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Are there index tracking funds that avoid the “buy high - sell low” problem? | There are some index funds out there like this - generally they are called "equal weight" funds. For example, the Rydex S&P Equal-Weight ETF. Rydex also has several other equal weight sector funds |
US sanctions against foreign citizens | US Sanctions are usually very nuanced and you should look them up yourself. It may be widely reported that "US sanctions X-country" and it may be widely understood that it means all funds from anybody in that country are blocked, that USUALLY isn't the case (or "many times" isn't the case, I'm not going to bother quan... |
What steps should be taken, if any, when you find out your home's market value is underwater, i.e. worth less than the mortgage owed? | Step back and take a deep breath. Pay your mortgage. repeat 1 and 2 monthly until equity > mortgage. |
Do rental car agencies sell their cars at a time when it is risky for the purchaser? | A premium car rental agency will sell a car which is working very well and quite far from the verge of breaking apart. They don't want to take the risk that one of their premium customers paying premium rates receives a worn-looking car which runs less than absolutely perfect (or even breaks down). They need to keep up... |
What are the gains from more liquidity in ETF for small investors? | In my opinion, if you are doing long-term investing, this is a non-issue. The difference of hours in being able to trade an ETF during the day vs. only being able to trade a traditional mutual fund at day-end is irrelevant if you are holding the investment for a long time. If you are engaging in day trading, market ti... |
When transferring money between two parties, under what circumstances is it considered taxable income? | A loan is not a taxable income. Neither is a gift. Loans are repaid with interest. The interest is taxable income to the lender, and may or may not be deductible to the borrower, depending on how the loan proceeds were used. Gifts are taxable to the donor (the person giving the gift) under the gift tax, they're not a t... |
Why don't institutions share stock recommendations like Wall Street analysts? | Primarily because they don't want big price movements when they are in the market. If they spook the markets, either they have to buy at a higher price, or they sell at a lower price or they decrease the price of their holdings(which isn't always a big factor). The 3 situations they didn't want to be in the first place... |
Theoretically, if I bought more than 50% of a company's stocks, will I own the company? | You'll own whatever fraction you bought. To own the company (as in, boolean - yes or no) you need to buy 100% of the outstanding stock. RE controlling the company, in general the answer is yes - although the mechanism for this might not be so straight forward (ie. you may have to appoint board members and may only be a... |
How will interest rate changes affect my government bonds ETF? | In general, yes. If interest rates go higher, then any existing fixed-rate bonds - and hence ETFs holding those bonds - become less valuable. The further each bond is from maturity, the larger the impact. As you suggest, once the bonds do mature, the fund can replace them at a market price, so the effect tails off. The... |
Are Shiller real-estate futures and options catching on with investors? | In my experience, Shiller is always way before his time with his predictions and often it comes at too early a point for anyone actually making some money to care about. His view is very long term - and I trust his predictions, because he so accurately predicted so many of the homepocalypse, and the measures that would... |
How risky is it to keep my emergency fund in stocks? | Keeping your “big emergency” fund in stocks if you have 12 months income saved is OK. However you should keep your “small emergency” fund in cash. (However I find that even my stock broker accounts have some cash in them, as I like to let the dividends build up enough to make the dealing charges worthwhile. You do... |
Which credit card is friendliest to merchants? | Accepting cash isn't free to the merchant's either. It needs to be counted, reconciled, stored, and taken to the bank each day. There is a certain amount that needs to be on-hand, not in the bank earning interest. There is more of a worry about employees taking cash from the register. There is the chance of inadvert... |
Can LLC legally lend money to a friend? | The answer to your question is...it depends. Depending on the state you, your friend, and the LLC are located in, it can be very easy to run afoul of state banking laws, or to somehow violate some other statute pertaining to the legal activities an LLC may undertake by doing something like a loan. It is not unusual (o... |
As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments? | At 22 years old, you can afford to be invested 100% in the stock market. Like many others, I recommend that you consider low cost index funds if those are available in your 401(k) plan. Since your 401(k) contributions are usually made with each paycheck this gives you the added benefit of dollar cost averaging througho... |
