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Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership?
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You can buy a new Toyota from a non-dealer, but not from Toyota directly as they have no retail distribution capability. There is no need to buy directly from Toyota if you want to get a new car without going through a dealer. In many cases people buy new cars but have to sell them immediately for one reason or another.
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Is it normal that US Treasury bills(0.07%) yield smaller than interest rate(0.25%)?
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Im not sure if its normal/sensical/healthy, and that is kind of opinion based. But there is a reason for it. Certain rules and regulations passed recently are causing companies or institutions to shift to bonds from cash. Fidelity, for example, is completely converting its $100 billion dollar cash fund to short term bills. Its estimated that over $2 trillion that is now in cash may be converted to bills, and that will obviously put upward preasure on the price of them. The treasury is trying to issue more short term debt to balance out the demand. read more here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/money-funds-clamor-for-short-term-treasurys-1445300813
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Should I buy out my brother on a property we will inherit before making improvements?
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In the end you, your dad, and your brother should come to an agreement so there's no surprises or unfulfilled expectations, but here's my opinion: If you can afford to make the additions now: I would offer to pay fully for the addition, with the understanding that the additional value that it generates is yours. That keeps everything in your name, and should be fair since you pay for the expense and someday reap the benefit. If you can't afford to make the additions now: I see two options: have your brother buy your father's house, giving you half of the proceeds, and use those proceeds to make the addition as above, or split the cost of the addition and have some sort of contract drawn up promising to reimburse him (with the amount of the reimbursement very clear, like XXX dollars plus accrued interest at Y% annually) as a condition to selling the house. One other part you didn't mention is any compensation you get for keeping your father at your house. What compensation (if any) you get is not as important as making sure that the three of you all agree on what is fair. In any case, clear, honest communication and full agreement is key. There is a very real risk that when your father's estate is settled that there will be disputes over what the agreement was and who it entitled to what. Having everything in writing may sound cold, but it keeps everyone on the same page.
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Personal “Profit & Loss Statement” required for mortgage?
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The bank is asking for a P & L because as a contractor you are in essence running your own business. Its kind of a technicality, all you need to do is look at any expenses that you paid out of pocket while working there that were job or "business" related. Write a list of those expenses such as "Gas", "Materials", "Legal Expenses", etc. and then show your total income from that job or "contract" subtract the expenses and show your total profit or loss hence Profit / Loss Statement. I realize that you may not have any real expenses tied to that job although I don't know and if you don't, then simply write in your income, say no expenses and show your "profit/pay" at the bottom of your P & L! Viola! Your Done! Good luck with the closing!
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How do I get bill collectors who call about people I know to stop calling me?
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If they really won't stop calling you, just waste their time. Usually the best thing I do to telemarketers (the ones that constantly call even through I've told them to stop) is to say "oh yes, I'm interested I'll just get a pen" - put them on hold and keep them on hold. Do it every time they call and soon they'll get the idea that you're a waste of time.
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What is the opposite of a sunk cost? A “sunk gain”?
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A "sunk cost" is a cost that you have already incurred, and won't get back. The "sunk cost fallacy," as you described, is when you make a bad decision based on your sunk cost. When you identify a sunk cost, you realize that the money has been spent, and the decision is irreversible. Future decisions should not take this cost into account. When you commit the "sunk cost fallacy," you are keeping something that is bad simply because you spent a lot of money on it. You are failing to identify the correct current value of something based on its high cost to you in the past. The other fallacy you describe, the opposite of the sunk cost fallacy, is when you get rid of something that is good simply because you spent little on it. As before, you are also failing to correctly identify the correct current value of something, but in this case, you are assigning too little a value based on the low cost in the past. You could call this a type of "opportunity cost," a loss of future benefits due to a mistake made today. It seems reasonable to describe this type of fallacy as an "opportunity cost fallacy."
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Can you use external money to pay trading commissions in tax-free and tax-deferred accounts?
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According to Publication 590, broker's commissions for stock transactions within an IRA cannot be paid in addition to the IRA contribution(s), but they are deductible as part of the contribution, or add to the basis if you are making a nondeductible contribution to a Traditional IRA. (Top of Page 10, and Page 12, column 1, in the 2012 edition of Pub 590). On the other hand, trustees' administrative fees can be paid from outside the IRA if they are billed separately, and are even deductible as a Miscellaneous Deduction on Schedule A of your income tax return (subject to the 2% of AGI threshold). A long time ago, when my IRA account balances were much smaller, I used to get a bill from my IRA custodian for a $20 annual administrative fee which I paid separately (but never got to deduct due to the 2% threshold). My custodian also allowed the option of doing nothing in which case the $20 would be collected from (and thus reduce) the amount of money in my IRA. Note that this does not apply to the expenses charged by the mutual funds that you might have in your IRA; these expenses are treated the same as brokerage commissions and must be paid from within the IRA.
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What exactly happens during a settlement period?
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During the settlement period, the buyer transfers payment to the seller and the seller transfers ownership to the buyer. This is really a holdover from the days when so much of stock trading was done by individual human traders, and computers were still not a huge part of the operation. Back then, paper tickets for trades exchanged hands, and the time period was actually 5 days, so 3 days is an improvement. A settlement period was necessary for everyone to figure out their trades and do what was necessary to make the settlements happen, so it was not always a quick process, mainly because of smaller trading firms that didn't have technology to help them along. Nowadays, technology makes settlements easy, and they usually occur at the end of the trading day. The trading firms sum up their trades, figure out who they owe, and send lump sum settlements to the counterparties to their trades. If anything, the 3-day period may just be used now to let parties verify trades before settling. I hope this helps. Good luck!
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Why are credit cards preferred in the US?
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For me, it is mostly for the fraud protection. If I have a debit card and someone makes a fraudulent charge the money is removed from my bank account. From my understanding, I can then file a fraud complaint with the bank to recover my money. However, for some period of time, the money is missing from my bank account. I've heard conflicting stories of money being returned quickly while the complaint is undergoing investigation as well as money being tied up for several days/weeks. It may depend on the bank. With a credit card, it is the banks money that is tied up.
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Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year?
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In addition to the company-specific annual business cycle reasons and company-specific historical reasons mentioned in the other answers, there is another reason. Accounting firms tend to be very busy during January (and February and March) when most companies are closing and auditing their calendar-year books. If a company chooses its fiscal year to end at a different time of year, the accounting firms are more available, and the auditing costs might be lower.
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Investing in the stock market during periods of high inflation
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The relation between inflation and stock (or economic) performance is not well-understood. Decades ago, economists thought inflation corresponded with periods of high growth and good real returns, but since then we have had periods of low inflation and high growth and high inflation with low growth. It is generally understood among current economists that inflation levels (especially expected inflation) are neither indicative nor causative of real stock returns. Many things can affect inflation, and economic performance is only a minor one. Many things can cause economic performance, and inflation is only a minor one. It's not clear whether the overall relation between inflation and real stock returns is positive or negative. Notice, however, that in principle stock returns are real. That is, the money companies make is in inflated dollars so profit and dividends for a company whose prospects have not changed should go up and down at the same rate as inflation. This would mean if inflation goes up by 5% and nothing else changes, you would expect stock prices to go up by the same proportion so you wouldn't have strong feelings about inflation one way or the other. In real life stock prices will go up by either more or less than 5% but I'm not comfortable saying which, on average. Bottom line: current levels of inflation can't really be used to predict real stock returns, so you shouldn't let current inflation guide your decision about whether to buy stock.
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Borrowing money to buy shares for cashflow?
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Don't do it. I would sell one of my investment houses and use the equity to pay down your primary mortgage. Then I would refinance my primary mortgage in order to lower the payments.
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Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out?
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If you can generate a higher ROI by renting than by cashing out and investing, then you should rent it out. Please consider your risk tolerance as well. It's always a personal decision whether to assume higher risk for a higher return.
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What are the differences between an investment mortgage and a personal mortgage?
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If you are going to live in the house for awhile, you can probably use a regular mortgage. Shop around and look for a mortgage program that works. Look at local banks/credit unions, particularly those with community development programs. Usually an investment mortgage is higher rate, higher payment and has higher underwriting standards.
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Bid price… sudden Drop
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An option gives you the option rather than the obligation to buy (or sell) the underlying so you don't have to exercise you can just let the option expire (so long it doesn't have an automatic expiry). After expiration the option is worthless if it is out of the money but other than that has no hangover. Option prices normally drop as the time value of the option decays. An option has two values associated with it; time value and exercise value. Far out of the money (when the price of the underlying is far from the strike price on the losing side) options only have time value whereas deep in the money options (as yours seems to be) has some time value as well as the intrinsic value of the right to buy (sell) at a low (high) price and then sell (buy) the underlying. The time value of the option comes from the possibility that the price of the underlying will move (further) in your favour and make you more money at expiry. As expiry closes it is less likely that there will be a favourable mood so this value declines which can cause prices to move sharply after a period of little to no revaluing. Up to now what I have said applies to both OTC and traded options but exchange traded options have another level of complexity in their trading; because there are fewer traders in the options market the size of trade at which you can move the market is much lower. On the equities markets you may need to trade millions of shares to have be substantial enough to significantly move a price, on the options markets it could be thousands or even hundreds. If these are European style options (which sounds likely) and a single trading entity was holding a large number of the exchange traded options and now thinks that the price will move significantly against them before expiry their sell trade will move the market lower in spite of the options being in the money. Their trade is based on their supposition that by the time they can exercise the option the price will be below the strike and they will lose money. They have cashed out at a price that suited them and limited what they will lose if they are right about the underlying. If I am not correct in my excise style assumption (European) I may need more details on the trade as it seems like you should just exercise now and take the profit if it is that far into the money.
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What are the consequences of not respecting a notice period when leaving a job?
