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Would you withdraw your money from your bank if you thought it was going under? | The article you link scares me; but I still have faith that the FDIC will keep me protected. Personally, if the FDIC goes broke, there is something more fundamentally wrong with the government as a whole and dollars won't worry me much. There are lots of issues with the FDIC, and I think the answers lie outside of simply printing more money and funding the FDIC further. There is likely more bad before this storm is over, and I might be ignorant, but I still want to operate normally. My money would stay where it is with things being how I see them in today |
Recommended finance & economy book/blog for a Software Engineer? | Another good economic comment blog is Naked Capitalism. |
US Banks offering Security Tokens in 2012 | Charles Schwab and HSBC offer security tokens. |
How to learn about doing technical analysis? Any suggested programs or tools that teach it? | Recommended? There's really no perfect answer. You need to know the motivations of the participants in the markets that you will be participating in. For instance, the stock market's purpose is to raise capital (make as much money as possible), whereas the commodities-futures market's purpose is to hedge against producing actual goods. The participants in both markets have different reactions to changes in price. |
“Inflation actually causes people not to spend”… could it be true? | Inflation can go up for a number of reasons. Boom times can cause inflation, as everyone is making and spending a lot of money, so prices and inflation goes up. In times like these central banks usually increase interest rates to curb spending and thus bring down inflation. By raising interest rates the central bank is increasing the cost of borrowing money. So with high prices and a higher cost to borrowing money, most people start reducing their spending. When this happens businesses sell less stock and have increased costs (due to higher interest rates) so have to lay off staff or reduce their hours at work, so people will have even less money to spend. This causes prices to fall and reduces inflation and can result in a recession. At this point in time central banks start reducing interest rates to make the cost of borrowing money cheaper and stimulate people to start spending again. And so the cycle continues. The result in this case is that inflation itself didn't kerb demand, but was helped along by the central bank rising interest rates. Another reason causing inflation can be a restriction on the supply of certain goods or services. An example we went through about 2 years ago was when floods caused banana crops up in Northern Australia to be devastated. This caused a lack of supply in bananas for almost a year across Australia. The normal price for bananas here is between $1 to $3 per kg. During this period banana prices skyrocketed up to $14 per kg. The result: very few were buying bananas. So the increase in price here caused a reduction in demand directly. |
Typical return for an IRA? How can I assess if my returns were decent? | There is no typical return for an IRA. Understand that an IRA is not an investment type, it is just an account that gets special tax treatment by the Federal Government. The money in the IRA could be invested in almost anything including Gold, Stocks, Bonds, Cash, CDs, etc. So the question as phrased isn't exactly meaningful. It is kind of like asking what is the typical price of things if I use $10 bills. As for a 10.6% annualized return on your portfolio. That's not a bad return. At that rate you will double your investment (with compounding) every 7.2 years. Again, however, some context is needed. You can really only evaluate investment returns with your risk profile in mind. If you are invested in super safe investments like CDs, that is an absolutely incredible return. You compare it to several indexes, which is a good way to do it if you are investing in the types of investments tracked by those indexes. |
What's the point of a chargeback when they just ask the merchant whether they owe money to the buyer? | You may be using the wrong method to get your money back. As others have said, this is not a valid use for chargeback; that is when a fraudulent charge occurred, or when a merchant charges you incorrectly. However, many cards have various kinds of guarantees, one of which might cover this situation. Particularly in some european countries, such as the United Kingdom which has Section 75 allowing you a recourse, services are included with goods. Goods are typically the only covered elements in the US, though, but check your credit card agreement to be sure. Second, you can go through the FTC. They will provide you a sample form letter to request a refund of your money, and if the merchant is not cooperative might choose to help you directly (especially if many others are in your situation). |
What is the best use of “spare” money? | There's a hellova lot to be said for investing in real estate (simple residential real estate), even though it's grandma's advice. The two critical elements are 1) it's the only realistic way for a civilian to get leverage. this is why it almost always blows away "tinkering in the stock markets" in the 10-year frame. 2) but perhaps more importantly - it's a really "enforced" saving plan. you just have to pay it off every month. There are other huge advantages like, it's the best possible equity for a civilian, so you can get loans in the future to start your dotcom, etc. Try to buy yourself a very modest little flat (perhaps to rent out?) or even something like a garage or storeroom. Real estate can crash, but it's very unlikely; it only happens in end of the world situations where it won't matter anyway. When real estate drops say 30% everyone yells about that being a "crash" - I've never, ever owned a stock that hasn't had 30% down times. Food for thought! |
Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price | As others have said, if the dealer accepted payment and signed over ownership of the vehicle, that's a completed transaction. While there may or may not be a "cooling-off period" in your local laws, those protect the purchaser, not (as far as I know) the seller. The auto dealer could have avoided this by selling for a fixed price. Instead, they chose to negotiate every sale. Having done so, it's entirely their responsibility to check that they are happy with their final agreement. Failing to do so is going to cost someone their commission on the sale, but that's not the buyer's responsibility. They certainly wouldn't let you off the hook if the final price was higher than you had previously agreed to. He who lives by the fine print shall die by the fine print. This is one of the reasons there is huge turnover in auto sales staff; few of them are really good at the job. If you want to be kind to the guy you could give him the chance to sell you something else. Or perhaps even offer him a $100 tip. But assuming the description is correct, and assuming local law doesn't say otherwise (if in any doubt, ask a lawyer!!!), I don't think you have any remaining obligation toward them On the other hand, depending on how they react to this statement, you might want to avoid their service department, just in case someone is unreasonably stupid and tries to make up the difference that was. |
Can you deduct hobby expenses up to hobby income in Canada? | Yes, your business needs to be in the business of making money in order for you to deduct the expenses associated with it. I suppose in theory this could mean that if you take in $10,000 and spend $30,000 every year, you not only don't get a net deduction of $20,000 (your loss) but you have to pay tax on $10,000 (your revenue). However this is super fixable. Just only deduct $9500 of your expenses. Tada! Small profit.For all the gory details, including how they consider whether you have an expectation of profits, see http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/gl/p-176r/p-176r-e.html This "expectation of profit" rule appears to apply to things like "I sell home décor items (or home decorating advice) and therefore need to take several multi week trips to exotic vacation destinations every year and deduct them as business expenses." If you're doing woodworking or knitting in your home and selling on Etsy you don't particularly have any expenses. It's hard to imagine a scenario where you consistently sell for less than the cost of materials and then end up dinged on paying tax on revenue. |
Ticker symbols differences between Yahoo Finance and BestInvest | BestInvest is a UK site looking at that URL, base on the "co.uk" ending. Yahoo! Finance that you use is a US-based site unless you add something else to the URL. UK & Ireland Yahoo! Finance is different from where you were as there is something to be said for where are you looking. If I was looking for a quarter dollar there are Canadian and American coins that meet this so there is something to be said for a higher level of categorization being done. "EUN.L" would likely denote the "London" exchange as tickers are exchange-specific you do realize, right? |
Can an International student of F1 VISA accept money in her US bank account on behalf of someone else? | There might be a problem. Some reporting paperwork will have to be done for the IRS, obviously, but technically it will be business income zeroed out by business expense. Withholding requirements will shift to your friend, which is a mess. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA) about these. But the immigration may consider this arrangement as employment, which is in violation of the visa conditions. You need to talk to an immigration attorney. |
Can everyday people profit from unexpected world events? | The NYSE is not the only exchange in the world (or even the only one in the USA). Amazingly, the London stock exchange works on London time, the Shanghai exchange works on Shanghai time and the Australian stock exchange works on Sydney time. In addition futures exchanges work overnight. |
