Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
Is it better to buy U.S ADRs or stock in native stock exchange for a foreigner? | It depends. An ADR might be exposed to a larger market (let's say American) with more volume and thus lower spreads, and thus cheaper. But it can also be the other way around, that the ADR serves a smaller market than the home market. I would go for the largest market, with the most volume so it's quicker and cheaper to buy/sell. Often ADR has less shares, meaning that the availability is lower and the prices higher (more expensive). This is often the case with Asian stocks where governments try to limit their company's exposure to foreigners. As a general rule I would buy the 'home' stock instead of ADR. From a tax standpoint it's also easier to comply with local laws. Your local accountant will be more familiar dealing with local stocks. |
Why is OkPay not allowed in the United States? | If you read the link that MD-Tech provided, it actually indicates that the foreign companies (mostly banks) are choosing not to work with the United States in their latest answer, so it looks like it's not OkPay, but the financial companies that they use. On further research, the reason that this is banned is to prevent capital flight in the future. OkPay offers may ways to transfer funds in and out, such as traditional credit cards, like VISA and MasterCard, and other non-traditional ways, such as crypto-coins. Here is another example of how the US government is limiting what US consumers can do with their money. Apparently while no one was looking in 2010, they were able to pass some new restrictions. |
Should I invest in the pre-IPO company stock offered by my employer? | Should I invest money in the pre-IPO stocks soon to be offered by the company that I work for? Is it wise to do this? What should I be thinking about? What are the risks? The last time I was offered pre-IPO friends and family stock, I purchased half of my allotment, and had my parents purchase the other half. Since I had a 6-month blackout period, I had to hold my portion. My parents sold their portion one day after the IPO. The price went up dramatically for about a day and a half, then dived continuously. My portion ended up being worthless. My parents made a few bucks. Good for them. Not a huge deal either way, since my cost was relatively low. If I had a chance to do it again, I'd give it all to friends or family instead of splitting it, and have them sell quickly if they realized a profit. You might be luckier than I was. |
Can my U.S. company do work for a foreign company and get wire transfers to my personal account? | It seems that you're complicating things quite a bit. Why would you not create a business entity, open one or more bank accounts for it, and then have the money wired into those accounts? If you plan on being a company then set up the appropriate structure for it. In the U.S., you can form an S-corporation or an LLC and choose pass-through taxation so that all you pay is income tax on what you receive from the business as personal income. The business itself would not have tax liability in such a case. Co-mingling your personal banking with that of your business could create real tax headaches for you if you aren't careful, so it's not worth the trouble or risk. |
Do credit ratings (by Moody's, S&P, and Fitch) have any relevance? | I like Muro questions! No, I don't think they do. Because for me, as a personal finance investor type just trying to save for retirement, they mean nothing. If I cannot tell what the basic business model of a company is, and how that business model is profitable and makes money, then that is a "no buy" for me. If I do understand it, they I can do some more looking into the stock and company and see if I want to purchase. I buy index funds that are indexes of industries and companies I can understand. I let a fund manager worry about the details, but I get myself in the right ballpark and I use a simple logic test to get there, not the word of a rating agency. If belong in the system as a whole, I could not really say. I could not possibly do the level of accounting research and other investigation that rating agencies do, so even if the business model is sound I might lose an investment because the company is not an ethical one. Again, that is the job of my fund manager to determine. Furthermore and I mitigate that risk by buying indexes instead of individual stock. |
Calculation of Loss for GM Bonds and Cost Basis of New Issues | I will say in advance this is not a great answer, but I had a similar experience when I owned a CIT bond that defaulted. I ended up getting stock plus 5 newly issued bonds as a replacement for my defaulted bond. My broker had no clue on cost basis and didn't even try for the new securities, I called the "hotline" setup about CIT default and they knew nothing, and finally I read all the paperwork around the restructuring but it was less than transparent. So in the end I ended up claiming everything as a wash, no gain/no loss - which probably screwed me in the end as I believe I ended up down. It was a very small position for me and was not worth the headache :( |
Does the P/E ratio not apply to bond ETFs? | The simple answer is technically bonds don't have earnings, hence no P/E. What I think the OP is really asking how do I compare stock and bond ETFs. Some mature stocks exhibit very similar characteristics to bonds, so at the margin if you are considering investing between 2 such investments that provide stable income in the form of dividends, you might want to use the dividend/price ratio (D/P) of the stock and compare it to the dividend yield of the bond. If you go down to the basics, both the bond and the stock can be considered the present value of all future expected cashflows. The cash that accrues to the owner of the stock is future dividends and for the bond is the coupon payments. If a company were to pay out 100% of its earnings, then the dividend yield D/P would be conveniently E/P. For a company with P/E of 20 that paid out it's entire earnings, one would expect D/P = 1/20 = 5% This serves as a decent yard stick in the short term ~ 1 year to compare mature stock etfs with stable prospects vs bond funds since the former will have very little expected price growth (think utilities), hence they both compete on the cashflows they throw off to the investor. This comparison stops being useful for stock ETFs with higher growth prospects since expected future cashflows are much more volatile. This comparison is also not valid in the long term since bond ETFs are highly sensitive to the yield curve (interest rate risk) and they can move substantially from where they are now. |
Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer | It's probably a scam or maybe some amateur agency trying to put pressure on their target. Normal garnishment goes through the court system. Just ignore it. Tell your employer they obviously have the wrong person since the SS is wrong. Suing clowns like this is not worth it. Just to clarify this some more for you: Trying to collect on a random person with the same name is called "tagging" in the collection industry. Before 2010 it was common because it was actually easier to legally bully the wrong person (who had money) than the right person who does not have money. That was then, this is now. Various federal and state laws have been passed since that time to prevent identity theft and these laws create big liabilities for debt collectors that try to bully the wrong person. Therefore, it rarely happens anymore, though of course sometimes agencies will still call you if they think they have a soft target. That's what the call to your employer is, just a test. A pro collector (like a law firm) would never call an employer, because they could get sued for doing that, but some amateur working out of his basement might. That's what you are dealing with: some joker in a basement. Such people never sue, they just buy old debt for pennies on the dollar and try random harassing phone calls. Ignore it and he will move on to the next "John Smith" on his list. A lot of lawyers will advise you to "talk" to the collector, correcting their misinformation, blah blah. Lawyers like talking, because the more talk there is, the more money they make. In the real legal world: never talk to your enemy or give them information. The way real courts and judges work is that they don't like plaintiffs who sue the wrong person. In fact, they do not like it VERY MUCH. Very bad things happen in courtrooms to people who sue the wrong person. Judges have VERY short patience in general and they DO NOT LIKE IT when somebody wastes their time by suing the wrong person. Basically what this means is: ignore the guy and he will go away. |
Why are there so many stock exchanges in the world? | Stock exchanges have been undergoing a period of consolidation for the past hundred years for the exact reasons you mentioned. The existence of digital trading, harmonized laws and regulations, and fewer relevant currencies have made it more practical for mergers and acquisitions between exchanges. Stock exchanges are most often times private companies that compete with other exchanges, so that also promotes the existence of many exchanges. |
Options tax treatment | You owe no tax on the option transaction in 2015 in this case. How you ultimately get taxed depends on how you dispose of the position. If it expires, then you will have a short-term capital gain on the option position at expiration. If it is exercised, then the option is "gone" for tax purposes and your basis in the underlying is adjusted. From IRS Publication 550: If a call you write is exercised and you sell the underlying stock, increase your amount realized on the sale of the stock by the amount you received for the call when figuring your gain or loss. The gain or loss is long term or short term depending on your holding period of the stock. In your case, this will be a long-term capital gain. For completeness, if you buy to cover the option back from the market before expiration or exercise, then it is also a short-term capital gain. Also, keep in mind that this all assumes that this covered call is "qualified" so that it does not count as a straddle. You can find more about that in Pub 550. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#en_US_2014_publink100010630 All of this is for US tax purposes. |
How are RSU's factored into Income during loan qualification? | RSUs are not "essentially cash". "R" in the RSU stands for restricted. These awards have strings attached, and as long as the strings are attached - you don't really own the money. As such, most banks do not include RSUs in the income considerations. Some do, especially if they have a specific agreement with your employer (check your HR/benefits coordinator). Specifically for mortgage loan, where the underwriting is very strict, I'm not aware of banks that include RSUs as income without a specific agreement with the employer as a perk. For credit cards/car loans, where you just need to write a number, they would probably care less. Some banks (but not all) consider past performance, and would include bonuses (and maybe RSUs) if you can show several consecutive years of comparable bonuses. |
Should I pay my Education Loan or Put it in the Stock Market? | 2.47% is a really, really good rate, doubly so if it's a fixed rate, and quadruply so if the interest is tax-deductible. That's about as close to "free money" as you're ever going to get. Heck, depending on what inflation does over the next few years, it might even be cheaper than free. So if you have the risk tolerance for it, it's probably more effective to invest the money in the stock market than to accelerate your student loan payoff. You can even do better in the bond market (my go-to intermediate-term corporate bond fund is yielding nearly 4% right now.) Just remember the old banker's aphorism: Assets shrink. Liabilities never shrink. You can lose the money you've invested in stocks or bonds, and you'll still have to pay back the loan. And, when in doubt, you can usually assume you're underestimating your risks. If you're feeling up for it, I'd say: make sure you have a good emergency fund outside of your investment money - something you could live on for six months or so and pay your bills while looking for a job, and sock the rest into something like the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth fund or a similar instrument (Vanguard's just my personal preference, since I like their style - and by style, I mean low fees - but definitely feel free to consider alternatives). You could also pad your retirement accounts and avoid taxes on any gains instead, but remember that it's easier to put money into those than take it out, so be sure to double-check the state of your emergency fund. |
