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IRR vs. Interest Rates
IRR is subjective, if you could provide another metric instead of the IRR; then this would make sense. You can't spend IRR. For example, you purchase a property with a down payment; and the property provides cash-flow; you could show that your internal rate of return is 35%, but your actual rate of importance could be ...
If a startup can always issue new shares, what value is there to stocks/options?
Companies normally do not give you X% of shares, but in effect give you a fixed "N" number of shares. The "N" may translate initially to X%, but this can go down. If say we began with 100 shares, A holding 50 shares and B holding 50 shares. As the startup grows, there is need for more money. Create 50 more shares and s...
Is engaging in stocks without researching unwise?
If you don't want to do the deep research on each individual company, you might want to look at index funds and similar "whole market" investments.
What publicly available software do professional stock traders use for stock analysis?
Bloomberg Professional seems to be very popular. It provides any kind of data you can imagine. Analysis is a subjective interpretation of the data.
Do online repositories of publicly traded companies' financial statements exist?
You can use the Securities Exchange Commission's EDGAR search engine to search all available SEC related filings. https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html Top tip: use the fast search on the right to search for the company ticker rather than by company name.
standard method for learning more about a specific sector? (particularly biotech sector)
The important piece here is not necessarily understanding intimate details of biological engineering per se, but rather understanding how the business operates as a singular unit. It is also important to understand the business case for a firm, the evolution of demand for its products/services and the cost of its reven...
Why is a stock dividend considered a dividend? What makes it different from a stock split?
You can argue that cash dividend is a kind of split as well by this logic. The stock price on ex-dividend gets a hit coincidental with the dividend to be paid, so one can argue that the investor has the same cash value on the day the dividend was paid as if it wouldn't be paid at all. However, for the company to distri...
Is an interest-only mortgage a bad idea?
It's an interesting question, and one that has a few tentacles. A few thoughts come to mind: There's nothing wrong per se with these arrangements. I think it's a matter of doing what feels comfortable. Hopefully someone on here will have a personal experience to share.
Shorting: What if you can't find lenders?
If you can't find anyone to lend you the shares, then you can't short. You can attempt to raise the interest rate at which you will borrow at, in order to entice others to lend you their shares. In practice, broadcasting this information is pretty convoluted. If there aren't any stocks for you to buy back, then you hav...
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house
Say the price is $200K. Would I, as a real estate investor, want to buy such a house? If the rent is $600, that's $7200/yr. "the local property tax rate is levied on the tax base, and the applicable tax rate ranges from 0.40% to 0.76%" so, I'll assume .5%, just $1,000. There are rules of thumb that say half the rent wi...
Transfer from credit to debit
As revised, the answer is still that you're asking the wrong question. If your father wants to make money available on your debit card, all he has to do is deposit the money into your checking account. Where he gets that money from -- as an AmEx casH advance, by selling your bicycle for you, or simply out of one of hi...
What are some pre-tax programs similar to FSA that I can take advantage of?
There is a dependent care spending account for child care related expenses. Also Medical and Dental expenses over a certain % of your income maybe deductible on your tax return.
Why is the highest quintile the only quintile whose wealth exceeds its income?
I think you came up with a worthy Masters/PhD research project, it is a great question. This is in Australia so it is difficult for me to have complete perspective. However, I can speak about the US of A. To your first point relatively few people inherit their wealth. According to a brief web search about 38% of bill...
Optimal way to use a credit card to build better credit?
Great question. First, my recommendation would be for you to get a card that does not have a yearly fee. There are many credit cards out there that provide cash back on your purchases or points to redeem for gift cards or other items. Be sure to cancel the credit card that you have now so you don't forget about that y...
Are real estate prices memory-less?
I would argue no. It's easy to correlate home prices based on size, neighborhood, school district, condition and other factors, such as property taxes. In fact, real estate people and government assessors use those characteristics to assess property value. The demographics of a home will drive desirability/demand for t...