Why are credit cards preferred in the US? | Credit card fraud protection (by law), credit card cash back programs (provided by most CC issuers), and debit card fees (commonly imposed by the merchant). The crux is that with CC transactions, a small percentage is remitted to the issuing bank. Since the banks are already making money hand over fist on CC's, they incentivize people to use them. CC security is also lax because the merchant is responsible for fraudulent charges instead of the bank. If the merchant fails to check a signature, they are held liable for all charges if the card holder reports a fraudulent transaction. |
What happens to bonds values when interest rates rise? [duplicate] | You can look at TIPS (which have some inflation protection built in). Generally short term bonds are better than long if you expect rates to rise soon. Other ways that you can protect yourself are to choose higher yield corporate bonds instead of government bonds, or to use foreign bonds. There are plenty of bond funds like Templeton Global or ETFs that offer such features. Find one that will work for you. |
How should I pay off my private student loans that have a lot of restrictions? | The one thing that I saw in here that raised a big red flag is that you said you "overpaid" on your interest. ALWAYS make sure you tell them that any extra money should be applied to principal only, not to interest. You accrue interest based on your outstanding principal amount, so getting that lower reduces the overall amount of interest you end up paying. Paying the interest ahead saves you nothing. However, make sure you pay the current interest owed that month. They can capitalize past due interest - in affect, change that to be considered an addition to the loan principal amount and you end up paying interest on the interest. |
How to explain an income discrepancy to the IRS? | The IRS doesn't tax "increased wealth" They tax Revenue -- income. If this money or property came to you as a gift, you would owe no tax on it but the giver probably would owe gift tax. If it came to you as a loan, you would owe no tax on it but the lender would owe tax on any interest you pay (and must charge at least minimal interest, though they could give that to you as a gift and possibly not have it be taxable). But if came as payment for goods or services or investment or anything of that sort, and you aren't demonstrably tax-exempt, it is income and you are responsible for declaring it as such and paying tax on it. |
What is the tax treatment of scrip dividends in the UK? | The HMRC website says: Stock dividends are treated as income by virtue of CTA10/S1049, and taxable as savings income under Chapter 5 of Part 4 of ITTOIA05 (sections 409 to 414). ITTOIA05 is the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005, and says: 409 Charge to tax on stock dividend income (1) Income tax is charged on stock dividend income. (2) In this Chapter “stock dividend income” means the income that is treated as arising under section 410. 411 Income charged (1) Tax is charged under this Chapter on the amount of stock dividend income treated for income tax purposes as arising in the tax year. (2) That amount is the cash equivalent of the share capital on the issue of which the stock dividend income arises (see section 412), grossed up by reference to the dividend ordinary rate for the tax year. |
What is expense growth in this diagram? | The "c." is probably circa, or "about." Regulatory settlements is in blue because it's negative; the amount is in parentheses, which indicates a loss. WB and CB might be wholesale banking and commercial banking? BAU probably means "business as usual" or things that don't directly apply to the project. Incremental investment is the additional cash a company puts towards its long-term capital assets. FX is probably foreign exchange. |
Is this comparison of a 15-year vs. a 30-year mortgage reasonable? | I think your analysis is very clear, it's a sensible approach, and the numbers sound about right to me. A few other things you might want to think about: Tax In some jurisdictions you can deduct mortgage interest against your income tax. I see from your profile that you're in Texas, but I don't know the exact situation there and I think it's better to keep this answer general anyway. If that's the case for you, then you should re-run your numbers taking that into account. You may also be able to make your investments tax-advantaged, for example if you save them in a retirement account. You'll need to apply the appropriate limits for your specific situation and take an educated guess as to how that might change over the next 30 years. Liquidity The money you're not spending on your mortgage is money that's available to you for other spending or emergencies - i.e. even though your default assumption is to invest it and that's a sensible way to compare with the mortgage, you might still place some extra value on having more free access to it. Overpayments Would you have the option to pay extra on the mortgage? That's another way of "investing" your money that gets you a guaranteed return of the mortgage rate. You might want to consider if you'd want to send some of your excess money that way. |
What exactly is the interest rate that the Fed is going to adjust? | Federal Funds Rate The interest rate at which a depository institution lends funds maintained at the Federal Reserve to another depository institution overnight. The federal funds rate is generally only applicable to the most creditworthy institutions when they borrow and lend overnight funds to each other. The federal funds rate is one of the most influential interest rates in the U.S. economy, since it affects monetary and financial conditions, which in turn have a bearing on key aspects of the broad economy including employment, growth and inflation. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/federalfundsrate.asp#ixzz3mB5kCtvT |
Table of how many years it takes to make a specified return on the stock market? | The Money Chimp site lets you choose two points in time to see the return. i.e. you give it the time (two dates) and it tells you the return. One can create a spreadsheet to look at multiple time periods and answer your question that way, but I've not seen it laid out that way in advance. For what it's worth, I am halfway to my retirement number. I can tell you, for example that at X%, I hit my number in Y years. 8.73% gets me 8/25/17 (kid off to college) 3.68% gets me 8/25/21 (kid graduates), so in a sense, we're after the same type of info. With the long term return being in the 10% range, you're going to get 3 years or so as average, but with a skewed bellish curve when run over time. |
My tenant wants to pay rent through their company: Should this raise a red flag? | Maybe you should consider setting up a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) for your business dealings as a landlord and consider providing that instead of your SSN for this type of thing. I am assuming (if this is legitimate) they want it so they can send you a 1099 as they might be obligated to do if they are claiming the rent as a business expense. Also, I'd suggest having the tenant tell their employer to contact you directly. There is no need for the tenant in this situation to also get your SSN/TIN. |
When writing a covered call, what's the difference between a “net debit” and a “net credit”? | When you buy a stock and sell a covered call, the call can't be valued higher than the stock, right? How can a call on a $10 stock sell for more than the stock? So, the initial position of a covered call will cost you something. The transaction is a debit to you. The net amount of the deal, usually prices as per stock/option single share. For the image showing net credit, it's as if you expect to get paid for you to take this deal. |
Can the Standard Deduction still apply to a Traditional IRA early withdrawal? | IRA distributions are reported on line 15b on the standard form 1040. That is in the same Income section as most of your other income (including that 1099 income and W2 income, etc.). Its income is included in the Line 22 "Total Income", from which the Personal Exemption (calculated on 6d, subtracted from the total in line 42) and the Standard Deduction (line 40 - also Itemized Deduction total would be here) are later reduced to arrive at Line 43, "Taxable Income". As such, yes, he might owe only the 10% penalty (which is reported on line 59, and you do not reduce this by the deductions, as you surmised). |
Can paying down a mortgage be considered an “investment”? | If by "investment" you mean something that pays you money that you can spend, then no. But if you view "investment" as something that improves your balance sheet / net worth by reducing debt and reducing how much money you're throwing away in interest each month, then the answer is definitely yes, paying down debt is a good investment to improve your overall financial condition. However, your home mortgage might not be the first place to start looking for pay-downs to save money. Credit cards typically have much higher interest rates than mortgages, so you would save more money by working on eliminating your credit card debt first. I believe Suze Orman said something like: If you found an investment that paid you 25% interest, would you take it? Of course you would! Paying down high interest debt reduces the amount of interest you have to pay next month. Your same amount of income will be able to go farther, do more because you'll be paying less in interest. Pay off your credit card debt first (and keep it off), then pay down your mortgage. A few hundred dollars in extra principal paid in the first few years of a 30 year mortgage can remove years of interest payments from the mortgage term. Whether you plan to keep your home for decades or you plan to move in 10 years, having less debt puts you in a stronger financial position. |
Calculating the total capital of a company? | Opening capital = opening assests-opening liabilities |
Why buy a vertical spread if I could instead buy a naked call? | Question: are you saying that buying a call is better than buying a vertical spread regardless of fees, or only because of fees? If the former, you are saying that buying a call and selling a vertical spread will always be profitable, which effectively means you're going short an out-of-the-money call. While that's a good strategy, it doesn't guarantee profit, and will lose money exactly when the vertical spread is a better strategy than buying the call outright. The most direct answer to your question in comments: if the stock goes down, you lose less money with the vertical spread than you do with a simple call. In return for this lower risk, you give up gains if the stock goes above the higher calls strike price. |