Can the purchaser of a stock call option cancel the contract? | I'm adding to @Dilip's basic answer, to cover the additional points in your question. I'll assume you are referring to publicly traded stock options, such as those found on the CBOE, and not an option contract entered into privately between two specific counterparties (e.g. as in an employer stock option plan). Since you are not obligated to exercise a call option you purchased on the market, you don't need to maintain funds on account for possible exercising. You could instead let the option expire, or resell the option, neither of which requires funds available for purchase of the underlying shares. However, should you actually choose to exercise the call option (and usually this is done close to expiration, if at all), you will be required to fund your account much like if you bought the underlying shares in the first place. Call your broker to determine the exact rules and timing for when they need the money for a call-option exercise. And to expand on the idea of "cancelling" an option you purchased: No, you cannot "cancel" an option contract, per se. But, you are permitted to sell the call option to somebody else willing to buy, via the market. When you sell your call option, you'll either make or lose money on the sale – depending on the price of the underlying shares at the time (are they in- or out- of the money?), volatility in the market, and remaining time value. Once you sell, you're back to "no position". That's not the same as "cancelled", but you are out of the trade, whether at profit or loss. Furthermore, the option writer (i.e. the seller who "sold to open" a position, in writing the call in the first place) is also not permitted to cancel the option he wrote. However, the option writer is permitted to close out the original short position by simply buying back a matching call option on the market. Again, this would occur at either profit or loss based on market prices at the time. This second kind of buy order – i.e. made by someone who initially wrote a call option – is called a "buy to close", meaning the purchase of an offsetting position. (The other kind of buy is the "buy to open".) Then, consider: Since an option buyer is free to re-sell the option purchased, and since an option writer (who "sold to open" the new contract) is also free to buy back an offsetting option, a process known as clearing is required to match remaining buyers exercising the call options held with the remaining option writers having open short positions for the contract. For CBOE options, this clearing is performed by the Options Clearing Corporation. Here's how it works (see here): What is the OCC? The Options Clearing Corporation is the sole issuer of all securities options listed at the CBOE, four other U.S. stock exchanges and the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD), and is the entity through which all CBOE option transactions are ultimately cleared. As the issuer of all options, OCC essentially takes the opposite side of every option traded. Because OCC basically becomes the buyer for every seller and the seller for every buyer, it allows options traders to buy and sell in a secondary market without having to find the original opposite party. [...] [emphasis above is mine] When a call option writer must deliver shares to a call option buyer exercising a call, it's called assignment. (I have been assigned before, and it isn't pleasant to see a position called away that otherwise would have been very profitable if the call weren't written in the first place!) Also, re: "I know my counter party cannot sell his shares" ... that's not strictly true. You are thinking of a covered call. But, an option writer doesn't necessarily need to own the underlying shares. Look up Naked call (Wikipedia). Naked calls aren't frequently undertaken because a naked call "is one of the riskiest options strategies because it carries unlimited risk". The average individual trader isn't usually permitted by their broker to enter such an order, but there are market participants who can do such a trade. Finally, you can learn more about options at The Options Industry Council (OIC). |
Unusual real estate market with seemingly huge rental returns | The way to resolve your dilemma is to consult the price-to-rent ratio of the property. According to smartasset.com: The price-to-rent ratio is a measure of the relative affordability of renting and buying in a given housing market. It is calculated as the ratio of home prices to annual rental rates. So, for example, in a real estate market where, on average, a home worth $200,000 could rent for $1000 a month, the price-rent ratio is 16.67. That’s determined using the formula: $200,000 ÷ (12 x $1,000). Smartasset.com also goes on to give a table comparing different cities' price-to-rent ratio and then claim that the average price-to-rent ratio is currently 19.21. If your price-to-rent ratio is lower than 19.21, then, yes, your rents are more expensive than the average house. Smartasset.com claims that a high price-to-rent ratio is an argument in favor of tenants "renting" properties while a low price-to-rent ratio favors people "buying" (either to live in the property or to just rent it out to other people). So let's apply the price-to-rent ratio formula towards the properties you just quoted. There's a specific house I could buy for 190 (perhaps even less) that rents for exactly 2000 / month. 190K/(2000 * 12) = 7.92 There's a house for sale asking 400 (been on the market 2 yrs! could probably get for 350) which rents for 2800 /month. (400K)/(2800*12) = 11.90 (350K)/(2800*12) = 10.42 One can quite easily today buy a house for 180k-270k that would rent out for 1700-2100 / month. Lower Bound: (180K)/(1700*12) = 8.82 Upper Bound: (270K)/(2100*12) = 10.71 Even so, the rental returns here seem "ridiculously high" to me based on other markets I've noticed. Considering how the average price-to-rent ratio is 19.21, and your price-to-rent ratio ranges from 7.92 to 11.90, you are indeed correct. They are indeed "ridiculously high". Qualification: I was involved in real estate, and used the price-to-rent ratio to determine how long it would take to "recover" a person's investment in the property. Keep in mind that it's not the only thing I care about, and obviously the price-to-rent ratio tends to downplay expenses involved in actually owning properties and trying to deal with periods of vacancy. There's also the problem of taking into account demand as well. According to smartasset.com, Detroit, MI has the lowest price-to-rent ratio (with 6.27), which should suggest that people should buy properties immediately in this city. But that's probably more of a sign of people not wanting to move to Detroit and bid up the prices of properties. EDIT: I should also say that just because the properties are "ridiculously expensive" right now doesn't mean you should expect your rents to decrease. Rather, if rents keep staying at their current level, I'd predict that the property values will slowly increase in the future, thereby raising the price-to-rent ratio to 'non-ridiculous' mode. |
What are the tax implications of dividends that I receive from stocks (equity) that I hold? | Note the above is only for shares. There are different rules for other assets like House, Jewellery, Mutual Funds, Debt Funds. Refer to the Income Tax guide for more details. |
Efficient markets hypothesis and performance of IPO shares after lock-up period | There are rules that prevent two of the reactive measures you suggest from occurring. First, on the date of and shortly following an IPO, there is no stock available to borrow for shorting. Second, there are no put options available for purchase. At least, none that are listed, of the sort you probably have in mind. In fact, within a day or two of the LinkedIn IPO, most (all?) of the active equity traders I know were bemoaning the fact that they couldn't yet do exactly what you described i.e. buying puts, or finding shares to sell short. There was a great deal of conviction that LinkedIn shares were overpriced, but scant means available to translate that market assessment into an influence of market value. This does not mean that the Efficient Markets Hypothesis is deficient. Equilibrium is reached quickly enough, once the market is able to clear as usual. |
Are stock investments less favorable for the smaller investor? | If you are looking at long-term investments then you can look to Dheer's answer and see that it doesn't matter whether the money is large or small, the return will be the same. When it comes to shorter-term investments, it can actually pay to be a smaller investor. Consider a stock that may not be trading in high volume. If I want to take a position for 2,000 shares, I can probably buy it quite quickly without moving the market considerably. If I was managing your hypothetical portfolio opening a position for 1,000,000 shares, it can cause the price to go up significantly because I have to execute the order very carefully in order to not tip my hand to the market that I want a million shares. Algorithmic traders will see the volume increasing on those shares and will raise their asking price. High speed traders and market makers will also cause a lot of purchasing overhead. Then later when it comes time to sell, I will lose a percentage to the price drop as I start flooding the market with available shares. |
How to choose a company for an IRA? | The fees for Vanguard and Fidelity IRA housing cannot be lower, because they are zero. Depending on the fund you invest in, one or the other will have pretty low fees and are often the lowest in the industry. I don't qualify for TIAA-CREF, but my mother does and she loves them. She can call up and get some advice for free. I would not qualify it as the best advice in the world, but it certainly isn't horrible. So it really depends on what you are looking for. If you want a little investment advice, I would go with TIAA-CREF. If you are a do it yourself-er go with Vanguard. |
If a country can just print money, is global debt between countries real? | To understand this fully one would need to understand quite a few things. Not in scope here. In short, whenever China sells goods to US, it gets USD as most of the trades are in USD. China uses this money to buy other things it needs like Oil etc. After this they still have quite a bit of USD left with them. The money is left with them because US is buying more things from China and selling less things to China. This creates a surplus USD with China. So if US were to borrow money from China or any other country, it would be this excess money. Ofcourse how money gets created in first place is a different topic altogether. |
The doctor didn't charge the health insurance in time, am I liable? | This has a straightforward answer. It's likely that your doctor and the hospital have no responsibility to ensure that your insurance claim is filed in a timely manner. They bill you whether you or they get reimbursed by insurance, or not. The insurance company is more than happy not to pay you any way they can. Sorry if this is harsh, but it's up to you to follow through. See also here. |
See list of stock trades for day | You can see all the (millions) of trades per day for a US stock only if you purchase that data from the individual exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, ARCA, ...), from a commercial market data aggregator (Bloomberg, Axioma, ...), or from the Consolidated Tape Association. In none of that data will you ever find identifying information for the traders. What you are recalling regarding the names of "people from the company" trading company stock is related to SEC regulations stating that people with significant ownership of company stock and/or controlling positions on the company board of directors must publicize (most of) their trades in that stock. That information can usually be found on the company's investor relations website, or through the SEC website. |
What are the tax benefits of dividends vs selling stock | In the US, dividends are presently taxed at the same rates as capital gains, however selling stock could lead to less tax owed for the same amount of cash raised, because you are getting a return of basis or can elect to engage in a "loss harvesting" strategy. So to reply to the title question specifically, there are more tax "benefits" to selling stock to raise income versus receiving dividends. You have precise control of the realization of gains. However, the reason dividends (or dividend funds) are used for retirement income is for matching cash flow to expenses and preventing a liquidity crunch. One feature of retirement is that you're not working to earn a salary, yet you still have daily living expenses. Dividends are stable and more predictable than capital gains, and generate cash generally quarterly. While companies can reduce or suspend their dividend, you can generally budget for your portfolio to put a reliable amount of cash in your pocket on schedule. If you rely on selling shares quarterly for retirement living expenses, what would you have done (or how much of the total position would you have needed to sell) in order to eat during a decline in the market such as in 2007-2008? |
