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As a minor in the UK do I need to pay taxes on self-employment income, and if so how? | As a minor you certainly can pay tax, the government wants its cut from you just like everyone else :-) However you do get the personal allowance like everyone else, so you won't have to pay income tax until your net income reaches £10,800 (that's the figure for the tax year from April 2015 to April 2016, it'll probably change in future years). Once you're 16, you will also have to pay national insurance, which is basically another tax, at a lower threshold. The current rates are £2.80/week if you are making £5,965 a year or more, and also 9% on any income above £8,060 (up to £42,385). Your "net income" or "profits" are the income you receive minus the expenses you have to support that income. Note that the expenses must be entirely for the "business", they can't be for personal things. The most important thing to do immediately is to start keeping accurate records. Keep a list of the income you receive and also the expenses you pay for hardware etc. Make sure you keep receipts (perhaps just electronic ones) for the expenses so you can prove they existed later. Keep track of that net income as the year goes on and if it starts collecting at the rate you'd have to pay tax and national insurance, then make sure you also put aside enough money to pay for those when the bill comes. There's some good general advice on the Government's website here: https://www.gov.uk/working-for-yourself/what-you-need-to-do In short, as well as keeping records, you should register with the tax office, HMRC, as a "sole trader". This should be something that anyone can do whatever their age, but it's worth calling them up as soon as you can to check and find out if there are any other issues. They'll probably want you to send in tax returns containing the details of your income and expenses. If you're making enough money it may be worth paying an accountant to do this for you. |
What is a bond fund? | As Michael Pryor answered, a bond fund is a mutual fund that invests in bonds. I'd also consider an ETF based on bonds to be a bond fund, but I'm not sure that all investors would consider these as "bond funds". Not all bond funds are the same -- just like stock funds. You can classify bond funds based on the issuer of the bonds: You can also classify funds based on the time to maturity: In general, bond funds have lower risk and lower expected return than stock funds. Sometimes bond funds have price movements that are not tightly correlated to the price movements in the equity markets. This can make them a decent hedge against declines in your equity investments. See Michal Pryor's answer for some info on how you can get tax free treatment for your bond fund investments. |
UK university student finance - should I use my sponsorship money to pay the debt? | Let me run some simplistic numbers, ignoring inflation. You have the opportunity to borrow up to 51K. What matters (and varies) is your postgraduation salary. Case 1 - you make 22K after graduation. You pay back 90 a year for 30 years, paying off at most 2700 of the loan. In this case, whether you borrow 2,800 or 28,000 makes no difference to the paying-off. You would do best to borrow as much as you possibly can, treating it as a grant. Case 2 - you make 100K after graduation. You pay back over 7K a year. If you borrowed the full 51, after 7 or 8 years it would be paid off (yeah, yeah, inflation, interest, but maybe that might make it 9 years.) In this case, the more you borrow the more you have to pay back, but you can easily pay it back, so you don't care. Invest your sponsorships and savings into something long term since you know you won't be needing to draw on them. Case 3 - you make 30K after graduation. Here, the payments you have to make actually impact how much disposable income you have. You pay back 810 a year, and over 30 years that's about 25K of principal. It will be less if you account for some (even most) of the payment going to interest, not principal. Anything you borrow above 25K (or the lower, more accurate amount) is "free". If you borrow substantially less than that (by using your sponsorship, savings, and summer job) you may be able to stop paying sooner than 30 years. But even if you borrow only 12K (or half the more accurate number), it will still be 15 years of payments. Running slightly more realistic versions of these calculations where your salary goes up, and you take interest into account, I think you will discover, for each possible salary path, a number that represents how much of your loan is really loan: everything above that is actually a grant you do not pay back. The less you are likely to make, the more of it is really grant. On top of that, it seems to me that no matter the loan/grant ratio, "borrow as much as you can from this rather bizarre source" appears to be the correct answer. In the cases where it's all loan, you have a lot of income and don't care much about this loan payment. Borrowing the whole 51K lets you invest all the money you get while you're a student, and you can use the returns on those investments to make the loan payments. |
Formula that predicts whether one is better off investing or paying down debt | you should always invest if your investment rate of return is higher than your interest rate Your next line, about standard deviation is dead on. There are too many variables to give an exact answer here, in my opinion. The main reason is that one variable isn't easy to quantify - One's risk tolerance. Clearly, there's one extreme, the 18% credit card. Unless you are funding loanshark type rates of 2%/week, it's safe to say that 18% debt should take priority over any investments, except for the matched 401(k) deposits. What I think you're talking about is something we've addressed here in multiple threads. Do I prepay my sub 4% mortgage or invest? In this case, (and to Noah's comment) the question is whether you can expect a post-tax return of over 3% during your time horizon. I look at the return for 15 years from 1998-2013 and see a 6% CAGR for the S&P. I chose 15 years, as the choice is often one of paying a 30 year mortgage faster, as fast as 15. The last 15 years offer a pretty bad scenario, 2 crashes and a mortgage crisis. 6% after long term gains would get you 5.1% net. You can pull the data back to 1871 and run CAGR numbers for the timeframe of your choosing. I haven't done it yet, but I imagine there's no 15 year span that lags the 3% target I cite. What makes it more complex is that the investment isn't lump sum. It may not be obvious, but CAGR is a dollar invested at T=0, and returns calculated to T=final year. It would take a bit of spreadsheeting to invest the extra funds every month/year over your period of analysis. In the end, there are still those who will choose to pay off their 4% mortgage regardless of what the numbers show. Even if the 15 year result showed worst case 3.5% (almost no profit) and an average 10%, the feeling of risk is more than many will want. |
Can an S-Corp write off work and merchandise expenses donated to a non-profit organization? | An S-corp doesn't pay income tax -- taxation is pass-through. This being the case, there are no tax deductions it could take for charitable giving. The solution would be for you to make the contribution out of your own pocket and then personally claim the deduction on your own taxes. |
super confused about bid and ask size. help | The principle of demand-supply law will not work if spoofing (or layering, fake order) is implemented. However, spoofing stocks is an illegal criminal practice monitored by SEC. In stock market, aggressive buyer are willing to pay for a higher ask price pushing the price higher even if ask size is considerably larger than bid size, especially when high growth potential with time is expected. Larger bids may attract more buyers, further perpetuating a price increase (positive pile-on effect). Aggressive sellers are willing to accept a lower bid price pushing the price lower even if ask size is considerably smaller than bid size, when a negative situation is expected. Larger asks may attract more sellers, further perpetuating a price fall (negative pile-on effect). Moreover, seller and buyers considers not only price but also size of shares in their decision-making process, along with marker order and/or limit order. Unlike limit order, market order is not recorded in bid/ask size. Market order, but not limit order, immediately affects the price direction. Thus, ask/bid sizes alone do not give enough information on price direction. If stocks are being sold continuously at the bid price, this could be the beginning of a downward trend; if stocks are being sold continuously at the ask price, this could be the beginning of a upward trend. This is because ask price is always higher than bid price. In all the cases, both buyers and sellers hope to make a profit in a long-term and short-term view |
If I have 10,000 stocks to sell with 23 B market cap | First a quick terminology correction: I believe you're proposing selling 10,000 shares of the stock of a company, not "10,000 stocks". When you sell, you need to decide whether you're selling for a specific minimum price or just selling for whatever price you can get. If you set a specific lower limit on asking price, then if people aren't interested at that price it doesn't sell. Which may mean you sell only a few shares, or none if your asking price isn't considered reasonable. If you want to sell independent of price, then as you begin to flood the market with your shares, the price you get per additional share may decline until it finds a buyer. What that lower limit is will depend on what people think the stock is currently worth. This is one of the many complications I don't want to deal with, which is why I stick with index funds. |
Entering the stock market in a poor economy | Forecasts of stock market direction are not reliable, so you shouldn't be putting much weight on them. Long term, you can expect to do better in stocks, but obtaining this better expected return has the danger of "buying in" to the market at a particularly bad moment, leading to a substantially lower return. So mitigate that risk while moving in a big piece of cash by "dollar cost averaging". An example would be to divide your cash hoard (conceptually) into say six pieces, and invest each piece in the index fund two months apart. After a year you will have invested the whole sum at about the average of the index for the year. |
Choose online stock trading companies | Lower fees are always better, everything else equal. A lower fee makes your transaction overall a better deal, all else equal. Other transactions costs (like the SEC fee on sales) are mostly the same across brokers and there is unlikely to be any difference in execution quality either. When comparing brokers be sure to consider the other issues: To me, most of these are minor issues. For that reason, I'd say let transaction cost be your guide. I hear a lot of talk about the quality of the interface. If you just want to buy or sell a stock, they are all pretty easy. Some brokers have better tools for monitoring the market or looking at technical indicators, if you are into that. |
Purchasing a home using collateral | Since you only own half of the house, you would most likely need the cooperation of whoever owns the other half in order to use it as collateral for a loan, but if you can do that, there's no reason you couldn't do what you're talking about. The complication is that if you default on the loan, the bank isn't going to seize half of the house. They'll repossess the entire house, sell it, and take what they're owed out of the proceeds, leaving you and whoever owns the other 50% to fight over the remnants. Even if the owner of the other half is family, they may be hesitant to risk losing the house if you don't pay your mortgage, so this could be a dicey conversation. |
Should I buy a house with a friend? | Sure, form an LLC with an attorney's advice. You need a buyout clause, operating agreement, etc. If you're not married, never buy a home for personal use with someone else. |
Are there any benefits of FMLA beyond preserving your job? | In your situation, it sounds like the only added benefit would be insurance continuance. For employees who can't access short-term disability it is a critical protection against losing their job. I just want to emphasize that given that you are in a pretty decent employment situation. |