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. |
How to make money from a downward European market? | The best way to make money on a downward market is to buy at the bottom, sell at the top. Lather, rinse, repeat. |
How safe is a checking account? | While Rocky's answer is correct in the big picture there is another factor here to keep in mind: The disruption while you're waiting to resolve it. If a fraudster gets your card and drains your account you'll get your money back--but there will be a period while they are investigating that it won't be available. For this reason I avoid debit card transactions and only use credit cards. If the fraudster gets your credit card you might lose access while they investigate but you don't lose access to your bank account. |
Is it a bad idea to buy a motorcycle with a lien on it? | A lien is a mechanism to impede legal title transfer of a vehicle, real property, or sometimes, expensive business equipment. That's why title companies exist - to make sure there are no liens against something before a buyer hands money to a seller. The lien can be attached to a loan, unpaid labor related to the item (a mechanic's lien) or unpaid taxes, and there are other scenarios where this could occur. The gist of all this is that the seller of the vehicle mentioned does not have clear title if there is a lien. This introduces a risk for the buyer. The buyer can pay the seller the money to cover the lien (in the case of a bank loan) but that doesn't mean the seller will actually pay off the loan (so the title is never clear!). This article recommends visiting the bank with the seller, and getting title on-the-spot. However, this isn't always an option, as a local bank branch isn't probably going to have the title document available, though the seller might be able to make some arrangement for a local branch to have the title available before a visit to pay off the loan. The low-risk approach is for the seller to have clear title before any money changes hands. |
Is buying a home a good idea? | IF the price of the property (1) increases A LOT, you will just break even, on the huge expenses of home owning. IF the price of the property (2) increases A HUGE AMOUNT, you will make lots of money, due to the leverage. IF the price of the property (3) stays even, you will LOSE a tremendous amount of money. It's much like owning a car - constant expenses. That's all there is to it. It's well worth bearing in mind that property prices for your area / your property need to be constantly increasing for you to merely break even. Note that over long periods of time prices tend to go up (most anywhere - but not everywhere). Many people basically base their thinking on that. It will be OK "in the long run". Which is fair enough. I believe one huge factor is that it is enforced saving. That is the number one advantage for most. Note too that in most/all jurisdictions, there are tremendous tax advantages, even if it turns out to be situation (1) (i.e. a waste of time, you only break-even). Note finally that there are, indeed, tremendous social/financial advantages to having the equity: it gets incredibly easy to get other loans (for business or the like) once you own a house; this is undeniably an advantage (perhaps press your husband on that one). |
What's the best way to manage all the 401K accounts I've accumulated from my past jobs? | I rolled mine over from the company I was at into my own brokerage house. You can't roll them into a Roth IRA, so I needed to setup a traditional IRA. There is paperwork your old jobs can provide you. I had to put in some mailing addresses, some account numbers and turn them in. My broker received it, I chose what I wanted to invest it in and that was that. No tax penalty or early withdrawal penalty. The key to avoiding penalties is to have your past employers send the money directly to another retirement fund, not send a check to you. |
Calculate Future Value with Recurring Deposits | Using the following values: The formula for the future value of an annuity due is d*(((1 + i)^t - 1)/i)*(1 + i) See Calculating The Present And Future Value Of Annuities In an annuity due, a deposit is made at the beginning of a period and the interest is received at the end of the period. This is in contrast to an ordinary annuity, where a payment is made at the end of a period. The formula is derived, by induction , from the summation of the future values of every deposit. The initial value, with interest accumulated for all periods, can simply be added. So the overall formula is |
Why are options created? | The main reason is that you move from the linear payoff structure to a non-linear one. This is called convexity in finance. With options you can design a payoff structure in almost any way to want it to be. For example you can say that you only want the upside but not the downside, so you buy a call option. It is obvious that this comes at a price, the option premium. Or equivalently you buy the underlying and for risk management reasons buy a put option on top of it as an insurance. The price of the put could be seen as the insurance premium. You can of course combine options in more complicated ways so that you e.g. profit as long as the underlying moves strongly enough in either direction. This is called a straddle. |
Protecting Gains: Buying a Put vs. Leveraged Bear Market vs. Liquidating Long Positions? | Buying a put is hedging. You won't lose as much if the market goes down, but you'll still lose capital: lower value of your long positions. Buying an ultrashort like QID is safer than shorting a stock because you don't have the unlimited losses you could have when you short a stock. It is volatile. It's not a whole lot different than buying a put; it uses futures and swaps to give the opposing behavior to the underlying index. Some places indicate that the tax consequences could be severe. It is also a hedge if you don't sell your long positions. QID opposes the NASDAQ 100 which is tech-heavy so bear (!) that in mind. Selling your long positions gets you out of equities completely. You'll be responsible for taxes on capital gains. It gets your money off of the table, as opposed to playing side bets or buying insurance. (Sorry for the gambling analogy but that's a bit how I feel with stock indices now :) ). |
Does girlfriend have too much savings, time to invest? | Congrats to your GF! "How much" depends a lot on how stable her income tends to be. If she has stable salary @ $20K plus $5K-$15K in contract work, then having a larger EF is important. If she has a consistent track record of pulling in $35K each year with contract work, then she may still need a somewhat higher emergency fund to tide her over between gigs. The rule of thumb is at least 3 months' expenses before you start investing for better returns. If she is reliant on contract work, then holding up to 6 months' expenses could be wise just in case she hits a slow patch with work. After that emergency fund is covered, she can look at investment opportunities with varying levels of risk & return: I would also recommend putting it down in writing "why" she's investing/saving. Is she saving up for an awesome vacation? Maybe that's why she really is so far above a normal EF. Does she want a new car? Maybe there's not really so much to spare. Bottom line: Assuming her monthly expenses are around $2K per month, she might have $4,000 to $5,000 that she could look to start investing "safely". |
What is the best way to learn investing techniques? | First, you need to figure out what your objectives for the money are. Mostly, this boils down to how soon you are going to need the money. If you are, as you say, very busy and you don't need the money until retirement, I'd suggest putting your money in a single target date fund, such as the BlackRock LifePath fund. You figure out when you are going to retire, and put your money in that fund. The fund will then pick a mix of stocks, bonds, and other investments, adjusting the risk for your time horizon. Maybe your objectives are different, and you want to become an trader. You value being able to say at a BBQ, "oh, I bought AAPL at $20", or "I think small caps are over valued". I'd suggest you take your $50,000, and structure it so you invest $5,000 a year over 10 years. Nothing teaches you about investing like making or losing a bit of money in the market. If you put it all in at once, you risk losing it all - well before you've learned many valuable lessons which only the market can teach you. I'd suggest you study the Efficient-market hypothesis before studying specific markets or strategies. |
Should I pay off my credit card online immediately or wait for the bill? | I am going to break rank slightly with the consensus so far. Here's the deal, it probably DOES help your credit slightly to pay it multiple times per month if it isn't a hassle, but the bump is likely to be minimal and very temporary. Here's why: A key component of your score is your credit usage ratio. That is the ratio of how much of your credit limits you are using. You want to keep this number down as low as possible. Now here is where it gets tricky. Although you have a grace period to pay off your card with no interest, the credit card companies don't generally report the balance as of the due date. They either report the high balance or an average balance over the month. That is, it is based on how much you use, not how much balance you carry over each month. It isn't very intuitive, but that's just how it is. So technically, keeping that balance lower over the course of the month WILL probably help you, but the credit usage ratio is generally a rolling average over the last x months, so the effect will wear off quickly. So it is probably not worth doing unless you know you are going to apply for a loan in the next 6 months and need a temporary, small bump. Another consideration is that paying early provides no real financial benefit in terms of finance charges, but you are giving up liquidity which does have some value. 1) You probably could get at least a little interest for keeping the money in your account a few more weeks. 2) If you have a major financial emergency, e.g. broken down car, you might appreciate the fact that you kept your options open to carry that balance over a month. |
