Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
Should I include retirement funds in calculating my asset allocation? | You probably want to think about pools of money separately if they have separate time horizons or are otherwise not interchangeable. A classic example is your emergency fund (which has a potentially-immediate time horizon) vs. your retirement savings. The emergency fund would be all in cash or very short-term bonds, and would not count in your retirement asset allocation. Since the emergency fund usually has a capped value (a certain amount of money you want to have for emergencies) rather than a percentage of net worth value, this especially makes sense; you have to treat the emergency fund separately or you'd have to keep changing your asset allocation percentages as your net worth rises (hopefully) with respect to the capped emergency amount. Similarly, say you are saving for a car in 3 years; you'd probably invest that money very conservatively. Also, it could not go in tax-deferred retirement accounts, and when you buy the car the account will go to zero. So probably worth treating this separately. On the other hand, say you have some savings in tax-deferred retirement accounts and some in taxable accounts, but in both cases you're expecting to use the money for retirement. In that case, you have the same time horizon and goals, and it can pay to think about the taxable and nontaxable accounts as a whole. In particular you can use "asset location" (put less-tax-efficient assets in tax-deferred accounts). In this case maybe you would end up with mostly bonds in the tax-deferred accounts and mostly equities in the taxable accounts, for tax reasons; the asset allocation would only make sense considering all the accounts, since the taxable account would be too equity-heavy and the tax-deferred one too bond-heavy. There can be practical reasons to treat each account separately, too, though. For example if your broker has a convenient automatic rebalancing tool on their website, it probably only works within an account. Treating each account by itself would let you use the automatic rebalancing feature on the website, while a more complicated asset location strategy where you rebalance across multiple accounts might be too hard and in practice you wouldn't get around to it. Getting around to rebalancing could be more important than tax-motivated asset location. You could also take a keep-it-simple attitude: as long as your asset allocation is pretty balanced (say 40% bonds) and includes a cash allocation that would cover emergencies, you could just put all your money in one big portfolio, and think of it as a whole. If you have an emergency, withdraw from the cash allocation and then rebuild it over time; if you have a major purchase, you could redeem some bonds and then rebuild the bond portion over time. (When I say "over time" I'm thinking you might start putting new contributions into the now-underallocated assets, or you might dollar-cost-average back into them by selling bits of the now-overallocated assets.) Anyway there's no absolute rule, it depends on what's simple enough to be manageable for you in practice, and what separate shorter-horizon investing goals you have in addition to retirement. You can always make things complex but remember that a simple plan that happens in real life is better than a complex plan you don't keep up with in practice (or a complex plan that takes away from activities you'd enjoy more). |
What are the best software tools for personal finance? | http://www.Mvelopes.com Mvelopes is envelope-style budgeting in an online application. I've tried all of the other applications and I choose to pay for this one for the following reasons: |
Should I get a car loan before shopping for a car? | You have a good start (estimated max amount you will pay, estimated max down payment, and term) Now go to your bank/credit union and apply for the loan. Get a commitment. They will give you a letter, you may have to ask for it. The letter will say the maximum amount you can pay for the car. This max includes their money and your down payment. The dealer doesn't have to know how much is loan. You also know from the loan commitment exactly how much your monthly payment will be in the worst case. If you have a car you want to trade in, get an written estimate that is good for a week or so. This lets you know how much you can get from selling the car. Now visit the dealer and tell them you don't need a loan, and won't be trading in a car. Don't show them the letter. After all the details of the purchase are concluded, including any rebates and specials, then bring up financing and trade-in. If they can't beat the deal from your bank and the written estimate for the car you are selling, then the deal is done. Now show them the letter and discuss how much down they need today. Then go to the bank for the rest of the money. If they do have a better loan deal or trade in then go with the dealer offer, and keep the letter in your pocket. If you go to the dealer first they will confuse you because they will see the price, interest rate, length of loan, and trade in as one big ball of mud. They will pick the settings that make you happy enough, yet still make them the most money. |
Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market? | Another factor to consider, beyond the fact that growth and volatility go together, is that the times when many people will need to liquidate their investments will correlate with the times that many other people need to liquidate their investments, and such correlation will push down the immediate value of those investments. While certificates of deposit have penalties for early withdrawal, one can establish up front what the worst-case penalty would be for cashing it in at the most inopportune time. By contrast, stocks offer no such assurance. Stocks sometimes have weird downward spikes that may be short-lived, but if life circumstances force one to liquidate stocks during such a downward spike the "penalty" can be much larger than on a CD. |
Do large market players using HFT make it unsafe for individual investors to be in the stock market? | Obviously there are good answers about the alternatives to the stock market in the referenced question. HFT has been debated heavily over the past couple of years, and the Flash crash of May 6, 2010, has spurred regulators to rein in heavy automated trading. HFT takes advantage of churn and split second reactions to changing market trends, news and rumors. It is not wise for individual investors to fight the big boys in these games and you will likely lose money in day trading as a result. HFT's defender's may be right when they claim that it makes the market more liquid for you to get the listed price for a security, but the article points out that their actions more closely resemble the currently illegal practice of front-running than a negotiated trade where both parties feel that they've received a fair value. There are many factors including supply and demand which affect stock prices more than volume does. While market makers are generating the majority of volume with their HFT practices, volume is merely the number of shares bought and sold in a day. Volume shows how many shares people are interested in trading, not the actual underlying value of the security and its long term prospects. Extra volume doesn't affect most long term investments, so your long term investments aren't in any extra danger due to HFT. That said, the stock market is a risky place whether panicked people or poorly written programs are trading out of control. Most people are better off investing rather than merely trading. Long term investors don't need to get the absolute lowest price or the highest sell. They move into and out of positions based on overall value and long term prospects. They're diversified so bad apples like Enron, etc. won't destroy their portfolio. Investors long term view allows them to ignore the effects of churn, while working like the tortoise to win the race while the hare eventually gets swallowed by a bad bet. There are a lot of worrying and stressful uncertainties in the global economy. If it's a question of wisdom, focus on sound investments and work politically (as a citizen and shareholder) to fix problems you see in the system. |
3-year horizon before trading up to next home: put windfall in savings, or pay off mortgage? | First, I would want cash around the time I made the move. I would like enough for a 20% down payment, moving expenses, and enough for 6 months of mortgage payments on the existing house. This way if the house does not sell quickly, you are safe. As you approach the time it comes to move, you can work backwards on how much time you would need to accumulate that kind of money. Second, this does not have to be an all or nothing kind of thing. Perhaps you use some of the proceeds to beef up your retirement, some to pay down the mortgage, and some for savings. You could be very wrong about the market, even so it is a wonderful opportunity to add to your nest egg at such a young age. My own self prefers to do things in ratios. In your case I might do 10% of the proceeds in for retirement, 10% for savings, and 80% for mortgage reduction. (You may want to also add some charitable giving.) I really like paying down the mortgage. Not only is it a risk less investment, it reduces your personal risk. |
Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? | I had a colleague turn down a raise once because he believed that female colleagues were already being paid well below his salary and it was unfair to further increase this gap. For very public figures raises are often declined as a form of leadership: showing that management is willing to forgo bonuses and salary increases as a form of solidarity with the employee population. Some leaders forgo a salary altogether (or take a $1/year salary). |
Claiming car as a business expense in the UK | I'm going to look just at purchase price. Essentially, you can't always claim the whole of the purchase price (or 95% your case) in the year (the accounting period) of purchase, but you get a percentage of the value of the car each year, called writing down allowance, which is a capital allowance. It is similar to depreciation, but based on HRMC's own formula. In fact, it seems you probably can claim 95% of the purchase price, because the value is less than £1000. The logic is a bit involved, but I hope you can understand it. You could also claim simplified expenses instead, which is just based on a rate per mile, but you can't claim both. Note, by year I mean whatever your account period is. This could be the normal financial year, but you would probably have a better idea about this. See The HMRC webpage on this for more details. The big idea is that you record the value of any assets you are claiming writing down allowance on in one of a number of pools, that attract the same rate of writing down allowance, so you don't need to record the value of each asset separately. They are similar to accounts in accounting, so they have an opening balance, and closing balance. If you use an asset for personal use, it needs a pool to itself. HRMC call that a single asset pool. So, to start with, look at the Business Cars section, and look at the Rates for Cars section, to determine the rate you can claim. Each one links to a further article, which gives more detail if you need it. Your car is almost certainly in the special rate category. Special rate is 8% a year, main rate is 18%, and First year allowance is essentially 100%. Then, you look at the Work out what you can claim article. That talks you through the steps. I'll go through your example. You would have a pool for your car, which would end the account period before you bought the vehicle at zero (step 1). You then add the value of the car in the period you bought it (Step 2). You would reduce the value of the pool if you dispose of it in the same year (Step 3). Because the car is worth less than £1,000 (see the section on "If you have £1,000 or less in your pool"), you would normally be able to claim the whole value of the pool (the value of the car) in the first accounting period, and reduce the value of the pool to zero. As you use the car for personal use, you only claim 95% of the value, but still reduce the pool to zero. See the section on "Items you use outside your business". This £1000 is adjusted if your accounting period lasts more or less than 12 months. Once the pool is down to zero that it you don't need to think about it any more for tax purposes, apart from if you are claiming other motoring expenses, or if you sell it. It gets more complicated if the car is more expensive. I'll go through an example for a car worth £2,000. Then, after Step 3, on the year of purchase, you would reduce the value of the pool by 8%, and claim 95% of the reduction. This would be a 160 reduction, and 95%*160 = 152 claim, leaving the value of 1860 in the pool. You then follow the same steps for the next year, start with 1840 in the pool, reduce the value by 8%, then claim 95% of the reduction. This continues until you sell or dispose of the car (Step 3), or the value of the pool is 1000 or less, then you claim all of