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When I was pursuing my Business Degree in Canada we were told the standard notice period is 2 weeks on both sides. This means your employer is required to give you at least two weeks notice and you are required to give it as well. If you violate your notice requirement the employer can sue you for lost revenues and etc. for that time period. The converse side is if your employer failed to provide you with sufficient notice you could sue for lost wages for that time frame as well. I'm sure you can contractually agree to more than the legal minimum of two weeks.
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If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down?
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Can you reduce your interest rate? Talk to the lender. Maybe. Probably not. The rate reflects their perception of how much of a risk they're taking with the loan. But if all you're borrowing is $2000, the savings that you might get out of any adjustment to the rate is not going to be all that significant. Sure, it would be nice, but it's not going to be enough to make or break your decision to buy this car. The big savings will be that you're paying interest on a much smaller loan, which means you can reduce your payments and/or pay it off more quickly. REMINDER: NEVER TALK TO AN AUTO DEALER ABOUT FINANCING UNTIL AFTER THE PRICE OF THE CAR HAS BEEN NAILED DOWN -- otherwise they will raise the purchase price to cover the cost of offering you an apparently cheap loan.
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What if 40% of the remaining 60% Loan To Value (ratio) is not paid, or the borrower wants to take only 60% of the loan?
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I wanted to know that what if the remaining 40% of 60% in a LTV (Loan to Value ratio ) for buying a home is not paid but the borrower only wants to get 60% of the total amount of home loan that is being provided by lending company. Generally, A lending company {say Bank] will not part with their funds unless you first pay your portion of the funds. This is essentially to safeguard their interest. Let's say they pay the 60% [either to you or to the seller]; The title is still with Seller as full payment is not made. Now if you default, the Bank has no recourse against the seller [who still owns the title] and you are not paying. Some Banks may allow a schedule where the 60/40 may be applied to every payment made. This would be case to case basis. The deal could be done with only paying 20% in the beginning to the buyer and then I have to pay EMI's of $7451. The lending company is offering you 1.1 million assuming that you are paying 700K and the title will be yours. This would safeguard the Banks interest. Now if you default, the Bank can take possession of the house and recover the funds, a distress sale may be mean the house goes for less than 1.8 M; say for 1.4 million. The Bank would take back the 1.1 million plus interest and other closing costs. So if you can close the deal by paying only 20%, Bank would ask you to close this first and then lend you any money. This way if you are not able to pay the balance as per the deal agreement, you would be in loss and not the Bank.
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Why does the calculation for percentage profit vary based on whether a position is short vs. long?
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There are different perspectives from which to calculate the gain, but the way I think it should be done is with respect to the risk you've assumed in the original position, which the simplistic calculation doesn't factor in. There's a good explanation about calculating the return from a short sale at Investopedia. Here's the part that I consider most relevant: [...] When calculating the return of a short sale, you need to compare the amount the trader gets to keep to the initial amount of the liability. Had the trade in our example turned against you, you (as the short seller) would owe not only the initial proceeds amount but also the excess amount, and this would come out of your pocket. [...] Refer to the source link for the full explanation. Update: As you can see from the other answers and comments, it is a more complex a Q&A than it may first appear. I subsequently found this interesting paper which discusses the difficulty of rate of return with respect to short sales and other atypical trades: Excerpt: [...] The problem causing this almost uniform omission of a percentage return on short sales, options (especially writing), and futures, it may be speculated, is that the nigh-well universal and conventional definition of rate of return involving an initial cash outflow followed by a later cash inflow does not appear to fit these investment situations. None of the investment finance texts nor general finance texts, undergraduate or graduate, have formally or explicitly shown how to resolve this predicament or how to justify the calculations they actually use. [...]
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Does the rise in ACA premiums affect employer-provided health insurance premiums?
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There are a lot of moving parts, individual premiums and annual increases have little to do with employer premiums and annual increases and vice versa. Most people think of XYZ insurer as a single company with a single pool of insured folks. This common knowledge isn't accurate. Insurers pool their business segments separately. This means that Individual, small business, mid-size business, and large business are all different operating segments from the viewpoint of the insurer. It's possible to argue that because so many people are covered by employer plans that individual plans have a hard time accumulating the required critical mass of subscribers to keep increases reasonable. Age banded rating: Individual coverage and small group coverage is age rated, meaning every year you get older. In addition to your age increase, the premium table for your plan also receives an increase. Employers with 100+ eligible employees are composite rated (in general), meaning every employee costs the same amount. The 18 year old employee costs $500 per month, the 64 year old costs $500 per month. Generally, the contributions an employee pays to participate in the plan are also common among all ages. This means that on a micro level increases can be more incremental because the employer is abstracting the gross premium. Composite rating generally benefits older folks while age rating generally benefits younger folks. Employer Morale Incentive: Generally the cost to an employee covered by an employer plan isn't directly correlated to the gross premium, and increases to the contribution(s) aren't necessarily correlated to the increases the employer receives. Employers are incentivised by employee morale. It's pretty common for employers to shoulder a disproportionate amount of an increase to keep everyone happy. Employers may offset the increase by shopping some ancillary benefit like group life insurance, or bundling the dental program with the medical carrier. Remember, employees don't pay premiums they pay contributions and some employers are more generous than others. Employers are also better at budgeting for planned increases than individuals are. Regulators: In many of the states that are making the news because of their healthcare premium increases there simply isn't a regulator scrutinizing increases. California requires all individual and small group premiums to be filed with the state and increases must be justified with some sort of math and approved by a regulator. Without this kind of oversight insurers have only the risk of subscriber flight to adjust plan provisions and press harder during provider contract negotiations. Expiring Transitional Reinsurance Fee and Funds: One of the fees introduced by healthcare reform paid by insurers and self-insured employers established a pot of money that individual plans could tap to cope with the new costs of the previously uninsurable folks. This fee and corresponding pot of money is set to expire and can no longer be taken in to account by underwriters. Increased Treatment Availability: It's important that as new facilities go online, insurer costs will increase. If a little town gets a new cancer clinic, that pool will see more cancer treatment costs simply as a result of increased treatment availability. Consider that medical care inflation is running at about 4.9% annually as of the most recent CPI table, the rest of the increases will result from the performance of that specific risk pool. If that risk pool had a lot of cancer diagnoses, you're looking at a big increase. If that risk pool was under priced the prior year you will see an above average increase, etc.
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What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?
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You need to find a fiduciary advisor pronto. Yes, you are getting a large amount of money, but you'll probably have to deal with higher than average health expenses and lower earning potential for years to come. You need to make sure the $1.2 million lasts you, and for that you need professional advice, not something you read on the Internet. Finding a knowledgeable advisor who has your interests at heart at a reasonable rate is the key here. These articles are a good start on what to look for: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financialcareers/08/fiduciary-planner.asp https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2013/09/20/6-pointed-questions-to-ask-before-hiring-a-financial-advisor/#2e2b91c489fe http://www.investopedia.com/articles/professionaleducation/11/suitability-fiduciary-standards.asp You should also consider what your earning potential is. You rule out college but at 26, you can have a long productive career and earn way more money than the $1.2 million you are going to get.
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What to ask Warren Buffet at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting?
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For whatever it's worth, when I went to the meeting a couple of years ago, the question and answer segment is mostly students asking how to pick a stock or what book they should read. I'm sure someone else will ask but it would be interesting to hear their take on the Syrian refugee situation in Europe and how it may impact the EU in general. Or how he/they think the drought in the south western region of the US will impact the national economy, if at all. Like Keshlam says, if YOU don't care about the answer there's really no point to asking the question. The most important thing you can do is listen to what he and Munger have to say. The way they think is interesting and they have great rapport with eachother. It's a great experience and unfortunately I wasn't able to make my schedule work to attend this year. It's almost comical how many cans of Coke Warren will knock out through the day. Another fun thing to do is take the shuttle to the airstrip to check out the NetJets. I wish I had the interest and wherewithal to go when I was 16...
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Can individuals day-trade stocks using High-Frequency Trading (HFT)?
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Yes you can, but to do so successfully, you need lots of money. You also need to be able to meet the criteria for being classified as a "professional trader" by the IRS. (If not, you'll be buried in paperwork.) The fact that you're asking about it here probably means that you do not have enough money to succeed at HFT.
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Do I have to pay a capital gains tax if I rebuy different stocks?
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Yes (most likely). If you are exchanging investments for cash, you will have to pay tax on that - disregarding capital losses, capital loss carryovers, AGI thresholds, and other special rules (which there is no indication of in your question). You will have to calculate the gain on Schedule D, and report that as income on your 1040. This is the case whether you buy different or same stocks.
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Can we compare peer-to-peer loans to savings accounts?
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Peer to peer lending isn't FDIC insured. You can lose all your investment with peer to peer lending, whereas you will not lose your deposited money in a savings account, even if it doesn't grow very fast.
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What happened to Home Depot's Stock in 1988?
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It's got to be a bad chunk of data on Google. Yahoo finance does not show that anomaly for 1988, nor does the chart from Home Depot's investor relations site:
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How to split stock earnings?
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If you have been a good steward of your friend's money this suggestion will not be too difficult. Pay your friend what his money would have earned in the S&P 500 if you had just invested it in an index fund. Subtract 15% for long-term capital gains. You can use the ticker SPY to see what the price was on the day he gave you the money, versus the price today. If you had helped your friend open an account for himself, you would have given him more than the returns on his money, you would have helped educate him on how to invest for himself.
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Got charged ridiculous amount for doctor's walk in visit. What are my options?
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To answer the specific question of whether you can get the bill reduced without hurting your credit, yes, as long as the bill never goes to collections, there's no reason it should ever show up on your credit report. Will they reduce your bill without sending it to collections first? Maybe. All you can do is ask.
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Having a separate bank account for business/investing, but not a “business account?”