Is it legal for a landlord to report a large payment to a tenant using Form 1099? | It is legal. They're probably going to give you a 1099-MISC, which is required of businesses for many cash payments over $600 in value to all sorts of counterparties. (Probably box 3 of 1099-MISC as is typical in "cash for keys" situations where one is paid to vacate early) A 1099-MISC is not necessarily pure income, but in this case, you do have money coming in. This money isn't a return of your security deposit or a gift. The payment could possibly be construed by you as a payment to make you whole, but the accounting for this would be on you. This is not a typical situation for IRS reporting. However, if you are uncomfortable with potentially explaining to the IRS how you implemented advice from strangers over the internet, the safest course is to report it all as income. Look at it this way: you did enter into a mutual contract, where you were paid consideration to release your leasehold interests in the property. |
Brief concept about price movement of a particular stock [duplicate] | It depends completely on the current order book for that security. There is literally no telling how that buy order would move the price of a stock in general. |
If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting? | The only issue I can see is that the stranger is looking to undervalue their purchase to save money on taxes/registration (if applicable in your state). Buying items with cash such as cars, boats, etc in the used market isn't all that uncommon* - I've done it several times (though not at the 10k mark, more along about half of that). As to the counterfeit issue, there are a couple avenues you can pursue to verify the money is real: *it's the preferred means of payment advocated by some prominent personal financial folks, including Dave Ramsey |
Should I buy a home or rent in my situation? | You said 2 things that made me think you are one of the rare young couples barely making it but should attempt to buy rather than rent anyway.... Around my area, renting a place is about equivalent to just paying a monthly mortgage of a 30yr 3.5% APR of a home priced at around $250,500. and... Our ideal price range would be $100,000-160,000 with a 25-30yr mortgage at 3.5 - 5.4% The other answers suggesting that you should rent and the reasons given were excellent ones but because of those 2 points you made, this tells me that you would be willing to live in a much much more basic house if you owned rather than rented. Many renters rent rather than buy because they want a really nice place for their money and are willing to spend what it takes to get a nice place, but not you. If you buy, you would be willing to take a place worth half or even less than half what you would get if you rented. That tells me you might accept a place that needs a little work. Perhaps you and/or your fiancée have some skills needed to do a little of the work yourself. I hope you decide to buy rather than rent if you can swing it, and instead of taking a 2nd job, spend all your spare time working on your little investment. It's possible that by the time you're done fixing that house up some, through your own creative efforts or through the help you might get from your friends, you could end up with a $250,000 house, own it, and reap all the great benefits of owning rather than renting...or...better yet, sell that place for a nice profit, then turn around and buy the next one already fixed up with your newly acquired great credit to help you with the new mortgage, and ready for you to move in and enjoy. It's how my wife and I got started (only we didn't have the benefit of historically low interest rates) and if we can do it, I believe you can too. Here are a couple tips that might help out....1) Don't spend a lot of money to fix the place...try to find the time to do the simpler tasks yourself. If you don't have the skills, you can learn them on youtube or by picking the brains of all the great willing people working at your local discount home project superstore. 2) Cosmetics go a long way towards increasing the value of a house. a) needs paint and b) needs carpet but not a) major structural damage and b) needs roof. Regarding some of your other points... HOA, hopefully if you buy in a formal community, the HOA should be less than $200. If it's more than that, it might be harder to do as I suggest. Closing Costs, probably more like 4 - 5% Taxes, monthly if included in mortgage, normally quarterly or semi-annually if not Utilities...you're budgeting quite high for that. Depending on your area, you might only spend an average of $200/month, maybe even less. Insurance...see answer for taxes Regular maintenance, $1K a year might be about right but we better include irregular also, which comes up more often than you might think when owning, let's say $2 - $3 a year. Unexpected costs. Expect the unexpected but if the place needs a new roof or something big like that, then you didn't do your homework before buying. |
Understanding the symbols next to the Ticker | BATS here means your data feed is coming from BATS only. You're not seeing up to date prices from NASDAQ, NYSE or any other of the ECNs. For a liquid equity like AAPL, BATS prices are typically up to date but for a less liquid listing, you wouldn't always see the NBBO. To get live feeds from every ECN, you have to pay. BATS is offering this information freely and that's why you're seeing it now. AAPL is listed on NASDAQ but you can trade pretty much everything on BATS, just like on other ECNs and exchanges. |
Company revenue increased however stock price did not | If you believe in the efficient market hypothesis then the stock price reflects the information known to market participants. Consequently, if the 'market' expected earnings to rise, and they did, then the price won't change. Clearly there are circumstances, especially in the short term and for illiquid stocks, where this isn't true, but a lot of work points to this being the case on average. |
High-risk investing is better for the young? Why? | What is the importance or benefit of the assumption that high-risk is preferable for younger people/investors instead of older people? Law of averages most high risk investments [stocks for examples, including Mutual funds]. Take any stock market [some have data for nearly 100 years] on a 15 year or 30 years horizon, the year on year growth is around 15 to 18 percentage. Again depends on which country, market etc ... Equally important every stock market in the same 15 year of 30 year time, if you take specific 3 year window, it would have lost 50% or more value. As one cannot predict for future, someone who is 55 years, if he catches wrong cycle, he will lose 50%. A young person even if he catches the cycle and loses 50%, he can sit tight as it will on 30 years average wipe out that loss. |
How to model fees from trades on online platforms? | where A1 is the number of trades. you may have to change the number 100 to 99 depending on how the 100th trade is charged. The idea is to use the if statement to determine the price of the trades. Once you are over the threshold the price is 14*number over threshold. |
Determining the minimum dividend that should be paid from my S corporation | There are no dividends from S-Corp. There are distributions. Big difference. S-Corps fill form 1120S and schedule K-1 per shareholder. In the schedule all the income of your S-Corp will be assigned to various categories that you will later copy to your personal tax return as your personal income. It is not dividend income. The reason people prefer to take distributions from their S-Corps instead of salary is because you don't pay SE taxes on the distributions. That is also the reason why the IRS forces you to pay yourself a reasonable salary. But the tax rate on the income, all of it, is your regular income tax rate, unless the S-Corp income is categorized in a preferred category. The fact that its an S-Corp income doesn't, by itself, allow any preferential treatment. If you're learning the stuff as you go - you should probably get in touch with a tax professional to advise you. All the S-Corp income must be distributed. Its not a matter of "avoiding paying the tax", its the matter of "you must do it". Not a choice. My answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer (circ 230 disclaimer). |
I'm upside down on my car loan and need a different car, what can I do? | There are a few things you should keep in mind when getting another vehicle: DON'T use dealership financing. Get an idea of the price range you're looking for, and go to your local bank or find a local credit union and get a pre-approval for a loan amount (that will also let you know what kind of interest rates you'll get). Your credit score is high enough that you shouldn't have any problems securing a decent APR. Check your financing institution's rules on financing beyond the vehicle's value. The CU that refinanced my car noted that between 100% and 120% of the vehicle's value means an additional 2% APR for the life of the loan. Value between 120% and 130% incurred an additional 3% APR. Your goal here is to have the total amount of the loan less than or equal to the value of the car through the sale / trade-in of your current vehicle, and paying off whatever's left out of pocket (either as a down-payment, or simply paying off the existing loan). If you can't manage that, then you're looking at immediately being upside-down on the new vehicle, with a potential APR penalty. |
Investment property refinance following a low appraisal? | Definitely don't borrow from your 401K. If you quit or get laid off, you have to repay the whole amount back immediately, plus you are borrowing from your opportunity cost. The stock market should be good at least through the end of this year. As one of the commentators already stated, have you calculated your net savings by reducing the interest rate? You will be paying closing costs and not all of these are deductible (only the points are). When calculating the savings, you have to ask yourself how long you will be hanging on the property? Are you likely to be long term landlords, or do you have any ideas on selling in the near future? You can reduce the cost and principal by throwing the equivalent of one to two extra mortgage payments a year to get the repayment period down significantly (by years). In this way, you are not married to a higher payment (as you would be if you refinanced to a 15 year term). I would tend to go with a) eat the appraisal cost, not refinance, and b) throw extra money towards principal to get the term of the loan to be reduced. |
