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What's a good free checking account? | If you want to deposit checks or conduct business at a window, you should look at a local savings bank or credit union. Generally, you can find one that will offer "free" checking in exchange for direct deposit or a minimum balance. Some are totally free, but those banks pay zippo for interest. If you don't care about ... |
What happens to people without any retirement savings? | Well, if you worked in the United States you have social security, and medicare and medicaid in most cases as well. So you have a small amount of income to spend every month to cover your most basic living expenses, as well as your basic medical expenses. At least, that's the idea. In reality, it probably isn't anywh... |
Should I buy stocks of my current employer because of its high dividend yield? | Dividend yields are a product of the dollar amount paid to shareholders and the stock price. Dividends yields rise when a company is shunned by investors. It may be shunned because the earnings and/or dividend are at risk. Recent examples are SDRL and KMI. Most investors would love an 8% yield so I would wonder why th... |
Why are big companies like Apple or Google not included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) index? | The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is a Price-weighted index. That means that the index is calculated by adding up the prices of the constituent stocks and dividing by a constant, the "Dow divisor". (The value of the Dow divisor is adjusted from time to time to maintain continuity when there are splits or change... |
Why is there some latency between the time a check deposit was processed and when one can withdraw the money on Fidelity CMAs? | Every bank and credit union in the US has a Deposit Agreement and Disclosures document, Bank of America is no different. Our general policy is to make funds from your cash and check deposits available to you no later than the first business day after the day of your deposit. However, in some cases we place a hold ... |
ETF's for early retirement strategy | This is the chart going back to the first full year of this fund. To answer your question - yes, a low cost ETF or Mutual fund is fine. Why not go right to an S&P index? VOO has a .05% expense. Why attracted you to a choice that lagged the S&P by $18,000 over this 21 year period? (And yes, past performance, yada, yad... |
Should I pay more than 20% down on a home? | The primary reason to put 20% down on your home is to avoid paying PMI (private mortgage insurance). Anyone who buys a house with a down-payment of under 20% is required to pay for this insurance (which protects the lender in case you default on your loan). PMI is what enables people to buy homes with as little as 3-5... |
What's the best use for this money? Its only a small amount but can make a big difference to me | Its very silly of you to have house savings while you have these debts. Your total (listed) debt is 1657, with a savings of 2000, and a tax refund of 985. I'd be done with the Apple loan and CC tomorrow. Does that accomplish the goal of making a significant difference in your debt? Yes it does. This will leave you... |
What's the most correct way to calculate market cap for multi-class companies? | Some companies issue multiple classes of shares. Each share may have different ratios applied to ownership rights and voting rights. Some shares classes are not traded on any exchange at all. Some share classes have limited or no voting rights. Voting rights ratios are not used when calculating market cap but the ... |
Why don't institutions share stock recommendations like Wall Street analysts? | Primarily because they don't want big price movements when they are in the market. If they spook the markets, either they have to buy at a higher price, or they sell at a lower price or they decrease the price of their holdings(which isn't always a big factor). The 3 situations they didn't want to be in the first place... |
Selling put and call Loss Scenario Examples | See how you can only make the premium amount but your risk is the same as holding the stock when writing a put option. |
Why does FlagStar Bank harass you about payments within grace period? | All standard mortgage promissory notes mandate payments are due on the first of every month; I can almost guarantee the note you signed has this provision. Most lenders offer a grace period of generally 15 days before they assess a late charge, but the payment IS late on the 2nd. People have become incorrectly accust... |
What is a reasonable rate of return and fee structure for a Roth IRA? | A Roth IRA is just an account wrapper. Inside a Roth IRA you can have a plain 0.1% savings account, or a brokerage account, or an annuity or whatever. There's no rate of return for a Roth IRA. That particular calculator seems to assume you'll be wrapping a brokerage account in a Roth IRA and investing in the stock ma... |
stock option grant being cancelled because strike price greater than FMV and replaced with a new grant at a higher strike price | Both you and the Company were probably benefitted by this decision. Specifically an option grant that was not FRV or more would require you to recognize the option as income whether you had exercised it or not. Additionally a host of other 409A tax issues/penalties could have been levied against you as an employee re... |