Home owners association for houses, pro/cons | Some examples where an HOA is a positive thing: 1) Amenities: Maybe it is professionally maintained landscaping at the front of the subdivision, or a playground, or community pool. An HOA provides a convenient way to have things like that and share the costs among all the people who benefit. 2) Legal Advocacy: I live in a neighborhood (rural) without an HOA. My neighbor decided to start an auto-repair shop on his property which was CLEARLY a violation of the covenants. There isn't really a Government body you can report them to that will swoop in and make them stop a neighbor from destroying your property values even if they signed an agreement when they bought it to the contrary. You need to hire a lawyer and sue them and that costs money and time. Also, in many cases if you wait too long they can get an exception grandfathered in because no one raised an issue about it. An HOA exists to watch for this kind of thing and nip it in the bud rather than making homeowners have to hassle with the time/expense. 3) Independence: Assuming no HOA, and assuming you are okay with suing your neighbor over violating a covenant. That makes for a very uncomfortable situation between you and that neighbor. Having a neutral 3rd party take action on your behalf anonymously can greatly help that situation. It's not all about making people ditch their basketball goals, or garden gnomes. They also protect you from other obnoxious stuff like junky mobile homes in high-end neighborhoods, the guy who blocks half the street permanently with his RV/Boat parked on the curb, three foot tall grass that is an eyesore and a fire hazard, a taco stand opening in your neighbors garage, etc. |
Which practice to keep finances after getting married: joint, or separate? | This particular topic has probably been beaten to death already. But from the other comments, it seems that splitting finances them is a popular solution on this forum. I can see the individual benefit of this - makes it easy to go buy whatever you want. But it can hurt too. What if the situation changes, and you are no longer employed? Your setup will cause stress because now you are having to ask your spouse to pay for everything. If this works for you - congratulations. But, fights may ensue - divorce may follow. I would like to offer an alternative. In my situation, I bring home a paycheck, while my wife does not. In this case, each of us paying 50% would simply not work. Not to say my wife doesn't work - she works her butt off cleaning house, raising kids, etc. What we do is have any money that comes in go into a pot. We budget (Oh no, the B-word!) out regular expenses (lights, gas, rent). Anything that isn't allocated goes towards retirement savings (In the US, an IRA is an Individual Retirement Account), or towards a war-chest for big project (such as home ownership). And each of us gets the same "blow money" allowance every week that we can do with as we please. Keep in mind, using this mentality allows the possibility of me staying home at some point in the future when my wife goes back to her dream job. And there is no financial stress about "whom owns what", or "who paid for what". We own it because we decided to pay for it. |
Why do they call them “financial products”? | They are called "financial products" because they are contracts that are "produced" by the financial industry. For example, you could also say that a car manufacturer does not sell you a car, but a contract that will gives you ownership of a car. And, if a contract is a service and not product, in that case a car manufacturer is only selling services. It seems like it is more about the definition of "product" than "financial product". I think that as long as something is produced by the effort of labor, it could be called a product, and since financial contracts are produced by the people working in the finance industry, they can be qualified as products too. Maybe this page of wikipedia could explain things better than I just did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_%28business%29 |
Trading US stocks from India | You can easily go to somebody like icici ask for the demat section and enable overseas stock trading. |
How do I know what loan terms I can qualify for? | You can find out the most money they will loan you for a car loan when you approach your current bank/credit union. They should be willing to layout options based on your income, and credit history. You then have to decide if those terms work for you. There are several dangers with getting loan estimates, they may be willing to lend you more than you can actually handle. They think you can afford it, but maybe you can't. They may also have a loan with a longer term, which does bring the monthly cost down, but exposes you to being upside down on the loan. You then use this a a data point when looking at other lenders. The last place you look is the auto dealer. They will be trying to pressure you on both the loan and the price, that is not the time to do doing complex mental calculations. The Suntrust web page was interesting, it included the quote: The lowest rate in each range is for LightStream's unsecured auto loan product and requires that you have an excellent credit profile. It also induced the example the rate of 2.19% - 4.24% for a 24 to 36 month loan of $10,000 to $24,999 for a used car purchased from a dealer. Also note that my local credit union has a new/used loan at 1.49%, but you have to be a member. Sunstrust seems to be in the minority. In general a loan for X$ and y months will have a lower rate if it is secured with collateral. But Suntrust is offering unsecured loans (i.e. no collateral) at a low rate. The big benefit for their product is that you get the cash today. You can get the cash before you know what you want to buy. You get the cash before you have negotiated with the dealer. That makes that step easier. Now will they in the near future ask for proof you bought a car with the money? no idea. If you went to the same web page and wanted a debt consolidation loan the rate for the same $ range and the same months is: 5.49% - 11.24% the quote now changes to: The lowest rate in each range requires that you have an excellent credit profile. I have no idea what rate they will actually approve you for. It is possible that if you don't have excellent credit the rate rises quickly, but 4.24% for the worst auto loan is better than 5.49% for the best debt consolidation. Excellent Credit Given the unique nature of each individual’s credit situation, LightStream believes there is no single definition for "excellent credit". However, we find individuals with excellent credit usually share the following characteristics: Finally, it should be noted again that each individual situation is different and that we make our credit judgment based on the specific facts of that situation. Ultimately our determination of excellent credit is based on whether we conclude that there is a very high likelihood that our loan will be repaid in a full and timely manner. All the rates mentioned in this answer are from 15 July 2017. |
US tax - effectively connected income | ECI is relevant to non-resident aliens who are engaged in trade or business in the US. For that, you have to be present in the US, to begin with, or to own a business or property in the US. So the people to whom it is relevant are non-resident aliens in the US or business/property owners, not foreign contractors. From the IRS: The following categories of income are usually considered to be connected with a trade or business in the United States. You are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States if you are temporarily present in the United States as a nonimmigrant on an "F," "J," "M," or "Q" visa. The taxable part of any U.S. source scholarship or fellowship grant received by a nonimmigrant in "F," "J," "M," or "Q" status is treated as effectively connected with a trade or business in the United States. If you are a member of a partnership that at any time during the tax year is engaged in a trade or business in the United States, you are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States. You usually are engaged in a U.S. trade or business when you perform personal services in the United States. If you own and operate a business in the United States selling services, products, or merchandise, you are, with certain exceptions, engaged in a trade or business in the United States. For example, profit from the sale in the United States of inventory property purchased either in this country or in a foreign country is effectively connected trade or business income. Gains and losses from the sale or exchange of U.S. real property interests (whether or not they are capital assets) are taxed as if you are engaged in a trade or business in the United States. You must treat the gain or loss as effectively connected with that trade or business. Income from the rental of real property may be treated as ECI if the taxpayer elects to do so. |
Should I trade in a car I own to lower my payments on a new lease? | You need to look at the numbers when you're ready to transact. What your crossover is worth now, what the truck will lease for then, what financing deals may or may not be available will all change. I'm not sure why you've already decided you will lease the truck, perhaps you're planning to take advantage of some kind of business write off. I would personally never put anything down on a lease, though I have argued with people on here about that particular decision. The reality is you need to look at the numbers. Some banks will adjust the interest you pay on your lease to account for your down payment, some don't. Consider a $9,000 lease, $250 per month for 36 months. Consider you pay $1,000 up front as a down payment. Example 1: $1,000 lowers the amount due on the lease to $8,000 lowering your monthly payment to $222.22 from $250, the downpayment has accomplished nothing. Over the 36 months you will have still paid the same $9,000. Example 2: $1,000 up front changes the amount owed and other fees generally applicable to a lease (gap insurance etc) and your payment drops to $215, your total over the lease is now $8,740 ($1,000 down and $7,740 in payments). You need to look at the numbers. In general if you know you will be purchasing the truck at the end of the lease it's more financially advantageous to just purchase it from the start. |
Why do credit cards have minimum limits? | They have a minimum to discourage applications for that particular card. Every application costs them money because they have to pay the credit agencies to pull the applicant's credit history. So one way they save money and reduce their cost of business is to discourage people from applying if they're not creditworthy enough for that product. Credit card companies tailor their products into different income/credit brackets. Those who have less creditworthiness would be better suited for a different product than what you're referring, similar to those with greater creditworthiness. |
Pay off credit cards in one lump sum, or spread over a few months? | I know you say you are aware of secured and unsecured debt and you've made your decision. Did you do the numbers? You will pay 44k over the life of the mortgage for that 24k (Based on 4.5% APR mortgage). Once you refinance your mortgage, do you plan on using credit for a while? Lots of Americans are hyperfocused on credit scores. The only times it affects your life are when you finance something, when you apply to rent a house or apartment, and sometimes when you apply for a job. Credit score should not be a factor in this decision. You're borrowing the money at a lower rate to pay off the high rate cards because you want to pay less in interest. Considering #1 is there any reason NOT to pay off the cards immediately, if not sooner? |
How to measure the cost/value of an Asset in the Financial Statement | Does the friend fix your electrical wiring and the engine of your car? If you need a professional advice - ask a professional. In this case - an accountant (not necessarily a CPA, but at least an experienced bookkeeper). Financial Statements (official documents, that is) must be signed by a public accountant (CPA in the US) or the principle (you). I wouldn't take chances and would definitely have an accountant do that. You need to consider the asset useful life, and the depreciation. The fact that you use it for non-business purposes may be recorded in various ways. One that comes to mind is accounting as a supplement for depreciation: You depreciate the percentage that is used for business, and record as a distribution to owner the rest (which is accounting for the personal use). This way it would also match the tax reporting (in the US, at least). Bottom line: if you're preparing an official financial statement (that you're going to submit to anyone other than yourself) - get a professional advice. |
Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed? | When you are investing for 40 years, you will have taxable events before retirement. You'll need to pay tax along the way, which will eat away at your gains. For example, in your taxable account, any dividends and capital gain distributions will need taxes paid each year. In your 401(k) or IRA, these are not taxable until retirement. In addition, what happens if you want to change investments before retirement? In your taxable account, taxes on the capital gains will be due at that time, but in a retirement account, you can change investments anytime you like without having to pay taxes early. Finally, when you do pull money out of your 401(k) at retirement, it will be taxed at whatever your tax rate is at retirement. After you retire, your income will probably be lower than when you were working, so your tax rate might be less. |
What is the difference between shares and ETF? | A mutual fund has several classes of shares that are charged different fees. Some shares are sold through brokers and carry a sales charge (called load) that compensates the broker in lieu of a fee that the broker would charge the client for the service. Vanguard does not have sales charge on its funds and you don't need to go through a broker to buy its shares; you can buy directly from them. Admiral shares of Vanguard funds are charged lower annual expenses than regular shares (yes, all mutual funds charge expenses for fund adninistration that reduce the return that you get, and Vanguard has some of the lowest expense ratios) but Admiral shares are available only for large investments, typically $50K or so. If you have invested in a Vanguard mutual fund, your shares can be set to automatically convert to Admiral shares when the investment reaches the right level. A mutual fund manager can buy and sell stocks to achieve the objectives of the fund, so what stockes you are invested in as a share holder in a mutual fund will typically be unknown to you on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand, Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are fixed baskets of stocks, and you can buy shares in the ETF. These shares are bought and sold through a broker (so you pay a transaction fee each time) but expenses are lower since there is no manager to buy and sell stocks: the basket is fixed. Many ETFs follow specific market indexes (e.g. S&P 500). Another difference between ETFs and mutual funds is that you can buy and sell ETFs at any time of the day just as if you could if you held stocks. With mutual funds, any buy and sell requests made during the day are processed at the end of the day and the value of the shares that you buy or sell is determined by the closing price of the stocks held by the mutual fund. With ETFs, you are getting the intra-day price at the time the buy or sell order is executed by your broker. |
Where can I open a Bank Account in Canadian dollars in the US? | If you can make the trip to BC yourself, I'd recommend opening an account with TD Canada Trust. They allow non-citizens to make accounts — apparently the only Canadian bank to do so. The customer service is great and they have a good online banking site that will allow you to manage it from the US. If you have an account with TD Bank in the US, it's also very easy to set up a TD Canada account through them that will be linked on their online site (though you will still have separate logins for both and manage them separately). I've done the reverse as a Canadian living in the US. You can set it up over the phone; their Cross-Border Banking number is listed here. They also offer better currency conversion rates than their standard ones when you do a cross-border transfer. You could also look into HSBC as well. They operate in Washington as well as across the border in BC. If you can't open a CAD account locally, they can help you open and manage one in Canada from the US. It may or may not require having a small business account instead of a personal account. |
Is losing money in my 401K normal? | Depends on how the money is invested within the 401k... but in general, prices move both up and down with a long-tem bias toward up. Think of it this way: with fund shares priced lower now, you are getting shares cheaper than when you entered the plan. So this dip is actually working in your favor, as long as you are comfortable trusting that long-term view (and trusting the funds your 401k money is going into). Believe me, it's even scarier when you're nearer your target retirement date and a 10% dip may be six figures... but it's all theoretical until you actually start drawing the money back out, and you have to learn to accept some volatility as part of the trade-off for getting returns better than bonds. |
Any Ubiquitous Finance App That is on Mac, iOS and Windows? | As I have said before on this site, I personally use Moneydance. They have Mac, Linux and Windows support, and recently added an iOS mobile version that syncs with the desktop. I have only used the Mac "desktop" version, and it seems to function well, but have not tried the other platforms, nor the iOS version. I have no company affiliation, but am a (mostly) happy user. :-) |
How does the currency between countries relate | It's called correlation. I found this: http://www.forexrazor.com/en-us/school/tabid/426/ID/437424/currency-pair-correlations it looks a good place to start Similar types of political economies will correlate together, opposite types won't. Also there are geographic correlations (climate, language etc) |
Stock grant, taxes, and the IRS | If you have a one-time event, you are allowed to make a single estimated payment for that quarter on Form 1040-ES. People seem to fear that if they make one such payment they will need to do it forevermore, and that is not true. The IRS instructions do kind of read that way, but that's because most people who make estimated payment do so because of some repeating circumstance like being self-employed. In addition, you may qualify for one or more waivers on a potential underpayment penalty when you file your Form 1040 even if you don't make an estimated payment, and you may reduce or eliminate any penalty by annualizing your income - which is to say breaking it down by quarter rather than the full year. Check on the instructions for Form 2210 for more detail, including Schedule AI for annualizing income. This is some work, but it might be worthwhile depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i2210/ch02.html |
Sites to obtain historical chart of currency exchange rates? | OANDA has a free online tool (a Java applet) that will do what you're asking. Description: Currency Graph FXGraph: Plot the change between two currencies over any time period Make a customized graph of historical exchange rates for two of over 190 currencies, for any time period since 1990. [...] Visit Currency Graph | OANDA. |
How does a stake sale affect a company's stock price? | Is it normal for such transactions to create new outstanding shares? Yes a company can create new shares or a Majority share holder can sell some of his stake or it can be a mix of both. how will this news affect the short-term and long-term price of the company's stock? This is opinion based and not apt for this site. It can be positive or negative depending on how the market reacts to the news. |
Is it OK to use a credit card on zero-interest to pay some other credit cards with higher-interest? | The short answer is no, it's probably not ok. The longer answer is, it might be, if you are very disciplined. You need to make sure that you have enough money to pay off the card after a year, and that you pay the card on time, every month, without exception. There may also be balance transfer or other fees that only make it worth while if the interest rate or balance on the other loan is high. The problem is most of these offers will raise your rates to very high levels (think 20% or more) if you are even one day late with one payment. Some of them also will back charge you interest starting from day one, although I have only seen this on store credit "one year, same as cash" type offers. In the end you need to balance the possible payoff against how much it will cost you if you do it wrong. Remember, the banks are not in the business of lending out free money. They wouldn't do this unless enough people didn't pay it back in one year for them to make a profit. |
Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options? | I'm sorry, but your math is wrong. You are not equally likely to make as much money by waiting for expiration. Share prices are moving constantly in both directions. Very rarely does any stock go either straight up or straight down. Consider a stock with a share price of $12 today. Perhaps that stock is a bad buy, and in 1 month's time it will be down to $10. But the market hasn't quite wised up to this yet, and over the next week it rallies up to $15. If you bought a European option (let's say an at-the-money call, expiring in 1 month, at $12 on our start date), then you lost. Your option expired worthless. If you bought an American option, you could have exercised it when the share price was at $15 and made a nice profit. Keep in mind we are talking about exactly the same stock, with exactly the same history, over exactly the same time period. The only difference is the option contract. The American option could have made you money, if you exercised it at any time during the rally, but not the European option - you would have been forced to hold onto it for a month and finally let it expire worthless. (Of course that's not strictly true, since the European option itself can be sold while it is in the money - but eventually, somebody is going to end up holding the bag, nobody can exercise it until expiration.) The difference between an American and European option is the difference between getting N chances to get it right (N being the number of days 'til expiration) and getting just one chance. It should be easy to see why you're more likely to profit with the former, even if you can't accurately predict price movement. |
When a fund drops significantly, how can I research what went wrong? [duplicate] | Usually there are annual or semi-annual reports for a mutual fund that may give an idea for when a fund will have "distributions" which can cause the NAV to fall as this is when the fund passes the taxable liabilities to shareholders in the form of a dividend. Alternatively, the prospectus of the fund may also have the data on the recent distribution history that is likely what you want. If you don't understand why a fund would have a distribution, I highly suggest researching the legal structure of an open-end mutual fund where there more than a few rules about how taxes are handled for this case. |
Snowball debt or pay off a large amount? | First, make sure you have some money in a savings account that you can use instead of credit cards for making future purchases that go beyond what you have in your checking account. $1000 is a good amount to start with, so just take that out of the $5000. Then pay off the Best Buy card. You shouldn't be worried about the minimum payment. Determine what you can pay per month (say, $400), and take the minimum payments out of that. Then choose one card to get the rest of your $400, plus the remaining $1500 of your $5000. This should be the highest-interest card, mathematically, but it may or may not be your best choice; it depends on your personality. Some people get a psychological lift out of seeing debts disappear, and it gives them more motivation to keep going. Those people may be better served by paying off the smallest debts first, to get them out of the way. I'm an INTP, so it bothers me more to think that I'll be paying a little more in interest over the long term by taking that route. |
What can I do when the trading price of a stock or ETF I want to buy is too high? | You have a couple of options: Auto-investing in an open-end mutual fund. Some companies may waive a minimum if you sign up for an automatic investing, e.g. T. Rowe Price will waive its minimum if you agree to invest $100/month. There may be some lower ones out there as well. Some brokers like ShareBuilder have programs where someone could auto-invest getting fractional shares with each purchase. However, something to consider is what percentage is it costing you to buy each time as it may be quite a bit of friction if you are paying $4 a purchase and only buying $40, this is 10% of your investment being eaten up in costs that I'd highly advise taking the first option. |