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You don't specify which country you are in, so my answers are more from a best practice view than a legal view.. I don't intend on using it for personal use, but I mean it's just as possible. This is a dangerous proposition.. You shouldn't co-mingle business expenses with personal expenses. If there is a chance this will happen, then stop, make it so that it won't happen. The big danger is in being able to have traceability between what you are doing for the business, and what you are doing for yourself. If you are using this as a "staging" account for investments, etc., are those investments for yourself? Or for the business? Is tax treatment on capital gains and/or dividends the same for personal and business in your jurisdiction? If you buy a widget, is the widget an expense against business income? Or is it an out of pocket expense for personal consumption? The former reduces your taxable income, the latter does not. I don't see the benefit of a real business account because those have features specific to maybe corporations, LLC, and etc. -- nothing beneficial to a sole proprietor who has no reports/employees. The real benefit is that there is a clear delineation between business income/expenses and personal income/expenses. This account can also accept money and hold it from business transactions/sales, and possibly transfer some to the personal account if there's no need for reinvesting said amount/percentage. What you are looking for is a commonly called a current account, because it is used for current expenses. If you are moving money out of the account to your personal account, that speaks to paying yourself, which has other implications as well. The safest/cleanest way to do this is to: While this may sound like overkill, it is the only way to guarantee that income/expenses are allocated to the correct entity (i.e. you, or your business). From a Canadian standpoint:
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Do you avoid tax when taking a home equity loan?
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Loans are not taxable events. The equity you took out is not income. It's a loan, and you pay it back with interest. You pay taxes on the capital gain of the home when you sell it. The tax does not take into account any mortgages, HELOCs, or other loans secured by the house. Instead the tax is calculated based on the price you sold it for, minus the price you bought it for, which is known as the capital gain. You can exclude $250k of that gain for a single person, $500k for a married couple. (There are a few other wrikles as well.) That would be true regardless of the loan balance at the time.
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Why is the number of issued shares less than the number of outstanding shares
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The language in the starbucks accounts is highly ambiguous. But Starbucks has no treasury shares which helps work out what is going on. Where it says "respectively" it is referring to the years 2014 and 2013 rather than "issued and outstanding"...even though it doesn't read that way. Not easy to work out. The figures are: Authorised 1200 2014 Issued 749.5 2014 Outstanding 749.5 2013 Issued 753.2 2013 Outstanding 753.2
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How to calculate 1 share movement
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The price of a share has two components: Bid: The highest price that someone who wants to buy shares is willing to pay for them. Ask: The lowest price that someone who has a share is willing to sell it for. The ask is always higher than the bid, since if they were equal the buyer and seller would have a deal, make a transaction, and that repeats until they are not equal. For stock with high volume, there is usually a very small difference between the bid and ask, but a stock with lower volume could have a major difference. When you say that the share price is $100, that could mean different things. You could be talking about the price that the shares sold for in the most recent transaction (and that might not even be between the current bid and ask), or you could be talking about any of the bid, the ask, or some value in between them. If you have shares that you are interested in selling, then the bid is what you could immediately sell a share for. If you sell a share for $100, that means someone was willing to pay you $100 for it. If after buying it, they still want to buy more for $100 each, or someone else does, then the bid is still $100, and you haven't changed the price. If no one else is willing to pay more than $90 for a share, then the price would drop to $90 next time a transaction takes place and thats what you would be able to immediately sell the next share for.
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250k USD in savings. What's next?
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You're off to a great start. Here are the steps I would take: 1.) Pay off any high-interest debt. 2.) Keep six to twelve months in a highly liquid emergency fund. If the banks aren't safe, also consider having one or two months of cash or cash-equivalents on the premises. 3.) Rent a larger apartment, if possible, until you've saved more. The cost of the land and construction will consume a very large portion of your net worth. Given the historical political instability in that region, mentioned by the previous comments, I would hesitate to put such a large percentage of your wealth in to real estate. 4.) Get a brokerage account that's insured and well known. If you're willing to take the five percent hit to move assets offshore, then consider Vanguard. I'm not sure if they'll give you an account but they're generally acknowledged as an amazing broker in the US with low fees and amazing funds. Five percent (12,500) is worth it in my opinion. As you accumulate more wealth, you can stop moving cash overseas and keep a larger mix domestically. 5.) Invest in your business and yourself even more. As far as finding new investment opportunities, I would go through the list of all the typical major asset classes and consider the pros and cons: fixed-income, stocks, currencies, real estate / REITs, own a small business, commodities etc.,
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How to choose a company for an IRA?
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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.
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In Canada, can a limited corporation be used as an income tax shelter?
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(Disclaimer: I am not an accountant nor a tax pro, etc., etc.) Yes, a Canadian corporation can function as a partial income tax shelter. This is possible since a corporation can retain earnings (profits) indefinitely, and corporate income tax rates are generally less than personal income tax rates. Details: If you own and run your business through a corporation, you can choose to take income from your corporation in one of two ways: as salary, or as dividends. Salary constitutes an expense of the corporation, i.e. it gets deducted from revenue in calculating corporate taxable income. No corporate income tax is due on money paid out as salary. However, personal income taxes and other deductions (e.g. CPP) would apply to salary at regular rates, the same as for a regular employee. Dividends are paid by the corporation to shareholders out of after-tax profits. i.e. the corporation first pays income tax on taxable income for the fiscal year, and resulting net income could be used to pay dividends (or not). At the personal level, dividends are taxed less than salary to account for tax the corporation paid. The net effect of corporate + personal tax is about the same as for salary (leaving out deductions like CPP.) The key point: Dividends don't have to be paid out in the year the money was earned. The corporation can carry profits forward (retained earnings) as long as it wants and choose to issue dividends (or not) in later years. Given that, here's how would the partial income tax shelter works: At some point, for you to personally realize income from the corporation, you can have the corporation declare a dividend. You'll then have to pay personal income taxes on the income, at the dividend rates. But for as long as the money was invested inside the corporation, it was subject only to lesser corporate tax rates, not higher personal income tax rates. Hence the "partial" aspect of this kind of tax shelter. Or, if you're lucky enough to find a buyer for your corporation, you could qualify for the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption on proceeds up to $750,000 when you sell a qualified small business corporation. This is the best exit strategy; unfortunately, not an easy one where the business has no valuable assets (e.g. a client base, or intellectual property.) * The major sticking-point: You need to have real business revenue! A regular employee (of another company) can't funnel his personally-earned employment income into a corporation just to take advantage of this mechanism. Sorry. :-/
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Capital gains on no-dividend stocks - a theoretical question
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You are overlooking the fact that it is not only supply & demand from investors that determines the share price: The company itself can buy and sell its own shares. If company X is profitable over the long haul but pays 0 dividends then either Option (2) is pretty ridiculous, so (1) will hold except in an extreme "man bites dog" kind of fluke. This is connected with the well-known "dividend paradox", which I discussed already in another answer.
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Why can't I short a stock that sells for less than $5? Is there another way to “go short” on them?
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Timothy Sykes specializes in this type of trade, according to his website. He has some recommendations for brokers that allow shorting low-priced stocks:
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What is the equation for an inflation adjusted annuity held in perpetuity?
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Let P denote the amount of the investment, R the rate of return and I the rate of inflation. For simplicity, assume that the payment p is made annually right after the return has been earned. Thus, at the end if the year, the investment P has increased to P*(1+R) and p is returned as the annuity payment. If I = 0, the entire return can be paid out as the payment, and thus p = P*R. That is, at the end of the year, when the dust settles after the return P*R has been collected and paid out as the annuity payment, P is again available at the beginning of the next year to earn return at rate R. We have P*(1+R) - p = P If I > 0, then at the end of the year, after the dust settles, we cannot afford to have only P available as the investment for next year. Next year's payment must be p*(1+I) and so we need a larger investment since the rate of return is fixed. How much larger? Well, if the investment at the beginning of next year is P*(1+I), it will earn exactly enough additional money to pay out the increased payment for next year, and have enough left over to help towards future increases in payments. (Note that we are assuming that R > I. If R < I, a perpetuity cannot be created.) Thus, suppose that we choose p such that P*(1+R) - p = P*(1+I) Multiplying this equation by (1+I), we have [P(1+I)]*(1+R) - [p*(1+I)] = P*(1+I)^2 In words, at the start of next year, the investment is P*(1+I) and the return less the increased payout of p*(1+I) leaves an investment of P*(1+I)^2 for the following year. Each year, the payment and the amount to be invested for the following year increase by a factor of (1+I). Solving P*(1+R) - p = P*(1+I) for p, we get p = P*(R-I) as the initial perpetuity payment and the payment increases by a factor (1+I) each year. The initial investment is P and it also increases by a factor of (1+I) each year. In later years, the investment is P*(1+I)^n at the start of the year, the payment is p*(1+I)^n and the amount invested for the next year is P*(1+I)^{n+1}. This is the same result as obtained by the OP but written in terms that I can understand, that is, without the financial jargon about discount rates, gradients, PV, FV and the like.
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How can rebuilding a city/large area be considered an economic boost?
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The problem here is that the metrics that are used to track the economy are looking for things like growth and change. In a perfect world, everyone would have exactly what they need and there would no need for economists because the economy would be static.
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Do “Instant Approved” credit card inquires appear on credit report?
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You'll see a hard inquiry for both, but not necessarily on all three agencies (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax). I have both the Amazon Chase and Amazon Store Card. Amazon Chase, is obviously through Chase bank. Amazon Store Card is through GE Money.
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Other than being able to borrow to invest, how is a margin trading account different from a cash account?