Multiple hard inquiry for a single loan from car dealer? | (I'm a bit surprised that nobody talked about the impact of multiple inquiries on a loan, since OP is concerned with credit building. Probably an answer as opposed to a comment is justified.) Yes. In fact when you shop for auto loan you are expected to have your credit score/report be pulled by different banks, credit ... |
How should I deal with my long term gain this year? | Long term capital gains are taxed at 15% this year, so the most you stand to save is $150. I wouldn't sell anything at a loss just to offset that, unless you planned on selling anyways. A few reasons: The Long term capital gains rate will go up to 20% next year, so your losses will be "worth more" next year than this ... |
Ticker symbols differences between Yahoo Finance and BestInvest | BestInvest is a UK site looking at that URL, base on the "co.uk" ending. Yahoo! Finance that you use is a US-based site unless you add something else to the URL. UK & Ireland Yahoo! Finance is different from where you were as there is something to be said for where are you looking. If I was looking for a quarter dollar... |
Can I negotiate a credit card settlement by stopping payments? | This would be on your credit for ~8 years. If it goes according to your plan, it will take 6 months to a year to do the settlement by getting behind enough to let it go to collections and then settling. The write-off will then be on your credit record for 7 years before it "falls off". Your cash out refinance would... |
Can you explain why it's better to invest now rather than waiting for the market to dip? | With a long enough time horizon, no matter when you buy, equities almost always outperform cash and bonds. There's an article here with some info: http://www.fool.co.uk/investing-basics/how-when-and-where-to-invest/ Holding period where shares have beaten cash There was a similar study done which showed if you picked ... |
Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when? | No, it can really not. Look at Detroit, which has lost a million residents over the past few decades. There is plenty of real estate which will not go for anything like it was sold. Other markets are very risky, like Florida, where speculators drive too much of the price for it to be stable. You have to be sure to buy ... |
Tax liability in US for LLC's owned by an Indian Citzen | The LLC will not be liable for anything, it is disregarded for tax purposes. If you're doing any work while in the US, or you (or your spouse) are a green card holder or a US citizen - then you (not the LLC) may be liable, may be required to file, pay, etc. Unless you're employing someone, or have more than one member ... |
My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking? | Both of you sit down with a lawyer who practices in real estate and foreclosures, and hash out every single possibility of what could conceivably go wrong, with nothing out of bounds. Come up with a reasonable and fair plan for resolving each situation, that you are willing to commit to, life and breath, for real, no ... |
Appropriate model for deferred costs as a line-of-credit | There's no standard formula. You can compare the going rates on the market for unsecured LOCs and take that as the starting anchor. Unsecured lines of credit run in the US at about 8-18%. Your risk should be reflected in the rate, and I see no reason why the rate would change throughout the loan. As to the amount of pr... |
Value investing | As an aside, why does it seem to be difficult to get a conclusive answer to this question? I'm going to start by trying to answer this question and I think the answer here will help answer the other questions. Here is a incomplete list of the challenges involved: So my question is, is there any evidence that value inv... |
Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market? | Aside of the other (mostly valid) answers, share price is the most common method of valuating the company. Here is a bogus example that will help you understand the general point: Now, suppose that Company A wants to borrow $20 Million from a bank... Not a chance. Company B? Not a problem. Same situation when trying t... |
Why does AAPL trade at such low multiples? | This is also an opinion, the iPhone makes up too much of the company's total revenue. Last quarter results were very well received because of the somewhat dramatic increase in service revenue indicating that maybe the company can shift from relying so heavily on the iPhone. As it stands, Apple is a single product com... |
1.4 million cash. What do I do? | First--congratulations! I certainly wish I could create something worth buying for $1.4 million. In addition to what @duffbeer703 recommended, consider putting some of the money in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). I second the advice on staying away from annuities as well. @littleadv is right about c... |
Scammer wants details and credentials for my empty & unused bank account. What could go wrong? | It's a scam. Here are the many signs: The bank will never ask for your password. They can access your account without it. The bank will never use a customer's account for their own business. They have their own accounts. "Some guy" is not a bank employee. Bank employees are people that you meet at the bank. Banks d... |