Flexplan - a company is taking over another, do I pay the balance? | This is only one of a series of questions your friend needs to understand. They will also need to know what happens to: vacation balances; the vacation earning schedule; retirement fund matching; the pension program; all the costs and rules regarding health, dental and vision;life insurance amounts. Some of these can be changed immediately. Some will not be changed this year because of IRS regulations. Everything can be changed by the next year. But there is no way to know if they will change a little a possible or as much a possible. It will depend on if they are buying the company, or if the company is going out of business and the new company is buying the remnants. They may also be essentially terminating the employees at the old place, and giving them the first opportunity for interviews. If they are essentially quitting they will not have to continue paying into the plan. The bad news is that their last day of work is also probably their last day to incur expenses that they can pay for with the flexible plan. If They are being purchased or absorbed the company will likely make no changes to the current plan, and fold them into the plan next year. I have been involved with company purchases and company splits, and this is how it was handled. |
How can I stop wasting food? | You want to combine a set of techniques to avoid throwing food away. Consider setting aside a weekend day or other non-busy time to do some food prep. Check to see if there is anything in the fridge that needs to be used quickly and prioritize meals that use that item. Make a weekly menu and get your groceries. Chop all the vegetables and fruits you need for the week's meals. Cook meats that can be cooked in advance. Chefs call the concept of having everything ready for making a meal "mis en place." Try to do yours in advance to energize you for cooking and also make you more likely to cook on those nights you've been at the office late. Get to know and love your freezer. Buy frozen meat in bulk and portion individually (wrap 1/2 lb blocks of ground beef and chicken pieces in foil then store in freezer bags, for example). Get frozen packaged fish fillets for seafood. Boil a whole chicken, shred the meat, and have on hand for easy meals like tacos, enchiladas, chicken pot pie, pasta, etc. Do the same with beef roasts or pork shoulder for pulled pork, etc. Freeze vegetables and fruits if you can't use them in time (or buy frozen vegetables to begin with). You can even consider making dumplings like perogis or pelmeni and freezing for a homemade alternative to a frozen food aisle meal. You can even go all the way with freezer cooking. Cook with shelf-stable items. Rice, pasta, beans, lentils, canned goods, and other items can be made into major components of a meal. When you do buy something perishable that doesn't freeze well, try to utilize it in more than one of your meals for the week. This works well for items like fresh herbs. If you don't want to spend a lot of time cooking, a source like stonesoup is a great place to start - many recipes there can be finished in under 10 minutes, most are five ingredients or less, and all are tasty and good for you. This question from Seasoned Advice has a lot of great suggestions, although geared towards a college student, that you should consider. |
How can a Canadian establish US credit score | 1) The easy way is to find a job and they will assign you an SSN. 2) Here's the hard way. If you're Canadian, open a TD Boarderless account in the U.S. Put a small investment into any investment that would generate some type of income, such as capital gain, dividends, interest and etc... Then you will need to file a US tax return to declare your income if you receive U.S. tax slips (although you're likely below the min filing requirement) at year end. To file a U.S. tax return, you may need what's called an ITIN or individual tax id number. With the ITIN, you can get credit from the US TD boarderless account (only). Consider getting a prepaid US credit card with the TD account to futher build credit at that specific bank. It's not much credit, but you do start with creating a history. |
If one owns 75% of company shares, does that mean that he would have to take upon himself 75% of the company's expenses? | A firm is a separate legal person from its shareholders or owners (but doesn't get invited to parties much). Owners invest capital to get shares in the firm or may get shares for investing time, effort etc. but those shares are on a limited liability basis. That means that shareholders are only liable up to the value of their shares and that the firm itself is responsible for any expenses or liabilities. The firm will have working capital from its initial investors (i.e. any capital invested to get shares) and can borrow money on the bond market or issue new shares to cover outgoings. Share ownership simply entitles the owner to a proportion of the residual equity of the company and voting rights (for non-prefered equity). In a firm that I previously worked for, for example, one of the partners owned 51% of the firm but put up 100% of the firm's equity capital. The other partner owned 49% and provided 90% of the intellectual capital of the firm. They both took decisions equally. The distribution of ownership should, therefore, have no bearing on who finances deals. The owners (or managers in larger firms) should decide together how to use the company's capital for spending because it is exactly that; the company's capital; not any one of the investor's. Limited liability of owners is one of the major benefits of forming a company. |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | MoneyDance Is the way to go. I've been using it for years and it works well. It keeps getting better, and best of all, it's completely cross platform! Mac, Windows and linux! |
Shouldn't a Roth IRA accumulate more than 1 cent of interest per month? | The term 'interest' tends to be used loosely when discussing valuation of stocks. Especially when referring to IRAs which are generally the purvey of common-folk who aren't in the finance industry. Often it is used colloquially to include: Using this definition (which is what I'm guessing your IRA Calculator is doing), your stock would have increased in value by a total of $26 over the course of 10 months. Still not terribly good (only a couple percent increase), but certainly not a couple cents. |
Is it prudent to sell a stock on a 40% rise in 2 months | Depends entirely on the stock and your perception of it. Would you buy it at the current price? If so, keep it. Would you buy something else? If so, sell it and buy that. |
How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan? | The bank depends on the laws of large numbers. They don't need to make money on every customer -- just on average. There are several ways that zero interest makes sense to them: You asked about banks, and I don't think you see this last scheme in use very much by a bank. Here's why. First, customers absolutely hate it - and when you drop the interest bomb, they will warn their friends away, blow you up on social media, call the TV news consumer protectors, and never, ever, ever do business with you again. Which defeats your efforts in customer acquisition. Second, it only works on that narrow range of people who default just a little bit, i.e. who have an auto-pay malfunction. If someone really defaults, not only will they not pay the punishment interest, they won't pay the principal either! This only makes sense for secured loans like furniture or cars, where you can repo that stuff - with unsecured loans, you don't really have any power to force them to pay, short of burning their credit. You can sue them, but you can't get blood from a stone. |
Debit card funds on preauthorization hold to paypal: can it be used for another transaction? | In short you have to wait till the hold expires. If its one week, its great. Few years back it was one Month. It is advisable you use a Credit Card for these type of transactions. With Credit Cards you are not out of funds like in Debit Cards. Plus the reversals are as much as I know automatic. In case of Debit Cards, the Holds are not automatically released on cancelled transactions but released only after expiry. Where as in Credit Cards, the holds are released immediately on cancelled transactions. "Does the hold reserve it for them or for the original transaction?" Yes hold is for that specific transaction from that specific merchant. i.e. if you try and book the same item from the same merchant, you will not be able to as you have money blocked. Although the merchant sends an unblock message when cancelling, on Debit cards these messages are not supported in India |
How to take advantage of home appreciation | Assuming "take advantage" means continue to build wealth, as opposed to blow it all on a fancy holiday... Downgrade As you already note, you could downgrade/downsize. This could happen via moving to a smaller house in the same area, or moving to an area where the cost of buying is less. HELOC Take out a Home Equity Line of Credit. You could use the line of credit to do home improvements further boosting the asset value (forced appreciation, assuming the appreciation to date is simply market based). Caution is required if the house has already appreciated "considerably" - you want to keep the home value within tolerance levels for the area. (Best not to have the only $300K house on a street of $190K-ers...) Home Equity Loan Assuming you have built up equity in the house, you could leverage that equity to purchase another property. For most people this would form part of the jigsaw for getting the financing to purchase again. |
Did basically all mutual funds have a significant crash in 2008? | In 2008, the S&P was down 37%. I love charts that show sector performance by year, as it helps show that 2008 wasn't like the crash of 2000-01 which was more tech-centric. Funds that were more geared towards bonds would have been up as the 10 year Treasury was up 20%. I understand you have a low risk tolerance. Over the long term, this will cost you. The CAGR for the S&P from 1928-2011 was 9.23%, for treasuries, 5.14%. This difference adds up dramatically over time. These rates double your stock investments every 8 years on average vs nearly 14 years for bonds. See the MoneyChimp site to tinker with start/finish years to understand long term returns. |
Which credit card is friendliest to merchants? | Cash is king. PIN-based debit transactions are cheap. In terms of credit cards, a regular (ie. not a gold card) with no rewards has the lowest rates. Bigger merchants with lots of card volume likely have better deals that make the differences less pronounced. |
How can I cash out a check internationally? | I've been a landlord and also a tenant. I have been able to deposit money in an account, where I have the account number, and/or a deposit slip. In a foreign bank you can deposit by a machine if in the bank or someone is there for you and knows the account number. With regards to cashing a check in another country, it is up to the bank and the time is at least 14 to 21 business days, with a fee is added. As of a winning check, since its in your name, if you are in another country sign the check, for deposit only with a deposit slip and send it to your out of country bank by FedEx - you will have a tracking number, where as regular mail it might get there in 3 months. I hope by now you came to your solution. |
What are my risks of early assignment? | The put vs call assignment risk, is actually the reverse: in-the-money calls are more likely to be exercised early than puts. Exercising a call locks in profit for the option holder because they can buy the shares at below market price, and immediately sell them at the higher market price. If there are dividends due, the risk is even higher. By contrast, exercising an in-the-money put locks in a loss for the holder, so it's less common. |