Can capital loss in traditional IRA and Roth IRA be used to offset taxable income? | No, you cannot. If you withdraw everything from all your Roth IRA's and end up with less than the total basis - you can deduct the difference on your schedule A (at the time of the last withdrawal) as an itemized deduction (as misc. deductions with 2% AGI cap). Regular IRA's are pre-tax, you cannot deduct anything from them. |
Making enquiries about shares | Is anything possible, and if so, how? Because of the circumstances, there is nothing you can do. You do not have the ISIN, nor are you a part-owner of the account. The information you would need is: As always, good luck. |
How an ETF reinvests dividends | SPY does not reinvest dividends. From the SPY prospectus: No Dividend Reinvestment Service No dividend reinvestment service is provided by the Trust. Broker-dealers, at their own discretion, may offer a dividend reinvestment service under which additional Units are purchased in the secondary market at current market prices. SPY pays out quarterly the dividends it receives (after deducting fees and expenses). This is typical of ETFs. The SPY prospectus goes on to say: Distributions in cash that are reinvested in additional Units through a dividend reinvestment service, if offered by an investor’s broker-dealer, will be taxable dividends to the same extent as if such dividends had been received in cash. |
Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? | Day trading is probably the most often tried and failed activity in the financial world. People think they can parlay $1,000 investment into $1,000,000 in a week with little or no knowledge on how to evaluate stocks and or companies. They think they can just look at where the line graphs' been and forecast where it's going to be next week. Unfortunately if it were that simple everyone would be making money hand over fist in the market. So in short, the reason day trading is considered a risky venture is because most of the people that attempt to do it are willfully ignorant. They intentionally choose not to read about day trading. They intentionally choose not to learn about how to read a company's financial report and they intentionally choose not to learn how to compare one stock to another. They also don't consider the fact that most of their data is 15 or more min old because of the shady rules brokers have worked into the system. Real everyday investors that make money in the market do it by careful evaluation of the purchase they are about to make. Guess what, even they lose time to time. That's the game! |
How does the yield on my investments stack up against other investors? | Generally S&P 500 will be used as the benchmark for US investors because it represents how's the US market performs as a whole. If you've outperformed the S&P 500 during the last couple years, great. However, at the end of day, you would want to look at the total growth percent that your portfolio has achieved, as compared with that of S&P 500. Anyway, your portfolio might actually ride along with the bull market during the 2009-2010 period (more-so for the small caps). |
Are stock investments less favorable for the smaller investor? | If you are looking at long-term investments then you can look to Dheer's answer and see that it doesn't matter whether the money is large or small, the return will be the same. When it comes to shorter-term investments, it can actually pay to be a smaller investor. Consider a stock that may not be trading in high volume. If I want to take a position for 2,000 shares, I can probably buy it quite quickly without moving the market considerably. If I was managing your hypothetical portfolio opening a position for 1,000,000 shares, it can cause the price to go up significantly because I have to execute the order very carefully in order to not tip my hand to the market that I want a million shares. Algorithmic traders will see the volume increasing on those shares and will raise their asking price. High speed traders and market makers will also cause a lot of purchasing overhead. Then later when it comes time to sell, I will lose a percentage to the price drop as I start flooding the market with available shares. |
How does investment into a private company work? | To me this sounds like a transaction, where E already owns a company worth 400k and can therefore pocket the money from D and give D 25% of the profits every year. There is nothing objective (like a piece of paper) that states the company is worth 400K. It is all about perceived value. Some investors may think it is worth something because of some knowledge they may have. Heck, the company could be worth nothing but the investor could have some sentimental value associated to it. So is it actually the case that E's company is worth 400k only AFTER the transaction? It is worth what someone pays for it when they pay for it. I repeat- the 400K valuation is subjective. In return the investor is getting 25% ownership of the product or company. The idea is that when someone has ownership, they have a vested interest in it being successful. In that case, the investor will do whatever he/she can to improve the chances of success (in addition to supplying the 100K capital). For instance, the investor will leverage their network or perhaps put more money into it in the future. Is the 100k added to the balance sheet as cash? Perhaps. It is an asset that may later be used to fund inventory (for instance). ... and would the other 300k be listed as an IP asset? No. See what I said about the valuation just being perception. Note that the above analysis doesn't apply to all Dragons Den deals. It only applies to situations where capital is exchanged for ownership in the form of equity. |
What is the smartest thing to do in case of a stock market crash | First, there will always be people who think the market is about to crash. It doesn't really crash very often. When it does crash, they always say they predicted it. Well, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. You could go short (short selling stocks), which requires a margin account that you have to qualify for (typically you can only short up to half the value of your account, in the US). And if you've maxed out your margin limits and your account continues to drop in value, you risk a margin call, which would force you to cover your shorts, which you may not be able to afford. You could invest in a fund that does the shorting for you. You could also consider actually buying good investments while their prices are low. Since you cannot predict the start, or end, of a "crash" you should consider dollar-cost-averaging until your stocks hit a price you've pre-determined is your "trigger", then purchase larger quantities at the bargain prices. The equity markets have never failed to recover from crashes. Ever. |
Value of put if underlying stays below strike? | $15 - $5 = $10 How did you possibly buy a put for less than the intrinsic value of the option, at $8.25 So we can infer that you would have had to get this put when the stock price was AT LEAST $6.75, but given the 3 months of theta left, it was likely above $7 The value of the put if the price of the underlying asset (the stock ABC) meandered between $5 - $7 would be somewhere between $10 - $8 at expiration. So you don't really stand to lose much in this scenario, and can make a decent gain in this scenario. I mean decent if you were trading stocks and were trying to beat the S&P or keep up with Warren Buffett, but a pretty poor gain since you are trading options! If the stock moves above $7 this is where the put starts to substantially lose value. |
Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | Typically the debt is held by individuals, corporations and investment funds, not by other countries. In cases where substantial amounts are held by other countries, those countries are typically not in debt themselves (e.g. China has huge holdings of US Treasuries). If the debts were all cancelled, then the holders of the debt (as listed above) would lose out badly and the knock-on effects on the economy would be substantial. Also, governments that default tend to find it harder to borrow money again in the future. |
ADR listed in PINK | Pink Sheets is not a stock exchange per se, and securities traded through it are not as "safe" as the ones on a stock exchange regulated by SEC. Many companies are traded there because they failed to comply with the SEC regulations, or are bankrupt or don't want the level of reporting to the public that the SEC regulations require. Since you're talking about an ADR of a company traded on LSE, it might be much safer that other, "regular", securities, but still it means that you're buying an unregulated security (even if it is of a company regulated elsewhere). Notice the volume of trades: mere thousands of dollars per day (in a good day, in some days there are no trades at all). It makes it harder to sell the security when needed. Why not buying at LSE? |
Wash sale rule with dividend reinvestment | You sold all shares? The potential wash sale effect goes away after 30 days from the dividend date. Selling all shares of a stock where a wash existed effectively negates the wash and you can take the loss. |
Why is gold not a good investment? | Gold since the ancient time ( at least when it was founded) has kept its value. for example the french franc currency was considered valuable in the years 1400~ but in 1641 lost its value. However who owned Gold back then still got value. The advantage of having gold is you can convert it to cash easily in the world. it hedges against inflation: it is value rise when inflation happend. Gold has no income,no earnings. its not like a stock or a bond. its an alternative way to store value the Disadvantages of investing in Gold Gold doesnt return income , needs physical storage and insurance, Capital gains tax rates are higher on most gold investments. the best way to invest gold when there is inflation is expected. source |