Co-signer deceased
People act like lawsuits are the end of the world, her suing shouldn't be considered a threat, it should be considered the accurate course of action to resolve contractual obligations. Of course, it would be convenient if she did nothing at all! If you believe her real goal is to "get it off her credit", then have her...
Price graphs: why not percent change?
The actual price is represented on charts and not the change in price as a percentage, because it is the actual price which is used in all other parts of analysis (both technical and fundamental), and it is the actual figure the security is bought and sold at. A change in price has to be relative to a previous price at...
Why so much noise about USA's credit rating being lowered?
The credit scale is deceptive, it goes: AAA, AA, A, BBB, BBB-, BB+, BB, B, CCC, CC, C, D. In reality it should be A,B,C,D,E, F, G,H, I, etc. The current scale does not reflect with clarity the ranking of risks and ratings. AA is much worse than AAA, but the uncertainty involved can be scary. Check out these corporate a...
Stock market transaction cost calculation
An order is your command to the broker to, say, "sell 100 shares of AAPL". An executed order (or partially executed order) is when all (or some) of that command is successfully completed. A transaction is an actual exchange of shares for money, and there may be one or more transactions per executed order. For example,...
Best ISA alternative
Your question is actually quite broad, so will try to split it into it's key parts: Yes, standard bank ISAs pay very poor rates of interest at the moment. They are however basically risk free and should track inflation. Any investment in the 6-7% return range at the moment will be linked to stock. Stock always carries...
Why would anyone buy a government bond?
There are a few other factors possible here: Taxes - Something you don't mention is what are the tax rates on each of those choices. If the 4% gain is taxed at 33% while the 3% government bond is taxed at 0% then it may well make more sense to have the government bond that makes more money after taxes. Potential chang...
I'm 20 and starting to build up for my mortgage downpayment, where should I put my money for optimal growth?
The big question is whether you will be flexible about when you'll get that house. The overall best investment (in terms of yielding a good risk/return ratio and requiring little effort) is a broad index fund (mutual or ETF), especially if you're contributing continuously and thereby take advantage of cost averaging. B...
Is Amazon's offer of a $50 gift card a scam?
What's going on here is that Amazon/visa thinks that the money they will earn on average from irresponsible credit card users is more value than 50$ each. This is the same logic that is behind the cash back or airplane point bonuses many credit cards offer, or the "apply and get a free 2-liter of soda" that some stores...
Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price
I have one additional recommendation: if the dealer continues to press the issue, tell them that they need to drop it, or you will write a Yelp review in excruciating detail about the entire experience. Used car dealers are very aware of their Yelp presence and don't like to see recent, negative reviews because it can ...
What is the difference between “good debt” vs. “bad debt”?
None of the previous answers (which are all good) mention margin accounts (loans from your broker). You may also have heard them described as "leverage". It may seem odd to mention this rather narrow form of debt here, but it's important because overuse of leverage has played a large part in pretty much every financi...
Is diversification better
There are probably 3-4 questions here. Diversification - A good index, a low cost S&P fund or ETF can serve you very well. If you add an extended market index or just go with "Total market", that might be it for your stock allocation. I've seen people with 5 funds, and it didn't take much analysis to see the overlap w...
Are buyouts always for higher than the market value of a stock?
1) Yes, buyouts are always higher than the trading price. 2) ANYTHING can be negotiated. There is no rule saying buyouts have to be higher.
More money towards down payment versus long-term investments
There are two components to any non-trivial financial decision: Assuming that all things remain equal, borrowing money at a low rate while investing for a higher return is a no-brainer. The problem is, all things do not remain equal. For example: I think that you need to assess your position and preferences. I'd err o...
How does a high share price benefit a company when it is raising funds?
A private company say has 100 shares with single owner Mr X, now it needs say 10,000/- to run the company, if they can get a price of say 1000 per share, then they just need to issue 10 additional shares, so now the total shares is 110 [100 older plus 10]. So now the owner's share in the company is around 91%. However ...
How much does a landlord pay in taxes?
I'd recommend you use an online tax calculator to see the effect it will have. To your comment with @littleadv, there's FMV, agreed, but there's also a rate below that. One that's a bit lower than FMV, but it's a discount for a tenant who will handle certain things on their own. I had an arm's length tenant, who was be...