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Probably the most significant difference is the Damocles Sword hanging over your head, the Margin Call. In a nutshell, the lender (your broker) is going to require you to have a certain amount of assets in your account relative to your outstanding loan balance. The minimum ratio of liquid funds in the account to the loan is regulated in the US at 50% for the initial margin and 25% for maintenance margins. So here's where it gets sticky. If this ratio gets on the wrong side of the limits, the broker will force you to either add more assets/cash to your account t or immediately liquidate some of your holdings to remedy the situation. Assuming you don't have any/enough cash to fix the problem it can effectively force you to sell while your investments are in the tank and lock in a big loss. In fact, most margin agreements give the brokerage the right to sell your investments without your express consent in these situations. In this situation you might not even have the chance to pick which stock they sell. Source: Investopedia article, "The Dreaded Margin Call" Here's an example from the article: Let's say you purchase $20,000 worth of securities by borrowing $10,000 from your brokerage and paying $10,000 yourself. If the market value of the securities drops to $15,000, the equity in your account falls to $5,000 ($15,000 - $10,000 = $5,000). Assuming a maintenance requirement of 25%, you must have $3,750 in equity in your account (25% of $15,000 = $3,750). Thus, you're fine in this situation as the $5,000 worth of equity in your account is greater than the maintenance margin of $3,750. But let's assume the maintenance requirement of your brokerage is 40% instead of 25%. In this case, your equity of $5,000 is less than the maintenance margin of $6,000 (40% of $15,000 = $6,000). As a result, the brokerage may issue you a margin call. Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/university/margin/margin2.asp#ixzz1RUitwcYg
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Calculating the cost of waiting longer for money
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The cost of an extra 30 days is $1459.80
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Where do online stock brokers get their real-time data from?
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Generally Google gets their data, directly from the exchanges (Nasdaq, NYSE). This is really expensive -- tens of thousands of dollars a month just for the license from the exchange, and lots of telecom costs on top of that.
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Should I invest in the world's strongest currency instead of my home currency?
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The best thing is to diversify across multiple currencies. USD and EUR seem reliable. But not 100% reliable to keep all your investments in this types of currencies. Invest part of your savings in USD, part - in EUR, and part in your home country's currency. Apart from investing I recommend you to have certain sum in cash and certain on your bank account.
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Tax implications of diversification
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(All for US.) Yes you (will) have a realized long-term capital gain, which is taxable. Long-term gains (including those distributed by a mutual fund or other RIC, and also 'qualified' dividends, both not relevant here) are taxed at lower rates than 'ordinary' income but are still bracketed almost (not quite) like ordinary income, not always 15%. Specifically if your ordinary taxable income (after deductions and exemptions, equivalent to line 43 minus LTCG/QD) 'ends' in the 25% to 33% brackets, your LTCG/QD income is taxed at 15% unless the total of ordinary+preferred reaches the top of those brackets, then any remainder at 20%. These brackets depend on your filing status and are adjusted yearly for inflation, for 2016 they are: * single 37,650 to 413,350 * married-joint or widow(er) 75,300 to 413,350 * head-of-household 50,400 to 441,000 (special) * married-separate 37,650 to 206,675 which I'd guess covers at least the middle three quintiles of the earning/taxpaying population. OTOH if your ordinary income ends below the 25% bracket, your LTCG/QD income that 'fits' in the lower bracket(s) is taxed at 0% (not at all) and only the portion that would be in the ordinary 25%-and-up brackets is taxed at 15%. IF your ordinary taxable income this year was below those brackets, or you expect next year it will be (possibly due to status/exemption/deduction changes as well as income change), then if all else is equal you are better off realizing the stock gain in the year(s) where some (or more) of it fits in the 0% bracket. If you're over about $400k a similar calculation applies, but you can afford more reliable advice than potential dogs on the Internet. (update) Near dupe found: see also How are long-term capital gains taxed if the gain pushes income into a new tax bracket? Also, a warning on estimated payments: in general you are required to pay most of your income tax liability during the year (not wait until April 15); if you underpay by more than 10% or $1000 (whichever is larger) you usually owe a penalty, computed on Form 2210 whose name(?) is frequently and roundly cursed. For most people, whose income is (mostly) from a job, this is handled by payroll withholding which normally comes out close enough to your liability. If you have other income, like investments (as here) or self-employment or pension/retirement/disability/etc, you are supposed to either make estimated payments each 'quarter' (the IRS' quarters are shifted slightly from everyone else's), or increase your withholding, or a combination. For a large income 'lump' in December that wasn't planned in advance, it won't be practical to adjust withholding. However, if this is the only year increased, there is a safe harbor: if your withholding this year (2016) is enough to pay last year's tax (2015) -- which for most people it is, unless you got a pay cut this year, or a (filed) status change like marrying or having a child -- you get until next April 15 (or next business day -- in 2017 it is actually April 18) to pay the additional amount of this year's tax (2016) without underpayment penalty. However, if you split the gain so that both 2016 and 2017 have income and (thus) taxes higher than normal for you, you will need to make estimated payment(s) and/or increase withholding for 2017. PS: congratulations on your gain -- and on the patience to hold anything for 10 years!
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Is it mandatory to report Capital Loss on line 21 of Schedule D?
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You are not allowed to pick and choose what years to take a loss once the stock/fund is sold. While I realize it might be too late for you to do anything now, in the future if members should read this, they might consider doing a Roth conversion during that year they will have $3000 in losses. This way they will show some income that can be offset by that loss, effectively getting a free conversion to the Roth.
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What are the benefits of opening an IRA in an unstable/uncertain economy?
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Yes, it's possible to withdraw money without penalty but you have to do it in a special way. For example you have to withdraw the same amount every year until you retire: Tapping Your IRA Penalty-Free as for unstable economy - you can trade many instruments in your IRA. you can do bonds, mutual funds, stocks, ETFs or just keep it in cash. Some do well in bad economy.
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When are equal-weighted index funds / ETFs preferable to market-cap-weighted funds?
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Equal-weight ETFs remove the large cap bias found in most popular indexes. What results behaves very much like a small-cap or mid-cap index. Observe RSP vs IJR over a 5 year period: IJR (iShares S&P SmallCap 600 ETF) vs RSP (Rydex S&P Equal Weight ETF) I'm not sure if equal-weighting is worth the reduced efficiency. Mid-cap and small-cap funds have lower expenses (%0.20 for IJR vs %0.40 for RSP) and appear to do better over the long run. We don't know if that pattern will continue, but expense is one of the strongest long-term predictors of performance.
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Why do stores and manufacturers use mail in rebates? A scam, or is there a way to use them effectively?
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Some notable percentage of buyers won't even try to do the rebate, or will forget - so it's a [relatively] cheap incentive to the consumer than most will miss out on.
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What do brokers do with bad stock?
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Market makers, traders, and value investors would be who I'd suspect for buying the stock that is declining. Some companies stocks can come down considerably which could make some speculators buy the stock at the lower price thinking it may bounce back soon. "Short sellers" are out to sell borrowed stocks that if the stock is in free fall, unless the person that shorted wants to close the position, they would let it ride. Worthless stocks are a bit of a special case and quite different than the crash of 1929 where various blue chip stocks like those of the Dow Jones Industrials had severe declines. Thus, the companies going down would be like Apple, Coca-Cola and other large companies that people would be shocked to see come down so much yet there are some examples in recent history if one remembers Enron or Worldcom. Stocks getting delisted tend to cause some selling and there are some speculators may buy the stock believing that the shares may be worth something only to lose the money possibly as one could look at the bankrupt cases of airlines and car companies to study some recent cases here. Circuit breakers are worth noting as these are cases when trading may be halted because of a big swing in prices that it is believed stopping the market may cause things to settle down.
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Someone asks you to co-sign a loan. How to reject & say “no” nicely or politely?
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I'll take an alternate route: honesty + humor. Say something like this with a smile and a laugh, like you know they're crazy, but they maybe don't know it yet. "Are you crazy? Co-signing a loan can put us both in a lot of potential danger. First, you shouldn't get a loan that you can't afford/attain on your own, and second, I'd be crazy to agree to be liable for a loan that someone else can't get on their own. You want something bad enough, you get your credit rating in order, or you save up the money - that's how I bought (my car/house/trip to Geneva). I'd be happy to point you in the right direction if you want to put a plan together." You're offering help, but not the kind that puts you in danger. Declining to co-sign a loan can't damage your relationship with this person as much as failure to pay will.
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How best to grow my small amount of money starting at a young age? [duplicate]
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(Congrats on earning/saving $3K and not wanting to blow it all on immediate gratification!) I currently have it invested in sector mutual funds but with the rise and fall of the stock market, is this really the best way to prepare long-term? Long-term? Yes! However... four years is not long term. It is, in fact, borderline short term. (When I was your age, that was incomprehensible too, but trust me: it's true.) The problem is that there's an inverse relationship between reward and risk: the higher the possible reward, the greater the risk that you'll lose a big chunk of it. I invest that middle-term money in a mix of junk high yield bond funds and "high" yield savings accounts at an online bank. My preferences are HYG purchased at Fidelity (EDIT: because it's commission-free and I buy a few hundred dollars worth every month), and Ally Bank.
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Lease vs buy car with cash?
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A lease is a rental plain and simple. You borrow money to finance the expected depreciation over the course of the lease term. This arrangement will almost always cost more over time of your "ownership." That does not mean that a lease is always a worse "deal." Cars are almost always a losing proposition; save for the oddball Porsche or Ferrari that is too scarce relative to demand. You accept ownership of a car and it starts to lose value. New cars lose value faster than used cars. Typically, if you were to purchase the car, then sell it after 3 years, the total cost over those three years will work out to less total money than the equivalent 36 month lease. But, you will have to come up with a lot more money down, or a higher monthly payment, and/or sell the car after 36 months (assuming the pretty standard 36 month lease). With this in mind, some cars lease better than others because the projected depreciation is more favorable than other brands or models. Personally, I bought a slightly used car certified pre-owned with a agreeable factory warranty extension. My next car I may lease. Late model cars are getting so unbelievably expensive to maintain that more and more I feel like a long term rental has merit. Just understand that for the convenience, for the freeing up of your cash flow, for the unlikelihood of maintenance, to not bother with resale or trading the car in, a lease will cost a premium over a purchase over the same time frame.
