which may get you in trouble even more with the law. |
Why would someone buy a way out-of-the-money call option that's expiring soon? | Perhaps it was to close a short position. Suppose the seller had written the calls at some time in the past and maybe made a buck or two off of them. By buying the calls now they can close out the position and go away on vacation, or at least have one less thing they have to pay attention to. If they were covered calls, perhaps the buyer wants to sell the underlying and in order to do so has to get out of the calls. |
Separating money in bank account without opening another account | There are some banks that offer "pot" accounts like this (off the top of my head I think Intelligent Finance does, although they call them "jars"). The other option for charity specifically would be a CAF account: https://www.cafonline.org/my-personal-giving/plan-your-giving/individual-charity-account.aspx |
Is it advisable to go for an auto loan if I can make the full payment for a new car? | There needs to be more numbers with your choices, without those any answer is purely speculation. Assuming that India is much like the US, you are almost always better to go with a company leased car. That is if you are not responsible for the lease if your employment ends with the company. Here in the US companies typically reimburse, so tax free, their employees for about 50 cents per mile, or about 31 cents per kilometer. This barely covers the gas and insurance and falls way short when one includes deprecation and maintenance. So it is better to have the company to pick up all those costs. Borrowing money on a car is just plain dumb no matter what the interest rate. So I would stick with choice number 1 or 3 depending on the arrangement for the company leased car. The next question becomes how much you should spend for a car? I would say enough to keep you happy and safe, but not much more than that until you are wealthy. |
dividend cover ratio for stocks | Sources such as Value Line, or S&P stock reports will show you dividend payout ratios (the American usage. These are the inverse of dividend cover ratios, with dividends being in the numerator, and earnings in the denominator. For instance, if the dividend cover ratio is 2, the dividend payout ratio is 1/2= 50%. |
How to share income after marriage and kids? | I haven't seen this addressed anywhere else, so I'll make a small answer to add on to the great ones already here. Money isn't the only way a person can contribute to a relationship. Time and effort are valuable contributions. Who runs the household? Who cooks, cleans, does laundry? How will you share these duties? My husband and I have a couple of rules. One of which is that we don't keep count. "I did dishes, so you do laundry". "I made coffee last time, so now it's your turn". "I paid this, so you pay that". That's not allowed. I happen to make ~4x as much as my husband, but I work 4x the hours (he's part time at the moment). So, he does the dishes, he cooks, he does laundry, he runs the household. Do I value him less? No! I value him more, because he is part of the team, and he feeds me coffee while I work (we have our own business). Even though I make so much more than him, we still split everything down the middle. Because his contribution to this relationship, to this household, is so much more than just money. And I value him. I value his contribution. At the end of the day, you are a team - and if you split hairs over finances, you'll find yourself splitting hairs over everything. |
How does GST on PayPal payments work for Australian Taxation? | Regardless of wether or not you are registered for GST, you are legally required to include a GST total on every invoice sent to an Australian customer. This GST total must be 10% of the payment amount if you are registered for GST, or it must be $0.00 if you are not registered for GST. Since all GST transactions with the government are in Australian dollars, this amount on the invoice also needs to be in AUD, or else it's impossible for you and your customer to both be working off the same GST amount. This means you need to transfer your money from USD to AUD in PayPal's "Manage Currencies" area before you can send a tax invoice to the customer, so that you can provide the correct amount in AUD based on the actual exchange rate for the day (and you are required to send invoices promptly). Alternatively, you can collect payments in AUD using PayPal or use a different payment service that collects payments in USD but immediately converts them to AUD for sending an invoice (australian paypal competitors often provide this service). |
How credible is Stansberry's video “End of America”? | I know nothing about the guy, but I think the "premium" products (Penny stock recommendations, a newsletter devoted to earning 12% per year, every year, etc) sold by his firm speak for themselves. |
