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How do I determine how much rent I could charge for a property or location? | Zoopla may not always accurately reflect the market price. Your best bet is to get a quote for local registered) letting agents. That way you know you are close to the real market value. Also, these quotes may come into handy if you have a mortgage on the property. Since most banks will require you to provide proof of rent figures you are projecting by sending in official quotes. Hope this helps.. |
Interactive Brokers Margin Accounts | You have to call Interactive Brokers for this. This is what you should do, they might even have a web chat. These are very broker specific idiosyncrasies, because although margin rules are standardized to an extent, when they start charging you for interest and giving you margin until settlement may not be standardized. I mean, I can call them and tell you what they said for the 100 rep. |
Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT | Other options would be to use paypal, your tenant would only need your e-mail address. Most banks have a similar system to do a person-to-person transfers. My bank uses an e-mail address and only the last 4 digits of the account number. |
Long(100%)-Short(-100%) investment explanation | When portfolio positions are reported in percentages, those percentages are relative to the portfolio's base equity. When you start out, that is equal to the cash you have in a portfolio. Later it's the net equity of the portfolio (i.e., how much money you could withdraw if you were to exit all your positions). If you put $5,000 into your account and are long and short 50%, then you are long $2,500 and short $2,500. If it's 100% and -100%, then long and short $5,000. "Leverage" is often computed gross (as if all positions were long). So if you have 100% and -100%, then your broker may say you are "levered 2 to 1." That is, your gross exposure is twice as large as your underlying base equity. |
Employer 401K thru Fidelity - Investment options | The target date investment will automatically reduce equity exposure and increase bond exposure as it approaches retirement date. If you are unlikely to make adjustments as you get older, you may be setting yourself up for more risk down the road. Only you can decide what level of risk you can tolerate as you chase higher gains. |
How much life insurance do I need? | After some thought, I follow Dave Ramsey's advice because it's simple and I can do the math in my head - no online calculator needed. :) You need Life Insurance if someone depends on your income. You can replace your income with a single lump sum of 8-10 times your current income where those who need your income, can get roughly your salary each year from the life insurance proceeds. |
Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage? | Sounds like a poorly written piece at best... The way you make money with a mortgage, if you're careful and/or lucky and/or patient, is to use that loan to make leveraged investments. If the return on the investments is higher than the interest on the loan, you win. Of course if the investments don't do well you can lose money on this deal... but at current interest rates it isn't that hard to make a profit on this arrangement, especially if you can get the tax deductability helping you. |
Why does Yahoo Finance's data for a Vanguard fund's dividend per share not match the info from Vanguard? | In the context of EDV, 4.46 is the indicated dividend rate. The indicated dividend rate is the rate that would be paid per share throughout the next year, assuming dividends stayed the same as prior payment. sources: |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | Do your own oil change! If you are a hands-on person, you could also avoid the cost of the semi-annual oil change, by doing it yourself. Edmunds.com has a great how-to to help you accomplish this. Be prepared for dirty fingernails! But savings, you will realize, as an oil change will run you anywhere from $20 - $200 (if you drive a European car and require a specialized filtre). |
What should I invest in to hedge against a serious crash or calamity? | Are you willing to risk the possibility of investing to prepare for these things and losing money or simply getting meager returns if those crises don't happen? Just invest in a well diversified portfolio both geographically and across multiple sectors and you should be fine. |
If the put is more expensive than the call, what does it mean | It is a fool's errand to attribute abnormal option volume or volatility to any meaningful move in the stock. One side of the chain is frequently more expensive than the other. The relationship between historical volatility and implied volatility is dubious at best, and also a big area of study. |
Best way to invest money as a 22 year old? | Hopefully this $1000 is just a start, and not the last investment you will ever make. Assuming that, there are a couple of big questions to consider: One: What are you saving for? Are you thinking that this is for retirement 40 or 50 years from now, or something much sooner, like buying a car or a house? You didn't say where you live. In the U.S., if you put money into an IRA or a 401k or some other account that the government classes as a retirement account, you don't pay taxes on the profits from the investment, only on the original principal. If you leave the money invested for a long period of time, the profits can be many times the original investment, so this makes a huge difference. Like suppose that you pay 15% of your income in state and local taxes. And suppose you invest your $1000 in something that gives a 7% annual return and leave it there for 40 years. (Of course I'm just making up numbers for an example, but I think these are in a plausible range. And I'm ignoring the difference between regular income tax and capital gains tax, etc etc. It doesn't change the point.) If you put the money in a classic IRA, you pay 0% taxes the year you open the account, so you have your full $1000, figure that compound interest for 40 years, you'll end up with -- crunch crunch crunch the numbers -- $14,974. Then you pay 15% when you take it leaving you with $12,728. (The end result with a Roth IRA is exactly the same. Feel free to crunch those numbers.) But now suppose you invest in a no-retirement account so you have to pay taxes every year. Your original investment is only $850 because you have to pay tax on that, and your effective return is only 5.95% because you have to pay 15% of the 7%. So after 40 years you have -- crunch crunch -- $10,093. Quite a difference. But if you put money in a retirement account and then take it out before you retire, you pay substantial penalties. I think it's 20%. If you plan to take the money out after a year or two, that would really hurt. Two: How much risk are you willing to take? The reality of investment is that, almost always, the more risk you take, the bigger the potential returns, and vice versa. Investments that are very safe tend to have very low returns. As you're young, if you're saving for retirement, you can probably afford a fairly high amount of risk. If you lose a lot of money this year, odds are you'll get it back over the next few years, or at least be able to put more money into investments to make up for it. If you're 64 and planning to retire next year, you want to take very low-risk investments. In general, investing in government bonds is very safe but has very low returns. Corporate bonds are less safe but offer higher returns. Stocks are a little more. Of course different companies have different levels of risk: new start-ups tend to be very risky, but can give huge returns. Commodities are much higher risk. Buying on margin or selling short are ways to really leverage your money, but you could end up losing more than you invested. Mutual funds are a relatively safe way to invest in stocks and bonds because they spread your risk over many companies. Three: How much effort are you willing to put into managing your investments? How much do you know about the stock market and the commodities market and international finance and so on, and how much are you willing to learn? If your answer is that you know a lot about these things or are willing to dive in and learn a lot, that you can invest in individual stocks, bonds, commodities, etc. If your answer is that you really don't know much about all this, then it makes a lot of sense to just put your money into a mutual fund and let the people who manage the fund do all the work. |
Sleazy Bait and Switch Marketing — Is this legal? | But.. what I really want to know.... is it illegal, particularly the clause REQUIRING a trade in to qualify for the advertised price? The price is always net of all the parts of the deal. As an example they gave the price if you have $4000 trade in. If you have no trade in, or a trade in worth less than 4K, your final price for the new car will be more. Of course how do you know that the trade in value they are giving you is fair. It could be worth 6K but they are only giving you a credit of 4K. If you are going to trade in a vehicle while buying another vehicle the trade in should be a separate transaction. I always get a price quote for selling the old car before visiting the new car dealer. I do that to have a price point that I can judge while the pressure is on at the dealership.. Buying a car is a complex deal. The price, interest rate, length of loan, and the value of the trade in are all moving parts. It is even more complex if a lease is involved. They want to adjust the parts to be the highest profit that you are willing to agree to, while you think that you are getting a good deal. This is the fine print: All advertised amounts include all Hyundai incentives/rebates, dealer discounts and $2500 additional down from your trade in value. +0% APR for 72 months on select models subject to credit approval through HMF. *No payments or 90 days subject to credit approval. Value will be added to end of loan balance. 15MY Sonata - Price excludes tax, title, license, doc, and dealer fees. MSRP $22085- $2036 Dealer Discount - $500 HMA Lease Cash - $500 HMA Value Owner Coupon - $1000 HMA Retail Bonus Cash - $500 HMA Military Rebate - $500 HMA Competitive Owner Coupon - $400 HMA College Grad Rebate - $500 HMA Boost Program - $4000 Trade Allowance = Net Price $12149. On approved credit. Certain qualifications apply to each rebate. See dealer for details. Payment is 36 month lease with $0 due at signing. No security deposit required. All payment and prices include HMA College Grad Rebate, HMA Military Rebate, HMA Competitive Owner Coupon and HMA Valued Owner Coupon. Must be active military or spouse of same to qualify for HMA Military Rebate. Must graduate college in the next 6 months or within the last 2 years to qualify for HMA College Grad rebate. Must own currently registered Hyundai to qualify for HMA Valued Owner Coupon. Must own qualifying competitive vehicle to qualify for HMA Competitive Owner Coupon. |
Long term investment for money | What explains the most of the future returns of a portfolio is the allocation between asset classes. In the long term, stock investments are almost certain to return more than any other kinds of investments. For 40+ years, I would choose a portfolio of 100% stocks. How to construct the portfolio, then? Diversification is the key. You should diversify in time (don't put a large sum of money into your stock portfolio immediately; if you have a large sum to invest, spread it around several years). You should diversify based on company size (invest in both large and small companies). You should also diversify internationally (don't invest in just US companies). If you prefer to pick individual stocks, 20 very carefully selected stocks may provide enough diversification if you keep diversification in mind during stock picking. However, careful stock picking cannot be expected to yield excess returns, and if you pick stocks manually, you need to rebalance your portfolio occasionally. Thus, if you're lazy, I would recommend a mutual fund, or many mutual funds if you have difficulty finding a low-cost one that is internationally diversified. The most important consideration is the cost. You cannot expect careful fund selection to yield excess returns before expenses. However, the expenses are certain costs, so prefer low-cost funds. Almost always this means picking index funds. Avoid funds that have a small number of stocks, because they typically invest only in the largest companies, which means you fail to get diversification in company size. So, instead of Euro STOXX 50, select STOXX 600 when investing to the European market. ETFs may have lower costs than traditional mutual funds, so keep ETFs in mind when selecting the mutual funds in which to invest. For international diversification, do not forget emerging markets. It is not excessive to invest e.g. 20% to emerging markets. Emerging markets have a higher risk but they also have a higher return. A portfolio that does not include emerging markets is not in my opinion well diversified. When getting close to retirement age, I would consider increasing the percentage of bonds in the portfolio. This should be done primarily by putting additional money to bonds instead of selling existing investments to avoid additional taxes (not sure if this applies to other taxation systems than the Finnish one). Bond investments are best made though low-cost mutual funds as well. Keep bond investments in your local currency and risk-free assets (i.e. select US government bonds). Whatever you do, remember that historical return is no guarantee of future return. Actually, the opposite may be true: there is a mean reversion law. If a particular investment has returned well in the past, it often means its price has gone up, making it more likely that the price goes down in the future. So don't select a fund based on its historical return; instead, select a fund based on low costs. However, I'm 99% certain that over a period of 40 years, stocks will return better than other investments. In addition to fund costs, taxes are the other certain thing that will be deducted from your returns. Research what options you have to reduce the taxes you need to pay. 401-K was explained in another answer; this may be a good option. Some things recommended in other answers that I would avoid: |