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incorrect printed information on check stock
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Probably a bad assumption, but I'm assuming your in the United States. Keep in mind, that the check number is printed in 2 places on the front of each check. First, in the upper right corner, and also along the bottom edge on of the check. Since the check number is scanned by the bank from the bottom edge of the check, covering or otherwise modifying the check number on the upper left corner will have no effect on the check number that is recorded when the check is processed. And, you can't modify or cover the numbers or place any marks in the area of the numbers along the bottom of the check as this will likely interfere with processing of checks. So, modifying the check numbers will not work. Your choices are basically to: The check numbers are not used in any way in clearing the check, the numbers are only for your convenience, so processing checks with duplicate numbers won't matter. The check numbers are recorded when processed at your bank so they can be shown on your printed and online statements. The only time the check number might be important is if you had to "stop payment" on a particular check, or otherwise inquire about a particular check. But this should not really be an issue because by the time you have used up the first batch of checks, and start using the checks with duplicate numbers, the first use of the early duplicate numbered checks will be sufficiently long ago that there should not be any chance of processing checks with duplicate numbers at the same time. You didn't mention how many checks you have with duplicate numbers, or how frequently you actually write checks so that may play a part in your decision. In my case, 100 checks will last me literally years, so it wouldn't be a problem for me.
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Investing thought experiment
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The market cap always reflect the company's equity. Except that you cannot fix a stock price in a free market. A company with such profit pattern would have stock price behave like present value of a perpetuity (future income stream discounted by risk free rate) Since your assumption is unachievable, there is no point in determining the logic.
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What is the difference between a bond and a debenture?
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Some additional links which explain their differences. But mostly as @bstpierre says, both are very similar and in some cases the terms may be used inter changeably
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Personal finance management: precise or approximately?
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If you are off by coins, how can you be sure that you only made a typo and didn't miss a transaction? To start off, I would strongly you find a way to be precise. It doesn't matter so much in the accounting, but the habit of doing a thorough job will pay off in other dividends down the line. Basically, do the pennies now. Tryout some free online software to save the headache of data entry. But........ Since my primary goal is to get you to do the budgeting, and if you really hate the coins, just be consistent in how you fudge the debits and the credits. Always round down to the nearest whole in income, and always round up on expenses. You won't overspend this way, and your back account should have a little bit of padding because you will assume less money in and more money out. Honestly, I do tracking in both Quicken and Mint.com, so the transaction size is no big deal to me. If I did it all in Excel, I would round to whole notes. You didn't tag your question with a country, so I don't know if or similar is available to you.
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What is the best strategy for after hours trading?
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I would never trade after hours and I have 30 years of trading experience. It is a very volatile emotion driven market without a lot of the big players that arbitrage wrong pricing. If I were you I would simply use limit orders you input while the market is closed. If you want to get kute you can put in low-ball offers (and vice versa) to see if they get filled in the volatility at market open. Then check in (when?) when you wake up (or before you go to bed, etc) and revise the limit if not filled. In other words don't 'trade'. Know what your company is worth and put in orders that reflect that.
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What does “check payable to” mean?
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They are basically asking for the name of the legal entity that they should write on the check. You, as a person, are a legal entity, and so you can have them pay you directly, by name. This is in effect a "sole proprietorship" arrangement and it is the situation of most independent contractors; you're working for yourself, and you get all the money, but you also have all the responsibility. You can also set up a legal alias, or a "Doing Business As" (DBA) name. The only thing that changes versus using your own name is... well... that you aren't using your own name, to be honest. You pay some trivial fee for the paperwork to the county clerk or other office of record, and you're now not only John Doe, you're "Zolani Enterprises", and your business checks can be written out to that name and the bank (who will want a copy of the DBA paperwork to file when you set the name up as a payable entity on the account) will cash them for you. An LLC, since it was mentioned, is a "Limited Liability Company". It is a legal entity, incorporeal, that is your "avatar" in the business world. It, not you, is the entity that primarily faces anyone else in that world. You become, for legal purposes, an agent of that company, authorized to make decisions on its behalf. You can do all the same things, make all the same money, but if things go pear-shaped, the company is the one liable, not you. Sounds great, right? Well, there's a downside, and that's taxes and the increased complexity thereof. Depending on the exact structure of the company, the IRS will treat the LLC either as a corporation, a partnership, or as a "disregarded entity". Most one-man LLCs are typically "disregarded", meaning that for tax purposes, all the money the company makes is treated as if it were made by you as a sole proprietor, as in the above cases (and with the associated increased FICA and lack of tax deductions that an "employee" would get). Nothing can be "retained" by the company, because as far as the IRS is concerned it doesn't exist, so whether the money from the profits of the company actually made it into your personal checking account or not, it has to be reported by you on the Schedule C. You can elect, if you wish, to have the LLC treated as a corporation; this allows the corporation to retain earnings (and thus to "own" liquid assets like cash, as opposed to only fixed assets like land, cars etc). It also allows you to be an "employee" of your own company, and pay yourself a true "salary", with all the applicable tax rules including pre-tax healthcare, employer-paid FICA, etc. However, the downside here is that some money is subject to double taxation; any monies "retained" by the company, or paid out to members as "dividends", is "profit" of the company for which the company is taxed at the corporate rate. Then, the money from that dividend you receive from the company is taxed again at the capital gains rate on your own 1040 return. This also means that you have to file taxes twice; once for the corporation, once for you as the individual. You can't, of course, have it both ways with an LLC; you can't pay yourself a true "salary" and get the associated tax breaks, then receive leftover profits as a "distribution" and avoid double taxation. It takes multiple "members" (owners) to have the LLC treated like a partnership, and there are specific types of LLCs set up to handle investments, where some of what I've said above doesn't apply. I won't get into that because the question inferred a single-owner situation, but the tax rules in these additional situations are again different.
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Wash sales and year end tax implications
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Yes, the net effect is zero. If you own zero shares by Nov 30, for example, and don't buy any more shares by 12/31, the year is done, and nothing left to account for.
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Buying a small amount (e.g. $50) of stock via eToro “Social Trading Network” using a “CFD”?
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There are some useful answers here, but I don't think any of them are quite sufficient. Yes, there are some risks involved in CFD trading, but I will try and give you information so you can make your own decision. Firstly, Cyprus is part of the EU, which gives it a level of credibility. I'm not saying it's the safest or most well regulated market in the world, but that in itself would not particularly scare me away. The far more important issue here is the risk of using CFDs and of eToro themselves. A Contract for Difference is really just a specialization of an Equity Swap. It is in no way like owning a real stock. When you purchase shares of a company you own a real Asset and are usually entitled to dividends and voting rights. With a CFD, what you own is one side of a Swap contract. You have a legal agreement between yourself and eToro to "swap" the return earned on the underlying stock for whatever fees eToro decide to charge. As already mentioned, CFDs are not available to US citizens. Equity swaps have many benefits in financial markets. They can allow access to restricted markets by entering into swaps with banks that have the necessary licenses to trade in places like China. Many "synthetic" ETFs use them in Europe as a way to minimize tracking error as the return is guaranteed by the swap counterparty (for a charge). They also come with one signficant risk: counterparty credit risk. When trading with eToro, for as long as your position is open, you are at risk of eToro going bankrupt. If eToro failed, you do not actually own any stocks, you only own swap contracts which are going to be worthless if eToro ceased to exist. CFDs also have an ongoing cost to maintain the open position. This makes them less suitable for buy and hold strategies as those ongoing costs will eat into your returns. It's also not clear whether you would receive any dividends paid by the stock, which make up a significant proportion of returns for buy and hold investors. eToro's website is fairly non-committal: eToro intends to offer a financial compensation representing the dividends which will be allocated on stocks, to the extent such dividends shall be available to eToro. All of these points expose what CFDs are really for - speculating on the stock market, or as I like to call it: gambling. If you want to invest in stocks for the long term, CFDs are a bad idea - they have high ongoing costs and the counterparty risk becomes significant. Wait until you have enough money and then buy the real thing. Alternatively, consider mutual funds which will allow you to purchase partial shares and will ensure your investment is better diversified across a large number of stocks. If however, you want to gamble and only keep your position open for a short time, these issues may not be of concern to you. There's nothing wrong with gambling, it can be fun, many people gamble in casinos or on football matches - but bear in mind that's what CFDs are for. CFDs were in fact originally created for the UK market as a way to avoid paying capital gains tax when making short term speculative trades. However, if you are going to gamble, make sure you're not putting any more than 1% of your net worth at risk (0.1% may be a better target). There are a few other ways to take a position on stocks using less money than the share price: Fortunately, eToro do not allow leveraged purchase of stocks so you're reasonably safe on this point. They claim this is because of their 'responsible trading policy', although I find that somewhat questionable coming from a broker that offers 400:1 leverage on FX pairs. One final word on eToro's "social trading" feature. A few years ago I was in a casino playing Blackjack. I know nothing about Blackjack, but through sheer luck of the draw I managed to treble my money in a very small amount of time. Seeing this, a person behind me started "following" me by putting his chips down on my seat. Needless to say, I lost everything, but amazingly the person behind me got quite annoyed and started criticizing my strategy. The idea of following other people's trades just because they've been lucky in the past sounds entirely foolish to me. Remember the warning on every mutual fund: Past performance does not guarantee future returns
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Why do financial institutions charge so much to convert currency?
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Perhaps it's the terminology "fee" that makes it a little confusing. I'm not sure whether it's due legislation or if it's tradition but banks and money changers in my country don't charge "fees". Instead they advertise separate prices for buying and selling money. For example they'd normally advertise: USD, we buy: 4.50, we sell: 4.65. It's a business. Just like selling cars or lemonade selling money only makes sense if you sell it at a higher price than what you bought it for. Regardless of what you call it it's the profit margin for the seller.
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Why do stocks tend to trade at high volumes at the end of (or start) the trading day?
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Trading at the start of a session is by far higher than at any other time of the day. This is mostly due to markets incorporating news into the prices of stocks. In other words, there are a lot of factors that can affect a stock, 24 hours a day, but the market trades for only 6.5 hours a day. So, a lot of news accumulates during the time when people cannot trade on that news. Then when markets finally open, people are able to finally trade on that news, and there is a lot of "price discovery" going on between market participants. In the last minutes of trading, volumes increase as well. This can often be attributed to certain kinds of traders closing out their position before the end of the day. For example, if you don't want to take the risk a large price movement at the start of the next day affecting you, you would need to completely close your position.