For a mortgage down-payment, what percentage is sensible? | I think anything from 10% on demonstrates a reasonable ability to save. I would consider ongoing debt level a better indicator than the size of the down payment. It's been my experience that, without exception, there is a direct correlation between a persons use of revolving credit and their ability to manage their money & control their spending. Living in Seattle, I only put 10% down on my first house, but not only have we never missed a payment we have always paid extra and now have about 50% equity after 10 years with a family. Yet it would have taken me another year to save the other 10% during which time I would have burned that amount and 1/2 again in useless rent. |
Should I get a auto loan to diversify my credit lines if I have the cash to pay upfront | There is no need to get an auto loan just to try and affect your credit score. It is possible to have a score over 800 without any sort of auto loan. If you can afford to pay for the vehicle up front that is the better option. Even with special financing incentives it is better to pay up front if you can. Yes it is possible to use the funds to make more if you finance with a silly low interest rate, however it's also possible to lose a job or have some other financial disaster happen and need that money for something else making it more difficult to make the payment. It may be just me but I find the peace of mind not having the payment to be worth a lot. |
New to options trading and need help understanding an options spread risk graph. What am I missing? | Suppose the stock is $41 at expiry. The graph says I will lose money. I think I paid $37.20 for (net debit) at this price. I would make money, not lose. What am I missing? The `net debit' doesn't have anything to do with your P/L graph. Your graph is also showing your profit and loss for NOW and only one expiration. Your trade has two expirations, and I don't know which one that graph is showing. That is the "mystery" behind that graph. Regardless, your PUTs are mitigating your loss as you would expect, if you didn't have the put you would simply lose more money at that particular price range. If you don't like that particular range then you will have to consider a different contract. it was originally a simple covered call, I added a put to protect from stock going lower.. Your strike prices are all over the place and NBIX has a contract at every whole number.... there is nothing simple about this trade. You typically won't find an "always profitable" combination of options. Also, changes in volatility can distort your projects greatly. |
In what cases can states tax non-residents? | From the Massachusetts Department of Revenue: 1st - Massachusetts Source Income That is Excluded Massachusetts gross income excludes certain items of income derived from sources within Massachusetts: non-business related interest, dividends and gains from the sale or exchange of intangibles, and qualified pension income. 2nd - Massachusetts Source Income That is Included: Massachusetts gross income includes items of income derived from sources within Massachusetts. This includes income: 3rd - Trade or business, Including Employment Carried on in Massachusetts: A nonresident has a trade or business, including any employment carried on in Massachusetts if: A nonresident generally is not engaged in a trade or business, including any employment carried on in Massachusetts if the nonresident's presence for business in Massachusetts is casual, isolated and inconsequential. A nonresident's presence for business in Massachusetts will ordinarily be considered casual, isolated and inconsequential if it meets the requirements of the Ancillary Activity Test (AAT) and Examples. When nonresidents earn or derive income from sources both within Massachusetts and elsewhere, and no exact determination can be made of the amount of Massachusetts source income, an apportionment of income must be made to determine that amount considered Massachusetts gross income. 4th - Apportionment of Income: Apportionment Methods: The three most common apportionment methods used to determine Massachusetts source income are as follows: Gross income is multiplied by a: So if you go to Massachusetts to work, you have to pay the tax. If you collect a share of the profit or revenue from Massachusetts, you have to pay tax on that. If you work from Oregon and are paid for that work, then you don't pay Massachusetts tax on that. If anything, your company might have to pay Oregon taxes on revenue you generate (you are their agent or employee in Oregon). Does the answer change depending on whether the income is reported at 1099 or W-2? This shouldn't matter legally. It's possible that it would be easier to see that the work was done in Oregon in one or the other. I.e. it doesn't make any legal difference but may make a practical difference. All this assumes that you are purely an employee or contractor and not an owner. If you are an owner, you have to pay taxes on any income from your Massachusetts business. Note that this applies to things like copyrights and real estate as well as the business. This also assumes that you are doing your work in Oregon. If you live in Oregon and travel to Massachusetts to work, you pay taxes on your Massachusetts income in Massachusetts. |
Why don't some places require a credit card receipt signature, and some do? | This is basically done to reduce costs and overhead, with agreement of the credit card issuers. When the card is physically present and the charge is low, the burden of keeping the signed receipts and of additional delays at the cash register is not worth the potential risk of fraud. Depending on the location and the specific charge-back history of the business, the limit above which signature is required differs. In one supermarket in the area I live they require signatures only on charges above $50. In another, 10 miles away from the first one, they require signatures on charges above $25. |
How can I save money on a gym / fitness membership? New Year's Resolution is to get in shape - but on the cheap! | I came across an article posted at Squawkfox last week. It's particularly relevant to answering this question. See 10 Ways to Cut Your Fitness Membership Costs. Here's an excerpt: [...] If you’re in the market for a shiny new gym membership, it may be wise to read the fine print and know your rights before agreeing to a fitness club contract. No one wants to be stuck paying for a membership they can no longer use, for whatever reason. But if you’re revved and ready to burn a few calories, here are ten ways to get fitter while saving some cash on a fitness club or gym membership. Yay, fitness tips! [...] Check it out! |
Who receives the money when one company buys another? | It's tempting to think of a corporation as a real thing, because in many respects it seems to be. But it isn't a corporeal thing (despite the root word of the name). It may own corporeal things, and employ corporeal people, but it is not itself a real thing. Borrowing heavily from Prof Joseph Heath: It might be better to think of a corporation as the nexus of four separate entities: investors who provide capital, employees who do the work, suppliers who provide raw material, etc., and customers who purchase the products or services the corporation buys. In different organizations the 'owners' are different: in co-ops it's the suppliers, mutual insurance companies the customers, in employee-owned companies the employees, but in 90% of cases (including Monsanto) it's the investors. The investors who provided capital by buying shares of stock are the owners, and will be compensated. This frequently happens indirectly: You may own Monsanto stock through a mutual fund or other such aggregate which means that your mutual fund will get the money. Whether that winds up being a profit or loss is more complicated. |
Short Selling Specific to India | In India the only way to short a stock is using F&O which I personally find to be sufficient for any shorting needs. However, Futures can be generally sold for upto 3 months but options have more choices which are even upto 5 years you can buy a put of a longer duration and when you want to do buy-back, you can directly sell the same option by squaring-off the trade before expiry date. You generally get approximately the same profit as shorting but you get to limit your risk. |
What is the contribution limit for a SEP-IRA? | Both are saying essentially the same thing. The Forbes articles says "as much as 20% [...] up to a maximum of $50,000". This means the same as what the IRS page when it says the lesser of a percentage of your income or a total of $53,000. In other words, the $53k is a cap: you can contribute a percentage of your earnings, but you can never contribute more than $53k, even if you make so much money that 20% of your earnings would be more than that. (The difference between 20% and 25% in the two sources appears to reflect a difference in contribution limits depending on whether you are making contributions for employees, or for yourself as a self-employed individual; see Publication 560. The difference between $50k and $53k is due to the two pages being written in different years; the limits increase each year.) |
What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD? | If you were the friend of my daughter or some other "trusted" relationship, I would tell you to head on over to Bogleheads.org, follow their advice and do research there. I would advise you to aim for about a 60/40 allocation. They would advise you to make a very simple, do it yourself portfolio that could last a lifetime. No need for financial planners or other vultures. The other side of this curtailing your spending. Although the amount seems like a bunch, you probably need to keep your spending under 41K per year out of this money. If you have additional income such as from a job or social security payments then that could be on top of the 41k and never forget taxes. To help manage that, you may want to consult a CPA, but only for tax advice, not investment advice. Certainly you should make the credit card debt disappear. You may want to reevaluate your current location if the costs are too high compared to your income. Good luck to you and sorry about the wreck. |
If something is coming into my account will it be debit or credit in my account? | Most bank registers (where you write down entries) show deposits (+) to account as a CREDIT. Payments, fees, and withdrawals are DEBITs to your bank accounnt. On loans such as credit card accounts, a credit to your loan account is a payment or other reductions of the amount you owe. A charge to your account is a DEBIT to you loan account. They did this just to confuse us! |
How safe is a checking account? | US checking accounts are not really secure, though many people use them. One form of check fraud has been highlighted by Prof. Donald Knuth and carried out by Frank Abagnale, as portrayed in the film Catch Me If You Can. Basically, anyone can write a check that would draw from your account merely by knowing your account number and your bank's ABA routing number. With those two pieces of information (which are revealed on every check that you write), anyone can print a working check, either using a laser printer with MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) toner, or by placing an order with a check-printing company. The only other missing element is a signature, which is a pretty weak form of authentication. When presented with such a check, your bank would probably honor it before finding out, too late, that it is fraudulent. A variant of this vulnerability is ACH funds transfers. This is the mechanism through which you could have, say, your utility company automatically withdraw money from your account to pay your bill. Unfortunately, the transfer is initiated by the recipient, and the system relies largely on trust with some statistical monitoring for suspicious patterns. Basically, the whole US checking system is built with convenience rather than security in mind, since other institutions are able to initiate withdrawal transactions by knowing just the ABA number and account number. In practice, it works well enough for most people, but if you are paranoid about security, as you seem to be, you don't want to be using checks. The European system, which has largely eliminated checks in favor of payer-initiated push transactions, is safer by design. |
