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Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing | Organize your expenses in order of the rate of return, and pay them in that order. By far the highest rate of return on your list is: Nowhere else are you going to see an immediate 100% return (or 50%, depending on the company's matching policy) on every dollar you allocate to this pot. Second would probably be: Money... |
Earning salary from USA remotely from New Zealand? | Can the companies from USA give job to me (I am from New Zealand)? Job as being employee - may be tricky. This depends on the labor laws in New Zealand, but most likely will trigger "nexus" clause and will force the employer to register in the country, which most won't want to do. Instead you can be hired as a contract... |
Moving 401k balance into self-directed IRA | Your question asks "how" but "if" may be your issue. Most companies will not permit an external transfer while still employed, or under a certain age, 55 or so. If yours is one of the rare companies that permits a transfer, you simply open an IRA with the broker of your choice. Schwab, Fidelity, eTrade, or a dozen oth... |
Can I write off time I spent working on my business? | To expand a little on what littleadv said, you can only deduct what something cost you. Even if you had done volunteer work for a charity as a sole prop you could only deduct your actual costs. If you paid an employee to do charity work or to learn something related to the business that would be deductible as a normal ... |
Why does the Fed use PCE over CPI? | The reason is in your own question. The answer is simple. They use that code to tax the product otherwise it would just be out of pocket expenses. |
VAT in UK, case of cultural industry and overseas invoices | Your answer will need loads of information and clarification, so I will ask you to visit the VAT and have a peruse. 1) Obligation is for you to find out the correct rate of VAT, charge and pay tax accordingly. You can call up the HMRC VAT helpline for help, which they will be happy to oblige. Normally everybody pays VA... |
Where can I find the nominal price of a stock prior a split into multiple companies? | Yahoo Finance provides the proper closing price. HP's historical data around the split date can be found here. The open, high and low of the day are wrong prior the split, but the closing price is right and for HP, it was $26.96 USD. The next day the closing price was $13.83 USD. |
How to explain quick price changes early in the morning | http://www.marketwatch.com/optionscenter/calendar would note some options expiration this week that may be a clue as this would be the typical end of quarter stuff so I suspect it may happen each quarter. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/triplewitchinghour.asp would note in part: Triple witching occurs when the cont... |
Can I use balance transfer to buy car? | It really depends on the exact wording of that zero rate offer. Some specifically state they are to be used for paying other debt. Others will have wording such as "pay other debt or write yourself a check to pay for that next vacation, or new furniture." Sorry, it's back on you to check this out in advance. |
Is there any online personal finance software without online banking? | CashBase has a web app, an iPhone app and an Android app, all sync'ed up. It doesn't integrate with banks automatically, but you can import bank statements as CSV. Disclosure: Filip is CashBase's founder. |
Is it safe to accept money in the mail? | On your end of the deal, the biggest risk is probably counterfeiting. That said, I'd think that most of the downside would be for the buyer since they would have no way to prove that they paid you. Perhaps a better alternative is to send the items COD (Collect On Delivery aka Cash on Delivery). The USPS and some other... |
Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market? | A CD is guaranteed to pay its return on maturation. So if you need a certain amount of money at a specific time in the future, the CD is a more reliable way of getting it. The stock market might give you more money or less. More is obviously OK. Less is not if you're planning to pay basic expenses with it, e.g. foo... |
How to keep control of shared expenses inside marriage? | Websites like neobudget dot com or mint dot com can help you see where your money is going, especially if you use mostly checks, debit cards, or credit cards for your purchases. They are less useful if you use cash often. |
Why and why would/wouldn't a company split their stock? | A reason not to split your stock is that the value of the company might fall back again, and if its stock price falls below $1 it will be delisted from the NYSE. So if the value of your company grows tenfold so the shares go from $5 to $50, you do a ten-for-one split, and then its value shrinks back to where it started... |
Should one only pursue a growth investing approach for Roth IRAs | What asset allocation is right for you (at the most basic the percentage if stocks vs bonds; at the advanced level, percentage of growth vs value, international vs domestic etc) is a function of your age, retirement goals, income stability and employment prospects until retirement. Roth IRA is orthogonal to this. Now... |