How can an Indian citizen get exposure to global markets? | There are some ETF's on the Indian market that invest in broad indexes in other countries Here's an article discussing this Be aware that such investments carry an additional risk you do not have when investing in your local market, which is 'currency risk' If for example you invest in a ETF that represents the US S&P500 index, and the US dollar weakens relative to the indian rupee, you could see the value if your investment in the US market go down, even if the index itself is 'up' (but not as much as the change in currency values). A lot of investment advisors recommend that you have at least 75% of your investments in things which are denominated in your local currency (well technically, the same currency as your liabilities), and no more than 25% invested internationally. In large part the reason for this advice is to reduce your exposure to currency risk. |
Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to “Buy Low, Sell High”? | Though it seems unintuitive, you should rationally ignore the past performance of this stock (including the fact that it's at its 52-week high) and focus exclusively on factors that you believe should affect it moving forward. If you think it's going to go up even further, more than the return on your other options for where to put the money, keep the stock. If you think it's peaked and will be going down, now's a good time to sell. To put it another way: if you didn't already have this stock, would you buy it today? Your choice is just about the same: you can choose between a sum of cash equal to the present market value of the shares, OR the shares. Which do you think is worth more? You also mentioned that you only have 10 stocks in the portfolio. Some are probably a larger percentage than others, and this distribution may be different than what you want in your portfolio. It may be time to do some rebalancing, which could involve selling some shares where your position is too large (as a % of your portfolio) and using the proceeds toward one or more categories you're not as invested in as you would like to be. This might be a good opportunity to increase the diversity in your portfolio. If part of your reward and motivation for trading is emotional, not purely financial, you could sell now, mark it as a "win," and move on to another opportunity. Trading based on emotions is not likely to optimize your future balance, but not everybody is into trading or money for money's sake. What's going to help you sleep better at night and help boost your quality of life? If holding the stock will make you stress and regret a missed opportunity if it goes down, and selling it will make you feel happy and confident even if it still goes up more (e.g. you interpret that as further confirming that you made a good pick in the first place), you might decide that the risk of suboptimal financial returns (from emotion-based trading) is acceptable. As CQM points out, you could also set a trailing sell order to activate only when the stock is a certain percentage or dollar amount below whatever it peaks at between the time you set the order and the time it fires/expires; the activation price will rise with the stock and hold as it falls. |
What is the ticker symbol for “Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Trust Plus”? | Use VTIVX. The "Target Retirement 2045" and "Target Retirement 2045 Trust Plus" are the same underlying fund, but the latter is offered through employers. The only differences I see are the expense ratio and the minimum investment dollars. But for the purposes of comparing funds, it should be pretty close. Here is the list of all of Vanguard's target retirement funds. Also, note that the "Trust Plus" hasn't been around as long, so you don't see the returns beyond the last few years. That's another reason to use plain VTIVX for comparison. See also: Why doesn't a mutual fund in my 401(k) have a ticker symbol? |
Are precious metals/collectibles a viable emergency fund? | If you were asking if you should buy silver for an emergency fund, I'd say no. But, you already have it... Note: I wrote most of the below under the assumption that this is silver bullion coins/bars; it didn't occur to me till the end that it could be jewelry. Both of you have good arguments for your points of view. Breaking it down: Her points 1. A very good point. And while she may not be irresponsible, maybe the invisibility of it is good for her psychology? It's her's, so her comfort is important here. 2. Good. Make sure it's explicitly listed on the policy. 3. Bad. I think it will as well, at least the long run. But, this is not a good reason for an emergency fund -- the whole point of which is to be stable in case of emergencies. 4. Good. Identity theft is a concern, though unless her info is already "out there", it's insufficient for the emergency fund. And besides, she could keep cash. Your points 1. Iffy. On the one hand, you're right. On the other hand, Cyprus. It is good to remember that money in accounts is in someone else's control, not yours, as the Cypriots found out to their chagrin. And of course, it can't happen here, but that's what they thought too. There is value in having some hard assets physically in your control. Think of it as an EMERGENCY emergency fund. Cash works too, but precious metals are better for these mega-upheaval scenarios. Again, find out how having such an EMERGENCY fund would make her feel. Does having that give her some comfort? A gift from a family member of this much silver leads me to assume that her family might have a little bit of a prepper culture. If so, then even if she is not a prepper herself, she may derive some comfort from having it, just in case -- it'll be baked into her background. Definitely a topic to discuss with her. 2. Excellent point. This is precisely why you want your emergency fund in some form of cash. 3. Bad. You can walk into any pawn shop and sell it in a heartbeat. Or you can send it in to a company and have cash in days. 4. Bad. If you know a savings account that pays 3%-4%, please, please, please tell me where it is so I can get one. Fact is, all cash instruments pay negligible interest now, and all such savings are being eroded by inflation. 5. Maybe. There is value to looking at your net worth this way, but my experience has been that those that do take it way too far. I think there's more value at looking at allocation within a few broad "buckets" -- emergency fund, savings (car, house, college, etc), and retirement fund. If this is to be an EMERGENCY fund, as per point #1, then you should look at it as its own bucket (and maybe add a little cash too). Another thought to add: This is a gift from a family member -- they gave her a lot of silver. Of course it's your SO's now, and she can do whatever she wants with it, but how would the family member react if she did liquidate it? If that family member is a prepper, and gave her this with the emotional desire to see her prepped, they may be upset if she sold it. It just occurred to me this may be jewelry. Your SO may not have sentimental attachment to it, but what about the family member's sentiments? They may not like to see family silver they loving maintained and passed on casually discarded for mere cash by your SO. Another thing to discuss with her. Wrap up Generally, you are right about not keeping a 6 month emergency fund in silver. But there are other factors to consider here. There's also the fact that it's already bought -- the cost of buying (paying over market) has already been taken. Edit -- so it's silverware Ah, so it's silverware. Well, scratch everything, except how the family member feels about, which now looms large. This doesn't have much value as an emergency fund. Nor really as an investment. If you did keep it as an investment, think of it as an investment in collectibles/art, less so in precious metals. If no one will get upset, I'd say pick out the nicest set to keep for special occasions, and sell the rest. Find out first if it has collectible or historical value. It may be worth far more than the pure weight in silver. Ebay might be the way to go to sell it. |
Can somebody give a brief comparison of TSP and IRAs? | The TSP is similar to a 401K. If you were hired as a federal employee on or after 1 January 1987 you are under the FERS retirement program. That means that you are eligible for matching. If they will match your deposits then the TSP, up to the matching limit, is a better choice. Skipping the TSP will mean that you you are leaving money on the table. |
When should I start an LLC for my side work? | An LLC is overkill for 99% of 1 man small businesses. Side-businesses should remain as sole proprieterships until they get much larger and need the benefits of the LLC laws. You can still bill through a company name if you want to start building a brand: And set aside 25% of your gross income for Uncle Sam. He wants you to file a Schedule C with your regular 1040 at tax time. He doesn't care about your company. He just wants your social security number with a big fat check stuck to it. Be sure to maximize your tax savings by tracking your expenses like a hawk. Every mile is worth 50 cents. I recommend using a tracking system like the TaxMinimiser.com (buy the $4 version to see if you like it). Bottom line: EARN MONEY. Don't set up a "corporation". |
Is it possible for credit card companies to check credit score in India? | Is it possible for the card issuing banks to check my score without my permission? As far as I understand these things, that is exactly the whole purpose of these sorts of credit-rating institutions. The banks and other financial businesses are their customers. They exist to serve those customers. Their relationship, if any, with a consumer is probably secondary to that. When you apply for credit, you give that business any permission needed. |
Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends? | Technically, the difference between dividends and growth ought to be that dividends can be reinvested in stocks other than the one that paid them, which is a definite advantage if you actually have a strategy. Dividend -paying stocks used to be preferred for exactly that reason, back in the days when fewer people were directly playing in the market and more knew what they were doing. Unfortunately, getting a periodic dividend from a stock whose price is relatively steady isn't as exciting a game as watching your stock's value bounce around and (hopefully) creep upward on a second-by-second basis. Those who are thinking in gambling terms rather than investment terms -- or who think they can beat the pros at high frequency trading, comment withheld -- want the latter, and have been putting a lot of pressure on companies to operate in the latter mode. That doesn't make it better -- certainly not for the longer-term investors -- just more fashionable. And fashion often means getting stuck with something impractical because everyone else is doing it. On this, I second Scrooge: Humbug! |
Why don't share prices of a company rise every other Friday when the company buys shares for its own employees? | Pre-Enron many companies forced the 401K match to be in company shares. That is no longer allowed becasue of changes in the law. Therefore most employees have only a small minority of their retirement savings in company shares. I know the ESOP and 401K aren't the same, but in my company every year the number of participants in the company stock purchase program decreases. The small number of participants and the small portion of their new retirement funds being in company shares would mean this spike in volume would be very small. The ESOP plan for my employer takes money each paycheck, then purchases the shares once a quarter. This delay would allow them to manage the purchases better. I know with a previous employer most ESOP participants only held the shares for the minimum time, thus providing a steady steam of shares being sold. |
What laws/regulations are there regardings gifts in the form of large sums of money? | This depends on the country(ies) involved. US citizen/resident giving gifts is required to pay a gift tax. The recipient of the gift, however, pays nothing. The value of the gift at the time of the gift-giving is used to determine the tax, and an exclusion of $14000 per person per year (as of 2013) is available to allow smaller gifts to be given without too much of a red tape. There's also a lifetime exemption which is shared between the gift tax and the estate tax. This exemption is $5.25M in 2013. The reason the gift tax exists in the US is because the US tax code is very aggressive. This is basically double taxation, similarly to estate tax. Gifts/estates are after-tax money, i.e.: income tax has been paid on them, yet the government taxes them again. Why? The excuse is to disallow shifting of income: if one person has high income tax brackets, he may give some of his income-producing property to another person with lesser brackets who would then pay less income taxes (for example, parents would transfer property to children). Similarly capital gains could be shifted. Generation-skipping tax is yet another complication to disallow people use gifts to avoid estate taxes: a grandparent would gift stuff to grandchildren, thus skipping a level of estate taxes (the parents in between). In other countries the tax codes may be less aggressive, and not tax gifts/inheritance as this money has been taxed before. This is a more fair situation, IMHO, yet it means that wealth moves from generation to generation without the "general public" benefiting from it. So if you're a US person and considering giving or receiving a gift - you need to consult with a tax adviser about the consequences. Similarly with other countries, if you are subject to their tax laws. |