Resources on how to be a short term trader? | The problem is that while there are a lot of statistics that can be created from basic market data such as prices and volume, along with the fundamentals of the company, I think that if you talk to 8 different day traders, you'll get 12 different theories of how to interpret and trade based on those numbers. Also quite likely, the more successful someone is at day trading, the more closely they are likely to guard their secrets and not want to divulge them. If there was any uniform concensus, they you'd see all the daytraders doing the same thing, and moving as a group, shortly after which you'd get 'contra' folks who would try to gain by moving in opposition, or 'predicta' folks who would try to front-run the pack. and.... (I think you can see where this leads) A better idea might be to just work on educating your-self firstly with regard to nomenclature and terms, and then move on to reading some stuff about how markets work etc. I'd suggest starting with a book like 'Wall Street Words' and/or 'A Random Walk Down Wall Street' since both are great introductions to things, and move on from there. Note that both of those books have gone through multiple editions, so be sure to get the most recent one (especially if you are trying to save money and buy a used version) You are also likely to find an nearly endless supply of 'seminars' that will offer to teach you somebody's proven method for a fee, or for 'free' but after which you find our you need to use their special tools or data sources etc (which cost money) to use their 'system' (either of which makes me think that their system can't be that great if they figure it's a surer thing to charge for 'teaching' or 'tools/services' than it is to use their system, otherwise they'd just shut up, practice what they preach and make money that way instead) It might be worth attending the free ones just to get exposure to someone's theory on how to game the system, provided you are 'not an easy mark' and can withstand the high pressure sales pitch for their books/software/services etc that pays their bills and almost invariably comes along with such a seminar. |
Can I move my 401k to another country without paying tax penalty? | There are two significant drawbacks to this type of transfer. They were the reasons why I kept my American 401(k) as-is and started funding my Canadian RRSP from zero balance. 1. Taxes - a large chunk of your 401(k) will be lost to taxes. There is probably no way to transfer the funds without making a 401(k)/IRA withdrawal, which will incur the US federal tax and the 10% early-withdrawal penalty. When the money went into the 401(k), you got a tax deduction in the US and the tax break is supposed be repaid later when you make a withdrawal (that's basically how tax deferral works). It's unlikely that any country will let you take a deduction first and send the payback to a foreign country. The withdrawal amount may also be taxable in Canada (Canadians generally pay taxes on their global income and that includes pensions and distributions from foreign retirement plans). Foreign tax credit will apply of course, to eliminate double taxation, but it's of little help if your marginal Canadian tax rate is higher than your average US tax rate. 2. Expenses. Your RRSP will have to be invested in something and mutual fund management expenses are generally higher in Canada than in the US. For example, my employer-sponsored RRSP has a Standard & Poor's stock index fund that charges 1.5% and that is considered low-cost. It also offers a number of managed funds with expenses in excess of 2% that I simply ignore. You can probably invest your American 401(k)/IRA in mutual funds more efficiently. |
Is it advisable to go for an auto loan if I can make the full payment for a new car? | Full payment is always better than auto-loan if you are prudent with finances. I.E if you take a loan, you are factoring the EMI hence your savings will remain as is. However if you manage well, you can buy the car with cash and at the same time put aside the notional EMI as savings and investments. The other factor to consider is what return your cash is giving. If this more than auto-loan interest rate post taxes, you should opt for loan. For example if auto-loan is 10% and you are getting a return of 15% after taxes on investment then loan is better. Company Car lease depends on terms. More often you get break on taxes on the EMI component. But you have to buy at the end of lease period and re-register the car in your name, so there is additional cost. Some companies give lease at very favourable rates. Plus if you leave the job lease has to be broken and it becomes more expensive. |
Google Finance: Input Parameters For Simple Moving Averages | The difference is that for the one year time frame the data is represented based on daily data and the SMA is 20 days, whilst for the 5 year timeframe the data is automatically represented as weekly data with the SMA represented by 20 weeks not 20 days anymore. This happens due to daily data on this chart being too much data to represent over a 5 year period so the data defaults to weekly data over such a long period. If the chart is represented as weekly data then any indicators will also have to be represented in weekly data. If you use a more sophisticated charting program you can actually select to see daily or weekly data over longer periods such as 5 years or more. |
How To Report Cryptocurrency Earnings? | While this does fall under the "All-inclusive income" segment of GI (gross income), there are two questions that come up. I invested in a decentralized bitcoin business and earned about $230 this year in interest from it Your wording is confusing here only due to how bitcoin works. |
How is income tax calculated in relation to selling used items? | If I sell it for $50 can I write off the $50 loss. Only if you can establish that it is a normal part of your business and that you did not get $50 worth of use out of it. That's the technical, legal argument. As a practical matter, it's unlikely that they'll ding you for selling something after using it, as they won't know. If they did catch you, you would be in trouble. You can't deduct loss due to personal use. The larger problem is that if you sell one TV for a $50 loss, they aren't going to believe that you are in the business of selling TVs. If you sell a larger amount for a loss, then they still are unlikely to believe that you are in business. If you sell a large amount for an overall gain, they are unlikely to notice that you took a loss on one TV. They could only notice that if they were already auditing you, as that wouldn't be visible in your tax forms. |
What is a reasonable salary for the owner and sole member of a small S-Corp? | The answer depends on this: If you had to hire someone to do what you are doing in the S-corp, what would you pay them? If you are doing semi-unskilled work part-time, then $20k might be reasonable. If you are a professional working full time, it's too low. Don't forget that, in addition to "billable" work, you are also doing office tasks, such as invoicing and bookkeeping, that the IRS will also want to see you getting paid for. There was an important court ruling on this subject recently: Watson v. Commissioner. Watson owned an S-Corp where he was the sole employee. The S-Corp itself was a 25% owner in a very successful accounting firm that Watson worked through. All of the revenue that Watson generated at the accounting firm was paid to the S-Corp, which then paid Watson through salary and distributions. Watson was paying himself $24k a year in salary and taking over $175k a year in distributions. For comparison, even first-year accountants at the firm were making more than $24k a year in salary. The IRS determined that this salary amount was too low. To determine an appropriate amount for Watson's salary, the IRS did a study of the salaries of peers in firms of the same size as the firm Watson was working with, taking into account that owners of firms earn a higher salary than non-owners. The number that the IRS arrived at was $93k. Watson was allowed to take the rest ($80k+ each year) as distributions. Again, this number was based on a study of the salaries of peers. It was far short of the $200k+ that the S-Corp was pulling in from the accounting firm. Clearly, Watson was paying himself far too low of a salary. But even at this extreme example, where Watson's S-Corp was directly getting all of its revenue from one accounting firm in which Watson was an owner, the IRS still did not conclude that all of the revenue should have been salary and subject to payroll taxes. You should ask an accountant or attorney for advice. They can help you determine an appropriate amount for your salary. Don't be afraid of an audit, but make sure that you can defend your choices if you do get audited. If your choices are based on professional advice, that will help your case. See these articles for more information: |
An online casino owes me money and wants to pay with a wire transfer. Is this safe? | I have won a large amount of money on an online casino. How reputed is the company? Have you done any research around it? It has taken 2 months for me to see any payouts. Last week I received $2300 check from them. Did you win everything in the same period? If so there is no reason why they sent you a smaller check of $2300 instead of the full amount. This should raise a red flag. Why would someone write multiple checks. The only valid reason is you won in different months. The payout for first month was $2300 and they sent a check. The payout for next month is large amount ... the request for Bank Details. that they would rather wire me the money and they are asking for my banking account number and routing number. Although giving bank account number and routing has some risks. This is the fundamental information that is need to make a credit to your account directly. You would be giving this to quite a few entities / people. In most countries, this information is printed on every check that you write from your account. Is this safe? Or am I stupid for even considering this? Online world is full of traps and this could be a scam. So proceed with extreme caution. Insist of check. In worst case open a different savings account, that does not allow direct debits, does not have over draft, etc. Use this to receive money and move it into your regular account. |
Digital envelope system: a modern take | The whole point of the "envelope system" as I understand it is that it makes it easy to see that you are staying within your budget: If the envelope still has cash in it, then you still have money to spend on that budget category. If you did this with a bunch of debit cards, you would have to have a way to quickly and easily see the balance on that card for it to work. There is no physical envelope to look in. If your bank lets you check your balance with a cell-phone app I guess that would work. But at that point, why do you need separate debit cards? Just create a spreadsheet and update the numbers as you spend. The balance the bank shows is always going to be a little bit behind, because it takes time for transactions to make it through the system. I've seen on my credit cards that sometimes transactions show up the same day, but other times they can take several days or even a week or more. So keeping a spreadsheet would be more accurate, or at least, more timely. But all that said, I can check my bank balance and my credit card balances on web sites. I've never had a desire to check from a cell phone but at least some banks have such apps -- my daughter tells me she regularly checks her credit card balance from her cell phone. So I don't see why you couldn't do it with off-the-shelf technology. Side not, not really related to your question: I don't really see the point of the envelope system. Personally, I keep my checkbook electronically, using a little accounting app that I wrote myself so it's customized to my needs. I enter fixed bills, like insurance premiums and the mortgage payment, about a month in advance, so I can see that that money is already spoken for and just when it is going out. Besides that, what's the advantage of saying that you allot, say, $50 per month for clothes and $100 for gas for the car and $60 for snacks, and if you use up all your gas money this month than you can't drive anywhere even though you have money left in the clothes and snack envelopes? I mean, it makes good sense to say, "The mortgage payment is due next week so I can't spend that money on entertainment, I have to keep it to pay the mortgage." But I don't see the point in saying, "I can't buy new shoes because the shoe envelope is empty. I've accumulated $5000 in the shampoo account since I went bald and don't use shampoo any more, but that money is off limits for shoes because it's allocated to shampoo." |
Discussing stock and stock index movement: clarifying percentage vs. points? | I think that the general public is conditioned to think more in terms of points rather than percentages, so that 200 points is easier to fathom than the equivalent percent. We all translate internally what this means. Of course it is less precise, but it also makes for good copy in the publishing industry ("Market Down 1000 points!") |
