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Moonlighting as a software developer: employee or independent contractor w/ LLC? | I've been in a similar situation before. While contracting, sometimes the recruiting agency would allow me to choose between being a W2 employee or invoicing them via Corp-2-Corp. I already had a company set up (S-Corp) but the considerations are similar. Typically the C2C rate was higher than the W2 rate, to account for the extra 7.65% FICA taxes and insurance. But there were a few times where the rate offered was identical, and I still choose C2C because it enabled me to deduct many of my business expenses that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to deduct. In my case the deductions turned out to be greater than the FICA savings. Your case is slightly different than mine though in that I already had the company set up so my company related costs were "sunk" as far as my decision was concerned. For you though, the yearly costs associated with running the business must be factored in. For example, suppose the following: Due to these expenses you need to make up $3413 in tax deductions due to the LLC. If your effective tax rate on the extra income is 30%, then your break even point is approximately $8K in deductions (.3*(x+3413)=3413 => x = $7963) So with those made up numbers, if you have at least $8K in legitimate additional business expenses then it would make sense to form an LLC. Otherwise you'd be better off as a W2. Other considerations: |
How to map stock ticker symbols to ISIN (International Securities Identification Number)? | It is possible to make a REST API call providing the ISIN to get the ticker in the response: Python code for getting ticker for ISIN=US4592001014: import requests url = 'https://api.openfigi.com/v1/mapping' headers = {'Content-Type':'text/json', 'X-OPENFIGI-APIKEY':'myKey' } payload = '[ {"idType":"ID_ISIN","idValue":"US4592001014"}]' r = requests.post(url, data=payload, headers=headers) |
Idea for getting rich using computers to track stocks | There are many ways to trade. Rules based trading is practiced by professionals. You can indeed create a rule set to make buy and sell decisions based on the price action of your chosen security. I will direct you to a good website to further your study: I have found that systemtradersuccess.com is a well written blog, informative and not just a big sales pitch. You will see how to develop and evaluate trading systems. If you decide to venture down this path, a good book to read is Charles Wright's "Trading As A Business." It will get a little technical, as it discusses how to develop trading systems using the Tradestation trading platform, which is a very powerful tool for advanced traders and comes with a significant monthly usage fee (~$99/mo). But you don't have to have tradestation to understand these concepts and with an intermediate level of spreadsheet skills, you can run your own backtests. Here is a trading system example, Larry Connors' "2 period RSI system", see how it is evaluated: http://systemtradersuccess.com/connors-2-period-rsi-update-2014/, and this video teaches a bit more about this particular trading system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_h9P8dqN4Y IMPORTANT: This is not a recommendation to use this or any specific trading system, nor is it a suggestion that using these tools or websites is a path to guaranteed profits. Trading is a very risky endeavor. You can easily lose huge sums of money. Good luck! |
Is it irresponsible for me to lease a $300/month car for 18 months? | Presumably you need a car to get to work, so let's start with the assumption that you need to buy something to replace the car you just lost. The biggest difficulty to overcome in buying a car is the concept of the monthly payment. Dealers will play games with all of the numbers to massage a monthly payment that the buyer can swallow, but this usually doesn't end up giving the customer the best deal. The 18 month term is not normal for a lease, typically you'll see 24 or 36 months. You are focusing on another goal of paying your student loans by then which would free up much more money for other wants (like a car) but at what cost? The big difficulty of personal finance is the mental mind game of delaying gratification for greater long-term benefit. You are focusing on paying your student loans now so that you can be free of that debt and have more flexibility for the future. Good. You're tempted to spend another $5400 (assuming no down-payment or other surprise fees) to drive a car for 18 months. That doesn't sound any wiser than $5,000 for an unreliable used car that gave you more problems than you bargained for. Presumably you got some percentage of that money back from the insurance company when the car was totaled, but even if not, the real lesson should be finding a car that you can afford up-front, but also one that you can still use when the loan is paid off (like your education--that investment will keep giving even when the loans are a distant memory). My advice would be to look for a car that has about 30k miles on it and pay for it as quickly as possible, then drive it at least for 70-120k more miles before replacing it. You may wish for a newer car, especially in 3 or 4 more years when it starts to show its age, but you'll also thank yourself when you can buy a newer better car with cash and break out of the monthly payment game that dealers try to push on you. You might even enjoy negotiating with car salesmen when you see through their manipulations and simply work for the best cash price you can get. |
If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down? | Talk to your bank first but shop around a bit as well with other reputable lenders in your area. Another option, if you're willing to put down ~84% of the purchase price would be to talk to several dealerships BEFORE you set foot on a single lot. Tell them that you are interested in buying a Versa and that you are willing to pay cash but you are not willing to pay more than $10,200. They won't agree (trust me on that) but they will come down from $13,000. Say "Thanks, I'll call you back." and call one of the other dealerships on your list and tell them "I just spoke with this dealership and they are willing to sell me the car for [whatever number they gave you]." One of two things will happen, either the dealership will come back with a lower price or they will tell you to go buy the car there. Continue this process until you have one dealership left. I did this with 3 dealerships in 2011 and bought a truck with a $27,000 sticker price for just over $19,000. It took about a week to make all of the calls and I ended up going to a dealership 3 hours away but it was worth it for $8,000. |
Preferred vs Common Shares in Private Corporation | To follow up on Quid's comment, the share classes themselves will define what level of dividends are expected. Note that the terms 'common shares' and 'preferred shares' are generally understood terms, but are not as precise as you might believe. There are dozens/hundreds of different characteristics that could be written into share classes in the company's articles of incorporation [as long as those characteristics are legal in corporate law in the company's jurisdiction]. So in answering your question there's a bit of an assumption that things are working 'as usual'. Note that private companies often have odd quirks to their share classes, things like weird small classes of shares that have most of the voting rights, or shares with 'shotgun buyback clauses'. As long as they are legal clauses, they can be used to help control how the business is run between various shareholders with competing interests. Things like parents anticipating future family infighting and trying to prevent familial struggle. You are unlikely to see such weird quirks in public companies, where the company will have additional regulatory requirements and where the public won't want any shock at unexpected share clauses. In your case, you suggested having a non-cumulative preferred share [with no voting rights, but that doesn't impact dividend payment]: There are two salient points left related to payout that the articles of incorporation will need to define for the share classes: (1) What is the redemption value for the shares? [This is usually equal to the cost of subscribing for the shares in the first place; it represents how much the business will need to pay the shareholder in the event of redemption / recall] (2) What is the stated dividend amount? This is usually defined at a rate that's at or a little above a reasonable interest rate at the time the shares are created, but defined as $ / share. For example, the shares could have $1 / share dividend payment, where the shares originally cost $50 each to subscribe [this would reflect a rate of payment of about 2%]. Typically by corporate law, dividends must be paid to preferred shares, to the extent required based on the characteristics of the share class [some preferred shares may not have any required dividends at all], before any dividends can be paid to common shares. So if $10k in dividends is to be paid, and total preferred shares require $15k of non-cumulative dividends each year, then $0 will be paid to the common shares. The following year, $15k of dividends will once again need to be paid to the preferred shares, before any can be paid to the common shares. |
give free budgeting advice | The counsel of a friend doesn't come with a legal or professional liability. The key to doing this sort of thing successfully is to respect boundaries. You are providing advice and discussion, not taking over your friend's life. |
How much of a down payment for a car should I save before purchasing it? | I'd put more money down and avoid financing. I personally don't think car debt is good debt and if you can't afford the car, you are better off with a cheaper car. Also, you should read up on the 0% offer before deciding to commit. Here's one article that is slightly dated, but discusses some pros and cons of 0% financing. My main point though is that 0% financing is not "free" and you need to consider the cost of that financing before making the purchase. Aside from the normal loan costs of having a monthly payment, possibly buying too much car by looking at monthly cost, etc., a 0% financing offer usually forces you to give the dealer/financing company any rebates that are due to you, in essence making the car cost more. |
I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment? | You should be worried. You have made the mistake of entering an investment on the recommendation of family/friend. The last think you should do is make another mistake of just leaving it and hoping it will go up again. Your stock has dropped 37.6% from its high of $74.50. That means it has to go up over 60% just to reach the high of $74.50. You are correct this may never happen or if it does it could take a long, long time to get up to its previous highs. What is the company doing to turn its fortunes around? Take a look at some other examples: QAN.AX - Qantas Airways This stock reached a high of around $6 in late 2007 after a nice uptrend over a year and a half, it then dropped drastically at the start of the GFC, and has since kept falling and is now priced at just $1.15. QAN reported its first ever loss earlier this year, but its problems were evident much earlier. AAPL - Apple Inc. AAPL reach a high of just over $700 in September 2013, then dropped to around $400 and has recovered a bit to about $525 (still 25% below its highs) and looks to be at the start of another downtrend. How long will it take AAPL to get back to $700, more than 33% from its current price? TEN.AX - Ten Network Holdings Limited TEN reached a high of $4.26 in late 2004 after a nice uptrend during 2004. It then started a steep journey downwards and is still going down. It is now priced at just $0.25, a whopping 94% below its high. It will have to increase by 1600% just to reach its high of $4.26 (which I think will never happen). Can a stock come back from a drastic downtrend? Yes it can. It doesn't always happen, but a company can turn around and can reach and even surpass it previous highs. The question is how and when will this happen? How long will you keep your capital tied up in a stock that is going nowhere and has every chance of going further down? The most important thing with any investment is to protect your current capital. If you lose all your capital you cannot make any new investments until you build up more capital. That is why it is so important to have a risk management strategy and decide what is your get out point if things go against you before you get into any new investment. Have a stop loss. I would get out of your investment before you lose more capital. If you had set a stop loss at 20% off the stock's last highs, you would have gotten out at about $59.60, 28% higher than the current share price of $46.50. If you do further analysis on this company and find that it is improving its prospects and the stock price breaks up through its current ranging band, then you can always buy back in. However, do you still want to be in the stock if it breaks the range band on the downside? In this case who knows how low it can continue to go. N.B. This is my opinion, as others would have theirs, and what I would do in your current situation with this stock. |
