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Do you know of any online monetary systems? | Congratulations! You see the problem. You can't get away from unstable currencies. The other problem is that the US will shut down anything that appears to be providing a replacement for the US Dollar. Once a token or medallion or gift certificate or whatever starts being used outside the confines of one business or one network of businesses, it will be shut down, quickly. It happened with Las Vegas gambling tokens. Another more recent attempt was with the Liberty Dollar, gold and silver coins and certificates that not only had precious metal backing, but whose proponents encouraged taking them to retailers and paying with them as if they were US Dollars. There were other problems with this idea, but it was the competitive stature of the Liberty dollar that got the headquarters raided and the main site shut down. Basically, all signs point toward dealing with currencies and their state of being systematically eroded over time. If you do find one that appears to exist, be wary, because the rules can change at any time, and the "money" will be nowhere near as liquid as a proper currency. |
Funds in closed bank account have gone to the government | Legally speaking, if you do close a limited company, the funds belong to the government ("bona vacantia"). There's some guidance on this at Companies House and there is indeed a substantial amount of administration work to get it undone. Notable excerpts: You should deal with any loose ends, such as closing the company’s bank account, the transfer of any domain names - before you apply. [...] From the date of dissolution, any assets of a dissolved company will belong to the Crown. The company’s bank account will be frozen and any credit balance in the account will pass to the Crown. [...] 4. What happens to the assets of a dissolved company? From the date of dissolution, any assets of a dissolved company will be 'bona vacantia'. Bona vacantia literally means “vacant goods” and is the technical name for property that passes to the Crown because it does not have a legal owner. The company’s bank account will be frozen and any credit balance in the account will be passed to the Crown. [...] Chapter 3 - Restoration by Court Order The registrar can only restore a company if he receives a court order, unless a company is administratively restored to the register (see chapter 4). Anyone who intends to make an application to the court to restore a company is advised to obtain independent legal advice. [...] Chapter 4 - Administrative Restoration 1. What is Administrative Restoration? Under certain conditions, where a company was dissolved because it appeared to be no longer carrying on business or in operation, a former director or member may apply to the registrar to have the company restored. [...] |
How is an ETF's NAV determined? | An ETF manager will only allow certain financial organisations to create and redeem ETF shares. These are called Authorised Participants (APs). The APs have the resources to bundled up packages of shares that they already own and hold in order to match the ETFs requirements. In the case of the EDEN ETF, this portfolio is the MSCI Denmark Index. Only APs transact business directly with the ETF manager. When ETF shares need to be created, the AP will bundle up the portfolio of shares and deliver them to the ETF manager. In return, the ETF manager will deliver to the AP the corresponding number of shares in the ETF. Note that no cash changes hands here. (These ETF shares are now available for trading in the market via the AP. Note that investors do not transact business directly with the ETF manager.) Similarly, when ETF shares need to be redeemed, the AP will deliver the ETF shares to the ETF manager. In return, the ETF manager will deliver to the AP the corresponding portfolio of shares. Again, no cash changes hands here. Normally, with an established and liquid ETF, investors like you and me will transact small purchases and sales of ETF shares with other small investors in the market. In the event that an AP needs to transact business with an investor, they will do so by either buying or selling the ETF shares. In the event that they have insufficient ETF shares to meet demand, they will bundle up a portfolio deliver them to the ETF provider in return for ETF shares, thus enabling them to meet demand. In the event that a lot of investors are selling and the AP ends up holding an excessive amount of ETF shares, they will deliver unwanted shares to the ETF manager in exchange for a portfolio of the underlying shares. According to this scheme, large liquidations of ETF holdings should not effect the share prices of the underlying portfolio. This is because the underlying shares are not sold in the market, rather they are simply returned to the AP in exchange for the ETF shares (Recall that no cash is changing hands in this type of transaction). The corresponding trail of dividends and distributions to ETF share holders follows the same scheme. |
Prepaying a loan: Shouldn't the interest be recalculated like a shorter loan? | One way to think of the typical fixed rate mortgage, is that you can calculate the balance at the end of the month. Add a month's interest (rate times balance, then divide by 12) then subtract your payment. The principal is now a bit less, and there's a snowball effect that continues to drop the principal more each month. Even though some might object to my use of the word "compounding," a prepayment has that effect. e.g. you have a 5% mortgage, and pay $100 extra principal. If you did nothing else, 5% compounded over 28 years is about 4X. So, if you did this early on, it would reduce the last payment by about $400. Obviously, there are calculators and spreadsheets that can give the exact numbers. I don't know the rules for car loans, but one would actually expect them to work similarly, and no, you are not crazy to expect that. Just the opposite. |
Who performs the blocking on a Visa card? | There are, in fact, two balances kept for your account by most banks that have to comply with common convenience banking laws. The first is your actual balance; it is simply the sum total of all deposits and withdrawals that have cleared the account; that is, both your bank and the bank from which the deposit came or to which the payment will go have exchanged necessary proof of authorization from the payor, and have confirmed with each other that the money has actually been debited from the account of the payor, transferred between the banks and credited to the account of the payee. The second balance is the "available balance". This is the actual balance, plus any amount that the bank is "floating" you while a deposit clears, minus any amount that the bank has received notice of that you may have just authorized, but for which either full proof of authorization or the definite amount (or both) have not been confirmed. This is what's happening here. Your bank received notice that you intended to pay the train company $X. They put an "authorization hold" on that $X, deducting it from your available balance but not your actual balance. The bank then, for whatever reason, declined to process the actual transaction (insufficient funds, suspicion of theft/fraud), but kept the hold in place in case the transaction was re-attempted. Holds for debit purchases usually expire between 1 and 5 days after being placed if the hold is not subsequently "settled" by the merchant providing definite proof of amount and authorization before that time. The expiration time mainly depends on the policy of the bank holding your account. Holds can remain in place as long as thirty days for certain accounts or types of payment, again depending on bank policy. In certain circumstances, the bank can remove a hold on request. But it is the bank, and not the merchant, that you must contact to remove a hold or even inquire about one. |
How does Yahoo finance adjust stock data for splits and dividends? | Should be noted that pacoverflow's answer is wrong. Yahoo back-adjusts all the previous (not current or future) values based on a cumulative adjustment factor. So if there's a dividend ex-date on December 19, Yahoo adjusts all the PREVIOUS (December 18 and prior) prices with a factor which is: 1 - dividend / Dec18Close |
Possible to purchase multiple securities on 1 transaction? | No you can't, as you would have to have a different order for each security. Usually the bigger the order the more the brokerage you would also pay. |
Using property to achieve financial independence | I wrote this in another thread but is also applicable here. In general people make some key mistakes with property: Not factoring in depreciation properly. Houses are perpetually falling down, and if you are renting them perpetually being trashed by the tenants as well - particularly in bad areas. Accurate depreciation costs can often run in the 5-20% range per year depending on the property/area. Add insurance to this as well or be prepared to lose the whole thing in a disaster. Related to 1), they take the index price of house price rises as something they can achieve, when in reality a lot of the house price 'rise' is just everyone having to spend a lot of money keeping them standing up. No investor can actually track a house price graph due to 1) so be careful to make reasonable assumptions about actual achievable future growth (in your example, they could well be lagging inflation/barely growing if you are not pricing in upkeep and depreciation properly). Failure to price in the huge transaction costs (often 5%+ per sale) and capital gains/other taxes (depends on the exact tax structure where you are). These add up very fast if you are buying and selling at all frequently. Costs in either time or fees to real estate rental agents. Having to fill, check, evict, fix and maintain rental properties is a lot more work than most people realise, and you either have to pay this in your own time or someone else’s. Again, has to be factored in. Liquidity issues. Selling houses in down markets is very, very hard. They are not like stocks where they can be moved quickly. Houses can often sit on the market for years before sale if you are not prepared to take low prices. As the bank owns your house if you fail to pay the mortgage (rents collapse, loss of job etc) they can force you to fire sale it leaving you in a whole world of pain depending on the exact legal system (negative equity etc). These factors are generally correlated if you work in the same cities you are buying in so quite a lot of potential long tail risk if the regional economy collapses. Finally, if you’re young they can tie you to areas where your earnings potential is limited. Renting can be immensely beneficial early on in a career as it gives you huge freedom to up sticks and leave fast when new opportunities arise. Locking yourself into 20 yr+ contracts/landlord activities when young can be hugely inhibiting to your earnings potential. Without more details on the exact legal framework, area, house type etc it’s hard to give more specific advise, but in general you need a very large margin of safety with property due to all of the above, so if the numbers you’re running are coming out close (and they are here), it’s probably not worth it, and you’re better of sticking with more hands off investments like stocks and bonds. |
Paid credit card bill, but money didn't leave my checking account [duplicate] | This is normal for credit cards. As long as you make the credit card company's cutoff time, they will make the funds available on your credit card rather than make you wait for them to actually get the funds from your bank. The amount of time this takes actually can vary significantly from bank to bank. You do want to make sure funds are available in your bank account for them to withdraw when they do take them though. If not, the payment would get returned and can set red flags on your credit card account that take a while to drop off. |
Is Stock Trading legal for a student on F-1 Visa in USA? [duplicate] | As an F1 student, I have been investing (and occasionally buying and selling within few weeks) for several years, and I have never had problems (of course I report to IRS gains/losses every year at tax time). On the other hand, the officer in charge of foreign students at my school advised me to not run ads on a website and make a profit. So, it seems to me that investing is perfectly legit for a F1 student, as it's not considered a business activity. That's obviously my personal understanding, you may want to speak with an immigration attorney to be on the safe side. |
Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car? | If you are going to finance a used car, it is frequently best to arrange financing before you even pick out the car. The easiest way I recommend is to talk to a local credit union or two. They'll be able to tell you your interest rate and terms without having to talk to the dealer at all. Most likely, they'll be significantly better than the dealer at getting a good interest rate. As far "what is a good rate?", check out bankrate for average loan rates: http://www.bankrate.com/auto.aspx Today's numbers look like 2.87% is the average for a 48-month used car loan. That means if the bank comes back with something ridiculous like 9% or 10% you know they are way overcharging you. I know someone who got a first-time-buyer rate from Ford and ended up with a 19.99% rate. I could literally buy the car on my credit card and end up in a better spot. Honestly though, if you are 18 and have $5500 to put towards a car, I'd buy a $4500 car and save $1000 for repairs and maintenance. After you have the car, put $250 every month for a "car payment" into a savings account for your next car. |