Is there any chance for a layperson to gain from stock exchange? [duplicate] | Currencies are a zero-sum game. If you make money, someone else will lose it. Because bank notes sitting in a pile don't create anything useful. But shares in companies are different, because companies actually do useful things and make money, so it's possible for all investors to make money. The best way to benefit is generally to put your money into a low-cost index fund and then forget about it for at least five years. |
England: Alternative to Student Finance | Since you're also looking for alternative means of funding, have you considered doing part-time work -- during the holidays or on some of the weekends? With this kind of financing you have to watch out that the work does not interfere with your study. On the other hand it can be valuable work experience that can come in handy later in your life, such as when applying for your first "real" job. The kind of work you can do will depend a lot on the subject you are studying and what qualifications you have. For example, if you are studying computer science, there are a lot of freelance opportunities in programming. One of these could lead right to your first job after university. The two broad types of work you can do are: For freelance: Try searching for "[subject] student freelance" and look at sites like oDesk. Read up on tax concerns, research how to price your time, and start doing! For employment: Browse the job boards at your university. Contact businesses to ask for part-time opportunities. Hope this helps to open one of the alternative paths here. If you go down this road, remember to keep your priorities in mind. Especially the freelance work can easily interfere with your study and delay you unnecessarily. Good luck! |
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? | Would you run a marathon with ankle weights on? It starts off as ankle weights, but then grows into a ball and chain as you dig yourself a little deeper each time you use your credit card (and then don't payoff the balance because "something more important came up"). I would love for my wife to be able to be home and raise our son, but we simply can't afford to do that with the amount of debt we have. We are clawing our way out, and will pay off one student loan and a car loan, then start saving for a house and once we have that, we'll get back to debt reduction. Get debt free. That's where we are headed. Most of it is student loans at this point, but debt will take away your freedom to do whatever you like down the line. It just increases your overhead in the long run. |
how derivatives transfer risk from one entity to another | By buying the call option, you are getting the benefit of purchasing the underlying shares (that is, if the shares go up in value, you make money), but transferring the risk of the shares reducing in value. This is more apparent when you are using the option to offset an explicit risk that you hold. For example, if you have a short position, you are at unlimited risk of the position going up in value. You could decide you only want to take the risk that it might rise to $X. In that case, you could buy a call option with $X strike price. Then you have transferred the risk that the position goes over $X to the counterpart, since, even if the shares are trading at $X+$Y you can close out the short position by purchasing the shares at $X, while the option counterpart will lose $Y. |
Tax Efficiency with Index Investing | Your tax efficient reasoning is solid for where you want to distribute your assets. ETFs are often more tax efficient than their equivalent mutual funds but the exact differences would depend on the comparison between the fund and ETF you were considering. The one exception to this rule is Vanguard funds and ETFs which have the exact same tax-efficiency because ETFs are a share class of the corresponding mutual fund. |
What to do when a job offer is made but with a salary less than what was asked for? | Not-very-serious companies always try to reduce your pretended salary. This also happens in Argentina. My advice is to look for another opportunity because you have to take into account that if you join the company this will happen again; for example, in the future, they may lowball you on raises. |
What is a bull put spread? | Bull means the investor is betting on a rising market. Puts are a type of stock option where the seller of a put option promises to buy 100 shares of stock from the buyer of the put option at a pre-agreed price called the strike price on any day before expiration day. The buyer of the put option does not have to sell (it is optional, thats why it is called buying an option). However, the seller of the put is required to make good on their promise to the buyer. The broker can require the seller of the put option to have a deposit, called margin, to help make sure that they can make good on the promise. Profit... The buyer can profit from the put option if the stock price moves down substantially. The buyer of the put option does not need to own the stock, he can sell the option to someone else. If the buyer of the put option also owns the stock, the put option can be thought of like an insurance policy on the value of the stock. The seller of the put option profits if the stock price stays the same or rises. Basically, the seller comes out best if they can sell put options that no one ends up using by expiration day. A spread is an investment consisting of buying one option and selling another. Let's put bull and put and spread together with an example from Apple. So, if you believed Apple Inc. AAPL (currently 595.32) was going up or staying the same through JAN you could sell the 600 JAN put and buy the 550 put. If the price rises beyond 600, your profit would be the difference in price of the puts. Let's explore this a little deeper (prices from google finance 31 Oct 2012): Worst Case: AAPL drops below 550. The bull put spread investor owes (600-550)x100 shares = $5000 in JAN but received $2,035 for taking this risk. EDIT 2016: The "worst case" was the outcome in this example, the AAPL stock price on options expiry Jan 18, 2013 was about $500/share. Net profit = $2,035 - $5,000 = -$2965 = LOSS of $2965 Best Case: AAPL stays above 600 on expiration day in JAN. Net Profit = $2,035 - 0 = $2035 Break Even: If AAPL drops to 579.65, the value of the 600 JAN AAPL put sold will equal the $2,035 collected and the bull put spread investor will break even. Commissions have been ignored in this example. |
Can a Line of Credit be re-financed? Is it like a mortgage, with a term? | You can often convert the outstanding balance of a HELOC into a fixed-rate home equity loan, generally with the same bank. Doing this can open possibilities to extend the term allowing for lower monthly payments, but resulting in a larger overall payoff cost. Most HELOCs allow for an interest-only payment or in some cases no-payment at all if you still have unused available credit. Not advising that you do this. If you are struggling with the size of the payment converting to a fixed-rate, fixed-term loan may be what you need. The key will be getting the term such that you can manage both the principal and interest that will be included in the payment. |
How to trade at Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) | Saxo Bank offers direct access to Athens Stock Exchange. Interactive Brokers is your next best bet, and as you probably already noticed, they do not have a free platform. They are open to US and non-US citizens. Although they do not currently have direct exposure to individual companies on the Athens Stock Exchange, the various european exchanges they do provide direct market access for will give a lot of exposure. There are a few Greek companies that trade on non-Greek stock exchanges, if you want exposure. There are also Greek ETFs which bundle several companies together or try to replicate Greek company indices. |
Malaysian real estate: How to know if the market is overheated or in a bubble? | The Motley Fool suggested a good rule of thumb in one of their articles that may be able to help you determine if the market is overheating. Determine the entire cost of rent for a piece of property. So if rent is $300/month, total cost over a year is $3600. Compare that to the cost of buying a similar piece of property by dividing the property price by the rent per year. So if a similar property is $90,000, the ratio would be $90,000/$3600 = 25. If the ratio is < 20, you should consider buying a place. If its > 20, there's a good chance that the market is overheated. This method is clearly not foolproof, but it helps quantify the irrationality of some individuals who think that buying a place is always better than renting. P.S. if anyone can find this article for me I'd greatly appreciate it, I've tried to use my google-fu with googling terms with site:fool.com but haven't found the article I remember. |
Can LLC legally lend money to a friend? | The answer to your question is...it depends. Depending on the state you, your friend, and the LLC are located in, it can be very easy to run afoul of state banking laws, or to somehow violate some other statute pertaining to the legal activities an LLC may undertake by doing something like a loan. It is not unusual (or illegal) for officers or employees of a business entity to be loaned money by the company they work for, so something of this nature wouldn't be an issue with regulatory agencies. Having your LLC loan money to a friend who isn't an employee or officer of your LLC just might not be kosher though. The best advice I can give is that you should call the state banking commission or similar agency in your state and ask them whether what you want to do is alright. The LAST thing you want is to end up with auditors or regulators sniffing around your business, even if you haven't done anything wrong, and you certainly don't want to run the risk of accidentally "piercing the corporate veil", as someone else here astutely pointed out. Good luck! |
Good book-keeping software? | Xero and WaveAccounting can make things easy, but they also have their limitations. I've used both for short periods of time but found both of them to be lacking. While the "ease" is appealing, the ability to drill into the details and get good reports is the downfall of both of these accounting systems. QuickBooks may seem like the easy answer here, but it really is the best for getting the power you want without getting too complicated. |
Over contributing to workplace pension or private pension | Firstly (and this part is rather opinion-based) I would absolutely not think of making more pension contributions when you are currently totaling 6% of salary as "over contributing". There are some who argue that you should be putting a minimum of 20% away for retirement throughout your working life; you don't say how old you are / how close to retirement you are, but a common rule of thumb is to halve your age and put away that % of your salary into your pension. So I would certainly start with upping those contributions. I actually don't think it makes much difference whether you go for just your workplace pension versus a separate private one - in general you end up paying management fees that are a % of the value, so whether it is in one place or split doesn't cost any less. The "all eggs in one basket" syndrome is a possible argument but equally if you change jobs a few times and end up with half a dozen pension pots it can be very hard to stay on top of them all. If you end up with everything in one pot and then transfer it when you change jobs, it's easier to manage. Other options: ISA as you mentioned; on the plus side these are tax free. On the minus side, you can either go for a cash ISA which at the moment has very low rates of return, and/or a stocks and shares ISA which exposes you to risks in the stock market. If you have debt, consider paying it off early / overpaying. Student loans may or may not be the exception to this depending on your personal situation. Certainly if you have a mortgage you can save a vast amount by overpaying early. Other investments - stocks and shares, BTL housing, fine wines, Bitcoin, there are almost limitless possibilities. But it makes sense to max out the tax-efficient options before you look into these. |
Should I fund a move by borrowing or selling other property assets? | that would deprive me of the rental income from the property. Yes, but you'd gain by not paying the interest on your other mortgage. So your net loss (or gain) is the rental income minus the interest you're paying on your home. From a cash flow perspective, you'd gain the difference between the rental income and your total payment. Any excess proceeds from selling the flat and paying off the mortgage could be saved and use later to buy another rental for "retirement income". Or just invest in a retirement account and leave it alone. Selling the flat also gets rid of any extra time spent managing the property. If you keep the flat, you'll need a mortgage of 105K to 150K plus closing costs depending on the cost of the house you buy, so your mortgage payment will increase by 25%-100%. My fist choice would be to sell the flat and buy your new house debt-free (or with a very small mortgage). You're only making 6% on it, and your mortgage payment is going to be higher since you'll need to borrow about 160k if you want to keep the flat and buy a $450K house, so you're no longer cash-flow neutral. Then start saving like mad for a different rental property, or in non-real estate retirement investments. |