Buying an option in the money, at the money, or out of the money | You can do some very crafty hedging with the variety of options. For instance, deep out of the money options are affected more by changes of market volatility, knowing this you can get long or short vega very easily, as opposed to necessarily betting on changes in the underlying asset. |
Investing/business with other people's money: How does it work? | Basically, you either borrow money, or get other people to invest in your business by buying stock or something analogous. Sometimes you can get people to "park" money with you. For example, many people deposit money in a bank checking account. They don't get any interest or other profit from this, they just do it because the bank is a convenient place to store their money. The bank then loans some percentage of this money out and keeps the interest. I don't doubt that people have come up with more clever ways to use other people's money. Borrowing money for an investment or business venture is risky because if you lose money, you may be unable to pay it back. On the other hand, investors expect a share of the profit, not just a fixed interest rate. |
Investment property information resources | As user14469 mentions you would have to decide what type of properties you would like to invest in. Are you after negatively geared properties that may have higher long term growth potential (usually within 15 to 20km from major cities), or after positive cash-flow properties which may have a lower long term growth potential (usually located more than 20km from major cities). With negative geared properties your rent from the property will not cover the mortgage and other costs, so you will have to supplement it through your income. The theory is that you can claim a tax deduction on your employment income from the negative gearing (benefits mainly those on higher tax brackets), and the potential long term growth of the property will make up for the negative gearing over the long term. If you are after these type of properties Michael Yardney has some books on the subject. On the other hand, positive cash-flow properties provide enough rental income to cover the mortgage and other costs. They put cash into your pockets each week. They don't have as much growth potential as more inner city properties, but if you stick to the outer regions of major cities, instead of rural towns, you will still achieve decent long term growth. If you are after these type of properties Margaret Lomas has some books on the subject. My preference is for cash-flow positive properties, and some of the areas user14469 has mentioned. I am personally invested in the Penrith and surrounding areas. With negatively geared properties you generally have to supplement the property with your own income and generally have to wait for the property price to increase so you build up equity in the property. This then allows you to refinance the additional equity so you can use it as deposits to buy other properties or to supplement your income. The problem is if you go through a period of low, stagnate or negative growth, you may have to wait quite a few years for your equity to increase substantially. With positively geared properties, you are getting a net income from the property every week so using none of your other income to supplement the property. You can thus afford to buy more properties sooner. And even if the properties go through a period of low, stagnate or negative growth you are still getting extra income each week. Over the long term these properties will also go up and you will have the benefit of both passive income and capital gains. I also agree with user14469 regarding doing at least 6 months of research in the area/s you are looking to buy. Visit open homes, attend auctions, talk to real estate agents and get to know the area. This kind of research will beat any information you get from websites, books and magazines. You will find that when a property comes onto the market you will know what it is worth and how much you can offer below asking price. Another thing to consider is when to buy. Most people are buying now in Australia because of the record low interest rates (below 5%). This is causing higher demand in the property markets and prices to rise steadily. Many people who buy during this period will be able to afford the property when interest rates are at 5%, but as the housing market and the economy heat up and interest rates start rising, they find it hard to afford the property when interest rate rise to 7%, 8% or higher. I personally prefer to buy when interest rates are on the rise and when they are near their highs. During this time no one wants to touch property with a six foot pole, but all the owners who bought when interest rates where much lower are finding it hard to keep making repayments so they put their properties on the market. There ends up being low demand and increased supply, causing prices to fall. It is very easy to find bargains and negotiate lower prices during this period. Because interest rates will be near or at their highs, the economy will be starting to slow down, so it will not be long before interest rates start dropping again. If you can afford to buy a property at 8% you will definitely be able to afford it at 6% or lower. Plus you would have bought at or near the lows of the price cycle, just before prices once again start increasing as interest rates drop. Read and learn as much as possible from others, but in the end make up your own mind on the type of properties and areas you prefer. |
Why do moving average acts as support and resistance? | It's not stopped. Crossing a moving average is considered a signal to buy or sell. Yahoo stock charts offer the ability to add moving averages to the charts, and you can observe all stocks cross the line regularly. As a contrast to Victor's charts, you can see that Apple, over the last two years, has traded above and below the 50 day MA. A believer in technical analysis using MA will observe a buy signal in Dec '11 just under $400, with a sell in mid-$500s in May. Moving averages are a form of following the trend, and work well when either trend is strong. It's when the stock is too close to the line that's it's tough to call whether it's time to be in or out. |
Which credit card is friendliest to merchants? | From experience, Mastercard and Visa charge vendors about the same (around 2%-5%) while American Express and Diners Club are astonishingly expensive (6%-10%) and you'll find that few small retailers are very comfortable accepting these. The variation comes from the volume of trade that vendors provide. A big retailer will negotiate a very low rate while smaller businesses will be hit with higher charges. |
Why would a public company not initiate secondary stock offerings more often? | Selling stock means selling a portion of ownership in your company. Any time you issue stock, you give up some control, unless you're issuing non-voting stock, and even non-voting stock owns a portion of the company. Thus, issuing (voting) shares means either the current shareholders reduce their proportion of owernship, or the company reissues stock it held back from a previous offering (in which case it no longer has that stock available to issue and thus has less ability to raise funds in the future). From Investopedia, for exmaple: Secondary offerings in which new shares are underwritten and sold dilute the ownership position of stockholders who own shares that were issued in the IPO. Of course, sometimes a secondary offering is more akin to Mark Zuckerberg selling some shares of Facebook to allow him to diversify his holdings - the original owner(s) sell a portion of their holdings off. That does not dilute the ownership stake of others, but does reduce their share of course. You also give up some rights to dividends etc., even if you issue non-voting stock; of course that is factored into the price presumably (either the actual dividend or the prospect of eventually getting a dividend). And hopefully more growth leads to more dividends, though that's only true if the company can actually make good use of the incoming funds. That last part is somewhat important. A company that has a good use for new funds should raise more funds, because it will turn those $100 to $150 or $200 for everyone, including the current owners. But a company that doesn't have a particular use for more money would be wasting those funds, and probably not earning back that full value for everyone. The impact on stock price of course is also a major factor and not one to discount; even a company issuing non-voting stock has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the interest of those non-voting shareholders, and so should not excessively dilute their value. |
Is there a mathematical formula to determine a stock's price at a given time? | I found the answer. It was the Stock Ticker that I was looking for. So, if I understand correctly the price at certain moment is the price of the latest sale and can be used to get a global picture of what certain stock is worth at that certain instant. |
What is the US Fair Tax? | The fair tax is a proposal to replace the US income tax with a sales tax. Pros of Fair Tax: It's a large change to the way the United States currently does things. The "Fair Tax Act of 2011" is H.R.25 in the US House and S.13 in the Senate. The full text of the bill is available at the links provided. There are some fairly large consequences of implementing a fair tax. For example, 401ks and Roth IRAs serve no benefit over non-retirement investments. Mortgages would no longer have a tax advantage. Luxury items would get far more expensive. |
Pros & cons in Hungary of investing retirement savings exclusively in silver? What better alternatives, given my concerns? | To be honest, I think a lot of people on this site are doing you a disservice by taking your idea as seriously as they are. Not only is this a horrible idea, but I think you have some alarming misunderstandings about what it means to save for retirement. First off, precious metals are not an "investment"; they are store of value. The old saying that a gold coin would buy a suit 300 years ago and will still buy a suit today is pretty accurate. Buying precious metals and expecting them to "appreciate" in the future because they are "undervalued" is just flat-out speculation and really doesn't belong in a well-planned retirement account, unless it's a very small part for the purposes of diversification. So the upshot to all of this is the most likely outcome is you get zero return after inflation (maybe you'll get lucky or maybe you'll be very unlucky). Next you would say that sure, you're giving up some expected return for a reduction in risk. But, you've done away with diversification which is the most effective way to minimize risk... And I'm not sure what scenario you're imagining that the stock market or any other reasonable investment doesn't make any returns. If you invest in a market wide index fund, then the expected return is going to be roughly in proportion with productivity gains. To say that there will be no appreciation of the stock market over the next 40 years is to say that technological progress will stop and/or we will have large-scale economic disruptions that will wipe out 40 years of progress. If that happens, I would say it's highly questionable whether silver will actually be worth anything at all. I'd rather have food, property, and firearms. So, to answer your question, practically any other retirement savings plan would be better than the one that you currently outlined, but the best plan is just to put your money in a very low-cost index fund at Vanguard and let it sit until you retire. The expense ratios are so stupidly small, that it's not going to meaningfully affect your return. |
Do stock prices really go down by the amount of the dividend? | Here is one study http://rfs.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/4/711.short I quote from the abstract "In a variety of tests, marginal price drop is not significantly different from the dividend amount. Thus, over the last several decades, one-for-one marginal price drop has been an excellent (average) rule of thumb." |