What are dividends, when are they paid, and how do they affect my position? | Dividends are normally paid in cash, so don't generally affect your portfolio aside from a slight increase to 'cash'. You get a check for them, or your broker would deposit the funds into a money-market account for you. There is sometimes an option to re-invest dividends, See Westyfresh's answer regarding Dividend Re... |
Contributing factors to historical increase in trading volume | It's not primarily more people investing. In the 1980s stock exchanges went from open outcry trading floors where all trades involved actually exchanging pieces of paper to electronic trading. Once that happened, it wasn't long before most trades were executed by computer programs rather than human beings, turning stoc... |
What's the best way to make money from a market correction? | For a non-technical investor (meaning someone who doesn't try to do all the various technical analysis things that theoretically point to specific investments or trends), having a diverse portfolio and rebalancing it periodically will typically be the best solution. For example, I might have a long-term-growth portfoli... |
How long does a bank's “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process typically take? | The idea is to positively identify you with properly issued government ID. If you show up with your passport, visa, and another form of government-issued identification which the banker can recognize and use (for example - international driver's license, a US-State driver's license, EU internal ID, etc) - it will be qu... |
When should I walk away from my mortgage? | Interestingly enough, "strategic default" seems to be more common than one might think in California and there is actually a lot of information available on it, to include a calculator that breaks down the numbers for you (although affiliated with a law office). Speaking from a purely financial standpoint, walking away... |
Really have to use business credit card for personal expenses | I really have to use the business card for personal expenses, please assume that in your answer. This is very hard to believe. You must do that? Why not just have the company pay you $1600 each month? Then you can use that money for whatever you want. Why can't you do this? (I cannot think of a legitimate reason...) Ho... |
Can vet / veterinary bills be considered deductions (tax-deductible) for Income Tax purposes [Canada]? | No. Medical bills for yourself or your human companions may be: Canada Revenue Seeing-eye dogs and the like also get special treatment Nice Doggie There are pet medical insurance policies; but as they are often priced like human policies, they might exclude your animal if it has a pre-existing condition. Good Luck Scot... |
How does the yield on my investments stack up against other investors? | Generally S&P 500 will be used as the benchmark for US investors because it represents how's the US market performs as a whole. If you've outperformed the S&P 500 during the last couple years, great. However, at the end of day, you would want to look at the total growth percent that your portfolio has achieved, as comp... |
Does a US LLC owned by a non-resident alien have to pay US taxes if it operates exclusively online? | As you said, in the US LLC is (usually, unless you elect otherwise) not a separate tax entity. As such, the question "Does a US LLC owned by a non-resident alien have to pay US taxes" has no meaning. A US LLC, regardless of who owns it, doesn't pay US income taxes. States are different. Some States do tax LLCs (for exa... |
Does Joel Greenblatt's “Magic Formula Investing” really beat the market? | Probably not. Once the formula is out there, and if it actually seems to work, more and more investors chase the same stocks, drive the price up, and poof! The advantage is gone. This is the very reason why Warren Buffett doesn't announce his intentions when he's buying. If people know that BRK is buying, lots of ot... |
What kind of life insurance is cheaper? I'm not sure about term vs. whole vs. universal, etc | All life insurance is pretty much the same when it comes to cost. You can run the numbers over certain time period and the actual cost of insurance is about the same. A simplified way to explain life insurance and the differences between them below: The 3 characteristics of life insurance: There are 5 popular types of ... |
Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year? | I can think of a few good reasons: A company, especially public, usually wants their fourth-quarter earnings to be the strongest of the year. That ends each fiscal year on a high note for the company and its investors, which helps public sentiment and boosts stock prices. So, travel agencies and airlines usually like e... |
Found an old un-cashed paycheck. How long is it good for? What to do if it's expired? | Look up escheatment. Companies that have unclaimed property are supposed to send it to your State government. They should have a unclaimed property department of some sort. In short, the company is going to have to pay either you, or your State (In Your Name) so they have to pay it either way. It would be easier for th... |
Buying a foreclosed property | Like most other things, this is "sometimes," but not always true. Sometimes banks will be willing to sell at a discount, sometimes they will hold out for "full price." But if you want a discount, this is a good place to "look." |