Savings account with fixed interest or not? | Personally I would have a hard time "locking up" the money for that very little return. I would probably rather earn no interest in favor of the liquidity. However, you should find out what the early removal penalties are. If those are minimal and you are very confident that you will not need the money over the term ... |
What should I consider when selecting a broker/advisor to manage my IRA? | This is not a direct answer to your question, but you might want to consider whether you want to have a financial planner at all. Would a large mutual fund company or brokerage serve your needs better than a bank? You are still quite young and so have been contributing to IRAs for only a few years. Also, the wording in... |
How do I add my income to my personal finance balance? | I don't think you need double-entry bookkeeping. To quote Robert Kiyosaki (roughly): Income is when money enters you pocket, and expenses are when money leaves your pocket. Income is an addition; expenses are subtractions. But if you want double-entry accounting, I'm not qualified to answer that. :) |
Why would someone want to sell call options? | I do this often with shares that I own - mostly as a learning/experience-building exercise, since I don't own enough individual stocks to make me rich (and don't risk enough to make me broke). Suppose I own 1,000 shares of X. I don't expect my shares to go down, but I want to be compensated in case they do go down. S... |
Can rent be added to your salary when applying for a mortgage? | I am in Australia, but I think the banks in the UK would use similar wrkings. Your options 1 and 2 are basically no. Why would the bank consider your wife to be paying you rent when you live together. These are the type of practices that led to the GFC, and since then practices have been tightened. Regarding option 3, ... |
What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario? | Barton Biggs's book Wealth, War and Wisdom aims to answer the question of what investments are best-suited to preserving value despite large-scale catastrophes by looking at how various investments and assets performed in countries affected by WWII. In Japan, stocks and urban land turned out to be good investments; in... |
What does a reorganization fee that a company charges get applied to? | Its a broker fee, not something charged by the reorganizing company. E*Trade charge $20, TD Ameritrade charge $38. As with any other bank fee - shop around. If you know the company is going to do a split, and this fee is of a significant amount for you - move your account to a different broker. It may be that some port... |
Should I keep copies of my business's invoices for tax records? | It's always beneficial to have detailed business records. There are any number of reasons where you'd need to prove both the types of services you've rendered and the payment history - you've already noted audits (for IRS taxes). Other possibilities: Whether these records need to be original or electronic might be th... |
How do brokerage firms make money? | Regarding "Interest on idle cash", brokerage firms must maintain a segregated account on the brokerage firm's books to make sure that the client's money and the firm's money is not intermingled, and clients funds are not used for operational purposes. Source. Thus, brokerage firms do not earn interest on cash that i... |
Is threatening to close the account a good way to negotiate with the bank? | Take your business elsewhere, where the products and services are priced at a level you agree to pay. This does two things. First, you end a bad business relationship. Why bad? Because you're not happy with the deal. Second, it sends an unambiguous signal to the losing bank that you were unhappy with their service... |
How long should I keep my tax documents, and why? | How long you need to keep tax records will depend on jurisdiction. In general, if you discard records in a period of time less than your tax authority recommends, it may create audit problems down the road. ie: if you make a deduction supported by business expense receipts, and you discard those receipts next year, the... |
Why do people buy new cars they can not afford? | I had a 2000 Chevy Cavalier until late 2011. It worked well, but was very definitely at the end of its life. This was a low-end car, certainly, but I dispute your claim that cars last 20 - 25 years. Consumer Reports apparently says the average life expectancy of a new vehicle is around 8 years or 150,000 miles. When it... |
What's an economic explanation for why greeting cards are so expensive? | We generally speak of the "elasticity of demand". Greeting cards are expensive because they can be. We buy them in a sentimentally weakened state, and we do not buy them by the tonne. There is also the concept of "Market Segmentation", but not so much. Essentially the price is determined by finding the "point of pain" ... |
If one owns 75% of company shares, does that mean that he would have to take upon himself 75% of the company's expenses? | I think you're looking at the picture in an odd way. When each of you made your initial investments and determined what portions you owned, that gave the company capital that they could use to finance its operations. In return, you are entitled to the future profits of the company (in proportion to your ownership). Any... |