How do I know when I am financially stable/ready to move out on my own? | One big deciding factor will be what standard of living you want to maintain once you move out. Your parents have had years to get raises, accumulate savings, and establish the standard of living you are used to. Regardless of how much you save up now, you'll still have to be living at or below your means once you m... |
Why are stocks having less institutional investors a “good thing”? | Its pretty much always a positive to have large institutional investors. Here's a few cases where I can see an argument against large institutional investors: In recent years, we've seen corporate raiders and institutional investors that tend to influence management in ways that are focused on short term gain. They'll ... |
How does delta of an option change with time if underlying price is constant? | So, this isn't always the case, but in the example provided the option is most likely in the money or near the money since the delta is nearly 1 - indicating that a $1 move in the underlying results in a $0.92 move in the option - this will happen when the expiration is very far out or the option is in the money. As ex... |
Is the return on investment better with high or low dividends? | Let's say two companies make 5% profit every year. Company A pays 5% dividend every year, but company B pays no dividend but grows its business by 5%. (And both spend the money needed to keep the business up-to-date, that's before profits are calculated). You are right that with company B, the company will grow. So if... |
How does spot-futures arbitrage work in the gold market? | As proposed: Buy 100 oz of gold at $1240 spot = -$124,000 Sell 1 Aug 2014 Future for $1256 = $125,600 Profit $1,600 Alternative Risk-Free Investment: 1 year CD @ 1% would earn $1240 on $124,000 investment. Rate from ads on www.bankrate.com "Real" Profit All you are really being paid for this trade is the difference bet... |
When should I walk away from my mortgage? | This is a very personal situation of course, but if you can afford the repayments then I recommend keeping the house!. A house is a long term investment and one has to live somewhere. You probably didn't buy the house planning to sell it in 5 years so while in the short term you could suffer a loss on paper chances are... |
What does inflation mean to me? | Inflation as defined in the general, has many impacts at a personal level. For example, you say that the reduction in the price of oil has no impact on you. That's absolutely not true, unless you're a hermit living off of the land. Every box or can or jar of food you buy off the shelf of the grocery store has the pri... |
Why is the volume highest at the beginning and end of a trading day? | While volume per trade is higher at the open and to a lesser extent at the close, the overall volume is actually lower, on average. Bid ask spreads are widest at the open and to a lesser extent at the close. Generally, bid ask spreads are inversely proportional to overall volumes. Why this is the case hasn't been suffi... |
Pay down the student loan, or buy the car with cash? | Here's another way to look at this that might make the decision easier: Looking at it this way you can turn this into a financial arbitrage opportunity, returning 2.5% compared to paying cash for the vehicle and carrying the student loan. Of course you need to take other factors into account as well, such as your need... |
Is it wise to have plenty of current accounts in different banks? | You should not open bank accounts just to get additional credit cards. You should be careful about carrying too many credit cards and incurring too much debt as you could find yourself in a situation whereby you may not be able to pay off your monthly interest, much less the principal balance. Credit cards are not insu... |
Can a dealer keep my deposit (on a non-existant car) if my loan is not approved? | Without the contract it's hard to say for sure, but Consumer Reports indicates that it's pretty easy to lose these deposits; they're not as well protected as other deposits or purchases (depending on your state and other details). You should make an effort to comply with all of the requests from the financing arm prom... |
Can I negotiate a 0% transaction fee with my credit card company? | TL;DR summary: 0% balance transfer offers and "free checks usable anywhere" rarely are a good deal for the customer. 0% rate balance transfer offers (and the checks usable anywhere including payment of taxes) come with a transaction fee because the credit card company is paying off the balance on the other card (or t... |
Why liquidity implies tight spread and low slippage | Consider the case where a stock has low volume. If the stock normally has a few hundred shares trade each minute and you want to buy 10,000 shares then chances are you'll move the market by driving up the price to find enough sellers so that you can get all those shares. Similarly, if you sell way more than the typic... |
Who are the sellers for the new public stocks? | In an IPO the seller is the Company selling new shares. Some of the IPOs also include something called "secondary" sales which are existing holders selling at the same time at the IPO price. But that is a but more unusual. And as someone noted, the $68 is the price paid for the people who bought at the IPO (the aggre... |
Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value? | +1 They are over priced to begin with - More specifically they are expensive to create exclusivity, which raises their value to people who value that kind of thing. Perhaps folks who buy those cars aren't buying them for value or quality or performance, but are buying them for the badge and the intangible factors. I f... |
OTC Markets, Time, and Trading | Depending on your broker, you can buy these stocks directly at the most liquid local exchanges. For instance, if you are US resident and want to to buy German stocks (like RWE) you can trade these stocks over InteractiveBrokers (or other direct brokers in the US). They offer direct access to German Xetra and other loca... |
Is there a benefit, long term, to life insurance for a youngish, debt, and dependent free person? | If there are no dependents, there is no need for life insurance. You mention getting insurance when it is not needed, to protect you against some future risk. If you have a policy and a disease crops up that would normally make you un-insurable, you can keep your insurance for the rest of the term. The cost for this w... |
Payroll taxes on exercised stock options | To explain the capital gains part of the question, non qualified stock options (NSOs) are always treated like earned income and have payroll taxes withheld. It's advantageous for the company to issue these because they can deduct them as expenses just as they do your salary. Articles talking about capital gains would p... |
When should I start saving/investing for my retirement? | Start as early as possible and you will want to kiss your younger self when you get to retirement age. I know you (and everyone else at that age) thinks that they don't make enough to start saving and leans towards waiting until you get established in your career and start making better money. Don't put it off. Save so... |
What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? | What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? The company's potential residual assets. When a company goes bankrupt it is required to sell its assets to pay off its debts. The funds raised from selling assets go to the following entities: The usual order of debt repayment, in terms of the lender, will be the government... |
Why is the stock market closed on the weekend? | After-hours trading and alternate venues allow one to trade outside of regular market hours. However there are a few reasons why you would not want to: The purpose of an exchange is to improve liquidity by gathering all buyers and sellers in the same place at the same time. If trading was 24/7, not all market participa... |
Why is being “upside down” on a mortgage so bad? | I can think of a few reasons why they seem like a bigger deal to people than similar situations with other loans. As you point out, though, being underwater on your home loan is a less serious condition than having large student loans and a poor paying job, for example. If the student loan situation ever comes to a he... |
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) | It seems the age restriction for the Capital One MONEY account has been removed; I just read the entire terms and conditions and there's no minimum age requirement. I just finished opening Capital One MONEY accounts for a child who is <5 and a child <8. Both now have activated debit cards and online access. Their accou... |
No-line-of-credit debit card? | We have a pre-paid mastercard. This will only allow the spending up to the amount already paid into the card account. Visa Electron is a bank account linked debit card that will not allow the account to go overdrawn but this card type is getting quite rare. |
What happens if stock purchased on margin plummets below what I have in the brokerage? | If the price had dropped to $4 from $50, and you had $5000 to start with on your account, you will be left with $400 in your account if you closed the position now. So you would not be in debt if this was the only possition you had open. |
Can extra mortgage payments be made to lower the monthly payment amount? | That's tricky. Typically you lock in the minimum monthly payment when you close the loan. You can pay more but not less. Options: |
Trading on exchanges or via brokerage companies? | Yes when I place an order with my broker they send it out to the exchange. - For individual investors, what are some cons and pros of trading on the exchanges directly versus indirectly via brokers? I may be mistaken(I highly doubt it), but from my understanding you cannot trade directly through an exchange as a ret... |
Why would I buy a bond with a negative yield? | Perhaps something else comes with the bond so it is a convertible security. Buffett's Negative-Interest Issues Sell Well from 2002 would be an example from more than a decade ago: Warren E. Buffett's new negative-interest bonds sold rapidly yesterday, even after the size of the offering was increased to $400 millio... |
What kind of symbol can be shorted? | Some platforms/brokers have HTB indication for a stock symbol, meaning Hard To Borrow. That usually means you can't sell it short at the moment. |
