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What is the point of the stock market? What is it for, and why might someone want to trade or invest? | In finance, form is function, and while a reason for a trade could be anything, but since the result of a trade is a change in value, it could be presumed that one seeks to receive a change in value. Stock company There may have been more esoteric examples, but currently, possession of a company (total ownership of its' assets actually) is delineated by percentage or a glorified "banknote" frequently called a "share". Percentage companies are usually sole proprietorship and partnerships, but partnerships can now trade in "units". Share companies are usually corporations. With shares, a company can be divided into almost totally indistinguishable units. This allows for more flexible ownership, so individuals can trade them without having to change the company contract. Considering the ease of trade, it could be assumed that common stock contract provisions were formulated to provide for such an ease. Motivation to trade This could be anything, but it seems those with the largest ownership of common stock have lots of wealth, so it could be assumed that people at least want to own stocks to own wealth. Shorting might be a little harder to reason, but I personally assume that the motivation to trade is still to increase wealth. Social benefit of the stock market Assuming that ownership in a company is socially valuable and that the total value of ownership is proportional to the social value provided, the social benefit of a stock market is that it provided the means to scale ownership through convenience, speed, and reliability. |
Simplifying money management | Many banks will allow you to open multiple accounts. Create a secondary checking account that has no automatic withdrawals and doesn't allow overdraft. This is the account you'll use for you discretionary spending. Get an account with a debit card and always use it as a debit card (never as a credit card, even if it allows that). Your employer may allow you to split your direct deposit so that a certain amount of money goes into this account each month. When it gets to $0, you have to stop spending. It will automatically refill when you get your paycheck. |
Is it worth having a pension? | It all depends on whether you can manage your money or not. Many people are incapable of doing so in a responsible way. Like any service, you get what you pay for -- active management costs money! |
I just “paid” online with a debit card with no funds. What now? | There are a few factors at play here. Depending on the bank that has offered you the card there are different types of overdraft protection that may have been set up. Typically, if they attempt to run the card with no money, if one of these is in play, you will be spared any overdraft fees by the transaction charging to a designated overdraft account, usually savings, or by the transaction failing due to insufficient funds. If you know the transaction went through, and you know there were not enough funds in the account to cover the transactions, then you have a few options. If you have overdraft protection that auto charges insufficient funds charges to a separate account, then you have nothing to worry about. If you do not, most banks offer a grace period where you have until the end of the day to zero out your account, that is to say pay the overdraft amount and bring your balance to at least $0. If this is a charge that occurred in the past, and you have already been charged an overdraft fee, there may still be hope. I cannot speak for all banks, but I know that Chase Bank offers a once per year overdraft forgiveness, where they will get rid of the charges if you agree to bring the account out of the negative. There is a chance other banks will do the same if you call their customer service. |
How to save money for future expenses | You can't force a horse to eat carrots. You have to make him hungry... It's good that you're ready to start saving. The hardest part about building wealth is that most people live in denial. They think a bigger hat is wealth. That said, you need to get your husband excited about the idea of saving. If you're capable of sparking a little passion in him for saving then you'll see your wealth grow almost over night. So, how do you make someone excited about something as boring as saving? Great question. If you find a way, write a book. Honestly, I think it's different for everyone. For me it was like someone turned on a light. I was blind but then I saw. If he is a reader then I would suggest the following books in this order. If he makes it through those and has any argument at all against saving then write a book about him haha. Now I want to be clear, the other two answers above mine were also spot on. If you can't get him passionate about it then you need to take the initiative and start doing it yourself. I can't stress enough though that you both need to be engaged in order to do it quickly and efficiently. Good luck! |
What securities is Return of Capital applicable to? | Off the top of my head, I don't know of any publicly-traded companies that routinely earmark distributions as return of capital, but theoretically, it's certainly applicable to any publicly-traded company. The Wikipedia article gives one situation in which a publicly-traded company may use return of capital: Public business may return capital as a means to increase the debt/equity ratio and increase their leverage (risk profile). Since return of capital is a distribution, it shrinks the firm's equity, thus increasing its leverage. Investopedia also has an article, Dividend Facts You May Not Know, that gives an example of when return of capital might be used: Sometimes, especially in the case of a special, large dividend, part of the dividend is actually declared by the company to be a return of capital. In this case, instead of being taxed at the time of distribution, the return of capital is used to reduce the basis of the stock, making for a larger capital gain down the road, assuming the selling price is higher than the basis. For instance, if you buy shares with a basis of $10 each and you get a $1 special dividend, 55 cents of which is return of capital, the taxable dividend is 45 cents, the new basis is $9.45 and you will pay capital gains tax on that 55 cents when you sell your shares sometime in the future. A company may choose to earmark some or all of its distribution as return of capital in order to provide shareholders with a more beneficial tax treatment. The IRS describes this different tax treatment: Distributions that qualify as a return of capital are not dividends. A return of capital is a return of some or all of your investment in the stock of the company. A return of capital reduces the basis of your stock. These distributions don't necessarily count as taxable income, except in some instances: Once the basis of your stock has been reduced to zero, any further non-dividend distribution is capital gain. The IRS also states: A distribution generally qualifies as a return of capital if the corporation making the distribution does not have any accumulated or current year earnings and profits. In this case, the firm is lowering its equity because it's paying distributions out of that equity instead of accumulated earnings/profits. A company may use return of capital to maintain a distribution even in times of financial difficulty. In the context of closed-end funds, however, return of capital can be much more complicated and can affect the fund's performance and reputation in numerous ways. Also, JB King is correct in cautioning you that "return of capital" is not the same thing as "return on capital*. The latter is a method for valuing a company and determining "how efficient a company is where it comes to using its resources." (to quote JB King's comment again). |
Do the nasdaq small cap stocks or penny stocks get promoted? | The penny/pink sheet stocks you tend to see promoted are the ones a) with small public floats or, b) they are thinly traded. This means that any appreciable change in buy/sell volume will have an outsized effect on the stock's share price, even when the underlying fundamentals are not so great. Promoters are frequently paid based on how much they can move a stock's price, but such moves are not long-lasting. They peter out when the trading volumes return to more normal ranges for the stock because all of the hype has died out. There are some small-cap NASDAQ stocks which can be susceptible to promotion for the same reason -- they have small floats and/or are thinly traded. Once someone figures out the best targets, they'll accumulate a position and then start posting all kinds of "news" on the web in an effort to drum up interest so they can sell off their position into the buying that follows. The biggest problem with penny/pink sheet stocks is that they frequently fail to publish reliable financial statements, and their ownership is of a dubious nature. In the past, these types of stocks have been targeted by organized crime syndicates, which ran their own "pump and dump" operations as a way to make relatively easy money. This may still be true to some extent today. Be wary of investing in any publicly-traded firm that has to use promoters to drum up investor interest, because it can be a serious red flag. Even if it means missing out on a short-term opportunity, research the company before investing. Read its financials, understand how it has behaved through its trading history, learn about the products/services it is selling. Do your homework. Otherwise you are doing the investing equivalent of taking your money and lighting it on fire. Remember, there's a good reason these companies are trading as penny/pink sheet stocks, and it generally has nothing to do with the notion (the promoters will tell you) that somehow the "market has missed out on this amazing opportunity." Pump and dump schemes, which lie at the heart of almost all stock promotion, rely on convincing you, the investor, that you're smart enough to see what others haven't. I hope this helps. Good luck! |
Are bonds really a recession proof investment? | Bonds by themselves aren't recession proof. No investment is, and when a major crash (c.f. 2008) occurs, all investments will be to some extent at risk. However, bonds add a level of diversification to your investment portfolio that can make it much more stable even during downturns. Bonds do not move identically to the stock market, and so many times investing in bonds will be more profitable when the stock market is slumping. Investing some of your investment funds in bonds is safer, because that diversification allows you to have some earnings from that portion of your investment when the market is going down. It also allows you to do something called rebalancing. This is when you have target allocation proportions for your portfolio; say 60% stock 40% bond. Then, periodically look at your actual portfolio proportions. Say the market is way up - then your actual proportions might be 70% stock 30% bond. You sell 10 percentage points of stocks, and buy 10 percentage points of bonds. This over time will be a successful strategy, because it tends to buy low and sell high. In addition to the value of diversification, some bonds will tend to be more stable (but earn less), in particular blue chip corporate bonds and government bonds from stable countries. If you're willing to only earn a few percent annually on a portion of your portfolio, that part will likely not fall much during downturns - and in fact may grow as money flees to safer investments - which in turn is good for you. If you're particularly worried about your portfolio's value in the short term, such as if you're looking at retiring soon, a decent proportion should be in this kind of safer bond to ensure it doesn't lose too much value. But of course this will slow your earnings, so if you're still far from retirement, you're better off leaving things in growth stocks and accepting the risk; odds are no matter who's in charge, there will be another crash or two of some size before you retire if you're in your 30s now. But when it's not crashing, the market earns you a pretty good return, and so it's worth the risk. |