Can a husband and wife who are both members of the same LLC file a joint tax return? | Since from the question it seems that you're talking about the US taxation, I'll assume that. You can definitely continue filing jointly. Being members of a partnership has no bearing on how you file your own tax return. The partnership will distribute K-1 to each of you separately, but you'll report both of them on th... |
If one owns 75% of company shares, does that mean that he would have to take upon himself 75% of the company's expenses? | I think your question might be coming from a misunderstanding of how corporate structures work - specifically, that a corporation is a legal entity (sort of like a person) that can have its own assets and debts. To make it clear, let's look at your example. We have two founders, Albert and Brian, and they start a corpo... |
Can used books bought off Amazon be claimed as a tax deduction in Australia? | Yes, if they meet the ATO's criteria. Books, periodicals and digital information If the item cost less than $300 you can claim an immediate deduction where it satisfies all of the following requirements: http://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Income-and-deductions/Deductions-you-can-claim/Other-deductions/Books,-periodicals... |
How often do typical investors really lose money? | How often do investors really lose money? All the time. And it's almost always reason number 1. Let's start with the beginner investor, the person most likely to make some real losses and feel they've "learned" that investing is no better than Vegas. This person typically gets into it because they've been given a hot s... |
How can I claim tax back from whilst I was working in Austria? | I don't have any specific situation on the situation in Austria, but in general there are a few things that you should keep in mind. First of all, the official website of the Austrian tax authorities appears to be this one: https://www.bmf.gv.at/steuern/startseite-steuern.html. There is an English page there, but it is... |
Did I get screwed in taxes on a mutual fund dividend payment? | No, not screwed. This is just an artifact of the tax code and year end dividends. You paid a tax, and in return, got a higher basis. When you sell, you will have less profit, therefore less tax to pay than the guy who bought right after the dividend. You can call the fund company if you want to buy later this year. O... |
Borrowing 100k and paying it to someone then declaring bankruptcy | This sounds like a crazy idea, but in reality people don't make the wisest decisions when considering bankruptcy in Australia. My suggestion would be to get some advice from an insolvency specialist. |
Pay cash for a home, get a reverse mortgage, and buy stock | I think you're missing a couple of things. First - why do you think its a reverse mortgage? More likely than not its a regular mortgage - home equity loan. If so, if they expect the stock market to rise significantly more than the amount of interest they pay on the loan - then its a totally sensible course of action. S... |
Does revenue equal gross profit for info product business? | What about web-hosting fees? Cost of Internet service? Cost of computer equipment to do the work? Amortized cost of development? Time for support calls/email? Phone service used for sales? Advertising/marketing expenses? Look hard--I bet there are some costs. |
I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment? | You can do several things: After the fact: If you believe the stock will go up, you can buy more stock now, it's what's called "averaging". So, you bought 100 at $10, now it's at $7. To gain money from your original investment it needs to raise to over $10. But if you really think it'll go up, you can buy and average. ... |
How can I cash out a check internationally? | I know someone around there, who might be able to collect it for me.Would I still be able to cash it out in the other country? Or can he/she cash it out for me? Unlikely. Unless they deposit it into a US bank account in your name. You can cash US checks in almost any decent bank anywhere in the world, but it may co... |
Is there any reason to choose my bank's index fund over Vanguard? | Basically, no. Selecting an actively managed fund over a low-fee index fund means paying for the opportunity to possibly outperform the index fund. A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel argues that the best general strategy for the average investor is to select the index fund because the fee savings are cer... |
What are “upstream investments” and “downstream investments” in this context? | Upstream is into businesses that supply the original business; downstream is into businesses that make use of the original product. So in that description, what they are saying is that the original business received products from plantations and sent products to manufacturing. This is also called vertical integration.... |
How do cashier's checks work and why are they good for scams? | Ok, few things to understand first: Secondly, think about the way a scam usually flows. A person (scammer) with an actual bank account with money issues a valid cashiers check, trick someone else (victim) into receiving it (typically in exchange for a percent) and passing along a portion to another account (back to the... |