Are there any disadvantages to DHA Investment Properties? | I think the strongest reason against DHA purchases (I don't consider them investments) is points 3 and 5 mentioned above. The resale market is only to other investors that are convinced its a good investment.If you can't sell to owner occupiers, you've just removed the MAJORITY of your potential pool of people to resell to - this has a devastating effect on your ability to make any capital gain from your investment - if you're not chasing capital gain...be sure to understand why! (see article below)The marketing people will have you believe that DHA is a great investment from a yield perspective...maybe so, I haven't crunched the numbers. But in my opinion, I would wonder - who cares?Yield is important to ensure you can hold the property, but if there is no capital growth and you can't sell it for a profit or release some equity to buy the next investment, then you've just put a massive road block in your wealth building path.I am at the asset accumulation phase of my investing journey, so my opinion is skewed towards capital growth investments. Unless you have a sizable equity base already, in my opinion $4-5 Million in debt free assets, then you should be looking for capital growth assets...not high yield.This article from Your Investment Property magazine, although now dated, gives a good example to illustrate my point on why capital growth is the sensible strategy during the asset building phase of your wealth creation journey: Why capital growth is still king I think the strongest reason against DHA purchases (I don't consider them investments) is points 3 and 5 mentioned above. The resale market is only to other investors that are convinced its a good investment. If you can't sell to owner occupiers, you've just removed the MAJORITY of your potential pool of people to resell to - this has a devastating effect on your ability to make any capital gain from your investment - if you're not chasing capital gain...be sure to understand why! (see article below) The marketing people will have you believe that DHA is a great investment from a yield perspective...maybe so, I haven't crunched the numbers. But in my opinion, I would wonder - who cares? Yield is important to ensure you can hold the property, but if there is no capital growth and you can't sell it for a profit or release some equity to buy the next investment, then you've just put a massive road block in your wealth building path. I am at the asset accumulation phase of my investing journey, so my opinion is skewed towards capital growth investments. Unless you have a sizable equity base already, in my opinion $4-5 Million in debt free assets, then you should be looking for capital growth assets...not high yield. This article from Your Investment Property magazine, although now dated, gives a good example to illustrate my point on why capital growth is the sensible strategy during the asset building phase of your wealth creation journey: Why capital growth is still king |
“No taxes to be paid with owning Berkshire” | It depends on your investment profile but basically, dividends increase your taxable income. Anyone making an income will effectively get 'lower returns' on their investments due to this effect. If you had the choice between identical shares that either give a dividend or don't, you'll find that stock that pays a dividend has a lower price, and increases in value more slowly than stock that doesn't. (all other things being equal) There's a whole bunch of economic theory behind this but in short, the current stock price is a measure of how much the company is worth combined with an estimation of how much it will be worth in the future (NPV of all future dividends is the basic model). When the company makes profit, it can keep those profits, and invest in new projects or distribute a portion of those profits to shareholders (aka dividends). Distributing the value to shareholders reduces the value of the company somewhat, but the shareholders get the money now. If the company doesn't give dividends, it has a higher value which will be reflected in a higher stock price. So basically, all other things being equal (which they rarely are, but I digress) the price and growth difference reflects the fact that dividends are paying out now. (In other words, if you wanted non-dividend shares you could get them by buying dividend shares and re-investing the dividend as new shares every time there was a payout, and you could get dividend-share like properties by selling a percentage of non-dividend shares periodically). Dividend income is taxable as part of your income right away, however taxes on capital gains only happen when you sell the asset in question, and also has a lower tax rate. If you buy and hold Berkshire Hatheway, you will not have to pay taxes on the gains you get until you decide to sell the shares, and even then the tax rate will be lower. If you are investing for retirement, this is great, since your income from other sources will be lower, so you can afford to be taxed then. In many jurisdictions, income from capital gains is subject to a different tax rate than the rest of your income, for example in the US for most people with money to invest it's either 15% or 20%, which will be lower than normal income tax would be (since most people with money to invest would be making enough to be in a higher bracket). Say, for example, your income now is within the 25% bracket. Any dividend you get will be taxed at that rate, so let's say that the dividend is about 2% and the growth of the stock is about 4%. So, your effective growth rate after taxation is 5.5% -- you lose 0.5% from the 25% tax on the dividend. If, instead, you had stock with the same growth but no dividend it would grow at a rate of 6%. If you never withdrew the money, after 20 years, $1 in the dividend stock would be worth ~$2.92 (1.055^20), whereas $1 in the non-dividend stock would be worth ~$3.21 (1.06^20). You're talking about a difference of 30 cents per dollar invested, which doesn't seem huge but multiply it by 100,000 and you've got yourself enough money to renovate your house purely out of money that would have gone to the government instead. The advantage here is if you are saving up for retirement, when you retire you won't have much income so the tax on the gains (even ignoring the capital gains effect above) will definitely be less then when you were working, however if you had a dividend stock you would have been paying taxes on the dividend, at a higher rate, throughout the lifetime of the investment. So, there you go, that's what Mohnish Pabrai is talking about. There are some caveats to this. If the amount you are investing isn't large, and you are in a lower tax bracket, and the stock pays out relatively low dividends you won't really feel the difference much, even though it's there. Also, dividend vs. no dividend is hardly the highest priority when deciding what company to invest in, and you'll practically never be able to find identical companies that differ only on dividend/no dividend, so if you find a great buy you may not have a choice in the matter. Also, there has been a trend in recent years to also make capital gains tax progressive, so people who have a higher income will also pay more in capital gains, which negates part of the benefit of non-dividend stocks (but doesn't change the growth rate effects before the sale). There are also some theoretical arguments that dividend-paying companies should have stronger shareholders (since the company has less capital, it has to 'play nice' to get money either from new shares or from banks, which leads to less risky behavior) but it's not so cut-and-dried in real life. |
IRR vs. Interest Rates | IRR is not subjective, this is a response to @Laythesmack, to his remark that IRR is subjective. Not that I feel a need to defend my position, but rather, I'm going to explain his. My company offered stock at a 15% discount. We would have money withheld from pay, and twice per year buy at that discount. Coworkers said it was a 15% gain. I offered some math. I started by saying that 100/85 was 17.6%, and that was in fact, the gain. But, the funds were held by the company for an average of 3 months, not 6, so that gain occurred in 3 months and I did the math 1.176^4 and resulted in 91.5% annual return. This is IRR. It's not that it's subjective, but it assumes the funds continue to be invested fully during the time. In our case the 91.5% was real in one sense, yet no one doubled their money in just over a year. Was the 91% useless? Not quite. It simply meant to me that coworkers who didn't participate were overlooking the fact that if they borrowed money at a reasonable rate, they'd exceed that rate, especially for the fact that credit lines are charged day to day. Even if they borrowed that money on a credit card, they'd come out ahead. IRR is a metric. It has no emotion, no personality, no goals. It's a number we can calculate. It's up to you to use it correctly. |
How does the value of an asset (valued in two different currencies) change when the exchange rate changes? | The value of the asset doesn't change just because of the exchange rate change. If a thing (valued in USD) costs USD $1 and USD $1 = CAN $1 (so the thing is also valued CAN $1) today and tomorrow CAN $1 worth USD $0.5 - the thing will continue being worth USD $1. If the thing is valued in CAN $, after the exchange rate change, the thing will be worth USD $2, but will still be valued CAN $1. What you're talking about is price quotes, not value. Price quotes will very quickly reach the value, since any deviation will be used by the traders to make profits on arbitrage. And algo-traders will make it happen much quicker than you can even notice the arbitrage existence. |
Why do banks encourage me to use online bill payment? | It’s more convenient for both you and the bank; its much simpler to handle things electronically than it is to go through paperwork. Also, its eco-friendly and by saying that they care about the environment, banks earn brownie points with environmentally-conscious customers. |
Expecting to move in five years; how to lock mortgage rates? | Outside of broadly hedging interest rate risk as I mentioned in my other answer, there may be a way that you could do what you are asking more directly: You may be able to commit to purchasing a house/condo in a pre-construction phase, where your bank may be willing to lock in a mortgage for you at today's rates. The mortgage wouldn't actually be required until you take ownership from the builder, but the rates would be set in advance. Some caveats for this approach: (1) You would need to know the house/condo you want to move into in advance, and you would be committing to that move today. (2) The bank may not be willing to commit to rates that far in advance. (3) Construction would likely take far less than 5 years, unless you are buying a condo (which is the reason I mention condos specifically). (4) You are also committing to the price you are paying for your property. This hedges you somewhat against price fluctuation in your future area, but because you currently own property, you are already somewhat hedged against property price fluctuation, meaning this is taking on additional risk. The 'savings' associated with this plan as they relate to your original question (which are really just hedging against interest rate fluctuations) are far outweighed by the external pros and cons associated with buying property in advance like this. By that I mean - if it was something else you were already considering, this might be a (small) tick in the "Pro" column, but otherwise is far too committal / complex to be considered for interest rate hedging on its own. |
1.4 million cash. What do I do? | you should invest in a range of stock market indexes. Ex : Dow jones, S&P500, Nasdaq and keep it there until you are ready to retire. I'm invested half in SLYV and SLYG (S&P600 small cap value and S&P600 small cap growth; Respectively). It brings on average between 8-13% a year (since 1971). This is not investment advice. Talk to your broker before doing this. |
How does historical data get adjusted for dividends, exactly? | According to Active Equity Management by Zhou and Jain: When a stock pays dividend, the adjusted price in Yahoo makes the following adjustment: Let T be the ex-dividend date (the first date that the buyers of a stock will not receive the dividend) and T-1 be the last trading day before T. All prices before T are adjusted by a multiplier (C_{T-1} - d_T)/C_{T-1}, where C_{T-1} is the close price at T-1 and d_T is the dividend per share. This, of course means that the price before T decreases. |
How do I calculate the dwelling coverage I need from the information I have? | This is where an insurance agent is very useful. They will help you choose appropriate coverage, based on local rebuilding costs, the build quality of your house (higher quality or historic/semi-historic construction requires a different type of coverage), etc. They can also help advise you on things like the need for flood insurance, etc. Local rules can vary, and the local agent will know about them. For example, we found out that my home was in a semi-historic district, which requires using higher-cost materials for reconstruction. Also, our city separately licenses tradespeople, who tend to be unionized and thus more expensive. Had I just picked default coverages, I would have been in a pickle in the event of a loss. |