Open Interest vs Volume for Stock Options
You are asking 'what if', do you have some anticipated answers? Having volume smaller than open interest is the norm. As far as I can tell, having only one trading day and no previous open interest only affects someone trying to sell a contract they are holding. Meaning that if you only have one day to sell your contr...
Explanations on credit cards in Canada
If so, it seems to me that this system is rather error prone. By that I mean I could easily forget to make a wire some day and be charged interests while I actually have more than enough money on the check account to pay the debt. I have my back account (i.e. chequing account) and VISA account at/from the same bank (wh...
Why do investors buy stock that had appreciated?
You seem to prefer to trade like I do: "Buy low, sell high." But there are some people that prefer a different way: "Buy high, sell higher." A stock that has "just appreciated" is "in motion." That is a "promise" (not always kept) that it will continue to go higher. Some people want stocks that not only go higher, but ...
What is a Student Loan and does it allow you to cover a wide range of expenses relating to school?
Student loan is a class of unsecured loan. The characteristics that define a student loan are, primarily, that it is a loan that is intended to be used by someone who is currently a student. Beyond that, though, there are many variations. The different kinds of requirements usually have to do with who is eligible for...
Put idle savings to use while keeping them liquid
Provide you are willing to do a bit of work each month, you should apply for a "rewards checking" account. Basically these accounts require you to set up direct deposit (can be any amount and your employer can easily deposit $25 into one account and the rest into another if you like). They also require you to use you...
what are the downsides of rolling credit card debt in this fashion
Awesome, you are a math guy. Very good for you. In theory, what you are proposing, should work out great as the math works out great. However have you taken a economics or finance coursework? The math that they do in these class will leave a most math guys uncomfortable with the imprecision even when one is comfort...
Should I be worried that I won't be given a receipt if I pay with cash?
There are number of reasons why someone doesn't want to give you a receipt for cash payment. Anything ranging from not wanting to pay taxes, to being able to deny you gave them money for service in the event you're not happy with the service and ask for money back. You won't get in trouble for giving him cash, however ...
Should I continue to invest in an S&P 500 index fund?
5-8 years is not quite long term. Until the naughts (the 2001-10 decade), advisors were known to say that the S&P was always positive given a 10 year holding period. Now, we're saying 15 years is always positive looking back. One can easily pull S&P return data which would let you run numbers showing the range of ret...
What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate]
A Company start with say $100. Lets say the max it can borrow from bank is $100 @ $10 a year as Interest. After a years say, On the $200 the company made a profit of $110. So it now has total $310 Option 1: Company pays back the Bank $100 + $10. It further gave away the $100 back to shareholders as dividends. The Balan...
Why are there many small banks and more banks in the U.S.?
I can't find a citation, but from memory (EDIT: and reading the newspapers at the time it happened): up until around 1980, banks couldn't cross state borders. In my state, at least, they were also very local, only staying within one county. This was to enforce "localness", the thought being that local bankers would kn...
How much house can a retired person afford
Consider property taxes (school, municipal, county, etc.) summing to 10% of the property value. So each year, another .02N is removed. Assume the property value rises with inflation. Allow for a 5% after inflation return on a 70/30 stock bond mix for N. After inflation return. Let's assume a 20% rate. And let's...
Should you co-sign a personal loan for a friend/family member? Why/why not?
Never co-sign a loan for someone, especially family Taking out a loan for yourself is bad enough, but co-signing a loan is just plain stupid. Think about it, if the bank is asking for a co-signer its because they are not very confident that the applicant is going to be paying back the loan. So why would you then step ...
Dealership made me the secondary owner to my own car
Your best bet is to refinance the car in your own name only. Hopefully a year of making the payments has improved your credit score enough. If not, you can approach a loan officer at a credit union and make your case (that you haven't missed any payments, etc.). A new title should be sent to the new lien holder, and i...