Is there a time limit to cover an open short position? [duplicate] | There are situations where you can be forced to cover a position, particular when "Reg SHO" ("regulation sho") is activated. Reg SHO is intended to make naked short sellers cover their position, it is to prevent abusive failure to delivers, where someone goes short without borrowing someone else's shares. Naked shortin... |
Are there cons to paying monthly bills with a rewards card and then paying it off monthly? | There are hidden costs to using rewards cards for everything. The credit card company charges fees to the merchant every time you make a purchase. These fees are a small amount per transaction, plus a portion of the transaction amount. These fees are higher for rewards cards. (For example, the fees might be 35 cents... |
How do I pay my estimated income tax? | Congratulations on starting your own business. Invest in a tax software package right away; I can't recommend a specific one but there is enough information out there to point you in the right direction: share with us which one you ended up using and why (maybe a separate question?) You do need to make your FICA taxes ... |
Is a company allowed to give employees an option for a bonus to be paid out as a 401k match or cash? | I have worked for companies that have done this. One did have a match and the other did not. When they figured their profit at the end of the year a portion was given to the employees as a 401K deposit. retirement-topics-401k-and-profit-sharing-plan-contribution-limits Total annual contributions (annual additions) to ... |
Buying my first car out of college | I support the strategy to buy a less expensive car at the outset and then save for that more expensive car. You mentioned that you would be able to save $9000 by the time you had to start making payments. That sounds like a great budget for car shopping. For $9k you can get a dependable used car. If you find the right... |
Calculate Estimated Tax on Hobby Business LLC | You are on the right track, for tax purposes its all ordinary income at the end of 2016. If the free lance "employer" will withhold fed,state and local tax, then that takes care of your estimated tax. If they can't or won't, you will need to make those estimates and make payments quarterly for the fed and state tax at ... |
Can future rental income be applied to present debt-to-income ratio when applying for second mortgage? | Having both purchased income properties and converted prior residences into rental properties I have found that it is difficult to get the banks to consider the potential rental income in qualifying you for a loan. It helps if you have prior rental experience but in many cases you will have to qualify outright (i.e. w... |
Can a bunch of wealthy people force Facebook to go public? | In the US, a private company with less than 500 owners can dictate who can or can't become a shareholder (this is true in general, but I'm sure there are loopholes). Prior to Google's IPO I could not buy shares in Google at any price. The reason Google was "forced" to go public is the 500 shareholder rule. At a h... |
Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value? | They start at a higher price and repairs are more expensive than with a standard car. From my experience, many luxury cars get too expensive to keep after about 10 years due to increased maintenance costs. |
Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | Also keep in mind that with an all-cash offer, they get their money now and not spread over X-many years, which means they can reinvest it now rather than piece meal across the term of whatever the loan would be. (Presuming the bank would be financing the house themselves.) Additionally, with an all-cash offer, there e... |
Should I invest in the pre-IPO company stock offered by my employer? | Should I invest money in the pre-IPO stocks soon to be offered by the company that I work for? Is it wise to do this? What should I be thinking about? What are the risks? The last time I was offered pre-IPO friends and family stock, I purchased half of my allotment, and had my parents purchase the other half. Since... |
Asset management after leaving the USA | Yes to all three. However, |
What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments? | Another thing to consider is that paying extra principal (either via one of these services, or by including something extra with your normal mortgage payment and designating that it go to principal rather than be held to reduce next month's payment, or just sending an additional payment to the bank and designating it a... |
What is the proper way to report additional income for taxes (specifically, Android development)? | You would report it as business income on Schedule C. You may be able to take deductions against that income as well (home office, your computer, an android device, any advertising or promotional expenses, etc.) but you'll want to consult an accountant about that. Generally you can only take those kinds of deductions ... |