In USA, what circumstances (if any) make it illegal for a homeless person to “rent” an address? | You owe taxes to the state where you earned the income, and also to the state where you physically live. Most, maybe all, states have laws that let you claim credits for taxes paid to other states so that you're not paying double taxes by living in one state while working in another. Most states have deals with all their neighboring states so that you only have to file taxes in one. For example, I live in Michigan, and Michigan borders Ohio. Lots of people who live near the border live in one state but work in the other. So the two have a deal that anyone who lives in Michigan but works in Ohio just has to file a Michigan tax return and pay Michigan taxes, and anyone who lives in Ohio and works in Michigan just has to pay Ohio taxes. Oh, I should note that these adjacent state deals apply only to employment income, not business income. If you own a business in another state, you'll still have to file taxes in that state. You still should get tax credits in your residence state. In general the fact that you use a server in another state doesn't make you liable for taxes in that state. I understand that New York says that if you work from home and the company headquarters is in New York, you have to pay New York taxes. Maybe there are a few other states who do this. But just because a server is in their state? I've never heard of this. If I order business supplies that are shipped from a warehouse in Arizona, that doesn't make me liable for Arizona income taxes, etc. You are legally a "resident" of the state where you actually live. If you have a home and live in it most of the time, then you are a resident of the state where that home is. A "home" doesn't have to be a house. It could be an apartment, an RV that you live in in a trailer park, a tent, etc. If you don't own any sort of fixed home and you travel around a lot, this could be tricky. You mentioned Oklahoma. Oklahoma defines "resident" as follows: An Oklahoma resident is a person domiciled in this state for the entire tax year. “Domicile” is the place established as a person’s true, fixed, and permanent home. It is the place you intend to return whenever you are away (as on vacation abroad, business assignment, educational leave or military assignment). A domicile, once established, remains until a new one is adopted. (https://www.ok.gov/tax/documents/511NRPkt-14.pdf) I'm not sure that that clears things up for you. You can't just pick a state with low taxes and claim that as your residence. No way is the state where you actually live going to accept that. If you are in an ambiguous situation, like you spend 6 months per year in state A and 6 months in state B and you have no fixed home in either -- maybe you stay at motels or live in your minivan -- you might get away with picking the state with the most favorable tax laws as your residence. But if you spend 7 months in state A and 5 months in state B, state A will almost surely claim you are a resident and owe them taxes. If you regularly wander the country, never spend more than a few days in any one place, and rarely come back to the same place twice, then you have a complicated situation and you probably need to talk to a tax lawyer. |
Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? | Yes, in 2 ways: As you mention, the price of a home generally grows with inflation - along with other factors (supply and demand in local markets, etc.). Through financing. If you finance 80% of your purchase today, in 2014 dollars, you will pay back in future dollars. Those future dollars are worth less, because of inflation. |
What does “check payable to” mean? | It is your name, or the fictitious name under which you operate. For example, if your freelance front end is called "Zolani the 13th, LLC", then that's the name you want to appear on the check, and not "Mr. John Zolani Doe" that is written in your birth certificate. |
When are investments taxed? | This answer is about the USA. Each time you sell a security (a stock or a bond) or some other asset, you are expected to pay tax on the net gain. It doesn't matter whether you use a broker or mutual fund to make the sale. You still owe the tax. Net capital gain is defined this way: Gross sale prices less (broker fees for selling + cost of buying the asset) The cost of buying the asset is called the "basis price." You, or your broker, needs to keep track of the basis price for each share. This is easy when you're just getting started investing. It stays easy if you're careful about your record keeping. You owe the capital gains tax whenever you sell an asset, whether or not you reinvest the proceeds in something else. If your capital gains are modest, you can pay all the taxes at the end of the year. If they are larger -- for example if they exceed your wage earnings -- you should pay quarterly estimated tax. The tax authorities ding you for a penalty if you wait to pay five- or six-figure tax bills without paying quarterly estimates. You pay NET capital gains tax. If one asset loses money and another makes money, you pay on your gains minus your losses. If you have more losses than gains in a particular year, you can carry forward up to $3,000 (I think). You can't carry forward tens of thousands in capital losses. Long term and short term gains are treated separately. IRS Schedule B has places to plug in all those numbers, and the tax programs (Turbo etc) do too. Dividend payments are also taxable when they are paid. Those aren't capital gains. They go on Schedule D along with interest payments. The same is true for a mutual fund. If the fund has Ford shares in it, and Ford pays $0.70 per share in March, that's a dividend payment. If the fund managers decide to sell Ford and buy Tesla in June, the selling of Ford shares will be a cap-gains taxable event for you. The good news: the mutual fund managers send you a statement sometime in February or March of each year telling what you should put on your tax forms. This is great. They add it all up for you. They give you a nice consolidated tax statement covering everything: dividends, their buying and selling activity on your behalf, and any selling they did when you withdrew money from the fund for any purpose. Some investment accounts like 401(k) accounts are tax free. You don't pay any tax on those accounts -- capital gains, dividends, interest -- until you withdraw the money to live on after you retire. Then that money is taxed as if it were wage income. If you want an easy and fairly reliable way to invest, and don't want to do a lot of tax-form scrambling, choose a couple of different mutual funds, put money into them, and leave it there. They'll send you consolidated tax statements once a year. Download them into your tax program and you're done. You mentioned "riding out bad times in cash." No, no, NOT a good idea. That investment strategy almost guarantees you will sell when the market is going down and buy when it's going up. That's "sell low, buy high." It's a loser. Not even Warren Buffett can call the top of the market and the bottom. Ned Johnson (Fidelity's founder) DEFINITELY can't. |