Friend was brainwashed by MLM-/ponzi investment scam. What can I do? | Chances are high your friend isn't in it for the money, but the community or some vague dream of having a future income-generating side business because he can't get a loan for a 7-11 franchise. I run a few successful online businesses and had an import/export so naturally I run into these guys looking for advice on selling their MLM wares easier. I always point out they can make a lot of money cutting out the middle man MLM distributor and buy the same products from eBay or the same local supplier the MLM uses for a fraction of costs...then collect all the profit sans kickbacks to their host MLM goon/sponsor/father. I've never had anyone that bailed on the MLM, but I could see their eyes gloss over after they realized their own middle man is holding them back from making a lot of money (assuming they could offload that stuff). People actually in it for the money tend to bail (better sales job exist, MLM dreams don't pay rent, etc.) so you'll probably just need to isolate your friend from these losers somehow. You could investigate his sponsor and find out how much money he's actually making....if he tells your friend he's rich, but you find out he lives in the slums with his mom, your friend might bail on friendship/association with the group out of sheer disgust. It's the friends, not the logic you need to attack. His MLM friends would consider it a betrayal if he left them so you need to show him it's the MLM group that's betrayed his friendship. Point out all the long-term members driving junky cars to events who brag about their $$$. Laugh at the piss poor finance credentials of the local group leaders....ask where the investor perks are and suggest the sponsor/leaders are just hording them. Point out that he's a success and the fellow team members are just milking him to prop up their failing investments/sales/recruitment numbers. Nobody wants to let a team down....but the team isn't good enough for him. Deep down he knows the logic is questionable or at least risky/improbable, but his faith in the good intentions of his MLM cohorts is high.....crush that faith and all he's left with is bad finance tips or cheap protein shakes. |
Shared groceries expenses between roommates to be divided as per specific consumption ratio and attendance | So your whole approach, and the attempt to scale this is flawed. You will alienate roomates, provoke arguments, and make everyone's life more difficult. There are too many variables and unforeseen possibilities. For instance: "Why should I have to pay for Joe to go buy the expensive organic milk when I'm fine with the cheap stuff?" "I planned on being here for 20 days, but was gone that long weekend, recalculate everything please." "I already paid for this month, but now you're asking for more because James wanted to recalculate for a long weekend?" The right way to do this is to set up loose, reasonable agreement among the participants and treat that as a contract, but with some flexibility/mercy on small dollar amount items. For instance: There are 5 of us, so everyone provides food (and shops/cooks) one night a week. We're solo on Friday and Saturday (people eat out more then anyway), and everyone puts in $10/week (or whatever) for breakfast cereal, snacks, etc. If you can't be here on your night, work out to trade with someone. If you miss out on a meal... oh well. As long as people feel like they have a say in the discussion generating this and it's not dictated to them, then most of the time this is far superior. If people need this level of detail, then perhaps those people should live alone or move in with Sheldon Cooper from "The Big Bang Theory". |
I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out? | This is very possibly a scam. The way the scam works is that the scammers send you a letter and demand you call the telephone number. But the telephone number belongs to the scammers, not the bank. When you call the number, they will 'authenticate' you by asking you a bunch of questions. They will then have enough information to call the bank and pretend to be you, and transfer out all of your money. What you need to do is to find the telephone number for your bank without making use of this letter. For example, look at a previous bank statement, or find the telephone number on the bank's website. Call that number and discuss this letter. If you have already called the number in the letter and if you have the slightest reason to believe it is not valid, stop reading. This is an emergency. Immediately call a legitimate number at the bank. Explain the situation and note that you believe your information has been compromised. Why are you still reading? Do it now. |
Getting Cash from Credit Card without Fees | You said: Use a credit card (to get my 3% Cash back) to withdraw cash ... Then you said: Is there any way to do this without paying a cash advance fee (or any fees in general)? Right there you have stated the inconsistency. Withdrawing cash using a credit card is a cash advance. You may or may not be charged a fee for doing the cash advance, but no credit card will offer you cash back on a cash advance, so you can't earn your 3% by using cash advances. As others have mentioned, you can sometimes get close by using the card to purchase things that are almost like cash, such as gift cards. But you have to make a purchase. |
Why buy insurance? | Most people buy insurance because it is legally required to own a car or to have a mortgage. People want to own homes and to have personal transportation enough that they are willing to pay for required insurance costs. There are a lot of great explanations here as to why insurance is important and I don't want to detract from those at all. However, if we're being honest, most people are not sophisticated enough to measure and hedge their various financial risks. They just want to own an home and to drive a car. |
Online Foreign Exchange Brokerages: Which ones are good & reputable for smaller trades? | There are many good brokers available in the market and many spammers too. Personally I have been associated with FXCM since 2001 and have never faced any problem. But everyone has their own personal choice and I recommend you to make your own. But the question is how to find out which broker is a good broker and would provide you with a timely and reliable service? Online google check? Not really. There is so much competition between brokerage firms that they keep writing rubbish about each other on blogs and websites. Best thing is to is check with regulator's website. For US: NFA is a regulator for all forex firms. Information about any regulated forex firm could be found here. http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/welcome.aspx For UK: Its FSA. Information on all regulated Uk based firm could be found here. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmSearchForm.do Remember in many countries its not compulsory for a forex firm to be regulated but being regulated ensure that the govt. has a watch on the operations of the firm. Also most of the firms out there provide accounts for large as well as small traders so there is nothing much to look for even if you are a small trader. Do keep in mind that if you are a US Citizen you are restricted by the US Govt. to trade only with a broker within US. You are not allowed to trade with any brokerage firm that is based outside the country. Forex Trading involves a significant amount of risk make sure you study the markets well and get yourself educated properly before risking your money. While I have made a lot of money trading forex I have seen a lot of people loosing everything. Please understand the risk and please make sure you only trade with the money which you can afford to loose. |
What is the best way to invest in gold as a hedge against inflation without having to hold physical gold? | Definitely look at CEF. They have tax advantages over GLD and SLV, and have been around for 50 years, and are a Canadian company. They hold their gold in 5 distributed vaults. Apparently tax advantage comes because with GLD, if you supposedly approach them with enough money, you can take out a "bar of gold". Just one problem (well, perhaps more): a bar of gold is an enormous sum of money (and as such not very liquid), and apparently gold bars have special certifications and tracking, which one would mess up if one took it to there personal collection, costing additional sums to re-certify. many, many articles on the web claiming that the gold GLD has is highly leveraged, is held by someone else, and tons of other things that makes GLD seem semi-dubious. I've used CEF for years, talked to them quite a few times; to me, and short of having it my possession, they seem the best /safest / easiest alternative, and are highly liquid/low spread betwen bid and ask. The do also have a pure gold "stock" and a pure silver "stock", but these often trade at higher premiums. CEF's premium varies between -2% and +4%. I.e. sometimes it trades at a premium to the gold and silver it holds, sometimes at a discount. Note that CEF generally shoots to have a 50/50 ratio of gold / silver holdings in their possession/vaults, but this ratio has increased to be heavier gold weighted than silver, as silver has not performed quite as well lately. You can go to their web-site and see exactly what they have, e.g. their NAV page: http://www.centralfund.com/Nav%20Form.htm |
How can I calculate the volatility(standard deviation) of a stock price? and/or ROI (return on investment) of a stock? | Use the Black-Scholes formula. If you know the current price, an options strike price, time until expiration, and risk-free interest rate, then knowing the market price of the option will tell you what the market's estimation of the volatility is. This does rely on a few assumptions, such as Gaussian random walk, but those are reasonable assumptions for most stocks. You can also get a list of past stock prices, put them in Excel, and ask Excel to calculate the standard deviation with stdev.s(), but that gives you the past volatility. The market's estimate of future volatility is more relevant. |
How to find a reputable company to help sell a timeshare? | The one thing I would like to add to Ben's answer is that you will be lucky to get out of this with no proceeds. So that 30-40K paid for the timeshare maybe a total loss. If this purchase was financed with the timeshare used as collateral you may need to pay it off prior to being released. One tactic I heard used is to offer the sales team, that sold you the timeshare, a bonus for selling yours instead of one out of inventory. Assuming their commission is typically 25% of the sales price, you might consider offering them 40% or some higher figure. Doing it this way, you will have all the slick marketing on your side probably generating the highest amount of revenue possible. Timeshares are really bad deals. If you know this you can score some cheap vacations by attending their seminars and continuing to say no. The wife and I recently got back from a nice trip to Aruba mostly paid for with airline points, and a 2 hour timeshare tour. |
One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this? | Like @chirs, I'm of the opinion that you might want to buy more. I've done this a couple of times, price dropped a bunch, and I said, heck, I bought some last week, and this week I can get twice as much stock for about the same price. Brought down my average cost per share, and when the company was taken private, I actually didn't lose money - unlike some other people I know, who only bought at one price, watched the drop, and held on awaiting a recovery (which didn't happen in time before the big money swooped in on it). But to do this, you need to keep cash reserves (that, like @afforess says, you can afford to lose all of) on hand, awaiting buying opportunities. This, too, is a cost - an opportunity cost. |
Why are interest rates on saving accounts so low in USA and Europe? | Banks in general will keep saving rates as low as possible especially if there is a surplus of funds or alternative access for funding as in the case of the Fed in the USA. Generally speaking, why would bank pay you a high interest rate when they cannot generate any income from your money? Usually we will expect to see a drop in the loan interest rate when their is a surplus of funds so as to encourage investment. But if the market is volatile then no banks will allow easy access to money through loans. The old traditional policy of lending money without proper security and no control from the central bank has created serious problems for savings account holders when some of these banks went into bankruptcy. It is for this reason most countries has modified their Financial Act to offer more protection to account holders. At the moment banks must follow rigid guidelines before a loan can be approved to a customer. In my country (Guyana) we have seen the collapse of a few banks which sent a shock wave across the county for those that have savings held at those bank. We have also seen unsecured loans having to be written off thus putting serious pressure of those banks. So government stepped in a few years ago and amended the act to make it mandatory to have commercial banks follow certain strict guidelines before approving a loan. |