What's the difference between Buy and Sell price on the stock exchange [duplicate]
To add to @Victor 's answer; if you are entering a market order, and not a limit order (where you set the price you want to buy or sell at), then the Ask price is what you can expect to pay to purchase shares of stock in a long position and the Bid price is what you can expect to receive when you sell stock you own in ...
What kind news or information would make the price of a stock go up?
You should not trade based on what news is just released, if you try you will be too slow to react most of the time. In many cases the news is already priced into the stock during the anticipation of the news being released. Other times as soon as the news is released the price will gap up or down in response to the ne...
Looking to buy a house in 1-2 years. Does starting a Roth IRA now make sense?
First, look at the local housing market, and the price to rent ratios. If you are comfortable that a house can be had for near to the cost of renting, and are not still dropping is price, then focus on the down-payment. I don't imagine housing prices to start picking up any time soon, so you don't be too rushed. If you...
What does APR mean I'm paying?
Credit Cards typically charge interest on money you borrow from them. They work in one of two ways. Most cards will not charge you any interest if you pay the balance in full each month. You typically have around 25 days (the "grace period") to pay that off. If that's the case, then you will use your credit card wit...
Looking for a good source for Financial Statements
You can access financial statements contained within 10K and 10Q filings using Last10K.com's mobile app: Last10K.com/mobile Disclosure: I work for Last10K.com
Financing with two mortgages: a thing of the past?
I doubt it. I researched it a bit when I was shopping for a HELOC, and found no bank giving HELOC for more than 80% LTV. In fact, most required less than 80%. Banks are more cautious now. If the bank is not willing to compromise on the LTV for the first mortgage - either look for another bank, or another place to buy. ...
What happens to public shareholders when a public stock goes private?
I can see two possibilities. Either a deal is struck that someone (the company itself, or a large owner) buys out the remaining shares. This is the scenario @mbhunter is talking about, so I won't go too deeply into it, but it simply means that you get money in your bank account for the shares in question the same as if...
How do dividend reinvestment purchases work?
Many brokers administer their own dividend reinvestment plans. In this case, on dividend payment date, they automatically buy from the market on behalf of their reinvestment customers, and they administer all fractional shares across all customers. All of your shares are in the broker's street name anyway, the fracti...
How to calculate how far a stock price can drop before a broker would issue a margin call?
With your numbers, look at it this way - You borrowed $50. When the stock is $100, you are at 50% margin. What's most important, is that there's margin interest charged, so the amount owed will increase regardless of the stock price. When calculating your return or loss, the interest has to be accounted for or your nu...
In your 20s how much money should you have and how to properly use & manage it?
If you are just barely scraping by on your current income, then you shouldn't be thinking about buying a car or house unless you can present (at least to yourself) clear evidence that doing so will actually lower your monthly expenses. Yes, there are times when even buying depreciating assets such as a car can lower yo...
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.)
It seems the age restriction for the Capital One MONEY account has been removed; I just read the entire terms and conditions and there's no minimum age requirement. I just finished opening Capital One MONEY accounts for a child who is <5 and a child <8. Both now have activated debit cards and online access. Their accou...
Dealing with Form 1099
Am I required to send form 1099 to non-US citizens who are not even residing in the US? Since they're not required to file US taxes, do I still have to send the form to them? That's tricky. You need to get W8/W9 from them, and act accordingly. You may need to withhold 30% (or different percentage, depending on tax trea...
Why don't more people run up their credit cards and skip the country?
Quality of life, success and happiness are three factors that are self define by each individual. Most of the time all three factors go hand by hand with your ability to generate wealth and save. Actually, a recent study showed that there were more happy families with savings than with expensive products (car, jewelry...
What are frontier markets? Is investing in them a good idea?
From Wikipedia A frontier market is a type of developing country which is more developed than the least developing countries, but too small to be generally considered an emerging market. The term is an economic term which was coined by International Finance Corporation’s Farida Khambata in 1992. The term is commonly us...
How to transfer personal auto lease to business auto lease?