Pros/Cons of Buying Discounted Company Stock | I see another way of looking at this that hasn't been addressed yet. By offering the discount, the company is attempting to change your behavior into doing something irrational, that benefits them at your expense. The company hopes for one (or more) of the following psychological effects to happen to you: The proper thing to do, if you have enough capital to prevent margin calls, it to short-sell the stock at the same instant the price is set, thus locking in the profit. Eventually you can take possession of the shares and deliver them to offset the short -- hopefully before you get a margin call from the stock dropping. |
Can capital expenses for volunteer purposes be deducted from income? | Costs for home / small business equipment under US$10,000 don't have to be capitalized. They can be expensed (that is, claimed as an expense all in one year.) Unless this printer is one of those behemoths that collates, folds, staples, and mails medium-sized booklets, it cost less than that. Keep track of your costs. Ask the charity to pay you those costs for the product you generate, and then donate that amount of money back to them. This will be good for the charity because they'll correctly account for the cost of printing. |
If I have $1000 to invest in penny stocks online, should I diversify risk and invest in many of them or should I invest in just in one? | If you want to put in $1000 into penny stocks, I wouldn't be calling that investing but more like speculation or gambling. You might have better odds at a casino. If you don't have much money at the moment to invest properly and you are just starting out as an investor, I would spend that $1000 on educating yourself so that by the time you have more money to invest you can come up with a better investment strategy. |
What low-fee & liquid exchange-traded index funds / ETFs should I consider holding in a retirement portfolio? | @bstpierre gave you an example of a portfolio similar to IFA's 70 portfolio. Please, look other variants of example portfolios there and investigate which would suit to you. Although the example portfolios are not ETF-based, required by the op, you can rather easily check corresponding components with this tool here. Before deciding your portfolio, fire up a spreadsheet (samples here) and do calculations and do not underestimate things below: Bogleheads have already answered this type of questions so why not look there? Less reinventing the wheel: google retirement portfolios site:bogleheads.org. I am not making any recommendations like other replies because financial recommendations devalue. I hope I steered you to the right track, use less time to pick individual funds or stocks and use more time to do your research. |
It is worth using a discount stock broker? I heard they might not get the best price on a trade? | They're not negotiating trade rates for you, you set the trade rates in your order. What they might have is a slightly slower system, delivering your orders a second later than the competition would. If that's critical to you then you should look at that, otherwise look at their fees, customer support and research aids because that's where the broker value is. |
I co-signed a car but i am listed as the primary account holder for the loan | First of all you do not "co-sign a car". I assume what you mean by this is that you co-signed a loan, and the money was used to buy a car. Once you signed that loan YOU OWED THE MONEY. Once a loan exists, it exists, and you will owe the money until the loan is paid. If you do not want to owe the money, then you need to pay back the money you borrowed. You may not think "you" borrowed the money because the car went to someone else. THE BANK AND THE COURTS DO NOT CARE. All they care about is that YOU signed the loan, so as far as they are concerned YOU owe the money and you owe ALL of the money to the bank, and the only way to change that is to pay the money back. |
How are dividends for shareholders of banks paid? | A typical manufacturer buys raw materials, produces a product using labor and energy at a specific cost with some waste, and then sells the product to produce income. A bank buys raw materials (deposits) by paying interest, then uses labor and energy to turn a portion of the raw materials into their product (loans), they then receive income (interest) on those loans. If the income exceeds the cost to buy and produce the loans taking into account losses due to delinquencies (waste) the bank company has made a profit. The growing profits can lead to an increase in stock prices or the paying of dividends. The search for more raw materials can lead to paying more for the raw materials, or by buying other factories (branches) or even other bank companies. |