Looking to buy a house in 1-2 years. Does starting a Roth IRA now make sense? | If you are going to be buying a house in 1-2 years, I would be putting my money into a short term holding area like a high interest (which isn't that high right now) or a CD (also low interest) because of your near-term need. I wouldn't use the Roth option for your down payment money. If you invest in something volatile (and stocks/mutual funds are very volatile in a 1-2 year term) I would consider it too risky for your need and time frame. |
Calculating profits on a covered call. What method do you use? | at $8.50: total profit = $120.00 *basis of stock, not paid in cash, so not included in "total paid" at $8.50: total profit = $75.00 |
Which practice to keep finances after getting married: joint, or separate? | I feel there are two types of answer: One: the financial. Suck all the emotion out of the situation, and treat the two individuals as individuals. If that works for the two of you, fantastic. Two: the philosophical. You're married, it's a union, so unify the funds. If that works for you, fantastic. Personally, my partner and I do the latter. The idea of separate pots and separate accounts and one mixed fund etc makes no sense to us. But that's us. The first step for you in deciding on an approach is to know yourselves as people - and everything else will follow. |
Understanding differences between S&P500 index-tracking ETFs | Regarding SPY: "One SPDR unit is valued at approximately 1/10 of the value of the S&P 500. Dividends are distributed quarterly, and are based on the accumulated stock dividends held in trust, less any expenses of the trust." (source) These are depository receipts, not the actual stocks. Regarding IVV: "The component stocks are weighted according to the total float-adjusted market value of their outstanding shares. The Fund invests in sectors, such as energy, information technology, industrials, financials, consumer staples, healthcare, telecom services, consumer discretionary and materials." (more here) VOO is the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. The tracking error seems pretty small to me. I went to Google Finance and plotted the percent change for all four on one chart. They lie pretty much on top of one another. The actual dollar value of each one doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that they move up and down almost in lock-step. There may be a larger difference going farther out, but for three separate financial products, the agreement is still remarkably good. |
How should I pay off my private student loans that have a lot of restrictions? | It's definitely NOT a good idea to pay off one of the smaller loans in your case - a $4k payment split across all the loans would be better than repaying the 5% / $4k loan completely, as it's the most beneficial of your loans and thus is last priority for repayment. A payment that splits across all the loans equally is, in effect, a partial repayment on a loan with an interest rate of 6.82% (weighed average rate of all your loans). It's not as good as repaying a 7% loan, but almost as good. It might be an option to save up until you can repay one of your 7% loans, but it depends - if it takes a lot of time, then you would've paid unneccessary interest during that time. |
Newbie question - Brokerage and selling shares | And to answer your other questions about fees, there are a number of sites that compare brokers' fees, Google "broker fee comparison". I like the Motley Fool, although there are a lot of others. However, don't go just by the comparison sites, because they can be out-of-date and usually just have the basic fees. Once you find a broker that you like, go to that broker's site and get all the fees as of now. You can't sell the shares that are in your Charles Schwab account using some other broker. However, you can (possibly now, definitely eventually, see below) transfer the shares to another broker and then sell them there. But be aware that Charles Schwab might charge you a fee to transfer the shares out, which will probably be larger than the fee they'll charge you to sell the shares, unless you're selling them a few at a time. For example, I have a Charles Schwab account through my previous employer and it's $9.99 commission to sell shares, but $50 to transfer them out. Note that your fees might be different even though we're both at Charles Schwab, because employers can negotiate individual deals. There should be somewhere on the site that has a fee schedule, but if you can't find it, send them a message or call them. One final thing to be aware of, shares you get from an employer often have restrictions on sale or transfer, or negative tax consequences on sale or transfer, that shares just bought on the open market wouldn't, so make sure you investigate that before doing anything with the shares. |
What happened when the dot com bubble burst? | What happened was that people would start an "Internet" company without any viable business plan, and investors would pour money. Any company with ".COM" or "eSomething" or "netXXX" or whatever would get tons of money from investors, basically selling dreams of getting rich fast. The companies that flourished back than had often no sales and no income, yet they paid high salaries and provided very lucrative benefits to the employees. One of the examples is Mirabilis - company that invented the on-line messenger (ICQ), but provided free service and free products (there were no fees associated with using the ICQ messenger). They got bought for almost half a billion dollars when they had ZERO revenues, by AOL. AOL sold the company, ten years later, for less than 200 million dollars when at that time ICQ (or, as re-branded, AIM) was already providing revenue (from advertisements). Eventually, investors stopped pouring the money in (for various reasons, but amongst others the higher rates and the slower overall economy), and almost immediately companies started going out of business, and then it all blew up. |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | The obvious answer for savings costs with a car is not to have a car. Of course that must be balanced against other expenses (bicycle, taxi, public transport) to do things. Generally speaking, if you need a car, ways to contain expense are to buy the least expensive vehicle with the most economical engine that meets your needs, keep it undercover (reduces damage or wear due to exposure), proactively maintain it (maintenance is cheaper in the long run than the costs of dealing with a breakdown and cost of repairs, and lack of maintenance accelerates depreciation), and shop around for a good mechanic who will maintain it at a fair price. If you do a lot of milage, or do a lot of towing, or drive under load, consider a diesel. A diesel engine often costs more each service, sometimes has a shorter service interval, but it also gets greater milage. There may be a differential cost of fuel (diesel is often a bit more expensive per volume). For towing, a diesel is often more economical, due to low end power (greater torque at lower revs) which does result in better fuel economy. It is no accident that most large transport vehicles consume diesel. Do the sums based on your usage before you buy. Accelerate as gently as possible to get to speed within traffic conditions (less fuel to get to a speed). Change up to higher gears as soon as possible as - at a given speed - economy will be better, as long as the engine has enough oomph to handle it (so don't try to start from stationary in a high gear). Don't drive faster than necessary, as drag increases with speed, and hurts economy. Similarly, reduce speed gradually, to reduce undue wear on breaks and reduce fuel consumption (sharp breaking with power assisted breaks does affect fuel economy). Drive close to legal limits if conditions permit. This reduces chances of annoying other drivers (who if they get impatient may throw rocks at your car, or collide, or subject you to road rage - which contribute to damage and insurance costs). It also reduces chances of being pulled over by police and fined for obstructing other traffic. Don't tailgate. This both consumes fuel in keeping up, and means needing to slow sharply. And increases chance of accident. Don't idle more than necessary. Allow stop/start systems on your car to operate - particularly if you're in stop/start traffic. However, there is a break-even point where stopping and restarting consumes more fuel than idling, so get to know your vehicle. That depends on how much the engine needs cranking to restart - which is affected both by engine design and maintenance. Maintain it yourself if you have the skills, but account for the cost of parts and equipment, to be sure it is cost effective (modern cars are software driven, so equipment to diagnose and maintain can be expensive). Combine trips (don't get into the car for every little thing - wait until you can do a few things during a single drive) and car pool. If fuel prices vary (e.g some places have regular cycles) try to refuel near the bottom of a pricing cycle. Take unnecessary weight out of the vehicle. Don't load it up with tools unless you need them frequently. |
What are investment options for young married couple with no debt that have maxed out retirement savings? | 4.7 is a pretty low rate, especially if you are deducting that from your taxes. If you reduce the number by your marginal tax rate to get the real cost of the money you end up with a number that isn't far off from inflation, and also represents a pretty low 'yield' in terms of paying off the loan early. (e.g. if your marginal tax rate is 28%, then the net you are paying in interest after the tax deduction is 4.7 * .72 = 3.384) While I'm all for paying off loans with higher rates (since it's in effect the same as making that much risk free on the money) it doesn't make a lot of sense when you are down at 3.4 unless there is a strong 'security factor' (which really makes a difference to some folks) to be had that really helps you sleep at night. (to be realistic, for some folks close to retirement, there can be a lot to be said for the security of not having to worry about house payments, although you don't seem to be in that situation yet) As others have said, first make sure you have enough liquid 'emergency money' in something like a money market account, or a ladder of short term CD's If you are sure that the sprouts will be going to college, then there's a lot to be said for kicking a decent amount into a 529, Coverdell ESA (Educational Savings Account), uniform gift to minors account, or some combination of those. I'm not sure if any of those plans can be used for a kid that has not been born yet however. I'd recommend http://www.savingforcollege.com as a good starting point to get more information on your various options. As with retirement savings, money put in earlier has a lot more 'power' over the final balance due to compounding interest, so there's a lot to be said for starting early, although depending on what it takes to qualify for the plans there could be such a thing as too early ;-) ). There's nothing wrong with Managed mutual funds as long as the fund objective and investing style is in alignment with your objectives and risk tolerance; The fund is giving you a good return relative to the market as a whole; You are not paying high fees or load charges; You are not losing a lot to taxes. I would always look at the return after expenses when comparing to other options, and if the money is not in a tax deferred account, also look at what sort of tax burden you will be faced with. A fund that trades a lot will generate more short term gains which means more taxes than compared to a more passive fund. Anything lost to taxes is money lost to you so needs to come out of the total return when you calculate that. Sometimes such funds are better off as a choice inside an IRA or 401K, and you can instead use more tax efficient vehicles for money where you have to pay the taxes every year on the gains. The reason a lot of folks like index funds better is that: Given your described age, it's not appropriate now, but in the long run as you get closer to retirement, you may want to start looking at building up some investments that are geared more towards generating income, such as bonds, or depending on taxes where you live, Municipal bonds. In any case, the more money you can set aside for retirement now, both inside and outside of tax deferred accounts, the sooner you will get to the point of the 'critical mass' you need to retire, at that point you can work because you want to, not because you have to. |
Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it? | I won't repeat what's already been said, but I agree that it's a good move to take advantage of the free financing so long as you read the fine print carefully, keep the money designated to pay off this debt and not use it for anything else, and make sure to pay it off before you get smacked with some bad interest. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that this kind of offer can help build credit. You mentioned that you already have excellent credit, but for someone who has good credit, this could be an account that, if used carefully, could give their credit a boost by adding to their history of on-time payments. |