What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent? | Don't over analyze it - check with some local landlords that are willing to share some information and resources Then analyze the Worst Case Scenarios and the likelihood of them happening and if you could deal with it if it did happen Then Dive In - Real Estate is a long term investment so you have plenty of time to learn everything..... Most people fail.... because they fail to take the first leap of faith !!! |
How dividend payout happens | As the record date is 7th August, you need to hold stocks on the 7th August closing. You need not hold it till 2nd Sept. The list as taken on 7th August would be processed and instructions given to Bank and the dividends credited by 1st Sept. Edit: To Clarify Victor's comment Typically from the time one sells the stocks to the time it actually gets transferred has a clearing cycle. Most stock exchanges have 2 or 3 days cycles. i.e. if I sell the stock today, it is still in my name. The money is still with the buyer. On Day 1, the positions are arrived at. On Day 2 the stock gets credited to the buyer and the funds gets credit to seller. As the question was specific whether to hold the stock till 7th or 22nd Sept, my initial answer was simple. The illustration by Victor is more accurate. |
Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money? | People in the United States in the mid-2000's thought that real estate was safe. Then they discovered that when the bubble burst the value of their house dropped 10 to 50%. Then they realized that they couldn't sell, even if they had the cash to make the lender whole. Some lost their houses to foreclosure, others walked away and took massive hits to their wealth and credit scores. When it is hard or impossible to sell, that means you can't move to where the jobs are. While it is possible to make money in real estate, treating your house as an investment vehicle means that you are putting not only all your eggs into one basket; you are also living in the basket. In general you should assume that all investment involves risk. So if you are trying to avoid all chances of losing money then the safest form of investment is via your bank account and government bonds. Your national government has a program to insure bank accounts, you need to understand the rules for that program, including types of accounts and amounts. You should also look into your national programs for retirement accounts, to make sure you are investing for the long term. Many people invest via the stock market or the bond market. These investments are not guaranteed, though there may be some protection for fraud. The more specific your investments (individual companies) the more time you need to invest in research and tracking. Many investors do so via mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds, this involves less of a time investment because you are paying the management comp nay for the fund to do that research for all their investors. |
250k USD in savings. What's next? | Considering the historical political instability of your nation, real property may have higher risk than normal. In times of political strife, real estate plummets, precisely when the money's needed. At worst, the property may be seized by the next government. Also, keeping the money within the country is even more risky because bank accounts are normally looted by either the entering gov't or exiting one. The safest long run strategy with the most potential for your family is to get the money out into various stable nations with good history of protecting foreign investors such as Switzerland, the United States, and Hong Kong. Once out, the highest expected return can be expected from internationally diversified equities; however, it should be known that the value will be very variant year to year. |
Shorting versus selling to hedge risk | It's not quite identical, due to fees, stock rights, and reporting & tax obligations. But the primary difference is that a person could have voting rights in a company while maintaining zero economic exposure to the company, sometimes known as empty voting. As an abstract matter, it's identical in that you reduce your financial exposure whether you sell your stock or short it. So the essence of your question is fundamentally true. But the details make it different. Of course there are fee differences in how your broker will handle it, and also margin requirements for shorting. Somebody playing games with overlapping features of ownership, sales, and purchases, may have tax and reporting obligations for straddles, wash sales, and related issues. A straight sale is generally less complicated for tax reporting purposes, and a loss is more likely to be respected than someone playing games with sales and purchases. But the empty voting issue is an important difference. You could buy stock with rights such as voting, engage in other behavior such as forwards, shorts, or options to negate your economic exposure to the stock, while maintaining the right to vote. Of course in some cases this may have to be disclosed or may be covered by contract, and most people engaging in stock trades are unlikely to have meaningful voting power in a public company. But the principle is still there. As explained in the article by Henry Hu and Bernie Black: Hedge funds have been especially creative in decoupling voting rights from economic ownership. Sometimes they hold more votes than economic ownership - a pattern we call empty voting. In an extreme situation, a vote holder can have a negative economic interest and, thus, an incentive to vote in ways that reduce the company's share price. Sometimes investors hold more economic ownership than votes, though often with morphable voting rights - the de facto ability to acquire the votes if needed. We call this situation hidden (morphable) ownership because the economic ownership and (de facto) voting ownership are often not disclosed. |
What is the difference between speculating and investing? | Classic investing guru Benjamin Graham defines "An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return." He contrasts this with speculation which is anything else (no thorough analysis, no safety of principal, or no adequate return). The word "adequate" is important, since it contrasts adequate returns with those that are either lower than needed or higher than necessary to reach your goals. |
UK - reclaim VAT on purchases for freelance work | If you mostly do work for businesses/individuals who are VAT registered it's a no-brainer to become VAT registered yourself... Although you will have to charge your customers VAT (and pass this on to HMRC) because they are VAT-registered they will reclaim the amount so it won't actually 'cost' them anything. At the same time, you can reclaim all the VAT you're currently being charged on your business expenditure (business equipment, tickets to business events, business software, accountancy/other business services you pay for, web hosting etc etc etc) However, if most of your clients are not VAT-registered it's not worth you registering. You would have to charge your customers an extra 20% (and they wouldn't be able to claim it back!) and you would have to pass this on to HMRC. Although you could still claim for goods and services you purchase for business use, essentially you'd just be another tax collector for HMRC. That said, at the end of the day it's up to you! VAT returns are quarterly and dead simple. Just keep a spreadsheet with your invoices (output tax) and receipts (input tax) and then do some basic maths to submit the final numbers to HMRC. No accountant required! |
Is there a free, online stock screener for UK stocks? | I use and recommend barchart.com. Again you have to register but it's free. Although it's a US system it has a full listing of UK stocks and ETFs under International > London. The big advantage of barchart.com is that you can do advanced technical screening with Stochastics and RS, new highs and lows, moving averages etc. You're not stuck with just fundamentals, which in my opinion belong to a previous era. Even if you don't share that opinion you'd still find barchart.com useful for UK stocks. |
Should withheld income tax be included as income? | Does it make sense to report withheld tax income as an additional income? Is it required by the IRS? Is $T deductible? This is what is called imputed income. The ticket is an income for you, but the company doesn't want you to pay tax on it. But you have to. But they want to be nice to you and give you the ticket on their buck. But that's the law. So what have the accountants invented? Imputed income. The company raises your salary in the amount of taxes paid (+some, but that's negligible), in addition to the actual ticket. So it seems, to you, that you got the ticket for free. The IRS doesn't see the ticket, it just sees that you got a $T+$X bonus and paid $T taxes. The fact that the $X you got in form of a ticket doesn't matter to them. Re your edit - you cannot deduct anything, since you can only deduct unreimbursed expenses, whereas $X is not at all an expense for you (you didn't buy that ticket, the company did), and $T is taxes, which are not deductible (its not an expense). In other words, had C not have been nice, I would be in a better position! No. Your net pay shouldn't be affected, technically, so from your perspective you just got a plane ticket for free. Had C not been nice, you would still not be able to deduct the whole cost of $X, because unreimbursed employee expenses have a 2% AGI threshold. |
Calculating Future Value: Initial deposit and recurring deposits of a fixed but different Value | If I is the initial deposit, P the periodic deposit, r the rent per period, n the number of periods, and F the final value, than we can combine two formulas into one to get the following answer: F = I*(1+r)n + P*[(1+r)n-1]/r In this case, you get V = 1000*(1.05)20 + 100*[(1.05)20-1]/0.05 = 5959.89 USD. Note that the actual final value may be lower because of rounding errors. |
Finding out actual items bought via credit card issuer and not the store receipt? | As a merchant I can tell you that the only thing the bank gets from me. Is the total amount and a category for my business. No detail, not ever. |