Someone asks you to co-sign a loan. How to reject & say “no” nicely or politely? | I'm going to be buying a house / car / home theater system in the next few months, and this loan would show up on my credit report and negatively impact my score, making me unable to get the financing that I'll need. |
Nanny taxes and payroll service | For Federal Return, Schedule H and its Instructions are a great start. You are the nanny's employer, and are responsible for FICA (social security and medicare) withholding, and also paying the employer portion. You will offer her a W4 so she can tell you how much federal and state tax to withhold. You'll use Circular E the employer's tax guide to calculate withholding. In January, you'll give her a W-2, and file the information with your own tax return. For State, some of the above applies, but as I recall, in my state, I had to submit withholding quarterly separate from my return. As compared to Federal, where I adjusted my own withholding so at year end the tax paid was correct. Unemployment insurance also needs to be paid, I believe this is state. This issue is non-political - I told my friends at the IRS that (a) the disparity between state and federal to handle the nanny tax was confusing for those of us trying to comply, and (b) even though we are treated as an employer, a 'guide to the nanny tax' would be helpful, a single IRS doc that doesn't mix non-nanny type issues into the mix. In the end, if a service is cost effective, go for it, your time is valuable, and thi is something that only lasts a few years. |
Events that cause major movement in forex? | Look for unsustainable policies and actions by policy makers, both before and possibly during, when looking at the ForEx markets. Consider some examples: Each of those events could be seen in the growing unsustainability of local policies. ForEx markets and local policies can appear to stay on an unsustainable path for a long time, but equilibrium will force itself on everything in the long run. In two of the above cases, the initial response wasn't enough to offset the mess, and more and more intervention had to be done, only making matters worse. When you know how unsustainable policies are and how big the corrections need to be, you can quickly ascertain whether an action by policy makers will be enough. |
Home owners association for houses, pro/cons | As I understand it the basic premiss of a HOA is to ease communication between neighbors and help work towards common community goals. As I understand it the reality is that the HOA works to keep the community homogenous so there are no "sore thumb" neighbors. As to why look for one or avoid one. If you would want a uniform image out of your neighbors and don't mind towing the party line, then they are for you. If you don't care about what your neighbors do with their property (within civic ordinance) and would like freedom to do things different from your neighbors (paint your house blue, hang a clothes line, increase the size of your flower beds), then they are to be avoided. |
Why is Insider Trading Illegal? | To be flippant: it is illegal because it is against the law; there is no considered involved, it just is. To elaborate, part of the illusion of the stock exchange and other market-like entities is that of (apparent) fairness. If I think a stock will go up because it is involved in a growing industry, that is generally public information. Conversely if I have a dim view of a particular company because of its track record of product launches, that is similarly out in the open. A secret formula is something that I invented or discovered, not (presumably) something that I stole from someone else. To stretch that further: If I notice that Company X stock always moves with Company Y stock, that is indeed something that I have found, that I can try to profit from. It is secret to me, but not particularly dependent upon information not available to others, just that my interpretation is better. So trading on information in the public domain is fine, as it preserves the principal of fairness I mentioned, whereas inside knowledge breaks that principal. |
How do I find out the Earnings Per Share of a Coca Cola Co Share? | You're missing a very important thing: YEAR END values in (U.S.) $ millions unless otherwise noted So 7098 is not $7,098. That would be a rather silly amount for Coca Cola to earn in a year don't you think? I mean, some companies might happen upon random small income amounts, but it seems pretty reasonable to assume they'll earn (or lose) millions or billions, not thousands. This is a normal thing to do on reports like this; it's wasteful to calculate to so many significant digits, so they divide everything by 1000 or 1000000 and report at that level. You need to look on the report (usually up top left, but it can vary) to see what factor they're dividing by. Coca Cola's earnings per share are $1.60 for FY 2014, which is 7,098/4450 (use the whole year numbers, not the quarter 4 numbers; and here they're both in millions, so they divide out evenly). You also need to understand that "Dividend on preferred stock" is not the regular dividend; I don't see it explicitly called out on the page you reference. They may not have preferred stock and/or may not pay dividends on it in excess of common stock (or at all). |
Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve? | borrow money from the Central Bank Wrong premise. They cannot borrow as much as they want and they cannot borrow without collateral i.e. government debt instruments they hold or any other instrument with value. And banks don’t have unlimited collateral to borrow against. Secondly central banks aren’t in the business of lending unlimited money. The more money they lend out, the more is the money supply which stokes inflation which will eventually lead them to stop lending. At any point of time they want a certain amount of money movement, so they can control inflation and interest rates within an agreed limit and as limited by their economy. No sane central bank would want to stoke hyperflation by printing money at will e,g, Helicopter money. So the only other way for banks is to accept deposits from private individuals. You can also argue that banks make money by connecting lenders and borrowers and make their profit by being the middleman without using their assets. So you can say they are making a profit with the minimum usage of their capital. Albeit they have the central bank looking over their shoulder to police their behaviour. While some banks do charge fees for keeping deposits Yes but many provide certain extra services for which they charge. That is how they differentiate between no fee accounts and fee paying accounts. |
How can I determine which stores are regarded as supermarkets for a rewards credit card? | Each company that has an account with the credit card network has to classify themselves as a particular type of business. The credit card company uses that classification to catagorize the transaction on your statement. If you buy a T-shirt at a grocery, amusement park, gas station, or resturant; the transaction will be labeled by the vendor type. Look at recent credit card statements, even if they are from different cards, to see how the stores you want to know about are classified. |
Please help me understand reasons for differences in Government Bond Yields | These are yields for the government bonds. EuroZone interest rates are much lower (10 times lower, in fact) than the UK (GBP zone) interest rates. The rates are set by the central banks. |
How to manage household finances (income & expenses) [duplicate] | My wife and I have close to equal incomes, and are not young. What we have is this: Some people would classify our system as a bit draconian as we each have "allowance"; however, it makes sure spending does not get out of wack and we work together to meet our goals. |
What are the advantages/disadvantages of a self-directed IRA? | The main advantage and disadvantage I can see in a scenario like this are - how savvy and good an investor are you? It's a good way to create below-market average returns if you're not that good at investing and returns way above market average if you are... |
Who receives the money when one company buys another? | Shareholders of Monsanto will get the money from Bayer. Shareholders are independent people or entities. Think of Monsanto as a thing that shareholders had. This thing is now being purchased by Bayer |
What debts are both partners liable for in a 'community property' state? | No two states have the same exact laws regarding community property. I would recommend asking a competent financial advisor in your area, as they would be more familiar with the local statutes. |
What's the difference between shares outstanding and regular shares? | outstanding shares are the shares(regular shares) that are still tradable in the market, where the firm in question is listed. The term is primarily used to distinguish from shares held in treasury(treasury stock), which have been bought back(buybacks) from the market and aren't currently tradable in the market. Wikipedia is a bit more clearer and mentions the diluted outstanding shares(used for convertible bonds, warrants, etc) which is used to calculated diluted EPS. |
Optimal Asset Allocation | There are some good answers about the benefits of diversification, but I'm going to go into what is going on mathematically with what you are attempting. I was always under the assumption that as long as two securities are less than perfectly correlated (i.e. 1), that the standard deviation/risk would be less than if I had put 100% into either of the securities. While there does exist a minimum variance portfolio that is a combination of the two with lower vol than 100% of either individually, this portfolio is not necessarily the portfolio with highest utility under your metric. Your metric includes returns not just volatility/variance so the different returns bias the result away from the min-vol portfolio. Using the utility function: E[x] - .5*A*sig^2 results in the highest utility of 100% VTSAX. So here the Sharpe ratio (risk adjusted return) of the U.S. portfolio is so much higher than the international portfolio over the period tracked that the loss of returns from adding more international stocks outweigh the lower risk that you would get from both just adding the lower vol international stocks and the diversification effects from having a correlation less than one. The key point in the above is "over the period tracked". When you do this type of analysis you implicitly assume that the returns/risk observed in the past will be similar to the returns/risk in the future. Certainly, if you had invested 100% in the U.S. recently you would have done better than investing in a mix of US/Intl. However, while the risk and correlations of assets can be (somewhat) stable over time relative returns can vary wildly! This uncertainty of future returns is why most people use a diversified portfolio of assets. What is the exact right amount is a very hard question though. |
Where to find out conversion ratio between General Motors bonds and new GM stock? | I would imagine that as a holder you will receive information in the post when it's made public, but I don't think it's been decided yet. This thread on the Motley Fool boards is keeping an eye on them - you might want to keep an eye on the thread. |