How to account for personal baby sitter? | You said your mother-in-law lives with you. Does she pay rent, or are you splitting the cost of housing? That would also have to figured into the equation. If you had a business you would now have to declare the expense on your business taxes. This would also then be income for her, which she would have to account for on her taxes. Remember there are both state and federal taxes involved. Regarding expenses like diapers. If the MIL had the business she could deduct them as a business expense. If you have the business it would greatly complicate the taxes. Your business would be essentially covering your personal expenses. If your MIL was not a business the cost of diapers would be paid by you regardless of the working situation of you and your spouse. To claim the tax credit: You must report the name, address, and taxpayer identification number (either the social security number, or the employer identification number) of the care provider on your return. If the care provider is a tax-exempt organization, you need only report the name and address on your return. You can use Form W-10 (PDF), Dependent Care Provider's Identification and Certification, to request this information from the care provider. If you do not provide information regarding the care provider, you may still be eligible for the credit if you can show that you exercised due diligence in attempting to provide the required information. The IRS will be looking for an income tax form from your MIL that claims the income. Getting too cute with the babysitting situation, by starting a business just for the purpose of saving money on taxes could invite an audit. Also it is not as if you just claim 3000 and you are good to go. You can only claim a percentage of the expenses based on the household AGI, the more the make the more you have to have in expenses to get the full 3000 credit, which mil cause more taxes for your MIL. Plus the whole issue with having to pay social security and other taxes on a household employee. It might be best to skip the risk of the audit. Claiming your MIL as a dependent might just be easier. |
What are the ins/outs of writing-off part of one's rent for working at home? | Be ruthlessly meticulous about the IRS regulations for deducting a home office. If it's allowed, it's allowed. |
What caused this drop? | I'm going to guess that you found this because of a stock screener. This company went through a 1:20 reverse split on June 30, so every 20 shares outstanding became a single share. Where before you had 20 shares worth $100 you now have 1 share worth $100, the value of the company doesn't change because of a split. This company was never trading for $30+ per share. Reverse splits are typical of a floundering company trading on an exchange that has a minimum share price requirement. While reverse splits don't change the value of the company, just the number of shares outstanding and the price per share, no healthy company performs a reverse split. Reverse splits are generally a massive signal to jump ship... The company seems to be trading for $1 right now, why the value fell from a pre-split $1.65 ($33/20) to $1 is anyone's guess; how the company ever got to $1.65 is also anyone's guess. But looking at the most recent 10-Q there are numerous causes for concern: Note 2. Capital Stock On March 6, 2017, the Company issued as compensation for services provided a total of 650,000 common shares with a fair value of $390,000 to a third party. The fair value of the shares was based on the price quoted on the OTC pink sheets on the grant date. this indicates a share price of $0.60 ($390,000/650,000) as of 3/6/2017, just to reinforce that the google price chart doesn't show the true past but a past adjusted for the split Results of Operations The three months ended March 31, 2017 compared to the three months ended March 31, 2016 For the three months ended March 31, 2017 compared to the three months ended March 31, 2016, total revenues were $0 and $0, respectively, and net losses from operations were $414,663 and $26,260, respectively. The net losses were attributable to costs attributable to operating as a public company, in particular, common stock with a valuation of $390,000 that was issued to an investor relations firm in the first quarter of 2017. Going Concern As of March 31, 2017, there is substantial doubt regarding our ability to continue as a going concern as we have not generated sufficient cash flow to fund our proposed business. We have suffered recurring losses from operations since our inception. In addition, we have yet to generate an internal cash flow from our business operations or successfully raised the financing required to develop our proposed business. As a result of these and other factors, our independent auditor has expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. Liquidity and Capital Resources We had no cash as of the date of March 31, 2017. Additionally, since there is no balance sheet in the last 10-Q (another bad sign), the last annual report 10-K has this balance sheet: So the company: So why did the stock value plummet? It's anyones' guess but there is no shortage of ways to justify it. In fact, it's reasonable to ask how is this company still worth $3mm ($1 * 3mm shares outstanding)... |
Does lender care what I use the money for? | When you borrow from a bank, there are secured loans, as with a mortgage, or unsecured lines of credit, usually a more reasonable amount of money, but also based on income. You just asked about a private loan. It depends on the person and your relationship. If you need money to pay the rent, you might not be the best person to lend money to. If you ask a friend or relative, they may lend you money without asking its purpose. |
Low Fee Income Generating Investments for a Trust | If your primary goal is no / minimized fees, there are 3 general options, as I see it: Based on the fact that you want some risk, interest-only investments would not be great. Consider - 2% interest equals only $1,500 annually, and since the trust can only distribute income, that may be limited. Based on the fact that you seem to have some hesitation on risk, and also limited personal time able to govern the trust (which is understandable), I would say keep your investment mix simple. By this I mean, creating a specific portfolio may seem desirable, but could also become a headache and, in my opinion, not desirable for a trust executor. You didn't get into the personal situation, but I assume you have a family / close connection to a young person, and are executor of a trust set up on someone's death. That not be the case for you, but given that you are asking for advice rather than speaking with those involved, I assume it is similar enough for this to be applicable: you don't want to set yourself up to feel emotionally responsible for taking on too much risk, impacting the trustee(s)'s life negatively. Therefore, investing in a few limited index funds seems to match what you're looking for in terms of risk, reward, and time required. One final consideration - if you want to maximize annual distributions to the trustee(s)'s, consider that you may be best served by seeking high-dividend paying stock (although again, probably don't do this on a stock-by-stock basis unless you can commit the time to fully manage it). Returns in the form of stock increases are good, but they will not immediately provide income that the trust can distribute. If you also wish to grow the corpus of the trust, then stock growth is okay, but if you want to maximize immediate distributions, you need to focus on returns through income (dividends & interest), rather than returns through value increase. |
Can my employer limit my maximum 401k contribution amount (below the IRS limit)? | My old company did this and set a limit at 13 percent which for me kept me well below putting the max into 401k. One had to make 120 - 130k to hit the irs max at 13 percent. So any explanation that the limit restricts high wage earner is BS. This limit restricts all low wage earners as their 13 percent max will be less than the max allowed. If a person making only 70k wants to put 17k into 401k fact is theycannot do this because they do not make enough the limit is discrimination against low-wage earners. Period. |
Should I pay off my car loan within the year? | First, don't owe (much) money on a car that's out of warranty. If you have an engine blow up and repairs will cost the lion's share of the car's bluebook value, the entire car loan immediately comes due because the collateral is now worthless. This puts you in a very miserable situation because you must pay off the car suddenly while also securing other transportation! Second, watch for possible early-payment penalties. They are srill lokely cheaper than paying interest, but run the numbers. Their purpose is to repay the lender the amount of money they already paid out to the dealer in sales commission or kickback for referring the loan. The positive effects you want for your credit report only require an open loan; owing more money doesn't help, it hurts. However, interest is proportional to principal owed, so a $10,000 car loan is 10 times the interest cost of a $1000 car loan. That means paying most of it off early can fulfill your purpose. As the car is nearer payoff, you can reduce costs further (assuming you cna handle the hit) by increasing the deductible on collision and comprehensive (fire and theft) auto insurance. It's not just you paying more co-pay, it also means the insurance company doesn't have to deal with smaller claims at all, e.g. Nodody with a $1000 deductivle files a claim on an $800 repair. If the amount you owe is small compared to its bluebook value, and within $1000-2000 of paid off, the lender may be OK with you dropping collision and comprehensive coverage altogether (assuming you are). All of this adds up to paying most of it off, but not all, may be the way to go. You could also talk to your lender about paying say, 3/4 of it off, and refinancing the rest as a 12-month deal. |
What should I do with the 50k I have sitting in a European bank? | Unfortunately I do not have much experience with European banks. However, I do know of ways to earn interest on bank accounts. CDs (Certificates of Deposit) are a good way to earn interest. Its basically a savings account that you cannot touch for a fixed rate of time. You can set it from an average of 6 months to 12 months. You can pull the money out early if there is an emergency as well. I would also look into different types of bank accounts. If you go with an account other than a free one, the interest rate will be higher and as long as you have the minimum amount required you should not be charged. Hope I was able to help! |
How Do Scammers / Money Launderers Profit From Loans To Victims | If they have your account numbers (which are necessary for direct deposits) they could possibly initiate ACH withdrawals from your accounts too (requires some setup but they may have accomplices). Note that even if you didn't have money there, depending on the local bank rules you may be still on the hook for overdrafts they create, at least by default. You may be able to prove later that this was fraud but the burden of proof will be on you, and in the meantime they might be gone with the money. They could use your documents to either establish other accounts in your name (identity theft) or take over your accounts (e.g. by contacting customer service of the bank and claiming to be you, and presenting the documents you sent as a proof), request credits under your identity (possibly using the money on the account as a collateral since the bank may not know where the money is from), etc. This is even easier given you will give them all the documents and information needed for a loan, your signature, etc. And the fact that they ask you to send documents to a specific address doesn't mean they could be found at that address when the problems start - it may be rented short-term, belong to either knowing or unknowing accomplice, be a forwarding service, etc. Could be money laundering of course too. That's just what comes to mind after a short while thinking about it. |
How to safely earn interest on business profits (UK) | Deposit it in a business savings account. The following below show you some options you can choose from. Next you can invest it in the market i.e. shares, bonds etc. If you have a more risky side, can go for peer to peer lending. If you are feeling really lucky and want to invest in the long term, then buy a property as a buy-to-let landlord. There are loads of options, you only need to explore. |