Received a call to collect on a 17 year old, charged off debt. What do I do? | If they are a debt collector, they must follow the requirements of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In particular, they must provide you with verification of the debt at your written request. If they won't give you a way to do this, they are in violation of the law, and you should contact proper authorities. If they are not a debt collection agency, it does sound like a scam, in which case you should also contact the appropriate law enforcement agency. |
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? | You are getting totally hosed mate. Assume you live in the house for ten years, can get a normal 30 year mortgage and house prices average at 3% annually You could get a mortgage at 3.8% so your monthly payment would be $560 a month. $60 a month difference over 10 year is $7200 Because you are paying down on a conventional mortgage you would owe 93500 after 10 years. On top of that the house would have appreciated by $47000. You would have to give you parents $35500 of that. So by avoiding a normal loan it's costing you an extra $49000. |
What is the true value, i.e. advantages or benefits, of building up equity in your home? | The equity you have is an asset. Locked away until you sell, and sometimes pledged as a loan if you wish. The idea that it's dead money is nonsense, it's a pretty illiquid asset that has the potential for growth (at the rate of inflation or slightly higher, long term) and provides you an annual dividend in the form of free rent. In this country, most people who own homes have a disproportionate amount of their wealth in their house. This is more a testament to the poor saving rate than anything else. For me, a high equity position means that I can sell my home and buy a lesser sized house for cash. I am older and my own goal (with the mrs) is to have the house paid and college for the kid fully funded before we think of retiring. For others, it's cash they can use to rent after they retire. I hope that helped, there's nothing magic about this, just a lot of opinions. |
How to evaluate stocks? e.g. Whether some stock is cheap or expensive? | I look at the following ratios and how these ratios developed over time, for instance how did valuation come down in a recession, what was the trough multiple during the Lehman crisis in 2008, how did a recession or good economy affect profitability of the company. Valuation metrics: Enterprise value / EBIT (EBIT = operating income) Enterprise value / sales (for fast growing companies as their operating profit is expected to be realized later in time) and P/E Profitability: Operating margin, which is EBIT / sales Cashflow / sales Business model stability and news flow |
Which Benjamin Graham book should I read first: Security Analysis or Intelligent Investor? | I would start with The Intelligent Investor. It's more approachable than Security Analysis. I read the revised edition which includes post-chapter commentary and footnotes from Jason Zweig. I found the added perspective helpful since the original book is quite old. Warren Buffet has called Intelligent Investor "the best book about investing ever written." (Source) I would suggest that endorsement ranks it before the other. :) Security Analysis is more detailed and, perhaps, oriented at a more professional audience – though individual investors would certainly benefit from reading it. Security Analysis is used as a textbook on value investing in some university-level business & finance courses. (p.s. If you haven't yet heard about William Bernstein's The Intelligent Asset Allocator, I also recommend adding it to your reading list.) |
Buying an option in the money, at the money, or out of the money | 1 reason is Leverage.... If you are buying out of the money options you get much more bang for your buck if the stock moves in your favor. The flipside is it is much more likely that you would lose all of your investment. |
stock for a particular brand | In addition to the answer by Craig Banach: Sometimes brands are owned by publicly traded companies which have a very diverse product portfolio. In case of Microsoft their stock price and dividend will not be controlled solely by that one product they make but also by their many other products (plus a billion other factors which can influence a stock price). So when you want to bet specifically on the success of Windows Phone then betting on the Microsoft Corporation as a whole might not achieve that goal. However, you can also try to find companies whose success depends indirectly on the success of the product. That can be suppliers (someone who makes a specific part which is only used for Windows phones), companies which make Windows Phone specific accessories or software developers who make applications which specifically target the Windows Phone ecosystem. When the product portfolio of these companies is far narrower than that of Microsoft they might be more dependent on the success of Windows Phone than Microsoft themselves. But as always, keep in mind that the success of their products is not the only factor which decides the stock value of a company. The stock market is far more complex than that. |
When is the right time to buy a new/emerging technology? | The short answer is that it's never the right time to buy an emerging technology. As long as the technology is emerging, you should expect that newer revisions will be both better and less expensive. With solar, specifically, there are some tax credits to help the early adopters that may help you on the cost/benefit analysis, but in the end, you still have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs now, and if not, whether that will change in the near future. For me, part of the solar benefit is the ability to generate electricity when the power goes out. That option does require local battery storage, however. One of the benefits of using Musk's solar tiles instead of actual slate is the weight of the quartz tiles which is much lower than the weight of real slate. In many cases a slate roof is heavy enough to require major reinforcement of the roof trusses before installation. The lower weight also saves significantly on shipping costs. This is where Musk can lower costs enough to be competitive to some of the materials he hope to compete with. |
Is trading stocks easier than trading commodities? | I would not argue if its more difficult, its different, and it much depends what kind of stocks you refer to, i take large caps as example. The players are different. Companies and even govts may hedge in the commodities (futures) market while in big caps this and other entities mainly invest. (Of course there’s HFT in large caps too). Futures often come with way higher leverage, lower spread and less commissions than stocks attracting retail and institutional speculators/HFT. Another big difference is that commodity prices react to all kind of news events (Stocks do too, but not that much and frequent), this kind of reactions big caps only do on earnings or on news directly affecting the company. Commodities are much more volatile on geo economic / political news events. This combined with higher leverage & HFT produces astounding moves. To sum it up, the players are different and act different than in large stocks, liquidity may be another thing. |
Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out? | Another factor is, how far is your prospective rental property from where you live? vs. how comprehensive is your property management service? If you need to visit much or would simply like to keep an eye on it, a couple of hours drive could be a deal breaker. One more thought; would you be able to upgrade the property at a profit when it comes time to sell? If you have a realtor you trust he or she should be able to tell you if, say a $20k kitchen reno would reliably return more than $20k. It has a lot to do with the property's relative price position in the neighborhood. A cheaper home has more "upsell" room. |
Judge market efficiency from raw price action | The shortest-hand yet most reliable metric is daily volume / total shares outstanding. A security with a high turnover rate will be more efficient than a lower one, ceteris paribus. The practical impacts are tighter spread and lower average percentage change between trades. A security with a spread of 0% and an average change of 0% between trades is perfectly efficient. |
Wisest option to pay for second career education | Tl;dr by anecdata I paid for my master's degree from investments/savings with a HELOC backstop It appears you don't have the 62k cash needed for tuition and living expenses so your decision is between financing a degree by selling your investments or a loan. Ultimately this comes down to the yes/no sell decision on the investments. Some things to consider: |
A stop order won't be automatically fired in after-hours trading? | Stop orders and stop limit orders typically do not execute during extended hours after the general market session has closed. Stop orders are market orders and market orders especially are not executed during extended hours. Although there are exceptions because a broker can say one thing and do another thing with the way order types are presented to customers vs what their programming actually does. The regulatory burden is a slap on the wrist, so you need to ask the broker what their practices are. Orders created during normal market hours do not execute in extended sessions, different orders would have to be made during the extended session. Your stop order should execute if the normal market hour price stays below your stop price. So a stop limit would actually be worse here, because a stop limit will create a limit order which may never get hit (since it is above the best bid best ask) |
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? | Ripped off may be too strong as it implies intent - I'm hopeful it's just bad logic or terminology. I would say better agreements would be: Borrowing money from family/friends is always risky. If you and your parents are comfortable with the situation and can reliably keep records of how much is owed at any given time (and how much of the $500/mo is interest) then the loan might be a good option. If not, and your parents don't need the income stream from the loan, then I would recommend the second option since it's much cleaner. In any case, make sure everything is in writing and the proper legal procedures are followed (just as if you had borrowed the money from a bank). That means either filing a mortgage with the county for option 1 or having both parties on the deed, and having the ownership percentages in writing. |