Should you keep your stocks if you are too late to sell? | In my opinion, the average investor should not be buying individual stocks. One reason why is that the average investor is not capable of reading financial statements and evaluating whether a stock is overpriced or underpriced. As such, they're often tempted to make buy/sell decisions based solely on the current value of a stock as compared to the price at which they bought it. The real reasons to buy (or sell) a stock is the expectation of future growth of the company (or continued profit and expected dividends). If you aren't able to analyze a company's financial statements and business plan, then you really aren't in a position to evaluate that company's stock price. So instead of asking whether to sell based on a recent drop in stock price, you should be investigating why the stock price is falling, and deciding whether those reasons indicate a trend that you expect to continue. If you buy and sell stocks based solely on recent trends in the stock price, you probably will end up buying stocks that have recently risen and selling stocks that have recently fallen. In that case, you are buying high and selling low, which is a recipe for poor financial outcomes. |
I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment? | The market doesn't know or care why you bought. What you are asking is effectively 'this share went down in price after I bought. Is there anything I can do?'. Consider what you are asking for - if there were anything you could do, then no one would ever make a loss. How do you suppose that would work? |
Transfer money from a real estate sale in India to the US | How would I go about doing this? Assuming you had purchased the house by funding from your NRE account, you can easily move back the 30K into NRE Account and out of India from NRI Account. The 30K profit would be taxed in India as per capital gains and can only be moved into NRO account. A CA would need to certify that appropriate taxes have been withheld before the bank will release the funds for repatriation out of India. There is also a limit [large 1 million USD] on how much funds can be moved out of India. Consult a CA who would help you with the formalities. If you have not funded the purchase from NRE account, the entire proceeds should be into NRO account and then move funds from there. |
Buying a foreclosed property | Usually... I think that's overstating the case. You CAN get a bargain (especially if the place is in not-so-great condition), but not every foreclosure will be a good deal even if it is priced well below its most recently appraised value. As the buyer it's your responsibility to determine whether it's priced well or not, and to decide whether you're willing and able to repair its deficiencies after you buy it. The same's true when purchasing any house; foreclosures just make it more likely that there are problems and (hopefully) wind up being priced to allow for them. I don't know of a single website which lists all foreclosures. Some of the home listing websites do have a "show me foreclosure listings" filter, and I'm sure that the better tools available to real estate agents can select these. But if that's the direction you're interested in going, you should be looking at distressed properties generally, NOT just foreclosures; you may get a better deal, in the long run, by going for the one that has been mechanically maintained but is just plain ugly rather than the one with a pretty skin whose heating system hasn't been serviced for the last decade. Do your homework, shop around, don't fall in love with any one house... all the same rules apply at this end of the spectrum just as strongly as they do in the mid or upper ranges. Perhaps more so. Happy hunting! |
Will a credit card company close my account if I stop using it? | There is no universal answer here. Some card issuers will. Some that will close the account will warn you first. For my "sock drawer" cards I'll try to take each out semi-annually to make a single transaction, then put it back in the drawer. I've heard you should charge something quarterly, I've never had one closed with semi-annual charges. |
When does it make sense for the money paid for equity to go to the corporation? | If Jack owns all of the one million founding shares (which I assume you meant), and wants to transfer 250,000 shares to Venturo, then he is just personally selling shares to Venturo and the corporation gains nothing. If Jack does not own all of the founding shares, and the corporation had retained some, then the corporate shares could be sold to raise cash for the corporation. Usually in situations like this, the corporation will create more shares, diluting existing shareholders, and then sell the new shares on the open market to raise cash. |
What are the best software tools for personal finance? | Money Manager Ex PROS: CONS |
How do I choose between buying a car or buying a plot of land in Pakistan? | “The plot of land definitely is going to give better results in long term.” Will it? Land is not guaranteed to go up in value. And a car can provide more employment opportunities for you. You need to look at your specific situation—with specific numbers—rather than using rules of thumb as hard guidelines. |