How to pay with cash when car shopping? | I usually get a cashiers check to cover about 90% - 95% of the expected amount (whatever I think is just below my wet-dream-price), and bring the rest in cash. That doesn't require so much cash to be carried. Alternatively you can write a personal check for the exact reminder, or go to the bank for the reminder after the deal is made - with the majority already paid in a cashiers check nobody would disagree. |
In a house with shared ownership, if one person moves out and the other assumes mortgage, how do we determine who owns what share in the end? | Market value and assessments are two different things. No matter how amical the agreement seems on buying and selling, the future could result in damaged relationships without an absolute sale. I would strongly recommend getting into an agreement to split the purchase of a house as a means to save money. If it's too late, sell immediately. |
Are account holders with a bank better able to receive a loan from that bank? | Banks are businesses, and as such should have the right to refuse service, so they should probably be able to choose one customer over another at will. [I say "should" because business owners protecting themselves against litigation related to discrimination could restrict their freedom as business owners.] However, banks are businesses and if the customers are identical, both will be approved (or not) according to credit records. Does not make sense to approve one person with a given credit record and refuse someone with a similar record. Unless they barely qualify. Since no two credit histories are identical, there are surely edge cases. Finally, if a customer is a long term customer with large deposits and/or significant amounts of business with the bank, the bankers will likely be inclined to do more business. |
Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk? | If you are able to buy a 150K home for 50K now that would be a good deal! However, you can't you have to borrow 100K in order to make this deal happen. This dramatically increases the risk of any investment, and I would no longer classify it as passive income. The mortgage on a 150K place would be about 710/month (30 year fixed). Reasonably I would expect no more than 1200/month in rent, or 14,400. A good rule of thumb is to assume that half of rental revenue can be counted as profit before debt service. So in your case 7200, but you would have a mortgage payment of 473/month. Leaving you a profit of 1524 after debt service. This is suspiciously like 2K per year. Things, in the financial world, tend to move toward an equilibrium. The benefit of rental property you can make a lot more than the numbers suggest. For example the home could increase in value, and you can have fewer than expected repairs. So you have two ways to profit: rental revenue and asset appreciation. However, you said that you needed passive income. What happens if you have a vacancy or the tenant does not pay? What happens if you have greater than expected repairs? What happens if you get a fine from the HOA or a special assessment? Not only will you have dip into your pocket to cover the payment, you might also have to dip into your pocket to cover the actual event! In a way this would be no different than if you borrowed 100K to buy dividend paying stocks. If the fund/company does not pay out that month you would still have to make the loan payment. Where does the money come from? Your pocket. At least dividend paying companies don't collect money from their shareholders. Yes you can make more money, but you can also lose more. Leverage is a two edged sword and rental properties can be great if you are financial able to absorb the shocks that are normal with ownership. |
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough? | Lottery tickets where I live are often for charity. The charity does good things with your money. So you can buy a ticket and feel good whether you win or not, so that makes it an investment in your own well-being. For some of us, who maybe buy a lottery ticket once a year, it's the fun you are paying for. You know you are not really going to win, but you spend a few hours being excited waiting for the draw. Cheaper than the cinema. And you never know, you might win after all... The odds may be ridiculous, but somebody's going to get it... |
If you own 1% of a company's stock, are you entitled to 1% of its assets? | No. You're entitled to 1% of votes at the shareholders' meeting (unless there's class division between shareholders, that is). If more than 50% of the shareholders vote to close the company, sell off its assets and distribute the proceeds to the owners - you'll get 1% share of the distributions. |
What should I be doing to protect myself from identity theft? | I've received letters notifying me of data breaches in the past. In the end, I've never signed up for the offered protection service, figuring if "they" can hack Target or ADP or the IRS, they can hack anybody, like... Equifax. And now Equifax has been hacked. My family's Social Security Numbers were stolen from a hospital database. I think that information, plus public information was used to gain further data from the IRS FAFSA tool. (we got a letter from the IRS). Ultimately, fraudsters used whatever data they had to file a tax return with the IRS and with the Cali FTB (we don't and never have lived in California). We got letters from both, and managed to stop the fraud before it really impacted us...other than having to file a paper tax form this past tax season. Anyway... in a world where Equifax gets hacked: the only solution is: I don't bother with the crazy password schemes you talk about... I have a few different passwords I use, but most my investment accounts use the same username and password. It's all about risk. Bruce Schneier says the same thing. The amount to spend on security should depend on what you're trying to protect. I don't care much if somebody gets into my google account, because I have a google account just because I have to. I barely use it at all. Similarly my yahoo account. My yahoo account uses my "insecure password", and my investment accounts use my "secure password". Credit Card info? Meh. Unless they get into the credit card company database, which undoubtedly has my Social Security Number, it's not that big of a deal. Yeah, they can make fraudulent charges, but there are legal protections, so in theory I can't be out any money. So think this way: what's the risk, and what's the appropriate level of effort to take to mitigate that risk. |
What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? | Now, if I wasn't concerned with the integrity of my already tainted soul I would have given myself the following advice five years ago: |
Does the stock market create any sort of value? | The stock market exists for two reasons. It lets companies raise money to invest, and it lets company owners cash out and get money instead of part-ownership of a company when they are ready to do so. But to accomplish these goals effectively, it needs many more transactions than just those kinds of transaction, because you have to be able to find a buyer when you need one and to have a market price. So there are also a lot of transactions that are just to try to make short-term profit. But we need those transactions to provide the market liquidity to let the stock market work properly for its actual purposes. |
SBI term deposit versus SBI bonds | I wrote one to check against the N3 to N6 bonds: http://capitalmind.in/2011/03/sbi-bond-yield-calculator/ Things to note: |
Is it irresponsible for me to lease a $300/month car for 18 months? | With a gross income of $ 95,000 per year, and a net savings rate of over $ 18,000 per year, a budget of $ 3,600 per year for automobile interest and depreciation is not irresponsible. But poor car choices, poor car maintenance habits, and driving habits that risk totalling cars are irresponsible. Also, not fully understanding a lease deal is irresponsible. The "great lease deal" might be encouraging you to make a different "poor car choice" than you made last time. A "great deal" on a bad car is not really a great deal. Also, depending on the contract and your driving habits, you might have a surprising cost at the end of the lease. |
What happens if someone destroy money? | Depending on the country, nothing. For example, the US has about $1.3 trillion dollars of cash in circulation. Which means that if you were to burn a million dollars of it, that would be 0.000077% of the circulating cash. But cash is a small portion of the actual money in the US. Only about 8% of all money is in cash, the rest is in other forms of value, which means that you'd only be destroying 0.0000062% of the US's money if you burned a full $1,000,000. |
Why might a brokerage firm stop offering a particular ETF commission free? | Forbes has an article investigating this. Here are the key parts: On line at the bottom of the list of funds there is an entire screen of grey-faded micro print which includes this telling disclosure: TD Ameritrade receives remuneration from certain ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that participate in the commission-free ETF program for shareholder, administrative and/or other services. In other words, TD Ameritrade is now enforcing a pay-to-play for their so-called commission-free exchange-traded funds. They are willing to forego their $6.95 trading commission in favor of remuneration directly from the ETF vendors. Because Vanguard refuses to pay such money to custodians, they are no longer being allowed to play. and Joseph Giannone, a TD Ameritrade spokesman, was quoted as saying, "With any business decision, client needs are paramount, but the underlying economics of programs can’t be ignored. ... In line with industry practices, certain providers pay servicing, administrative or other fees. Vanguard elected not to be a part of the new program." So basically it sounds like Vanguard, and presumably iShares as well, were unwilling to pay TD Ameritrade to continue offering their ETFs commission-free. |
What happens to people without any retirement savings? | According to both Huffington Post and Investopedia: Trying to retire without any savings in the bank can be difficult, and that difficulty is compounded by other factors senior citizens need to keep in mind as they age, like health issues and mobility. If saving money is not possible for you, retirement doesn’t have to pass you by. There are plenty of government-assisted and nonprofit programs that can help you, such as the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, Medicare, senior housing help from Housing and Urban Development and other resources. Therefore, to answer your questions: Is this pretty much the destiny of everyone who cannot save for retirement? Yes, if you do not have help from family (or friends) then you have a chance of ending up homeless and/or on government assistance. Do most people really never retire? There are people who really will never retire. There are stories in the news about Walmart greeters or McDonald's cashiers who are in their 80s and 90s working because they need to support themselves. However, that's not the case for everyone. There's a greeter at my local Costco who is in her 80s and she works because she loves it (her career was in consulting and she doesn't have a lack of retirement money. She just really likes talking to people.). What really happens? I can't answer what really happens because I have never experienced it and don't know people that do. Therefore I have to go off of what the two articles have said. |
Do bond interest rate risk premiums only compensate for the amount investors might lose? | [...] are all bonds priced in such a way so that they all return the same amount (on average), after accounting for risk? In other words, do risk premiums ONLY compensate for the amount investors might lose? No. GE might be able to issue a bond with lower yield than, say, a company from China with no previous records of its presence in the U.S. markets. A bond price not only contains the risk of default, but also encompasses the servicability of the bond by the issuer with a specific stream of income, location of main business, any specific terms and conditions in the prospectus, e.g.callable or not, insurances against default, etc. Else for the same payoff, why would you take a higher risk? The payoff of a higher risk (not only default, but term structure, e.g. 5 years or 10 years, coupon payments) bond is more, to compensate for the extra risk it entails for the bondholder. The yield of a high risk bond will always be higher than a bond with lower risk. If you travel back in time, to 2011-2012, you would see the yields on Greek bonds were in the range of 25-30%, to reflect the high risk of a Greek default. Some hedge funds made a killing by buying Greek bonds during the eurozone crisis. If you go through the Efficient frontier theory, your argument is a counter statement to it. Same with individual bonds, or a portfolio of bonds. You always want to be compensated for the risk you take. The higher the risk, the higher the compensation, and vice versa. When investors buy the bond at this price, they are essentially buying a "risk free" bond [...] Logically yes, but no it isn't, and you shouldn't make that assumption. |