For the first time in my life, I'm going to be making real money…what should I do with it? | Fool's 13 steps to invest is a good starting point. Specifically, IFF all your credit cards are paid, and you made sure you've got no outstanding liabilities (that also accrues interest), stock indexes might be a good place for 5-10 years timeframes. For grad school, I'd probably look into cash ISA (or local equivalent... |
Are companies like EquityZen legitimate and useful? | Full disclosure: I’m an intern for EquityZen, so I’m familiar with this space but can speak with the most accuracy about EquityZen. Observations about other players in the space are my own. The employee liquidity landscape is evolving. EquityZen and Equidate help shareholders (employees, ex-employees, etc.) in private ... |
Opening American credit cards while residing in the UK | Go to the states on vacation. Get a virtual (or friend's) address. Get an ITIN from the IRS. Open a bank account. Get a secured credit card on your next trip from Capital One – add as much money as you can afford. One year later, you should have a decent credit score. |
Wardrobe: To Update or Not? How-to without breaking the bank | I buy new clothes when the old ones fall apart, literally. When jeans get holes in the knees, they're relegated to gardening or really messy jobs. Shirts go until they're worn so much that I can't reasonably wear them to work any more. Sounds like your "dress code" at work is about like mine (also a software engineer).... |
What is a good 5-year plan for a college student with $15k in the bank? | You can put them in a 5 years CD and getting a maximum of %2.5 APY if you're lucky. If you put 15k now, in 5 years you'll have $1.971. If it sounds good then take a look at the current inflation rate (i'm in usa)... If you want to think about retirement then you should open a Roth IRA. But you won't be able to touch th... |
Any good software for value investment? | I had the same problem and was looking for a software that would give me easy access to historical financial statements of a company, preferably in a chart. So that I could easily compare earnings per share or other data between competitors. Have a look at Stockdance this might be what you are looking for. Reuters Ter... |
I've got $100K to invest over the next 2 to 7 years. What are some good options? | Given your timeframe, risk tolerance, and the fact that you don't need this money, I would suggest a balanced approach. Something like: If you want to have fun investing, you could look into things like lendingclub, or bonds, or stocks, etc. But an allocation like I've outlined above is a pretty good balance of risk an... |
How can I find a list of self-select stocks & shares ISA providers? | My go-to response whenever anyone asks me this is the Monevator table of platform fees. It looks a little complicated at first, but scroll past the table for a couple of paragraphs of useful info to help narrow down your search. The general tone of the page is geared more towards investors in index funds, but the fees ... |
historical data for analysing pensions | You could use any of various financial APIs (e.g., Yahoo finance) to get prices of some reference stock and bond index funds. That would be a reasonable approximation to market performance over a given time span. As for inflation data, just googling "monthly inflation data" gave me two pages with numbers that seem to ... |
Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money? | The main point to consider is that your payments toward your own home replace your rent. Any house or apartment you buy will have changes in value; the value is generally going slowly up, but there is a lot of noise, and you may be in a low phase at any time, and for a long time. So seeing it as an investment is not an... |
Should market based health insurance premiums be factored into 6 months emergency fund savings? | Yes, you should budget some amount of your emergency fund for healthcare expenses. How much you budget is really dependent on your particular anticipated costs. Be aware that health insurance likely costs significantly more than your employer charges you for access to its plan. Since healthcare reform mandated guaran... |
How to keep control of shared expenses inside marriage? | Being new does not allow me yet to vote on your question, but what a good question it is. We share our opinion in separating finances in our very well going mariage. Currently I have found a sort of okay solution in two websites. These are http://www.yunoo.nl and http://www.moneytrackin.com/. You can actually tag spend... |
Why would people sell a stock below the current price? | This happens on dark pools quite often. If I am a large institutional investor with tens of millions of shares, I may want to unload slowly and limit the adverse affects on the price of the stock. Dark pools offer anonymity and have buyers / sellers that can handle large volume. In the case of a day trader, they often... |
Resources on Buying Rental Properties | I would also suggest finding the training resource within your state for real estate agent license exam prep... When I was getting started, I took the "101" level course and it was worth the few hundred bucks for the overview I gleaned. |