it in that year. Selling the car, or disposing of the car is discussed in the Capital allowances when you sell an asset article. The basic idea is that if you have already reduced the value of the pool to zero, the price you sell the car for is added you your profits for that year (See "If you originally claimed 100% of the item"), if you still have anything in the pool, you reduce the value of the pool by the sale value, and if it reduces to below zero (to -£200, say), you add that amount (£200, in this case), to your profits. If the value is above zero, you keep applying writing down allowances. In your case, that seems to just means if you sell the car in the same year you buy it, you claim the difference (or 95% of it) as writing down allowance, and if you do it later, you claim the purchase price in the year of purchase, and add 95% of the sale price to your profits in the year you sell it. I'm a bit unclear about starting "to use it outside your business", which doesn't seem to apply if you use it outside the business to start with. You can claim simplified expenses for vehicles, if you are a sole trader or partner, but not if you claim capital allowances (such as writing down allowances) on them, or you include a separate expense in your accounts for motoring expenses. It's a flat rate of 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles, and 25p per mile after that, for cars, and 24p a mile for motorcycles. See the HRMC page on Simplifed Mileage expenses for details. For any vehicle you decide to either claim capital allowances claim running costs separately, or claim simplified mileage expenses, and "Once you use the flat rates for a vehicle, you must continue to do so as long as you use that vehicle for your business.you have to stick with that decision for that vehicle". In your case, it seems you can claim 95% of the purchase price in the accounting period you buy it, and if you sell it you add 95% of the sale price to your profits in that accounting period. It gets more complicated if you have a car worth more than £1000, adjusted for the length of the accounting period. Also, if you change how you use it, consult the page on selling selling an asset, as you may have disposed of it. You can also use simplified mileage expenses, but then you can't claim capital allowances, or claim running costs separately for that car. I hope that makes sense, please comment if not, and I'll try to adjust the explanation. |
Is dividend included in EPS | No, dividends are not included in earnings. Companies with no earnings sometimes choose to pay dividends. Paying the dividend does not decrease earnings. It does of course decrease cash and shows up on the balance sheet. Many companies choose to keep the dividend at a fixed rate even while the business goes through cycles of increased and decreased earnings. |
Are bonds really a recession proof investment? | You're mixing up two different concepts: low-risk and recession-proof. I'll assume I don't need to explain risk: there is always risk, regardless what form you keep your assets in. With bonds, the interest rate is supposed to reflect the risk. If a company offers bonds with too low an interest rate for the risk level, few people will buy them. While if a company offers bonds with too high an interest rate for the level of risk, they are gypping themselves. So a bond is a slightly more transparent investment from a risk assessment perspective, but that doesn't mean the risk is necessarily low: if you buy a bond with a 20% effective annual yield, that means there is quite a high risk that the underlying company will fold (unless inflation is in the double-digit range as well, in which case a 20% yield is not that much). Whereas with a stock, no parameter directly tells you anything about the risk. Recession-proof is not the same thing as low-risk. Recession-proof refers to investing in (or holding debt for) industries that perform better in a recession. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/08/industries-thrive-on-recession.asp. |
Estimate probability distribution of profit on investment | There is no simple answer to that, because no one knows exactly what the probability distribution of S&P 500 returns is. Here is a sketch of one possible way to proceed. Don't forget step 4! The problem is that the stock market is full of surprises, so this kind of "backtesting" can only reliably tell you about what already happened, not what will happen in the future. People argue about how much you can learn from this kind of analysis. However, it is at the least a clearly defined and objective process. I wouldn't advise investing your whole nest egg in anything based just on this, but I do think that it is relevant information. |
How is someone tax exempt at Walmart in Canada? | The short answer is you're tax exempt if the tax laws say you are. There are a bunch of specific exemptions based on who you are, what you're buying and why. Taking British Columbia as an example. One exemption is supplies for business use: Some exemptions are only available to certain purchasers in certain circumstances. These exemptions include: You can also claim an exemption if you are buying "adult size" clothing for a child under 15 years. Farmers are exempt from sales tax on various goods and services. First Nations individuals are exempt in some circumstances. And so on and so on. |
Gift card fraud: To whom to report? How to recover funds? Is the party which issued me the card liable? | Have you checked to see if anything else went missing? Walmart says that because I was not the original purchaser of the gift card, they could not help me directly Just to build on what @littleadv already gave you, my personal experience on this is that none of the companies that you'll likely be dealing with in a situation like this will be falling over themselves to help you out. Unless it also helps them for some reason, or if they're compelled by consumer laws. If you think you should be protected from this sort of thing happening, feel free to reference the FCRA to see if you might get any consumer protections. But just from what you've said here, it doesn't sound like you do. So if anything else went missing (or even if not), it might have been someone working for Citi, who may have had access to more of your personal information than just your card. ID theft is unfortunately common, as a fairly easy crime to commit, a hard one to protect yourself against, and a very hard one to prosecute. When did you last check your credit report? |
How to get started with options investing? | What is a good resource to learn about options trading strategies? Options are a quite advanced investment form, and you'd do well to learn a lot about them before attempting to dive into this fairly illiquid market. Yale's online course in financial markets covers the Options Market and is a good starting point to make sure you've got all the basics. You may be familiar with most of it, but it's a decent refresher on lingo and Black-Scholes. How can I use options to establish some cash flow from long standing investments while minimizing capital gains expenses? This question seems designed to get people to talk about covered calls. Essentially, you sell call contracts: you let people buy things you already have at a price in the future, at their whim. They pay you for this option, though usually not much if the options aren't in the money. You can think of this as trading any return above the call option for a bit of extra cash. I don't invest with taxable accounts, but there are significant tax consequences for options. Because they expire, there will be turnover in your portfolio, and up front income when you take the sell side. So if you trade in options with close expiration dates, you'll probably end up with a lot of short-term capital gains, which are treated as normal income. One strategy is to trade in broad-based stock index options, which have favorable tax treatments. Some people have abused this though to disguise normal income as capital gains, so it could go away. Obviously the easy approach is to just use a tax advantaged account for options trading. An ETF might also be able to handle the turnover on your behalf, for example VIX is a series of options on S&P500 options. A second strategy I've heard of is buying calls and puts at a given strike price. For example, if you bought Dec '13 calls and puts on SPX @ 115 today, it would cost you about $35 dollars. If the price moves more than 35 dollars away from 115 by DEC '13 (in either direction), you've made a profit. If you reflect on that for a bit, you'll see why VIX is considered a volatility index. I guess I should mention that shorting a stock and buying a put option at the market price are very similar, with the exception that your loss is limited to the price of the option. Is there ever an instance where options investing is not speculative? The term 'speculative' is not well defined. For many people, the answer is no. It's very easy to just buy put options and wait for prices to fall, or call options and wait for prices to rise. Moreover, the second strategy above essentially gives you similar performance to a stock without paying full price. These all fall under the headline of increasing a risk portfolio rather than decreasing it, which I figure is a decent definition of speculation. On the other hand, there are ways to use options minimize risk rather than increase it. You can buy underwater options as portfolio insurance, if your portfolio drops below a certain amount, you still have the right to sell it at a higher one. And the Case-Schiller index is run in part, on the hopes that one day there might be a thriving market for real estate options (or futures). When you buy a home or lend money to someone to buy one, you could buy regional Case-Schiller options to protect you if the regional market tanks. But in all of these cases, it's required for someone else to take the opposite trade. Risk isn't reduced, it's traded around. So technically, there is a speculative element to these as well. I think the proper question here is whether speculation is present, but whether speculation can be put to good ends. Without speculators, the already very thin market for options would shrivel faster. |
Is it safe to take a new mortgage loan in Greece? | Please clarify your question. What do you mean by "..loan in Greece"? If you are referring to taking a mortgage loan to purchase residential property in Greece, there are two factors to consider: If the loan originates from a Greek bank, then odds are likely that the bank will be nationalized by the government if Greece defaults. If the loan is external (i.e. from J.P. Morgan or some foreign bank), then the default will certainly affect any bank that trades/maintains Euros, but banks that are registered outside of Greece won't be nationalized. So what does nationalizing mean for your loan? You will still be expected to pay it according to the terms of the contract. I'd recommend against an adjustable rate contract since rates will certainly rise in a default situation. As for property, that's a different story. There have been reports of violence in Greece already, and if the country defaults, imposes austerity measures, etc, odds are there will be more violence that can harm your property. Furthermore, there is a remote possibility that the government can attempt to acquire your private property. Unlikely, but possible. You could sue in this scenario on property rights violations but things will be very messy from that point on. If Greece doesn't default but just exits the Euro Zone, the situation will be similar. The Drachma will be weak and confidence will be poor, and unrest is a likely outcome. These are not statements of facts but rather my opinion, because I cannot peek into the future. Nonetheless, I would advise against taking a mortgage for property in Greece at this point in time. |
Why do 1099 forms take so long for brokerages to prepare and send out? | There are probably many correct answers to this question, but for most people, the main reason is qualified dividends. To be a qualified dividend (and therefore eligible for lower tax rates), the dividend-paying stock or fund must be held for "more than 60 days during the 121-day period that begins 60 days before the ex-dividend date". Since many stocks and funds pay out dividends at the end of the year, that means it takes until mid- to late February to determine if you held them, and therefore made the dividend qualified. Brokerages don't want to send out 1099s in January and then possibly have to send out revised versions if you decide to sell something that paid a dividend in December that otherwise would have been qualified. |
I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out? | This is very possibly a scam. The way the scam works is that the scammers send you a letter and demand you call the telephone number. But the telephone number belongs to the scammers, not the bank. When you call the number, they will 'authenticate' you by asking you a bunch of questions. They will then have enough information to call the bank and pretend to be you, and transfer out all of your money. What you need to do is to find the telephone number for your bank without making use of this letter. For example, look at a previous bank statement, or find the telephone number on the bank's website. Call that number and discuss this letter. If you have already called the number in the letter and if you have the slightest reason to believe it is not valid, stop reading. This is an emergency. Immediately call a legitimate number at the bank. Explain the situation and note that you believe your information has been compromised. Why are you still reading? Do it now. |