Is interest on a personal loan tax deductible? | Can you deduct interest paid to your father on your personal income taxes? Interest paid on passive investments can be deducted from the amount earned by that investment as an investment expense as long as the amount earned is greater than the total paid for the interest expense. Also beware if the amount of interest paid is greater than the yearly gift tax exclusion, as the IRS might interpret this as a creative way of giving gifts to your father without paying gift tax. Do you pay taxes on the interest you pay? No, because is an expense, not income, you would not count interest paid to him as taxable income. Does your father owe taxes on the interest he collects from you? Yes, that is income to him. And the last question you didn't ask, but I expect it is implied: Do you owe taxes on the quarterly profits? Yes, that is income to you. The Forbes article How To Arrange A Loan Between Family Members is a bit dated, but still a good source of information. You really should write a formal note (signed by both you and your father) indicating the amount borrowed, the interest rate you are paying on that amount, and when the loan will be repaid. If your father has set the interest rate too low, this could also be considered a gift to you, though we would really be talking about large amounts of money to hit the gift tax limit on interest alone. |
Is there a list of OTC stocks being added to the major exchanges? | Check your broker's IPO list. Adding a new stock to a stock exchange is called "Initial Public Offering" (IPO), and most brokers have a list of upcoming IPO's in which their clients can participate. |
What tax-free retirement accounts are available for self-employed individuals? | You can open a self-employed 401k, here's an example. You can deposit up to 50K (including the personal cap and the profit sharing/matching portion). |
ACH processing time of day | It depends on the bank and network. Banks are to provide outgoing data at the certain time for the processing by the central clearing house (the Federal Reserve system, for ACH), which then distributes incoming data back to the banks. All this has to be done between the closing of the business day and the opening of the next one. If the transaction hasn't completed the full path during that time - it will wait at the position it was stuck at until the next cycle - next night. That's why sometimes ACH transactions take more than 1 day to complete (if, for example, multiple Fed banks have to be involved). |
What effect would sovereign default of a European country have on personal debt or a mortgage? | This is a hard question to answer. Government debt and mortgages are loosely related. Banks typically use yields on government bonds to determine mortgage interest rates. The banks must be able to get higher rates from the mortgage otherwise they would buy government bonds. Your question mentions default so I'm assuming a country has reneged on its promise to pay either the principal or interest on government bonds. The main thing to consider is "Who does not get their money?". In other words, who does the government decide not to pay. This is the important part. The government will have some money so they could pay some bond holders. They must decide who to shaft. For example, let's look at who holds Greek government debt. Around 70% of Greek government debt is held outside Greece. See table below. The Greek government could decide to default only on the debt to foreign holders. In that case the banks in France and Switzerland would take the loss on their bonds. This could cause severe problems in France and Switzerland depending on the percentage of Greek bonds that make up the banks' assets. Greek banks would still face losses, however, since the price of their Greek bond holdings would drop sharply when the government defaults. Interestingly, the losses for the Greek banks may be smaller than the losses faced by the French and Swiss banks. This is usually the favored option chosen by government since the French and Swiss don't vote in Greece. Yields on Greek government bonds would rise dramatically. If your Greek mortgage is an adjustable rate mortgage then you could see some big adjustments upward. If you live in France or Switzerland then the bank that owns your mortgage may go under if Greece defaults. During liquidation the bank will sell their assets which includes mortgages and you will probably not notice any difference in your mortgage. As I stated earlier: this is a hard question to answer since the two financial instruments involved (bonds and mortgages) are similar but may or may not be related. |
Can I buy stocks directly from a public company? | As far as I know, the answer to this is generally "no." The closest thing would be to identify the stock transfer company representing the company that you want to hold and buy through them. (I have held this way, but I don't know if it's available on all stocks.) This eliminates the broker, but there's still a "middle man" in the transfer company. Note this section from the Stock transfer agent Wikipedia article: A public company usually only designates one company to transfer its stock. Stock transfer agents also run annual meetings as inspector of elections, proxy voting, and special meetings of shareholders. They are considered the official keeper of the corporate shareholder records. The decision to have a single transfer company is a practical one, ensuring that there is one entity responsible for recording this data - Hence even if you could buy stock "directly" from the company that you want to own, it would likely still get routed through the transfer company for recording. |
How can one tell if a company's quarterly financial report represents a profit or loss? | You have defined net profit to include all income and, presumably, expenses. Specifically, you are including income from other sources and are including finance costs and tax expense. For the quarter ended June 30, 2015, the net profit, by your definition, is 12.58. This is given on line 9 of the PDF. You ask how you can review this information. You cannot, given only the PDF you linked to. Note that the numbers have not been audited so it is the case that no trusted third party has yet reviewed it and signed off that the information is accurate. |
Is it OK to use a credit card on zero-interest to pay some other credit cards with higher-interest? | good vs "bad" debt in the context of that post. At least in the UK this can be a good tactic to reduce the cost of credit card debt. Some things to consider |
Different ways of looking at P/E Ratio vs EPS | You could not have two stocks both at $40, both with P/E 2, but one an EPS of $5 and the other $10. EPS = Earnings Per Share P/E = Price per share/Earnings Per Share So, in your example, the stock with EPS of $5 has a P/E of 8, and the stock with an EPS of $10 has a P/E of 4. So no, it's not valid way of looking at things, because your understanding of EPS and P/E is incorrect. Update: Ok, with that fixed, I think I understand your question better. This isn't a valid way of looking at P/E. You nailed one problem yourself at the end of the post: The tricky part is that you have to assume certain values remain constant, I suppose But besides that, it still doesn't work. It seems to make sense in the context of investor psychology: if a stock is "supposed to" trade at a low P/E, like a utility, that it would stay at that low P/E, and thus a $1 worth of EPS increase would result in lower $$ price increase than a stock that was "supposed to" have a high P/E. And that would be true. But let's game it out: Scenario Say you have two stocks, ABC and XYZ. Both have $5 EPS. ABC is a utility, so it has a low P/E of 5, and thus trades at $25/share. XYZ is a high flying tech company, so it has a P/E of 10, thus trading at $50/share. If both companies increase their EPS by $1, to $6, and the P/Es remain the same, that means company ABC rises to $30, and company XYZ rises to $60. Hey! One went up $5, and the other $10, twice as much! That means XYZ was the better investment, right? Nope. You see, shares are not tokens, and you don't get an identical, arbitrary number of them. You make an investment, and that's in dollars. So, say you'd invested $1,000 in each. $1,000 in ABC buys you 40 shares. $1,000 in XYZ buys you 20 shares. Their EPS adds that buck, the shares rise to maintain P/E, and you have: ABC: $6 EPS at P/E 5 = $30/share. Position value = 40 shares x $30/share = $1,200 XYZ: $6 EPS at P/E 10 = $60/share. Position value = 20 shares x $60/share = $1,200 They both make you the exact same 20% profit. It makes sense when you think about it this way: a 20% increase in EPS is going to give you a 20% increase in price if the P/E is to remain constant. It doesn't matter what the dollar amount of the EPS or the share price is. |
Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period? | If I were you, I would pay off the car loan today. You already have an excellent credit score. Practically speaking, there is no difference between a 750 score and an 850 score; you are already eligible for the best loan rates. The fact that you are continuing to use 5 credit cards and that you still have a mortgage tells me that this car loan will have a negligible impact on your score (and your life). By the way, if you had told me that your score was low, I would still tell you to pay off the loan, but for a different reason. In that case, I would tell you to stop worrying about your score, and start getting your financial life in order by eliminating debt. Take care of your finances by reducing the amount of debt in your life, and the score will take care of itself. I realize that the financial industry stresses the importance of a high score, but they are also the ones that sell you the debt necessary to obtain the high score. |
Is it a good idea to teach children that work is linearly related to income? | Get a copy of Capitalism for Kids - finally back in print (after being out of print for years). It's a great introduction to being an entrepreneur, aimed at young people. Six years old might be a bit early, though - but definitely before the teenage years. |
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