I received a share of Apple stock. Now what? | Congratulations! You own a (very small) slice of Apple. As a stockholder, you have a vote on important decisions that the company makes. Each year Apple has a stockholder meeting in Cupertino that you are invited to. If you are unable to attend and vote, you can vote by proxy, which simply means that you register yo... |
How should residents of smaller economies allocate their portfolio between domestic and foreign assets? | why should I have any bias in favour of my local economy? The main reason is because your expenses are in the local currency. If you are planning on spending most of your money on foreign travel, that's one thing. But for most of us, the bulk of our expenses are incurred locally. So it makes sense for us to invest ... |
Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | @OP: It's all about risk. With a cash buyer the decision is left up to one person. With a financed buyer it adds another approval process (the lender). It's another opportunity for the deal to fall through. If the bank is the lender then there's even more risk. They've already taken back the property once and inc... |
What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? | What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? The company's potential residual assets. When a company goes bankrupt it is required to sell its assets to pay off its debts. The funds raised from selling assets go to the following entities: The usual order of debt repayment, in terms of the lender, will be the government... |
How to avoid getting back into debt? | Depending on how marketable your degree is, in the long run you may be better aquiring some student debt rather than slowing down your studies. For example finishing finance, medicine, or engineering a year later would mean one less year of your life that you are earning substantial income. The only situation where sl... |
Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? | This is not really the focus of your question, but it's worth noting that if you live in the United States (which your profile says you do), there are tax implications for you (but not for your children), depending on whether or not you charge your children (enough) interest. If you charge less interest than the appro... |
Table of how many years it takes to make a specified return on the stock market? | The Money Chimp site lets you choose two points in time to see the return. i.e. you give it the time (two dates) and it tells you the return. One can create a spreadsheet to look at multiple time periods and answer your question that way, but I've not seen it laid out that way in advance. For what it's worth, I am hal... |
Should I pay my Education Loan or Put it in the Stock Market? | For the sake of sanity, pay off your debt maybe not all but some part of it. You never know what the monster, the stock market may turn out to be. It may gobble up all your money without belching or it may gift you with a bounty. But if you pay off all your debt and the stock market monster is rewarding everybody else,... |
How much principal do I get back with a target-maturity ETF? | Adding a couple more assumptions, I'd compute about $18.23 would be that pay out in 2018. This is computed by taking the Current Portfolio's Holdings par values and dividing by the outstanding shares(92987/5100 for those wanting specific figures used). Now, for those assumptions: Something to keep in mind is that bond... |
At what point do index funds become unreliable? | A great deal of analysis on this question relies on misunderstandings of the market or noticing trends that happened at the same time but were not caused by each other. Without knowing your view, I'll just give the basic idea. The amount of active management is self-correcting. The reason people have moved out of act... |
Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it? | I bought a Thinkpad in Dec 2007 using BillMeLater, which was working with IBM/Lenovo at that time. I was getting the notebook at the lowest price available, from the manufacturer. I had the money to pay for it -- around $1400. But I went ahead and took the offer from BillMeLater. It was essentially a 12-month zero-... |
How do I choose between buying a car or buying a plot of land in Pakistan? | Your question has an interesting mix of issues. ASAP and 3-4 years doesn't feel like the same thing. ASAP results in bad decisions made in haste. Four years of living very frugally can create a nice down payment on a house. A car is only an investment for Uber drivers and those who are directly financially benefit... |
Why does my bank suddenly need to know where my money comes from? | Banks and credit unions are constantly required to improve their detection methods for suspicious transactions. It's not just big transactions anymore, it's scattered little ones, etc. Our credit union had to buy software that runs through transactions sniffing for suspicious patterns. More regulations and more costs... |
Ways to save for child's college education where one need not commit to set contributions? [duplicate] | 529 is good. Though, I would avoid other kinds of investments in kids names and or setting up accounts that are too complex or difficult to use as college costs will come in may aspects starting application fees and travel expenses when looking for college as well as housing and allowance spending. |
Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to “Buy Low, Sell High”? | Insofar as a 52 week high indicates a peak, yes. However, the truth is that "buying low and selling high" means "Act a Fool!" You see, when you buy low, you are perceived to be buying total garbage - throwing your money away and conversely when selling high you are perceived to be a total idiot - selling a winner. Th... |
Why I cannot find a “Pure Cash” option in 401k investments? | Technically there could be a true cash fund, but the issue is it would need to have some sort of cost associated with it, which would mean it would have negative yield or would charge a fee. In some cases, this might be preferable to having it invested in "cash equivalents," which as you note are not cash. It is impo... |
How can I save on closing costs when buying a home? | Do I need to pay for an inspection, or am I likely to save enough money from skipping it to cover potential problems that they would have caught? A home inspection costs hundreds of dollars. The average is $315. Inspections regularly catch things that cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix, e.g. a new roof or a cr... |
Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money? | People in the United States in the mid-2000's thought that real estate was safe. Then they discovered that when the bubble burst the value of their house dropped 10 to 50%. Then they realized that they couldn't sell, even if they had the cash to make the lender whole. Some lost their houses to foreclosure, others walk... |
Does an employee have the right to pay the federal and state taxes themselves instead of having employer doing it? | No, even businesses pay taxes quarterly. So if you formed Nathan, LLC, or otherwise became self employed, you'd still have to file quarterly estimates and make tax payments. This would cause taxes to be a much more high touch part of your life. However, you should ensure that you're claiming the proper exemptions etc... |
What is the best, low risk investment I can make now? | TL;DR - go with something like Barry Ritholtz's All Century Portfolio: 20 percent total U.S stock market 5 percent U.S. REITs 5 percent U.S. small cap value 15 percent Pacific equities 15 percent European equities 10 percent U.S. TIPs 10 percent U.S. high yield corp bonds 20 percent U.S. total bond UK property market a... |
What is the purpose of property tax? | Property taxes are levied by the local authorities to pay for their services. Since the services are continuous - so are the charges. You need someone to pave a road to your house, to build infrastructure, to maintain the police force, fire department, local schools etc. That's what your property taxes are going to. Ho... |
why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments? | It all depends on the liquidity of your investments some examples: You can mitigate only the risk that you can control. It is always good to have: |
From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well? | You are right that Facebook really doesn't get impacted as they got their $38. However it would make it slightly more difficult for Facebook to raise more money in future as large investors would be more cautious. This can keep the price lowers than it actually needs to be. Quite a few companies try to list the IPO at ... |
Why do stocks tend to trade at high volumes at the end of (or start) the trading day? | Trading volumes are higher at the end of the day as many traders close their open positions. In the morning however, traders incorporate various factors like performance of worldwide markets overnight, any corporate or government announcements, global macro events, etc. |
What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? | With debts exceeding assets by a billion dollars, this activity likely comes from penny stock speculators and "pump and dump" schemers. There is no rational expectation that the stock is even worth multiple pennies when the company is that far upside-down on its debts. Even if the debts could be restructured in a chapt... |
Does bull/bear market actually make a difference? | Who are the losers going to be? If you can tell me for certain which firms will do worst in a bear market and can time it so that this information is not already priced into the market then you can make money. If not don't try. In a bull market stocks tend to act "normally" with established patterns such as correlation... |
Should I invest in my house, when it's in my wife's name? | The prenup complicates things. The traditional vow of a marriage is "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine". With such a traditional marriage it doesn't matter too much which partner's name something is in, in the event of a divorce the assets of the couple would be considered as a whole and then split. But you ha... |
Weekly budgets based on (a variable) monthly budget | If you know, approximately, the minimum he would get in a month, his budget should be planned based on this amount. In months where he gets more than this, the excess should be put aside. In really bad months where the income drops below the expected minimum, he can use the money put aside. After a year of putting mone... |
If one owns 75% of company shares, does that mean that he would have to take upon himself 75% of the company's expenses? | You can look at the company separately from the ownership. The company needs money that it doesn't have, therefore it needs to borrow money from somewhere or go bankrupt. And if they can't get money from their bank, then they can of course ask people related to the company, like the two shareholders, for a loan. It's ... |