How can I claim tax back from whilst I was working in Austria? | I don't have any specific situation on the situation in Austria, but in general there are a few things that you should keep in mind. First of all, the official website of the Austrian tax authorities appears to be this one: https://www.bmf.gv.at/steuern/startseite-steuern.html. There is an English page there, but it is mainly aimed at international businesses. The part about tax treaties may be relevant, though. The general procedure is outlined here: https://www.bmf.gv.at/steuern/startseite-steuern.html. Like I said in my comment, most information is likely only available in German. I would strongly advise to ask help from someone who speaks German and is familiar with the tax system in Austria. The main thing that you would have to do first is to check of which country you are a resident for tax purposes. This is usually the country in which you lived for more than 183 days in the past year. If you moved during the year, and had income from more than one country, you may have to file tax returns in both countries. There are tax treaties between Austria and the UK (and most other countries), so you would have to check those treaties to find out what gets taxed where. In principle you get taxed only once, but usually you would have to declare all income. The last important thing is of course to make sure you submit before the relevant deadlines. |
I'm about to be offered equity by my employer. What should I expect? | In my experience, any kind of equity you may be offered by the company is just a carrot. Your offer may be written in such a way that your potential ownership represents, say, 1% of the company today. But if the company goes for a round of financing your ownership percentage can get diluted. If this happens a couple of times and the terms of financing aren't very favorable then your percentage can go from that 1% down to 0.001%, making the equity worthless. I've known people who heard their company was being bought and thought they might get some kind of payoff. Come to find out the company hadn't done all that well and there wasn't anything to pay out after the main investors got some money back. (The main investors took a loss.) For obvious reasons, management wasn't keeping the staff up to date about the fact that they were operating in the red and their options were worthless. Some people grumbled about lawyers and filing lawsuits, but at the end of the day, there wasn't any money to be won. Keep this in mind. As to your question regarding what to look out for: |
Buying and selling the same stock | If you buy for $1 and sell $1 when the price goes to $2, you would have sold only half of your initial investment. So your investment would now be worth $2 and you sell $1 leaving $1 still in the market. This means you would have sold half your initial investment, making a profit of $0.50 on this half of your initial investment, and having to pay CGT on this amount. |
What ways are there for us to earn a little extra side money? | Congratulations to you and good luck and good health with the baby. I had a friend in a similar situation, and I told him that he could do quite well by putting out the word to an upper-middle-class neighborhood that he was available to setup routers, home networks, etc. I suggested that he could start at a low enough wage that people would see the beneficial tradeoff to having him come over for a few hours versus doing it themselves. After a few months, he hired someone to take the extra work he was receiving, and directed the more routine requests his employee. He had a full-time job plus all the extra work he wanted. Most people who hire him simply want someone they would trust in their home, and his service spread by word-of-mouth. He also got to meet many people who liked him and were impressed by his work ethic, resulting in many good connections if he ever wanted to pursue other employment. My friend was an IT professional, the best support person at our tech-heavy firm, so he wasn't giving his time away. He did enjoy doing it, and he did enjoy the extra money. On an hourly basis, especially once he added the assistant, he was making more on the side than he did at his job. However, I believe he did start lower than that. Good luck! |
Where can one graph portfolio performance over time? | I've just started using Personal Capital (www.personalcapital.com) after seeing the recommendation at several places. I believe it gives you what you want to see, but I don't think you can back populate it with old information. So if you log in and link accounts today, you'll have it going forward. I only put in my investment accounts as I use another tool to track my day-to-day spending. I use Personal Capital to track my investment returns over time. How did my portfolio compare to S&P 500, etc. And here is a shot of the "You Index" which I think is close to what you are looking for: |
What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? | 2 things: |
Building a Taxable Portfolio Properly | Not a bad strategy. However: If you REALLY want tax efficiency you can buy stocks that don't pay a dividend, usually growth stocks like FB, GOOGL, and others. This way you will never have to pay any dividend tax - all your tax will be paid when you retire at a theoretically lower tax rate (<--- really a grey tax area here). *Also, check out Robin Hood. They offer commission free stock trading. |
Missing opportunity cost of mortgage prepayment | You seem to really have your financial act together. Your combination of assets, and ongoing savings makes you the ideal candidate for paying it off. One way to look at it is that your mortgage offers you a place to 'invest' at a fixed 2-7/8% rate. "I'd really like to not have a house payment" is all I need to hear. The flip side is the lecture that talks about long term market returns, the fact that the combination of your deductible mortgage, but 15% cap gain rate means you need 2.5% return to break even, and odds are pretty high that will occur over the next 15 years. "pretty high" does not equal "guaranteed". And I won't debate the value of sleeping soundly vs an excess 5-8% return on this money that you'd maybe achieve. You haven't missed anything. In fact, though I advocate saving first, you are already doing that. This is above and beyond. Good work. |
Full-time work + running small side business: Best business structure for taxes? | A tax return is a document you sign and file with the government to self-report your tax obligations. A tax refund is the payment you receive from the government if your payments into the tax system exceeded your obligations. As others have mentioned, if an extra $2K in income generated $5K in taxes, chances are your return was prepared incorrectly. The selection of an appropriate entity type for your business depends a lot on what you expect to see over the next several years in terms of income and expenses, and the extent to which you want or need to pay for fringe benefits or make pretax retirement contributions from your business income. There are four basic flavors of entity which are available to you: Sole proprietorship. This is the simplest option in terms of tax reporting and paperwork required for ongoing operations. Your net (gross minus expenses) income is added to your wage income and you'll pay tax on the total. If your wage income is less than approximately $100K, you'll also owe self-employment tax of approximately 15% in addition to income tax on your business income. If your business runs at a loss, you can deduct the loss from your other income in calculating your taxable income, though you won't be able to run at a loss indefinitely. You are liable for all of the debts and obligations of the business to the extent of all of your personal assets. Partnership. You will need at least two participants (humans or entities) to form a partnership. Individual items of income and expense are identified on a partnership tax return, and each partner's proportionate share is then reported on the individual partners' tax returns. General partners (who actively participate in the business) also must pay self-employment tax on their earnings below approximately $100K. Each general partner is responsible for all of the debts and obligations of the business to the extent of their personal assets. A general partnership can be created informally or with an oral agreement although that's not a good idea. Corporation. Business entities can be taxed as "S" or "C" corporations. Either way, the corporation is created by filing articles of incorporation with a state government (doesn't have to be the state where you live) and corporations are typically required to file yearly entity statements with the state where they were formed as well as all states where they do business. Shareholders are only liable for the debts and obligations of the corporation to the extent of their investment in the corporation. An "S" corporation files an information-only return similar to a partnership which reports items of income and expense, but those items are actually taken into account on the individual tax returns of the shareholders. If an "S" corporation runs at a loss, the losses are deductible against the shareholders' other income. A "C" corporation files a tax return more similar to an individual's. A C corporation calculates and pays its own tax at the corporate level. Payments from the C corporation to individuals are typically taxable as wages (from a tax point of view, it's the same as having a second job) or as dividends, depending on how and why the payments are made. (If they're in exchange for effort and work, they're probably wages - if they're payments of business profits to the business owners, they're probably dividends.) If a C corporation runs at a loss, the loss is not deductible against the shareholders' other income. Fringe benefits such as health insurance for business owners are not deductible as business expenses on the business returns for S corps, partnerships, or sole proprietorships. C corporations can deduct expenses for providing fringe benefits. LLCs don't have a predefined tax treatment - the members or managers of the LLC choose, when the LLC is formed, if they would like to be taxed as a partnership, an S corporation, or as a C corporation. If an LLC is owned by a single person, it can be considered a "disregarded entity" and treated for tax purposes as a sole proprietorship. This option is not available if the LLC has multiple owners. The asset protection provided by the use of an entity depends quite a bit on the source of the claim. If a creditor/plaintiff has a claim based on a contract signed on behalf of the entity, then they likely will not be able to "pierce the veil" and collect the entity's debts from the individual owners. On the other hand, if a creditor/plaintiff has a claim based on negligence or another tort-like action (such as sexual harassment), then it's very likely that the individual(s) involved will also be sued as individuals, which takes away a lot of the effectiveness of the purported asset protection. The entity-based asset protection is also often unavailable even for contract claims because sophisticated creditors (like banks and landlords) will often insist the the business owners sign a personal guarantee putting their own assets at risk in the event that the business fails to honor its obligations. There's no particular type of entity which will allow you to entirely avoid tax. Most tax planning revolves around characterizing income and expense items in the most favorable ways possible, or around controlling the timing of the appearance of those items on the tax return. |
Is there any online personal finance software without online banking? | PocketSmith is another tool you might like to consider. No personal banking details are required, but you can upload your transactions in a variety of formats. Pocketsmith is interesting because it really focus on your future cash flow, and the main feature of the interface is around having a calendar(s) where you easily enter one off or repetitive expenses/income. http://www.pocketsmith.com/ |
Are Chase credit cards commonly accepted for purchases? | If you read the fine print in the Pricing & Terms section of that card, you'll see: By becoming a Visa Business Card cardmember, you agree that the card is being used only for business purposes and that the card is being issued to a public or private company including a sole proprietor or employees or contractors of an organization. So that card is a Chase-branded Visa card, and should be accepted anywhere other Visa cards are. Credit cards are normally either MasterCard or Visa, although many of them make that rather inconspicuous. The only major exceptions I know of are American Express and Discover. (And store cards that are only good at one particular store.) |