Books, Videos, Tutorials to learn about different investment options in the financial domain | Investopedia does have tutorials about investments in different asset classes. Have you read them ? If you had heard of CFA, you can read their material if you can get hold of it or register for CFA. Their material is quite extensive and primarily designed for newbies. This is one helluva book and advice coming from persons who have showed and proved their tricks. And the good part is loads of advice in one single volume. And what they would suggest is probably opposite of what you would be doing in a hedge fund. And you can always trust google to fish out resources at the click of a button. |
Is it legal to receive/send “gifts” of Non-Trivial Amounts to a “friend”? | This is tax fraud, plain and simple. I recently wrote an article The Step Transaction Doctrine, in which I explain that a series of events may each be legal, but aggregate to one transaction and the individual steps are ignored. In this case, it goes beyond that, by accepting $5/mo you are already outside the tax code. As littleadv noted, you can't work for a legitimate business for free and not expect to have some kind of issue. The $14K/yr gift isn't a bona fide gift, but ties to that work. |
Question about stock taxes buy/sell short term | If you have made $33k from winning trades and lost $30k from loosing trades your net gain for the year would be $3k, so obviously you would pay taxes only on the net $3k gains. |
Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? | If you have children in a university institution, then your annual salary is reported via financial aid forms. The small raise could be the difference between full tuition covered and only half tuition covered. |
Why are capital gains taxed at a lower rate than normal income? | Consider inflation. If you invest $10,000 today, you need to make a few hundred dollars interest just to make up for inflation - if there is 3% inflation then a change from $10,000 to $10,300 means you didn't actually make any money. |
What are investment options for young married couple with no debt that have maxed out retirement savings? | Paying the mortgage down is no different than investing in a long term taxable fixed instrument. In this economy, 4.7% isn't bad, but longer term, the stock market should return higher. When you have the kid(s), is your wife planing to work? If not, I'd first suggest going pre-tax on the IRAs, and when she's not working, convert to Roth. I'd advise against starting the 529 accounts until your child(ren) is actually born. As far as managed funds are concerned, I hear "expenses." Why not learn about lower cost funds, index mutual funds or ETFs? I'd not do too much different aside from this, until the kids are born. |
Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire? | This is a common and good game-plan to learn valuable life skills and build a supplemental income. Eventually, it could become a primary income, and your strategic risk is overall relatively low. If you are diligent and patient, you are likely to succeed, but at a rate that is so slow that the primary beneficiaries of your efforts may be your children and their children. Which is good! It is a bad gameplan for building an "empire." Why? Because you are not the first person in your town with this idea. Probably not even the first person on the block. And among those people, some will be willing to take far more extravagant risks. Some will be better capitalized to begin with. Some will have institutional history with the market along with all the access and insider information that comes with it. As far as we know, you have none of that. Any market condition that yields a profit for you in this space, will yield a larger one for them. In a downturn, they will be able to absorb larger losses than you. So, if your approach is to build an empire, you need to take on a considerably riskier approach, engage with the market in a more direct and time-consuming way, and be prepared to deal with the consequences if those risks play out the wrong way. |
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). |
Is there any downside to using temporary credit card numbers with subscription services? | If you've agreed to pay the money, then you owe them whether they have a valid credit card number of yours or not. If they want to report your debt to a collections agency and/or credit bureau, they can. Which would suck for you. It may not be that likely over $9.99 or whatever, but my point is that it's still a small risk even with a temporary card number. |
Calculate Future Value with Recurring Deposits | Let's break this into two parts, the future value of the initial deposit, and the future value of the payments: D(1 + i)n For the future value of the payments A((1+i)n-1) / i) Adding those two formulas together will give you the amount of money that should be in your account at the end. Remember to make the appropriate adjustments to interest rate and the number of payments. Divide the interest rate by the number of periods in a year (four for quarterly, twelve for monthly), and multiply the number of periods (p) by the same number. Of course the monthly deposit amount will need to be in the same terms. See also: Annuity (finance theory) - Wikipedia |
Is expense to freelancers tax deductible? | Yes, legitimate, documented, expenses are written off against that income. |
Why are there many small banks and more banks in the U.S.? | I can't find a citation, but from memory (EDIT: and reading the newspapers at the time it happened): up until around 1980, banks couldn't cross state borders. In my state, at least, they were also very local, only staying within one county. This was to enforce "localness", the thought being that local bankers would know local people and the local situation better than far away people who only see numbers and paperwork. |
Why do banks encourage me to use online bill payment? | One other aspect of this is that the bank will plan to eventually approach the merchant that they are sending paper checks to and say "why don't you sign up with us and give us your ACH info, and we won't send you checks?" And a lot of merchants will say "sure", because someone has to open those checks and take them down to the bank, and that isn't free. And that time while the money is in the mail, or sitting on someone's desk to be deposited, that is money that isn't working for you. So everyone wins. |
Calculating profits for a private fund | One way I heard of, from a friend who ran a similar fund as yours, is to calculate $days of investment and divide the investment as accordingly. For example, If I invested 10$ for 10 days and you have invested 20$ for 5 days. At the end of the 10th day my $day = 10*10=100, while your $day=20*5=100. If the investement has grown to 100$, the I should get $100/(100+100)*100=$50, you also should get the same. This I guess is equitable, you could try dividing the corpus with above method. It consideres the amount invested as well as the time invested for. I think by the above method, you could also handle the inbetween withdrawals. |
Accepting personal “donations” (not as a non-profit) | I see two ways you can handle this. Use the gifts for the purpose of creating more free software. This is fundraising, and your cause is writing free software. The language is a little tricky from the PayPal Donate button (emphasis mine): This button is intended for fundraising. If you are not raising money for a cause, please choose another option. Nonprofits must verify their status to withdraw donations they receive. Users that are not verified nonprofits must demonstrate how their donations will be used, once they raise more than $10,000 USD. You don't have to be a nonprofit; they are only requiring existing nonprofits to verify their status. You don't even have to account for the donations if they are below $10,000. Give out your PayPal email address and instruct the gift-givers to simply send you money through their PayPal interface. They can mark it as a gift when they send the money. I think option one is how the various bloggers and other personal users are justifiying their collection of donations, and I think its a valid use of the PayPal Donate button. |
How long can a company keep the money raised from IPO of its stocks? | You realize that most of the money raised through the IPO process doesn't go into the company's bank account? Those shares were shares that were held by the investors and original owners and it's those prior pre-IPO shareholders that got their money back along with a tidy profit. The cash on its books was there before the IPO, and after. The IPO process was more about a change in stock owners ship than anything else. Edit - as the SEC disclosure mentioned in comments below states, the Facebook IPO raised $6.7B for facebook's use, the rest of the transaction was from the investors selling their shares. Mark Zuckerberg still owns more than 55% of shares outstanding. The $6.7B is still about 10% of the company value. Nothing to ignore, but clearly, 'most' of the money from the IPO didn't go to the company. |
If I make over 120k a year, what are my options for retirement plans? | The other alternative: just invest it in tax-efficient investments. You will have limited tax-deferral options outside of your 401k, but don't let that limit you. You can invest in a variety of ETFs, stocks and mutual funds for growth, and tax-free investments like municipal bonds as you get older and need to draw income. |
Insider Trading? | I am a flight attendant on a private jet and I hear a bank CEO discussing a merger or a buyout. I proceed to purchase that stock before the announcement. The CEO did not tell me to buy it, I just overheard him. If you are a flight attendant on a private jet that is operated by one of the principals, probably including a bank, attorney, consultant, broker, etc., in the merger or buyout, then you probably have a fiduciary duty to safeguard the information and are prohibited from trading. Please see: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T052-C008-S001-would-you-be-guilty-of-insider-trading.html You’re a janitor at a major company. You hear members of the company’s board convening outside the room you’re cleaning and decide to hide in the closet. The board okays a deal to sell the company for a fat premium to the current share price. You load up on the shares. Illegal insider trading? Definitely. This is not a public place, and “you’d be in a position to understand that confidential information was being disclosed, which changes the calculus,” says Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based securities lawyer. Also see: http://meyersandheim.com/how-to-win-an-insider-trading-case/ However, between these two extremes of a bystander with no duty to the corporation and a corporate officer with a clear duty to the corporation stood a whole group of people such as printers, lawyers and others who were involved in non-public transactions that did not necessarily have a duty to the company whose securities they traded. To address this group of people the courts developed the misappropriation theory. The misappropriation theory covers people who posses inside information and who are prohibited from trading on such information because they owe a duty to a third party and not the corporation whose securities are traded. Yours is the perfect example. You owe a duty to your employer to operate in its best interests. As for the broader, more common example, where you overhear information in an elevator, restaurant, in line at the coffee shop, etc., trading on such information was found not to be insider trading in SEC v. Switzer: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/590/756/2247092/ In this case, Mr. Switzer overheard information at a track meet and traded on it with profits. The court found: The information was inadvertently overheard by Switzer at the track meet. Rule 10b-5 does not bar trading on the basis of information inadvertently revealed by an insider. On the basis of the above findings of fact and conclusions of law, the court orders judgment in favor of defendants. |