As a total beginner, how do I begin to understand finance & stocks? | How I understand it is: supply/demand affect price of stock negatively/positively, respectively. Correct. Volume is the amount of buying/selling activity in these stocks (more volume = more fluctuation, right?). Sort of. Higher volume means higher liquidity. That is, a stock that is traded more is easier to trade... |
Best way to invest money as a 22 year old? | The classic answer is simple. Aim to build up a a financial cushion that is the equivalent of 3 times your monthly salary. This should be readily accessible and in cash, to cover any unforeseen expenses that you may incur (car needs repairing, washing machine breaks down etc). Once you have this in place its then time ... |
Are there any rules against penalizing consumers for requesting accurate credit reporting? | I think you're off base here. The bureaus only remove information if the creditor cannot verify any dispute within 30 days, or if the information's super old. If the creditor can provide corrected information, then the credit bureau is required to apply it to its own database. A dispute can be about the entire accou... |
Long term investing alternative to mutual funds | You are not limited in these 3 choices. You can also invest in ETFs, which are similar to mutual funds, but traded like stocks. Usually (at least in Canada), MERs for ETFs are smaller than for mutual funds. |
How does Portfolio Turnover affect my investment? | may result in more taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. When the fund manager decides to sell shares of a stock, and those shares have grown in value, that growth is a capital gain. If that fund is part of a taxable account then the investors in the fund will have to declare that income/gain on their... |
GnuCash: Reimbursable expenses paid by credit card | GNUCash won't show 'Credit Card' type accounts in "Process Payment", as of v.2.6.1. A workaround is to create another account of type A/Payable. Then, transfer the operations you want to pay via "Process Payment" to this new account. It should be visible now. A drawback is that you have split your current Credit Card ... |
W2 vs 1099 Employee status | Another thing to consider, however, is the deductibility of business expenses. Let's assume that the employer can legitimately hire you as a 1099 contractor. (Would you be able to telecommute? Would you have a high degree of control over when you worked and when you didn't? These factors also affect whether you're a... |
Why would a long-term investor ever chose a Mutual Fund over an ETF? | First, it's not always the case that ETFs have lower expenses than the equivalent mutual funds. For example, in the Vanguard family of funds the expense ratio for the ETF version is the same as it is for the Admiral share class in the mutual fund version. With that in mind, the main advantages of a mutual fund over a... |
property owned 50/50 between my brother and me | ASSUMING you're talking about a property in the United States, the answer generally would be "no". You aren't actually paying any of the expenses for the property and yet you want to take the deductions for doing so? That's a rather cheeky move, I'd say! (grin) It probably would lead to some real strife with your b... |
What part of buying a house would make my net worth go down? | Houses depreciate. Period. Things break: the hot water heater explodes, the AC cuts out in August, the roof leaks, the basement floods, toilets back up, raccoons dig up the garden. Each time something breaks, the house loses value. Every year the paint fades a little, the house loses value. Every time GE comes out with... |
Who owned my shares before me? | Not sure about US. In India all Demat shares have a unique identity. Incase of splits or merging of shares, new ID's are created maintaining the linking of older ID's. The Demat holding entity would have all the history of a particular stock. It is mandatory to disclose the name of the person / entity who has purchased... |
Why aren't bond mutual funds seeing huge selloffs now? | The Fed sets the overnight borrowing costs by setting its overnight target rate. The markets determine the rates at which the treasury can borrow through the issuance of bonds. The Fed's actions will certainly influence the price of very short term bonds, but the Fed's influence on anything other than very short term ... |
How do I interpret this analysis from Second Opinion? | In Second Opinion's opinion, they say "Do not initiate new position." This means do not buy the stock if you do not already own it. Since they also say to hold if you do own it, this is a very "who knows what it will do" neutral position (IMO). |
Do Americans really use checks that often? | I receive checks from my tenant. Also, from our medical reimbursement account. I'm sure there's an option somewhere to get that direct deposited, just haven't yet. My wife will write checks for school functions. Funny, they haven't cashed one since february, and this is the one item to look for every time I reconcile h... |
How can I check my credit score? | Different states have different laws, check your local laws concerning credit. Some states even guarantee you to get one free credit report per year. If you recently apply for an apartment, a mortgage or denied a credit card or loan, you can usually get a free copy from whomever you authorized to pull your credit repor... |