Deductible expenses paid with credit card: In which tax year would they fall? | I'm a CPA and former IRS agent and manager. Whether you are a cash or accrual basis taxpayer, you get to deduct the expense when your card is charged. Think of it this way: You are borrowing from the credit card company or bank that issued the credit card. You take that money to make a purchase of a product or service. You now have an expense and a liability to a third party. When you pay off the liability, you do not get to take a deduction. Your deduction is when you pay for the expense. Depending on what you purchased, you may have to capitalize it. |
How is the time-premium on PUT options calculated | According to Yahoo, AAPL was trading at $113.26 at 1:10 PM on 11/13/15, which is the approximate time of your option quote. You provided a quote for AAPL at 4:15, and the stock happened to keep going down most of the that afternoon. To make a sensible comparison, you need to take contemporary prices on both the stock and the option. The quote on the option also shows the "price" being outside of the bid-ask range, which suggests that the option was trading thinly and that the last price occurred sometime earlier in the day. If you use a price in the bid-ask range ($21.90-$22.30) and use the price of AAPL at the time of the put quote, you'll come up with a price that's much closer to your expectation. |
Why doesn't change in accounts receivable on balance sheet match cash flow statement? | Increase in A/R in balance sheet includes the A/R of acquired businesses. Change in A/R in cash flow statement might say "excluding effects of business acquisitions". |
What should I do with my $10K windfall, given these options? | As much as I'd like to tell you to save some for an emergency fund or use it to pay off some debt, if you really need a new roof you should get that taken care of first. |
Do I need multiple credit monitoring services? | Monitoring your credit doesn't do much. There are some vendors that actually have staff to repair your credit/identity. Substantially all of the credit monitoring services do what they say and monitor. If you have a problem they notify you then point you to the place(s) that you can work with to repair the issue. This is not terribly valuable, definitely not worth having multiples, but the repair aspect of some IS very valuable. You sign a limited power of attorney and set loose someone else to fix the problem. |
Getting financial advice: Accountant vs. Investment Adviser vs. Internet/self-taught? | Do I need an Investment Adviser? No, but you may want to explore the idea of having one. Is he going to tell me anything that my accountant can't? Probably. How much expertise are you expecting from your accountant here? Do you think your accountant knows everything within the realms of money from taxes, insurance products, investments and all your choices and what would work or wouldn't? Seems like it could be a tall order to my mind. My accountant did say to come to him for advice on investment/business issues. So, he is willing, but is he able? Not asking about his competence, but rather "is there something that only an Investment Adviser can provide, by law, that an accountant can't"? Not that I know though don't forget how much expertise are you expecting here from one person. Is this person intended to answer all your money questions? But isn't that something that my accountant could/should do? Perhaps though how well are you expecting one person to be aware of so much stuff? I want you to know all the tax law so I can minimize taxes, maximize my investment returns, cover me with adequate insurance, and protect my savings seems like a bit much to put on one entity. Do I need either of them? Won't the Internet and sites like this one suffice? Need no. However, how much time are you prepared to spend learning the basics of strategies that work for you? How much money are you prepared to put into things to learn what works and doesn't? While it is your decision, consider how to what extent do you diagnose your medical issues through the internet versus going to see a doctor? Be careful of how much of a do it yourself approach you want to go here and recognize that there are multiple approaches that may work. The question is which trade-offs are OK for you. |
What is an “Options Account”? | Options are a derivative product, and in this case, derive their value from an underlying security, a traded stock. An option gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock at a given price (the strike price) by a given time (the expiration date.) What I just described is a call option. The opposite instrument is a put, giving you the right, but not the obligation, to sell the stock at a given price. Volumes have been written on the subject, but I'd suggest that for a custodial Roth, I'd not activate the ability to trade options. How to get started with options investing? offers a nice introduction to trading options. In my response, I offer an example of a trade that's actually less risky due to the option component. |
When writing a covered call, what's the difference between a “net debit” and a “net credit”? | When you enter into a multi-legged trade where one is a buy and one is a sell, the limit is expressed as either: The gist is that you don't care what each individual piece costs; you only care what the cost of the bundle is. When you put on a buy-write, you are buying stock and selling a (covered) call against that stock. That trade will always cost money. Putting on a buy-write will always be done at a net debit. This is because is is normally impossible for a call to be worth more than its underlying stock price. There are a few possible reasons there would be a"net credit" option for what's described as a "buy-write": |
How does the price of oil influence the value of currency? | From an investor's standpoint, if the value of crude oil increases, economies that are oil dependent become more favourable (oil companies will be more profitable). Therefore, investors will find that country's currency more attractive in the foreign exchange market. |
Is there a way to claim a car purchase in the tax return? | IRS Publication 463 is a great resource to help you understand what you can and can't deduct. It's not a yes/no question, it depends on the exact company use, other use, and contemporaneous record keeping. |
How to make money from a downward European market? | Invest in solid companies, not in esoteric products built on sand. The problem is with finance, not with real economy: oil companies make money, mobile phone companies make money, airlines make money... |
I am a contractor with revenue below UK's VAT threshold. Should I register for VAT? | (1) Should I register for VAT? – If it is below the threshold amount it is purely voluntary. If you register for VAT, you would have to charge VAT and then do returns every quarter. If you can take up this bit of hassle, it doesn't make much of a difference. One thing you need to consider: you get 1% discount during your first year of registering for VAT. If you want to save this discount for when you really need to pay VAT, it could be helpful. (2) What benefits would registering for VAT include? – Except for reclaiming VAT, where you pay VAT for business expenses, not much. (3) Would I not just hold onto the monies for HMRC ? – You wouldn't hold any money for HMRC. They will send you notifications if you do not file your returns and pay your VAT quarterly. And get everything cleared from your accountant. If your accountant doesn't answer properly, make it clear you need proper answers. Else change your accountant. If you do something wrong and HMRC gets after you, you would be held liable – your accountant can take the slip if you signed on all business documents provided by your accountant. |
Do money markets fluctuate during market crashes? | Wikipedia has a solid article on Money Market Funds which includes a section on "Breaking the Buck" when the money market fund fails to return its full dollar. Money market funds smoothing out the daily (generally small) fluctuations of investing in short-term treasuries directly but have similar risk over longer periods. Some funds can and have lost money in market crashes, though even the worst performers still returned 95+ cents on the dollar. While few investments are guaranteed and likely none in your retirement account, money-market funds are likely the choice you have with the least fluctuation and similar minimal risk to short term treasuries. However, a second important risk to consider is inflation. Money market funds generally have returns similar or less than the inflation rate. While money markets funds help you avoid the fluctuations of the stock market the value of your retirement account falls behind the cost of goods over time. Unless the investor is fairly old most financial professionals would recommend only a small portion of a retirement account be in money market instruments. Vanguard also has a set of target retirement investment funds that are close to what many professionals would recommend. Consulting a financial professional to discuss your particular needs is a good option as well. |
How do I find a good mutual fund to invest 5K in with a moderately high amount of risk? | The "Money 70" is a fine list: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestfunds/index.html Money magazine is usually more reasonable than the other ones (SmartMoney, Kiplinger's, etc. are in my opinion sillier). If you want a lot of depth, the Morningstar Analyst Picks are useful but you have to pay for a membership which is probably not worth it for now: http://www.morningstar.com/Cover/Funds.aspx (side note: Morningstar star ratings are not useful, I'd ignore those. analyst picks are pretty useful.) Vanguard is a can't-go-too-wrong suggestion. They don't have any house funds that are "bad," while for example Fidelity has some good ones mixed with a bunch that aren't so much. Of course, some funds at Vanguard may be inappropriate for your situation. (Vanguard also sells third-party funds, I'm talking about their own branded funds.) If getting started with 5K I think you'd want to go with an all-in-one fund like a target date retirement fund or a balanced fund. Such a fund also handles rebalancing for you. There's a Vanguard target date fund and balanced fund (Wellington) in the Money 70 list. fwiw, I think it's more important to ask how much risk you need to take, rather than how much you are willing to take. I wrote this down at more length here: http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund/ First pick your desired asset allocation, then pick your fund after that to match. Good luck. |
super confused about bid and ask size. help | yes you are right as per my understanding while doing trade you must consider fol (specially for starters like me) The volume of the stock you are trading in should be high enough to keep you secure for quick in and out Whenever the bid volume is more than the ask volume the prices will move up and vice versa. to give an example if a stock is at 100 points and there are fol bids: The transaction will occur when either the bidder agrees to pay the ask price (case 1. he pays 101 . his bid offer will disappear and the next best ask will be 102. and the current price will be 101 which was the last transaction.) or when the person giving ask price agrees to deal at best bid which was 99 in which case the share will go down. |