Should I Use an Investment Professional? | Yes. The investment world is extremely fast-paced and competitive. There are loads of professional traders with supercomputers working day in and day out to make smarter, faster trade decisions than you. If you try to compete with them, there’s a better than fair chance you’ll lose precious time and money, which kind of defeats the purpose. A good wealth manager: In short, they can save you time and money and help you take the most advantage of your current savings. Or, you can think about it in terms of cost. Most wealth managers charge an annual fee (as a % of the amount invested) for their services. This fee can range anywhere from close to zero, to 0.75% depending upon how sophisticated the strategy is that the money will be invested in, and what kind of additional services they have to offer. Investing in the S&P500 on the behalf of the investor shouldn’t need a fee, but investing in a smart beta or an alpha strategy, that generates returns independent of the market’s movement and certainly commands a fee. But how does one figure if that fee is justified? It is really simple. What is the risk-adjusted performance of the strategy? What is the Sharpe ratio? Large successful funds like Renaissance Technologies and Citadel can charge 3% in addition to 30% of profits because even after that their returns are much better than the market. I have this rule of thumb for money-management fees that I am willing to pay: |
What's best investment option? Mutual fund or Property [duplicate] | nan |
Is is possible to dispute IRS underpayment penalties? | When you say "set aside," you mean you saved to pay the tax due in April? That's underpaying. It's a rare exception the IRS makes for this penalty, hopefully it wasn't too large, and you now know how much to withhold through payroll deductions. Problem is, this wasn't unusual, it was an oversight. You have no legitimate grounds to dispute. Sorry. |
How can I spend less? | There are many tactics you can use. If your biggest problem is regretting your larger purchases, I'd suggest giving yourself rules before making any purchases over a certain minimum dollar amount that you set for yourself. For example, if that amount is $50 for an item, then any item starting at an average price of $51 would be subject to these rules. One of your long-term goals ought to be to become the kind of person who finds joy in saving money rather than spending it. Make friends with frugal people - look for those who prefer games nights and potlucks to nights out at the club buying expensive drinks and dinners at the newest steak joint in town. Learn the thrill of a deal, but even more learn the thrill of your savings growing. You don't want to enjoy money in the bank for the purposes of becoming a miser. Instead you want to realize that money in the bank helps you achieve your goals — buying the house you want, donating a significant amount of money to a cause you ardently support, allowing you to take a dream vacation, letting you buy with cash the car you always wanted, the possibilities are endless. As Dave Ramsey says, "Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else." |
total of all dividend payments for a particular company | No - there are additional factors involved. Note that the shares on issue of a company can change for various reasons (such as conversion/redemption of convertible securities, vesting of restricted employee shares, conversion of employee options, employee stock purchase programs, share placements, buybacks, mergers, rights issues etc.) so it is always worthwhile checking SEC announcements for the company if you want an exact figure. There may also be multiple classes of shares and preferred securities that have different levels of dividends present. For PFG, they filed a 10Q on 22 April 2015 and noted they had 294,385,885 shares outstanding of their common stock. They also noted for the three months ended March 31 2014 that dividends were paid to both common stockholders and preferred stockholders and that there were Series A preferred stock (3 million) and Series B preferred stock (10 million), plus a statement: In February 2015, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program of up to $150.0 million of our outstanding common stock. Shares repurchased under these programs are accounted for as treasury stock, carried at cost and reflected as a reduction to stockholders’ equity. Therefore the exact amount of dividend paid out will not be known until the next quarterly report which will state the exact amount of dividend paid out to common and preferred shareholders for the quarter. |
My employer is switching 401k plan providers. How might this work in practice? | A few years ago our company switched from Fidelity to a different 401k provider. During the blackout transition, nearly every employee lost a considerable amount of money. The "Trustee" advised us that during the blackout he had a right to invest the funds and that the investments lost money. |
Can I trust the Motley Fool? | I've had a MF Stock Advisor for 7 or 8 years now, and I've belong to Supernova for a couple of years. I also have money in one of their mutual funds. "The Fool" has a lot of very good educational information available, especially for people who are new to investing. Many people do not understand that Wall Street is in the business of making money for Wall Street, not making money for investors. I have stayed with the Fool because their philosophy aligns with my personal investment philosophy. I look at the Stock Advisor picks; sometimes I buy them, sometimes I don't, but the analysis is very good. They also have been good at tracking their picks over time, and writing updates when specific stocks drop a certain amount. With their help, I've assembled a portfolio that I don't have to spend too much time managing, and have done pretty well from a return perspective. Stock Advisor also has a good set of forums where you can interact with other investors. In summary, the view from the inside has been pretty good. From the outside, I think their marketing is a reflection of the fact that most people aren't very interested in a rational & conservative approach to investing in the stock market, so MF chooses to go for an approach that gets more traffic. I'm not particularly excited about it, but I'm sure they've done AB testing and have figured out what way works the best. I think that they have had money-back guarantees on some of their programs in the past, so you could try them out risk free. Not sure if those are still around. |
Are parking spaces and garage boxes a good investment? | 15 years ago I bought a beach condo in Miami for $400,000 and two extra parking spaces for $3000 each. Today the condo is worth 600,000 but the rent barely covers mortgage repairs and property taxes. Most of The old people in the building have since died and are now replaced with families with at least two cars and spots are in short supply. I turned down offers of 25,000 for each parking space. I have the spaces rented out for $200 per month no maintenance for an 80% annual return on my purchase price and the value went has gone up over $700%. And no realtors commissions if i decide to sell the spaces. |
What can my relatives do to minimize their out of pocket expenses on their fathers estate | Consider contracting with a property management company to lease and maintain the house until it can be sold. Rent on the property should cover the mortgage, property taxes, etc. The property management company can handle maintenance and the tenant would be responsible for utilities. |
Should I finance rental property or own outright? | In general you do not want to show a taxable gain on rental properties if you can avoid it. One of the more beneficial advantages of owning cash flowing rental properties, is that the income is tax deferred because of the depreciation. I say deferred, because depreciation affects the cost basis of your property. Also since you are considering financing, it sounds like you don't need the cash flow currently. You usually can get better returns by financing and buying more rental properties, especially with investment mortgages at historical lows (Win via inflation over time) |
Using Marine Traffic (AIS) to make stock picks? | Since you seem determined to consider this, I'd like to break down for you why I believe it is an incredibly risky proposition: 1) In general, picking individual stocks is risky. Individual stocks are by their nature not diversified assets, and a single company-wide calamity (a la Volkswagen emissions, etc.) can create huge distress to your investments. The way to mitigate this risk is of course to diversify (invest in other types of assets, such as other stocks, index funds, bonds, etc.). However, you must accept that this first step does have risks. 2) Picking stocks on the basis of financial information (called 'fundamental analysis') requires a very large amount of research and time dedication. It is one of the two main schools of thought in equity investing (as opposed to 'technical analysis', which pulls information directly from stock markets, such as price volatility). This is something that professional investors do for a living - and that means that they have an edge you do not have, unless you dedicate similar resources to this task. That information imbalance between you and professional traders creates additional risk where you make determinations 'against the grain'. 3) Any specific piece of public information (and this is public information, regardless of how esoteric it is) may be considered to be already 'factored into' public stock prices. I am a believer in market efficiency first and foremost. That means I believe that anything publically known related to a corporation ['OPEC just lowered their oil production! Exxon will be able to increase their prices!'] has already been considered by the professional traders currently buying and selling in the market. For your 'new' information to be valuable, it would need to have the ability to forecast earnings in a way not already considered by others. 4) I doubt you will be able to find the true nature of the commercial impact of a particular event, simply by knowing ship locations. So what if you know Alcoa is shipping Aluminium to Cuba - is this one of 5 shipments already known to the public? Is this replacement supplies that are covering a loss due to damaged goods previously sent? Is the boat only 1/3 full? Where this information gets valuable, is when it gets to the level of corporate espionage. Yes, if you had ship manifests showing tons of aluminum being sold, and if this was a massive 'secret' shipment about to be announced at the next shareholders' meeting, you could (illegally) profit from that information. 5) The more massive the company, the less important any single transaction is. That means the super freighters you may see transporting raw commodities could have dozens of such ships out at any given time, not to mention news of new mine openings and closures, price changes, volume reports, etc. etc. So the most valuable information would be smaller companies, where a single shipment might cover a month of revenue - but such a small company is (a) less likely to be public [meaning you couldn't buy shares in the company and profit off of the information]; and (b) less likely to be found by you in the giant sea of ship information. In summary, while you may have found some information that provides insight into a company's operations, you have not shown that this information is significant and also unknown to the market. Not to mention the risks associated with picking individual stocks in the first place. In this case, it is my opinion that you are taking on additional risk not adequately compensated by additional reward. |
Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? | As per the age of your son you mentions i would suggest Yes, charge them an interest amount but lesser than the market rate. And give them a valid reason behind taking interest on given amount. The reason you might grab from below real incident happen with me at the time of Diwali last year. I am 26, and i am currently doing job and my salary is not so much that i can accomplish all my dreams of buying expensive Watch and many things. So i borrowed some strong amount from my mom. She gave me the amount but she asked me to pay interest of 5% and when i asked the reason behind demanding the interest she said something which was valuable things. She said me "If i would not give you money then you will definitely ask money from some money lenders or your friends because now that watch is your first priority. And in that case you need to pay the higher interest rate to them. And in life there might be situation where we would not capable to help you in terms of financial. So this is the time you should learn to pay interest and responsibility of borrowing amount and repaying it on time with interest rate. This will help you also to learn a lesson and our money will be withing home I am not expert in parenting because i am still unmarried but i shared my point of view for your question. Thanks |
Dividend yield for multiple years? | Dividend yield is a tough thing to track because it's a moving target. Dividends are paid periodically the yield is calculated based on the stock price when the dividend is declared (usually, though some services may update this more frequently). I like to calculate my own dividend by annualizing the dividend payment divided by my cost basis per share. As an example, say you have shares in X, Co. X issues a quarterly dividend of $1 per share and the share price is $100; coincidentally this is the price at which you purchased your shares. But a few years goes by and now X issues it's quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, and the share price is $160. However your shares only cost you $100. Your annual yield on X is 6%, not the published 3.75%. All of this is to say that looking back on dividend yields is somewhat similar to nailing jello to the wall. Do you look at actual dividends paid through the year divided by share price? Do you look at the annualized dividend at the time of issue then average those? The stock price will fluctuate, that will change the yield; depending on where you bought your stock, your actual yield will vary from the published amount as well. |