How to help a financially self destructive person? | I am no expert by any means in divorce situations, but it seems like you probably have more than enough evidence (if you can back up everything you outlined here) that the living conditions an her place are not suitable for kids. This ought to be enough for you to gain sole custody of the kids. Maybe you didn't want to keep their mother in the equation for their benefit, but right now it's not to their benefit for her to be in the equation. The honest truth is that you're not in a position to help her being divorced. You can't force her to do anything as things stand now. But if you take legal actions to gain sole custody you might be able to lay down some conditions under which she could regain partial custody of the kids. This might be the "scare" approach you're looking for if she cares about her children. |
Which account type to use for claimable expense I pay upfront for my employer? | I used Quicken, so this may or may not be helpful. I have a Cash account that I call "Temporary Assets and Liabilities" where I track money that I am owed (or that I owe in some cases). So if I pay for something that is really not my expense, it is transferred to this account ("transferred" in Quicken terms). The payment is then not treated as an expense and the reimbursement is not treated as income--the two transactions just balance out. |
What are the usual terms of a “rent with an option to buy” situation? | The typical deal would be a premium to the normal rent, say $1200 instead of $1000, in return he has the option to buy the house at a fixed price by the end of the agreement term. |
What expenses do most people not prepare for that turn into “emergencies” but are not covered by an Emergency Fund? | insurance premiums My annual car premium always caught me off guard until I set up a dedicated savings account for it. |
Why do most banks in Canada charge monthly fee? | Lending isn't profitable when interest rates are this low. Consider what's involved to offer a savings or checking account. The bank must maintain branches with tellers. The bank has to pay rent (or buy and pay property taxes and utilities). The bank has to pay salaries. The bank has to maintain cash so as to make change. And pay for insurance against robbery. All of that costs money. At 6% interest, a bank can sort of make money. Not great money, but it takes in more than it has to pay out. At 4% interest, which is about where ten year mortgage rates are in Canada, the bank doesn't make enough margin. They are better off selling the loan and closing their branches than offering free checking accounts. An additional problem is that banks tend to make money from overdraft fees. But there's been a move to limit overdraft fees, as they target the most economically vulnerable. So Canadian banks tend to charge monthly fees instead. UK banks may also start charging monthly fees if interest rates stay low and other fees get curtailed. |
Buy index mutual fund or build my own? | If you are a "small" investor (namely, not an accredited investor), then the transaction costs (commissions) for purchasing the stocks while attempting to duplicate DJIA will defeat any benefit. My personal preference is to purchase mutual funds rather than ETFs. |
How to distinguish gift from payment for the service? | All of this assumes that this relationship isn't as employer-employee relationship, which would require you to withhold taxes. If you send them a small token of appreciation, and you are unable to record it as a business expense, or some other deductible expense, you don't have to be concerned about how they claim it. They decide if they want to risk claiming it was a gift, or if they want to record it as an expense. Even if you say some magic phrase that you think will impress the IRS, the recipient can still decide declare it as income. To have any hope of being able to treat it as a gift they would have to be able to demonstrate that there is a non-business relationship. If you can claim it as a business expense, or a deductible expense, they will have to also claim it as income; because your documentation could point the IRS to their lack of documentation. Giving them a check or sending the payment electronically will require them to claim it as an income, since an audit could require them to explain every line on their bank statements. |
Why don't some places require a credit card receipt signature, and some do? | Merchants apply in advance for the program, and the amount is limited to less than $25. |
Is there a reliable way to find, if a stock or company is heading bankruptcy? | You can avoid companies that might go bankrupt by not buying the stock of companies with debt. Every quarter, a public company must file financials with the EDGAR system called a 10-Q. This filing includes unaudited financial statements and provides a continuing view of the company's financial position during the year. Any debt the company has acquired will appear on this filing and their annual report. If servicing the debt is costing the company a substantial fraction of their income, then the company is a bankruptcy risk. |
Buy index mutual fund or build my own? | You better buy an ETF that does the same, because it would be much cheaper than mutual fund (and probably much cheaper than doing it yourself and rebalancing to keep up with the index). Look at DIA for example. Neither buying the same amount of stocks nor buying for the same amount of money would be tracking the DJIE. The proportions are based on the market valuation of each of the companies in the index. |
How does Big Money work? (i.e. stocks, Enron, net worth) | 1) You ignore dividends. You can hold your 10 million shares and never sell them and still get cash to live on if the security pays dividends. McDonalds stock pays 3% in dividends (a year). If you owned 10 million shares of McDonalds you would get 75,000 every three months. I am sure you could live on 25,000 a month. 2) Enron was an energy company. They sold energy and made a profit (or rather were supposed to). Enron didn't make their money by selling stock. McDonalds makes their money by selling hamburgers (and other food). The income of a company comes from their customers, not from selling stock. 3) IF you sold all of your 10 million shares within a short time frame it, likely, would drive the price of the stock down. But you do not need a billion dollars to live on. If you sold 1000 shares each month you would have plenty for buying cars and pizza. Selling 1000 shares may drive the price of the stock down for a minute or two. But the rest of the transactions, for that security made the same day, would quickly obscure the effect you had on the stock. 4) When you buy stock your money does not (usualy) go to the company. If I were to buy 100 shares of McDonalds, McDonalds would not get $11670.That money is (usually) paid to a 'Market Maker' who, in turn, will use the cash to buy MCD from other individual shareholders (presumably for less than 116.70 a share). |
I would like to publicly share the details of my investment portfolio. What websites add value in this regard? | This is going to be a bit of a shameless plug, but I've build a portfolio tracking website to track your portfolio and be able to share it (in read-only mode) as well. It is at http://frano.carelessmusings.com and currently in beta. Most portfolio trackers are behind a login wall and thus will lack the sharing function you are looking for. Examples of these are: Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, Reuters Portfolios, MorningStart Portfolios, and many others. Another very quick and easy solution (if you are not trading too often) is a shared google docs spreadsheet. Gdocs has integration with google finance and can retrieve prices for stocks by symbol. A spreadsheet can contain the following: Symbol, Quantity, Avg. Buy Price, Price, P/L, P/L% and so on. The current price and P/L data can be functions that use the google finance API. Hope this helps, and if you check out my site please let me know what you think and what I could change. |
Monthly payment on a compounded daily car loan? [duplicate] | I would like to know how they calculated such monthly payment The formula is: Your values would come out to be: r = (1+3.06/(100*365))^31-1=0.002602 (converting your annual percentage to a monthly rate equivalent of daily compounded interest) PV = 12865.57 n = 48 Inserting your values into the formula: P = [r*(PV)]/[1-(1+r)^(-n)] P = [0.002602*(12865.57)]/[1-(1.002602)^(-48)] P = 285.47 |
How should my brother and I structure our real estate purchase? | We’re buying the home right over $200,000 so that means he will only need to put down (as a ‘gift’) roughly $7000. I'm with the others, don't call this a gift unless it is a gift. I'd have him check with the bank that previously refused him a mortgage if putting both of you on a mortgage would allay their concerns. Your cash flow would be paying the mortgage payment and if you failed to do so, then they could fall back on his. That may make more sense to them, even if they would deny each of you a loan on your own. This works for them because either of you is responsible for the whole loan. It works for him because he was already willing to be responsible for the whole loan. And your alternative plan makes you responsible for the whole loan, so this is just as good for you. At what percentage would you suggest splitting ownership and future expenses? Typically a cash/financing partnership would be 50/50, but since it’s only a 3.5% down-payment instead of 20% is that still fair? Surprisingly enough, a 3.5% down-payment that accumulates is about half the equity of a 20% down-payment. So your suggestion of a 25%-75% split makes sense if 20% would give a 50%-50% split. I expected it to be considerably lower. The way that I calculated it was to have his share increase by his equity share of the "rent" which I set to the principal plus interest payment for a thirty year loan. With a 20% down-payment, this would give him 84% equity. With 3.5%, about 40% equity. I'm not sure why 84% equity should be the equivalent of a 50% share, but it may be a side effect of other expenses. Perhaps taking property taxes out would reduce the equity share. Note that if you increase the down-payment to 20%, your mortgage payment will drop substantially. The difference in interest between 3.5% and 20% equity is a couple hundred dollars. Also, you'll be able to eliminate any PMI payment at 20%. It could be argued that if he pays a third of the monthly mortgage payment, that that would give him the same 50% equity stake on a 3.5% down-payment as he would get with a 20% down-payment. The problem there is that then he is effectively subsidizing your monthly payment. If he were to stop doing that for some reason, you'd have what is effectively a 50% increase in your rent. It would be safer for you to handle the monthly payment while he handles the down-payment. If you couldn't pay the mortgage, it sounds like he is in a position to buy out your equity, rent the property, and take over the mortgage payment. If he stopped being able to pay his third of the mortgage, it's not evident that you'd be able to pick up the slack from him much less buy him out. And it's unlikely that you'd find someone else willing to replace him under those terms. But your brother could construct things such that in the face of tragedy, you'd inherit his equity in the house. If you're making the entire mortgage payment, that's a stable situation. He's not at risk because he could take over the mortgage if necessary. You're not at risk because you inherit his equity share and can afford the monthly payment. So even in the face of tragedy, things can go on. And that's important, as otherwise you could lose your equity in the house. |
Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud? | When you purchase a mortgage, you have to prove the source of your down payment. Primarily this is so that the mortgage lender knows that there are no other outstanding liens against the property. If you show that some or part of your down payment was a gift, there is no fraud, but it may affect your qualification for the mortgage. Consult a lawyer in your area to determine if there is a legal way to gift the money that is not taxed. If all else fails you could just pay the tax. Also, you should research whether your gift is above the floor of taxable gifts. |