Is this Employee Stock Purchase Plan worth it when adding my student loan into the equation? | In many ESPP programs (i.e. every one I've had the opportunity to be a part of in my career), your purchase is at a discount from the lower of the stock prices at the start and end of the period. So a before-tax 5% return is the minimum you should expect; if the price of the stock appreciates between July 1 and December 31, you benefit from that gain as well. More concretely: Stock closes at $10/share on July 1, and $11/share on December 31. The plan buys for you at $9.50/share. If you sell immediately, you clear $1.50/share in profit, or a nearly 16% pre-tax gain. If the price declines instead of increases, though, you still see that 5% guaranteed profit. Combine that with the fact that you're contributing every paycheck, not all at once at the start, and your implied annual rate of return starts to look pretty good. So if it was me, I'd pay the minimum on the student loan and put the excess into the ESPP. |
Asset protection: When should an individual seriously consider shielding their assets? | If your meaning of "asset protection" is buying gold and canned food in the name of a Nevada LLC because some radio guy said so, bad idea. For a person, if you have assets, buy appropriate liability limits with your homeowner/renter insurance policy or purchase an "umbrella" liability policy. This type of insurance is cheap. If you don't have assets, it may not be worth the cost of insuring yourself beyond the default limits on your renter's or homeowner's policy. If you have a business, you need to talk to your insurance agent about what coverage is appropriate for the business as a whole vs. you personally. You also need to talk to your attorney about how to conduct yourself so that your business interests are separated from your personal interests. |
What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time? | Time Tracker I'm a software engineer and have been using this tool. It is free and has a good user interface. I believe it can very well be used by professional of other areas too. It does support the features that you're looking for regarding project and task tracking. |
How Warren Buffett made his money | There is actually a recent paper that attempted to decompose Buffett's outperformance. I've quoted the abstract below: "Berkshire Hathaway has realized a Sharpe ratio of 0.76, higher than any other stock or mutual fund with a history of more than 30 years, and Berkshire has a significant alpha to traditional risk factors. However, we find that the alpha becomes insignificant when controlling for exposures to Betting-Against-Beta and Quality-Minus-Junk factors. Further, we estimate that Buffett’s leverage is about 1.6-to-1 on average. Buffett’s returns appear to be neither luck nor magic, but, rather, reward for the use of leverage combined with a focus on cheap, safe, quality stocks. Decomposing Berkshires’ portfolio into ownership in publicly traded stocks versus wholly-owned private companies, we find that the former performs the best, suggesting that Buffett’s returns are more due to stock selection than to his effect on management. These results have broad implications for market efficiency and the implementability of academic factors." |
Incorporating real-world parameters into simulated(paper) trading | You said the decision will be made by EOD. If you've made the decision prior to the market close, I'd execute on the closing price. If you are trading stocks with any decent volume, I'd not worry about the liquidity. If your strategy's profits are so small that your gains are significantly impacted by say, the bid/ask spread (a penny or less for liquid stocks) I'd rethink the approach. You'll find the difference between the market open and prior night close is far greater than the normal bid/ask. |
Short or Long Term Capital Gains for Multiple Investments | Tell your broker. You can usually opt to have certain positions be FIFO and others LIFO. Definitely possible with Interactive Brokers. |
250k USD in savings. What's next? | You're off to a great start. Here are the steps I would take: 1.) Pay off any high-interest debt. 2.) Keep six to twelve months in a highly liquid emergency fund. If the banks aren't safe, also consider having one or two months of cash or cash-equivalents on the premises. 3.) Rent a larger apartment, if possible, until you've saved more. The cost of the land and construction will consume a very large portion of your net worth. Given the historical political instability in that region, mentioned by the previous comments, I would hesitate to put such a large percentage of your wealth in to real estate. 4.) Get a brokerage account that's insured and well known. If you're willing to take the five percent hit to move assets offshore, then consider Vanguard. I'm not sure if they'll give you an account but they're generally acknowledged as an amazing broker in the US with low fees and amazing funds. Five percent (12,500) is worth it in my opinion. As you accumulate more wealth, you can stop moving cash overseas and keep a larger mix domestically. 5.) Invest in your business and yourself even more. As far as finding new investment opportunities, I would go through the list of all the typical major asset classes and consider the pros and cons: fixed-income, stocks, currencies, real estate / REITs, own a small business, commodities etc., |
Bank will not accept loose change. Is this legal? | They cannot refuse to accept coins and demand some other payment after providing a good or service. Legal tender is legal tender for all debts. But until they provide the good or service, they don't have to accept it. In this case, you want the service of depositing money. But by its nature, they have to accept the payment first. In that situation, they can refuse it. There is no law that banks have to accept your deposits. If they don't want you as a customer, that's their problem. Consider switching banks. Historically this was easier and some banks may still do things the old way. Call your local banks and ask. Perhaps you'll find someone happy to do business with you, on your terms. As already said, some coin rolling machines will pay you with gift certificates. If you plan to buy a sufficient amount from the place that accepts the gift certificate, this can get that place to play the fee. That may help you, although it is obviously a limited solution. The goal is to make it so that you only make purchases that you would have anyway. The seller obviously has a different goal. It's possible to buy coin sorters. Heck, you could buy one with a gift certificate from a public machine. Cheap ones require extra work to get the coins rolled and may jam a lot. More expensive ones do more of the work for you. Note that a given sorter that works better may be cheaper than another that doesn't work as well. Cheap is more of a qualitative judgment than a financial measure in this case. If you carry a small amount of change with you, pretty much everywhere accepts small amounts of change for purchases. So if you have been always paying with dollars and dumping the change in a jar, instead always give the correct change (coins). They may still give you dollars in change, but at least you won't get new coins. And you'll use some of your existing coins. Of course, this doesn't scale well. For small purchases, say $1.50, you can often pay the whole thing in change without argument. Or if something is $18.50, you might give them $10, $5, two $1 bills, and the rest in change. If you are buying something and can see that they have little change in one of the coin buckets, offer to swap some change for bills. Sometimes places find that easier than breaking a roll. With vending machines, use change instead of dollar bills. Especially use exact change so as not to convert bills to change. They usually don't take pennies, but they're great with nickels and above. This won't allow you to use change as a way to force yourself to save. But it will keep your change down to a manageable level going forward. And you might be able to use up your existing store. I'm assuming that this isn't a fifty year coin collection that you are just now starting to process. But if you have six months of change, you should be able to use it up in a year or so. I tend to do this. So I rarely have more than a couple dollars in change. No one ever tells me that they don't take change, because I don't give anyone a lot. Maybe $.99 here but more likely $.43 there. Sometimes I give them, e.g., $.07 so as to get $.25 in change rather than $.18. It's a little more work at every transaction, but it saves the big clump of work of rolling the coins. And you don't have to buy wrappers. |
Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage? | I'd talk to a solicitor and see if you can structure the purchase in a way that breaks the property into three pieces. One would be the freehold of the whole building, one would be a long lease on the downstairs part (on which you would get a residential mortgage) and one would be a long lease on the upstairs flat (on which you would get a buy-to-let mortgage). Since there's essentially no price premium for freehold as opposed to long lease, you should be able to raise enough money from the two mortgages to fund the purchase. |
Is ScholarShare a legitimate entity for a 529 plan in California? | To mhoran's point, yes, the company, TIAA-CREF is valid. I'd focus on the expenses - Their S&P fund (Index US Large Cap Equity Portfolio) shows a .11% total fee. You might choose this one, or others, but this number looks great to me. We are in an investment world where fees are still often over 1%, and we are conditioned to think anything less is a good fee. For me, the goal is less than .25% in your retirement fund, college savings, etc. |
What are the marks of poor investment advice? | (1) I think the phrase "Variable Annuity" is a glowing red flag. A corollary to that is that any strategy that uses insurance for a purpose (e.g. tax avoidance) other than protecting against loss rates at least a yellow flag. (2) The other really obvious indicator is a return that is completely out of whack with the level of risk they are saying the investment has. For example, if someone promises a 10% annual return that is "Completely Safe" or "Very low risk", Run. (3) If it is advertised on tv/radio, or all your friends are talking about it at parties. Stay away. Example: Investing in Gold Coins or the hot Tech IPO. (4) The whole sales pitch relies on past returns as proof that the investment will do well without any real discussion of other reasons it will continue to to well. Beware the gambler's fallacy. (5) Finally, be very wary of anyone who has some sort of great investment plan that they will teach you if you just pay $X or go to their seminar. Fee based advice is fine, but people selling a get rich quick vehicle typically know the real way to get rich is to get suckers to pay for their seminars. |
Why index funds have different prices? | Funds which track the same index may have different nominal prices. From an investors point of view, this is not important. What is important is that when the underlying index moves by a given percentage, the price of the tracking funds also move by an equal percentage. In other words, if the S&P500 rises by 5%, then the price of those funds tracking the S&P500 will also rise by 5%. Therefore, investing a given amount in any of the tracking funds will produce the same profit or loss, regardless of the nominal prices at which the individual funds are trading. To see this, use the "compare" function available on the popular online charting services. For example, in Google finance call up a chart of the S&P500 index, then use the compare textbox to enter the codes for the various ETFs tracking the S&P500. You will see that they all track the S&P500 equally so that your relative returns will be equal from each of the tracking funds. Any small difference in total returns will be attributable to management fees and expenses, which is why low fees are so important in passive investing. |
I'm in the U.S. What are vehicles to invest in international stocks? | You can look into specific market targeted mutual funds or ETF's. For Norway, for example, look at NORW. If you want to purchase specific stocks, then you'd better be ready to trade on local stock exchanges in local currency. ETrade allows trading on some of the international stock exchanges (in Asia they have Hong Kong and Japan, in Europe they have the UK, Germany and France, and in the Americas they have the US and Canada). Some of the companies you're interested in might be trading there. |
A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea? | I say, before investing your real capital into the Stock Market, play around on the virtual stock exchange game. It let's you invest with virtual capital and you can gain experience with the stock market. I wouldn't start investing in stock until I'm sure I can cover losses though. If you do intend to invest stocks so early in your career, then you should learn how to read SEC filings (not necessary, but helpful in understanding how investors think) such as 8-K/10-K/10-Q documents so you can predict profitability and growth of companies you invest in. Once you become a veteran of the stock market game, you probably won't need to read the SEC filings into too much detail - especially if you have a diverse portfolio. Good Luck. The one takeaway from this message would probably be: Stop! and play around on virtual stocks before immersing yourself in the real thing. |