Home owners association for houses, pro/cons | I think it depends a lot on your idea of how you should relate to your neighbors. Personally, I think that I should be allowed to do just about whatever I want with my property, and I grant my neighbor the same right. If my neighbor wants to paint his house purple with orange stripes and fill his front lawn with pink f... |
Typically how many digits are in a cheque number? | Checks are normally numbered sequentially, to keep them unique for record-keeping purposes. The check number takes as many digits as it takes, depending on how long the account has been open and thus how many checks have been written. The most recent check I looked at had a four-digit number, but as has been pointed o... |
Simple income and expense report in gnucash | The official guide can be found here, but that can be a little in depth as well. To make good use of you need at least a little knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping. Double-entry bookkeeping, in accounting, is a system of bookkeeping so named because every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite e... |
When is the right time to buy a car and/or a house? | Buy a house when you can, but keep driving your current car until it dies. In ten years' time, a house should be worth more than you paid for it, while a new car will be worth next to nothing. And research shows that buying possessions like cars doesn't actually make you happier, even though you think it will. |
Does doing your “research”/“homework” on stocks make any sense? | The markets are not as information efficient as some might have you believe. But on the contrary, looking up what the aggregate professional analysts have said is also part of "doing your homework" |
What are the consequences of not respecting a notice period when leaving a job? | It's provincial jurisdiction, so it can vary by province. In Manitoba, it's different when an employee quits vs. being terminated: Quiting: Being terminated: Edit: At least in Manitoba, according to the above link, an employer can't set different notice periods. Effective April 30, 2007, employers cannot have alter... |
How are exchange rates decided for each country? | Today the rates are arrived simply on the basis of demand and supply. Historically rates were pegged to Gold, when all currencies were printed depending on the Gold reserves. So if one country printed 100 units of currency of a 1gm of gold and other country 10 units of currency for 1 gm of gold, the rate would be 1:10.... |
How do stocks like INL (traded in Frankfurt) work? | A "stock price" is nothing but the price at which some shares of that stock were sold on an exchange from someone willing to sell those shares at that price (or more) to someone willing to buy them at that price (or less). Pretty much every question about how stock prices work is answered by the paragraph above, which ... |
Is a “total stock market” index fund diverse enough alone? | I don't think you are missing much, if anything, Brendan. You get massive diversification and low fees with a fund like VTI. I'm not sure if it is good to have everything with only one broker though. I would add to the conversation that the goal shouldn't be to have a giant pile of money in x years..and then spend it d... |
When is it better to rent and when is better buy in a certain property market? | Besides the long-term concern about which is cheaper, which has already been addressed by other answers, consider your risk exposure. Owning property has financial risks associated with it, just like owning stocks or bonds. The risk-related downsides of owning a home as an asset include: The risk-related upsides of own... |
Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market? | The difference is downside risk. Your CD, assuming you are in the US and the CD is purchased from a deposit bank, will be FDIC insured, your $10,000 is definitely coming back to you. Your stock portfolio has no such guarantee and can lose money. Your potential upside is theoretically correlated to the risk that some ... |
Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” in the US? | Equation: (M x 12) + MOOP = Worst case scenario cost Where M equals the monthly cost and MOOP is the maximum out of pocket amount. So, if a plan costs $500 a month and the maximum out of pocket amount is $12,000 - which in a worst case scenario you would pay (it's almost always over the deductible) ... ($500 x 12) + 1... |
Do I even need credit cards? | I can't answer the question if you should or shouldn't get a credit card; after all, you seem to manage fine without one (which is good). I started using credit cards when I lived in the UK as the consumer protection you get from a credit card there tends to be better than from a debit card. I'd also treat it as a debi... |
Tools for comparing costs between different healthcare providers? | When I had a high-deductible healthcare plan, I used http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ to do comparisons among the plans. As far as comparing the costs of specific procedures across providers, I'm not aware of any good ways either. |