Are cashiers required to check a credit card for a signature in the U.S.? | I'm not sure if they're required to do so, but I have been neglecting to sign my cards for some time now. If they do check, that triggers an ID check, where they'll find my signature. I know of at least one person that writes "see ID" instead of signing their cards. He began that practice over 10 years ago. |
Which graduate student loans are preferable? | Of course, the situation for each student will vary widely so you'll have to dig deep on your own to know what is the best choice for your situation. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, the best choice would be to use the Unsubsidized Stafford loan to finance graduate school if you need to resort to loans. The major benefits to the Unsubsidized Stafford are the following: You'll be forced to consider other loan types due to the Unsubsidized Stafford loan's established limits on how much you can borrow per year and in aggregate. The borrowing limits are also adjustable down by your institution. The PLUS loan is a fallback loan program designed to be your last resort. The program was created as a way for parents to borrow money for their college attending children when all other forms of financing have been exhausted. As a result you have the following major disadvantages to using the PLUS loan: You do have the bonus of being able to borrow up to 100% of your educational costs without any limits per year or in aggregate. The major benefit of keeping your loans in the Direct Loan program is predictability. Many private student loans are variable interest rate loans which can result in higher payments during the course of the loan. Private loans are also not eligible for government loan forgiveness programs, such as for working in a non-profit for 10 years. |
Investment Portfolio Setup for beginner | Some thoughts: 1) Do you have a significant emergency fund (3-6 months of after-tax living expenses)? If not, you stand to take a significant loss if you have an unexpected need for cash that is tied up in investments. What if you lose/hate your job or your car breaks down? What if a you want to spend some time with a relative or significant other who learns they only have a few months to live? Having a dedicated emergency fund is an important way to avoid downside risk. 2) Lagerbaer has a good suggestion. Given that if you'd reinvested your dividends, the S&P 500 has returned about 3.5% over the last 5 years, you may be able to get a very nice risk-free return. 3) Do you have access to employer matching funds, such as in a 401(k) at work? If you get a dollar-for-dollar match, that is a risk-free pre-tax 100% return and should be a high priority. 4) What do you mean by "medium" volatility? Given that you are considering a 2/3 equity allocation, it would not be at all out of the realm of possibility that your balance could fall by 15% or more in any given year and take several years to recover. If that would spook you, you may want to consider lowering your equity weights. A high quality bond fund may be a good fit. 5) Personally, I would avoid putting money into stocks that I didn't need back for 10 years. If you only want to tie your money up for 2-5 years, you are taking a significant risk that if prices fall, you won't have time to recover before you need your money back. The portfolio you described would be appropriate for someone with a long-term investment horizon and significant risk tolerance, which is usually the case for young people saving for retirement. However, if your goals are to invest for 2-5 years only, your situation would be significantly different. 6) You can often borrow from an investment account to purchase a primary residence, but you must pay that amount back in order to avoid significant taxes and fees, unless you plan to liquidate assets. If you plan to buy a house, saving enough to avoid PMI is a good risk-free return on your money. 7) In general, and ETF or index fund is a good idea, the key being to minimize the compound effect of expenses over the long term. There are many good choices a la Vanguard here to choose from. 8) Don't worry about "Buy low, sell high". Don't be a speculator, be an investor (that's my version of Anthony Bourdain's, "don't be a tourist, be a traveler"). A speculator wants to sell shares at a higher price than they were purchased at. An investor wants to share in the profits of a company as a part-owner. If you can consistently beat the market by trying to time your transactions, good for you - you can move to Wall Street and make millions. However, almost no one can do this consistently, and it doesn't seem worth it to me to try. I don't mean to discourage you from investing, just make sure you have your bases covered so that you don't have to cash out at a bad time. Best of luck! Edit Response to additional questions below. 1) Emergency fund. I would recommend not investing in anything other than cash equivalents (money market, short-term CDs, etc.) until you've built up an emergency fund. It makes sense to want to make the "best" use of your money, but you also have to account for risk. My concern is that if you were to experience one or more adverse life events, that you could lose a lot of money, or need to pay a lot in interest on credit card debt, and it would be prudent to self-insure against some of those risks. I would also recommend against using an investment account as an emergency fund account. Taking money out of investment accounts is inefficient because the commissions/taxes/fees can easily eat up a significant portion of your returns. Ideally, you would want to put money in and not touch it for a long time in order to take advantage of compounding returns. There are also high penalties for early disbursements from retirement funds. Just like you need enough money in your checking account to buy food and pay the rent every month, you need enough money in an emergency fund to pay for things that are a real possibility, even if they are less common. Using a credit card or an investment account is a relatively expensive way to do this. 2) Invest at all? I would recommend starting an emergency fund, and then beginning to invest for retirement. Once your retirement savings are on track, you can begin saving for whatever other goals you may have |
Is there a government-mandated resource that lists the shareholders of a public company? | You can obtain a stocklist if you file a lawsuit as a shareholder against the company demanding that you receive the list. It's called an inspection case. The company then has to go to Cede and/or the Depository Trust Company who then compiles the NOBO COBO list of beneficiary stockholders. SEC.gov gives you a very limited list of people who have had to file 13g or 13d or similar filings. These are large holders. To get the list of ALL stockholders you have to go through Cede. |
How do you measure the value of gold? | There is no such thing as intrinsic value. Gold has value because it is rare and has a market. If any of those things decline, the value plunges. The question of whether gold is overvalued or not is complicated and depends on a lot of factors. The key question in my mind is: Is gold more valuable in terms of US dollars because it is becoming more valuable, or because the value of US dollars, the prevailing medium of exchange, is declining? |
When is the right time to buy a car and/or a house? | Buying a house is often more emotional than financial. Which makes that kind of advice tough to offer. Staying with the finance side - You wrote "2 bedrooms is enough for me." Is it enough for your girlfriend/fiancee? Is she on the same schedule for kids as you are? 2 bedrooms means that with just one child you are less able to host a guest and the second child will need to share the bedroom. Nothing wrong with that, just making sure you are aware of these things. If the long term plan is to move to a new house, a ten year horizon for the second house sounds good to me. I'll make one brief comment on rent vs buy - it's easy to buy too big and discover you are paying for rooms you don't use. I have a house I'll be glad to get rid of when our daughter goes off to college. A dining room and formal living room go unused save for 3 or 4 days a year. It already sounds like you'll avoid this mistake. Your question - the right time - when you are ready, with the downpayment, income, and desire to do so. You should at least have a feeling you plan to stay there for a time, else the cost of buying/selling would exceed any potential gain. |
Emerging markets index fund (VDMIX) for an inexperienced investor | In this environment, I don't think that it is advisable to buy a broad emerging market fund. Why? "Emerging market" is too broad... Look at the top 10 holdings of the fund... You're exposed to Russia & Brazil (oil driven), Chinese and Latin American banks and Asian electronics manufacturing. Those are sectors that don't correlate, in economies that are unstable -- a recipie for trouble unless you think that the global economy is heading way up. I would recommend focusing on the sectors that you are interested in (ie oil, electronics, etc) via a low cost vehicle like an index ETF or invest using a actively managed emerging markets fund with a strategy that you understand. Don't invest a dime unless you understand what you are getting into. An index fund is just sorting companies by market cap. But... What does market cap mean when you are buying a Chinese bank? |
Indicators a stock is part of a pump and dump scheme? | Note: the answer below is speculative and not based on any first-hand knowledge of pump-and-dump schemes. The explanation with spamming doesn't really makes sense for me. Often you see a stock jump 30% or more in a single day at a particular moment in time. Unlikely that random people read their emails at that time and decide to buy. What I think happens is the pumper does a somewhat risky thing: starts buying a lot of shares of a stock that has declined a lot and had low volumes during the previous days. As the price starts to increase other people start to notice the jump and join the buying spree (also don't forget that some probably use buy-stop orders which are triggered when the price reaches a particular level). Also there should be some automatic trading involved (maybe HFT firms do pump-and-dumps) as you have to trade a big volume in a relatively short time span. I think it is unlikely to be done by human operators. Another explanation would be that there is a group of pumpers (to spread the risk so to speak). Update: As I think more of it, it is not necessary to buy "a lot of shares". You could buy some shares, sell them to another pumper and buy from them again at a higher price in several iterations. I think this could also work if you do it fast enough. These scheme makes sense only you previously bought many shares at the low price, possibly during several weeks. Once the price is pumped high enough you can start selling the shares you previously bought (in the days preceding the pump). |
How should I file my taxes as a contractor? | For tax purposes you will need to file as an employee (T4 slips and tax withheld automatically), but also as an entrepreneur. I had the same situation myself last year. Employee and self-employed is a publication from Revenue Canada that will help you. You need to fill out the statement of business activity form and keep detailed records of all your deductible expenses. Make photocopies and keep them 7 years. May I suggest you take an accountant to file your income tax form. More expensive but makes you less susceptible to receive Revenue Canada inspectors for a check-in. If you can read french, you can use this simple spreadsheet for your expenses. Your accountant will be happy. |
What's the point of a chargeback when they just ask the merchant whether they owe money to the buyer? | The point of a chargeback is to force merchants to do the paperwork. Many merchants don't, and are easy targets for chargebacks, even when they have, in fact, provided the good or service. You used a tax prep service. They may have given you poor (technical) advice, but such firms are usually very good about doing the paperwork. That's why you lost. |