How do online referal systems work? | Yeah, I'll take the challenge...:) How trustworthy these are and what are their sources of income? These are in fact two separate questions, but the answers are related. How trustworthy? As trustworthy as they're clear about their own sources of income. If you cannot find any clue as to why, what for and how they're pa... |
Withdrawing cash from investment: take money from underperforming fund? | It looks like the advice the rep is giving is based primarily on the sunk cost fallacy; advice based on a fallacy is poor advice. Bob has recognised this trap and is explicitly avoiding it. It is possible that the advice that the rep is trying to give is that Fund #1 is presently undervalued but, if so, that is a good ... |
Do I even need credit cards? | The key part of your question is the "so far". So you didn't need a credit card today, or yesterday, or last month - great! But what about tomorrow? The time may come when you really need to spend a little more than you have, and a credit card will let you do that, at a very modest cost if you pay it off promptly (n... |
How and Should I Invest (As a college 18 year old with minimal living expenses)? | While others have made a good case for how you may want to save and spend I just want to take a moment to comment on Acorn and Robinhood. Having never used either of them, I would stick to the seasoned professionals for my long term investment relationship. I'm sure they have the right licensing and proper SIPC covera... |
What is the purpose of property tax? | Property taxes, at least in Canada, are levied by the municipality or city in which the property is situated. For many cities, it is a significant source of income. Part of the justification from the municipal point of view is that the land is serviced, in that it generally has city services like water, sewer, garbage... |
What size “nest egg” should my husband and I have, and by what age? | For most people, a million dollars is about right. Here's the back of the napkin math that you should consider to find your own estimate: If you take 1 and divide it by 2, that's roughly the size of the nest egg you'll need to live indefinitely. For example, if your retirement investments are earning 5% a year, and you... |
Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? | If you expect your taxes to be higher next year, it saves you the trouble of sending estimates or changing the withholding levels. But yes, its basically a free loan you're giving to the government. |
If you want to trade an equity that reflects changes in VIX, what is a good proxy for it? | There is no good proxy for VIX, because it is a completely made-up value. Most listed options trade on an underlying security. I can therefore choose to buy either the stock, or a future or option on that stock. In this way, the future and option are derivatives in that they derive their value (in part) based on some... |
Where can I buy stocks if I only want to invest a little bit at a time, and not really be involved in trading? | There's a few options you may want to look into. First, I'm writing from an US point of view, I do not know if these are available in Russia. First look into DRIPS (Dividend Reinvestment Plans). These seem tailor made for your request. They are plans set up by companies that pay dividends. If you own at least one shar... |
Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest | This is one of those too good to be true things that is actually true. Why? Because only you can do this. Only you can deduct for primary home mortgage interest, only you can get a low cost mortgage (others would have to get investor mortgages at a higher interest rate). So its only a great deal for you. More people wo... |
Can the risk of investing in an asset be different for different investors? | In a perfect market, share prices are by definition a perfect reflection of the true value of a share. Hence, you always get $10 for a share that's worth that much. In reality, the market is imperfect. Prices are somewhat of an average of all different estimates, and there's a cost-of-trading margin between sales and b... |
What's the difference, if any, between stock appreciation and compound interest? | If you mean, If I invest, say, $1000 in a stock that is growing at 5% per year, versus investing $1000 in an account that pays compound interest of 5% per year, how does the amount I have after 5 years compare? Then the answer is, They would be exactly the same. As Kent Anderson says, "compound interest" simply means ... |
The Canadian dividend tax credit: Why is it that someone can earn a lot in dividends but pay no/little tax? | Basically, yes. That doesn't mean that it's easy to do. The government provides a dividend tax credit since an individual takes on more risk to invest in dividend-paying corporations rather than trading their human capital for an income. Thus, for the most part, $1 earned from dividends is taxed much less than $1 earne... |
How can I build up my credit history when I have nearly none | What's the fastest way I can raise my credit score from nothing? I worked at a bank for almost 6 years and used their secured credit card. To give you an example of what that did as far as credit was concerned: on Transunion my score increased 200+ points, while on Experian and Equifax, it increased by less than 150. ... |
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