Why are interbank payment (settlement) systems closed for weekends and holidays? | The second part of your question is the easiest to answer, how much manual work is involved in settlement processes? Payment systems which handle low value (i.e. high volume) transactions work on the basis of net settlement. Each of the individual payments are netted across all of the participant banks, so that only one "real" payment is made by each bank. Some days banks will receive money, others they will pay money. This is arbitrary and depends on whether their outbound payments exceed their inbound payments for that day. The payment system will notify each Bank how much it owes/will receive for the day. The money is then transferred between all of the banks simultaneously by the payment system to remove the risk that some pay and others don't. If you're going to make or receive a very large payment, you're going to want to make certain that its correct. This means that if there's a discrepancy, you need operations people available to find out why its wrong. When dealing with this many payments, answering that question can be hard. Did we miss a payment? Is there a duplicate? Etc. The vast majority of payments will process without any human involvement, but to make the process work, you always need human brains there to fix problems that occur. This brings me to your first question. On every day that settlement happens, a bank will receive (or pay) a very large sum of money. As a settlement bank you must settle that money - the guarantee that every bank will pay is one of the main reasons these systems exist. For settlement to happen, every bank has to agree to participate, and be ready to verify the data on their side and deliver the funds from their account. So there is no particular reason that this doesn't happen on weekends and holidays other than history. But for any payment system to change, it would require the support of (at least) a majority of participants to pay staff to manage the settlement process on weekends. This would increase costs for banks, but the benefits would only really be for you and me (if at all). That means it's unlikely to happen unless a government forces the issue. |
Stocks and bonds have yields, but what is a yield? | For bonds bought at par (the face value of the bond, like buying a CD for $1000) the payment it makes is the same as yield. You pay $1000 and get say, $40 per year or 4%. If you buy it for more or less than that $1000, say $900, there's some math (not for me, I use a finance calculator) to tell you your return taking the growth to maturity into account, i.e. the extra $100 you get when you get the full $1000 back. Obviously, for bonds, you care about whether the comp[any or municipality will pay you back at all, and then you care about how much you'll make when then do. In that order. For stocks, the picture is abit different as some companies give no dividend but reinvest all profits, think Berkshire Hathaway. On the other hand, many people believe that the dividend is important, and choose to buy stocks that start with a nice yield, a $30 stock with a $1/yr dividend is 3.3% yield. Sounds like not much, but over time you expect the company to grow, increase in value and increase its dividend. 10 years hence you may have a $40 stock and the dividend has risen to $1.33. Now it's 4.4% of the original investment, and you sit on that gain as well. |
What should I do with the change in my change-jar? | Every now and then I fill a pocket with a handful of coins and spend it on a very small shop on my way home, i.e. a loaf of bread (£1.50), a pint of milk (50p) by using the self-check out (Tesco/Sainsbury's) which has a coin slot or even better the little bowl where you put coins down. I find this pretty straightforward. There's no point having a jar at home worth £50. |
If an option's price is 100% made up of its intrinsic value, is there a way to guarantee a non-loss while having a chance at a profit? | The strategy looks good on paper but in reality, the 150 call will have some time value particularly if it has got some time to mature. Let us say this time value is 0.50 , so the call costs 3.50. If the stock stays above 150 (actually above 149.50) , by the expiration of the call, you will lose this 0.50 . Then you need to keep buying calls over and over and hope one day a big down move will more than make up for all this lost premium. It is possible, but not entirely predictable. You may get lucky, but it may take many months to produce a significant move to make up for all the lost premium. If a big down move were to happen and the market had any indication of that in advance, that would be priced into the call already, so the 150 call may cost 4$ or 4.50$ if the market had wind of a big move. (a.k.a high implied volatility) |
Car finance, APR rates and per week in adverts; help understanding them | Easier to copy paste than type this out. Credit: www.financeformulas.net Note that the present value would be the initial loan amount, which is likely the sale price you noted minus a down payment. The loan payment formula is used to calculate the payments on a loan. The formula used to calculate loan payments is exactly the same as the formula used to calculate payments on an ordinary annuity. A loan, by definition, is an annuity, in that it consists of a series of future periodic payments. The PV, or present value, portion of the loan payment formula uses the original loan amount. The original loan amount is essentially the present value of the future payments on the loan, much like the present value of an annuity. It is important to keep the rate per period and number of periods consistent with one another in the formula. If the loan payments are made monthly, then the rate per period needs to be adjusted to the monthly rate and the number of periods would be the number of months on the loan. If payments are quarterly, the terms of the loan payment formula would be adjusted accordingly. I like to let loan calculators do the heavy lifting for me. This particular calculator lets you choose a weekly pay back scheme. http://www.calculator.net/loan-calculator.html |
Why is a home loan (mortgage) cheaper than gold loan? | Why is a home loan (mortgage) cheaper than gold loan? It has to do with risk. Lending money secured by gold is inherently riskier than a loan secure by your home. Increased risk means the lender must charge more. That's why home loans are cheap compared to loans for other purposes. Home loans are secured by the house. Houses are assets that hold and usually retain some value. Houses are easy to track down (they can't be hidden or moved) in the event that you don't repay your loan. Houses are reasonably liquid, they can be resold to pay off a defaulted loan. |
Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards? | The only good reason I find to close cards are: it's a card with an annual fee that you don't need. No point bleeding money each year. churning rewards. Open card to get bonus promotion such as "spend $500 in first 3 months, get $200 bonus". Close card and open a year later to do that same bonus again if available. Many cards don't allow you to do this. making room for newer cards at the same bank. Example, you have 5 Chase Cards and you want to apply for a 6th. Chase says you have maximized your credit they will extend you. You close one of your existing cards to get that new card. I have seen that many banks allow you to shift over some over your existing available credit to your new card without having to close them. |
Is it worth it to buy TurboTax Premier over Deluxe if I sold investments in a taxable account? | I have found that using the online version can help determine the correct product. Try Deluxe online, you can upload the data from last year. When you get to the key forms see what happens if you don't switch. Then switch to Premiere. Compare the results. |
401k Transfer After Business Closure | You should probably consult an attorney. However, if the owner was a corporation/LLC and it has been officially dissolved, you can provide an evidence of that from your State's department of State/Corporations to show that their request is unfeasible. If the owner was a sole-proprietor, then that may be harder as you'll need to track the person down and have him close the plan. |
Question about being a resident | This sort of involves personal finance, and sort of not. But it's an interesting question, so let's call it on topic? Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends who's asking. If you're trying to qualify for in-state tuition, for example, you need to have been in state for a certain amount of time. For tax purposes, the first year you move to a new state you need to file part-time resident returns in your previous and current state of residency |
Married, 55, grown kids: Should I buy life insurance, or invest in stocks? The ultimate decision | Life insurance is not an investment -- by definition, since the companies need to take a profit out of it, the average amount paid in exceeds the amount paid out, yielding a negative rate of return. Get life insurance if your death would cause severe financial hardship for someone. If you have sufficient savings that your wife could recover and move on with her life without hardship, and your kids are grown, you probably DO NOT need life insurance. |
GnuCash register reimbursements | You should be recording the reimbursement as a negative expense on the original account the expense was recorded. Let's assume you have a $100 expense and $100 salary. Total $200 paycheck. You will have something like this In the reports, it will show that the expense account will have $0 ($100 + ($100)), while income account will have $100 (salary). |
Blog income taxes? | If the money comes to you, then it's income. If the money goes out from you, it's an expense. You get to handle the appropriate tax documentation for those business transactions. You may also have the pleasure of filing 1099-MISC forms for all of your blogging buddies if you've paid them more than $600. (Not 100% sure on this one.) I was in a blog network that had some advertising deals, and we tried to keep the payments separate because it was cleaner that way. If I were you, I'd always charge a finder's fee because it is extra work for you to do what you're doing. |
Trading US stocks from India | You can easily go to somebody like icici ask for the demat section and enable overseas stock trading. |
How to compute real return including expense ratio | Returns reported by mutual funds to shareholders, google, etc. are computed after all the funds' costs, including Therefore the returns you see on google finance are the returns you would actually have gotten. |
Diversify my retirement investments with a Roth IRA | Without making specific recommendations, it is worthwhile to point out the differing tax treatments for a Roth IRA: investments in a Roth IRA will not be taxed when you withdraw them during retirement (unless they change the law on that or something crazy). So if you are thinking about investing in some areas with high risk and high potential reward (e.g. emerging market stocks) then the Roth IRA might be the place to do it. That way, if the investment works out, you have more money in the account that won't ever be taxed. We can talk about the possible risks of certain kinds of investments, but this is not an appropriate forum to recommend for or against them specifically. Healthcare stocks are subject to political risk in the current regulatory climate. BRICs are subject to political risks regarding the political and business climate in the relevant nations, and the growth of their economies need not correspond with growth in the companies you hold in your portfolio. Energy stocks are subject to the world economic climate and demand for oil, unless you're talking alternative-energy stocks, which are subject to political risk regarding their subsidies and technological risk regarding whether or not their technologies pan out. It is worth pointing out that any ETF you invest in will have a prospectus, and that prospectus will contain a section discussing the risks which could affect your investment. Read it before investing! :) |
What are the best software tools for personal finance? | Excel Pros: Cons: |
How to calculate new price for bond if yield increases | I am currently trying out some variations (moving terms around ...) of the formula for the present value of money The relationship between yield and price is much simpler than that. If you pay £1015 for a bond and its current yield is 4.69%, that means you will receive in income each year: 4.69% * £1015 = £47.60 The income from the bond is defined by its coupon rate and its face value, not the market value. So that bond will continue to pay £47.60 each year, regardless of the market price. The market price will go up or down according to the market as a whole, and the credit rating of the issuer. If the issuer is likely to default, the market price goes down and the yield goes up. If similar companies start offering bonds with higher yields, the market price goes down to make the bond competitive in the market, again raising yield. So if the yield goes up to 4.87%, what is the price such that 4.87% of that price is £47.60? £47.60 / 4.87% = £977.48 Another way to think of it: if the yield goes up from 4.69% to 4.87%, then yield has increased by a factor of: 4.87% / 4.69% = 1.0384 Consequently, market price must decrease by the same factor: £1015 / 1.0384 = £977.48 |