How do we know the number of shorted shares of a stock? | For a company listed on NASDAQ, the numbers are published on NASDAQ's site. The most recent settlement date was 4/30/2013, and you can see that it lists 27.5 million shares as held short. NASDAQ gets these numbers from FINRA member firms, which are required to submit them to the exchange twice a month: Each FINRA member firm is required to report its “total” short interest positions in all customer and proprietary accounts in NASDAQ-listed securities twice a month. These reports are used to calculate short interest in NASDAQ stocks. FINRA member firms are required to report their short positions as of settlement on (1) the 15th of each month, or the preceding business day if the 15th is not a business day, and (2) as of settlement on the last business day of the month.* The reports must be filed by the second business day after the reporting settlement date. FINRA compiles the short interest data and provides it for publication on the 8th business day after the reporting settlement date. |
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough? | I realize that most posters are US based, but the UK on Saturday had its biggest ever payout (a miserable £60m). Because of the rules there, the estimated "value" of a £2 ticket was between £3 and £5. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/09/national-lottery-lotto-drawing-odds-of-winning-maths |
Can a wealthy investor invest in or make a deal with a company before it goes public / IPO? | Yes, an investment can be made in a company before IPO. The valuation process is similar as that done for arriving at IPO or for a normal listed company. The difference may be the premium perceived for the idea in question. This would differ from one investor to other. For example, whether Facebook will be able to grow at the rate and generate enough revenues and win against competition is all a mathematical model based on projections. There are quite a few times the projection would go wrong, and quite a few times it would go correct. An individual investor cannot generally borrow from banks to invest into a company (listed or otherwise) (or for any other purpose) if he does not have any collateral that can be kept as security by the bank. An individual can get a loan only if he has sufficient collateral. The exceptions being small personal loans depending on one's credit history. The Private Equity placement arm of banks or firms in the business of private equity invest in start-up and most of the time make an educated guess based on their experience. More than half of their investments into start-ups end up as wiped out. An occasional one or two companies are ones that they make a windfall gain on. |
Why adjust for inflation annually, as opposed to realising it after the holding period? | I would use neither method. Taking a short example first, with just three compounding periods, with interest rate 10%. The start value y0 is 1. So after three years the value is 1.331, the same as y0 (1 + 0.1)^3. Depreciating (like inflation) by 10% (to demonstrate) gets us back to y0 = 1 Appreciating and depreciating by 10% cancels out: Appreciating by 10% interest and depreciating by 3% inflation: This is the same as y0 (1 + 0.1)^3 (1 + 0.03)^-3 = 1.21805 So for 50 years the result is y0 (1 + 0.1)^50 (1 + 0.03)^-50 = 26.7777 Note You can of course use subtraction but the not using the inflation figure directly. E.g. (edit: This appears to be the Fisher equation.) 2nd Note Further to comments, here is a chart to illustrate how much the relative performance improves when inflation is accounted for. The first fund's return is 6% and the second fund's return varies from 3% to 6%. Inflation is 3%. |
How do I handle fund minimums as a beginning investor? | Buy the minimum of one fund now. (Eg total bond market) Buy the minimum of the next fund next time you have $2500. (Eg large-cap stocks.) Continue with those until you have enough to buy the next fund (eg small-cap stocks). Adjust as you go to balance these funds according to your planned ratios, or as close as you can reasonably get without having to actually transfer money between the funds more than once a year or so. Build up to your targets over time. If you can't easily afford to tie up that first $2500, stay with banks and CDs and maybe money market accounts until you can. And don't try to invest (except maybe through a matched 401k) before you have adequate savings both for normal life and for an emergency reserve. Note too that the 401k can be a way to buy into funds without a minimum. Check with your employer. If you haven't maxed out your 401k yet, and it has matching funds, that is usually the place to start saving for retirement; otherwise you are leaving free money on the table. |
Why don't banks allow more control over credit/debit card charges? | The other answers touch on why having two-factor auth or some other additional system is not worth it compared to simple reactive systems (cancelling lost cards, reversing fraudulent charges etc), but it should also be noted that this goal can be achieved with a method similar to what you describe. My bank (TD Canada Trust) has an app (I'm on android) that gives you a notification immediately after your card is charged (even test charges like at the gas station). It's really simple, does not slow down authorization, and makes fraud detection super easy. (I'm sure some other banks have similar apps). |
What are the risks of Dividend-yielding stocks? | Dividend Stocks like any stock carry risk and go both up and down. It is important to choose a stock based on the company's potential and performance. And, if they pay a dividend it does help. -RobF |
Calculating savings from mortgage interest deduction vs. standard deduction? | Those choices aren't mutually exclusive. Yes, most discussion of the mortgage interest deduction ignores the fact that for a standard itemizer, much, if not all of this deduction can be lost. For 2011, the std deduction for a single is $5,800. It's not just mortgage interest that's deductible, state income tax, realestate tax, and charitable contributions are among the other deductions. If this house is worth $350K, the property tax is about $5K, and since it's not optional, I'd be inclined to assume that it's the deduction that offsets the std deduction. Most states have an income tax, which tops off the rest. You are welcome to toss this aside as sophistry, but I view it as these other deductions as 'lost' first. I'm married, and our property tax is more than our standard deduction, so when doing the math, the mortgage is fully deductible, as are our contributions. In your case, the numbers may play out differently. No state tax? Great, so it's the property tax and deductions you'd add up first and decide on the value the mortgage deduction brings. Last, I don't have my mortgage for the deduction, I just believe that long term my other investments will exceed, after tax, the cost of that mortgage. |
How is money actually made from the buying or selling of options? | Not all call options that have value at expiration, exercise by purchasing the security (or attempting to, with funds in your account). On ETNs, they often (always?) settle in cash. As an example of an option I'm currently looking at, AVSPY, it settles in cash (please confirm by reading the documentation on this set of options at http://www.nasdaqomxtrader.com/Micro.aspx?id=Alpha, but it is an example of this). There's nothing it can settle into (as you can't purchase the AVSPY index, only options on it). You may quickly look (wikipedia) at the difference between "American Style" options and "European Style" options, for more understanding here. Interestingly I just spoke to my broker about this subject for a trade execution. Before I go into that, let me also quickly refer to Joe's answer: what you buy, you can sell. That's one of the jobs of a market maker, to provide liquidity in a market. So, when you buy a stock, you can sell it. When you buy an option, you can sell it. That's at any time before expiration (although how close you do it before the closing bell on expiration Friday/Saturday is your discretion). When a market maker lists an option price, they list a bid and an ask. If you are willing to sell at the bid price, they need to purchase it (generally speaking). That's why they put a spread between the bid and ask price, but that's another topic not related to your question -- just note the point of them buying at the bid price, and selling at the ask price -- that's what they're saying they'll do. Now, one major difference with options vs. stocks is that options are contracts. So, therefore, we can note just as easily that YOU can sell the option on something (particularly if you own either the underlying, or an option deeper in the money). If you own the underlying instrument/stock, and you sell a CALL option on it, this is a strategy typically referred to as a covered call, considered a "risk reduction" strategy. You forfeit (potential) gains on the upside, for money you receive in selling the option. The point of this discussion is, is simply: what one buys one can sell; what one sells one can buy -- that's how a "market" is supposed to work. And also, not to think that making money in options is buying first, then selling. It may be selling, and either buying back or ideally that option expiring worthless. -- Now, a final example. Let's say you buy a deep in the money call on a stock trading at $150, and you own the $100 calls. At expiration, these have a value of $50. But let's say, you don't have any money in your account, to take ownership of the underlying security (you have to come up with the additional $100 per share you are missing). In that case, need to call your broker and see how they handle it, and it will depend on the type of account you have (e.g. margin or not, IRA, etc). Generally speaking though, the "margin department" makes these decisions, and they look through folks that have options on things that have value, and are expiring, and whether they have the funds in their account to absorb the security they are going to need to own. Exchange-wise, options that have value at expiration, are exercised. But what if the person who has the option, doesn't have the funds to own the whole stock? Well, ideally on Monday they'll buy all the shares with the options you have at the current price, and immediately liquidate the amount you can't afford to own, but they don't have to. I'm mentioning this detail so that it helps you see what's going or needs to go on with exchanges and brokerages and individuals, so you have a broader picture. |
What does “Settling your Debt” entail, and how does it compare to other options? | These agencies consolidate your debt and make it an easy monthly instalment for you. They also try to negotiate with credit cards. They do so for a fee. Other option is to not pay the debt. During this time , expect credit cards to keep sending you bills and reminders and ways to contact you. Once it is not paid for a significant amount of time ( 18 months ) , the lender will "sell" your debt to a collection agency. You will start getting bills from collection agencies. Collection agencies can settle for up to 40 % of the actual debt. So if you had 5 credit cards , you would have 5 different collection agencies trying to get in touch with you. You can call them and tell them that you cannot pay the full amount. They will offer you settlements which you can accept or decline. The longer the unpaid debt , the more the discount they will offer. One very important thing to remember is that the unpaid amount will be sent to you on a 1099-c form . This means you have to recognize this as income. It is applicable to the year when the debt is settled. In a nut shell , you owe 120,000. You don't pay. Credit cards keeps calling you. You don't pay. After 12-18 months , they handover your debt to collection agencies. Collection agencies will try to get in touch with you. Send you lawsuit letters. You call and settle for say 50,000. You pay off 50,000 in 2016. Your debt is settled. But wait you will get 1099-C forms from different agencies totaling 70,000 ( unpaid debt ). You will have to declare that as income and you will owe tax on that. Assuming say 30 % tax you will have to pay up 21,000 as tax to IRS assuming no other income for simplicity. SO what you did was pay up 50 + 21 = 71,000 and settled the debt of 120,000. Your credit score will be much better than if you never paid at all. |
How smart is it really to take out a loan right now? | so this is a loan for a house? a loan on a house? a new mortgage? you shouldn't just get a loan for the hell of it any time. interests rates are low because the yields on US treasuries have been pushed closer to zero, and thats pretty much that. the risk is on the bank that approves the loan, and not you. (your ability to repay should be truthful, but your payments are smaller because the interest is so low) |
What is meant by “unexpected expenses” in my 401k plan? | IANAL, but it sounds like indemnification language. They are saying they have the option to charge expenses to participants if they would like. It should say explicitly (you mention that it does) who the 'default payer' is. Unexpected expenses could be anything that's not in the normal course of business. I know that doesn't help much, but some examples may be plan document restatements or admin expenses from plan failures/corrections. We have language in some of our PFDs that say in the absence of revenue-sharing a participants' share of expenses may be higher. Yes, 'from participant accounts' means they have the authority to deduct from your 401k account. |