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Can this year's free extension-to-pay be filed electronically? IRS Form 1127
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Form 1127 (updated link) should be filed in paper (with the supporting documents) to the IRS office that has jurisdiction in the area where you live. From the instructions (see the link above): File Form 1127 with the Internal Revenue Service (Attn: Advisory Group Manager), for the area where you maintain your legal residence or principal place of business. See Pub. 4235, Collection Advisory Group Addresses, to find the address for your local advisory group. However, if the tax due is a gift tax reportable on Form 709, send Form 1127 to: Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service Center Cincinnati, OH 45999
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Clarification on 529 fund
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You are faced with a dilemma. If you use a 529 plan to fund your education, the short timeline of a few years will limit your returns that are tax free. Most people who use a 529 plan either purchase years of tuition via lump sum, when the child is young; or they put aside money on a regular basis that will grow tax deferred/tax free. Some states do give a tax break when the contribution is made by a state taxpayer into a plan run by the state. The long term plans generally use a risk profile that starts off heavily weighted in stock when the child is young, and becomes more fixed income as the child reaches their high school years. The idea is to protect the fund from big losses when there is no time to recover. If you choose the plan with the least risk the issue is that the amount of gains that are being protected from federal tax is small. If you pick a more aggressive plan the risk is that the losses could be larger than the state tax savings. Look at some of the other tax breaks for tuition to see if you qualify Credits An education credit helps with the cost of higher education by reducing the amount of tax owed on your tax return. If the credit reduces your tax to less than zero, you may get a refund. There are two education credits available: the American Opportunity Tax Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit. Who Can Claim an Education Credit? There are additional rules for each credit, but you must meet all three of the following for either credit: If you’re eligible to claim the lifetime learning credit and are also eligible to claim the American opportunity credit for the same student in the same year, you can choose to claim either credit, but not both. You can't claim the AOTC if you were a nonresident alien for any part of the tax year unless you elect to be treated as a resident alien for federal tax purposes. For more information about AOTC and foreign students, visit American Opportunity Tax Credit - Information for Foreign Students. Deductions Tuition and Fees Deduction You may be able to deduct qualified education expenses paid during the year for yourself, your spouse or your dependent. You cannot claim this deduction if your filing status is married filing separately or if another person can claim an exemption for you as a dependent on his or her tax return. The qualified expenses must be for higher education. The tuition and fees deduction can reduce the amount of your income subject to tax by up to $4,000. This deduction, reported on Form 8917, Tuition and Fees Deduction, is taken as an adjustment to income. This means you can claim this deduction even if you do not itemize deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040). This deduction may be beneficial to you if, for example, you cannot take the lifetime learning credit because your income is too high. You may be able to take one of the education credits for your education expenses instead of a tuition and fees deduction. You can choose the one that will give you the lower tax.
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Possible to use balance transfers to avoid interest with major credit cards?
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IMO, it's a good deal. Pre-paying 3% interest is better than accruing it at 1-2% per month. The other nice thing about it is that all of your payments hit the principal.
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Does longterm investment in index funds still make sense in a reality of massive algotrading?
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What the automation mostly does is make short-term trading that much more difficult. Day trading is a zero-sum game, so if they win more, everyone else wins less. Long term trading (years to decades) is a positive-sum game; the market as a whole tends to move upward for fairly obvious reasons (at its basis it's still investing, which in turn is based on lending, and as long as folks make fairly rational decisions about how much return they demand for their investment and the companies are mostly producing profits there will be a share of the profit coming back to the investors as dividends or increased share value or both. Day-to-day churn in individual stocks gets averaged out by diversification and time, and by the assumption that if you've waited that long you can wait a bit longer if necessary for jitters to settle out. Time periods between those will partake of some mix of the two.
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“Top down” and “bottom-up approach”
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I think it's an argument for Keynesian economic policy, basically an abridged version of this paragraph from the Wikipedia article: Keynesian economists often argue that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes which require active policy responses by the public sector, in particular, monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government, in order to stabilize output over the business cycle. "private sector decisions" are bottom-up: millions of businesses and individuals make economic decisions and "the economy" is the sum of what they do. "monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government" are top-down: central institutions implement measures that are intended to have a positive effect (such as reducing unemployment) on millions of individuals.
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How to calculate cash loss over time?
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It helps to put the numbers in terms of an asset. Say a bottle of wine costs 10 dollars, but the price rises to 20 dollars a year later. The price has risen 100%, and your dollars have lost value. Whereas your ten used to be worth 100% of the price of bottle of wine, they now are worth 50% of the risen price of a bottle of wine so they've lost around 50% of their value. Divide the old price by the new inflated price to measure proportionally how much the old price is of the new price. 10 divided by 20 is 1/2 or .50 or 50%. You can then subtract the old price from the new in proportional terms to find how much value you've lost. 1 minus 1/2 or 1.00 minus .50 or 100% minus 50%.
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Are there any disadvantages to DHA Investment Properties?
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Along with the above reasons, the fact that DHA are under investigation by the Federal Police, should be a red flag to any potential investor. The Federal Police aren't called in over parking fines. The rules that are in place for effective and appropriate management appear to have been compromised. I would like to see DHA's marketing people explain why the Department of Finance called in the Feds. To clarify further, with any investment, the potential investor must satisfy beyond any doubt whether there's a problem with an individual or with the way the organisation is managed as a whole. Look at the Big Four banks. To complete the research I suggest wait until DHA release an appropriate public statement (hopefully a sensible one that is honest- but don't hold your breath). I can see parallels with the recent scandal with HSU. When management is being led away in handcuffs it may be too late to change your mind.
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First time home buyer. How to negotiate price?
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Often, if your realtor and the selling realtor know each other, your realtor will "discover" what price the seller really wants. (Don't worry about how this is done. There will be no evidence it occurred!) Your realtor will then drop hints that you should aim for that price to ensure the deal goes smoothly. That sounds like what your realtor is doing when he says "If you want to play ball offer them $80k." He won't stop you from bidding lower, but he knows where you'll end up. Price is just one part of the transaction, however. You can offer $80K, to meet their price, but also request that the seller make recommended repairs or credit you the cost. You can request that the seller cover closing costs or transfer taxes or any other costs. In short, offering the seller X doesn't mean you will pay X. I personally try to avoid credits, because although they make your effective price lower, the actual purchase price still drives things such as your loan, and in many places, your property taxes and other taxes. I would rather reduce the price than get credits. But you do what you have to do if you want the deal. You can also request that certain appliances be included, such as a refrigerator or a washing machine and dryer. You can ask for furniture, or statues in the backyard, or anything else you liked when you saw the house. In short, you offer X for the house, but you also get a bunch of other stuff that you need or want.
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What publicly available software do professional stock traders use for stock analysis?
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If you are looking to analyze stocks and don't need the other features provided by Bloomberg and Reuters (e.g. derivatives and FX), you could also look at WorldCap, which is a mobile solution to analyze global stocks, at FactSet and S&P CapitalIQ. Please note that I am affiliated with WorldCap.
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If you own 1% of a company's stock, are you entitled to 1% of its assets?
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If you own 1% of a company, you are technically entitled to 1% of the current value and future profits of that company. However, you cannot, as you seem to imply, just decide at some point to take your ball and go home. You cannot call up the company and ask for 1% of their assets to be liquidated and given to you in cash. What the 1% stake in the company actually entitles you to is: 1% of total shareholder voting rights. Your "aye" or "nay" carries the weight of 1% of the total shareholder voting block. Doesn't sound like much, but when the average little guy has on the order of ten-millionths of a percentage point ownership of any big corporation, your one vote carries more weight than those of millions of single-share investors. 1% of future dividend payments made to shareholders. For every dollar the corporation makes in profits, and doesn't retain for future growth, you get a penny. Again, doesn't sound like much, but consider that the Simon property group, ranked #497 on the Fortune 500 list of the world's biggest companies by revenue, made $1.4 billion in profits last year. 1% of that, if the company divvied it all up, is $14 million. If you bought your 1% stake in March of 2009, you would have paid a paltry $83 million, and be earning roughly 16% on your initial investment annually just in dividends (to say nothing of the roughly 450% increase in stock price since that time, making the value of your holdings roughly $460 million; that does reduce your actual dividend yield to about 3% of holdings value). If this doesn't sound appealing, and you want out, you would sell your 1% stake. The price you would get for this total stake may or may not be 1% of the company's book value. This is for many reasons: Now, to answer your hypothetical: If Apple's stock, tomorrow, went from $420b market cap to zero, that would mean that the market unanimously thought, when they woke up tomorrow morning, that the company was all of a sudden absolutely worthless. In order to have this unanimous consent, the market must be thoroughly convinced, by looking at SEC filings of assets, liabilities and profits, listening to executive statements, etc that an investor wouldn't see even one penny returned of any cash investment made in this company's stock. That's impossible; the price of a share is based on what someone will pay to have it (or accept to be rid of it). Nobody ever just gives stock away for free on the trading floor, so even if they're selling 10 shares for a penny, they're selling it, and so the stock has a value ($0.001/share). We can say, however, that a fall to "effectively zero" is possible, because they've happened. Enron, for instance, lost half its share value in just one week in mid-October as the scope of the accounting scandal started becoming evident. That was just the steepest part of an 18-month fall from $90/share in August '00, to just $0.12/share as of its bankruptcy filing in Dec '01; a 99.87% loss of value. Now, this is an extreme example, but it illustrates what would be necessary to get a stock to go all the way to zero (if indeed it ever really could). Enron's stock wasn't delisted until a month and a half after Enron's bankruptcy filing, it was done based on NYSE listing rules (the stock had been trading at less than a dollar for 30 days), and was still traded "over the counter" on the Pink Sheets after that point. Enron didn't divest all its assets until 2006, and the company still exists (though its mission is now to sue other companies that had a hand in the fraud, get the money and turn it around to Enron creditors). I don't know when it stopped becoming a publicly-traded company (if indeed it ever did), but as I said, there is always someone willing to buy a bunch of really cheap shares to try and game the market (buying shares reduces the number available for sale, reducing supply, increasing price, making the investor a lot of money assuming he can offload them quickly enough).