Gigantic point amount on rewards card - what are potential consequences? | If you want to maximize your expected benefits, at minimal risk of financial repercussions or sleepless nights, I would suggest the following. Send an email explaining the situation, and announce that you plan to use the points if they do not advise otherwise. Here is an example message: Dear sir/madam, I recently contacted your helpdesk to mention that I believe my points balance is higher than it should be, and I was told that I could consider the extra points a gift. I assume that settles it, but in case I am mistaken please contact me within 4 weeks. My customer number is xxxx. Kind regards, Note that it is no problem if they don't reply, but you may want to push for a (possibly automated) confirmation of receiving your message. I would not be surprised if they still reduce your balance sometime in the future, but you should be reasonably covered if they try to reclaim any points that you already spent. |
First 401K portfolio with high expense ratios - which funds to pick? (24yo) | Yours two funds are redundant. Both are designed to have a mix of bonds and stocks and allow you to put all your money in them. Pick the one that has the lowest fees and stick with that (I didn't look at the funds you didn't select...they didn't look great either). Although all your funds have high fees, some are higher than others, so don't ignore fees. When you have decided on your portfolio weights, prioritize your money thus: Contribute enough to your 401(k) to get the full match from your employer Put everything else toward paying off that credit card until you have 0 balance. It's ok to use the card, but let it be little enough that you pay your statement balance off each month so you pay no interest. Then set aside some savings and invest any retirement money into a Roth IRA. At your income level your taxes are low so Roth is better than traditional IRA or 401(k). If you max out your Roth, put any other retirement savings in your 401(k). |
What does PMI mean? | Private Mortgage Insurance. It's money that you pay to an insurance company to make the lender whole in the event that you go into default. It's a real waste of money for you. If you are trying to finance more than 80% of the value of a home, a standard mortage is likely to require that you get PMI. Nowadays there are other options which involve paying substantially more interest. |
Why is a stock that pays a dividend preferrable to one that doesn't? | The ultimate reason to own stock is to receive cash or cash equivalents from the underlying security. You can argue that you make money when stock is valued higher by the market, but the valuation should (though clearly not necessarily is) be based on the expected payout of the underlying security. There are only three ways money can be returned to the shareholder: As you can see, if you don't ask for dividends, you are basically asking for one of the top two too occur - which happens in the future at the end of the company's life as an independent entity. If you think about the time value of money, money in the hand now as dividends can be worth more than the ultimate appreciation of liquidation or acquisition value. Add in uncertainty as a factor for ultimate value, and my feeling is that dividends are underpaid in today's markets. |
Is there a general guideline for what percentage of a portfolio should be in gold? | The "conventional wisdom" is that you should have about 5% of your portfolio in gold. But that's an AVERAGE. Meaning that you might want to have 10% at some times (like now) and 0% in the 1980s. Right now, the price of gold has been rising, because of fears of "easing" Fed monetary policy (for the past decade), culminating in recent "quantitative easing." In the 1980s, you should have had 0% in gold given the fall of gold in 1981 because of Paul Volcker's monetary tightening policies, and other reasons. Why did gold prices drop in 1981? And a word of caution: If you don't understand the impact of "quantitative easing" or "Paul Volcker" on gold prices, you probably shouldn't be buying it. |
Avoiding Capital Gains Long Term | Yes, you could avoid capital gains tax altogether, however, capital gains are used in determining your tax bracket even though they are not taxed at that rate. This would only work in situations where your total capital gains and ordinary income kept you in the 0% longterm capital gains bracket. You can't realize a million dollars in capital gains and have no tax burden due to lack of ordinary income. You can potentially save some money by realizing capital gains strategically. Giving up income in an attempt to save on taxes rarely makes sense. |
Tax implications of holding EWU (or other such UK ETFs) as a US citizen? | You will not be able to continue filing with TurboTax if you invest in foreign funds. Form 8261 which is required to report PFIC investments is not included. Read the form instructions carefully - if you don't feel shocked and scared, you didn't understand what it says. The bottom line is that the American Congress doesn't want you do what you want to do and will punish you dearly. |
Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS | Until the CARD act, credit card rules required that merchants had no minimum purchase requirement to use a card. New rules permit a minimum but it must be clearly posted. Update - Stores can now refuse small credit card charges is an excellent article which clarifies the rules. It appears that these rules apply to credit, not debit cards. So to be clear - the minimum do not apply to the OP as he referenced using a debit card. "Superiority"? Hm. I'd be a bit embarrassed to charge such small amounts. Although when cash in my wallet is very low, I may have little choice. Note, and disclaimer, I am 48, 30 years ago when I started using cards, there were no POS machines. Credit card transactions had a big device that got a card imprint and the merchant looked up to see if your card was stolen in a big book they got weekly/monthly. Times have changed, and debit cards may be faster, especially if with cash you give the cashier $5.37 for a $2.37 transaction, but the guy entered $5 already. This often takes a manager to clear up. |
Stock trading models that use fundamental analysis, e.g. PEG ratios? | Maria, there are a few questions I think you must consider when considering this problem. Do fundamental or technical strategies provide meaningful information? Are the signals they produce actionable? In my experience, and many quantitative traders will probably say similar things, technical analysis is unlikely to provide anything meaningful. Of course you may find phenomena when looking back on data and a particular indicator, but this is often after the fact. One cannot action-ably trade these observations. On the other hand, it does seem that fundamentals can play a crucial role in the overall (typically long run) dynamics of stock movement. Here are two examples, Technical: suppose we follow stock X and buy every time the price crosses above the 30 day moving average. There is one obvious issue with this strategy - why does this signal have significance? If the method is designed arbitrarily then the answer is that it does not have significance. Moreover, much of the research supports that stocks move close to a geometric brownian motion with jumps. This supports the implication that the system is meaningless - if the probability of up or down is always close to 50/50 then why would an average based on the price be predictive? Fundamental: Suppose we buy stocks with the best P/E ratios (defined by some cutoff). This makes sense from a logical perspective and may have some long run merit. However, there is always a chance that an internal blowup or some macro event creates a large loss. A blended approach: for sake of balance perhaps we consider fundamentals as a good long-term indication of growth (what quants might call drift). We then restrict ourselves to equities in a particular index - say the S&P500. We compare the growth of these stocks vs. their P/E ratios and possibly do some regression. A natural strategy would be to sell those which have exceeded the expected return given the P/E ratio and buy those which have underperformed. Since all equities we are considering are in the same index, they are most likely somewhat correlated (especially when traded in baskets). If we sell 10 equities that are deemed "too high" and buy 10 which are "too low" we will be taking a neutral position and betting on convergence of the spread to the market average growth. We have this constructed a hedged position using a fundamental metric (and some helpful statistics). This method can be categorized as a type of index arbitrage and is done (roughly) in a similar fashion. If you dig through some data (yahoo finance is great) over the past 5 years on just the S&P500 I'm sure you'll find plenty of signals (and perhaps profitable if you calibrate with specific numbers). Sorry for the long and rambling style but I wanted to hit a few key points and show a clever methods of using fundamentals. |
Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership? | No you can't buy direct from Toyota. Largely because of many states' laws (assuming you're in the US) requiring a dealer relationship for car purchasing, read about Tesla's struggles with direct to customer sales. Secondly because Toyota corporate simply isn't set up to sell a car directly to a customer. I know there are services that help people through the buying process. If you're finding Toyota dealerships to be this difficult you may consider just buying something from someone who wants to sell to you. If the buying process is this difficult imagine the service relationship. Edit: Additionally, it's important to remember when financing a car that there are essentially two transactions taking place. First you're negotiating the price of the car. Then you negotiate the price of the money (the interest rate). The money does not need to come from the dealership, you can secure your financing rate from a separate bank or local credit union. You should definitely pursue alternate financing if they're quoting you 7.99% with a FICO of 710. But don't tell the dealership you've already got your financing lined up until you're happy with the price of the car. |
Better to get loan from finance company or bank considering the drop of credit score? | If your primary concern is a drop in your credit score, go to a mortgage broker instead of multiple banks and finance companies. Each time you ask a bank or financial institution for a loan, they do a hard pull on your credit rating which costs you a couple of points. Visit a dozen lenders and you'll lose 24 points. You will also be signalling to lenders that you're shopping for money. If you visit a mortgage broker he does a single hard pull on your credit score and offers your loan query to a dozen or more lenders, some of which you may not have even heard of. This costs you 2 points instead of 24. If you are only going to visit one financial institution or another specific one, the drop in credit score is the same couple of points. The above answer only applies if you make loan inquiries at multiple institutions. |
Should I buy a home or rent in my situation? | If I were you, I would rent. Wait to buy a home. Here is why: When you say that renting is equal in cost to a 30-year mortgage, you are failing to consider several aspects. See this recent answer for a list of things that need to be considered when comparing buying and renting. You have no down payment. Between the two of you, you have $14,000, but this money is needed for both your emergency fund and your fiancée's schooling. In your words: "we can’t reeaallllly afford a home." A home is a big financial commitment. If you buy a home before you are financially ready, it will be continuous trouble. If you need a cosigner, you aren't ready to buy a home. I would absolutely advise whoever you are thinking about cosigning for you not to do so. It puts them legally on the hook for a house that you can't yet afford. You aren't married yet. You should never buy something as big as a home with someone you aren't married to; there are just too many things that can go wrong. (See comments for more explanation.) Wait until you are married before you buy. Your income is low right now. And that is okay for now; you've been able to avoid the credit card debt that so many people fall into. However, you do have student loans to pay, and taking on a huge new debt right now would be potentially disastrous for you. Your family income will eventually increase when your fiancée gets her degree and gets a job, and at that time, you will be in a much better situation to consider buying a house. You need to move "ASAP." Buying a house when you are in a hurry is a generally a bad idea. When you look for a home, you need to take some time looking so you aren't rushed into a bad deal that you will regret. Even if you decide you want to buy, you should first find a place to rent; then you can take your time finding the right house. To answer your question about escrow: When you own a house, two of the required expenses that you will have besides the mortgage payment are property taxes and homeowner's insurance. These are large payments that are only due once a year. The bank holding the mortgage wants to make sure that they get paid. So to help you budget for these expenses and to ensure that these expenses are paid, the bank will add these to your monthly mortgage payment, and set them aside in a savings account (called an escrow account). Then when these bills come due once a year, they are paid for out of the escrow account. |
Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT | In Britain it's standard practice to use an electronic bank transfer, otherwise known as a "standing order" for the monthly rent payment. Many letting agents insist on it here in Britain. It's rare to hear of fraud. It is possible to setup a Direct Debit with the account numbers, as happened in a famous case where Jeremy Clarkson claimed losing account numbers wasn't a problem. If a direct debit is taken from your account, then you are protected by the the Direct Debit guarantee which means that you get a full and immediate refund if there is any fraud or unexpected payments spotted. Some landlords, particularly of bedsits accept plain old cash, however that's not recommended as there is no trace of it being paid, which could lead to legal disputes. |
How long to wait before refinancing a high interest car loan, after improving credit history? | Between half a year and a year should be enough to improve your interest rates drastically on car loan refinance. Make sure that your new credit card has already been reported to the agencies, and that the credit/debt ratio is lower than 30% on your revolving (credit card) accounts. That also means that you shouldn't carry too much balance, even if the APR is 0%. |
Strategies for saving and investing in multiple foreign currencies | The bad news is that foreign exchange is ultimately somewhat unpredictable, and analyzing the risk of these things is not particularly straightforward. I'm afraid I don't know what tools exist to analyze these, aside from suggesting you look at textbooks for financial analysis classes. The good news is that there are other people who deal with multiple currencies (international businesses, for instance) who worry about the same thing. As such, you can take a look at foreign exchange rate futures and related instruments to estimate what the market as a whole currently expects the values to do. The prices of these futures could be a useful starting point. |
What actions should I be taking to establish good credit scores for my children? | You really can't. Credit rating is determined by financial history, and until your kids are old enough to legally sign a contract they have essentially no financial history. Interesting out-of-the-box thought, but not workable. |
Advice on low-risk long-term strategy for extra cash? | Congratulations on being in such good financial state. You have a few investment choices. If you want very low risk, you are talking bonds or CDs. With the prime rate so low, nobody is paying anything useful for very low risk investments. However, my opinion is that given your finances, you should consider taking on a little more risk. A good step is a index fund, which is designed to mirror the performance of a stock index such as the S&P 500. That may be volatile in the short-term, but is likely to be a good investment in the longer term. I am not a fan of non-index mutual funds; in general the management charge makes them a less attractive investment. The next step up is investing in individual stocks, which can provide very big gains or very big losses. The Motley fool site (www.fool.com) has a lot of information about investing overall. |
Why would people sell a stock below the current price? | Why would people sell below the current price, and not within the range of the bid/ask? There are many scenarios where this is deliberate but all of them boil down to the fact that the top level's bid doesn't support the quantity you're trying to sell (or is otherwise bogus[1]). One scenario as an example: You're day-trading both sides but at the end of the day you accumulated a rather substantial long position in a stock. You don't want to (or aren't allowed to[2]) be exposed overnight, however. What do you do? You place an order that is highly likely to go through altogether. There's several ways to achieve that but a very simple one is to look at the minimum bid level for which the bid side is willing to take all of your shares, then place a limit order for the total quantity at that price. If your position doesn't fit into the top level bid that price will well be lower than the "current" bid. Footnotes: [1] Keyword: quote stuffing [2] Keyword: overnight margin (aka positional margin, as opposed to intraday margin), this is highly broker dependent, exchanges don't usually distinguish between intraday and overnight margins, instead they use the collective term maintenance margin |
Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? | Some answers already informed about denomination. There are currencies, doing the cut off of two digits, for example the french franc. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_franc#New_franc When you look to old french movies, they often talked about 'old franc' when talking about values (at least in French original, I don't know what happens in English translations). |
Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? | If they have borrowed money without paying it back, what makes you think you could get interest paid? The problem that you face first is to make clear to them that a loan is a loan. As long as they can get free money off you, they will keep borrowing. |
Should I replace bonds in a passive investment strategy | Bonds still definitely have a place in many passive portfolios. While it is true that interest rates have been unusually low, yields on reasonable passive bond exposures are still around 2-4%. This is significantly better than both recent past inflation and expected inflation both of which are near zero. This is reasonable if not great return, but Bonds continue to have other nice properties like relatively low risk and diversification of stock portfolios (the "offset[ing] losses" you mention in the OP). So to say that bonds are "no longer a good idea" is certainly not correct. One could say bonds may no longer be a good idea for some people that have a particularly high risk tolerance and very high return requirements. However, to some extent, that has always been true. It is worth remembering also that there is some compelling evidence that global growth is starting to broadly slow down and many people believe that future stock returns and, in general, returns on all investments will be lower. This is much much harder to estimate than bond returns though. Depending on who you believe, bond returns may actually look relatively better than the have in the past. Edit in response to comment: Corporate bond correlation with stocks is positive but generally not very strong (except for high-yield junk bonds) so while they don't offset stock volatility (negative correlation) they do help diversify a stock portfolio. Government bonds have essentially zero correlation so they don't really offset volatility as much as just not add any. Negative correlation assets are generally called insurance and you tend to have to pay for them. So there is no free lunch here. Assets that reduce risk cost money, assets that add little risk give less return and assets that are more risky tend to give more return in the long run but you can feel the pain. The mix that is right for you depends on a lot of things, but for many people that mix involves some corporate and government bonds. |
Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it? | My answer is that when confronted with the obvious, the most common human reaction is to seek reasons for it, because things have to be right. They have to have a reason. We don't like it when things suck. So when finding out that you are being ripped off every day of your life, your reaction is "There must be a logical reason that perfectly explain why this is. After all, the world is fair, governments are working in our best interest and if they do it this way, they must have a very good reason for it." Sorry, but that not the case. You have the facts. You are just not looking at them. Economics, as a subject, is the proper management of resources and production. Now, forget the fancy theories, the elaborate nonsense about stocks and bonds and currencies and pay attention to the actual situation. On our planet, most people earn $2,000 per year. Clean water is not available for a very sizable percent of the world's population. Admittedly, 90% of the world's wealth is concentrated in the hands of the most wealthy 10%. A Chinese engineer earns a fraction of what a similarly qualified engineer earns in the States. Most people, even in rich countries, have a negative net value. They have mortgages that run for a third of their lifetimes, credit card debts, loans... do the balance. Most people are broke. Does this strike you as the logical result of a fair and balanced economic system? Does this look like a random happenstance? The dominant theory is "It just happened, it's nobody's fault and nobody designed it that way and to think otherwise is very bad because it makes you a conspiracy theorist, and conspiracy theorists are nuts. You are not nuts are you?" Look at the facts already in your possession. It didn't just happen. The system is rigged. When a suit typing a few numbers in a computer can make more money in 5 minutes than an average Joe can make in 100 lifetimes of honest, productive work, you don't have a fair economic system, you have a scam machine. When you look at a system as broken as the one we have, you shouldn't be asking yourself "what makes this system right?" What you should be asking yourself is more along the lines of "Why is it broken? Who benefits? Why did congress turn its monetary policy over to the Federal reserve (a group of unelected and unaccountable individuals with strong ties in the banking industry) and does not even bother to conduct audits to know how your money is actually managed? This brilliant movie, Money as debt, points to a number of outrageous bugs in our economic system. Now, you can dream up reasons why the system should be the way it is and why it is an acceptable system. Or you can look at the fact and realize that there is NO JUSTIFICATION for an economic system that perform as badly as it does. Back to basics. Money is supposed to represent production. It's in every basic textbook on the subject of economics. So, what should money creation be based on? Debt? No. Gold? No. Randomly printed by the government when they feel like it? No (although this could actually be better than the 2 previous suggestions) Money is supposed to represent production. Index money on production and you have a sound system. Why isn't it done that way? Why do you think that is? |
Short term investing vs Leaving money alone? | Should I invest the money I don't need immediately and only withdraw it next year when I need it for living expenses or should I simply leave it in my current account? This might come as a bit of a surprise, but your money is already invested. We talk of investment vehicles. An investment vehicle is basically a place where you can put money and have it either earn a return, or be able to get it back later, or both. (The neither case is generally called "spending".) There are also investment classes which are things like cash, stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc.: different things that you can buy within an investment vehicle. You currently have the money in a bank account. Bank accounts currently earn very low interest rates, but they are also very liquid and very secure (in the sense of being certain that you will get the principal back). Now, when you talk about "investing the money", you are probably thinking of moving it from where it is currently sitting earning next to no return, to somewhere it can earn a somewhat higher return. And that's fine, but you should keep in mind that you aren't really investing it in that case, only moving it. The key to deciding about an asset allocation (how much of your money to put into what investment classes) is your investment horizon. The investment horizon is simply for how long you plan on letting the money remain where you put it. For money that you do not expect to touch for more than five years, common advice is to put it in the stock market. This is simply because in the long term, historically, the stock market has outperformed most other investment classes when looking at return versus risk (volatility). However, money that you expect to need sooner than that is often recommended against putting it in the stock market. The reason for this is that the stock market is volatile -- the value of your investment can fluctuate, and there's always the risk that it will be down when you need the money. If you don't need the money within several years, you can ride that out; but if you need the money within the next year, you might not have time to ride out the dip in the stock market! So, for money that you are going to need soon, you should be looking for less volatile investment classes. Bonds are generally less volatile than stocks, with government bonds generally being less volatile than corporate bonds. Bank accounts are even less volatile, coming in at practically zero volatility, but also have much lower expected rates of return. For the money that you need within a year, I would recommend against any volatile investment class. In other words, you might take whichever part you don't need within a year and put in bonds (except for what you don't foresee needing within the next half decade or more, which you can put in stocks), then put the remainder in a simple high-yield deposit-insured savings account. It won't earn much, but you will be basically guaranteed that the money will still be there when you want it in a year. For the money you put into bonds and stocks, find low-cost index mutual funds or exchange-traded funds to do so. You cannot predict the future rate of return of any investment, but you can predict the cost of the investment with a high degree of accuracy. Hence, for any given investment class, strive to minimize cost, as doing so is likely to lead to better return on investment over time. It's extremely rare to find higher-cost alternatives that are actually worth it in the long term. |