How to calculate S corporation distribution from past K-1s? | Phil's answer is correct. Just to add to his response: Distributions are not taxable events -- you already paid your taxes, so you can take out $50k or $52k and the IRS is not concerned. You can simply write yourself a check for any amount you choose! To answer your specific question: to match your K1 losses and profit... |
Why are estimated taxes due “early” for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only? | nan |
Is it a good investment for a foreigner to purchase a flat/apartment in China? | More infomation is needed for any meaningful discussion about this. I just assume you want to buy in China mainland, not Hongkong or other places. That depends on where you want to buy the flat. Which city, which district of the city, which community, which school district, how old is the building? Furthermore, alwa... |
Why do financial institutions charge so much to convert currency? | Why do these fees exist? From a Banks point of view, they are operating in Currency A; Currency B is a commodity [similar to Oil, Grains, Goods, etc]. So they will only buy if they can sell it at a margin. Currency Conversion have inherent risks, on small amount, the Bank generally does not hedge these risks as it is ... |
What should I do about proxy statements? | Whether or not you want to abstain or throw away the proxy, one reason it's important to at least read the circular is to find out if any of the proposals deal with increasing the company's common stock. When this happens, it can dilute your shares and have an effect on your ownership percentage in the company and sha... |
Events that cause major movement in forex? | currency's central bank or treasury/finance department speeches that can announce a significant change in policy. That includes: Particularly when it is a high level figure within the department such as the President or Prime Minister making the announcement. Macroeconomic stats: GeoPolitical considerations, such as:... |
How Long Can It Take For a Check I Write to Clear on My Account? | 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 mone... |
Why would a company with a bad balance sheet be paying dividends? | A simple response is that it's a good political/strategic move. Ford have effectively said, "We know we still have debt, but we think the long term future is so good we can go back to paying dividends." It builds investor confidence and attracts new money. It can also be seen as a way of Ford indicating that they belie... |
Didn't apply for credit card but got an application denied letter? | fine because the application was declined anyway. No it isn't fine. Credit card applications generally need a hard pull, so get it rectified. Firstly check if an application was really made on your behalf. Some companies use this ploy to pull you into a scheme of making you apply for a credit card. Secondly call up the... |
When should I start saving/investing for my retirement? | Here's a good strategy: Open up a Roth IRA at a discount-broker, like TD Ameritrade, invest in no-fee ETF's, tracking an Index, with very low expense ratios (look for around .15%) This way, you won't pay brokers fees whenever you buy shares, and shares are cheap enough to buy casually. This is a good way to start. When... |
Is there an online service that provides public company information through a public API? | I don't know of any free API's for these data, but I'll provide what information I can. Compiling all of this information from the EDGAR system and exposing an interface to it requires a fair amount of work and maintenance, so it's usually market data companies that have the motivation and resources to provide such int... |
How can OTC scams affect you? | Am I being absurd? No. Should I be worrying? Yes. If I sell in the morning, I've only lost a couple hundred dollars, and learned a valuable lesson. Is there any reason to believe it won't be that simple? If you're lucky, you'll be able to dump your stocks to someone like you who'll be punching himself in the face t... |
If I want to take cash from Portugal to the USA, should I exchange my money before leaving or after arriving? | in my experience no-cash transactions are the best deal. Take your Portuguese credit card, get some cash ($60) for emergencies. Only pay with your credit card. It's much cheaper because it's all virtual. The best would be to set up an American bank account and transfer the money there. You can also get Paypal account,... |
How does a high share price benefit a company when it is raising funds? | In an IPO (initial public offering) or APO (additional public offering) situation, a small group of stakeholders (as few as one) basically decide to offer an additional number of "shares" of equity in the company. Usually, these "shares" are all equal; if you own one share you own a percentage of the company equal to t... |
Online brokers with a minimum stock purchase lower than $500 | The $500 minimum is a policy of the ASX. As such any broker that offered a different policy would not be offering direct purchase of exchange traded shares. Note however that this policy applies only to the initial purchase. From the CMC FAQs: The ASX requires a minimum parcel of $500 to be traded if you don’t currentl... |
If I go to a seminar held overseas, may I claim my flights on my tax return? | I think you can. I went to Mexico for business and the company paid for it, so if you are self employed you should be able to expense it. |