What tax can I expect on US stocks in a UK ISA? | See my answer here What is the dividend tax rate for UK stock The only tax from US stocks you'd need to worry about would be dividend withholding tax of 30%. If you contact your ISA provider they should be able to provide you with a W8-BEN form so that you can have this rate reduced to 15%. Just because there's a tax treaty does not mean you will automatically be charged 15% - you must provide a W8-BEN form and renew it when it expires. That last 15% is unfortunately unavoidable. If you were paying any UK taxes you could claim that 15% as a discount against your UK dividend tax liability, but as your US stock would be wrapped in an ISA there's no UK tax to pay which means no tax to reclaim from the tax treaty. Other than DWT though, you will pay absolutely no tax on US stocks held in an ISA to either the US or UK government. |
What are the most efficient ways to bet on an individual stock beating the market? | tl;dr: Unfortunately, there is little available to the retail investor that fits your description. Institutional investors can use swaps to gain leverage on the above trade. A bank will build a basket of long MSFT and short SPY and then quote a rate against LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) and a margin requirement. So at the end of the swap the bank will pay the difference in total return between MSFT and SPY and the investor will pay some amount of cash back. The nice thing for the investor is that the margin requirement will often be fairly small if their credit is good so the investor can lever the trade up significantly. A retail investor could call up your broker and try to get the above but on the off chance they let you the margin requirement might be higher than just going short the SPY. If you aren't a retail investor, you might be able to do something like be long a 3X tech ETF and short 3X SPY ETF. If you are very clever you might be able to combine multiple levered tech ETFs to get something like 3X MSFT. However, I would strongly caution against levered etfs for most retail investors as the fees are high and levered etfs tend to strongly drift away from the index against the investor over anything but the shortest time periods. |
Does a growing economy mean the economy is becoming less efficient? | A growing economy should become more efficient because of increased opportunity for division of labor: specialization. External regulation or monetary policy external to the free market can cause parts of the economy to grow in response to said regulations. This creates inefficiencies that are wrung out of the economy after the policies reverse. A couple of examples: Tinkering with the economy causes the inefficiencies. |
Types of investments with built-in puts or similar safety features | Many mutual funds include such mechanisms. However, the higher fees for those funds (when compared to simple index funds) may cancel out any improvement the hedging strategy offers. |
What accounted for DXJR's huge drop in stock price? | Imagine you have a bank account with $100 in it. You are thinking about selling this bank account, so ask for some bids on what it's worth. You get quotes of around $100. You decide to sell it, but before you do, you take $50 out of it to have in cash. Would you expect the market to still pay $100 for the account? The dividend is effectively the cash being withdrawn. The stock had on account a large amount of cash (which was factored into it's share price), it moved that cash out of it's account (to its shareholders), and as a result the stock instantly becomes priced lower as this cash is no longer part of it, just as it is in the bank account example. |
Strategic countermeasures to overcome crisis in Russia | The ruble was, is and will be very unstable because of unstable political situation in Russia and the economy strongly dependent of the export of raw resources. What you can do? I assume, you want to minimize risk. The best way to achieve that is to make your savings in some stable currency. Euro and Swiss Franc are currently very stable currencies, so storing your surpluses in them is a very good option if you want to keep your money safe. To prevent political risk, you should keep your money in countries with stable political regime, which are unlikely to 'nationalize' the savings of the citizens in predictable future. As for your existing savings in rubles, it's a hard deal. I assume, as the web developer, you have a plenty of money, which have lost a lot of value. If you convert them to euro or francs, you will preserver the current value (after the loss). You'll safe them agaist ruble falling down, but in case the ruble will return to previous value, you'll loose. Keeping savings in instable currencies is, however, speculation, like investing in gold etc. So if you can mentally accept the loss and want to sleep good, convert them. You have also option to invest in properties, for example buy an extra appartment. It's a good way to deal with financial surplus in Europe in US, however you should be aware, in Russland it's connected with the political risk. The real estates can be confiscated in any moment by the state and you can't run away with it (the savings can also be confiscated, but there's a fair chance you'll manage to rescue them if you act quickly). |
What should I do with my money? | If you are in an economy which has a decent liquid debt market (corporate bonds, etc.), then you may look into investing in AA or AA+ rated bonds. They can provide higher returns than bank deposits and are virtually risk-free. (Though in severe economic downturns, you can see defaults in even very high-rated bonds, leading to partial or complete loss of value however, this is statistically quite rare). You can make this investment through a debt mutual fund but please make sure that you read through the offer document carefully to understand the investment style of the mutual fund and their expense ratio (which directly affect your returns). In any case, it is always recommended to reach out to an investment adviser who is good with local tax laws to minimize taxes and maximize returns. |
Do my 401k/Roth accounts benefit from compounding? | You buy a share of something for $100. It goes up by 10% over a year, and you now have $110 in value. It goes up by 10% next year and you now have $121. That original $10 increase was compounded even though you're not earning interest because the gains are measured as a percentage. If, instead, you'd only invested the second year you'd have less value. Assuming the markets average a positive gain (above inflation) you see greater gains the earlier you're invested. |
What bonds do I keep and which do I cash, why is the interest so different | Bonds released at the same time have different interest rates because they have different levels of risks and liquidity associated. Risk will depend on the company / country / municipality that offers the bond: their financial position, and their resulting ability to make future payments & avoid default. Riskier organizations must offer higher interest rates to ensure that investors remain willing to loan them money. Liquidity depends on the terms of the loan - principal-only bonds give you minimal liquidity, as there are no ongoing interest payments, and nothing received until the bond's maturity date. All bonds provide lower liquidity if they have longer maturity dates. Bonds with lower liquidity must have higher returns to compensate for the fact that you will have to give up your cash for a longer period of time. Bonds released at different times will have different interest rates because of what the general 'market rate' for interest was in those periods. ie: if a bond is released in 2016 with interest rates approaching 0%, even a high risk bond would have a lower interest rate than a bond released in the 1980s, when market rates were approaching 20%. Some bonds offer variable interest tied to some market indicator - those will typically have higher interest at the time of issuance, because the bondholder bears some risk that the prevailing market rate will drop. Note regarding sale of bonds after market rates have changed: The value of your bonds will fluctuate with the market. If a bond was offered with 1% interest, and next year interest rates go up and a new identical bond is offered for 2% interest, when you sell your old bond you will take a loss, because the market won't want to pay full price for it anymore. Whether you should sell lower-interest rate bonds depends on how you feel about the factors above - do you want junk bonds that have stock-like levels of returns but high risks of default, maturing in 30 years? Or do you want AAA+ Bonds that have essentially 0% returns maturing in 30 days? If you are paying interest on debt, it is quite likely that you could achieve a net income benefit by selling the bonds, and paying off debt [assuming your debt has a higher interest rate than your low-rate bonds]. Paying off debt is sometimes referred to as a 'zero risk return', because essentially there is no real risk that your lender would otherwise go bankrupt. That is, you will owe your bank the car loan until you pay it, and paying it is the only thing you can do to reduce it. However, some schools of thought suggest that maintaining savings + liquid investments makes sense even if you have some debt, because cash + liquid investments can cover you in some emergencies that credit cards can't help you with. ie: if you lose your job, perhaps your credit could be pulled and you would have nothing except for your liquid savings to tide you over. How much you should save in this way is a matter of opinion, but often repeated numbers are either 3 months or 6 months worth [which is sometimes taken as x months of expenses, and sometimes as x months of after-tax income]. You should look into this issue further; there are many questions on this site that discuss it, I'm sure. |
How to evaluate stocks? e.g. Whether some stock is cheap or expensive? | I look at the following ratios and how these ratios developed over time, for instance how did valuation come down in a recession, what was the trough multiple during the Lehman crisis in 2008, how did a recession or good economy affect profitability of the company. Valuation metrics: Enterprise value / EBIT (EBIT = operating income) Enterprise value / sales (for fast growing companies as their operating profit is expected to be realized later in time) and P/E Profitability: Operating margin, which is EBIT / sales Cashflow / sales Business model stability and news flow |
High Leverage Inflation Hedges for Personal Investors | Look into commodities futures & options. Unfortunately, they are not trivial instruments. |
Should I pay off my credit card online immediately or wait for the bill? | Theoretically there is always a time value of money. You'll need to keep your cash in a Money Market Fund to realize its potential (I'm not saying MMFs are the best investment strategy, they are the best kind of account for liquid cash). Choose an accounts that's flexible with regard to its minimum required so you can always keep this extra money in it and remove it when you need to make a payment. |
Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest? | When you buy something with your credit card, the store pays a fee to the credit card company, typically a base fee of 15 to 50 cents plus 2 to 3% of the purchase. At least, that's what it was a few years back when I had a tiny business and I wanted to accept credit cards. Big chain stores pay less because they are "buying in bulk" and have negotiating power. Just because you aren't paying interest doesn't mean the credit card company isn't making money off of you. In fact if you pay your monthly bill promptly, they're probably making MORE off of you, because they're collecting 2 or 3% for a month or less, instead of the 1 to 2% per month that they can charge in interest. The only situation I know where you can get money from a credit card company for free is when they offer "convenience checks" or a balance transfer with no up-front fee. I get such an offer every now and then. I presume the credit card company does that for the same reason that stores give out free samples: they hope that if you try the card, you'll continue using it. To them, it's a marketing cost, no different than the cost of putting an ad on television. |