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? | No matter what, it is never a bad decision to go 100% debt free. However, you can make debt work in your favor in some cases (investments, education, etc.), but you need to approach it with a plan and long term strategy. Interest, fees, and loss of value can quickly eat up any gains. |
Buying a home without a Real Estate Agent - Who should I get to do the paperwork? | Generally, the paperwork realtors use is pre-written and pre-approved by the relevant State and real-estate organizations. The offers, contracts, etc etc a pretty straightforward and standard. You can ask a realtor for a small fee to arrange the documents for you (smaller than the usual 5% sellers' fee they charge, I w... |
Does inflation equal more loans? | In terms of operations, banks are indifferent to inflation. Short rates except right before a recession or near-recession are always lower than long rates, regardless of inflation level, assuming no quotas or price controls. Banks produce credit by borrowing short to lend long, so as long as short rates are lower than ... |
What does it mean for a normal citizen like me when my country's dollar value goes down? | Essentially imported goods from the country (in this case the US) that is improving against your local currency will become more expensive. For the most part, that is the only practical effect on you on an individual financial level. |
I'm thinking of getting a new car … why shouldn't I LEASE one? | Here are the reasons I did not lease my current car. When you lease, you're tied in at a monthly payment for 48 months or more. The only way to get out of that payment is to transfer the lease or buy out the lease. If you buy/finance, you can always sell the car or trade it in to get out of the payments. Or you can pay... |
Why certain currencies are considered safe havens in times of turmoil | Switzerland is presumably where one moves the money in case of an apocalypse; although, they have lost some of that appeal now with the tax reporting to the EU and USA. Switzerland has a very old, stable banking industry, but this isn't the only appeal. Their reputation for safeguarding money, be it despot or Nazi, is... |
Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation? | Sensitive topic ;) Inflation is a consequence of the mismatch between supply and demand. In an ideal world the amount of goods available would exactly match the demand for those goods. We don't live in an ideal world. One example of oversupply is dollar stores where you can buy remainders from companies that misjudg... |
Most Efficient Way to Transfer Money from Israel to the USA? | Check with stock brokers. Some of them will offer ILS->USD conversion at a very beneficial rate (very close to the official), without any commission, and flat-priced wire transfers. For large amounts this is perfect. I know for a fact that Gaon Trade used to do that ($15 for a wire transfer of any amount), but they are... |
JCI headache part 2: How to calculate cost basis / tax consequences of JCI -> ADNT spinoff? | Your 1099-B report for ADNT on the fractional shares of cash should answer this question for you. The one I am looking at shows ADNT .8 shares were sold for $36.16 which would equal a sale price of $45.20 per share, and a cost basis of $37.27 for the .8 shares or $46.59 per share. |
If Bernie Madoff had invested in Berkshire Hathaway, would the ponzi actually have succeeded? | I could be wrong, but I doubt that Bernie started out with any intention of defrauding anyone, really. I suspect it began the first time he hit a quarter when his returns were lower than everyone else's, or at least not as high as he'd promised his investors they'd be, so he fudged the numbers and lied to get past the... |
My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking? | The risk is that you will owe the bank the principal amount of the mortgage. Based on your question it would be foolish for you to sign. Anyone who describes a mortgage as "something" obviously has no idea what they are doing and should never sign a mortgage which is a promise to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. Y... |
Is it possible to sell a stock at a higher value than the market price? | The core issue is to understand what 'selling a share' means. There is no special person or company that takes the share from you; you are selling on the open market. So your question is effectively 'can I find a guy on the street that buys a 10$-bill for 11$ ?' - Well, maybe someone is dumb enough, but chances are sl... |
Explanations on credit cards in Canada | I think it's worth pointing out explicitly that the biggest difference between a credit card (US/Canada) and a debit card (like your French carte de crédit) is that with a credit card, it's entirely possible to not pay the bill or to pay only the "minimum payment" when asked. This results in you owing significantly mor... |
Why do investors buy stock that had appreciated? | You seem to prefer to trade like I do: "Buy low, sell high." But there are some people that prefer a different way: "Buy high, sell higher." A stock that has "just appreciated" is "in motion." That is a "promise" (not always kept) that it will continue to go higher. Some people want stocks that not only go higher, but ... |
Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY? | The reason diversification in general is a benefit is easily seen in your first graph. While the purple line (Betterment 100% Stock) is always below the blue line (S&P), and the blue line is the superior return over the entire period, it's a bit different if you retired in 2009, isn't it? In that case the orange line... |
How to make money from a downward European market? | Invest in solid companies, not in esoteric products built on sand. The problem is with finance, not with real economy: oil companies make money, mobile phone companies make money, airlines make money... |
Line of credit for investment | What you are describing is called a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). While the strategy you are describing is not impossible it would raise the amount of debt in your name and reduce your borrowing potential. A recent HELOC used to finance the down payment on a second property risks sending a signal of bad financial... |
Are Index Funds really as good as “experts” claim? | The point of buying an index fund is that you don't have to pick winners. As long as the winners are included in the index fund (which can include far more than 500 stocks), you benefit on average because of overall upward historical market performance. Picking only the top 50 capitalized stocks in the S&P 500 does not... |
Changes in Capital Gains Tax in the US - Going to 20% in 2011? | The top long-term capital gains tax rate will rise to 20% effective 1 Jan, 2011, unless Congress decides to do something about it before then. (Will they? Who knows!! There's been talk about it, but, well, it's Congress. They don't even know what they're going to do.) Anyway. The rules about when you can sell stock ar... |
What are the advantages/disadvantages of a self-directed IRA? | Our company does a lot of research on the self-directed IRA industry. We also provide financial advice in this area. In short, we have seen a lot in this industry. You mentioned custodian fees. This can be a sore spot for many investors. However, not all custodians are expensive, you should do your research before choo... |
Strategic countermeasures to overcome crisis in Russia | Bitcoins are very liquid. They can be sold or spent very easily. And you don't depend on the banks being solvent to keep your Bitcoin funds, since you can keep them yourself in an offline wallet. I'm not sure what's the legality of Bitcoin in Russia, though. |
What's the most correct way to calculate market cap for multi-class companies? | From their 10-K pulled directly from Edgar: As of October 22, 2015, there were 291,327,781 shares of Alphabet Inc.’s (the successor issuer pursuant to Rule 12g-3(a) under the Exchange Act as of October 2, 2015) (Alphabet) Class A common stock outstanding, 50,893,362 shares of Alphabet's Class B common stock ou... |
Buy on dip when earnings fail? | What is cheap? A stock may fall from $20 per share to $10 per share, but it may have gone from making a $100M profit last year to a $100M loss this year. So now at $10 per share it may still be considered expensive. You need to be very careful when to consider that a stock is cheap or not, you'll have to look at more t... |
Capital gains tax when I sell my home if I use a portion of it for an AirBnB | Getting the first year right for any rental property is key. It is even more complex when you rent a room, or rent via a service like AirBnB. Get professional tax advice. For you the IRS rules are covered in Tax Topic 415 Renting Residential and Vacation Property and IRS pub 527 Residential Rental Property There is a s... |
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card | Credit card interest rates are obscene. Try to find some other kind of loan for the furnishings; if you put things on the card, try to pay them off as quickly as possible. I should say that for most people I do recommend having a credit card. Hotels, car rental agencies, and a fair number of other businesses expect to ... |
How to find an optimum linear combination of various investments? | You're talking about modern portfolio theory. The wiki article goes into the math. Here's the gist: Modern portfolio theory (MPT) is a theory of finance that attempts to maximize portfolio expected return for a given amount of portfolio risk, or equivalently minimize risk for a given level of expected return, by carefu... |
When to use geometric vs. arithmetic mean? Why is the former better for percentages? | Simple. Say in 2012 you were up 50% (brilliant) but then in 2013 you were down 50% (sorry). i.e. if you started with $1000, you were up to $1500, then down to $750. You lost $250 overall. If you were to compute the mean of the percentages using each method, then: Arithmetic mean: The average of +50% and -50% (really 1... |
Are there any consequences for investing in Vanguard's Admiral Shares funds instead of ETF's in a Roth IRA? | ETFs purchases are subject to a bid/ask spread, which is the difference between the highest available purchase offer ("bid") and the lowest available sell offer ("ask"). You can read more about this concept here. This cost doesn't exist for mutual funds, which are priced once per day, and buyers and sellers all use th... |