See what the contract says about transfers or subleases. A lease is a credit agreement, so the lessor may not allow transfers. You probably ought to talk to an accountant about this. You can probably recognize most of the costs associated with the car without re-financing it in another lease.
Pay off credit card debt or earn employer 401(k) match?
There is a very simple calculation that will answer the question: Is the expected ROI of the 401K including the match greater than the interest rate of your credit card? Some assumptions that don't affect the calculation, but do help illustrate the points. You have 30 years until you can pull out the 401K. Your credit ...
What does the Fed do with the extra money it is printing?
Usually the FED uses newly printed money to buy US treasuries from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc.. These banks then lend out the new cash which expands the money supply. During the height of the crisis the FED printed over $1.0 Trillion and bought....well...almost anything the banks couldn't offload elsewhere. Mortga...
Debit card funds on preauthorization hold to paypal: can it be used for another transaction?
In short you have to wait till the hold expires. If its one week, its great. Few years back it was one Month. It is advisable you use a Credit Card for these type of transactions. With Credit Cards you are not out of funds like in Debit Cards. Plus the reversals are as much as I know automatic. In case of Debit Cards, ...
How much is university projected to cost in Canada in 18 years?
I personally do not buy any those so-call forecasts - look no further than the economic forecasts by those experts with PhDs over the last decade or so. Truth is there are too many factors that affects the tuition fees that far down the road (think inflation, cost of living, the method for which the education is being...
Why would someone want to buy an option on the day of expiry
The short answer to your initial question is: yes. The option doesn't expire until the close of the market on the day of expiration. Because the option is expiring so soon, the time value of the option is quite small. That is why the option, once it is 'in-the-money', will track so closely to the underlying stock pric...
I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?
There are three possibilities. This is a scam, as others have pointed out, it works by you sending money, then them stopping the original transfer, meaning you sent them your money and not theirs. They make money cause a stop payment only costs $50 (or around there) but you sent $1,000. So they profit $950. You lose $...
How to make money from a downward European market?
If you are interested in short term trading and live in the UK you can do some Spread Betting. If you know what you are doing you can make money no matter which way the market is moving. Note that most people don't know what they are doing and lose their money pretty quickly.
How to properly collect money from corporate sponsors?
If this is something you plan to continue doing it would make sense to create it as it's own business entity and then to get non-profit status eg: 501c3. Otherwise I'm pretty sure you have to think of it as YOU receiving the money as a sole proprietor - and file a couple more tax forms at the end of the year. I think...
Are leverage/ko products the only reasonable way to trade stocks?
There's no free lunch. Here are some positions that should be economically equivalent (same risk and reward) in a theoretically-pure universe with no regulations or transaction costs: You're proposing to buy the call. If you look at the equivalent, stock plus protective put, you can quickly see the "catch"; the protect...
Is there a generally accepted term for fractions of Currency Units?
of course if you asked me to give you $24.4955 I can't. No, but if I asked you to give me $24.4955 and you gave me a piece of paper saying "I O U $24.4955", and then this happened repeatedly until I had collected 100 of these pieces of paper from you, then I could give them back to you in exchange for $2449.55 of curre...
California tells me I didn't file documents for an LLC that isn't mine. What do I do?
Did it show just your address, or was your name on it as well? You didn't share how long you've lived at the address either, so it makes me wonder whether a former tenant is the one who filed that paperwork. It's also possible that someone used your address when making a filing. Whether that was deliberate or accid...
Why do people take out life insurance on their children? Should I take out a policy on my child?
Sales tactics for permanent insurance policies can get pretty sleazy. Sending home a flier from school is a way for an insurance salesperson to get his/her message out to 800 families without any effort at all, and very little advertising cost (just a ream of paper and some toner). The biggest catchphrases used are the...
Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed?
Before anything, I see that no one mentioned the one thing about 401(k) accounts that's just shy of magic - The matching deposit. In 2015, 42% of companies offered a dollar for dollar match on deposits. Can't beat that. (Note - to respond to Xalorous' comment, the $18K OP deposits can be nearly any percent of his inco...