How can I invest in gold without taking physical possession? | In addition to the possibility of buying gold ETFs or tradable certificates, there are also firms specializing in providing "bank accounts" of sorts which are denominated in units of weight of precious metal. While these usually charge some fees, they do meet your criteria of being able to buy and sell precious metals without needing to store them yourself; also, these fees are likely lower than similar storage arranged by yourself. Depending on the specifics, they may also make buying small amounts practical (buying small amounts of physical precious metals usually comes with a large mark-up over the spot price, sometimes to the tune of a 50% or so immediate loss if you buy and then immediately sell). Do note that, as pointed out by John Bensin, buying gold gets you an amount of metal, the local currency value of which will vary over time, sometimes wildly, so it is not the same thing as depositing the original amount of money in a bank account. Since 2006, the price of an ounce (about 31.1 grams) of gold has gone from under $500 US to over $1800 US to under $1100 US. Few other investment classes are anywhere near this volatile. If you are interested in this type of service, you might want to check out BitGold (not the same thing at all as Bitcoin) or GoldMoney. (I am not affiliated with either.) Make sure to do your research thoroughly as these may or may not be covered by the same regulations as regular banks, particularly if you choose a company based outside of or a storage location outside of your own country. |
How can foreign investor (residing outside US) invest in US company stocks? | As other people have said they should register with a broker in the country they reside in that can deal in US stocks, then fill out a W8-BEN form. I have personally done this as I am from the Uk, it's not a very complicated process. I would assume that most US brokers don't allow foreign customers due to the person having to pay tax where they reside and the US brokers don't want to have to keep approximately 200 different tax codes in track. |
Trouble sticking to a budget when using credit cards for day to day transactions? | Do yourself a favor: calculate the price of airfare, calculate how many points it takes to get a good flight, and calculate how many points you get per dollar spent. What you will find is that it is a ripoff. Leave the card at home and unlink it from your online purchasing accounts. You're welcome. If you really want to earn rewards, just put your necessary bills on that card. Over time it will accumulate, but do the math first so you can weigh the consequences. |
Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not? | All questions regarding why is activity X taxed but activity Y taxed differently boils down to: The legislature wanted to promote or discourage the activity. By making employer provided healthcare tax free to the employee, the average worker like the plan. Not only is a significant portion not coming out of my paycheck, I also don't have to pay taxes on the benefit. Some organization pushed for this and the legislature agreed. |
Calculating pay off for credit card with multiple APRs | The first thing you need to do is look at your terms and conditions of your credit card, or ask your bank, how they will apply the payments. As Dilip notes in his answer, in the US, they will likely apply the minimum payment to the lower rate balance, and then must apply the rest above the minimum to the higher rate balance. In other countries, this will vary by law and custom. Do not assume it will pay off the higher balance, or proportionally, without asking. Let's take the following example. You owe $6000. $5000 is at 13.5% (normal purchase rate) and $1000 is at 22% (cash advance rate). If your bank applies payments to both balances proportionally, then a payment of $600 will reduce your purchase balance by $500 and your cash advance balance by $100. The average APR, then, is simply sum of the product of the APR times balance. So here, (.135*5000 + .225*1000)/6000 = 15%. This is called a weighted average. If the bank applies the payment differently - such as to the lower rate first, or some specified part to the lower rate and the rest to the higher rate - then this will be misleading if you enter it into a calculator, because your average APR will rise over time as you pay off the purchase balance but don't pay off the cash advance balance, or may decrease if the opposite happens. The weighted average is probably reasonably close in the circumstance that you describe, even if you have rules applying the balance differently, so long as they don't 100% pay down the lower rate - so it may be the simplest option for you in terms of rough calculations (where it's not critical to be correct, just close). One approach using the online calculators that might be better, is to treat these like two separate loans/cards. Many calculators exist for multiple balances. Then you can allocate funds differently to the two 'cards'. This would allow you to see how long you will need until you've paid off the higher balance, for example, although it probably won't perfectly match things - unless you find a site that has this specific option available you probably will have to either live with a small error in your calculations or do the math by hand. |
Why is short-selling considered more “advanced” than a simple buy? | When you short a stock, you can lose an unlimited amount of money if the trade goes against you. If the shorted stock gaps up overnight you can lose more money than you have in your account. The best case is you make 100% if the stock goes to zero. And then you have margin fees on top of that. With long positions, it's the other way around. Your max loss is 100% and your gains are potentially unlimited. |
If I have a lot of debt and the housing market is rising, should I rent and slowly pay off my debt or buy and roll the debt into a mortgage? | What you propose is to convert unsecured debt into secured debt. Conversion of unsecured debt into secured debt is not generally a good idea (several reasons). The debt you currently owe does not have assets securing the debt, so the creditor knows they are exposed to risk, and may be more willing to negotiate or relax terms on the debt, should you encounter problems. When you provide an asset to secure debt, you lose freedom to sell that asset. When you incur debt their is usually a spending problem that needs to be corrected, which is typically not fixed when a refinance solution is used. You do not mention interest rate, which would be one benefit to conversion of unsecured to secured debt, so you probably are not gaining adequate benefit from the conversion strategy. This strategy is often contemplated using 'cash-out' refinancing to borrow against a home you already own, and the (claimed) benefit is often to lower the interest rate on the debt. Your scenario is more complicated in that you have not purchased the home (yet). Though it may be a good idea to purchase a home, that choice depends on a different set of considerations (children, job stability, rental vs. buy costs, lifestyle, expected appreciation, etc) from how to best handle a large debt (income vs. expenses, how to increase income or reduce expenses, lifestyle, priorities, etc). Another consideration is that you already have a problem with the large debt owed to one (set of) creditor(s), and you have a plan which would shift the risk/exposure to another (set of) creditor(s) who may have been less complicit in accruing the original debt. Was the debt incurred jointly during the marriage, and something you accepted responsibility to repay? You mention that you make great income, and you specify one expense (rent), but you neither provided the amount of income, total of all your expenses, nor your free cash flow amount, nor any indication of percentages spent on rent, essential expenses, lifestyle, nor amount available to retire debt. Since you did not provide specifics, we can take a look at three scenarios, scenario #1, $4000/month income scenario #1, $6000/month income scenario #1, $8000/month income Depending upon your income and choices, you might have < $500/month to pay towards debt, or as much as $3000/month to pay towards debt, and depending upon interest rate (which OP did not provide), this debt could take < 2 years to pay or > 5 years to pay. Have you accepted the responsibility for the debt? It will be a tough task to repay the debt. And you will learn that debt comes with a cost as you repay it. One problem people often encounter when they refinance debt is they have not changed the habits which produced the debt. So they often continue their spending habits and incur new unsecured debt, landing them back in the same problem position, but with the increased secured debt combined with additional new unsecured debt. Challenge yourself to repay a specific portion of the debt in a specific time, and consider ways to reduce your expenses (and/or increase your income) to provide more money to repay the debt quicker. As you also did not disclose your assets, it is hard to know whether you could repay a portion of the debt from assets you already own. It makes sense to sell assets that have a low (or zero) return to repay debt that has a high interest rate. Perhaps you have substantial assets that you are reluctant to sell, but that you could sell to repay a large part of the debt? |
Does wash sale apply if I buy stock on 2 two different dates and sell it later | Is wash rule applicable for this? No - because you made a gain on the sale. You paid $13,500 for the stock and sold it for $14,250. The wash rule prevents you from claiming a loss if you buy the same stock again within 30 days. You have no loss to claim, so the rule does not apply. |
What is the rough estimate of salary value for a taxpayer to pay AMT? | Turbox Tax states the following: "For 2015, the AMT exemption amounts are $53,600 for individual taxpayers, $83,400 for married taxpayers filing jointly and surviving spouses, and $41,700 for married persons filing separately. This is the amount you're allowed to deduct from your taxable income before applying the AMT." |
Can I deduct my individual Health Insurance Premium in Tax | Yes, you can. See the instructions for line 29 of form 1040. Self employed health insurance premiums are an "above the line" deduction. |
Some stock's prices don't fluctuate widely - Is it an advantages? | Apart from making money from the price difference, some stocks also give dividends, or bonus issues. For long term investors whom are looking for steady income, they may be more interested with the dividend pay-out instead of the capital-appreciation. |
Setting up general ledger/tax reporting for a Real Estate Rental LLC in GnuCash | You will need to set up accounts in your chart of accounts for each of the partners. These are equity accounts where you can track your contributions, share of the profits and losses, and distributions. You're going to have to go back into the beginning years to get this right. I'm not sure what you mean by a "Built-in function". All the accounting software I'm familiar with requires data entry of some kind. You need to post your contributions and distributions to the correct accounts, and close properly at year end. You were indeed legally considered a partnership as soon as you started a for-profit business venture together. It's a bug in the legal system that a written partnership agreement is not necessarily required - you can form a partnership unknowingly. (BTW, a partnership actually is pretty far off from a sole proprietorship, legally and taxwise - the change from one person to two is major. It's the change from two to three or four or more that's incremental ;) I know you said you didn't want to consult a professional, but I have to say that I think it's worth the money to get your books set up by someone who has experience and can show you how to do it. And get a separate bank account for the partnership, if you haven't done so already. And check with your state to see if there are any requirements regarding partnerships. Hope this helps, Mariette IRS Circular 230 Notice: Please note that any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, by anyone to avoid penalties that may be imposed under federal tax law. |
What are the important differences between mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)? | The main difference between an ETF and a Mutual Fund is Management. An ETF will track a specific index with NO manager input. A Mutual Fund has a manager that is trying to choose securities for its fund based on the mandate of the fund. Liquidity ETFs trade like a stock, so you can buy at 10am and sell at 11 if you wish. Mutual Funds (most) are valued at the end of each business day, so no intraday trading. Also ETFs are similar to stocks in that you need a buyer/seller for the ETF that you want/have. Whereas a mutual fund's units are sold back to itself. I do not know of many if any liquity issues with an ETF, but you could be stuck holding it if you can not find a buyer (usually the market maker). Mutual Funds can be closed to trading, however it is rare. Tax treatment Both come down to the underlying holdings in the fund or ETF. However, more often in Mutual Funds you could be stuck paying someone else's taxes, not true with an ETF. For example, you buy an Equity Mutual Fund 5 years ago, you sell the fund yourself today for little to no gain. I buy the fund a month ago and the fund manager sells a bunch of the stocks they bought for it 10 years ago for a hefty gain. I have a tax liability, you do not even though it is possible that neither of us have any gains in our pocket. It can even go one step further and 6 months from now I could be down money on paper and still have a tax liability. Expenses A Mutual Fund has an MER or Management Expense Ratio, you pay it no matter what. If the fund has a positive return of 12.5% in any given year and it has an MER of 2.5%, then you are up 10%. However if the fund loses 7.5% with the same MER, you are down 10%. An ETF has a much smaller management fee (typically 0.10-0.95%) but you will have trading costs associated with any trades. Risks involved in these as well as any investment are many and likely too long to go into here. However in general, if you have a Canadian Stock ETF it will have similar risks to a Canadian Equity Mutual Fund. I hope this helps. |