What typically happens to unvested stock during an acquisition? | This is a great question. I've participated in a deal like that as an employee, and I also know of friends and family who have been involved during a buyout. In short: The updated part of your question is correct: There is no single typical treatment. What happens to unvested restricted stock units (RSUs), unvested employee stock options, etc. varies from case to case. Furthermore, what exactly will happen in your case ought to have been described in the grant documentation which you (hopefully) received when you were issued restricted stock in the first place. Anyway, here are the two cases I've seen happen before: Immediate vesting of all units. Immediate vesting is often the case with RSUs or options that are granted to executives or key employees. The grant documentation usually details the cases that will have immediate vesting. One of the cases is usually a Change in/of Control (CIC or COC) provision, triggered in a buyout. Other immediate vesting cases may be when the key employee is terminated without cause, or dies. The terms vary, and are often negotiated by shrewd key employees. Conversion of the units to a new schedule. If anything is more "typical" of regular employee-level grants, I think this one would be. Generally, such RSU or option grants will be converted, at the deal price, to a new schedule with identical dates and vesting percentages, but a new number of units and dollar amount or strike price, usually so the end result would have been the same as before the deal. I'm also curious if anybody else has been through a buyout, or knows anybody who has been through a buyout, and how they were treated. |
How is the Dow divisor calculated? | Have you actually read the Wikipedia article? To calculate the DJIA, the sum of the prices of all 30 stocks is divided by a divisor, the Dow Divisor. The divisor is adjusted in case of stock splits, spinoffs or similar structural changes, to ensure that such events do not in themselves alter the numerical value of the DJIA. Early on, the initial divisor was composed of the original number of component companies; which made the DJIA at first, a simple arithmetic average. The present divisor, after many adjustments, is less than one (meaning the index is larger than the sum of the prices of the components). That is: DJIA = sum(p) / d where p are the prices of the component stocks and d is the Dow Divisor. Events such as stock splits or changes in the list of the companies composing the index alter the sum of the component prices. In these cases, in order to avoid discontinuity in the index, the Dow Divisor is updated so that the quotations right before and after the event coincide: DJIA = sum(p_old) / d_old = sum(p_new) / d_new The Dow Divisor was 0.14602128057775 on December 24, 2015.[40] Presently, every $1 change in price in a particular stock within the average, equates to a 6.848 (or 1 ÷ 0.14602128057775) point movement. Knowing the old prices, new prices (e.g. following a split), and old divisor, you can easily compute the new divisor... Edit: Also, the detailed methodology is published by SP Indices (PDF). Edit #2: For simplicity's sake, assume the DJIA is an index that contains 4 stocks, with a price of $100.00 each. One of the stocks splits 2:1, meaning the new price/share is $50.00. Plugging the numbers into the above equation, we can determine the new Dow Divisor: 400 / 4 = 350 / d => d = 3.5 |
60% Downpayment on house? | If you decide you need the extra money, you can always go refinance and get more cash out. At the end of the day, though, if you pay off your house sooner you can invest more of your income sooner; that's just a matter of discipline. |
In what cases can a business refuse to take cash? | They don't have to take cash if they reasonably told you in advance they don't take cash, because they made fair effort to prevent you from incurring a debt. They don't have to take cash if the transaction hasn't yet happened (not a debt) or if it can be easily undone at no cost to either party - such as a newspaper subscription they can just stop delivering. Both of these reasons are limited by the rules against discrimination, see below. They don't have to take cash if it's impracticable. For instance a transit bus when fares first went to $1.00, it took years to fund new fareboxes able to take paper money. You don't have to take a mortgage payment in pennies. Liquor stores don't have to take $100 bills. (it requires them to keep too much change in the till, which makes them a robbery target). Trouble arises when it appears there's an ulterior motive for the rule. Suppose a Landlord Jim requires rent to be paid with EFT. Rent-controlled Marcie tells the judge "It's a scheme to oust me, he knows I'm unbanked". Jim counters "No. I got mugged last month because criminals know when I collect cash rents." It will turn on whether Jim can show good-faith effort to work with his unbanked tenants to find other ways to pay. If Jim does a particularly bad job of this, he could find himself paying Marcie's legal bills! Even worse if the ulterior motive is discrimination. Chet the plumber hates Muslims. Alice the feed supplier hates the Amish. So they decide to take credit cards only, knowing those people's religions don't allow them. Their goose is cooked once they can't show any other reasonable reason to refuse cash. |
Does a market maker sell (buy) at a bid or ask price? | EVERYONE buys at the ask price and sells at the bid price (no matter who you are). There are a few important things you need to understand. Example: EVE bid: 16.00 EVE ask: 16.25 So if your selling EVE at "market price" you are entering an ask equal to the highest bid ($16.00). If you buy EVE at "market price" you are entering a bid equal to the lowest ask price ($16.25). Its key to understand this rule: "An order executes ONLY when both bid and ask meet. (bid = ask)." So a market maker puts in a bid when he wants to buy but the trade only executes when an ASK price meets his BID price. When you see a quote for a stock it is the price of the last trade. So it is possible to have a quote higher or lower then both the bid and the ask. |
How can IV give an indication of the markets opinion about a stock when there's no such thing as IV for a stock? | Since near-term at-the-money (ATM) options are generally the most liquid, the listed implied vol for a stock is usually pretty close to the nearest ATM volatility, but there's not a set convention that I'm aware of. Also note that for most stocks, vol skew (the difference in vol between away-from-the-money and at-the-money options) is relatively small, correct me if I'm wrong, IV is the markets assessment that the stock is about 70% likely (1 Standard Deviation) to move (in either direction) by that percent over the next year. Not exactly. It's an annualized standard deviation of the anticipated movements over the time period of the option that it's implied from. Implied vol for near-term options can be higher or lower than longer-term options, depending on if the market believes that there will be more uncertainty in the short-term. Also, it's the bounds of the expected movement in that time period. so if a stock is at $100 with an implied vol of 30% for 1-year term options, then the market thinks that the stock will be somewhere between $70 and $130 after 1 year. If you look at the implied vol for a 6-month term option, half of that vol is the range of expected movement in 6 months. |
Good yield vs. safer route (Checking vs. Savings) | In the US bank or credit union checking, savings, CD's are insured through FDIC or NCUA. The coverage is for $250,000. This limit can be increased by having multiple accounts. You, your spouse, and a Joint account with your spouse, are considered 3 different accounts, so you could have $750K coverage. IRA funds are considered a separate pot of money for insurance coverage. Here is an explanation from NCUA and FDIC. There is no safety difference between savings and checking. There are differences regarding minimum balances, maximum number of transactions per month, and fees. But they are equally safe. |
Google Finance Cash Flow Statement | I'm a big believer in pulling the quarterly and or annual statements and deriving your own analysis. The automated parsing systems at Google, Yahoo, and others are a good starting point and they'll let you generally compare various metrics of different companies or market segments. With that in mind, there are any number of reasons Google's scripts could have broken out or combined a couple of cash flow line items. If you're digging this deep in the weeds on this company you should pull the SEC filings and build out your own data. |
Should I use a credit repair agency? | Here's what my wife and I did. First, we stopped using credit cards and got rid of all other expenses that we absolutely didn't need. A few examples: cable TV, home phone, high end internet - all shut off. We changed our cell phone plan to a cheap one and stopped going out to restaurants or bars. We also got rid of the cars that had payments on them and replaced them with ones we paid cash for. Probably the most painful thing for me was selling a 2 year old 'vette and replacing it with a 5 year old random 4 door. Some people might tell you don't do this because older cars need repairs. Fact is, nearly all cars are going to need repairs. It's just a matter of whether you are also making payments on it when they need them and if you can discipline yourself enough to save up a bit to cover those. After doing all this the only payments we had to make were for the house (plus electric/gas/water) and the debt we had accumulated. I'd say that if you have the option to move back into your parent's house then do it. Yes, it will suck for a while but you'll be able to pay everything off so much faster. Just make sure to help around the house. Ignore the guys saying that this tanks your score and will make getting a house difficult. Although they are right that it will drop your score the fact is that you aren't in any position to make large purchases anyway and won't be for quite some time, so it really doesn't matter. Your number one goal is to dig yourself out of this hole, not engage in activity that will keep you in it. Next, if you are only working part time then you need to do one of two things. Either get a full time job or go find a second part time one. The preference is obviously on the first, which you should be able to do in your spare time. If, for some reason, you don't have the tech skills necessary to do this then go find any part time job you can. It took us about 3 years to finally pay everything (except the house) off - we owed a lot. During that time everything we bought was paid for in cash with the vast majority of our money going to pay off those accounts. Once the final account was paid off, I did go ahead and get a credit card. I made very minor purchases on it - mostly just gas - and paid it off a few days before it was due each month. Every 4 months they increased my limit. After around 18 months of using that one card my credit score was back in the 700+ range and with no debt other than the mortgage. *note: I echo what others have said about "Credit Repair" companies. Anything they can do, you can too. It's a matter of cutting costs, living within your means and paying the bills. If the interest rates are killing you, then try to get a consolidation loan. If you can't do that then negotiate settlements with them, just get everything in writing prior to making a payment on it if you go this route. BTW, make sure you actually can't pay them before attempting to settle. |
What to do if a state and federal refund is denied direct deposit? | It is not allowed to pay refunds to anyone other than the taxpayer. This is due to various tax return fraud schemes that were running around. Banks are required to enforce this. If the direct deposit is denied, a check will be issued. In her name, obviously. What she does with it when she gets it is her business - but I believe that tax refund checks may not be just "endorsed", the bank will likely want to see her when you deposit it to your account, even if it is endorsed. For the same reason. |