Should I invest my money in an ISA or Government bonds? (Or any other suggestion)
So you are off to a really good start. Congratulations on being debt free and having a nice income. Being an IT contractor can be financially rewarding, but also have some risks to it much like investing. With your disposable income I would not shy away from investing in further training through sites like PluralSite...
Borrowing 100k and paying it to someone then declaring bankruptcy
Note that in the UK at least this scam - not so dissimilar from what you propose - seems be perfectly legal behaviour: Evidence to date is that both of you can expect to walk away without much consequence.
Are individual allowed to use accrual based accounting for federal income tax?
Yes. But once you chose the method (on your first tax return), you cannot change it without the IRS approval. Similarly the fiscal year. For individuals, I can't think of any reason why would accrual basis be better than cash, or why would an individual use a fiscal year other than the calendar year.
What prevents interest rates from rising?
A lot of loans are taken out on a fixed rate basis, so the rate is part of the contract and is therefore covered by contract law. If the loan is taken out on a variable basis then in principle the rate can rise within the terms of the contract. If a particular lender tries to raise its rates out of line with the marke...
What happens if futures contract seller defaults?
MD-Tech answered: The answer is in your question: derivatives are contracts so are enforced in the same way as any other contract. If the counterparty refuses to pay immediately they will, in the first instance be billed by any intermediary (Prime Broker etc.) that facilitated the contract. If they still refuse to pay...
How does a lender compute equity requirement for PMI?
In regards to the legal recourse, no there is none. Also, despite your frustrations with Citi, it may not be their fault. Mortgage companies are now forced to select appraisers (essentially at random) through 3rd party Appraisal Resource Companies (ARCs). This randomization mandate from the government was issued in ...
Top 3 things to do before year end for your Stock Portfolio?
Bonus: Contribute to (or start!) your IRA for 2010. This doesn't have to be done have to be done by the end of the year; you can make your 2011 contribution in 2010, before you file your tax return (by Apr. 15 at the latest, even if you get an extension.)
can the government or debt collectors garnish money from any bank account to which the debtor has access?
I agree with the comments so far. Access doesn't equal ownership. There are also different levels of access. E.g. your financial advisor can have access to your retirement account via power of attorney, but only ability to add or change things, not withdraw. Another consideration is when a creditor tries to garnish wag...
Should I use my non-tax advantaged investment account to pay off debt?
Paying off debts will reduce your monthly obligation to creditors (less risk) and also remove the possibility of foreclosure / repossession / lawsuit if you ever lost access to income (less risk). Risk is an important part of the equation that can get overlooked. It sounds like pulling that money out of the market wi...
How does the yield on my investments stack up against other investors?
It can be pretty hard to compute the right number. What you need to know for your actual return is called the dollar-weighted return. This is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rate_of_return computed for your actual cash flows. So if you add $100 per month or whatever, that has to ...
Are Index Funds really as good as “experts” claim?
Comparing index funds to long-term investments in individual companies? A counterintuitive study by Jeremy Siegel addressed a similar question: Would you be better off sticking with the original 500 stocks in the S&P 500, or like an index fund, changing your investments as the index is changed? The study: "Long-Term Re...
How much does the volatility change for a 1$ move in the underlying
The volatility measures how fast the stock moves, not how much. So you need to know the period during which that change occurred. Then the volatility naturally is higher the faster is the change.
Abundance of Cash - What should I do?
There's a few different types of investments you could do. As poolie mentioned, you could split your money between the Vanguard All World ex-US and Vanguard Total Stock Market index. A similar approach would be to invest in the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF. You wouldn't have to track separate fund performances, at th...
Why don't SPY, SPX, and the e-mini s&p 500 track perfectly with each other?
As Ross says, SPX is the index itself. This carries no overheads. It is defined as a capitalization-weighted mixture of the stocks of (about) 500 companies. SPY is an index fund that tries to match the performance of SPX. As an index fund it has several differences from the index:
us citizen receiving bank transfer from foreign boyfriend
No, any gifts you receive are not taxable to you. In fact, losing money in a scam (as this sure sounds like to me) can even be tax-deductible if you lose enough! I wouldn't recommend accepting anything. Usually people with millions are dollars are capable of setting up their own bank accounts.