Selling on eBay without PayPal? | It's been a short while since I sold on eBay, but I had a feedback rating of about 4,500 so I've done a lot of transactions. The trump card is, and always will be, the buyer's ability to contact their credit card company and reverse the charges. PayPal has no policy to stop this even though they claim to "vigorously defend Sellers from chargebacks" on their website. You will lose this case 100% of the time. I don't see how that will change if you have your own terminal. The Buyer can still reverse the charges. Since you know the card number maybe you can contact his credit card company but it's probably not going to do much. I've found PayPal is more Seller friendly in terms of PayPal claims. For example, the customer has a duty to pay postage to return the product and that's a cost for him. You also have things like online tracking which shows delivery and PayPal has an IP log to see where the payments are coming from. That helped me when a buyer claimed that someone else made the payment. Because people often break into someone's house and make PayPal payments for them....heh. You really just need to use PayPal. You'll get more customers and better prices and it will offset the losses from scammers. Also, about 99% of buyers are honest people. Consider the scammers a cost of doing business and keep making money off of the good Buyers. If you're just pissed off that people actually scammed you, get over it. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. It's just part of doing business on eBay. |
A stop order won't be automatically fired in after-hours trading? | Stop orders and stop limit orders typically do not execute during extended hours after the general market session has closed. Stop orders are market orders and market orders especially are not executed during extended hours. Although there are exceptions because a broker can say one thing and do another thing with the way order types are presented to customers vs what their programming actually does. The regulatory burden is a slap on the wrist, so you need to ask the broker what their practices are. Orders created during normal market hours do not execute in extended sessions, different orders would have to be made during the extended session. Your stop order should execute if the normal market hour price stays below your stop price. So a stop limit would actually be worse here, because a stop limit will create a limit order which may never get hit (since it is above the best bid best ask) |
Brent crude vs. USD market value | It's standard to price oil in US$. That means that if the US$ gets stronger, the prices of oil drops even if its "intrinsic value" remains constant. Same thing happens for other commodities, such as gold. Think of the oil price in barrels/$. If the denominator (value of the $) goes up, then the ratio tends to go down. |
When a stock price rises, does the company get more money? | Seems like no one in this thread has heard of "treasury stocks", which indeed allow a company to own and sell its own stock. Think about it. When there is a stock buy-back funded by excess profits, where does that stock go? |
Received an unexpected cashiers check for over $2K from another state - is this some scam? | This is a variation of a very common scam. The principle of the scam is this: I give you a check for a huge amount of money which you pay in your account. Then I ask you to pay some money from your account into a third account. Two months later the bank detects that my check was forged / stolen / cancelled / whatever and takes the huge amount of money away from your account. But you paid the money from your account, and that money is gone from your account and irrevocably ended up in my account. |
Why index funds have different prices? | Price, whether related to a stock or ETF, has little to do with anything. The fund or company has a total value and the value is distributed among the number of units or shares. Vanguard's S&P ETF has a unit price of $196 and Schwab's S&P mutual fund has a unit price of $35, it's essentially just a matter of the fund's total assets divided by number of units outstanding. Vanguard's VOO has assets of about $250 billion and Schwab's SWPPX has assets of about $25 billion. Additionally, Apple has a share price of $100, Google has a share price of $800, that doesn't mean Google is more valuable than Apple. Apple's market capitalization is about $630 billion while Google's is about $560 billion. Or on the extreme a single share of Berkshire's Class A stock is $216,000, and Berkshire's market cap is just $360 billion. It's all just a matter of value divided by shares/units. |
Can I get a mortgage from a foreign bank? | Simple answer YES you can, there are loads here are some links : world first , Baydon Hill , IPF Just googling "foreign currency mortgage", "international mortgage", or "overseas mortgage" gets you loads of starting points. I believe its an established and well used process, and they would be "classified" as a "normal" mortgage. The process even has its own wiki page Incidentally I considered doing it myself. I looked into it briefly, but the cost of fee's seemed to outweigh the possible future benefits of lower interest rates and currency fluctuations. |
What is the valuation of a company based on? | The textbook answer would be "assets-liabilities+present discounted value of all future profit". A&L is usually simple (if a company has an extra $1m in cash, it's worth $1m more; if it has an extra $1m in debt, it's worth $1m less). If a company with ~0 assets and $50k in profit has a $1m valuation, then that implies that whoever makes that valuation (wants to buy at that price) really believes one of two things - either the future profit will be significantly larger than $50k (say, it's rapidly growing); or the true worth of assets is much more - say, there's some IP/code/patents/people that have low book value but some other company would pay $1m just to get that. The point is that valuation is subjective since the key numbers in the calculations are not perfectly known by anyone who doesn't have a time machine, you can make estimates but the knowledge to make the estimates varies (some buyers/sellers have extra information), and they can be influenced by those buyers/sellers; e.g. for strategic acquisitions the value of company is significantly changed simply because someone claims they want to acquire it. And, $1m valuation for a company with $500m in profits isn't appropriate - it's appropriate only if the profits are expected to drop to zero within a couple years; a stagnant but stable company with $500m profits would be worth at least $5m and potentially much more. |
Is my wash sale being calculated incorrectly? | You add the wash sale loss to your cost basis for the other transaction so you would have two entries in your schedule d reporting 1.) Listing the $2000 loss as a wash 2.) The cost basis for your second transaction is thus $1000+$2000 = $3000 so when it was sold for $2000 you now have a reportable loss of $1000. For more information see here.... http://www.ehow.com/how_5313540_calculate-wash-sale.html |
Invest all at once after maxing out Roth IRA - or each time I contribute? | This depends on the terms and conditions of your IRA account, and those of the investments you have chosen. In general, you are better off investing as quickly as is feasible given those terms. Money in your cash account doesn't earn much of a return, so the quicker you get money into something earning a return, the better. However, pay attention to the fees and costs associated with investing. If there is a per-transaction fee, you may want to consolidate, as it may be more efficient to do so - after all, if you contribute $500 at a shot, and it costs you $5 to make a trade, you're paying 1% off the top to make that trade if you make 11 of them, versus 0.1% to make 1, so the question is do you earn that 1% back over the course of the six months? That will depend on what you are investing in. More than likely you're going to earn more than 1% over the course of the six months, so it's probably worth investing it in pieces still in that situation, but if the transaction cost is higher, or the time differential lower, you may have a less clear-cut answer. I invest at Vanguard in their funds and have no transaction fees, so I have a more obvious answer (invest as soon as possible). You also need to consider whether you have minimums to pay attention to - maybe your investment is something you can only buy whole shares of, for example, or you might have a much higher fee if you make small transactions. In that case, you should wait until you have the minimum to make that transaction if the fee is more than the return you'll get. So the answer is - make the transactions as early as you can, subject to considering the fees you will pay for making them. |
How's the graph of after/pre markets be drawn? | Graphs are nothing but a representation of data. Every time a trade is made, a point is plotted on the graph. After points are plotted, they are joined in order to represent the data in a graphical format. Think about it this way. 1.) Walmart shuts at 12 AM. 2.)Walmart is selling almonds at $10 a pound. 3.) Walmart says that the price is going to reduce to $9 effective tomorrow. 4.) You are inside the store buying almonds at 11:59 PM. 5.) Till you make your way up to the counter, it is already 12:01 AM, so the store is technically shut. 6.) However, they allow you to purchase the almonds since you were already in there. 7.) You purchase the almonds at $9 since the day has changed. 8.) So you have made a trade and it will reflect as a point on the graph. 9.) When those points are joined, the curves on the graph will be created. 10.) The data source is Walmart's system as it reflects the sale to you. ( In your case the NYSE exchange records this trade made). Buying a stock is just like buying almonds. There has to be a buyer. There has to be a seller. There has to be a price to which both agree. As soon as all these conditions are met, and the trade is made, it is reflected on the graph. The only difference between the graphs from 9 AM-4 PM, and 4 PM-9 AM is the time. The trade has happened regardless and NYSE(Or any other stock exchange) has recorded it! The graph is just made from that data. Cheers. |
Does a failed chargeback affect my credit score? | If this chargeback failed then would it negatively affect my credit score? A credit score is a measure of how dependable of a borrower you are. Requesting a refund for not receiving goods not delivered as promised, whether it is successful or it fails, should not impact your credit score since it has no implications on the likelihood that you will pay back debts. The last time I used that gym was the 13th January 2017, and I rejoined on the 20th December, so I have used it for less than a month. Therefore I do not think I should have to pay for two months Keep in mind that you purchased a membership to the gym. Whether or not you actually use the gym you are liable to pay for every month that you retain the membership. Although it probably won't hurt to try to get a refund for the period where you didn't take advantage of your gym membership, you weren't actually charged for a service that you never received (like in the last case where they charged you after you cancelled your membership). |
Need something more basic than a financial advisor or planner | In addition to a fee-only advisor, brought up by dg99, you could consider asking your questions on message boards such as Bogleheads.org. I have found the advice amazing, obviously conflict-free, and free. |
How to rebalance a portfolio without moving money into losing investments | A strategy of rebalancing assumes that the business cycle will continue, that all bull and bear markets end eventually. Imagine that you maintained a 50% split between a US Treasury bond mutual fund (VUSTX) and an S&P 500 stock mutual fund (VFINX) beginning with a $10,000 investment in each on January 1, 2008, then on the first of each year you rebalanced your portfolio on the first of January (we can pretend the markets are open that day). The following table illustrates the values in each of those funds with the rebalancing transactions: This second table shows what that same money would look like without any rebalancing over those years: Obviously this is cherry-picking for the biggest drop we've recently experienced, but even if you skipped 2008 and 2009, the increase for a rebalanced portfolio from 2010-2017 is 85% verses 54% for the portfolio that is not being rebalanced in the same period. This is also a plenty conservative portfolio. You can see that a 100% stock portfolio dropped 40% in 2008, but the combined portfolio only dropped 18%. A 100% stock portfolio has gained 175% since 2009, compared to 105% for the balanced portfolio, but it's common to trade gains for safety as you get closer to retirement. You didn't ask about a 100% stock portfolio in your initial question. These results would be repeated in many other portfolio allocations because some asset classes outperform others one year, then underperform the next. You sell after the years it outperforms, then you buy after years that it underperforms. |