As a parent of a high school student, what should my short-term cash policy be to optimize my college costs? | There is no simple answer to your question. It depends on many things, perhaps most notably what college your daughter ends up going to and what kind of aid you hope to receive. Your daughter will probably fill out the FAFSA as part of her financial aid application. Here is one discussion of what parental assets "count" towards the Expected Family Contribution on the FAFSA. You can find many similar pages by googling. Retirement accounts and primary residence are notable categories that do not count. So, if you were looking to reduce your "apparent" assets for aid purposes, dumping money into your mortgage or retirement account is a possibility. However, you should be cautious when doing this type of gaming, because it's not always clear exactly how it will affect financial aid. For one thing, "financial aid" includes both grants and loans. Everyone wants grants, but sometimes increasing your "eligibility" may just make you (or your daughter) eligible for larger loans, which may not be so great. Also, each college has its own system for allocating financial aid. Individual schools may ask for more detailed information (such as the CSS Profile). So strategies for minimizing your apparent assets that work for one school may not work for others. Some elite schools with large endowments have generous aid policies that allow even families with sizable incomes to pay little or nothing (e.g., Stanford waives tuition for most families with incomes under $125,000). You should probably research the financial aid policies of schools your daughter is interested in. It can be helpful to talk to financial aid advisors at colleges, as well as high school counselors, not to mention general financial advisors if you really want to start getting technical about what assets to move around. Needless to say, it all begins with talking with your daughter about her thoughts on where to go. |
Is This Money Laundering? | No, this is misbehavior of sales software that tries to automatically find the price point which maximizes profit. There have been much worse examples. Ignore it. The robot will eventually see that no sales occurred and try a more reasonable price. |
How do I know when I am financially stable/ready to move out on my own? | It's hard to financially justify buying a house just for one person to live in. You end up being 'over-housed' (and paying for it). Would you rent a whole house for yourself? A condo might be an option - but TO ME the maintenance fees are hard to take (and they are notorious for increasing dramatically as the building ages). You could consider buying a house that includes 1 or 2 rental units, or sharing with a friend. You do run the risk of having bad tenants though, and you have additional maintance to deal with. Having a rental unit in my modest house has worked out very well for me (living alone), and I have been VERY fortunate with tenants. |
How can a 'saver' maintain or increase wealth in low interest rate economy? | Since the other answers have covered mutual funds/ETFs/stocks/combination, some other alternatives I like - though like everything else, they involve risk: Example of how these other "saving methods" can be quite effective: about ten years ago, I bought a 25lb bag of quinoa at $19 a bag. At the same company, quinoa is now over $132 for a 25lb bag (590%+ increase vs. the S&P 500s 73%+ increase over the same time period). Who knows what it will cost in ten years. Either way, working directly with the farmers, or planting it myself, may become even cheaper in the future, plus learning how to keep and store the seeds for the next season. |
How should we prioritize retirement savings, paying down debt, and saving for a house? | Pay the debt down. Any kind of debt equals risk. No debt equals no risk and a better chance to have that money earn you income down the road once it's invested. That and you will sleep so much better knowing you have ZERO debt. You 6 month emergency fund is probably good. Remember to keep it at 6 months living expenses (restaurants don't count as living expenses). |
Why buy stock of a company instead of the holding company who has more than 99% of the stocks | In a situation like this, I presume you'd invest in the child company if you thought that the child company would increase in value at a higher rate than the parent. You'd invest in the parent company if you thought the parent company would perform well as a whole, but you did not want to assume the risk of an individual company underneath it. Say the child company is worth 100 million, and the parent company is worth 500 million. You've invested a sum of money in the child company. The child company performs very well, and increases in value by, say, 20 million. As the parent company owns the child, we could say it also increases in value by roughly 20 million. The difference is proportional - Your investment in the child sees a 20% gain in value, whereas your investment in the parent sees a 4% gain in total value, as in this example the parent company, which owns nearly 100% of the child company, is worth 5x more and thus proportionally sees 1/5 the increase in value, due to it being worth more as a whole. Think of it similarly to a mutual fund or ETF that invests in many different stocks on the market. As the market does well, that mutual fund or ETF does well, too. As the mutual fund is made up of many individual stocks, one stock performing very well, say at a 10-20% increase in value, does not raise the value of the ETF or mutual fund by 10-20%. The etf / mutual fund will perform slightly better (Assuming all other components remain equal for this example), but only proportionally to the fraction of it that's made up of the stock that's performing well. |
Is a real estate attorney needed for builder deposit contract? | You need to let a lawyer look at it. Concerns you have include: |
Pay down the student loan, or buy the car with cash? | Here's another way to look at this that might make the decision easier: Looking at it this way you can turn this into a financial arbitrage opportunity, returning 2.5% compared to paying cash for the vehicle and carrying the student loan. Of course you need to take other factors into account as well, such as your need for liquidity and credit. I hope this helps! |
Which banks have cash-deposit machines in Germany? | In my experience Sparkasse or VR Bank have them quite often. They stick out in my mind because when you make a withdrawal you have to reach in to get your money instead of it spitting it out. I'm always afraid its going to chop my hand off. |
What is the added advantage of a broker being a member of NFA in addition to IIROC | This shows that in each market (US and Canada) the company is registered with the appropriate regulatory organization. OANDA is registered in the US with the National Futures Association which is a "self-regulatory organization for the U.S. derivatives industry". OANDA Canada is registered in Canada with IIROC which is the "Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada". The company does business in both the US and in Canada so the US arm is registered with the US regulatory organization and the Canadian arm is registered with the Canadian regulatory organization. |
Are option contracts subject to mark to market rules | If I sell a covered call, on stock I own 100%, there is no risk of a margin call. The stock goes to zero, I'm still not ask to send in more money. But, if bought on margin, margin rules apply. A naked put would require you to be able to buy the stock if put to you. As the price of the stock drops, you still need to be able to buy it at the put strike price. Mark to market is just an expression describing how your positions are considered each day. |
Advantages/disadvantages of buying stocks on dips vs buying outright? | If your stock is rising and you want to buy on a dip, the best way to do this is by looking at the chart and incorporating simple Technical Analysis techniques. Firstly, an uptrend is defined as a price chart with higher highs and higher lowers. If you get a lower high or a lower low (or both), it could be the end of the uptrend - be cautious. This can be seen on the chart below with an uptrend line drawn. If you draw a trend line you can wait for the price to approach the trend line, bounce off it and start moving up again to buy your stock on a dip. If instead the price closes below the trend line, be very cautious - this could be the end of the uptrend and the start of a downtrend - no telling how low the price will go. If this is the case you can then draw a downtrend line and wait for the price to close above the downtrend line before making your purchase. |
Does reading financial statements (quarterly or annual reports) really help investing? | Reading and analyzing financial statements is one of the most important tasks of Equity Analysts which look at a company from a fundamental perspective. However, analyzing a company and its financial statements is much more than just reading the absolute dollar figures provided in financial statements: You need to calculate financial ratios which can be compared over multiple periods and companies to be able to gauge the development of a company over time and compare it to its competitors. For instance, for an Equity Analyst, the absolute dollar figures of a company's operating profit is less important than the ratio of the operating profit to revenue, which is called the operating margin. Another very important figure is Free Cash Flow which can be set in relation to sales (= Free Cash Flow / Sales). The following working capital related metrics can be used as a health check for a company and give you early warning signs when they deviate too much: You can either calculate those metrics yourself using a spreadsheet (e.g. Excel) or use a professional solution, e.g. Bloomberg Professional, Reuters Eikon or WorldCap. |
Simple income and expense report in gnucash | The official guide can be found here, but that can be a little in depth as well. To make good use of you need at least a little knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping. Double-entry bookkeeping, in accounting, is a system of bookkeeping so named because every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry to a different account. From Wikipedia Another way to think of it is that everything is an account. You'll need to set up accounts for lots of things that aren't accounts at your bank to make the double-entry system work. For example you'll need to set up various expense accounts like "office supplies" even though you'll never have a bank account by that name. Generally an imbalanced transfer is when you have a from or to account specified, but not both. If I have imbalanced transactions I usually work them from the imbalance "account", and work each transaction to have its appropriate tying account, at which point it will no longer be listed under imbalance. |
Is there a good forum where I can discuss individual US stocks? | The motley fool is one of the best places. Other good communities are Yahoo Finance, Seeking Alpha, and Investors Place. I also recently created a chat room connected to this site to discuss stocks/funds/etc. with other money.stackexchange users. http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/263/investing |
Why might it be a bad idea to invest 100% of your 401(k) into a stock index fund? | I've read a nice rule of thumb somewhere that you should consider: You should invest (100-YOURAGE)% of your money in stock The rest should be something less volatile and more liquid, so you have some money when the stock market goes down and you need some money nevertheless. So you would start with buying about 75% stock and balance your stock percentage over time by buing more secure assets to keep the stock percentage at the desired level. At some time you might need to sell stock to rebalance and invest in more secure assets. |
Need a loan to buy property in India. What are my options? | Getting the line of credit would likely be a bit easier than the loan but realistically the best option is getting a mortgage through an Indian bank. With a long term mortgage your monthly payments would be a small portion of your income (maybe as low as $500) so currency fluctuations are likely to be minor blips that you can avoid by sending a few thousand to hold as a cushion for when exchange is unfavorable. Edit: Please be advised that mortgages work differently throughout the world. While 10% down may be standard in the US, in India 40-50% down seems to be the norm. |
Mutual fund capital gain on my 1099-DIV : no cost basis? | The capital gain is either short-term or long-term and will be indicated on the 1099-DiV. You pay taxes on this amount as the capital gain was received in a taxable account (assuming since you received a 1099-DIV). More info here: https://www.mutualfundstore.com/brokerage-account/capital-gains-distributions-taxable |