Funding an ira or roth ira | No, you don't have to have the money deducted from your paycheck. The IRS doesn't get a copy of your paycheck anyway. When you file your annual tax return (form 1040), there's a line there to write down the amount you contributed to the IRA. In fact, you can contribute to the IRA after the year ended, until the Tax Day of the next year, so that you can make sure your contribution will actually be deductible (not always they are). The IRA custodian (the brokerage firm/bank where you opened the IRA account) will provide you with a deposit confirmation and form 5498. A copy of form 5948 is also sent to the IRS. |
Should I pay off a 0% car loan? | Mathematically, the wisest choice is to invest your extra money somewhere else and not pay off your 0% loan early. An extreme example highlights this. Suppose some colossal company offered to loan you a billion dollars at 0 % interest. Would you take it? Or would you say "No thanks, I don't want that much debt." You would be crazy not to accept. You could put that money in the safest investments available and still pocket millions while making the minimum payments back to them. Your choice here is essentially the same, but unfortunately, on much smaller scale. That said, math doesn't always trump other factors. You need to factor in your peace of mind, future purchases, the need for future borrowing, your short term income and job security, and whether you think you can reliably make payments on this loan without messing up and triggering fees that wipe out the mathematical advantage of slow paying the loan. You are fortunate because you really can't make a wrong choice here. Paying off debt is never a bad choice IMO. However, it may not always be the best choice. |
Explanations on credit cards in Canada | A credit card is a way to borrow money. That's all. Sometimes the loans are very small - $5 - and sometimes they are larger. You can have a credit card with a company (bank or whatever) that you have no other relationship with. They're not a property of a bank account, they are their own thing. The card you describe sounds exactly like a debit card here, and you can treat your Canadian debit card like your French credit card - you pay for things directly from your bank account, assuming the money is in there. In Canada, many small stores take debit but not credit, so do be sure to get a debit card and not only a credit card. Now as to your specific concerns. You aren't going to "forget to make a wire." You're going to get a bill - perhaps a paper one, perhaps an email - and it will say "here is everything you charged on your credit card this month" along with a date, which will be perhaps 21 days from the statement date, not the date you used the card. Pay the entire balance (not just the minimum payment) by that date and you'll pay no interest. The bill date will be a specific date each month (eg the 23rd) so you can set yourself a reminder to check and pay your bill once a month. Building a credit history has value if you want to borrow a larger amount of money to buy a car or a house, or to start a business. Unlike the US, it doesn't really have an impact on things like getting a job. If you use your card for groceries, you use it enough, no worries. In 5 years it is nice to look back and see "never paid late; mostly paid the entire amount each month; never went over limit; never went into collections" and so on. In my experience you can tell they like you because they keep raising your limit without you asking them to. If you want to buy a $2500 item and your credit limit is $1500 you could prepay $1000 onto the credit card and then use it. Or you could tell the vendor you'd rather use your debit card. Or you could pay $1500 on the credit card and then rest with your debit card. Lots of options. In my experience once you get up to that kind of money they'd rather not use a credit card because of the merchant fees they pay. |
Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? | At least with US tax law where you only pay taxes at the higher rate for the income above the minimum for that tax bracket, you will always wind up ahead taking the raise if you are simply concerned with after tax (FICA) income. For example, assume you were making $8,350 (the top end of the 10% bracket in the US), and got a $100 raise, you would be taxed roughly as follows: After Tax Income Before Raise: $8,350 x (100% - 10%) After Tax Income After Raise: $8,350 x (100%-10%) + $100 x (100%-15%) You can easily see that the second number is always higher than the first as long as the raise is a positive amount (obviously). |
2008-2009 Stock Market Crash — what caused the second drop? | Ultimately no one really knows what causes the markets to rise and fall beyond supply and demand. If more people want to buy then sell, prices go up. And if more people want to sell, prices go down. The news channels will often try to attribute a specific reason to the price move, but that is largely just guess work to fill up the news pages so people have something to read. You may find it interesting to read up on the Elliot wave principle. The crash of 2008 was a perfect Elliot Wave fit. Elliot Wave theory states that social moods (which ultimately drive the stock market) generally occur in a relatively predictable pattern. The crash in September was a Wave 3 down. This is where the majority of people give up hope. However there are still a few people who are still holding on. The markets tend to meander about during wave 4. Finally the last few people give up hope and sell out. This causes the final crash of wave 5. Only when the last person has given up hope can the markets start to go up again.. |
Is there a free, online stock screener for UK stocks? | Most free stock screeners for UK stocks, even those mentioned above, are very poor and not worth the effort really, and searching for stock screeners on a search engine will only bring up stock screeners for USA stocks. The best free UK stock screener (registration is required although this is FREE) is without any doubt on www.digitallook.com who also provide many other features like five year fundamentals, charts, prospects, etc, which can easily be downloaded onto a spreadsheet. I really wouldn't look elsewhere to be honest unless you are prepared to pay. |
After Hours S&P 500 | The futures market trades 24 hours a day, 5.5 days a week. S&P 500 futures market continues trading, and this gives pricing exposure and influences the individual stocks when they resume trading in US session. |
Where do I invest my Roth IRA besides stock market and mutual funds? | In general, investors with a long period of time until they would need to withdraw the cash are best off holding mostly equities. While the dividends that equities would return are less than the interest you would get in peer-to-peer lending, over long periods of time not only do you get the dividends from equity investment but the value of the stock will grow faster than interest on loans. The higher returns from stocks, however, comes with more risk of big downturns. Many people pull their investments out of stocks right after crashes which really hurts their long term returns. So, in order to get the benefit of investing in stocks you need to be strong enough to continue to hold the stocks through the crash and into the recovery. As for which stocks to invest in, generally it is best to invest in low-fee index funds/etfs where you own a broad collection of stocks so that if (when) any one stock goes bust that your portfolio does not take much damage. Try to own both international and domestic stocks to get good diversification. The consensus recommends adding just a little bit of REITs and bonds to your investments, but for someone at 25 it might not be worth it yet. Warren Buffett had some good thoughts on index investing. |
Is U.S estate tax applicable to joint brokerage account of non-US citizens if one party dies? | If the brokerage account holds US assets, such as the stock of US companies, then it may be taxable under some conditions. The rules are complex and depend on the nationality of the individuals, because the results may be affected by tax treaties between the United States and whatever country the person is from. |
Clarifications On PFIC Rules | Are these PFIC rules new? No, PFIC rules are not new, they've been around for a very long time. what would that mean if a person owned a non-US company stock, like a company in Europe that makes chocolate? Is that considered assets that produces passive income? No. But if a person owned a non-US company stock like a company that holds a company that makes chocolate - that would be passive income. this is non-US mutual funds that hold foreign shares, like a mutual fund in India, not a US fund which owns Indian stocks? Non-US fund. For those of you who are tax advisors, is the time length (30 hours) true for filing form 8621? I would suggest not to fill this form on your own. Find a tax adviser specializing on providing services to expats, and have her do this. 30 hours for a person who has never dealt with taxes on this level before is probably not enough to learn all about PFIC, the real number is closer to 300 hours. While ZeroHedge article may be a sales pitch, PFIC rules should frighten you if they apply to your investments. Do not take them lightly, as penalties are steep and if you don't plan ahead you may end up paying way too much taxes than you could have. |
Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly? | I see two advantages to not paying student loan debt off more quickly: For #1, however, there are plenty of other ways to build credit and I don't see this as being worth the downsides of not paying off the debt more quickly. In fact, in the United States student loan debt cannot be written off if you go bankrupt. This is important to know and understand. I would generally advise you to pay down your student loans as quickly as you can reasonably do so. |
What causes a stock to drop in price? | A rising tide lifts all ships Most (but not all) stocks trend along with the general market. Some trend right along with the market (and have a beta at, or very near, one) some follow the Market, but are less sensitive (having a beta of less than one). Some are hypersensitive (and would have a beta of greater than one). Beta defined So most of the day to day movement of a stock is because the general market is moving (in the same direction). Of course, exceptional news about the company would cause its price to move independent of the general market. But more often than not the price of a stock moves just because the rest of the market is moving. |
What is the cheapest way to move money from the United States to Canada? [duplicate] | No fees: Write a check. Deposit it into the other bank. |
Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time? | nan |
If I want to take cash from Portugal to the USA, should I exchange my money before leaving or after arriving? | My experience (from European countries, but not Portugal specifically) is that it's better to change in the European country, as many banks will give you US $ as a matter of course, while in the US (insular place that it is), it can be rather difficult to find a place to exchange money outside an international airport. In fact, I have a few hundred Euros left from my last trip, several years ago. Expected to make another trip which didn't come off, and haven't found a place to exchange them. PS: Just for information's sake, at the time I was working in Europe, and found that by far the easiest way to transfer part of my salary back home was to get $100 bills from my European bank. Another way was to withdraw money from an ATM, as the US & European banks were on the same network. Unfortunately the IRS put a stop to that, though I don't know if it was all banks, or just the particular one I was using. Might be worth checking, though. |