How can small children contribute to the “family economy”? | (Although I disagree with the idea of getting a child working a real job to early, (I think kids should learn at school, learn manners, learn what the world offers and have responsibility) Here is a list of ideas that a small child can do. This is all assuming the child is to young for a work permit and a "normal" job... |
Does a bid and ask price exist for indices like the S&P500? | You can trade an index by using a Contract For Difference, or CFD. Various brokers offer this method and the spreads are quite low. They tend to widen outside of market hours, and not all brokers offer the same spreads. I would look for a broker that offers the lowest spread on the index you are interested in. You shou... |
How can I stop wasting food? | Try to choose less perishable items. Besides canned and bottled are adequate for some foods, and frozen foods for a wider range, such as vegetables and prepared foods. Dairy has a limited life, but some types live longer, like yogurt. Fruits like apples and oranges will last a good deal longer in the fridge (bananas... |
What is the purpose of endorsing a check? | So the bank can (theoretically) compare that signature to the ID you provide, showing that the names and signatures match and that you are the person to whom the check was written. |
Should I have more than one brokerage account? | I believe the answer here is no: SIPC protection of customers with multiple accounts is determined by "separate capacity." Each separate capacity is protected up to $500,000 for securities and cash (including a $250,000 limit for cash only). Accounts held in the same capacity are combined for purposes of the SIPC prote... |
How do historically low interest rates affect real estate prices? | Interest rates do generally affect house prices but other factors do too, especially the unemployment rate. However, everything else being equal, when interest rates drop, it makes the borrowing of money cheaper so tends to stimulate the economy and the housing market, increasing the demand for houses and generally cau... |
Self employed as IT consultant and as massage therapist: Do I need 2 HST numbers? | Given your clarifying points, it sounds like you are running both businesses as one combined business. As such, you should be able to get just a single HST number and use that. However, let me please urge you to contact a professional accountant and possibly a lawyer, as it is very unusual to be performing these servic... |
Methods for forecasting price? | Assuming a price is set on an free market there are particular difficulties to pricing. A free market is one where the price is entirely determined by the willingness of people to buy and sell at a particular price point. What you perceive as price, is actually the "tick", i.e. the quote of the last transaction. The fi... |
How are mortgage payments decided? [duplicate] | It's easiest to get your payment from the PMT function in Excel or Google Sheets. So a $100,000 30 year mortgage at 3% looks like this: The basic calculation is pretty simple. You take the annual interest rate, say 3%, divided by 12, times the existing principal balance: The idea is that borrowers would like to have ... |
Can I profit from selling a PUT on BBY? | Yes, theoretically you can flip the shares you agreed to buy and make a profit, but you're banking on the market behaving in some very precise and potentially unlikely ways. In practice it's very tricky for you to successfully navigate paying arbitrarily more for a stock than it's currently listed for, and selling it ... |
Dormant company, never paid taxes, never traded in UK - should I have notified the HMRC? | You don't have to register for corporation tax until you start doing business: After you’ve registered your company with Companies House, you’ll need to register it for Corporation Tax. You’ll need to do this within 3 months of starting to do business. Since you haven't needed to do that yet, there also shouldn't be an... |
What should I invest in to hedge against a serious crash or calamity? | Different risks require different hedges. You won't find a single hedge that will protect you against any risk. The best way to think about this is who would benefit if those events occurred? Those are the people you want to invest in. So if a war broke out, who would benefit? Defense contractors. Security compan... |
How to read a mutual fund spec sheet? | The 0.14% is coming out of the assets of the fund itself. The expense ratio can be broken down so that on any given day, a portion of the fund's assets are set aside to cover the administrative cost of running the fund. A fund's total return already includes the expense ratio. This depends a lot on what kind of account... |
Why is the dominant investing advice for individuals to use mutual funds, exchanged traded funds (ETFs), etc | Funds - especially index funds - are a safe way for beginning investors to get a diversified investment across a lot of the stock market. They are not the perfect investment, but they are better than the majority of mutual funds, and you do not spend a lot of money in fees. Compared to the alternative - buying individu... |
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