Is accident insurance worth it for my kids who play sports | The general answer to any "is it worth it" insurance question is "no," because the insurance company is making a profit on the insurance.* To decide if you want the insurance, you need to figure out how much you can afford to pay if something happens, how much they cover, and how badly you want to transfer your risk to them. If you won't have trouble coming up with the $4000 deductible should you need to, then don't get this extra insurance. * I did not mean to imply that insurance is always a bad idea or that insurance companies are cheating their customers. Please let me explain further. When you buy any product from a business, that business is making a profit. And there is nothing wrong with that at all. They are providing a service and should be compensated for their efforts. Insurance companies also provide a service, but unlike other types of businesses, their product is monetary. You pay them money now, and they might pay you money later. If they pay you more money then you spent, you came out ahead, and if you spend more money then they give you, it was a loss for you. In order for the insurance company to make a profit, they need to bring in more money than they pay out. In fact, they need to bring in a lot more money then they pay out, because in addition to their profit, they have all the overhead of running a business. As a result, on average, you will come out behind when you purchase insurance. This means that when you are on the fence about whether or not to purchase any insurance product, the default choice should be "no." On average, you are financially better off without insurance. Now, that doesn't mean you should never buy insurance. As mentioned by commenter @xiaomy, insurance companies spread risk across all of their customers. If I am in a situation where I have a risk of financial ruin in a certain circumstance, I can eliminate that risk by purchasing insurance. For example, I have term life insurance, because if I were to pass away, it would be financially catastrophic for my family. (I'm hoping that the insurance company makes 100% profit on that deal!) I also continue to buy expensive health insurance because an unexpected medical event would be financially devastating. However, I always decline the extended warranty when I buy a $300 appliance, because I don't have any trouble coming up with another $300 in the unlikely event that it breaks, and I would rather keep the money than contribute to the profits of an insurance company unnecessarily. In my original answer above, I pointed out how you would determine whether or not to purchase this particular insurance product. This product pays out a bunch of relatively small amounts for certain events, up to a limit of $4000. Would this $4000 be hard for you to come up with if you needed to? If so, get the insurance. But if you are like me and have an emergency fund in place to handle things like this, then you are financially better off declining this policy. |
Why does gold have value? | It has semantic value (because we culturally believe gold is valuable). There is a very important point here. Gold and many other coin metals. This "semantic value" is enshrined in law through the special tax status of coin metals. You can buy a kilo of gold and not pay sales tax. You can't buy a kilo of iron or tin and do the same. This is the important part because investors shouldn't care about semantics. I read that the taxable status varies by state or nation, so you need to be very careful. It's possible to evade taxes without realizing it. It also doesn't necessarily exempt you from the form of gold. An ingot should be tax exempt. A collector's coin may or may not be, depending on your local laws and the difference between the value of the weight of the gold, and the value of the form of the coin. |
Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real? | The short answer is yes, it is possible to do what these classes claim, however, it is highly unlikely. For every person they can show you that got rich using whatever so called method they are teaching, there are hundreds of people that didn't that they aren't telling you about. What I would recommend is invest in a well diversified portfolio. If you have a higher tolerance for risk then you can make some of that portfolio out of higher risk/reward investments. Maybe you pick the next Apple or Google or Netflix or whatever but that portion of your portfolio should be money that you can afford to lose in case you pick duds. |
Payroll reimbursments | As @Dilip suggested in the comments, the problem is the accountability of the reimbursement plans. In order for the reimbursement to be non-taxable, there has to be a reimbursement plan and policy set up by the employer, it has to be done per receipt, and accounted for correctly. If the employer just cuts you a check - the conditions may not be met, and as such - the reimbursement becomes taxable. In your case, it seems like the employer has not set up a proper (accountable) reimbursement plan, thus your reimbursements are taxable. @Joe pointed out that since the employer also doesn't withhold taxes (as he should), you may have an unexpected tax bill on April 15. This Chron article describes the distinction between the accountable and non-accountable plans. Only with the accountable plans the reimbursements are non-taxable. |
Investing in dividend-yielding stocks with money borrowed from margin account? | I wouldn't recommend leveraged dividend fishing. Dividend stocks with such high dividends are highly volatile, you will run out of collateral to cover your trades very quickly |
Should I always pay my credit at the last day possible to maximize my savings interest? | Mostly ditto to Dillip Sarwate. Let me just add: I don't know how you're making your payments, whether through the biller's web site, your bank's web site, by mail, in person, etc. But whatever the mechanism, if there is a chance that waiting until the due date to pay may mean that you will miss the due date: don't. The cost of a late payment charge is likely to far exceed any interest you would collect on your savings. Bear in mind that we are talking pennies here. I don't know how much the monthly bills that we are discussing here come to. Say it's $3,000. I think that would be a lot for most people. You say you're getting 3.6% on your savings. So if, on the average, you pay a bill 2 weeks later than you might have, you're getting an extra 2 / 52 x 3.6% x $3,000 in interest, or $4 per month. I think the last time I paid a late fee on a credit card it was $35, so if you make one mistake every 8 months and end up getting a late fee it will outweigh any savings. Personally, I pay most of my bills through either my bank's web site or the biller's web site. I schedule all payments when I get a paycheck, and I generally try to schedule them for 1 week before the due date, so there's plenty of breathing room. |
Clarification on 529 fund | Yes, maybe. The 529 is pretty cool in that you can open an account for yourself, and change the beneficiary as you wish, or not. In theory, one can start a 529 for children or grandchildren yet unborn. Back to you - a 529 is not deductible on your federal return. It grows tax deferred, and tax free if used for approved education. Some states offer deductions depending on the state. There is a list of states that offer such a deduction. |
Can the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) itself go bankrupt? | SIPC is a corporation - a legal entity separate from its owners. In the case of SIPC, it is funded through the fees paid by its members. All the US brokers are required to be members and to contribute to SIPC funds. Can it go bankrupt? Of course. Any legal entity can go bankrupt. A person can go bankrupt. A country can go bankrupt. And so can anything in between. However, looking at the history of things, there are certain assumptions that can be made. These are mere guesses, as there's no law about any of these things (to the best of my knowledge), but seeing how things were - we can try and guess that they will also be like this in the future. I would guess, that in case of a problem for the SIPC to meet its obligation, any of the following would happen (or combinations): Too big to fail - large insurance companies had been bailed out before by the governments since it was considered that their failure would be more destructive to the economy than the bailout. AIG as an example in the US. SIPC is in essence is an insurance company. So is Lloyd's of London. Breach of trust of the individual investors that can lead to a significant market crash. That's what happened in the US to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They're now "officially" backed by the US government. If SIPC is incapable of meeting its obligation, I would definitely expect the US government to step in, even though there's no such obligation. Raising funds through charging other members. If the actuary calculations were incorrect, the insurance companies adjust them and raise premiums. That is what should happen in this case as well. While may not necessarily solve a cashflow issue, in the long term it will allow SIPC to balance, so that bridge loans (from the US government/Feds/public bonds) could be used in between. Not meeting obligations, i.e.: bankruptcy. That is an option, and insurance companies have gone bankrupt before. Not unheard of, but from the past experience - again, I'd expect the US government to step in. In general, I don't see any significant difference between SIPC in the US and a "generic" insurance coverage elsewhere. Except that in the US SIPC is mandatory, well regulated, and the coverage is uniform across brokerages, which is a benefit to the consumer. |
Can anybody explain the terms “levered beta riders”, “equity long-short” and “the quant process driven discipline” for me, please? | Leverage here is referring to "financial leverage". This is the practice of "levering" [ie increasing, like the use of a lever to increase the amount of weight you can lift] the value of your investment by taking on debt. For example: if you have 100k in cash, you can buy a 100k rental property. Assume the property makes 10k a year, net of expenses [10%]. Now assume the bank will also give you a 100k mortgage, at 3%. You could take the mortgage, plus your cash, and buy a 200k rental property. This would earn you 20k from the rental property, less 3k a year in interest costs [the 3%]. Your total income would be 17k, and since you only used 100k of your own money, your rate of return would now be 17% instead of 10%. This is financial leveraging. Note that this increases your risk, because if your investment fails not only have you lost your own money, you now need to pay back the bank. "Beta riders" appears to be negative commentary on investors who use Beta to calculate the value of a particular stock, without regard to other quantitative factors. Therefore "leveraged beta riders" are those who take on additional risk [by taking on debt to invest], and invest in a manner that the author would perhaps considered "blindly" following Beta. However, I have never seen this term before, and it appears tainted by the author's views on Quants. A "quant process driven discipline" appears to be positive commentary on investors who use detailed quantitative analysis to develop rules which they rigorously follow to invest. I have never seen this exact phrasing before, and like the above, it appears tainted by the author's views on Quants. I am not providing any opinion on whether "beta riding" or "quant processes" are good or bad things; this is just my attempt to interpret the quote as you presented it. Note that I did not go to the article to get context, so perhaps something else in the article could skew the language to mean something other than what I have presented. |
Real estate loans for repairs | If you intend to flip this property, you might consider either a construction loan or private money. A construction loan allows you to borrow from a bank against the value of the finished house a little at a time. As each stage of the construction/repairs are completed, the bank releases more funds to you. Interest accrues during the construction, but no payments need to be made until the construction/repairs are complete. Private money works in a similar manner, but the full amount can be released to you at once so you can get the repairs done more quickly. The interest rate will be higher. If you are flipping, then this higher interest rate is simply a cost of doing business. Since it's a private loan, you ca structure the deal any way you want. Perhaps accruing interest until the property is sold and then paying it back as a single balloon payment on sale of the property. To find private money, contact a mortgage broker and tell them what you have in mind. If you're intending to keep the property for yourself, private money is still an option. Once the repairs are complete, have the bank reassess the property value and refinance based on the new amount. Pay back the private loan with equity pulled from the house and all the shiny new repairs. |
I have savings and excess income. Is it time for me to find a financial advisor? | Is my financial status OK? If not, how can I improve it? Based on the fact that you have $100K in the bank and no debts your situation is OK. You don't have credit card debt or an underwater car loan, though the fact you are thinking about a car and a home shows you have started to put some thought into planning. Is now a right time for me to see a financial advisor? The fact that you don't mention retirement savings: 401K, IRA, or pension, means that you have not planned for retirement, and you need to do so. The ESPP can be a part of a plan, but if that is you only investment you are focusing too much of your current and future income on one source of income. Is it worthy? It can be. you want to avoid working with a planner that makes money only if you invest in specific investments they suggest. You want to find a planner that takes a fixed fee for developing the plan, and only provides advice on types of investments. How would she/he help me? They will look at where you are. Where you can quickly make adjustments. And where you want to go over the next year, decade, and lifetime. Then they will provide guidance on those steps you should follow. If your situation changes in the future because of marriage or kids, you can then revisit with a planner and make changes |