Why don't banks print their own paper money / bank notes? | Actually, banks do issue their own money, it's just not embodied as a piece of paper, it's called checkbook money and in the US, it's backed by 3$ per every 100$ promised, that's the magic of "fractional reserve banking." |
How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent? | I think the mortgage must not be in the equation at all in order to determine how much to charge. Of course you want to cover your mortgage but the renting price is determined only by how much the renter is willing to pay (offer and demand) and not your mortgage (some people don't even have a mortgage). In other words I think you should be charging a price based on similar rented houses. |
At what point should I begin paying off student loans? | Pay off your highest-interest debt first: credit card, car, maybe even mortgage. Pay minimums on all else. Student loans are typically low interest, so pay off anything else first, but double-check your rate of course. Even if you have no other debt, you may still want to hang on to your savings instead of paying down your student loans if getting rid of your savings causes you to accrue debt. For example, if you have a low income and no savings, you may accrue credit card debt (high interest). Or you may want to buy a car with cash instead of getting a loan. Even if this is not an issue, consider what you can do with your savings that others who lack them cannot do. You can put it into mutual funds, which may offer higher rate of return (albeit with risk) than your student loan interest. Or you may pay a down payment on a home. The very low interest rates of student loans are, to a person with savings, essentially a source of cheap money that doesn't need to be justified to a bank. You can use it as seed money to start a business, as funds for travel, for living expenses while in the Peace Corps, or whatever else. But if you pay down that principal, you bind yourself. In short, pay down your student loans when there is no better use for the money. |
Company is late in paying my corporate credit card statement - will it hurt my credit? | According to an article on Bankrate.com from 2011, yes, it can hurt your credit: With individual liability accounts, the employee holds all responsibility for the charges, even if the company pays the issuer directly. Joint liability means the company and employee share the responsibility for payments, says Mahendra Gupta, author of the RPMG survey. In both cases, if the card isn't paid and the account becomes delinquent, it will pop up on the employee's credit report and dent his or her credit score, says Barry Paperno, consumer affairs manager at myFICO.com. It doesn't matter if the company was supposed to make the payment; the repercussions fall on the employee. "It will impact your score no differently than if you were late on one of your own accounts," Paperno says. Usually, with corporate credit cards, the employee is liable along with the employer for charges on the card. The intent is to provide the employee with an incentive not to misuse the card. However, this can be a problem if your company is late in paying bills. In the distant past, I had a corporate credit card. I was not supposed to have to pay the bill, but I did receive a bill in the mail every month. And occasionally, the payment was late. In my case, these late payments never showed up on my credit report. I can't remember now whether or not this card was reported on my credit report at all. And I remember being told when I got the card that I was jointly responsible for the card with the company. However, your experience may be different. Do the on-time payments show up on your credit report? If so, that may be an indication that a late payment might appear. |
What's the difference between Market Cap and NAV? | NAV is how much is the stuff of the company worth divided by the number of shares. This total is also called book value. The market cap is share price times number of shares. For Amazon today people are willing to pay 290 a share for a company with a NAV of 22 a share. If of nav and price were equal the P/B (price to book ratio) would be 1, but for Amazon it is 13. Why? Because investors believe Amazon is worth a lot more than a money losing company with a NAV of 22. |
Is this Employee Stock Purchase Plan worth it when adding my student loan into the equation? | The closer the contribution is to the December 31st date, the more profitable that specific contribution is, only taking into consideration the 5% discount. On your case, the first contribution that beats your student loans interest rate is the August one, where you get about 9% annual return, the remaining contributions go up from there. |
In a house with shared ownership, if one person moves out and the other assumes mortgage, how do we determine who owns what share in the end? | The answer is "it depends". What does it depend on? If it's a breakup situation, good luck. Whatever you do, get this issue settled as quickly as possible. In the future, don't make significant purchases with people unless you have a written contract or you are married. |
What headaches will I have switching from Quicken to GnuCash? | It's been a long time since I've used MS Money and/or Quickbooks (never Quicken), but I've used GnuCash over the past year or so. It works, but it does suffer from some usability problems. Some of the UI is clunky. Data entry sequences are a little harder than they should be. Reports could be a little prettier. But overall it does work, and it's the best I've found on linux. (I would definitely appreciate pointers to something better.) |
How should I utilize my money as I begin grad school? | For some ideas on investing priority guidelines, see Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing. Congratulations on being debt free! My advice to you is to do what you can to remain debt free. You could certainly invest the money; it will earn much more over the long-term in a stock mutual fund than it would left in a savings account. However, if you need any of this money in the next few years, it would be a shame if it lost money in the short-term. How much do you need to finish grad school? Don't invest that money in the stock market, because you will need it over the next few years. Likewise, think about other expenses that are coming up. Will your car need to be replaced in the next couple of years? Will you have enough income to meet your living expenses while you are in grad school, or will you need some of this to money to help with that? Finally, it would be good to keep some extra as an emergency fund, so you can easily pay for any unexpected expenses that come up. If you can make it through grad school debt free, you will be much better off than if you invest all the money but take out student loans in the process. After you've accounted for all of that, whatever is left of the money could definitely be invested. If your goal is to start a retirement fund, an index mutual fund invested inside a Roth IRA is a great place to start. |
Which close price (adjusted close or close price) shall be used when calculating a stock's daily percent change? | The adjusted close price takes into account stock splits (and possibly dividends). You want to look at the adjusted close price. Calculating percentage changes gets computationally tricky because you need to account for splits and dividends. |
Does a disciplined stock investor stick with their original sell strategy, or stay in and make more? | Ask yourself a better question: Under my current investment criteria would I buy the stock at this price? If the answer to that question is yes you need to work out at what price you would now sell out of the position. Think of these as totally separate decisions from your original decisions to buy and at what price to sell. If you would buy the stock now if you didn't already hold a position then you should keep that position as if you had sold out at the price that you had originally seen as your take profit level and bought a new position at the current price without incurring the costs. If you would not buy now by those criteria then you should sell out as planned. This is essentially netting off two investing decisions. Something to think about is that the world has changed and if you knew what you know now then you would probably have set your price limit higher. To be disciplined as an investor also means reviewing current positions frequently and without any sympathy for past decisions. |
Safe method of paying for a Gym Membership? | The safest way is to not sign contracts with terms that are onerous to you. |
Currently sole owner of a property. My girlfriend is looking to move in with me and is offering to pay 'rent'. Am I at risk here? | With regard to worries about ownership: I'll point you towards this - The Cohabitants Rights Bill currently in First Reading at the House of Lords. Without a date for even the second reading yet. In short the Bill is attempting to redress is the lack of rights when a non-married relationship ends when compared to married relationships; that is that one of the "cohabitants" can end up with basically nothing that they don't have their name on. So currently you're in the clear and (Part 2) Section 6.2.a says the Bill cannot be used retroactively against you if your relationship is over before it becomes law (I expect with Brexit etc, this Bill isn't a high priority - it's been a year since the first reading). Section 6.2.a: This Part does not apply to former cohabitants where the former cohabitants have ceased living together as a couple before the commencement date; However, if you're still together if/when this Bill becomes Law then basically all of (Part 1) Section 2 may be relevant as it notes the conditions you will fall into this bill: Section 2.1.a: live together as a couple and Section 2.2.d: have lived together as a couple for a continuous period of three years or more. and the "have lived together" at that point counts from the start of your cohabitation, not the start of the Bill being law: Section 2.4.a: For the purposes of subsection (2)(d), in determining the length of the continuous period during which two people have lived together as a couple - any period of the relationship that fell before the commencement date (of the Bill) is to be taken into account If you have kids at some point, you'd also fall under 2.2.a through 2.2.c too. After that, the financial parity decided upon by the court depends on a whole bunch of conditions as outlined in the Bill, but Section 8.1.b is pretty clear: Section 8.1.b: (b)the court is satisfied either— (i)that the respondent has retained a benefit; or (ii)40that the applicant has an economic disadvantage, as a result of qualifying contributions the applicant has made I'm not qualified to say whether your partner helping to pay off your mortgage in lieu of paying rent herself would count as just paying rent or giving you an economic benefit. Sections 12, 13, and 14 discuss opt-outs, also worth a read. The a major disclaimer here in that Bills at this early stage have the potential to be modified, scrapped and/or replaced making this info incorrect. As an additional read, here's an FT article from Feb 2016 discussing this lack of rights of a cohabitant which should alleviate any current concerns. |
question about short selling stocks | The original owner of the shares can pledge their shares to be short, and they earn interest from lending their shares. The conditions of this arrangement are detailed in standard agreements all market participants sign with their broker, or clearinghouse, or with the exchange, or with the self regulatory agency. Stocks within the same class are identical, despite someone's sentiment to an old share certificate that their grandparents gave them, and as such can be sold and returned to the beneficial owner multiple times with no difference. That is how it is supposed to work anyway, as naked shorting involves selling fictional shares that have no beneficial owner. So there are market inefficiencies in this practice, but the agreements between market participants are sound and answers your question about how. |
Is UK house price spiral connected to debt based monetary system? | No. Rural Scotland has exactly the same monetary system, and not the same bubble. Monaco (the other example given) doesn't even have its own monetary system but uses the Euro. Look instead to the common factor: a lot of demand for limited real estate. Turning towards the personal finance part of it, we know from experience that housing bubbles may "burst" and housing prices may drop suddenly by ~30%, sometimes more. This is a financial risk if you must sell. Yet on the other hand, the fundamental force that keeps prices in London higher than average isn't going away. The long-term risk often is manageable. A 30% drop isn't so bad if you own a house for 30 years. |