What is the meaning of “writing put options”? | Writing a put for a stock means you are selling the right to sell you stock. Simply put (er no pun intended), "writing put options" means you are selling somebody else the right (a contract) to sell YOU a specific stock at a specific price before a specific date. I imagine the word "write" to refer to the physical act of creating a contract. The specific price is called the STRIKE and the specific date is the EXPIRATION. By "writing a put", you are agreeing to purchase the stock at a particular price (the STRIKE price) before the expiration. You get paid a fee, the "premium", for agreeing to purchase the stock at the strike price if asked to. If the holder of the contract decides to make you buy the stock at the strike price, you have to do it. If the stock never dips below the strike price, then the holder of the put contract (a contract you wrote), will never exercise their right because they'd lose money. But if the stock drops to zero, you could potentially lose up to your strike price (times the number of shares at stake), if the holder of the contract decides to exercise. Therefore, "writing puts" is a LONG position, meaning you stand to gain if the stock goes up. FYI - "LONG" refers direction (UP!), not duration. |
After consulting HR Block, are you actually obligated to file your taxes with them, if they've found ways to save you money? | The obligation is contractual, so you need to read the contract to answer your question. However, since you paid for the service provided, I see no way they can force you buy any other service from them. They cannot file your tax returns without your explicit consent (on a form dedicated to that, dated and having the numbers matching the return filed - not something you can sign before the actual return is ready). Worst case they can claim you owe them more money, but since you paid for the services provided, I can't see how they can have that stand in court as well. Bottom line - even if the contract has such an obligation, I cannot see how it can be enforced. As to the mistake they noted... I wouldn't rely on H&R Block advice in any matter. Very likely, the person you were talking to was not even licensed to provide tax advice. You're lucky if the person has passed CRTP exams (in California they're legally required), but I seriously doubt their clerks are EAs or CPAs (the only designations other than a lawyer legally allowed to provide tax advice). Tax preparers (CRTPs included) are only allowed to provide advice pertaining to the preparation of the tax return they're currently engaged to prepare. Claiming income is sourced or not sourced in NY is borderline, IMHO. If they got it wrong (and to me it sounds as they did) you can sue them for damages. If your situation is tricky and it is too late to get an appointment with a proper adviser - file an extension (form 4868) and deal with it after the April busy season. |
I am under 18 years old, in the US, my parents have terrible credit, how can I take out a loan? | I am 17 and currently have a loan out for a car. My parents also have terrible credit, and because I knew this I was able to get around it. Your co-signer on your loan does not have to be your parent, at least in Wisconsin, I used my grandmother, who has excellent credit, as my cosigner. With my loan, we had made it so it doesn't hurt her credit if I don't get my payments in on time, maybe this is something for you to look into. |
Why are credit cards preferred in the US? | Your question is based on a false premise. Debit cards are more popular in the US than credit cards are. Indeed it seems to be the non-US part of the world that is big in credit cards. See here for example |
Is there a way to roll over short-term gains and avoid capital gain tax | If the investments are in a non-retirement, taxable account, there's not much you can do to avoid short-term capital gains if you sell now. Ways to limit short-term capital gains taxes: Donate -- you can donate some of the stock to charity (before selling it). Transfer -- you can give some of the stock to, say, a family member in a lower tax bracket. But there are tons of rules, gift limits, and won't work for little kids or full time students. They would still pay taxes at their own rate. Protect your gains by buying puts. Wait it out until the long-term capital gains rate kicks in. This allows you to lock in your gains now (but you won't benefit from potential future appreciation.) Buying puts also costs $, so do the ROI calculation. (You could also sell a call and buy a put at the same time and lock in your gains for certain, but the IRS often looks at that as locking in the short-term capital gain, so be careful and talk to a tax professional if you are considering that method.) Die. There's a "step-up" basis on capital gains for estates. source: http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/30/avoid-capital-gains-tax-anschutz-personal-finance-baldwin-tax-strategy.html |
How much power does a CEO have over a public company? | The shareholders elect the board of directors who in turn appoint a CEO. The CEO is responsible for the overall running of the company. To answer your specific questions: Yes, Steve Jobs could make decisions that are harmful to the well-being of the company. However, it's the responsibility of the board of directors to keep his decisions and behavior in check. They will remove him from his position if they feel he could be a danger to the company. |
What college degree should I pursue to learn about stock and forex markets? | Financial Economics, although, as I understand it, not all colleges offer this major. |
Can you sell a security through a different broker from which it was purchased? | Many brokers allow you to transfer shares to another broker without selling them. It depends on what kind of account and who the broker is for what forms you might have to fill out and what other hoops you might have to jump through. |
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