Deposit a cheque in an alternative name into a personal bank account (Australia) | You don't have much choice other than to open an account in your business name, then do a money transfer, as @DJClayworth says. You will not without providing your name and street address and possibly other information that you may consider to be of a private nature. This is due to laws about fraud, money laundering and consumer protection. I'm not saying that's what you have in mind! But without accountability of the sort provided by names and street addresses, banks would be facilitating crimes of many sorts, which is why regulatory agencies enforce disclosure requirements. |
What would a stock be worth if dividends did not exist? [duplicate] | In the unlikely case that noone finds a way to extract resources from the company and distribute them to shareholders periodically in a way that's de facto equivalent to dividends, any company can be dissolved. The assets of the company would be sold for their market value, the liabilities would have to be settled, and the net result of all this (company cash + sale results - liabilities) would be distributed to shareholders proportionally to their shares. The 'liquidation value' is generally lower than the market value of a company as an ongoing concern that's making business and earning profit, but it does put a floor on it's value - if the stock price is too low, someone can buy enough stock to get control of the company, vote to dissolve it, and make a profit that way; and the mere fact that this can happen props up the stock price. Companies could even be created for a limited time period in the first hand (which has some historical precedent with shareholders of 'trading companies' with lifetime of a single trade voyage). Imagine that there is some company Megacorp2015 where shareholders want to receive $1M of its cash as "dividends". They can make appropriate contracts that will form a new company called Megacorp2016 that will take over all the ongoing business and assets except $1M in cash, and then liquidate Megacorp2015 and distribute it's assets (shares of Megacorp2016 and the "dividend") among themselves. The main difference from normal dividends is that in this process, you need cooperation from any lenders involved, so if the company has some long-term debts then they would need agreement from those banks in order to pay out "dividends". Oh, and everyone would have to pay a bunch more to lawyers simply to do "dividends" in this or some other convoluted way. |
Any Ubiquitous Finance App That is on Mac, iOS and Windows? | I have been using bearsofts money app, both in mac and iOS. I think only down side with this apps is you need to buy them separately. http://ibearmoney.com/money-mac.html |
Tracking Gold and Silver (or any other commodity investment) in Quicken 2010? | I was able to find a fairly decent index that trades very close to 1/10th the actual price of gold by the ounce. The difference may be accounted to the indexes operating cost, as it is very low, about 0.1%. The index is the ETFS Gold Trust index (SGOL). By using the SGOL index, along with a Standard Brokerage investment account, I was able to set up an investment that appropriately tracked my gold "shares" as 10x their weight in ounces, the share cost as 1/10th the value of a gold ounce at the time of purchase, and the original cost at time of purchase as the cost basis. There tends to be a 0.1% loss every time I enter a transaction, I'm assuming due to the index value difference against the actual spot value of the price of gold for any day, probably due to their operating costs. This solution should work pretty well, as this particular index closely follows the gold price, and should reflect an investment in gold over a long term very well. It is not 100% accurate, but it is accurate enough that you don't lose 2-3% every time you enter a new transaction, which would skew long-term results with regular purchases by a fair amount. |
Can after-hours trading affect options pricing? | There is a white paper on "The weekend effect of equity options" it is a good paper and shows that (for the most part) option values do lose money from Friday to Monday. Which makes sense because it is getting closer to expiration. Of course this not something that can be counted on 100%. If there is some bad news and the stock opens down on a Monday the puts would have increased and the calls decreased in value. Article Summary (from the authors): "We find that returns on options on individual equities display markedly lower returns over weekends (Friday close to Monday close) relative to any other day of the week. These patterns are observed both in unhedged and delta-hedged positions, indicating that the effect is not the result of a weekend effect in the underlying securities. We find even stronger weekend effects in implied volatilities, but only after an adjustment to quote implied volatilities in terms of trading days rather than calendar days." "Our results hold for puts and calls over a wide range of maturities and strike prices, for both equally weighted portfolios and for portfolios weighted by the market value of open interest, and also for samples that include only the most liquid options in the market. We find no evidence of a weekly seasonal in bid-ask spreads, trading volume, or open interest that could drive the effect. We also find little evidence that weekend returns are driven by higher levels of risk over the weekend. "The effect is particularly strong over expiration weekends, and it is also present to a lesser degree over mid-week holidays. Finally, the effect is stronger when the TED spread and market volatility are high, which we interpret as providing support for a limits to arbitrage explanation for the persistence of the effect." - Christopher S. Jones & Joshua Shemes You can read more about this at this link for Memphis.edu |
Does settlement of second mortgage count as short sale? | No that will not count as a short sale although it may still affect your chances of getting a loan because some lenders wont want to see it on your credit if you are pursuing a new FHA loan. In the best case scenario you will need an explanation letter of why you did this. In the worst case scenario the lender will want you to wait to get financing. Try and find a lender with NO FHA overages which means they don't put additional restrictions on giving you an FHA insured loan. That type of lender will be your best choice because they just follow FHA rules and don't add any additional requirements. |
How much time would I have to spend trading to turn a profit? | Yeah, too subjective of a question I shorted BP last year during the deep water crisis, using a leveraged account 20 times larger than the amount of cash I actually had, instantly profitable. I was long Freddie Mac in March 2009 and that took several months to turn to move and turned a 100% gain I've flipped penny stocks trading at .0001 cents, bought a few million shares and sold them at .0002 cents. Sometimes instantly, sometimes over several months because they were illiquid I'm primarily a derivatives trader right now, which I did not know about or understand less than a year ago. Dont have crazy targets, that how you will blow up your account. Have meticulously calculated plans. Also you need to determine what kind of trader you are. |
Old Cancelled Cards | Closed accounts are used when calculating Average Age of Accounts (AAoA) by FICO. They will drop off your report 7 years after their closure, at which time your AAoA will decrease and most likely lower your credit score. Keeping your oldest card with an annual fee (AF) is a tough question. Since the exact calculations are a secret, it's hard to quantify the value of that card. Keep in mind that if you do decide to close it now (or right before the next AF) it will continue to count for the next 7 years. What you can do is the following: Assume you won't be applying for any new cards in the next 7 years. Look at all your current accounts and calculate the AAoA of all of them that would still be on your report 7 years from now. Calculate it with and without your oldest card. The difference will show you the effect closing the card today will have. There is a potential way to raise your AAoA depending on if you have an AMEX card. AMEX reports all accounts as being open from your original 'member since' date. If your oldest AMEX (ever, not necessarily still open) is older than your AAoA, opening a new AMEX will actually raise your average. age of accounts is 15% of your score. note that some websites that calculate your AAoA for you (like creditkarma) don't count closed accounts, but since FICO does the age those websites generate should be ignored. |
I earn $75K, have $30K in savings, no debt, rent from my parents who are losing their home. Should I buy a home now or save? | If you think that your parents' home is in danger, you might want to check what it would take to make sure their house is safe, and what the financial situation actually is. You are paying rent, there are brothers who may or may not be paying rent. We don't have the information, you have. Saving that house might be a worthwhile investment. I assume that if you moved out, either rented or by buying a house, they wouldn't get any rent from you anymore and whatever the situation is, it would be much worse. |
Which banks have cash-deposit machines in Germany? | This may not answer your question but it may be an alternative. My credit union credits my account for deposits immediately (ones I make in an envelope). They view it as a service to their members. They take the risk that the member could deposit an empty envelope, say they deposited $400, and then withdraw the money. There may be banks in your country that do business this way. |
What Happens to Bank Stocks If Country Defaults | Most national banks are required by the regulations of their host countries to hold significant reserves in the form of government debt. A default would likely wipe out their capital and your common stock would become worthless. The common stock only has positive value today because of the option value based on the possibility the host country will evade a default. |
Are there any countries where citizens are free to use any currency? | Wikipedia has a list of countries which ban foreign exchange use by its citizens. It's actually quite short but does include India and China. Sometimes economic collapse limits enforcement. For example, after the collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar (and its government running out of sufficient foreign exchange to buy the paper necessary to print more), the state turned a blind eye as the US dollar and South African rand became de facto exchange. Practicality will limit the availability of foreign exchange even in free-market economies. The average business can't afford to have a wide range of alternative currencies sitting around. Businesses which cater to large numbers of addled tourists sometimes offer one or two alternative currencies in the hopes of charging usurous rates of exchange. Even bureaux de change sometimes require you to order your "rarer" foreign exchange in advance. So, while it may be legal, it isn't always feasible. |
Would open source credit score formulas be feasible? | Has this already occurred, if not: why? What are the road blocks? I think it's just that the barriers to entry are rather high. Lenders would potentially be interested in a new score if it demonstrably saved them money (by more effectively weeding out risky borrowers), but because the FICO score already exists and they already know how to use it, there are costs and risks in making the transition, so lenders are unlikely to switch without solid evidence. But to get solid evidence, you would need to test out the new score and see how well it correlated with loan default and so forth. So there is a catch-22: no one will use the score until they know it works, but you can't know whether it works until people start using it. The existence of non-FICO credit scores (like VantageScore) shows that it is possible for alternatives to crop up. The question is just whether they have enough concrete advantages to overcome the track record and name recognition of FICO. Only time will tell. As for why an alternative score wouldn't be open source, you could ask the same about almost anything. Creating a measurably better score would likely take lots of time and money (to gather and analyze data both on characteristics of borrowers and on their record of debt payment). If someone is able to do that, they would probably rather do it secretly and then milk it for billions by selling the results of the secret for a long time without selling the secret itself, as FICO has done. |
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