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Must ETF companies match an investor's amount invested in an ETF?
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The point here is actually about banks, or is in reference to banks. They expect you know how a savings account at a bank works, but not mutual funds, and so are trying to dispel an erroneous notion that you might have -- that the CBIC will insure your investment in the fund. Banks work by taking in deposits and lending that money out via mortgages. The mortgages can last up to 30 years, but the deposits are "on demand". Which means you can pull your money out at any time. See the problem? They're maintaining a fiction that that money is there, safe and sound in the bank vault, ready to be returned whenever you want it, when in fact it's been loaned out. And can't be called back quickly, either. They know only a little bit of that money will be "demanded" by depositors at any given time, so they keep a percentage called a "reserve" to satisfy that, er, demand. The rest, again, is loaned out. Gone. And usually that works out just fine. Except sometimes it doesn't, when people get scared they might not get their money back, and they all go to the bank at the same time to demand their on-demand deposits back. This is called a "run on the bank", and when that happens, the bank "fails". 'Cause it ain't got the money. What's failing, in fact, is the fiction that your money is there whenever you want it. And that's really bad, because when that happens to you at your bank, your friends the customers of other banks start worrying about their money, and run on their banks, which fail, which cause more people to worry and try to get their cash out, lather, rinse repeat, until the whole economy crashes. See -- The Great Depression. So, various governments introduced "Deposit Insurance", where the government will step in with the cash, so when you panic and pull all your money out of the bank, you can go home happy, cash in hand, and don't freak all your friends out. Therefore, the fear that your money might not really be there is assuaged, and it doesn't spread like a mental contagion. Everyone can comfortably go back to believing the fiction, and the economy goes back to merrily chugging along. Meanwhile, with mutual funds & ETFs, everyone understands the money you put in them is invested and not sitting in a gigantic vault, and so there's no need for government insurance to maintain the fiction. And that's the point they're trying to make. Poorly, I might add, where their wording is concerned.
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Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career?
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If your employer offers a 401(k) match, definitely take advantage of it. It's free money, so take advantage of it!
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Company Payment Card
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Most corporate policies strictly prohibit the card's use for personal use, even if the intent is to re-pay in full, on or before the due date. I'm certain it has something to do with limitation of liability, i.e. the monetary risk the company is willing to put itself at, in order to offer a corporate card program. In my experience, AMEX Corporate Card Services is the most widely-used card, and in my experience, it is your employer that determines and administers the policy that outlines the card's appropriate use, not the credit card provider, so you're best to check with your employer for a definitive answer to this.
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How Long Can It Take For a Check I Write to Clear on My Account?
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According to this Q&A by a Houston law professor: The law, however, is not designed to interfere with an individual's right to stop payment on a valid check because of a dispute with someone. If he didn't deliver as promised, you do not owe the money and have the right to stop payment. Assuming that you had enough money in the bank to cover the check, stopping payment is not a crime. I found several other pages essentially saying the same thing. All the usual disclaimers apply, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. In particular, laws might vary by state. Basically, though, it doesn't seem there's any reason why you can't stop payment on the check just because you feel like it. If you then provide a cashier's check for the payment, your ex-partner will not really have anything to complain about. If you're worried about annoying him by doing this, that's a separate issue, but given the situation you describe, I don't see why you should be. If you feel he is being a pain in the neck, feel free to be a pain in the neck right back and force him to accept the payment in the manner you decide, instead of allowing him to string you along. Note two things: obviously if you have reason to believe the guy will sue you, you should act with caution. Also, I'm not suggesting withdrawing payment completely, only stopping the check and issuing a new payment that you don't have to wait on (e.g., cashier's check).
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Am I still building a credit score if I use my credit card like a debit card?
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I always hesitate to provide an answer to "how does this affect my credit score?" questions, because the credit agencies do not publish their formulas and the formulas do change over time. And many others have done more reverse engineering than I to figure out what factors do affect the scores. To some extent, there is no way to know other than to get your credit score and track it over time. (The credit report will tell you what the largest negative factors are.) However, let me make my prediction. You have credit, you aren't using a large percentage of it, and don't have defaults/late payments. So, yes, I think it would help your credit score and would build a history of credit. Since this is so unusual, this is just an educated guess.
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I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out?
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First, if your account has been closed you should not be able to use your debit card in any format. As you mentioned that you are able to use that so your back account is active. So this indicates it is a scam In case account is closed, bank confirms your address and will send you a cheque for the amount in your account. Don't worry. You money will never be lost
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Credit cards: How is a cash advance different from a purchase? Why are the fees so high?
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Essentially speaking, when you purchase goods worth $100 using your card, the store has to pay about $2 for the transaction to the company that operates that stores' credit card terminal. If you withdraw cash from an ATM, you might be charged a fee for such a transaction. However, the ATM operator doesn't pay the credit processor such a transaction fee - thus, it is classified as a cash transaction. Additionally, performing cash advances off a CC is a rather good indicator of a bad financial health of the user, which increase the risk of default, and in some institutions is a factor contributing to their internal creditworthiness assessment.
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What is the difference between a stock and a bond?
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WilliamKF explained it pretty well, but I want to put it in a more simplistic form:
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Process for dissolving a recently-opened Colorado LLC?
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Forms for the Colorado LLCs are online. You can find the link to the dissolution form here, and instructions here. IRS instructions are here. That's what they want: To close your business account, send us a letter that includes the complete legal name of the entity, the EIN, the business address and the reason you wish to close your account. If you have a copy of the EIN Assignment Notice that was issued when your EIN was assigned, include that when you write to us at: Internal Revenue Service Cincinnati, Ohio 45999 Everything is pretty straight forward. Note that you might be required to file a initial/final tax return if you had any transactions.
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What determines price fluctuation of groceries
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Yes and no. First off, commodity prices reflect the cost of a good about 3 steps back in the retail supply chain; the agreed-upon price for the raw foodstuff between farmers/ranchers and manufacturers. Your grocer may carry bags of whole grain wheat, but that's certainly not all he carries that contains it. Same for corn, rice and other staple grains, as well as for fruits and vegetables, herbs (yes, you can buy basil by the ton on the CME), meats, various sugars, etc. So, a long-term sustained change in prices of a commodity foodstuff will eventually affect the real cost to you to buy things they're made from. However, in the short term, the retail supply chain will generally act as a buffer between these prices and the ones you see on the store shelf. Consumers don't like price increases, especially of necessities like food. When food costs go up, consumers can and will very quickly change their spending habits, buying cheaper options to get their needed calories. That makes manufacturers nervous; consumers not buying their product is a worse scenario than consumers buying their product at a reduced gain or even at a loss. So, manufacturers, and suppliers and retailers, will all absorb as much as they can of the cost of a commodities increase before beginning to pass it on to consumers. On the flip side, while consumers like price drops, they don't notice them as much as price increases. So, the supply chain will also absorb a fall in commodity prices by resisting price reductions in the consumer goods, as long as they can get away with it (which is usually longer than the price reduction actually lasts). The net effect is that processed food prices typically follow the gentle upward climb of long-term inflation, and only rarely do you see drastic price increases or decreases. Where this model breaks down a little bit is in highly perishable foodstuffs, especially seasonal or "wild-managed" foods; fruits and vegetables, seafood, etc. The limited time in which the stuff can be sold makes the process of getting a fish out of the ocean and a fruit off the tree and into your grocery store much more market-driven; the producers, suppliers and grocers are all in constant contact over what's available and how much they can get for what price. The prices therefore are typically a lower markup (unlike highly processed grain-based foods, there's not much added value to be marked up between the apple farmer picking the fruit and the grocer putting it on display), but also much more volatile; if there's a bumper crop of fruit, the farmer has to unload it all or it goes to waste, while similarly if an early freeze decimated the apple crop, the suppliers can't just get some of last year's bumper crop out of storage; they fight with everyone else for what little made it to market. Farmers will sometimes intentionally let excess crop spoil in order to maintain a minimum price for what they sell (the rest can at least be composted and used for fertilizer, saving them some money on maintenance), but there's no silver bullet for a shortage. This is why a lot of these foods, especially seafood, are considered luxury items; they're not stable enough for everyone to get as much as they want whenever they want, unlike staple grains.
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How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan?
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A "true" 0% loan is a losing proposition for the bank, that's true. However when you look at actual "0%" loans they usually have some catches: There might also be late payment fees, prepayment penalties, and other clauses that make it a good deal on average to the bank. Individual borrowers might be able to get away with "free money", but the bank does not look to make money on each loan, they look to make money on thousands of loans overall. For a retailer (including new car sellers). the actual financing costs will be baked into the sales price. They will add, say, 10% to the sales price in exchange for an interest-free loan. They can also sell these loans to an investment bank or other entity, but they would be sold at a deep discount, so the difference will be made up in the sales price or other "fees". It's possible that they would just chalk it up to promotional discounts or customer acquisition costs, but it would not be a good practice on a large scale.
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How exactly could we rank or value how “rich” a company brand is?
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Those rankings in particular that you cite are compiled by Millward Brown and the methodology is explained like this:
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What is the relationship between the earnings of a company and its stock price?
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In general over the longer term this is true, as a company whom continuously increases earnings year after year will generally continue to increase its share price year after year. However, many times when a company announces increased earning and profits, the share price can actually go down in the short term. This can be due to the market, for example, expecting a 20% increase but the company only announcing a 10% increase. So the price can initially go down. The market could already have priced in a higher increase in the lead up to the announcement, and when the announcement is made it actually disapoints the market, so the share price can go down instead of up.