Are investor's preference for dividends justified? | Stocks aren't just paper -- they're ownership of a company. Getting cash from a stock that doesn't pay dividends basically means reducing your stake in the company. If the stock pays dividends, on the other hand, you still have the same shares, but now you have cash too. You can choose to buy more of the company...or, more importantly, to use it elsewhere if that's what you want to do. |
Where can you find dividends for Australian Stock Market Shares (ASX) for more than 2 years of data? | It's difficult to compile free information because the large providers are not yet permitted to provide bulk data downloads by their sources. As better advertising revenue arrangements that mimic youtube become more prevalent, this will assuredly change, based upon the trend. The data is available at money.msn.com. Here's an example for ASX:TSE. You can compare that to shares outstanding here. They've been improving the site incrementally over time and have recently added extensive non-US data. Non-US listings weren't available until about 5 years ago. I haven't used their screener for some years because I've built my own custom tools, but I will tell you that with a little PHP knowledge, you can build a custom screener with just a few pages of code; besides, it wouldn't surprise me if their screener has increased in power. It may have the filter you seek already conveniently prepared. Based upon the trend, one day bulk data downloads will be available much like how they are for US equities on finviz.com. To do your part to hasten that wonderful day, I recommend turning off your adblocker on money.msn and clicking on a worthy advertisement. With enough revenue, a data provider may finally be seduced into entering into better arrangements. I'd much rather prefer downloading in bulk unadulterated than maintain a custom screener. money.msn has been my go to site for mult-year financials for more than a decade. They even provide limited 10-year data which also has been expanded slowly over the years. |
Considerations for holding short-term reserves? | It is a dangerous policy not to have a balance across the terms of assets. Short term reserves should remain in short term investments because they are most likely needed in the short term. The amount can be shaved according to the probability of their respective needs, but long term asset variance usually exceed the probability of needing to use reserves. For example, replacing one month bonds paying essentially nothing with stocks that should be expected to return 9% will expose oneself to a possible sudden 50% loss. If cash is indeed so abundant that reserves can be doubled, this policy can be expected to be stable; however, cash is normally scarce. It is a risky policy to place reserves that have a 20% chance of being 100% liquidated into investments that have a 20% chance of declining by approximately 50% just for a chance of an extra 9% annual return. Financial stability should always be of primary concern with rate of return secondary only after stability has been reasonably assured. |
What's an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)? | ETFs offer the flexibility of stocks while retaining many of the benefits of mutual funds. Since an ETF is an actual fund, it has the diversification of its potentially many underlying securities. You can find ETFs with stocks at various market caps and style categories. You can have bond or mixed ETFs. You can even get ETFs with equal or fundamental weighting. In short, all the variety benefits of mutual funds. ETFs are typically much less expensive than mutual funds both in terms of management fees (expense ratio) and taxable gains. Most of them are not actively managed; instead they follow an index and therefore have a low turnover. A mutual fund may actively trade and, if not balanced with a loss, will generate capital gains that you pay taxes on. An ETF will produce gains only when shifting to keep inline with the index or you yourself sell. As a reminder: while expense ratio always matters, capital gains and dividends don't matter if the ETF or mutual fund is in a tax-advantaged account. ETFs have no load fees. Instead, because you trade it like a stock, you will pay a commission. Commissions are straight, up-front and perfectly clear. Much easier to understand than the various ways funds might charge you. There are no account minimums to entry with ETFs, but you will need to buy complete shares. Only a few places allow partial shares. It is generally harder to dollar-cost average into an ETF with regular automated investments. Also, like trading stocks, you can do those fancy things like selling short, buying on margin, options, etc. And you can pay attention to the price fluctuations throughout the day if you really want to. Things to make you pause: if you buy (no-load) mutual funds through the parent company, you'll get them at no commission. Many brokerages have No Transaction Fee (NTF) agreements with companies so that you can buy many funds for free. Still look out for that expense ratio though (which is probably paying for that NTF advantage). As sort of a middle ground: index funds can have very low expense ratios, track the same index as an ETF, can be tax-efficient or tax-managed, free to purchase, easy to dollar-cost average and easier to automate/understand. Further reading: |
What size “nest egg” should my husband and I have, and by what age? | Here's another answer on the topic: Saving for retirement: How much is enough? An angle on it this question made me think of: a good approach here is to focus on savings rate (which you can control) rather than the final number (which you can't, plus it will fluctuate with the markets and make you nervous). For example, focus on saving at least 10% of your income annually (15% is much safer). If you focus on the final number: The way it works in the real world is that you save as much as you can, but there are lots of random factors and unknowns. Some people end up having to work a lot longer than they hoped to. Others end up able to retire early. Others retire on time but have to spend less than they hoped. But the one thing you can often control (as long as you have an income and no catastrophes, anyway) is that you spend less than you make. |
What happened to Home Depot's Stock in 1988? | So a major problem with looking at historical stock data on these graphs is that they set the stock price based off of current market volumn. If I was to say look at Majesco Entertainment (COOL) in june of 2016. It would say that the stock as trading between $5-6. In reality it was between .50-$1. But in august there was a 6:1 reverse split. So June's value based on todays current share count would be about $5-6 per one share. 1988 for home depot must have been a really bad year for them, and because of all the splits they've had over the years already screws that estimate of what one share is worth. There's a lot of variance in 1988, but you have to be looking at only 1988. 87 and 89 really screws the the chart's scale. |
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance? | The general answer to this is "yes". When you're dealing with single-digit millionaires, the answer is that their insurance habits and needs are basically the same as everyone else. When you get into the double digit and triple digit millionaires, or people worth billions, they have additional options, but those basically boil down to using "self-insurance" rather than paying a company for an insurance policy. The following is based on both what I've read and a fair deal of personal experience working for or with various stripes of millionaire, and even one billionaire. Addressing the types of insurance you mention: This is generally used to provide survivors with a replacement for income you can no longer provide when dead, in addition to paying for costs associated with dying (funeral, hospital/hospice bills, etc). Even millionaires and billionaires have this, yes, but the higher your net worth, the less value it has. If you're worth 9 or 10 figures, you probably already have trust funds set up for your family members, so an extra payout from an insurance policy is probably going to represent a small fraction of the wealth you're leaving your survivors, and as has been noted, insurance makes a profit, so the expectation by the insurance company is that they'll make more money on the policy than they'll have to pay out on death. That being said, the members of the 9+ figure club I've worked for all had multi-million dollar life insurance policies on them, which were paid for or heavily subsidized by the companies they owned or worked for. I doubt they would have held those policies if they had to pay the full cost, but when it's free or cheap, why not? Absolutely. As health insurance in America is an untaxed employment benefit, owing to regulations from World War II, all the wealthy folks I've had contact with got outrageously good plans as part of the companies they work for or owned. Having said that, even their trust fund beneficiaries held health insurance, because this type of insurance (in America, at least) is actually not really insurance, it's more of a pre-payment plan for medical expenses, and as such, it provides broader access to health care than you'd get from simply having enough money to pay for whatever treatments you need. If you walk into a hospital as a millionaire and state that you'll definitely be able to pay for your open-heart surgery with cash, you'll get a very different response than if you walk in with your insurance card and your "diamond-level" coverage. So, in this case, it's not as much as about the monetary benefits (although this is a type of "insurance" that's generally free or heavily discounted to the individual, so that's a factor) as it is about easier access to health care. Although this is required by law, it's one of the common forms of insurance that the very wealthy can, and often do handle differently than the rest of us. Most (if not all) US states have a provision to allow motorists to self-insure themselves, which amount to putting up a bond to cover claims against them. Basically, you deposit the minimum amount the state determines is required for auto insurance with the responsible state organization, get a certificate of self-insurance and you're good to go. All the high wealth individuals I know when this route, for two reasons - first of all, they didn't have to deal with insurance companies (or pay sky-high rates on account of all the speeding tickets they picked up) and secondly, they made their deposit with government bonds they had in their portfolios anyway, and they could still collect the interest on their self-insurance deposits. Of course, this meant that if they wrecked or dinged up their Maserati or Bentley or whatever, they'd be out of pocket to repair or replace it... but I guess if you can afford one $200,000 car, you can afford to buy a second one if you wreck it, or get by riding one of your other luxury automobiles instead. Since someone else mentioned kidnapping insurance, I'll point out here that what Robert DeNiro did in Casino when he put a couple million dollars into a safety deposit box for his wife to use if he was kidnapped or needed to pay off a government official is essentially the same thing as "self-insurance". Putting money away somewhere for unexpected events in lieu of buying an insurance policy against them. In real life, the very wealthy will often do this with US treasuries, government bonds and other interest-bearing, safe investments. They make a little money, diversify their portfolios and at the same time, self-insure against a potential big loss. This is another insurance area where even the very wealthy are remarkably similar to the rest of us, in that they all generally have it, yes, although the reason is a little different. For normal folks, the home they own is generally the largest part of their net worth, or at least a very substantial fraction, for those older folks with retirement savings that exceed the value of their homes. So for us, we have home owners insurance to prevent a catastrophic event from wiping out the lion's share of our net worth. If you're an ultra-wealthy individual who can afford an 8 figure home, that's not really the case (at least with the ones I've dealt with, who made their fortunes in business and are good managing their wealth and diversifying their assets - could be different for sports stars or the entertainment industry), and these people generally own multiple homes anyway, so it's not as big a deal if they lose one. However, no one actually buys a multi-million dollar home by writing a multi-million dollar check. They get a mortgage, just like the rest of us. And to get a mortgage, insurance on the property is a requirement. So yes, even the ultra wealthy generally have insurance on their home(s). There is an element of not wanting to shell out another 20 million if the place burns down, or someone breaks in and steals your valuables, but the bigger part of the reason is that it's required to get a mortgage in the first place, which is generally done for financial reasons - interest on your mortgage is a tax deduction, and you don't want to sink millions of dollars all at once into buying a property that's not going to appreciate in value, when you can get a mortgage and invest those millions of dollars to make more money instead. |