Why do stock prices of retailers not surge during the holidays? | Your explanation is nearly perfect and not "hand wavy" at all. Stock prices reflect the collective wisdom of all participating investors. Investors value stocks based on how much value they expect the stock to produce now and in the future. So, the stability of the stock prices is a reflection of the accuracy of the investors predictions. Investor naivity can be seen as a sequence of increasingly sophisticated stock pricing strategies: If investors were able to predict the future perfectly, then all stock prices would rise at the same constant rate. In theory, if a particular investor is able to "beat the market", it is because they are better at predicting the future profits of companies (or they are lucky, or they are better at predicting the irrational behavior of other investors......) |
Next option(s) after house is not selling on market? | EDIT: new ideas based on the full story. I wouldn't worry about the price history. While it is certainly true that some buyers might try to leverage that information against you, the bottom line is the price is the price. Both the buyer and the seller have to agree. If the initial listing was too high, then lower the price. If that isn't low enough, then readjust down. I see no harm in moving the price down over time repeatedly. In fact, I thin that is a good tactic to getting the most for the house. If you happen to have the luxury of time, then keep lowering that price until it sells. Don't fret how that behavior appears. You can lower the price as often as you like until it sells. I am not a real estate agent, and I am a terrible negotiator, but I would lower the price every quarter until it sells. You can't go down to fast (a buyer might wait you out) and you can't wait to long as you stated. Also, if you house is priced inline with the neighborhood, you can at least get offers and negotiate. Buy asking for such a premium (25%) folks might not even make an offer. You simply need to decide what is more important, the selling price or the time frame in getting it sold. If you house doesn't sell because the market doesn't support your price, then consider keeping it as a rental. You can do it yourself, or if you are not interested in that (large) amount of work, then hire a rental management company to do it for a fee. Renting a home is hard work and requires attention to detail, a good amount of your time and much labor. If you just need to wait a couple of years before selling, renting it can be a good option to cover your costs while you wait for the market to reach you. You should get advice on how to handle the money, how to rent it, how to deal with renters, and the the laws are in your jurisdiction. Rent it out to a trusted friend or family member for a steal of a deal. They save money, and you get the luxury of time waiting for the sale. With a real estate lawyer you hire, get a contract for a lease option or owner finance deal on the house. Sometimes you can expand the market of people looking to buy your house. If you have a willing purchaser will bad credit, you can be doing them a favor and solving your own issue. It costs money and you will make less on the sale, but it could be better than nothing. Take heed, there is a reason some people cannot get a traditional loan on their own. Before you extend your good name or credit think about it. It is another hassle for sure. This won't help if you have to pay off a mortgage, but you could donate it. This is another tricky deal that you really need to speak with a lawyer who specialize in charitable giving. There are tax benefits, but I would make any kind of a deal where tax deductions are the only benefit. This is common enough these days. If you are unable to pay for the mortgage, it benefits you and the bank to get into a short sale arrangement. They bank gets probably more money than if they have to foreclose (and they save money on legal fees) and you can get rid of the obligation. You will do a deed in lieu or the short sale depending on how the market it and what the house can be sold for. You and the bank will have to work it out. This will ruin for a credit for a while, and you will not likely qualify to get a new mortgage for at least a few years. You can stop paying your mortgage, tell the bank and they will foreclose. This is going to ruin your credit for a long time as well as disqualify you from mortgages in the near future. Don't do this. If you are planning a foreclosure, take the time to contact your bank and arrange a short sale or a deed in lieu. There isn't really any excuse to go into foreclosure if you are having problems. Talk to the bank and work out a deal. |
A debt collector will not allow me to pay a debt, what steps should I take? | What you are describing here is the opposite of a problem: You're trying to contact a debt-collector to pay them money, but THEY'RE ignoring YOU and won't return your calls! LOL! All joking aside, having 'incidental' charges show up as negative marks on your credit history is an annoyance- thankfully you're not the first to deal with such problems, and there are processes in place to remedy the situation. Contact the credit bureau(s) on which the debt is listed, and file a petition to have it removed from your history. If everything that you say here is true, then it should be relatively easy. Edit: See here for Equifax's dispute resolution process- it sounds like you've already completed the first two steps. |
Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? | I think there's value in charging family members/friends interest if it will make them take the loan seriously. The problem is that if you're thinking about charging interest because the person seems to be borrowing from you too cavalierly, it may be too late to make them take it seriously. In the situation you describe, if you're concerned about the loans being paid back, I think you need to have a serious conversation with the kids and make it clear you expect them to pay the loans back on whatever schedule you agreed to. If, based on your knowledge of your kids, you think charging interest would help motivate them to do this, great. If not, charging interest is unlikely to accomplish anything that the conversation itself won't accomplish. If you haven't previously outlined a specific schedule or set of expectations for how you want to be paid back, just doing that (in writing) may be enough to make them realize it's not a joke. The conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't lend money to anyone unless you're either a) okay with never being paid back; or b) willing to pursue legal remedies to ensure you're paid back. Most people aren't willing to sue their own family members over small loans, which means in most cases it's not a good idea to loan money to family unless you're "okay with" never being repaid (whatever level of "okay with" makes sense for you). I should note that I don't have kids; my advice here is just how I would handle it if I were considering loaning money to my brother or a close friend or the like. This means I don't really know anything about "teaching the kids about the real world", but I have to say my hunch is that if your kids are 25+ and married, it's too late to radically change their views on how "the real world" works; unless they had a very sheltered early adulthood, they've been living in the real world for too long and will have their own ideas of how it works. |
What can I do to remedy ISA cash/shares transfer latency? | One possibility you may consider is to keep all of your funds in the stocks and shares ISA while investing that proportion you wish to keep in cash into a tradeable "Money Market" ETF. A Money Market ETF will give you rates comparable to interest rates on cash and at the same time it will give you "instant access" subject to normal 3 day settlement of equities. This is not exactly a perfect solution. Most Money Market ETFs will pay monthly dividends, so depending on your timing, you may have to give up some interest. In the worst case, if you were to sell the day before going ex-dividend, then you would be giving up a months interest. In the best case, if you were to sell on the day of going ex-dividend, you would be giving up no interest. |
Should I buy a house because Mortgage rates are low | Reasons for no: In your first sentence you say something interesting: rates low - prices high. Actually those 2 are reversely correlated, imagine if rates would be 5% higher-very few people could buy at current prices so prices would drop. Also you need to keep in mind the rate of inflation that was much higher during some periods in the US history(for example over 10% in the 1980) so you can not make comparisons just based on the nominal interest rate. Putting all your eggs in one basket. If you think real estate is a good investment buy some REITs for 10k, do not spend 20% of your future income for 20 years. Maintenance - people who rent usually underestimate this or do not even count it when making rent vs mortgage comparisons. Reasons for yes: Lifestyle decision - you don't want to be kicked out of your house, you want to remodel... Speculation - I would recommend against this strongly, but housing prices go up and down, if they will go up you can make a lot of money. To answer one of questions directly: 1. My guess is that FED will try to keep rates well bellow 10% (even much lower, since government can not service debts if interest rates go much higher), but nobody can say if they will succeed. |
Should I pay my Education Loan or Put it in the Stock Market? | The fact that you are planning to sell the property does not make paying down the mortgage a bad idea. Reducing the principal immediately reduces the amount of interest you are paying every month. Run the numbers to see how much money that actually saves you over the time you expect to hold the loan. |
Tax treatment of dividends paid on short positions | In the USA there are two ways this situation can be treated. First, if your short position was held less than 45 days. You have to (when preparing the taxes) add the amount of dividend back to the purchase price of the stock. That's called adjusting the basis. Example: short at $10, covered at $8, but during this time stock paid a $1 dividend. It is beneficial for you to add that $1 back to $8 so your stock purchase basis is $9 and your profit is also $1. Inside software (depending what you use) there are options to click on "adjust the basis" or if not, than do it manually specifically for those shares and add a note for tax reviewer. Second option is to have that "dividednd payment in lieu paid" deducted as investment expence. But that option is only available if you hold the shorts for more than 45 days and itemize your deductions. Hope that helps! |
Wife sent to collections for ticket she paid ten years ago | I had this happen to me with parking ticket when I was still in school. The tickets were issued by the school police and later dismissed (because I had purchased a year-long parking pass). 3 years later I got a letter alleging that I had unpaid parking ticket. So they lost the record of dismissal. But they did not lose the record of having issued the ticket. I am fairly certain this happens because legal entities either lose electronic records and restore data from backups without realizing that some corrupted data remains lost or because they transition to a new system and certain real-world events don't get transferred properly to the new system. Of course, the people with whom you end up interacting at that point have no idea of any potential technical problems (because they may occur only in some technical one-off cases). In my case, I was able to show that I had received a judgement of dismissal. I actually kept the paperwork. The question is what do you do if you lost the records and the state had lost all electronic records of your payments. Let's assume the collections agency has a record (produced by the state) that you owed the ticket amount, but the state claims that no record exists of you having paid the tickets. What do you do, then? Carefully compile the list of all possible banks which you could have possibly used. Then request duplicate statements from all the banks which you have on that list. Assuming you were a regular consumer and not running a business, this should not amount to more than 100 pages or so. If you do manage to find the transactions in those bank records, you are in luck. States, unlike the federal government, are not immune from law suits. So you can consult a lawyer. By fraudulently claiming that you defaulted on payments, the state caused you material harm (by lowering your credit rating and increasing your cost of borrowing). Once you have all the paperwork in hand, you still will have difficult time finding anyone in the state to listen to you. And even if you do, you will not be compensated for the time and expenses you expanded to obtain these records. If you indeed paid the tickets, then you are being asked to prove your innocence and you are assumed guilty until you do. Again, a good lawyer should be able to do something with that to get you a proper compensation for this. |