Low risk hybrid investment strategy | There are a number of strategies using options and shares together. One that sells large potential upside gains to assure more consistent medium returns is to "write covered calls". This fairly conservative and is a reasonable entry point into options for an individual investor. Deeper dive into covered calls |
Why don't banks print their own paper money / bank notes? | In the US, this was the case during the 19th century. There was a system of "subscriptions" between banks, where larger banks backed the smaller banks to some extent. In trade, notes from distant banks were not accepted or discounted relative to known local banks, or silver/gold coinage. There were a number of problems with this system which came to a head during the Panic of 1907. During this crisis, a cascading series of banking failures was only stopped by the personal intervention of JP Morgan. Even when Morgan intervened, it was very difficult to make capital available in a way that avoided the panic. The subsequent creation of the Federal Reserve was a response to that crisis. |
Homeowners: How can you protect yourself from a financial worst-case scenario? | Think about your priorities in life. Everybody is a little different. In my case I have a wife and child, so these are priorities for me, and you might have your own depending on your story. So if I lost my job, and I have no more money coming in (unemployment insurance runs out, savings depleted) then the bank can have the house. I personally would probably drop the house long before it came to that point. The first thing you do is talk to your creditors and work out a deal. At the same time I would stop paying for ALL unnecessary things (cable TV, extra cell phones, automobiles, leaving light bulbs on and turning the heat up over putting on a sweater). If I can't get a good deal from the creditors, I would stop paying the mortgage, find a place to live (family, friends, cheap apartment) while the credit is still good. My advice is to get yourself setup while your credit is good and you have SOME money in the bank. Waiting until the bank decides to foreclose is probably going to make your harder. |
Acquiring first office clothes | Like the other answers, I'm not entirely sure the equivalent exists in your country. But in the US there are thrift stores run by charities like GoodWill or the Salvation Army that sell clothes for very little money. When my wife was in a similar situation very early in her career she learned the trick of driving to thrift stores nearest to the richest neighborhoods in town. She often found high dollar designer clothes that had been worn once (to an event or party) and then donated. Apparently it is quite gauche for the well-to-do to be caught dead in the same outfit twice. It wasn't uncommon for her to find clothes/shoes that retailed for hundreds of dollars for $10 or so. |
What is the purpose of endorsing a check? | I actually had to go to the bank today and so I decided to ask. The answer I was given is that a check is a legal document (a promise to pay). In order to get your money from the bank, you need to sign the check over to them. By endorsing the check you are attesting to the fact that you have transferred said document to them and they can draw on that account. |
How and where can I deposit money to generate future payments / income? | Reversing your math, I am assuming you have $312K to work with. In that case, I would simply shop around your local banks and/or credit unions and have them compete for your money and you might be quite surprised how much they are willing to pay. A couple of months ago, you would be able to get about 4.25% from Israel Bonds in Canada on 5 years term (the Jubilee product, with minimum investment of $25K). It's a bit lower now, but you should still be able to get very good rates if you shop around tier-2 banks or credit unions (who are more hungry for capital than the well-funded tier-1 banks). Or you could look at preferred shares of a large corporation. They are different from common shares in the sense they are priced according to the payout rate (i.e. people buy it for the dividend). A quick screen from your favorite stock exchange ought to find you a few options. Another option is commercial bonds. You should be able to get that kind of return from investment grade (BBB- and higher) bonds on large corporations these days. I just did a quick glance at MarketWatch's Bond section (http://cxa.marketwatch.com/finra/BondCenter/Default.aspx) and found AAA grade bonds that will yield > 5%. You will need to investigate their underlying fundamentals, coupon rate and etc before investing (second thought, grab a introduction to bonds book from Chapters first). Hope these helps. |
Why do some companies (like this company) have such a huge per share price? | Simple answer is because the stocks don't split. Most stocks would have a similar high price per share if they didn't split occasionally. Why don't they split? A better way to ask this is probably, why DO most stocks split? The standard answer is that it gives the appearance that stocks are "cheap" again and encourages investors to buy them. Some people, Warren Buffett (of Berkshire Hathaway) don't want any part of these shenanigans and refuse to split their stocks. Buffett also has commented that he thinks splitting a stock also adds unnecessary volatility. |
How does 1099 work with my own company | Can I work on 1099 from my own company instead of on W2? The reason is on W2 I can't deduct my commute, Health Insurance and some other expenses while on 1099 I think I can able do that. Since I am going to client place to work not at my own office, I am not sure whether I should able to do that or not. If you have LLC, unless you elected to tax it as a corporation, you need neither 1099 nor W2. For tax purposes the LLC is disregarded. So it is, from tax perspective, a sole proprietorship (or partnership, if multiple members). Being a W2 employee of your own LLC is a bad idea. For all these above expenses, which can I use company's debit/credit card or I need to use only my personal debit/credit card? It would be better to always use a business account for business purposes. Doesn't matter much for tax per se, but will make your life easier in case of an audit or a legal dispute (limited liability protection may depend on it). If I work on 1099, I guess I need to file some reasonable taxes on quarterly basis instead of filing at year end. If so, how do I pay my tax on quarterly basis to IRS? I mean which forms should I file and how to pay tax? Unless you're a W2 employee, you need to do quarterly estimate payments using form 1040-ES. If you are a W2 employee (even for a different job, and even if it is not you, but your spouse with whom you're filing jointly) - you can adjust your/spouse's withholding using form W4 to cover the additional tax liability. This is, IMHO, a better way than paying estimates. There are numerous questions on this, search the site or ask another one for details. |
Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT | I am able to set this up for my tenants by providing them with a form to fill out so that they provide their name and bank account information, and then I gave that to my bank and they establish a recurring ACH transfer. This way the tenant never gets my bank information. One note about this, I had a tenant break her lease and move out. She notified me a couple of days before the first of the month, and by the time she had moved a few days later the rent had been automatically paid. She called her bank and asked them to reverse the most recent transaction so she could have that month's rent refunded, and much to my surprise, they did. So the financial transfer is not necessarily one-way. This is in the US. |
When does a low PE ratio not indicate a good stock? | Some companies have a steady, reliable, stream of earnings. In that case, a low P/E ratio is likely to indicate a good stock. Other companies have a "feast or famine" pattern, great earnings one year, no earnings or losses the following year. In that case, it is misleading to use a P/E ratio for a good year, when earnings are high and the ratio is low. Instead, you have to figure out what the company's AVERAGE earnings may be for some years, and assign a P/E ratio to that. |
Canada discount stock brokers: Interactive Brokers vs. Questrade? | I have had accounts at both IB and Questrade. Whatever you've heard about Questrade, sadly much of it is true pertaining to 2007-2009. I have not had any issues with their service, and making the few trades I do with the QuestraderWEB service has been flawless. In the time that I've had the account, their service has constantly been improving (statements are easier to read, customer service is more responsive). You should read what FrugalTrader and Canadian Capitalist have to say along with the combined 1000+ comments before deciding. Interactive Brokers is a whole different world. Those guys are the definition of real-time. You can get daily and weekly statements, along with the typical monthly statements. Buying power, margin, etc, is all updated in real-time and viewable in their TWS software. Trading fees are definitely lower than Questrade unless you're routinely trading 800-1000+ shares. Most of my trades cost $1. Options have a lower limit before Questrade makes more sense. And nothing beats IB for forex. Ultimately it really depends on what you will be doing. Note that IB charges a minimum monthly fee of $10 ($3 if you're young and foolish). If you don't hit that with commissions, the balance is taken from your account. Also, all other fees are passed on to you (e.g. data, order cancellation). IB also doesn't have any registered accounts such as TFSA or RRSP, and doesn't plan to. If you'll be doing a bunch of hefty trading, IB offers a trading platform free of charge, but charges for everything else. Questrade instead has a monthly fee for its QuestraderPRO and QuestraderELITE services, but that includes data and flat rate commissions. If you're just looking for a place to invest cheaply without extra fees and plan on making a few trades a year, Questrade might be the right choice. |
Is working on a W2 basis, with benefits paid to me, a good idea? | It's hard to answer without knowing all of the details (i.e. what was your salary for each of the options), but I think you probably made a good choice. 1099: Would have required you to pay self-employment tax, but also would have allowed you to deduct business expenses. W2 with benefits: Likely would have been beneficial if you needed healthcare (since group plans can be cheaper than individual plans, and healthcare payments aren't taxed), but if you don't use the healthcare, that would have been a waste. W2, no benefits: Assuming your salary here falls between the 1099 and the W2 with benefits, it seems like a good compromise for your situation. |
Are Shiller real-estate futures and options catching on with investors? | The Case-Schiller macro derivatives market has seen very minimal activity. For example, in the three regional markets of San Diego (SDG), Boston (BOS) and Los Angeles (LAX) on 28 November 2011, there was zero trading volume, no trades settled, no open interest. * Source: CME Futures and options activity[PDF] for all 20 regional indices. Why haven't these real-estate futures caught on with investors? Keep in mind that the CME introduced these indices, with support from Professor Shiller and partner Standard & Poor's several years ago. The CME seems committed to wait this out, as they have shown no indication of dropping the Case-Shiller indices. There are alternative real-estate investment securities to the Case-Shiller indices. I don't think the market of investors is so small that Case-Shiller has been, in effect, "crowded out" by them. I think it is more likely a matter of known quantities. Also, I don't know how well these alternatives are doing! Additional reference: CME spec's for Case-Shiller index futures and options contracts. |