Do I need to invest to become millionaire? | If your take-home salary after taxes etc is 35K / year, and you say you will be able to save at most 40% of that, you will need to find something that pays 2.75% to reach one million in 40 years*. However, these numbers can chance dramatically depending on your specific circumstances. If you're just starting your career, 40 years of saving is not impossible. If you're in the middle or nearing the end, you will have dramatically less time to achieve your goals. *40% of 35000 is 14000 saved per year, at an interest of 2.75% compounded annually, you will reach 1000000 after roughly 40 years. |
Is CFD a viable option for long-term trading? | CFDs should not be used as a buy and hold strategy (which is risky enough doing with shares directly). However, with proper money and risk management and the proper use of stop losses, a medium term strategy is very plausible. I was using CFDs in the past over a short time period of usually between a couple of days to a couple is weeks, trying to catch small swings with very tight stops. I kept getting wipsawed due to my stops being too tight so had too many small loses for my few bigger wins. And yes I lost some money, almost $5k in one year. I have recently started a more medium term strategy with wider stops trying to catch trending stocks. I have only recently started this strategy and so far have 2 loses and 3 wins. Just remember that you do get charged a financing fee for holding long position overnight, buy for short position you actually get paid the funding fee for overnight positions. My broker charges the official interest rate + 2.5% for long positions and pays the official rate - 2.5% for short positions. So yes CFDs can be used for the longer term as long as you are implementing proper money and risk management and use stop losses. Just be aware of the implications of using margin and all the costs involved. |
Canadian accepting money electronically from Americans | I am not aware of a version of Interac available in the U.S., but there are alternative ways to receive money: Cheque. The problem with mailed cheques is that they take time to deliver, and time to clear. If you ship your wares before the cheque has cleared and the cheque is bad, you're out the merchandise. COD. How this works is you place a COD charge on your item at the post office in the amount you charge the customer. The post office delivers the package on the other end when the customer pays. The post office pays you at the time you send the package. There is a fee for this, talk to your local post office or visit the Canada Post website. Money order. Have your U.S. customers send an International Money Order, not a Domestic Money Order. Domestic money orders can only be cashed at a U.S. post office. The problem here is again delivery time, and verifying your customer sent an International Money Order. It can be a pain to have to send back a Domestic Money Order to a customer explaining what they have to do to pay you, even more painful if you don't catch the error before shipping your wares. Credit Card. There are a number of companies offering credit card processing that are much cheaper than a bank. PayPal, Square, and Intuit are three such companies offering these services. After I did my investigations I found Square to be the best deal for me. Please do your own research on these companies (and banks!) and find out which one makes the most sense for you. Some transaction companies may forbid the processing of payment for e-cig materials as they my be classed as tobacco. |
What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US? | Bad plan. This seems like a recipe for having your money taken away from you by CBP. Let me explain the biases which make it so. US banking is reliable enough for the common citizen, that everyone simply uses banks. To elaborate, Americans who are unbanked either can't produce simple identity paperwork; or they got an account but then got blacklisted for overdrawing it. These are problems of the poor, not millionaires. Outside of determined "off the grid" folks with political reasons to not be in the banking and credit systsm, anyone with money uses the banking system. Who's not a criminal, anyway. We also have strong laws against money laundering: turning cash (of questionable origin) into "sanitized" cash on deposit in a bank. The most obvious trick is deposit $5000/day for 200 days. Nope, that's Structuring: yeah, we have a word for that. A guy with $1 million cash, it is presumed he has no choice: he can't convert it into a bank deposit, as in this problem - note where she says she can't launder it. If it's normal for people in your country to haul around cash, due to a defective banking system, you're not the only one with that problem, and nearby there'll be a country with a good banking system who understands your situation. Deposit it there. Then retain a US lawyer who specializes in this, and follow his advice about moving the money to the US via funds transfer. Even then, you may have some explaining to do; but far less than with cash. (And keep in mind for those politically motivated off-the-financial-grid types, they're a bit crazy but definitely not stupid, live a cash life everyday, and know the law better than anybody. They would definitely consider using banks and funds transfers for the border crossing proper, because of Customs. Then they'll turn it into cash domestically and close the accounts.) |
Bond ETFs as a means to achieve risk parity | How is it possible that long term treasury bonds, which the government has never defaulted on, can hold more risk as an ETF then the stock market index? The risk from long-term bonds isn't that the government defaults, but that interest rates go up before you get paid, so investors want bonds issued more recently at higher interest rates, rather than your older bonds that pay at a lower rate (so the price for your bonds goes down). This is usually caused by higher inflation rates which reduce the value of the interest that you will be paid. Do you assume more risk investing in bond ETFs than you would investing in individual bonds? If you are choosing the right ETFs, there should be a lower amount of risk because the ETFs are taking care of the difficult work of buying a variety of bonds. Are bond ETFs an appropriate investment vehicle for risk diversification? Yes, if you are investing in bonds, exchange traded funds are an appropriate way to buy them. The markets for ETFs are usually very liquid. |
What is the Difference between Life Insurance and ULIP? | I would refer you to this question and answers. Here in the US we have two basic types of life insurance: term and whole life. Universal life is a marketing response to whole life being such a bad deal, and is whole life just not quite as bad. I am not familiar with the products in India, but given the acronym (ULIP), it is probably universal life, and as you describe is variable universal life. Likely Description "Under the hood", or in effect, you are purchasing a term life policy and investing excess premiums in a collection of stock mutual funds. This is a bad deal for a few reasons: A much better option is to buy "level term insurance" and invest on your own. You won't necessarily lose money, but you can make better financial decisions. It is good to invest, it is good to have life. A better decision would not to combine the two into a single product. |
Saving $1,000+ per month…what should I do with it? | If you can get a rate of savings that is higher than your debt, you save. If you can't then you pay off your debt. That makes the most of the money you have. Also to think about: what are you goals? Do you want to own a home, start a family, further your education, move to a new town? All of these you would need to save up for. If you can do these large transactions in cash you will be better off. If it were me I would do what I think is a parroting of Dave Ramsay's advice Congratulations by the way. It isn't easy to do what you have accomplished and you will lead a simpler life if you don't have to worry about money everyday. |
Company revenue increased however stock price did not | The company released its 2nd Quarter Revenue of $1,957,921 a couple days ago however the stock did not move up in any way. Why? If the company is making money shouldn't the stock go up. But that result doesn't indicate that the company is making money. The word for making money is profit, not revenue. Profit equals revenue minus costs. An increasing revenue could mean decreasing profits. For example, marketing expenses could eat up the entirety of the new revenue. This is one of the most basic aspects of researching stocks. If you are having trouble with this, you might find yourself better suited to invest in mutual funds, where they do this research for you. In particular, the safest kind of mutual funds for an inexperienced investor are index funds that track a major index, like the S&P 500. Another issue is that stock prices aren't based on historical results but on expected future results. Many a company has reported smaller than expected profits and had their price fall even though profits increased from previous results. Looking at it long term would it hurt me in anyway to buy ~100,000 shares which right now would run be about $24 (including to fee) and sit on it? It would cost you $24. You might get a return some day. Or you might waste your money. Given the comparatively large upside, the consensus seems to be that you will probably waste your money. That said, it's not a lot of money to waste. So it won't hurt you that much. The most likely result remains that the company will go bankrupt, leaving your stock worthless. |
When and how should I pay taxes on ForEx trades? | I guess Bitcoin are not that popular yet and hence there are no specific regulations. If currently it gets debated, it would be treated more like a Pre-Paid card or your Paypal account. As you have already paid taxes on the $$ you used to buy the Bitcoins there is no tax obligation as long as you keep using it to buy something else. The other way to look at it is as a commodity. If you have purchased a commodity and it has appreciated in value in future you may be liable to pay tax on the appreciated value. Think of it as a if you bought a house with the $$ and sold it later. Once more serious trade starts happening, the governments around the world would bring in regulations. Till then there is nothing to worry about. |
Personal finance app where I can mark transactions as “reviewed”? | Not web-based, but both Moneydance and You Need A Budget allow this. |
Is Cost of Living overstated? | I'm not convinced that cost of living is related to ensuring greater appreciation of assets over time, especially over a 30 year window. The importance of regional differences in cost of living to anyone's decision-making should be weighted by the percentage of their income spent on indexed items. That is, for people who spend 35%, or even 50% of their salary on indexed items, regional variances in cost of living are far more important than for people who spend 10% of their salaries on these items. Essentially, as income goes up, the significance of cost of living goes down. See http://macromon.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/how-u-s-income-groups-get-squeezed-by-food-prices/ for a pretty picture of the relevance of cost of living across income groups (for food & gas, which are often not included in indexes due to volatility). So, if you are wondering whether cost of living is overstated, perhaps it's because you are in an income group that doesn't need to worry about it as much. Whether it's overstated or not will depend on how much one makes and spends. |
When filing a US 1065 as a General Partnership, do we combine our expenditures for a home office? | Your home doesn't belong to the partnership, it belongs to you. So you can (if qualified) deduct home office usage as a business expense on your individual tax return. Same goes to your partner. Similarly any other unreimbursed expense. |