Investment strategy for a 20 year old with about 30k in bank account
Thank you for your service. My first suggestion since your car is a planned for the near future is keep that amount in savings and just pay cash. There are plenty of attractive offers to entice you to finance your vehicle but there really is no compelling reason to do it considering the savings you have. Second I wou...
How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car?
As someone who has a very similar debt amount and environment (new grad, nice new paying job, want a car, etc), I'd like to share something with you. Life has unexpected costs. Luckily I didn't buy that new car the first few months out of college like I had planned to; I'm glad that I didn't because, as a fledgling "ad...
Student loan payments and opportunity costs
I agree with the advice given, but I'll add another angle from which to look at it. It sounds like you are already viewing the money used to either pay off the loan early or invest in the market as an investment, which is great. You are wise to think about opportunity cost, but like others pointed out, you are overlook...
What do these numbers mean for the S&P?
USB is the ticker for US Bancorp. The numbers to me look like their prediction of the return for the day, I could be wrong but I think that's what it is.
Best way to invest money as a 22 year old?
First off, monozok is right, at the end of the day, you should not accept what anyone says to do without your money - take their suggestions as directions to research and decide for yourself. I also do not think what you have is too little to invest, but that depends on how liquid you need to be. Often in order to ma...
Transfering money from NRE account in India to family member
I am a US citizen and I want to transfer some amount 10 lakhs+ to my brother from my NRE account in India to his account. My brother is going to purchase something for his business. He is going to return my amount after 3-4 Months From the description it looks like you would like to loan to your brother on repatriation...
Understanding Gift taxes for mortgage downpayment
You are using interchangeably borrow/loan and gift. They are very different. For the mortgage company, they would prefer that the money from friends and family be a gift. If it is a loan, then you have an obligation to pay it back. If they see money added to your bank accounts in the months just before getting the loa...
What is the rationale behind stock markets retreating due to S&P having a negative outlook on the USA?
Many of the major indices retreated today because of this news. Why? How do the rising budget deficits and debt relate to the stock markets? The major reason for the market retreating is the uncertainty regarding the US Dollar. If the US credit rating drops that will have an inflationary effect on the currency (a...
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?
The responses here are excellent. I'd add just a couple points. Debt is not generic. It ranges from low (my HELOC is 2.5%) to insane (24% credit card, anyone?). When I read about the obsession to be completely debt free, I ask questions. Are you saving in your 401(k) at least up to the match? I disagree with the "debt...
How do I know what loan terms I can qualify for?
You can find out the most money they will loan you for a car loan when you approach your current bank/credit union. They should be willing to layout options based on your income, and credit history. You then have to decide if those terms work for you. There are several dangers with getting loan estimates, they may be w...
What should I reserve “emergency savings” for?
I think it is stated perfectly in the question, "unforeseen critical needs." You know you will need to buy new tires for your car, they are critical but not unforeseen. However, if a tree falls on your car and you need to pay the insurance deductible for the repairs it would be unforeseen. You should budget for the exp...
Buying shares in employer's company during IPO
So the key factor here, IMHO, is the amount we are talking about. $2K is just not a lot of money. If you lose every penny, you can recover. On the other hand it is unlikely to make you wealthy. So if I was you I would buy in, more for the fun of it all. Now if it was a large amount of money that we were talking abo...
What's behind the long secular bull market in U.S. Treasuries?
In a secular bull market, strong investor sentiment drives prices higher, as participants, over time, are net buyers. Secular markets are typically driven by large-scale national and worldwide events... demographic/ population shifts, governmental policies... bear market periods occur within the longer interval, ...
How are dividends for shareholders of banks paid?
Why? Balance sheet is balance sheet, why is it complicated? Bank shareholders get dividends in exactly the same way as any other company shareholders do: the company ends up with net profits, which the board of directors decides to distribute to shareholders based on certain amount per share. If at all. Not all the pro...