Filing Taxes for Two Separate Jobs Being Worked at the Same Time? | You file taxes as usual. W2 is a form given to you, you don't need to fill it. Similarly, 1099. Both report moneys paid to you by your employers. W2 is for actual employer (the one where you're on the payroll), 1099 is for contractors (where you invoice the entity you provide services to and get paid per contract). You need to look at form 1040 and its instructions as to how exactly to fill it. That would be the annual tax return. It has various schedules (A, B, C, D, E, F, H, etc) which you should familiarize yourself with, and various additional forms that you attach to it. If you're self employed, you're expected to make quarterly estimate payments, but if you're a salaried employee you can instruct your employer to withhold the amounts you expect to owe for taxes from your salary, instead. If you're using a tax preparation software (like TurboTax or TaxAct), it will "interview" you to get all the needed information and provide you with the forms filled accordingly. Alternatively you can pay someone to prepare the tax return for you. |
Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership? | You could consider buying a fairly recent used car from CarMax. They have fixed pricing, and you'd save a good amount of money on the car (since cars lose tons of value in their first year or so). |
As an investing novice, what to do with my money? | 3-5 years is long enough of a timeframe that I'd certainly invest it, assuming you have enough (which $10k is). Even conservatively you can guess at 4-5% annual growth; if you invest reasonably conservatively (60/40 mix of stocks/bonds, with both in large ETFs or similar) you should have a good chance to gain along those lines and still be reasonably safe in case the market tanks. Of course, the market could tank at any time and wipe out 20-30% of that or even more, even if you invest conservatively - so you need to think about that risk, and decide if it's worth it or not. But, particularly if your 3-5 year time frame is reasonably flexible (i.e., if in 2019 the market tanks, you can wait the 2-3 years it may take to come back up) you should be investing. And - as usual, the normal warnings apply. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, we are not your investment advisors, and you may lose 100% of your investment... |
Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not? | This probably is a question that belongs on History but here's the basic reason: the or Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 established that health benefits under approved plans were not taxable to the employee. If the employer were to pay for an employees non ERISA approved individual plan, it would be a taxable benefit. The longer story is that many polticians (esp. President Richard Nixon) were concerned that public pressure was going to lead public sentiment toward nationalized health care. This made health insurance more affordable to employees and effectively made it a cheaper way to compensate employees similar to how 401K contributions are worth more (in nominal terms) to the employee than an equivalent amount of cash. While the law was not signed by Richard Nixon due to some other stuff that was going on, it was something proposed and pushed by his administration. |
Does being involved in the management of a corporation make me ineligible for a workshare program? | Assuming you are paying into and eligible to collect regular Employment Insurance benefits for the job in question, I don't see how owning a side business would, by itself, affect your ability to participate in the workshare program. Many people own dormant businesses ($0 revenue / $0 income), or businesses with insignificant net income (e.g. a small table at the flea market, or a fledgling web-site with up-front costs and no ad revenue, yet ;-) I think what matters is if your side business generated income substantial enough to put you over a certain threshold. Then you may be required to repay a portion of the EI benefits received through the workshare program. On this issue, I found the following article informative: How to make work-sharing work for you, from the Globe & Mail's Report on Business site. Here's a relevant quote: "[...] If you work elsewhere during the agreement, and earn more than an amount equal to 40% of your weekly benefit rate, that amount shall be deducted from your work sharing benefits payable that week. [...]" The definitive source for information on the workshare program is the Service Canada web site. In particular, see the Work-Sharing Applicant Guide, which discusses eligibility criteria. Section IV confirms the Globe article's statement above: "[...] Earnings received in any week by a Work-Sharing participant, from sources other than Work-Sharing employment, that are in excess of an amount equal to 40% or $75 (whichever is greater) of the participant's weekly benefit rate, shall be deducted from the Work-Sharing benefits payable in that week. [...]" Finally, here's one more interesting article that discusses the workshare program: Canada: Employment Law @ Gowlings - March 30, 2009. |
What percentage of my stock portfolio should be international (non-US) stocks? | Without knowing anything else about you, I'd say I need more information. If all of your investments are in stocks, then that's not really diversified, regardless of how many stocks you own. There are other things to invest in besides stocks (and bonds, for that matter). What countries? "International" is pretty broad, and some countries are better bets than others at the moment. If you're old, I'd say very little of your money should be in stocks anyway. I'd also seek financial advice that is tailored to your goals, sophistication, etc. |
Approximation of equity value for company in default | Generally "default" means that the company cannot pay off their debts, and since debt holders get paid before equity holders, their equity would be effectively worthless. That said, companies can emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy (reorganization) and retain equity value, but it is rare. Most times, stocks are de-listed or frozen on stock exchanges, and company's reorganization plan will cancel all existing equity shares, instead focusing all of their attention on paying back as much debt as possible. If the company issues new equity after reorganizing, it might provide a way for holders of the original equity to exchange their shares for the new equity, but it is rare, and the value is usually significantly less that the value of the original equity. |
For a major expensive home renovation (e.g. addition, finished basement, or new kitchen) should one pay cash or finance with a loan? Would such a loan be “good” debt? | The crucial question not addressed by other answers is your ability to repay the debt. Borrowing is always about leverage, and leverage is always about risk. In the home improvement loan case, default comes with dire consequences-- to extinguish the debt you might have to sell your home. With a stable job, reliable income, and sufficient cash flow (and, of course, comfort that the project will yield benefits you're happy to pay for), then the clear answer is, go ahead and borrow. But if you work in a highly cyclical industry, have very little cash saved, or for whatever other reason are uncertain about your future ability to pay, then don't borrow. Save until you are more comfortable you can handle the loan. That doesn't necessarily mean save ALL the money; just save enough that you are highly confident in your ability to pay whatever you borrow. |
Why would selling off some stores improve a company's value? | Maybe the location isn't yet, but will soon become a new loss. For example older soon out of warranty equipment, new tax laws in the locality soon to take affect or even just declining sales over the past periods of measurement. Perhaps labor disputes or other locality issues make running the store difficult. There is the possibility that the land the location occupies is worth more sold to the new big box retailer than it will be in the next 10 years of operation. In some cases, companies want to have a ton of cash on hand, or would sell assets to pay off debt. |
Loan math problem | The price inflation isn't a percentage, it's a fixed amount. If the dealer adds $R to the price of both the trade-in and the purchased car, then everyone ends up with the right amount of money in their pockets. So your formula should be: D + T + R = 0.1 * (P + R) |
Can one get a house mortgage without buying a house? | I've never heard of a loan product like that. Yes, if they keep the funds in an account, it is no risk to the bank, but they would essentially need to go through the loan process twice for the same loan: when you pick a house, they need to reevaluate everything, along with appraising and approving the house. Even if you did find a bank that would do this for you, there are a few problems with this scheme. You would be paying interest before you have a need for this money, negating the savings you might achieve if the interest rates go up. In addition, your "balance" will go down as "payments" are deducted from your loan, and when you finally find a home to buy, you might not have enough for the house you want. You'll need to borrow more than you need, which will further negate any possible savings. It is impossible to know how fast rates will climb. If I were you, I would stick to saving for your down payment, and just get the best rate you can when you are ready to buy. Another potential idea for you is to lock an interest rate. When you apply for a mortgage, the interest rate is often locked for as much as 60 days, to protect the borrower in the event that the rates go up. You could ask the bank if you can pay a fee to lock the rate even longer. I don't know if that is possible or not. And, of course, the fee would eat into your potential savings. |
What makes a Company's Stock prices go up or down? | There are many things that can make a company's share price go up or down. Generally, over the long term, the more consistently profitable a company is the more its share price will go up. However, there are times when a company may not be making any profits yet but its share price still goes up. This can be due to forecasts that the company will start making profits in the near future. Sometimes a company may report increased profits from the previous year but makes less than what the market was expecting it to make. This can cause its share price to fall, as the market is disappointed in the results. In the shorter term greed, fear and speculation can make a company's share price move irrationally. When you think the share price should be going up it suddenly falls, and Vis-versa. When interest rates are low, companies with higher dividend yields (compared to bank account interest rates) become high in demand and their shares generally go up in price. As the share price goes up the dividend yield will be reduced unless the company continues to increase the dividend it distributes to shareholders. When interest rates start to rise these companies become less favourable as they are seen as higher risk comparable to similar returns from having one's money in the safety of the bank. This can cause the share prices to fall. These are just some of the reasons that make a company's share price move up or down. As humans are an irrational bunch often ruled by emotions, sometimes the reasons share prices move in a particular direction can be quite confusing, but that is the nature of the financial markets. |
How can I detect potential fraud in a company before investing in them? | Even without fraud, a company can get into serious trouble overnight, often through no fault of their own. That's part of the hazard of being part owner of a company -- which is what a share of stock is. As a minority owner not involved in actually running the business, there really isn't a lot you can do about that excep to play the odds and think about how that risk compares to the profit you're taking (which is one reason the current emphasis on stock price rather than dividends is considered a departure from traditional investing) and, as everyone else has said, avoid putting too much of your wealth in one place. |