Any experience with maxing out 401(k)? | The answers so far are excellent. I need to respond to your 8-9% withdrawal rate. Uh, wherever you heard that, I'd suggest you listen/read elsewhere. 4% seems to be the "safe" withdrawal rate. I've seen people who were convinced that 7-10% were ok get absolutely trashed in the downturns, both 2000 and 2008. Proper asse... |
In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive? | While many answers correctly cite the effect of monopoly power.... there is a cost issue that no one has yet posted. I first recall seeing this cost effect in a managerial econ textbook, perhaps Ivan Png's. The theater must clean up the popcorn mess. The sales of popcorn elsewhere does not usually include the costs... |
What is the preferred way to set up personal finances? | simplicity and roi are often at odds. the simplest plan that also supports a reasonable investment return would have 3 accounts: if you want to get better returns on your investments, things can get much more complicated. here are some optional accounts to consider: besides the mechanics of money flowing between accoun... |
How to secure one's effort when working on a contract? | Anytime you do work without any payment until the work is complete, you are effectively extending credit to the party receiving your service. How much credit you are willing to extend will vary greatly, depending on the amount and the trustworthiness of the party. For example, if you are charging $50 for something, you... |
How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car? | You are currently $30k in debt. I realize it is tempting to purchase a new car with your new job, but increasing your debt right now is heading in the wrong direction. Adding a new monthly payment into your budget would be a mistake, in my opinion. Here is what I would suggest. Since you have $7k in the bank, spend ... |
Is a car loan bad debt? | Good debt and "Bad debt" are just judgement calls. Each person has their own opinion on when it is acceptable to borrow money for something, and when it is not. For some, it is never acceptable to borrow money for something; they won't even borrow money to buy a house. Others, of course, are in debt up to their eyeb... |
What option-related strategies are better suited to increasing return potential? | It definitely depends on your risk appetite as Joe Taxpayer pointed out in his answer. Covered calls are a good choice for someone who already own's the stock, because the premium collected reduces the cost basis for the position. The downside is that if the calls are exercised, there is a good chance that you are miss... |
How are they earning money in the movie “Trading Places”? | Sell 200 at 142. What does that mean? I haven't seen the movie, so I won't try to put anything in story context. "Sell 200 at 142" means to sell 200 units (usually shares, but in this case it would likely be gallons or barrels of orange juice or pounds or tons of frozen juice). In general, this could mean that you h... |
When does it make sense for the money paid for equity to go to the corporation? | If the check is written as a check to BigCo, it is less clear how Jack can compensate himself for the equity sale. It is as if the equity was owned by the corporation, not by Jack. This is correct. If the check is written to BigCo, then it is BigCo issuing new shares. Jack doesn't compensate himself for the equity sa... |
Where do large corporations store their massive amounts of cash? | You can find out the general types of investments by reading the public corporation 10-Q report that is filed with the SEC it can be accessed via the EDGAR system. It will not tell you what securities they have, but it does identify the short term and long term investments categories and their value. |
What laws/regulations are there regardings gifts in the form of large sums of money? | This depends on the country(ies) involved. US citizen/resident giving gifts is required to pay a gift tax. The recipient of the gift, however, pays nothing. The value of the gift at the time of the gift-giving is used to determine the tax, and an exclusion of $14000 per person per year (as of 2013) is available to allo... |
First concrete steps for retirement planning when one partner is resistant | Bringing your spouse on board a financial plan is key to success. The biggest part is to have a shared dream. Having retirement saving doesn't mean that you can't work. It does mean that you both will have some level of security as you age. Does your husband really want you to be impoverished when he dies? I doubt... |
Real Estate: Please review my recent investment (with numbers from recent purchase) | Okay so I am going to break this answer into a couple sections: Okay so first things first. Did you get a good deal? This is challenging to answer for a number of reasons. First, a good deal is relative to the buyers goals. If you're attempting to buy an asset that provides passive income then maybe you met your goal a... |
Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now? | Would you buy this used car, in its current condition but with new tires, for the price of the tires? If so, buy the tires. |
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