When are equal-weighted index funds / ETFs preferable to market-cap-weighted funds? | Equal-weight ETFs remove the large cap bias found in most popular indexes. What results behaves very much like a small-cap or mid-cap index. Observe RSP vs IJR over a 5 year period: IJR (iShares S&P SmallCap 600 ETF) vs RSP (Rydex S&P Equal Weight ETF) I'm not sure if equal-weighting is worth the reduced efficiency. Mid-cap and small-cap funds have lower expenses (%0.20 for IJR vs %0.40 for RSP) and appear to do better over the long run. We don't know if that pattern will continue, but expense is one of the strongest long-term predictors of performance. |
Should I include my hard assets as part of my net worth? | Net worth is interesting as it can have a different number assigned depending on your intent. The number I focus on is my total retirement account and any brokerage account. I purposely exclude the value of my house.* This tells me how much I'm able to invest. My heir would look at it a bit differently. She'd have the cash not only from the house, but from every bit of our possessions that can be sold. For my own purposes, knowing I have a piece of art that might sell for $xxx doesn't mean much, except for insurance purposes. In your case, if the coins are gold, and held for investment, count them. If they were your grandfather's and you plan to leave them to your own grandkids, I'd leave them out. * I make this point for two reasons - as someone with an eye toward retirement, the house doesn't get included in the 4% return math that I apply to the retirement and stock accounts. Also, in our situation, even when we downsize at retirement, the move isn't likely to pull much cash out of the house, it will be a lateral move. For those who plan to move from a McMansion in the suburbs of NY or Boston to a modest home in a lower cost of living elsewhere, that difference may be very important, and should be taken into account. This is simply how we handle this. |
Perform exercise-and-hold AND exercise-and-sell-to-cover? | Ask the folks administering your plan. They're the ones who define and implement the available choices for that specific plan. |
What are the tax liabilities or impact for selling gold? | Gold is classified as a collectible so the gain rates are as follows: So you'd report a gain of $100 or $1,000 , depending on which coin you sold. |
Do classes have to pay sales tax on materials used? | In most jurisdictions, both the goods (raw materials) and the service (class) are being "sold" to the customer, who is the end user and thus the sale is subject to sales tax. So, when your friend charges for the class, that $100 is subject to all applicable sales taxes for the jurisdiction and all parent jurisdictions (usually city, county and state). The teacher should not have to pay sales tax when they buy the flowers from the wholesaler; most jurisdictions charge sales tax on end-user purchases only. However, they are required to have some proof of sales tax exemption for the purchase, which normally comes part and parcel with the DBA or other business entity registration paperwork in most cities/states. Wholesalers deal with non-end-user sales (exempt from sales tax) all the time, but your average Michael's or Hobby Lobby may not be able to deal with this and may have to charge your friend the sales tax at POS. Depending on the jurisdiction, if this happens, your friend may be able to reduce the amount the customer is paying that is subject to sales tax by the pre-tax value of the materials the customer has paid for, which your friend already paid the tax on. |
Can banks deny that you've paid your loan? | Maybe there's more to this story, because as written, your sister seems, well, a little irrational. Is it possible that the bank will try to cheat you and demand that you pay a loan again that you've already paid off? Or maybe not deliberately cheat you, but make a mistake and lose track of the fact that you paid? Sure, it's POSSIBLE. But if you're going to agonize about that, what about all the other possible ways that someone could cheat you? What if you go to a store, hand over your cash for the purchase, and then the clerk insists that you never gave him any cash? What if you buy a car and it turns out to be stolen? What if you buy insurance and when you have a claim the insurance company refuses to pay? What if someone you've never met or even heard of before suddenly claims that you are the father of her baby and demands child support? Etc etc. Realistically, banks are fanatical about record-keeping. Their business is pretty much all about record-keeping. Mistakes like this are very rare. And a big business like a bank is unlikely to blatantly cheat you. They can and do make millions of dollars legally. Why should they break the law and risk paying huge fines and going to prison for a few hundred dollars? They may give you a lousy deal, like charge you outrageous overdraft fees and pay piddling interest on your deposit, but they're not going to lie about how much you owe. They just don't. I suggest that you not live your life in fear of all the might-be's. Take reasonable steps to protect yourself and get on with it. Read contracts before you sign, even if the other person gets impatient while you sit there reading. ESPECIALLY if the other person insists that you sign without reading. When you pay off a loan, you should get a piece of paper from the bank saying the loan has been paid. Stuff this piece of paper in a filing cabinet and keep it for years and years. Get a copy of your credit report periodically and make sure that there are no errors on it, like incorrect loan balances. I check mine once every year or two. Some people advise checking it every couple of months. It all depends how nervous you are and how much time you want to spend on it. Then get on with your life. Has your sister had some bad experience with loans in the past? Or has she never borrowed money and she's just confused about how it works? That's why I wonder if there's more to the story, if there's some basis for her fears. |
Is the I.T. function in banking considered to be on the expense side, as opposed to revenue side? | Here is how your CEO has to see it. Of course, eventually most revenues are generated by IT systems but technically IT still is an expense only activity unless of course you are selling the software/services offered by it. According to the US GAAP, software development costs are capitalized when a firm develops a software for its own use (e.g., nice shiny UI show bank's VaR, algorithmic trading engines, internal security infrastructure etc.). When the software is developed for sale, all the costs are expensed as incurred until the technical feasibility is established after which the costs are capitalized. The income is realized when licenses to use the software or the services provided by it are sold. According to international standards, the treatment for both the use cases shown above is the same --all the costs are expensed as incurred until the technical feasibility is established after which the costs are capitalized. The income is realized when licenses to use the software or the services provided by it are sold. |
Are warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club worth it? | Whether or not they are worth it depends entirely on your situation. For my family, they are worth it, but I know a number of people who it would not be worthwhile for. The big things that we find are cheaper to get at bulk stores are toiletries, detergents (laundry, dishwasher), meats (only if you have a big freezer), bread, and certain types of prepackaged foods. Right now, it's just my wife and me, but once we have kids it will become even more worthwhile with things like diapers, wipes, and various other items. If you have a large family, or a large freezer odds are they are worth it. One thing to be careful of however is that they usually don't accept coupons. So if you're a big time deal shopper the gain may be minimal. They only cost $40 a year, so worst case scenario if you don't get back your full investment you're not out too much. |
How should I be contributing to my 401(k), traditional or Roth? | I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter much unless something in your life changes in retirement. And since many retirement planners assume a default income target of 80 percent of pre-retirement income, I figure many people's tax bracket isn't moving much. The most interesting reason I know to Go Roth in a 401k is limits. You can only contribute like $17k, whether Roth or not. In a traditional contribution, some of the 17k you put in goes to taxes when taken out, but in a Roth contribution you pay taxes up front. So if you have more than $17k to invest, Roth lets you sneak some more into the system. |
Free/open source Unix software that pulls info from all my banks/brokers/credit cards? | Buxfer is a personal-finance web app which you might like. It's not open-source. But at least none of your complaints about financeworks.intuit.com apply to Buxfer. Buxfer offers a piece of software you can download to your own PC, called Firebux. This macro-recording software provides automation that helps you download statements and upload them to Buxfer. So you never have to give Buxfer any of your bank or brokerage usernames or passwords. Buxfer and Firebux are both free of charge. Wesabe, another personal-finance web app, also used to offer data-uploader software, but Wesabe has now gone out of business. |
Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it? | I have abused 0% interest programs time and time again, but only because my wife and I are assiduous about paying our bills on time. We've mostly taken advantage of it with bigger purchases that we've done through Lowe's or Home Depot (eg - washing machines, carpeting, stove, fridge), but its been well worth it. There are two rules that we set for ourselves whenever we do a 0% interest program -- 1) We have the money already in savings so that we can easily pay it off at any time 2) We agree to pay our monthly bill on time There's nothing quite like using another person's money to buy your things, while keeping your money to gain interest in a savings account. |
ESPP in the UK - worth it? Disqualifying / qualifying sales? | ESPP is common among US companies, often with a framework similar to your outline. In the US, some ESPPs allow sales of shares to be considered qualifying (subject to capital gains rather than ordinary income tax) if they are sold at least 2 years after the enrollment date and at least 1 year after the purchase date. These details can vary from one plan to another and will be stated in the company's ESPP enrollment documents. Do look at the high and low values of the stock over the last year. If it swings up and down more than 15% (or whatever the discount is), then that risk should be a factor in your decision. If the stock is trending upward over the long term and you are confident in the durability of the company, then you might favor holding. |
Stock trading after a crash | If the stock has dropped from $10 to $2 and now is range trading between $2 and $3, and you were not able to sell your shares earlier, then I would no be holding on to them now. As soon as the price hit $3 sell them. After you have sold them and you noticed the stock still range trading one strategy you could apply is to go long after the price bounces off the $2 support placing a stop just below $2, then as the price moves up you trail your stop up with the price. As it starts getting close to $3 tighten your stop. If it keeps range trading and bounces off the resistance at $3 and you get stopped out, you can either go short and reverse the process or wait for it to bounce off the support at $2 again. One word of warning though, the longer a stock range trades, the bigger the outbreak out of the rage (either up or down) will be, that is the reason why you should first wait for confirmation that the price has bounced off support/resistance before opening a position, and secondly why you should use a stop loss to get you out instead of just selling when it hits $3, because if it breaks through $3 you can continue profiting as it moves up. |
Historical data files for NYSE/NASDAQ daily open/close price data? | I think Infochimps has what you are looking for: NYSE and NASDAQ. |
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