Why is the fractional-reserve banking not a Ponzi scheme? | It is possible to pay down debt (including interest) without issuing new debt money to pay for it. I think this is the heart of your question. Let me present a highly contrived example in which society has four people and one bank. Here is a bank with $100 in initial deposits. Total money supply in this society is $100. (We assume there is no currency circulating, since you're interested in debt money.) This bank lends out $90 to Bob at 1 year maturity and 10% APR. Bob spends this $90 with Charlie to buy raw materials. Charlie deposits $90 in the bank. The money supply just grew from $100 to $190. Bob does something with the raw materials and adds some kind of value, eventually selling the finished goods for $110. In our little silly economy, the only people who have money are Adam and Charlie, so we must assume that between the two of them they buy $110 worth of goods from Bob. Let's say Adam buys $60 and Charlie buys $50 -- the actual amounts don't matter. Bob deposits this money at the bank. Still $190 of money supply. At the end of 1 year, Bob instructs the bank to transfer payment from his deposit account to his loan account. The bank wipes clean his debt and the money remaining in Bob's account represents his return. Who is this David guy? He's the owner of the bank. He grosses $9 in interest from the loan to Bob, and he pays $5 to Adam as interest on Adam's deposit. The remaining $4 is the profit to the bank's owner. Money supply decreased from $190 to $100 after Bob pays off his loan. I realized after writing this, the one thing I left out is, "where does Adam get $100 to start with?" Presumably Adam starts off with some kind of currency, either fiat money or commodity money. (IOW, debt money can't be created out of nothing, it has to be expanded on top of some kind of currency.) |
Received an unexpected cashiers check for over $2K from another state - is this some scam? | This is so very much a scam. The accepted answer already tells you the basics of it. In addition to the cheque being fake, there is also the possibility that the cheque is a legitimate cheque but has been stolen (or swindled off) from somebody else. In that case, the delay with which the cashing of the cheque will blow up can be considerably longer than the accepted answer states since it depends on the other victim noticing and reporting the fraudulent transfer. The end result is the same: you are not going to be allowed to keep the money. Report this to both your sister's bank as well as her local police. Nothing good can come off this. |
Is there any reason to buy shares before/after a split? | Assuming you plan to buy a whole number of shares and have a maximum dollar value you intend to invest, it may be better to wait for the split if the figures don't quite work out nicely. For example, if you are going to invest $1,000 and the stock pre-split is $400 and the split is 2 for 1, then you'd buy 2 shares before the split unless you have an extra $200 to add. Meanwhile, after the split you could buy 5 shares at $200 so that you invest all that you intend. Aside from that case, it doesn't really make a difference since the split is similar to getting 2 nickels for a dime which in each case is still a total value of 10 cents. |
If I exercise underwater ISOs, can I claim a loss? | No, because you didn't lose anything. When you exercise ISO "at loss" you're buying stock without a discount, that's it. |
View asset/holdings breakdown within fund | according to the SEC: Shareholder Reports A mutual fund and a closed-end fund respectively must provide shareholders with annual and semi-annual reports 60 days after the end of the fund’s fiscal year and 60 days after the fund’s fiscal mid-year. These reports contain updated financial information, a list of the fund’s portfolio securities, and other information. The information in the shareholder reports will be current as of the date of the particular report (that is, the last day of the fund’s fiscal year for the annual report, and the last day of the fund’s fiscal mid-year for the semi-annual report). Other Reports A mutual fund and a closed-end fund must file a Form N-Q each quarter and a Form N-PX each year on the SEC’s EDGAR database, although funds are not required to mail these reports to shareholders. Funds disclose portfolio holdings on Form N-Q. Form N-PX identifies specific proposals on which the fund has voted portfolio securities over the past year and discloses how the fund voted on each. This disclosure enables fund shareholders to monitor their funds’ involvement in the governance activities of portfolio companies. which means that sixty days after the end of each quarter they will tell you what they owned 60 days ago. This makes sense; why would they want to tell the world what companies they are buying and selling. |
Emulating a 'long straddle' without buying or selling Options? | Up until your strategy's money losing leg is stopped out, you have zero PnL, while a straddle has lost time value but may gain from price movements - all the PnL at that time you cannot capture with your strategy. Also stop loss cannot guarantee your price. |
Car dealer saying that they cannot see any credit information for my co-applicant. Could this be a scam? | By law, your wife can get her full Equifax credit report (sans-FICO score) instantly (once every 12 months) via https://www.annualcreditreport.com She can even get her FICO score with a 7-day free trial of Equifax Complete Premier. |
What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland? | Switzerland was once known for its high regard for private property rights. Recently it is has started to violate those rights by forcing banks to turn over the names of account holders to the US government. Not a great trend. Another aspect that makes Switzerland an attractive place for people and businesses is the Swiss governemnt's neutral policy. The Swiss government is not deploying the Swiss military around the globe to fight terrorism, to spread democracy, to advance its own power, or other such murderous government programs. The Swiss people do not have to worry about the payback that arrives because of such depraved government programs. The Swiss were traditionally extreme advocates of individual gun rights which allows the people to provide protection for themselves against others and against the government. This too is changing (read section on The Enemy Within) in a not so favorable direction. I also belive the Swiss Franc was the last major currency to sever its tie to gold. The currency use to be highly desired due to its tie to gold. I think the currency is still highly regarded but the Swiss central bank is participating in the currency war and has attempted multiple times in the past couple of years to debase its currency so it does not appreciate against the euro or dollar. |
why if change manufacturing of a product not change the price for the buyer? | In highly developed and competitive industries companies tread a continuous and very fine line between maximising shareholder profits by keeping prices up while making products as cheaply as possible, vs competitors lowering prices when they work out a way to make equivalents cheaper. In the short run you will quite often see companies hold onto large portions of efficiency savings (particularly if they make a major breakthrough in a specific manufacturing process etc) by holding old prices up, but in the long run competition pretty quickly lowers prices as the companies trying to keep high margins and prices get ruthlessly undercut by smaller competitors happy to make a bit less. |
Can individuals day-trade stocks using High-Frequency Trading (HFT)? | Nobody is going to stop you if you want to try that. But you should keep in mind that you have to invest a lot in getting the best hardware you can lay your hands on, best fail-safe connectivity to the exchanges, best trading algorithms and software that money can buy and loads of other stuff. This all needs quite a big amount of upfront investment without guaranteeing returns. That is why you see institutions with deep pockets i.e. banks and trading firms only involve themselves in HFT. |
How can I increase my hourly pay as a software developer? | Most full time developer jobs in the US are paid on a salary basis rather than hourly unless you are a contractor. Also, the pay varies widely by region in the US with the West and East coast typically paying the most, but also having the highest cost of living. A site I really like for getting salary data by region and keyword for technical jobs is indeed.com. Here is a link to a chart on that site comparing salary trends for PHP and Joomla. |
Why buy stock of a company instead of the holding company who has more than 99% of the stocks | In a situation like this, I presume you'd invest in the child company if you thought that the child company would increase in value at a higher rate than the parent. You'd invest in the parent company if you thought the parent company would perform well as a whole, but you did not want to assume the risk of an individual company underneath it. Say the child company is worth 100 million, and the parent company is worth 500 million. You've invested a sum of money in the child company. The child company performs very well, and increases in value by, say, 20 million. As the parent company owns the child, we could say it also increases in value by roughly 20 million. The difference is proportional - Your investment in the child sees a 20% gain in value, whereas your investment in the parent sees a 4% gain in total value, as in this example the parent company, which owns nearly 100% of the child company, is worth 5x more and thus proportionally sees 1/5 the increase in value, due to it being worth more as a whole. Think of it similarly to a mutual fund or ETF that invests in many different stocks on the market. As the market does well, that mutual fund or ETF does well, too. As the mutual fund is made up of many individual stocks, one stock performing very well, say at a 10-20% increase in value, does not raise the value of the ETF or mutual fund by 10-20%. The etf / mutual fund will perform slightly better (Assuming all other components remain equal for this example), but only proportionally to the fraction of it that's made up of the stock that's performing well. |
If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything? | It seems to me that your main question here is about why a stock is worth anything at all, why it has any intrinsic value, and that the only way you could imagine a stock having value is if it pays a dividend, as though that's what you're buying in that case. Others have answered why a company may or may not pay a dividend, but I think glossed over the central question. A stock has value because it is ownership of a piece of the company. The company itself has value, in the form of: You get the idea. A company's value is based on things it owns or things that can be monetized. By extension, a share is a piece of all that. Some of these things don't have clear cut values, and this can result in differing opinions on what a company is worth. Share price also varies for many other reasons that are covered by other answers, but there is (almost) always some intrinsic value to a stock because part of its value represents real assets. |
What is the opposite of a sunk cost? A “sunk gain”? | In the second example you are giving up future free cash flows in exchange for a capital gain on the original investment. With that respect the money you will not gain will be the difference of the future cash flows ( net of related costs) minus the net gain on the panel you have sold. The financial result can be considered as the opposite of a sunk cost, that is a cost you have already incurred ( and cannot be recovered) vs net future gains you are giving up. In more sophisticated financial terms we are talking about the benefit-cost ratio: ( from Investopedia) |
US Taxes - Handling Capital Losses from previous years with current capital gains | No one can advise you on whether to hold this stock or sell it. Your carried losses can offset short or long term gains, but the long term losses have to be applied to offset long term gains before any remaining losses can offset short term gains. Your question doesn't indicate how long you have to hold before the short term gains become long term gains. Obviously the longer the holding period, the greater the risk. You also must avoid a wash sale (selling to lock in the gains/reset your basis then repurchasing within a month). All of those decisions hold risks that you have to weigh. If you see further upside in holding it longer, keep the investment. Don't sell just to try to maximize tax benefits. |
What is the easiest way to back-test index funds and ETFs? | check pastsat-backtesting , backtesting tool, where one can can test on well known technical indicators without coding skills |
Challenged an apparently bogus credit card charge, what happens now? | Yes. For $15 it's not worth anyone's time to dig deep just for this specific occurrence. What you should do, however, is keep an eye on your credit card bills and accounts and watch for any other suspicious activity. It is possible that your number was stolen somehow and someone is using it fraudulently, so you want to be on the lookout in case they try to use it again. However, your credit card company is going to be much, much better than you at detecting patterns of fraud, which is why you should leave it to them unless and until you actually see more suspicious activity. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.