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How should I invest my money as a young graduate in Europe?
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Before starting with investing, you should make sure you are saving enough. Living in a welfare country (France) does not exempt you from potentially needing to save large amounts of money. You state that you do not need much of an emergency day fund, but this is not true. Being dismissed unjustly from your job is not the only way to become unemployed and not all roads lead to unemployment pay. Being fired for cause or leaving your job voluntarily are two work related causes that will leave you without an income source. Unexpected major expenses are another reason you might need to dip into your emergency fund. If your emergency fund is in order, the next thing to investigate is your pension and saving for retirement. In a country with a strong pension system, you need to check how comfortable you are with its sustainability (Greece anyone?) and also whether it will adequately meet your needs. If not, there are no 401ks or IRAs in France, but there is a relatively new personal supplementary pension plan (PERP) that you might investigate contributing to. If you're comfortable with your emergency fund and your retirement savings, then preparing for buying a house is likely your next savings goal. A quick search shows that to get a mortgage to buy a house in France, banks will commonly require a downpayment of 20% plus various closing costs. See for example here. This is 40,000+ euro for a 200k euro house, which will take you several years at the rate of 500 euro / month. France has special plans (Plan d’Epargne Logement) with tax-exempt interest for saving up for a house that you might want to investigate. In your other question, you also ask about buying a cheap car. As you get older and possibly start a family, having a car will likely become more of a necessity. This is another goal you can save for rather than having to take a loan out when you buy one.
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Finance the land on a non-financeable house?
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Some lenders will make loans for vacant land, others will not. You have to discuss with local bank what are your plan for the land: live in the old mobile home; install a new mobile home; build a new house; Sell it to a developer; use it for camping... Is the property part of a development with other mobile homes? If so there may be complications regarding the use and rights of the property. Some local jurisdictions also want to eliminate mobile homes, so they may put limitations on the housing options.
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Why does a stock's price fluctuate so often, even when fresh news isn't available?
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It's the buying and selling of the stock that causes the fluctuation in prices, not the news. People buy and sell all the time, and not just for newsworthy reasons. They may have to send a child to college, or fix a roof, etc. Or they may be technical traders looking for signals. All kinds of reasons.
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Is it safe to take a new mortgage loan in Greece?
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The safest financial decisions that you can make in Greece involve getting your money out of Greece. That said, it depends. If the economy is going to implode and you'll be out of the job with devalued savings -- you'll be bankrupt anyway. You didn't mention enough about your situation for anyone to really answer the question. In a high-inflation environment, *if*you have the assets to weather the storm, holding debt on real property and durable goods is a good thing. The key considerations are: If you have the means, times of crisis are great opportunities.
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What happens if I just don't pay my student loans?
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Never forget that student lenders and their collection agencies are dangerous and clever predators, and you, the student borrower, are their legal prey. They look at you and think, "food." My friend said she never pays her student loans and nothing has happened. She's wrong. Something has happened. She just doesn't know about it yet. Each unpaid bill, with penalties, has been added to the balance of her loan. Now she owes that money also. And she owes interest on it. That balance is probably building up very fast indeed. She's playing right into the hands of her student lender. They are smiling about this. When the balance gets large enough to make it worthwhile, her student lender will retain an aggressive collection agency to recover the entire balance. The agency will come after her in court, and they are likely to win. If your friend lives in the US, she'll discover that she can't declare bankruptcy to escape this. She has the bankruptcy "reform" act of 2006, passed during the Bush 43 regime, to thank for this. A court judgement against her will make it harder for her to find a job and even a spouse. I'm not saying this is right or just. I believe it is wrong and unjust to make university graduates into debt slaves. But it is true. As for being paid under the table, I hope your friend intends on dying rather than retiring when she no longer can work due to age. If she's paid under the table she will not be eligible for social security payments. You need sixteen calendar quarters of social security credit to be eligible for payments. I know somebody like this. It's a hell of a way to live, especially on weekends when the local church feeding programs don't operate. Paying people under the table ought to be a felony for the business owner.
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Any good software for value investment?
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As @littleadv and @DumbCoder point out in their comments above, Bloomberg Terminal is expensive for individual investors. If you are looking for a free solution I would recommend Yahoo and Google Finance. On the other side, if you need more financial metrics regarding historic statements and consensus estimates, you should look at the iPad solution from Worldcap, which is not free, but significantly cheaper then Bloomberg and Reuters. Disclosure: I am affiliated with WorldCap.
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Is this follow-up after a car crash a potential scam?
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You wouldn't pay what the quote says, you would pay what the bill says. If the car is used as a taxi then either it's done illegally and not your problem, or they have proper insurance. One reason to go through your insurance is that they know how to handle all these things for you. If you have only their phone number: You owe them money, so they will contact you.
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Best Time to buy a stock in a day
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One of the biggest laws in economics is that if an opportunity is very profitable and is very easily exploitable even by complete beginners, then it will very soon stop being profitable. That's how the market works. If you buy stock when it is at the lowest, then you are making money, but most of the time someone else is losing money. And if there was a magic hour of the day when buying would be the most profitable, then soon everybody would want to buy at that time and no one would want to sell anything, so the scheme would collapse.
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Would it make sense to buy a rental property as an LLC and not in my own name?
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IANAL, but if you're planning to sell shares in your LLC you may be disappointed in the protection granted. I looked into this corporate structure for the same purpose myself, and my attorney said something like, "If an owner of one of the shares of your company is driving to look at one of the properties, and gets into a wreck for which they were found negligent, the injured party can sue the corporation."
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Who performs the blocking on a Visa card?
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There are, in fact, two balances kept for your account by most banks that have to comply with common convenience banking laws. The first is your actual balance; it is simply the sum total of all deposits and withdrawals that have cleared the account; that is, both your bank and the bank from which the deposit came or to which the payment will go have exchanged necessary proof of authorization from the payor, and have confirmed with each other that the money has actually been debited from the account of the payor, transferred between the banks and credited to the account of the payee. The second balance is the "available balance". This is the actual balance, plus any amount that the bank is "floating" you while a deposit clears, minus any amount that the bank has received notice of that you may have just authorized, but for which either full proof of authorization or the definite amount (or both) have not been confirmed. This is what's happening here. Your bank received notice that you intended to pay the train company $X. They put an "authorization hold" on that $X, deducting it from your available balance but not your actual balance. The bank then, for whatever reason, declined to process the actual transaction (insufficient funds, suspicion of theft/fraud), but kept the hold in place in case the transaction was re-attempted. Holds for debit purchases usually expire between 1 and 5 days after being placed if the hold is not subsequently "settled" by the merchant providing definite proof of amount and authorization before that time. The expiration time mainly depends on the policy of the bank holding your account. Holds can remain in place as long as thirty days for certain accounts or types of payment, again depending on bank policy. In certain circumstances, the bank can remove a hold on request. But it is the bank, and not the merchant, that you must contact to remove a hold or even inquire about one.
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Trader Fostering Program on Futures Day Trading
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a) Contracts are for future delivery of said underlying. So if you are trading CL (crude oil) futures and don't sell before delivery date, you will be contacted about where you want the oil to be delivered (a warehouse presumably). 1 contract is the equivalent of 1000 barrels. b) 600 contracts depends entirely on what you are trading and how you are trading. If you are trading ES (S&P 500 e-Mini), you can do the 600 contracts in less than a second. c) No fees does not make particular sense. It's entirely possible that you are not trading anything, it's just a fake platform so they can judge your performance. d) The catch typically is that when it's time to pay you, they will avoid you or worst case, disappear. e) Trading is a full-time job, especially for the first 4-5 years when you're only learning the basics. Remember, in futures trading you are trading against all the other professionals who do only this 24/7 for decades. If you are only risking your time with the reward being learning and possibly money, it seems like a good deal. There's typically a catch with these things - like you would have to pay for your data which is very expensive or withdrawing funds is possible only months later.
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Consequences of not closing an open short sell position?
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You would generally have to pay interest for everyday you hold the position overnight. If you never close the position and the stock price goes to zero, you will be closed out and credited with your profit. If you never close the position and the stock price keeps going up and up, your potential loss is an unlimited amount of money. Of course your broker may close you out early for a number of reasons, particularly if your loss goes above the amount of capital you have in your trading account.
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what does “private equity structures” mean?
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Private equity firms have a unique structure: The general partners (GP's) of the firm create funds and manage the investments of those funds. Limited partners (LP's) contribute the capital to the funds, pay fees to the GP's, and then make money when the funds' assets grow. I believe the article is saying that ultra high net worth individuals participate in the real estate market by hiring someone to act as a general partner and manage the real estate assets. They and their friends contribute the cash and get shares in the resulting fund. Usually this GP/LP structure is used when the funds purchase or invest in private companies, which is why it is referred to as "private equity structure," but the same structure can be used to purchase and manage pools of real estate or any other investment asset.
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Investment strategy for retired couple
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The safest investment in the United States is Treasures. The Federal Reserve just increased the short term rate for the first time in about seven years. But the banks are under no obligation to increase the rate they pay. So you (or rather they) can loan money directly to the United States Government by buying Bills, Notes, or Bonds. To do this you set up an account with Treasury Direct. You print off a form (available at the website) and take the filled out form to the bank. At the bank their identity and citizenship will be verified and the bank will complete the form. The form is then mailed into Treasury Direct. There are at least two investments you can make at Treasury Direct that guarantee a rate of return better than the inflation rate. They are I-series bonds and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). Personally, I prefer the I-series bonds to TIPS. Here is a link to the Treasury Direct website for information on I-series bonds. this link takes you to information on TIPS. Edit: To the best of my understanding, the Federal Reserve has no ability to set the rate for notes and bonds. It is my understanding that they can only directly control the overnight rate. Which is the rate the banks get for parking their money with the Fed overnight. I believe that the rates for longer term instruments are set by the market and are not mandated by the Fed (or anyone else in government). It is only by indirect influence that the Fed tries to change long term rates.
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