Will my current employer find out if I have a sole proprietarship/corporation? | I can see why you'd be reluctant to tell them, but I think you need to be open and honest with them about what you're doing and where you see it going. If the roles were reversed, what would you want your employee to do in this situation? If it were me, I'd be much happier to be told up front than to find out some other way later. If I found out later, I'd feel somewhat betrayed and angry. With the Internet, it seems unlikely that they wouldn't find out eventually, so I think being up front about it is your best option. I also suggest you have a backup plan in case they say no. Perhaps you'd need to find another full-time job that is more tolerant (or even encouraging) of side businesses. |
Which % of the global economy is considered “emerging”? | The company that runs the fund (Vanguard) on their website has the information on the general breakdown of their investments of that fund. They tell you that as of July 31st 2016 it is 8.7% emerging markets. They even specifically list the 7000+ companies they have purchased stocks in. Of course the actual investment and percentages could [change every day]. Vanguard may publish on this Site, in the fund's holdings on the webpages, a detailed list of the securities (aggregated by issuer for money market funds) held in a Vanguard fund (portfolio holdings) as of the most recent calendar-quarter-end, 30 days after the end of the calendar quarter, except for Vanguard Market Neutral Fund (60 calendar days after the end of the calendar quarter), Vanguard index funds (15 calendar days after the end of the month), and Vanguard Money Market Funds (within five [5] business days after the last business day of the preceding month). Except with respect to Vanguard Money Market Funds, Vanguard may exclude any portion of these portfolio holdings from publication on this Site when deemed in the best interest of the fund. |
Oil Price forcasting | If past is prologue, I'd say $20, give or take, inflation adjusted of course. http://www.antagoniste.net/WP-Uploads/2007/01/oil_prices_1861_2006.jpg If supplies are at nightmare oversupply, say, as an absurd unlikely scenario, 82 year high in US oil supplies or an all time record in EIA weekly inventories, it looks like the oil price could be capped at the cost of oil sands: This one's just plain scary. Unless if there were some changes refinery laws or technology that I'm not aware of, refineries cutting 50% of the retail gasoline volumes looks bad: |
Do I owe taxes if my deductions are higher than my income? | I'm going to echo Phil and say that you should add more information. That being said, I think it is possible for you to owe the government that much. If you received a federal health insurance subsidy and live in a state that didn't expand medicaid, you could have received a subsidy through out the year that you did not end up qualifying for. It appears you are outside the medicaid limit of 133% of the poverty level($11,670) or $15,521. If you received a subsidy of $275 a month from the marketplace, you would have received $3300 worth of aid from the government that you don't qualify for. Now they are expecting you to pay it back. |
Data source for historical intra-day bid/ask price data for stocks? | Check the answers to this Stackoverflow question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/754593/source-of-historical-stock-data a number of potential sources are listed |
What is the difference between a scrip dividend and a stock split? | Most corporations have a limit on the number of shares that they can issue, which is written into their corporate charter. They usually sell a number that is fewer than the maximum authorized number so that they have a reserve for secondary offerings, employee incentives, etc. In a scrip dividend, the company is distributing authorized shares that were not previously issued. This reduces the number of shares that it has to sell in the future to raise capital, so it reduces the assets of the company. In a split, every share (including the authorized shares that haven't been distributed) are divided. This results in more total shares (which then trade at a price that's roughly proportional to the split), but it does not reduce the assets of the company. |
How to get rid of someone else's debt collector? | Suing is a legitimate option as well as screening your calls but here's another idea which has personally worked and relates to the collections I did for awhile. Talk with the collector. Outstanding debt gets sold many times and each time a new collector gets their hands on an account they do their due diligence which means calling every single number multiple times. Collectors a looking for consumers who actively evade collections calls for years. My recommendation is to use logic and explain the situation. Give your first name and describe when you received the phone number and then ask a simple question. When in the last 3 1/2 years have you or any collector had a successful hit from this number. They'll respond never in 3 1/2 years. The collector notes the account for themselves and future collectors. Debt collectors are about about making money, not wasting time and they do review all notes pertaining to an account. Will it work? Maybe not but hopefully it will stop the calls with a short conversation. Good luck. |
Online tools for monitoring my portfolio gains/losses in real time? | The trick is real time. I like to wake up in the morning, turn on my computer and see at a glance the gain or loss data on each of my stock and bond at that moment. Companies like Ameritrde offer them, but you have to enroll and trade stock in them. |
Clarification on 529 fund | Yes, maybe. The 529 is pretty cool in that you can open an account for yourself, and change the beneficiary as you wish, or not. In theory, one can start a 529 for children or grandchildren yet unborn. Back to you - a 529 is not deductible on your federal return. It grows tax deferred, and tax free if used for approved education. Some states offer deductions depending on the state. There is a list of states that offer such a deduction. |
Ensuring payment from client | You should absolutely have a contract between you and your client stipulating the quid-pro-quos of the arrangement. They get the product, you get the money. First off, this contract should specify what you must do, and what they must do, for the contract to be "satisfied". This isn't necessarily just product for money; your client may be under deadlines to approve the product in various stages of work in process. Depending on the product, the client may be required to provide starting materials (like existing logos/slogans for advertising/marketing graphics), information on or access to computer systems (for software or infrastructure consulting, or accounting auditing), etc. Second, if you provide a tangible product like graphics or software, the contract should clearly state that "intellectual property transfers on satisfaction of contract"; they don't own what you have made until they have accepted it and paid you accordingly. If they try to stiff you by taking what you made them and using it before you've been paid, you can take them to the cleaner's for copyright violations. Third, you should structure a payment schedule; don't do too much for free. You can get the money in thirds, for instance; a third up front, a third at some defined halfway point and a third on final delivery and acceptance. Lastly, you should stipulate that the client is responsible for all expenses incurred by you as a result of their failure to pay as stipulated, up to and including attorney's fees. Definitely have a lawyer draft these agreements; contract law is a many-layered area of law with hundreds of years of case law and slightly different nuances in every state. A competent lawyer will know things that can and can't be stipulated in a contract, and if you try to do it alone you'll wish you hadn't when the contract's tossed out by a judge because of some technicality. If they refuse to pay, get the lawyer on the phone and file suit. A well-written contract drafted by a competent lawyer, which you have lived up to on your end, will give your client no loopholes to slip through. As far as recovering damages, it shouldn't matter whether he's in the U.S. or not; if he does business in the U.S. then he very probably has money in banks that have to listen to U.S. courts (or at least court orders). |
Are credit histories/scores international? | Some countries in European Union are starting to implement credit history sharing, for example now history from polish bureau BIK and German Schufa are mutually available. Similar agreements are planned between polish BIK and bureaus in the Netherlands and United Kingdom. |
What type of pension should I get? | It's best to roll over a pension plan, you don't want to pay the penalties especially when you are young. Rolling over into another scheme, or rolling over into a scheme that is somewhat self directed would avoid the penalty and could help you achieve higher returns should you feel you will perform better. Making regular monthly or biweekly contributions is imperative so that you catch compounded returns on your investments. Since you state that you are inexperienced, I would suggest rolling over into the new scheme and sitting with the pension advisor for the company, ie Prudential, etc. Telling them some key information like your age, in how many years you expect to retire, your current income, your desired pension income per year and such will greatly help them ensure that you come as close to your goal as possible, providing nothing horrendous happens in the market. |
Why buy insurance? | The odds could very well be in your favor, even when the insurance company expects profit. What matters to you is not the expected amount of money you'll have, but the expected amount of utility you'll get from it: getting enough money to buy food to eat is much more important than getting enough money to be able to buy that fiction book too. The more money you have, the less a dollar is worth to you: consequently, if you have enough money, it's worth spending some to prevent yourself from getting into a situation where you don't have enough money. |
Why are typical 401(k) plan fund choices so awful? | 401k choices are awful because: The best remedy I have found is to roll over to an IRA when changing jobs. |
Is it possible to sell a stock at a higher value than the market price? | The core issue is to understand what 'selling a share' means. There is no special person or company that takes the share from you; you are selling on the open market. So your question is effectively 'can I find a guy on the street that buys a 10$-bill for 11$ ?' - Well, maybe someone is dumb enough, but chances are slim. |
If you own 1% of a company's stock, are you entitled to 1% of its assets? | No. If the share price drops to $0, it's likely that the company is in bankruptcy. Usually, debt holders (especially holders of senior debt) are paid first, and you're entitled to whatever the bankruptcy proceedings decide to give holders of equity after the debt holders are paid off. More often than not, equity holders probably won't get much. To give an example, corporate bankruptcy usually involves one of two options: liquidation or reorganization. In the US, these are called Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 bankruptcy, respectively. Canada and the United Kingdom also have similar procedures for corporations, although in the UK, reorganization is often referred to as administration. Many countries have similar procedures in place. I'll use the US as an example because it's what I'm most familiar with. In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company is liquidated to pay its debts. Investopedia's article about bankruptcy states: During Chapter 7 bankruptcy, investors are considered especially low on the ladder. Usually, the stock of a company undergoing Chapter 7 proceedings is usually worthless, and investors lose the money they invested. If you hold a bond, you might receive a fraction of its face value. What you receive depends on the amount of assets available for distribution and where your investment ranks on the priority list on the first page. In Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company is turned over to a trustee that guides it through a reorganization. The Investopedia article quotes the SEC to describe what happens to stockholders when this happens: "During Chapter 11 bankruptcy, bondholders stop receiving interest and principal payments, and stockholders stop receiving dividends. If you are a bondholder, you may receive new stock in exchange for your bonds, new bonds or a combination of stock and bonds. If you are a stockholder, the trustee may ask you to send back your stock in exchange for shares in the reorganized company. The new shares may be fewer in number and worth less. The reorganization plan spells out your rights as an investor and what you can expect to receive, if anything, from the company." The exact details will depend on the reorganization plan that's worked out, local laws, court agreements, etc.. For example, in the case of General Motor's bankruptcy, stockholders in the company before reorganization were left with worthless shares and were not granted shares in the new company. |