P/E multiples for privately held companies? | You're indeed right, this cannot be answered affirmatively. I will try, without going too deep in details, to brush a shallow portrait In its simplest form, a going concern company could be valued by the present value of a growing perpetuity (Cash Flow/(Required return - growth)), assuming compounding perpetual growth. That's a massive assumption for a yet to turn a dime company. That's why comparable transactions are usually used as benchmark. In this case, your PE can be thought as the inverse of a growing perpetuity, and it's size will be determined by the difference between return and growth. So when you're pre-revenue, you're basically trying to value a moonshot with everything to prove, no matter how genius the idea. Considering the high levels of financial risks due to failure, VCs will require biblical levels of returns (50% to 90% is not unheard of). Hence why they usually leave with a good chunk of the company in seed rounds. When you've had a few sales, you got to know your customer and you've tested the markets, your direction gets clearer and your prospects improve. Risks moves down a notch and the next round of financing will be at much lower rates. Your growth rate, still high but nowhere as crazy as before, can be estimated with relatively more precision. Companies turning a recurrent level of profits are the easiest to value (all else being equal). The financial mathematics are more appropriate now, and their value will be derived by current market conditions as well as comparable transactions. With unlimited resources and perfect markets, the value of the company will be the same wether the founder is at the helm or the VCs are in the place. But considering many founders need the VCs' resources to extract the value of their company and markets are imperfect, the value of the company can change significantly depending on the decisions. Hope that helps! |
I need a car for 2 years. Buy or lease (or something else)? | Your short-term time frame makes buying used the best option, but it seems you already are aware of that. Look into a certified pre-owned model if you are concerned about lemons. You will usually get some sort of warranty. However, be aware that any car can be a headache with repairs. I would not recommend a lease because basically you are still paying for the depreciation on the car plus interest. Generally, this is the most expensive way to drive a car. You may find the numbers look good for a lease but beware of the 'gotchas' in the terms that can put you way over budget (over mileage, wear and tear, etc.). My best recommendation is to buy gently used with cash. This gives you the most flexibility and best resale value. If you finance a late-model vehicle, be aware that depreciation can leave you upside-down on your loan. That would put you in the position of having to shell out cash just to get rid of the car. |
What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent? | There are those who are knowledgable in real estate who offer rules of thumb: Don't pay more that 50X the rent for the house. Here, $972 x 50 is $48600. Assume half the rent goes to expenses. So from $972, you net $486, and after that mortgage, you have $111 in profit. Zillow usually assumes 20% down, here $20K. So you are seeing a 6.67% return on your 20K. (Plus appreciation and principal paydown.) For the record, I just bought a 3 family, under renovation now. Expecting total cost to be $160K, and total rent $2500. I missed ratio a by a bit, but $1250 to go toward a $120K mortgage works out fine. $550 profit/mo on the 25% down ($40K). (By the way, a turnover of tenants can cost (a) a month of no rent, (b) a cost to the real estate agent, if you use one, and the cost to paint/repair. This is generally considered 10%. So if the 50% of rent seemed high, here's 10 of it.) |
Quarterly dividends to monthly dividends | Technically you should take the quarterly dividend yield as a fraction, add one, take the cube root, and subtract one (and then multiple by the stock price, if you want a dollar amount per share rather than a rate). This is to account for the fact that you could have re-invested the monthly dividends and earned dividends on that reinvestment. However, the difference between this and just dividing by three is going to be negligible over the range of dividend rates that are realistically paid out by ordinary stocks. |
Are Target Funds Unsafe - Post Q.E.? | It's a what-if? sort of question. What if rates stay down or trend only slightly higher, despite no QE? look at other countries response to tepid economies. My experience as professional advisor (25 yrs) tells me the future is unknowable and diversity is good. Make alternative choices- they all won't work wonderfully, but some will. |
If the former owner of my home is still using the address, can it harm me? | Give it to your mailman to return to sender. For this kind of material, return service is always requested, and it will let the bank know that they have incorrect address information. If the owner needs the cards, he'll contact the bank, or the bank will contact him to verify the address. Either way, as long as its not in your name, I don't think you should be worried. |
Options vs Stocks which is more profitable | The first thing that I learned the hard way (by trying my hand at actual options trading) is that liquidity matters. So few people are interested in trading the same options that I am that it is easy to get stuck holding profitable contracts into expiration unless I offer to sell them for a lot less than they are worth. I also learned that options are a kind of insurance,and no one makes money (in the long run) buying insurance. So you can use options to hedge and thereby prevent losses, but you also blunt your gains. Edit: IMO,options (in the long run) only make money for the brokers as you pay a commission both on the buy and on the sell. With my broker the commission on options is higher than the commission on stocks (or ETFs). |
When one pays Quarterly Estimated Self Employment Taxes, exactly what are they paying? | From the IRS page on Estimated Taxes (emphasis added): Taxes must be paid as you earn or receive income during the year, either through withholding or estimated tax payments. If the amount of income tax withheld from your salary or pension is not enough, or if you receive income such as interest, dividends, alimony, self-employment income, capital gains, prizes and awards, you may have to make estimated tax payments. If you are in business for yourself, you generally need to make estimated tax payments. Estimated tax is used to pay not only income tax, but other taxes such as self-employment tax and alternative minimum tax. I think that is crystal clear that you're paying income tax as well as self-employment tax. To expand a bit, you seem to be confusing self-employment tax and estimated tax, which are not only two different things, but two different kinds of things. One is a tax, and the other is just a means of paying your taxes. "Self-employment tax" refers to the Social Security and Medicare taxes that you must pay on your self-employment income. This is an actual tax that you owe. If you receive a W-2, half of it is "invisibly" paid by your employer, and half of it is paid by you in the form of visible deductions on your pay stub. If you're self-employed, you have to pay all of it explicitly. "Estimated tax" does not refer to any actual tax levied on anyone. A more pedantically correct phrasing would be "estimated tax payment". Estimated taxes are just payments that you make to the IRS to pay tax you expect to owe. Whether you have to make such payments depends on how much tax you owe and whether you've paid it by other means. You may need to pay estimated tax even if you're not self-employed, although this would be unusual. (It could happen, for instance, if you realized large capital gains over the year.) You also may be self-employed but not need to pay estimated tax (if, for instance, you also have a W-2 job and you reduce your withholding allowances to have extra tax withheld). That said, if you earn significant income from self-employment, you'll likely have to make estimated tax payments. These are prepayments of the income tax and Social Security/Medicare taxes you accrue based on your self-employment income. As Pete B. mentioned in his answer, a possible reason that your estiamtes are low is because some taxes have already been withheld from the paychecks you received so far during the year (while you were an employee). These represent tax payments you've already made; you don't need to pay that money a second time, but you may need to make estimated tax payments for your income going forward. |
Why does Bank of America sometimes refer to itself as Banc of America on some documents? | From https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Banc: Banq (also Banc, banc-corp, bancorp, or bancorporation) is an intentionally erroneous spelling of the word bank, but pronounced the same way. It has been adopted by companies which are not banks but wish to appear as such, and satisfy legal restrictions on the usage of the word bank. ... For instance, if the original company is known as Bank of America, then the new investment banking entity may be known as Banc of America Securities LLC. If the original company is known as Bank of Manhattan, then its insurance business might be known as "Banc of Manhattan Insurance" and its holding company might be called "Manhattan Bancorp". This practice originates from legal necessity: Under the laws of most states, a corporation may only use the word "bank" in its name if it has obtained a banking charter under state or federal banking laws. So, "Banc of America" is the subsidiary of BoA that doesn't have appropriate licenses to be called "bank". Wonders of complex regulation :) |
Formula that predicts whether one is better off investing or paying down debt | The formula you are looking for is pretty complicated. It's given here: http://itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/eda3661.htm You might prefer to let somebody else do the grunt work for you. This page will calculate the probability for you: http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/normal.aspx. In your case, you'd enter mean=.114, standard deviation=.132, and "standard score"= ... oh, you didn't say what you're paying on your debt. Let's say it's 6%, i.e. .06. Note that this page will give you the probability that the actual number will be less than or equal to the "standard score". Enter all that and click the magic button and the probability that the investment will produce less than 6% is ... .34124, or 34%. The handy rule of thumb is that the probability is about 68% that the actual number will be within 1 standard deviation of the mean, 95% that it will be within 2 standard deviations, and 99.7% that it will be within 3. Which isn't exactly what you want because you don't want "within" but "less than". But you could get that by just adding half the difference from 100% for each of the above, i.e. instead of 68-95-99.7 it would be 84-98-99.9. Oh, I missed that in a follow-up comment you say you are paying 4% on a mortgage which you are adjusting to 3% because of tax implications. Probability based on mean and SD you gave of getting less than 3% is 26%. I didn't read the article you cite. I assume the standard deviation given is for the rate of return for one year. If you stretch that over many years, the SD goes down, as many factors tend to even out. So while the probability that money in a given, say, mutual fund will grow by less than 3% in one year is fairly high -- the 25 - 35% we're talking here sounds plausible to me -- the probability that it will grow by an average of less than 3% over a period of 10 or 15 or 20 years is much less. Further Thought There is, of course, no provably-true formula for what makes a reasonable risk. Suppose I offered you an investment that had a 99% chance of showing a $5,000 profit and a 1% chance of a $495,000 loss. Would you take it? I wouldn't. Even though the chance of a loss is small, if it happened, I'd lose everything I have. Is it worth that risk for the modest potential profit? I'd say no. Of course to someone who has a billion dollars, this might be a very reasonable risk. If it fails, oh well, that could really cut in to what he can spend on lunch tomorrow. |
How will a 1099 work with an existing W-2? | You can do either a 1099 or a W-2. There is no limitations to the number of W-2s one can have in reporting taxes. Problems occur, with the IRS, when one "forgets" to report income. Even if one holds only one job at a time, people typically have more than one W-2 if they change jobs within the year. The W-2 is the simplest way to go and you may want to consider doing this if you do not intend to work this side business into significant income. However, a 1099 gig is preferred by many in some situations. For things like travel expenses, you will probably receive the income from these on a 1099, but you can deduct them from your income using a Schedule C. Along these lines you may be able to deduct a wide variety of other things like travel to and from the client's location, equipment such as computers and office supplies, and maybe a portion of your home internet bill. Also this opens up different retirement contributions schemes such as a simplified employee pension. This does come with some drawbacks, however. First your life is more complicated as things need to be documented to become actual business expenses. You are much more likely to be audited by the IRS. Your taxes become more complicated and it is probably necessary to employee a CPA to do them. If you do this for primary full time work you will have to buy your own benefits. Most telling you will have to pay both sides of social security taxes on most profits. (Keep in mind that a good account can help you transfer profits to dividends which will allow you to be taxed at 15% and avoid social security taxes.) So it really comes down to what you see this side gig expanding into and your goals. If you want to make this a real business, then go 1099, if you are just doing this for a fes months and a few thousand dollars, go W-2. |