Might I need a credit score to rent, or for any other non-borrowing finances? | Alas, institutions do not always act rationally, and being an outlier by never having debt may be bad enough. Therein is your problem. The question, then, is do you want to do business with institutions that are not acting rationally? While I cannot specifically speak to Canadian business practices, I have to imagine that in terms of credit history as a prerequisite to a lease, it can't be too different than America. It is possible to live without a credit score. This is typically done by those with enough resources that do not need to borrow money. To make transactions that commonly use credit scores, such as a lease, they will provide personal financial statements (balance sheets, personal income statements, bank statements, pay stubs, tax returns, etc...) to show that they are credit-worthy. References from prior landlords may also be beneficial. Again, the caveat is to elect to only conduct business with those individuals and institutions that are intelligent and rational enough to be able to analyze your financial position (and ability to pay) without a credit score. Therefore, you'll probably have better luck working with individual landlords, as opposed to corporate-owned rental complexes. |
Can the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) itself go bankrupt? | Not sure if I follow your question completely. Re: What if some fraud takes place that's too big even for it to fund? SIPC does not fund anything. What it does is takes over the troubled brokerage firm, books / assets and returns the money faster. Refer to SIPC - What SIPC Covers... What it Does Not and more specifically SIPC - Why We Are Not the FDIC. SIPC is free for ordinary investors. To get the same from elsewhere one has to pay the premium. Edit: The event we are saying is a large brokrage firm, takes all of the Margin Money from Customer Accounts and loses it and also sell off all the stocks actually shown as being held in customer account ... that would be to big. While its not clear as to what exactly will happens, my guess is that the limits per customers will go down as initial payments. Subsequent payments will only be done after recover of funds from the bankrupt firm. What normally happens when a brokrage firm goes down is some of the money from customers account is diverted ... stocks are typically safe and not diverted. Hence the way SIPC works is that it will give the money back to customer faster to individuals. In absence of SIPC individual investors would have had to fight for themselves. |
At what interest rate should debt be used as a tool? | Money is a commodity like any other, and loans are a way to "buy" money. Like any other financial decision, you need to weigh the costs against the benefits. To me, I'm happy to take advantage of a 0% for six months or a modest 5-6% rate to make "capital" purchases of stuff, especially for major purchases. For example, I took out a 5.5% loan to put a roof on my home a few years ago, although I had the money to make the purchase. Why did I borrow? Selling assets to buy the roof would require me to sell investments, pay taxes and spend a bunch of time computing them. I don't believe in borrowing money to invest, as I don't have enough borrowing capacity for it to me worth the risk. Feels too much like gambling vs. investing from my point of view. |
Is there such a thing as a deposit-only bank account? | I would suggest opening a bank account that you use to accept deposits only, and then get a system set up where it automatically transfers the money over to your main account. If not instantly it could transfer the money hourly or daily. Of course you would have to pay a premium for this "peace of mind" ;) |
Is there a widely recognized bond index? | Keep in mind that the bond market is dominated by US Treasury securities... if there were an S&P 500 for bonds, the US would take positions 1-400. Be careful that you understand what's in your bond funds -- you may not be as diversified as you think. |
Why do stock prices change? [duplicate] | None of that is filtered my way as a "part owner". Sure it is, it's just not always obvious. When a company makes money it either: Other then the fourth option, the first three all increase the total value of the company. If you owned 1% of a company that was worth X, and is now worth X+1, the value of that 1% ownership should go up as well. One model of the value of a share of stock is the present value of all future cash flows that the company produces for its shareholders, which would be either through dividends, earnings (provided that they are invested back into the company) or through liquidation (sale). So as earnings increase (or more accurately as projected future earnings increase), so does the value of a share of the company. Also note that the payment of dividends causes the price of a stock to go down when the dividend is paid, since that's equity (cash) that's leaving the company, reducing the value of the company by an equivalent amount. Of course, there's also something to be said for the behavioral aspect of investing, meaning that people sometimes invest in companies that they like, and sell stock of companies that they don't like or disagree with (e.g. Nordstrom's). |
How to calculate money needed for bills, by day | I think you might benefit from adopting a zero-sum budget, in which you plan where each dollar will be spent ahead of time, rather than simply track spending or worry about the next expense. Here's a pretty good article on the subject: How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget. This is the philosophy behind a popular budgeting tool You Need a Budget, I am not advocating the tool, but I am a fan of the idea that a budget is less about tracking spending and more about planning spending. That said, to answer your specific question, one method for tracking your min-needed for upcoming expenses would be to record the date, expense, amount due, and amount paid as shown here: Then the formula to calculate the min-needed (entered in E1 and copied down) would be: As you populate amounts paid, the MinNeeded is adjusted for all subsequent rows. You could get fancier and only populate the MinNeeded field on dates where an expense is due using IF(). |
Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | I have an example that may be interesting for your question. My grandfather had a tennis club around 35 years ago, and some other businesses. Some investments went bad and he was heading for bankruptcy due to the tennis club's expensive payments. So he asked to renegotiate a variable rate rather than a fixed rate, even though the interest rates were going up, not down. The idea was that if the current situation is going to bankrupt you, taking a chance might be better. As an analogy, if you can't swim and you'll drown in 6 feet of water, it doesn't matter that you're taking the risk to go deeper. You might have to take that chance to survive. He did keep the tennis club in the end but that's irrelevant here. For student loans, if I'm not mistaken, declaring bankruptcy doesn't free you of all their debt, so it may not be applicable. And this situation is when renegotiating, not when negotiating the first time. because obviously if you're in trouble financially, taking a loan you know you can't repay is suicide. |
Can you buy out a pink sheet listed company by purchasing all of the oustanding shares? | Depends on the structure of the company and what shares are outstanding. If the pink sheet stock has no voting power then buying all that stock doesn't get you any control at all. On the other hand, if the outstanding shares only represent 20% of the company's overall shares, then buying all the shares isn't likely enough to have a controlling interest. Thus, you'll have to dig into the details. If you want an example of where I'd have my doubts, look at Nestle's stock which has the ticker of NSRGY. There can be companies that are structured with stock on multiple exchanges that can also be a challenge at times. There is also something to be said if you own enough stock in a company that this has to be disclosed to the SEC when you buy more. |
How do currency markets work? What factors are behind why currencies go up or down? | The fiat currency is the basis for currency markets - that is, currency that is not made of precious metals. The factors that influence what the value of a fiat currency are the state of the country's economy, what the gov't says the value should be, their fiscal policies, as well as what the currency is trading at. And what the currency is trading at is a product of these factors as well as the typical factors which would affect any stock trading. eHow has a great outline, here, which describes them. |
P/E (or similar) for index funds? | ycharts.com has "Weighted Average PE Ratio" and a bunch of other metrics that are meant to correspond to well known stock metrics. Other websites will have similar ratios. |
Learn investing as a programmer | The software you provided as an example won't teach you much about investing. The most important things of investing are: These are the only free lunches in investing. Allocation tells you how much expected return (and also how much risk) your portfolio has. Diversification is the only way to reduce risk without reducing return; however, just note that there is market risk that cannot be eliminated with diversification. Every penny you save on costs and taxes is important, as it's guaranteed return. If you were to develop e.g. software that calculates the expected return of a portfolio when given allocation as an input, it could teach you something about investing. Similarly, software that calculates the average costs of your mutual fund portfolio would teach you something about investing. But sadly, these kinds of software are uncommon. |
How are the best way to make and save money at 22 years old | Determine how much you are going to save first. Then determine where you can spend your money. If you're living with your parents, try to build an emergency fund of six months income. The simplest way is to put half of your income in the emergency fund for a year. Try to save at least 10% of your income for retirement. The earlier you start this, the longer you'll have to let the magic of compounding work on it. If your employer offers a 401k with a match, do that first. If not, consider an IRA. You probably want to do a Roth now (because you probably pay little in taxes so the deduction from a standard IRA won't help you). After the year, you'll have an emergency fund. Work out how much money you'll need for rent, utilities, and groceries when you're on your own. Invest that in some way. Pay off student loans if you have any. Buy a car that you can keep a long time if you need one. Go to night school. Put any excess money in a savings account or mutual fund. This is money for doing things related to housing. Perhaps you'll need to buy a washer/dryer. Or pay a down payment on a mortgage eventually. Saving this money now does two things: first, it gives you savings for when you need it; second, it keeps you from getting used to spending your entire paycheck. If you are used to only having $200 of spending cash out of each check, you will fit your spending into that. If you are used to spending $800 every two weeks, it will be hard to cut your spending to make room for rent, etc. |
how does one see the CBOE VIX index on Google Finance? | You can pull up the VIX index on Google Finance by entering INDEXCBOE:VIX |
Making your first million… is easy! (??) | I realize that "a million dollars" is a completely arbitrary figure, but it's one people fixate on. Perhaps folks just meant it's getting easier because inflation has made it a far less lofty sum than when the word "millionaire" was coined. Your point is correct - it' relatively easier as the 1 million dollar nowadays is no where as valuable as compared in the old days after the inflation adjustment. However the way to achieve that is easier said than done: The most possible way is to run your own business (assuming you will make profit). For most of the people running a job to earn a living - the job income is the biggest factor. Being extremely frugal wouldn't help much if you don't maximize your income potential. Earning a million dollar through investment? How much capitals are you able to invest in? 5k? 50k? 500k? I see no way to earn 1 million with 5k from investment, I wouldn't call it easy. This again depends on your income. With better income of course you could dedicate a larger portion to investment, without exposing too much risk and having to affect your way of life. (3) Invest some part of your income over a long period of time and let the stock market do the work I'd say this is more geared towards beating the inflation and earn a few extra bucks instead of getting very rich (this is being very relative). Just a word of cautions, the mindset of investment being the shortcut to wealth is very dangerous and often leads to speculative behavior. |
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