What is a checking account and how does it work? | As others have noted, in the U.S. a checking account gives you the ability to write a check, while a savings account does not. I think you know what a check is even if you don't use them, right? Let me know if you need an explanation. Personally, I rarely write paper checks any more. I have an account for a small side business, and I haven't bothered to get new checks printed since I moved 6 years ago even though the checks still have my old address, because I've only written I think 3 paper checks on that account in that time. From the bank's point of view, there are all sorts of government regulations that are different for the two types of accounts. But that is probably of little concern to you unless you own a bank. If the software you have bought allows you to do the things you need to do regardless of whether you call the account "savings" or "checking", then ... who cares? I doubt that the banking software police will come to your house and beat you into unconsciousness and arrest you because you labeled an account "checking" that you were supposed to label "savings". If one account type does what you need to do and the other doesn't, then use the one that works. |
Evaluating stocks useless? | Is evaluating stocks just a loss of time if the stock is traded very much? Not at all! Making sound investment decisions based on fundamental analysis of companies will help you to do decide whether a given company is right for you and your risk appetite. Investing is not a zero-sum game, and you can achieve a positive long-term (or short-term, depending on what you're after) outcome for yourself without compromising your ability to sleep at night if you take the time to become acquainted with the companies that you are investing in. How can you ensure that your evaluation is more precise than the market ones which consists of the evaluation of thousands of people and professionals? For the average individual, the answer is often simply "you probably cannot". But you don't have to set the bar that high - what you can do is ensure that your evaluation gives you a better understanding of your investment and allows you to better align it with your investment objectives. You don't have to beat the professionals, you just have to lose less money than you would by paying them to make the decision for you. |
What are some examples of unsecured loans | Unsecured loans are loans that have not been “secured” with any kind of collateral. For example, the bank does not have the ability to take your property or automobile if you stop making payments on an unsecured loan. These loans are sometimes referred “signature loans” due to the face your signature on the loan agreement is all that you deliver to the table. Unsecured loans are available in a variety of flavors. |
Is there a dollar amount that, when adding Massachusetts Sales Tax, precisely equals $200? | No. $188.23 has $11.76 tax = $199.99 $188.24 has $11.77 tax - $200.01 So, unless the based price contained the half cent for $188.235, the register would never show $200.00 even. How does the receipt to customer look? |
Is the contribution towards Employment Insurance (EI) wasted if I never get fired, or are my premiums refunded? | Actually, most insurance policies DON'T have a cash value if you don't make a claim. The reason that some life insurance policies do this is that they are really tax sheltered investments posing as insurance. With that in mind, the root of your question is really whether insurance premiums are wasted if you never make a claim. It really makes no difference if you are talking about EI, Auto, or Homeowner's insurance. My answer to that is no. What you are paying for when you buy insurance is financial risk avoidance. Look at it this way, you don't buy EI as an investment where you hope to get a return on your investment. You are buying the right to be protected against catastrophic financial difficulty associated with losing your job. Whether you claim it or not you did receive that protection. This is what drives me so crazy when I hear people talk about how an insurance company is ripping you off because you paid more in premiums than they paid out in benefits. Of course you did! If most people didn't pay in more than the company paid out there would be no financial interest for someone to form an insurance company. |
Under what circumstance will the IRS charge you a late-payment penalty for taxes? | Assuming US/IRS: If you filed on time and paid what you believed was the correct amount, they might be kind and let it go. But don't assume they will. If you can't file on time, you are supposed to file estimated taxes before the deadline, and to make that payment large enough to cover what you are likely to owe them. If there is excess, you get it back when you file the actual forms. If there is a shortfall, you may be charged fees, essentially interest on the money you still owe them calculated from the submission due date. If you fail to file anything before the due date, then the fees/interest surcharge is calculated on the entire amount still due; effectively the same as if you had filled an estimated return erroneously claiming you owed nothing. Note that since the penalty scales with the amount still due, large errors do cost you more than small ones. And before anyone asks: no, the IRS doesn't pay interest if you submit the forms early and they owe you money. I've sometimes wondered whether they're missing a bet there, and if it would be worth rewarding people to file earlier in order to spread out the work a bit better, but until someone sells them on that idea... |
Should one invest in smaller valued shares in higher amounts, or higher valued shares in smaller amounts? | Short answer: No, it only matters if you want to use covered calls strategies. The price of a share is not important. Some companies make stock splits from time to time so that the price of their shares is more affordable to small investors. It is a decision of the company's board to keep the price high or low. More important is the capitalization for these shares. If you have lots of money to invest, the best is to divide and invest a fixed pourcentage of your portfolio in each company you choose. The only difference is if you eventually decide to use covered call strategies. To have a buy write on Google will cost you a lot of money and you will only be able to sell 1 option for every 100 shares. Bottom line: the price is not important, capitalization and estimated earnings are. Hope this answers your question. |
Will my Indian debit card work in the U.S.? | Whether your card will work, I believe, depends on the institution that issued it. You'll just have to try. What I can tell you, is that the process of using a debit card or credit card in the US is fairly straight forward. If your card has a chip, you'll 'insert' your card, chip end first, into the bottom slot of the reader, assuming the reader has one. This technology is still being distributed / accepted, so you may encounter some areas where they don't have this, or they have an insert or sign that says something along the lines of 'No chip reader / swipe instead'. If your card doesn't have a chip, which looks like the bottom end of a cellular phone's SIM card, you just swipe your card in the reader. There will / may be on-screen prompts, which will explain any additional input necessary from you. Depending on how they 'process' your card - As a debit card or credit card (They can 'process' a debit card as if it's a standard credit card), you may or may not be asked to enter your debit card's PIN. If they process it as debit, you'll have to enter your PIN. If they process it as if it were a credit card, it will still go through but you'll be asked to sign the receipt. IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO NOTE: You need to find out whether your card issuer will charge you foreign transaction fees when you use your Indian debit card in the US. Is the card carrying a different currency than the US? |
Is it practical to take actual delivery on a futures contract, and what is the process? | Here's a good link that can answer your question: How to take delivery of a futures contract The relevant part states: Prior to delivery day, they inform customers who have open long positions that they must either close out the position or prepare to take delivery and pay the full value of the underlying contract. By the same token traders with short positions are informed that they must close out their trades or prepare to deliver the underlying commodity. In this case, they must have the required quantity and quality of the deliverable commodity on hand. On the few occasions that a buyer accepts delivery against his futures contract, he is usually not given the underlying commodity itself (except in the case of financials), but rather a receipt entitling him to fetch the hogs, wheat, or corn from warehouses or distribution points. I hope this helps. Good luck! |
Renting or Buying an House | I actually didn't do the math with your numbers, but I recall Sal from Khan Academy did a nice video about your question, challenging the notion that it is always better to buy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL10H_EcB-E |
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. |
Smartest Place to Put Tax Refund | Welcome to Money.SE. Your question is similar to a number of others. The "How do I pay my debt down?" and "How do I invest extra money?" is a bit of a continuum since there's no consensus than one should pay off the last cent of debt before investing. Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing offers a good look at this. You see, Pete's answer on your question is perfectly fine, but, since you make no mention of, say, a matched 401(k), I'd suggest that any answer to a question like yours should first take a step back and evaluate the bigger picture. A dollar for dollar matched 401(k) beats paying off even an 18% credit card. Absent any tangents, any thought of investing, saving for anything else, etc, my answer is simple, line up the debt, highest interest rate to lowest. Keep in mind the post-tax rate, i.e. a 6% student loan you can deduct, is an effective 4.5% if you are in the 25% bracket. |
How does the person lending shares to the short selller protect themselves if the short sellers are correct? | It is true, as farnsy noted, that you generally do not know when stock that you're holding has been loaned by your broker to someone for a short sale, that you generally consent to that when you sign up somewhere in the small print, and that the person who borrows has to make repay and dividends. The broker is on the hook to make sure that your stock is available for you to sell when you want, so there's limited risk there. There are some risks to having your stock loaned though. The main one is that you don't actually get the dividend. Formally, you get a "Substitute Payment in Lieu of Dividends." The payment in lieu will be taxed differently. Whereas qualified dividends get reported on Form 1099-DIV and get special tax treatment, substitute payments get reported on Form 1099-MISC. (Box 8 is just for this purpose.) Substitute payments get taxed as regular income, not at the preferred rate for dividends. The broker may or may not give you additional money beyond the dividend to compensate you for the extra tax. Whether or not this tax difference matters, depends on how much you're getting in dividends, your tax bracket, and to some extent your general perspective. If you want to vote your shares and exercise your ownership rights, then there are also some risks. The company only issues ballots for the number of shares issued by them. On the broker's books, however, the short sale may result in more long positions than there are total shares of stock. Financially the "extra" longs are offset by shorts, but for voting this does not balance. (I'm unclear how this is resolved - I've read that the the brokers essentially depend on shareholder apathy, but I'd guess there's more to it than that.) If you want to prevent your broker from loaning out your shares, you have some options: |
Looking for good investment vehicle for seasonal work and savings | Most online "high yield" savings accounts are paying just above 1%. That would be 1.05% for American Express personal savings, or 1.15% for Synchrony Bank (currently). Depending on the length of the season, you might want to work in some CD's. Six months CDs can be had at 1.2%, and 9 month at 1.25%. So if you know you won't need some of your earnings for 9 months, you could earn 1.25% on your money. However, I would proceed with caution on anything other than the high yield savings account. With your one friend having such a low emergency fund, there is very little room for error. Perhaps until that amount is built up into something significant, it is just best to stick with the online savings. Of course, one solution would be to find a way to create income during the off season. That will go a long way into helping one build wealth. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.