What should I do with my paper financial documents? | Here's my approach: As for Google Docs, I think that its safe enough for most people. If you in a profession that was subject to heavy regulatory scrutiny, of if you are cheating on your taxes, I would probably not use a cloud provider. Many providers will provide documents to government agencies without a subpoena or notice to you. |
I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work? | I would have asked for the intended recipient's account number and pursue sending the money there. If it's the same as yours (except for one digit) that would be a good sign. But even here, the crook could send money to dozens of different accounts, all off by one digit, just to make it look authentic. I'm going with scam just to be safe. As for the checksum, it's used on paper checks (next to the last digit) but not necessarily the actual account. Credit card accounts use an algorithm, but online tools create as many legitimate character strings as you want. I used to work at a credit union, and when the time was just right, I opened account number 860000 (actual account number except for the second digit). All their account numbers were sequential, so the oldest account number was 000001. Sadly, many important systems are set up to meet the simple needs of the masses, and are easy to beat if you really want to. Check out If you dare hackers to hack you, they'll hack you good. |
Investing small amounts at regular intervals while minimizing fees? | You can open a 529 plan for your child. The minimum contribution for my state is only $25. You can setup automatic deposits, or deposit money only a few times a year; or both. You can save money on state taxes, and the money grows tax free if the money is used for educational expenses. They generally have age based portfolios, but some also let you pick from a variety of portfolios. |
Does dollar cost averaging really work? | If you define dollar cost cost averaging as investing a specific dollar amount over a certain fixed time frame then it does not work statistically better than any other strategy for getting that money in the market. (IE Aunt Ruth wants to invest $60,000 in the stock market and does it $5000 a month for a year.) It will work better on some markets and worse on others, but on average it won't be any better. Dollar cost averaging of this form is effectively a bet that gains will occur at the end of the time period rather than the beginning, sometimes this bet will pay off, other times it won't. A regular investment contribution of what you can afford over an indefinite time period (IE 401k contribution) is NOT Dollar Cost Averaging but it is an effective investment strategy. |
If I were to get audited, what would I need? | While IANAL (tax or otherwise), I have always found that keeping original receipts is the only way to go. While anything can, at some level, be forged or faked, a photo is one more step removed from the original. A mere listing on a web site isn't much proof of anything. Keep your originals for a suggested seven years; while the IRS is trying to audit much faster than that, and any inkling of fraud can be investigated at any time, you should be well and clear with originals kept that long. |
Why aren't there solutions for electronic itemized receipt for retail in-store purchases? | In some stores that is done. When I shop at the Apple store or at the Farmers market the receipt is automatically sent to my email address. Why don't others do it? If the target of the itemized receipt is a credit card company they would be sending data that they spent collecting to another corporation. The grocery store is collecting your data so they can sell it to their vendors. They sell to vendors the info that Gen X shoppers that buy cat food are more likely to use brand X laundry detergent then Millennials. The credit card companies could gather even more Meta data that they could sell. Privacy. Some people don't join the reward program at the store because they don't want a company to know exactly what they buy. Even fewer would want the credit card company to have that information. The credit card companies would have to want this level of data that would have to be stored, maintained, and protected. |
Anyone have experience with Brink's 5% savings account? | Down in the Fine Print are these points to consider for the limit: For an average daily balance up to but not exceeding $5,000.00, the interest rate for the Savings Account is 4.91% with an annual percentage yield (APY) of 5.00%. For that portion of the average daily balance of the Savings Account that is $5,000.01, or more, the interest rate is 0.49% with an annual percentage yield (APY) of 0.50%. The interest rates and APYs of each tier may change. The APYs were accurate as of March 1, 2014. These are promotional rates and may change without notice pursuant to applicable law. No minimum balance necessary to open Savings Account or obtain the yield(s). Because Savings Account funds are withdrawn through the Card Account (maximum 6 such transfers per calendar month), Card Account transaction fees could reduce the interest earned on the Savings Account. Card Account and Savings Account funds are FDIC-insured upon verification of Cardholder's identity. For purposes of FDIC coverage limit, all funds held on deposit by the Cardholder at BofI Federal Bank will be aggregated up to the coverage limit, currently $250,000.00. |
Why are daily rebalanced inverse/leveraged ETFs bad for long term investing? | If you want to make a profit from long term trading (whatever "long term" means for you), the best strategy is to let the good performers in your portfolio run, and cull the bad ones. Of course that strategy is hard to follow, unless you have the perfect foresight to know exactly how long your best performing investments will continue to outperform the market, but markets don't always follow the assumption that perfect information is available to all participants, and hence "momentum" has a real-world effect on prices, whether or not some theorists have chosen to ignore it. But a fixed strategy of "daily rebalancing" does exactly the opposite of the above - it continuously reduces the holdings of good performers and increases the holdings of bad. If this type of rebalancing is done more frequently than the constituents of benchmark index are adjusted, it is very likely to underperform the index in the long term. Other issues in a "real world" market are the impact of increased dealing costs on smaller parcels of securities, and the buy/sell spreads incurred in the daily rebalancing trades. If the market is up and down 1% on alternate days with no long tern trend, quite likely the fund will be repeatedly buying and selling small parcels of the same stocks to do its daily balancing. |
Do stock prices drop due to dividends? | In the case of mutual funds, Net Asset Value (NAV) is the price used to buy and sell shares. NAV is just the value of the underlying assets (which are in turn valued by their underlying holdings and future earnings). So if a fund hands out a billion dollars, it stands to reason their NAV*shares (market cap?) is a billion dollars less. Shareholder's net worth is equal in either scenario, but after the dividend is paid they are more liquid. For people who need investment income to live on, dividends are a cheap way to hold stocks and get regular payments, versus having to sell part of your portfolio every month. But for people who want to hold their investment in the market for a long long time, dividends only increase the rate at which you have to buy. For mutual funds this isn't a problem: you buy the funds and tell them to reinvest for free. So because of that, it's a prohibited practice to "sell" dividends to clients. |
What choices should I consider for investing money that I will need in two years? | Investing $100k into physical gold (bars or coins) is the most prudent option; given the state of economic turmoil worldwide. Take a look at the long term charts; they're pretty self explanatory. Gold has an upward trend for 100+ years. http://www.goldbuyguide.com/price/ A more high risk/high reward investment would be to buy $100k of physical silver. Silver has a similar track record and inherent benefits of gold. Yet, with a combination of factors that could make it even more bull than gold (ie- better liquidity, industrial demand). Beyond that, you may want to look at other commodities such as oil and agriculture. The point is, this is troubled times for worldwide economies. Times like this you want to invest in REAL things like commodities or companies that are actually producing essential materials. |
Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees | The same thing happened to me when I worked retail during my college years. I agree that it is unfair however, it is what it is. With that being said, there may be several factors that you should consider: the new employees might have more experience or qualifications then you, your work performance based on your manager's perspective, and like in my situation when I worked retail, I started out as a cashier which get paid less than sales associates but when I moved to a sales associate position I still got paid less and when I got my raise I got the same pay a new sales associate would get. I suggest you suck it up and ride it through until you get a real job because in retail, in my opinion, you are expendable, if you don't like their pay they will find someone else. |
Which is better when working as a contractor, 1099 or incorporating? | If you start an LLC with you as the sole member it will be considered a disregarded entity. This basically means that you have the protection of being a company, but all your revenues will go on your personal tax return and be taxed at whatever rate your personal rate calculates to based on your situation. Now here is the good stuff. If you file Form 2553 you can change your sole member LLC to file as an S Corp. Once you have done this it changes the game on how you can pay out what your company makes. You will need to employ yourself and give a "reasonable" salary. This will be reported to the IRS and you will file your normal tax returns and they will be taxed based on your situation. Now as the sole member you can then pay yourself "distribution to share holders" from your account and this money is not subject to normal fica and social security tax (check with your tax guy) and MAKE SURE to document correctly. The other thing is that on that same form you can elect to have a different fiscal year than the standard calendar IRS tax year. This means that you could then take part of profits in one tax year and part in another so that you don't bump yourself into another tax bracket. Example: You cut a deal and the company makes 100,000 in profit that you want to take as a distribution. If you wrote yourself a check for all of it then it could put you into another tax bracket. If your fiscal year were to end say on sept 30 and you cut the deal before that date then you could write say 50,000 this year and then on jan 1 write the other check. |
Can I profit from selling a PUT on BBY? | The time when you might want to do this is if you think BBY is undervalued already. If you'd be happy buying the stock now, you'd be happy buying it lower (at the strike price of the put option you sold). If the stock doesn't go down, you win. If it does, you still win, because you get the stock at the strike price. If I recall correctly Warren Buffett did this with Coca-Cola. But that's Warren Buffett. |
In which situations is it better to consider a loan instead of paying cash? | Your practice of waiting until you can pay cash is a good one. It will certainly prevent you from getting into debt! Now, to be clear, your question puts a credit card in the same category as a loan, but it doesn't have to be. You could use a credit card almost like cash, if you are careful. I'm not familiar with the system in France, but in the US, even if you are paying cash all the time, there are some benefits to getting a credit card and paying it off in full every month, instead of simply paying with cash. Some of those benefits are: One pretty big downside of having a credit card depends on your personality. Some people, once they have credit, end up spending beyond their means, and end up getting into debt. Please look into whether credit cards work the same way in France before considering the above advice. As for your question regarding getting a loan vs paying cash, that will usually be personal preference, since with a loan you can buy expensive items (such as a house or car) much sooner than you otherwise could if you waited until you saved the money. For example, it might take 10 years or more to build up enough money to purchase a house with cash, so if you don't want to wait that long, you'll need to finance it. |
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