200K 10-Year Investment Safest 5% Annual Return? | I don't think there exists a guaranteed 5% investment vehicle. You have to decide how much risk you're willing to take. Splitting your $200k between CD's and stocks (or whatever higher yield investment vehicle you've found) is a way to get a higher rate without risking it all. For example if you've got a CD at 3%, and let's say best case is 10% average annual return on stocks, after 10 years here are potential results using various splits from 100% CD to 100% stock: The best case based on 10% average stock return and 3% CD return is the Total line for each split, the worst-case would be the CD amount only. Reality could be almost anywhere, but not below the CD amount. |
How is the actual trade on exchanges processed for simple stock orders? | The simple answer is, there are many ways for trades to take place. Some systems use order-matching software that employs proprietary algorithms for deciding the order of processing, others use FIFO structures, and so on. Some brokerages may fill customer orders out of their own accounts (which happens more frequently than you might imagine), and others put their orders into the system for the market makers to handle. There's no easy all-encompassing answer to your question, but it's still a good one to ask. By the way, asking if the market is "fair" is a bit naive, because fairness depends on what side of the trade you came out on! (grin) If your limit order didn't get filled and you missed out on an opportunity, that's always going to seem unfair, right? |
Are there alternatives to double currency account to manage payments in different currencies? | You could use a Credit or Debit Card running in US $, drawing from your US$ account, and pay everything with it. If you pick a company with free foreign conversions, you would get the standard interbank exchange ratio every time you pay, with no fee. For the small payments where credit cards are not accpeted or useful you can convert some cash once every some month - all significant amounts should work with credit or debit card. |
Are long-term bonds risky assets? | Long-term bonds -- any bonds, really -- can be risky for two main reasons: return on principal, or return of principal. The former is a problem if interest rates are low (which they are now in the US) because existing bonds will fall in price if interest rates rise. The second is a problem if the lender defaults: IOU nothing. No investment is riskless. Short-term bonds command a lower interest rate than long-term bonds (usually) because of their quicker maturity, but short-term bonds carry risk just like long-term bonds (though the interest rate risk is lower, sometimes quite a bit lower, than for long-term bonds). |
Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017? | No. The market cap has no relation to actual money that flowed anywhere, it is simple the number of shares multiplied by the current price, and the current price is what potential buyers are (were) willing to pay for the share. So any news that increases or decreases interest in shares changes potentially the share price, and with that the market cap. No money needs to flow. |
What economic growth rate is required to halve U.S. unemployment? | I'm reminded of Say's Law (developed by Jean-Baptiste Say) which can best be reduced to: The market clears (i.e. there is always some price at which an item will sell in a market). Full employment can always be obtained in any free market economy. People may not be pleased, however, with their wage rate. There are, however, many deterrents to employment (at least in the US): These are just some I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many others. |
Stocks and Bonds in Roth IRA vs non-tax-advantaged | You should definitely favor holding bonds in tax-advantaged accounts, because bonds are not tax-efficient. The reason is that more of their value comes in the form of regular, periodic distributions, rather than an increase in value as is the case with stocks or stock funds. With stocks, you can choose to realize all that appreciation when it is most advantageous for you from a tax perspective. Additionally, stock dividends often receive lower tax rates. For much more detail, see Tax-efficient fund placement. |
How does Value get rounded in figuring out Bonds Value? | With the formula you are using you assume that the issued bond (bond A) is a perpetual. Given the provided information, you can't really do more than this, it's only an approximation. The difference could be explained by the repayment of the principal (which is not the case with a perpetual). I guess the author has calculated the bond value with principal repayment. You can get more insight in the calculation from the excel provided at this website: http://breakingdownfinance.com/finance-topics/bond-valuation/fixed-rate-bond-valuation/ |
What are the downsides that prevent more people from working in high-income countries, and then retiring in low-income (and cost of living) ones? | A lot of good answers, but there’s one more factor: ignorance. The majority haven’t considered it, or considered it and assumed it’s not an option without investigating. PLUS, the widespread myth that every other country is primitive, unhealthy, and dangerous. |
Is Cash Value Life Insurance (“whole life” insurance) a good idea for my future? | Almost everyone needs an insurance, you should also probably buy it. If you are good at planning [which it seems from your question], you should stick to Pure "Term" insurance and avoid any other types / variants of CVLI. CVLI is only advisable if one cannot commit to investing or is not good at saving money, or one feels that one loses money in Term Insurance. Otherwise term insurance is best. |
GNUCash: How to count up equity? | I would take each of these items and any others and consider how you would count it as an expense in the other direction. If you have an account for parking expenses or general transportation funds, credit that account for a refund on your parking. If you have an account for expenses on technology purchases, you would credit that account if you sell a piece of equipment as you replace it with an upgrade. If you lost money (perhaps in a jacket) how would you account for the cash that is lost? Whatever account would would subtract from put a credit for cash found. |
Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it? | Yes - Simply put, printing money is called "monetizing the debt" and would result in some nasty inflation. It's a no-no as it quickly devalues the currency and makes it far more difficult to borrow in the future, an entire generation will remember getting burned by it. If, say, Canada's currency were suddenly worth half as much and you received half your investment back in US dollars (e.g. you paid US$10,000, but now have US$5000) would you ever trust them again? The economy is far more complex than one can discuss here, but the fractional reserve system is the next creator of money, although it's not unlimited, the reserve requirement throttles it back. The demand for loans is impacted both by the rate itself and the bank's willingness to lend. The housing bubble had multiple causes. In a sense Tucson is right. Anything we do to make houses more affordable can cause house price inflation. But - the over the top underwriting had more impact in my opinion. People lost sight of good lending practices. The option rate interest only ARMs were financial time bombs. |
Pay cash for a home, get a reverse mortgage, and buy stock | I think you're missing a couple of things. First - why do you think its a reverse mortgage? More likely than not its a regular mortgage - home equity loan. If so, if they expect the stock market to rise significantly more than the amount of interest they pay on the loan - then its a totally sensible course of action. Second - the purchase in cash only to take out a loan later can definitely be a sensible way to do things. For example, if the seller wants to close fast, or if there are competing offers where not having a contingency is the tipping point. Another reason might be purchasing in an entity name (for example holding the title as an LLC), and in this case it is easier to get a loan if you already have the house, since the banks see the owner's actual commitment and not just promises. |
US Stock Market - volume based real-time alert | This would be a nice Raspberry Pi project for Mathematica, which comes bundled free on the Raspbian OS. You can program it up and leave it running. It's not expensive and doesn't use much power. A program to monitor stock prices or volume could be written as simply as :- This checks the volume of trades of Oct 2014 US crude oil futures every 30 seconds and sends an email if the volume jumps by more than 100. The financial data in this example is curated from Yahoo. If specific data is not available or not updated frequently enough, if you can find an alternative online data source it's usually possible read the data in. For example, this is apparently real-time data :- {Crude Oil, 92.79, -0.67, -0.71%} After leaving the above program running while writing this the volume of trades has risen like so :- Edit I just set this running on a Raspberry Pi. I had to use gmail for the email setup as described in this post: Configuring Mathematica to send email from a notebook. Anyway, it's working. Hope I don't get inundated with emails. ;-) |
Who should pay taxes in my typical case? | Once you turn 18 you should open an account in your own name and transfer the assets there. Currently your mom is the one responsible as far as the IRS cares with respect to taxes as it is her name on the account. The taxes due will be based on your mom's tax rate. As a good child you can reimburse your mom for the taxes that she has to on your behalf. Also legally that money currently belongs to her. Any legal judgement against your mom can claim that money and it is not available for using as an asset by you on credit applications and such. A better solution would have been for your mom to open a custodial account in your name. This way the money is still yours (you just don't have control of it until you turn 18). While probably not an issue here, the transferring of money between you and your mom (and then back) is considered a gift by the IRS. If the account was very well funded then you could run into having to deal with the annual gift limit and lifetime gift exclusion. Based on the clarification that the question is in reference to India: while I don't know the particulars of the law in India my advice of transferring the assets when you turn 18 still remains. The main difference that I would see been India and the US would be the gift tax / exclusions. Unless someone else knows otherwise I would still expect the law in India to see the current account as being the property of the mother. |
Is refinancing my auto loan just to avoid dealing with the lender that issued it a crazy idea? | I’d say No, it’s not crazy. I did that even for a mortgage, because the bank tended to lose my checks or let them sit for some days, and then claim I paid late. They were known on the internet for their poor processing department, so I decided to avoid that monthly hassle with calling and arguing, and refinanced. Compare the pain with the cost for refinancing, and if you think it’s worth it, change. You might even get a cheaper credit, and save on it. |
Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage? | The simple answer is to get a residential mortgage first, and once you have secured the loan, do whatever you want. The bank only cares about what risk they are taking on the day of closing and won't care afterwards so long as you pay the mortgage on time. Residential mortgages are going to give you better rates than rentals, generally. |
APR for a Loan Paid Off Monthly | The periodic rate (here, the interest charged per month), as you would enter into a finance calculator is 9.05%. Multiply by 12 to get 108.6% or calculate APR at 182.8%. Either way it's far more than 68%. If the $1680 were paid after 365 days, it would be simple interest of 68%. For the fact that payment are made along the way, the numbers change. Edit - A finance calculator has 5 buttons to cover the calculations: N = number of periods or payments %i = the interest per period PV = present value PMT = Payment per period FV= Future value In your example, you've given us the number of periods, 12, present value, $1000, future value, 0, and payment, $140. The calculator tells me this is a monthly rate of 9%. As Dilip noted, you can compound as you wish, depending on what you are looking for, but the 9% isn't an opinion, it's the math. TI BA-35 Solar. Discontinued, but available on eBay. Worth every cent. Per mhoran's comment, I'll add the spreadsheet version. I literally copied and pasted his text into a open cell, and after entering the cell shows, which I rounded to 9.05%. Note, the $1000 is negative, it starts as an amount owed. And for Dilip - 1.0905^12 = 2.8281 or 182.8% effective rate. If I am the loanshark lending this money, charging 9% per month, my $1000 investment returns $2828 by the end of the year, assuming, of course, that the payment is reinvested immediately. The 108 >> 182 seems disturbing, but for lower numbers, even 12% per year, the monthly compounding only results in 12.68% |
A friend wants to use my account for a wire transfer. Is this a scam or is it legitimate? | Just one further point to add to what everyone else has said. There are no oil rigs or platforms "off the shores of Liverpool". Liverpool is on the west coast of England, on the oil-free Irish Sea. The UK's oil industry is in the North Sea, to the north-east. Aberdeen would be the correct city. |
Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation? | Inflation is an increase in the money supply. Increases in consumer prices follow from inflation. It's not the same as inflation. Some inflation is necessary for a growing economy. If your gross national product is only $1,000, then you can get away with having less money than if your gross national product is $1 trillion. Inflation beyond this, though, is used to allow governments to live beyond their means. If there is more money chasing the same amount of goods, prices will rise. There is truth in what azcoastal says about this kind of inflation. It's theft. Governments like inflation because it allows them to pay off their debts with cheaper money. |
Renting or Buying an House | When you sell a house around between 7-10% of the sales price will go to various fees. Mostly to the agents, but also to county fees, city fees, deed tax, and possibly covering closing costs for the buyers. So if you sell a $400k house for the same price you buy, just in fees, you're out $40k. Mortgages are structured so that the frontend is very interest heavy, while at the end you're mostly paying towards principal. So for the first two years you will pay down very little of the principal. Figure around $2500 for the mortgage, and without running the numbers I bet you would pay an average for the first two years of around $1800/month in interest. $43,200. Mortgage interest is tax deductible, so you'll get some of that back. That's also $16,800 in equity you'll have on the house, so you'll get that back out when you sell. Rough numbers, I would be you lose around $50k buying the house and selling for the same price two years later. That doesn't take into account having to do any maintenance. And it assumes you can sell quickly when you want to. Renting is not throwing away money. You don't lose any money. You get a place to live in exchange. You don't build equity, sure, but you don't need to worry about maintenance and other related issues. When you're looking to be somewhere short term renting is generally the best idea. |
Avoiding timing traps with long term index investing | What are the risks pertaining to timing on long term index investments? The risks are countless for any investment strategy. If you invest in US stocks, and prices revert to the long term cyclically adjusted average, you will lose a lot of money. If you invest in cash, inflation may outpace interest rates and you will lose money. If you invest in gold, the price might go down and you will lose money. It's best to study history and make a reasonable decision (i.e. invest in stocks). Here are long term returns by asset class, computed by Jeremy Siegel: $1 invested in equities in 1801 equals $15.22 today if was not invested and $8.8 million if it was invested in stocks. This is the 'magic of compound interest' and cash / bonds have not been nearly as magical as stocks historically. 2) How large are these risks? The following chart shows the largest drawdowns (decreases in the value of an asset) since 1970 (source): Asset prices decrease in value frequently. Financial assets are volatile, but historically, they have increased over time, enabling investors to earn compounded returns (exponential growth of money is how to get rich). I personally view drawdowns as an excellent time to buy - it's like going on a shopping spree when everything in the store is discounted. 3) In case I feel not prepared to take these risks, how can I avoid them? The optimal asset allocation depends on the ability to take risk and your tolerance for risk. You are young and have a long investment horizon, so if stocks go down, you will have plenty of time to wait for them to go back up (if you're smart, you'll buy more stocks when they go down because they're cheap), so your ability to bear risk is high. From your description, it seems like you have a low risk tolerance (despite a high ability to be exposed to risk). Here's the return of various asset classes and how the average investor has fared over the last 20 years (source): Get educated (read Common Sense on Mutual Funds, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, etc.) and don't be average! Closing words: Investing in a globally diversified portfolio with a dollar cost averaging strategy is the best strategy for most investors. For investors that are unable to stay rational when markets are volatile (i.e. the investor uncontrollably sells their stocks when stocks decrease 20%), a more conservative asset allocation is recommended. Due to the nature of compounded interest, a conservative portfolio is likely to have a much lower future value. |
When entering a Futures contract, must the margin deposit be idle or can I profit from it? | In theory, an FCM may accept various types of collateral, including assets such as cash, treasuries, certain stocks, sovereign debt, letters of credit, and (as of 2009, I think,) gold. In practice, most will want you to post cash or cash. Some will take treasuries, but I think you'll generally have a hard time posting securities or other riskier asset classes at most shops, as dealing with the margining around them is more complex (and less profitible). |
Is this mortgage advice good, or is it hooey? | This doesn't say the whole story (like the length of the HELOC). if you have 15 years left on a mortgage and "refinance" into a 30 year HELOC then yes, your payments maybe 20% lower, but you add 15 years to pay it off. Just remember that interest occurs daily on what you owe. If you move 100K of debt from 5% mortgage to 6% HELOC you'll be paying more to the banks no matter how you slice it. |
Buying my first car out of college | I know I came a little late to this discussion but let me give you my opinion. I think that purchasing the BMW is a terrible investment for obvious reasons. Once you drive the car off the dealer's lot the car loses anywhere from 5-10k in value immediately. Its a terrible investment and something that you will regret in the future. However, whether you buy it now or you hold off we all know you are eventually still going to get it. I graduated college and was in a similar situation as the one you are now. I started making 60k after college and leased a brand new BMW. Like I said it was a terrible investment, but I do not regret it for one day. Ive had so much fun in that car that I can't even begin to explain. We only live once and you don't want to be one of those guys that looks back and says I should've this I should've that, JUST DO IT. We all know it won't be possible when you have a wife and kids so just splurge now and be responsible later LOL. |
How is it possible that a preauth sticks to a credit card for 30 days, even though the goods have already been delivered? | Open a dispute for the preauth. It is effectively a double charge, since you have already paid for the item. You can provide evidence of the other transaction. This forces them to go through some hassle and waste some time on the issue. |
What determines deal price on stock exchange? [duplicate] | Stock prices are set by bidding. In principle, a seller will say, "I want $80." If he can't find anyone willing to buy at that price, he'll either decide not to sell after all, or he'll lower his price. Likewise, a buyer will say, "I'll pay $70." If he can't find anyone willing to pay that price, he'll either decide not to buy or he'll increase his price. For most stocks there are many buyers and many sellers all the time, so there's a constant interplay. The typical small investor has VERY little control of the price. You say, "I want to buy 10 shares of XYZ Corporation and my maximum price is $20." If the current trending price is below $20, your broker will buy it for you. If not, he won't. You normally have some time limit on the order, so if the price falls within your range within that time period, your broker will buy. That is, your choice is basically to buy or not buy, or sell or not sell, at the current price. You have little opportunity to really negotiate a better price. If you have a significant percentage of a company's total stock, different story. In real life, most stocks are being traded constantly, so buyers and sellers both have a pretty good idea of the current price. If the last sale was ten minutes ago for $20, it's unlikely anyone's going to now bid $100. They're going to bid $20.50 or $19.25 or some such. If the last sale was for $20 and your broker really came to the floor and offered to buy for $100, I suppose someone would sell to him very quickly before he realized what an outrageous price this was. I use TD Ameritrade, and on their web site, if I give a price limit on a buy that's more than a small percentage above the last sale, they reject it as an error. I forget the exact number but they won't even accept a bid of $80 if the stock is going for $40. They might accept $41 or $42, something like that. |
What does inflation actually mean? [duplicate] | Inflation also provides incentives for consumers to purchase now rather than later (which helps drive sales) and it provides incentive for money to be invested and put back into businesses, rather than held as cash, because you need to earn at least a little interest on your money just to break even. |
Is it possible to physically own a share certificate in a company? | There is a company that will sell you single paper shares of stock for many companies and handle framing. But you pay a large premium over the stock price. Disney stopped doing paper share certificates a while ago, but you should be able to buy some of the old ones on eBay if you want. |
Is the stock market a zero-sum game? | While this seems overall a macroeconomics question and not really personal finance, let me give it a shot: The question of why corporations form in a free or efficient market is why Ronald Coase received the 1991 Nobel Prize in Economics, for his work developing the theory of the firm Corporations organize when there are transaction costs in the free market; corporations form when it is in fact more efficient for a corporation to exist than a number of small producers contracting with one another. To the extent that corporations add efficiency to a total market, they are not "zero sum" at all; the net production is increased over what would exist in a market of sole proprietors who would have costs (such as researching the trust levels in counterparts, regulatory compliance, etc) that they cannot bear to engage in the same level of transactions. |
Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply? | A 'Call' gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock at a particular price. The price, called the "strike price" is fixed when you buy the option. Let's run through an example - AAPL trades @ $259. You think it's going up over the next year, and you decide to buy the $280 Jan11 call for $12. Here are the details of this trade. Your cost is $1200 as options are traded on 100 shares each. You start to have the potential to make money only as Apple rises above $280 and the option trades "in the money." It would take a move to $292 for you to break even, but after that, you are making $100 for each dollar it goes higher. At $300, your $1200 would be worth $2000, for example. A 16% move on the stock and a 67% increase on your money. On the other hand, if the stock doesn't rise enough by January 2011, you lose it all. A couple points here - American options are traded at any time. If the stock goes up next week, your $1200 may be worth $1500 and you can sell. If the option is not "in the money" its value is pure time value. There have been claims made that most options expire worthless. This of course is nonsense, you can see there will always be options with a strike below the price of the stock at expiration and those options are "in the money." Of course, we don't know what those options were traded at. On the other end of this trade is the option seller. If he owns Apple, the sale is called a "covered call" and he is basically saying he's ok if the stock goes up enough that the buyer will get his shares for that price. For him, he knows that he'll get $292 (the $280, plus the option sale of $12) for a stock that is only $259 today. If the stock stays under $280, he just pocketed $12, 4.6% of the stock value, in just 3 months. This is why call writing can be a decent strategy for some investors. Especially if the market goes down, you can think of it as the investor lowering his cost by that $12. This particular strategy works best in a flat to down market. Of course in a fast rising market, the seller misses out on potentially high gains. (I'll call it quits here, just to say a Put is the mirror image, you have the right to sell a stock at a given price. It's the difference similar to shorting a stock as opposed to buying it.) If you have a follow up question - happy to help. EDIT - Apple closed on Jan 21, 2011 at $326.72, the $280 call would have been worth $46.72 vs the purchase price of $12. Nearly 4X return (A 289% gain) in just over 4 months for a stock move of 26%. This is the leverage you can have with options. Any stock could just as easily trade flat to down, and the entire option premium, lost. |
PayPal wants me to “add a bank account”, another funding source. Credit card isn't working. Why? | I've used PayPal for my business for a long time. Sometimes PayPal doesn't trust credit cards. Debit or direct bank transfer are reliable. There is also a charge for using a credit card but I don't think that is the reason. You may be trying to purchase a high value item. That would be a possible reason why PayPal allowed you to use credit cards in the past, but will not allow you to do so now, for these particular transactions. |
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