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Taxes due for hobbyist Group Buy | From the poster's description of this activity, it doesn't look like he is engaged in a business, so Schedule C would not be appropriate. The first paragraph of the IRS Instructions for Schedule C is as follows: Use Schedule C (Form 1040) to report income or loss from a business you operated or a profession you pract... |
What are the benefits of opening an IRA in an unstable/uncertain economy? | You bring up a valid concern. IRAs are good retirement instruments as long as the rules don't change. History has shown that governments can change the rules regarding retirement accounts. As long as you have some of your retirement assets outside of an IRA I think IRAs are good ways to save for retirement. It's not ... |
Why would a mutual fund plummet on the same day it pays its annual distribution & capital gains? [duplicate] | The price of a share of a mutual fund is its Net Asset Value (nav). Before the payout of dividends and capital gain distribution, the fund was holding both stock shares and cash that resulted from dividends and capital gains. After the payout, a share only holds the stock. Therefore once the cash is paid out the NAV mu... |
Should I purchase a whole life insurance policy? (I am close to retirement) | Disclaimer: I work in life insurance, but I am not an agent. First things first, there is not enough information here to give you an answer. When discussing life insurance, the very first things we need to fully consider are the illustration of policy values, and the contract itself. Without these, there is no way ... |
What constitutes illegal insider trading? | You have to read some appeals court cases see scholar.google.com , as well as SEC enforcement actions on sec.gov to get an understanding of how the SEC operates. http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/insidertrading/cases.shtml There are court created guidelines for how insider trading would be proven There is no clear line, but... |
How to calculate car insurance quote | Question 1: Yes Question 2: There is no simple formula. Car insurance is mostly Statistics, because you have so many millions of cases that the variance is really low. This also means that, because the cost can be estimated so precisely, it is difficult to make an offer better than the competitors. For that reason ever... |
Having a separate bank account for business/investing, but not a “business account?” | Having a separate checking account for the business makes sense. It simplifies documenting your income/expenses. You can "explain" every dollar entering and exiting the account without having to remember that some of them were for non-business items. My credit union allowed me to have a 2nd checking account and allowed... |
Stock Option Value correlated to net worth of company | There are a LOT of variables at play here, so with the info you've provided we can't give you an exact answer. Generally speaking, employee options at a startup are valued by a 409a valuation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code_section_409A) once a year or more often. But it's entirely possible that t... |
Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value? | The answer is very simple. Part of the luxury is having the cutting edge technology with the very latest features. The price premium is not just from increased build quality; it's simply a perception. Additionally, 10 years takes its toll on a car. The smooth suspension gets rougher over time, and all the little featur... |
How can I work out how much a side-job contracting will be taxed for? | I would say you can file your taxes on your own, but you will probably want the advice of an accountant if you need any supplies or tools for the side business that might be tax deductible. IIRC you don't have to tell your current employer for tax reasons (just check that your contract doesn't state you can't have a si... |
I'm thinking about selling some original artwork: when does the government start caring about sales tax and income tax and such? | If you sell through an intermediate who sets up the shop for you, odds are they collect and pay the sales tax for you. My experience is with publishing books through Amazon, where they definitely handle this for you. If you can find a retailer that will handle the tax implications, that might be a good reason to use th... |
Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score? | No, don't open a credit card. Get used to paying cash for everything from the beginning. The best situation you can be in is not to have any credit. When it comes time to buy a house, put down %30 percent and your 0 credit score won't matter. This will keep you within your means, and, with governments gathering more an... |
How can I import customers and invoices from a previous year's Gnucash file? | There does not appear to be a way to export the customers and invoices nor a way to import them into another data file if you could export them. However, as said in the comments to your question, your question seems predicated upon the notion that it is 'best practice' to create a new data file each year. This is not c... |
Why do only motor insurers employ “No Claims Discounts”? | Discounting premiums based on some past history is not unique to auto policies. Other insurers will discount premiums based on past claims history they just don't shout about it as a marketing means to attract customers. Life insurance is underwritten based on your health history; if you want to consider your "prefer... |
Why do grocery stores in the U.S. offer cash back so eagerly? | Cash back from credit cards is handled separately than the rest of the purchase, i.e. interest begins accumulating on that day, and likely at a higher rate, and usually comes out of a lower limit than the credit allotted to that card. Given all these differences, and the obvious revenue-generation situation for the len... |
How is it possible that a stock has a P/E of 0.01? | See Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) (The Class A shares) and it will all be clear to you. IMHO, the quote for the B shares is mistaken, it used earning of A shares, but price of B. strange. Excellent question, welcome to SE. Berkshire Hathaway is a stock that currently trades for nearly US$140,000. This makes it diff... |
Figuring out an ideal balance to carry on credit cards [duplicate] | The fact that you pay the bill reliably is going to count more for your credit rating than anything else, even if you are paying it off in full every month. Lenders seem to like to see at least one instance where you charged a large balance, held it a couple months, then paid it off in full... but I wouldn't go out of ... |
Who receives the money when one company buys another? | Monsanto is a publicly traded company that trades under the ticker MON. The stock is owned by a wide range of owner around the world. The buyout offer from Bayer is an all cash offer. Bayer will buy all shares of MON at about $128/share. So if I owned 100 shares of MON, I would receive $12,800 or so for my shares. The ... |
Does a growing economy mean the economy is becoming less efficient? | A growing economy should become more efficient because of increased opportunity for division of labor: specialization. External regulation or monetary policy external to the free market can cause parts of the economy to grow in response to said regulations. This creates inefficiencies that are wrung out of the economy... |
Is there a general guideline for what percentage of a portfolio should be in gold? | I think most financial planners or advisors would allocate zero to a gold-only fund. That's probably the mainstream view. Metals investments have a lot of issues, more elaboration here: What would be the signs of a bubble in silver? Also consider that metals (and commodities, despite a recent drop) are on a big run-up ... |
Stock Dividends & Splits: Are they always applied over night? | I've never seen a dividend, split or other corporate action during the day, but I have seen trade suspended a few times when something big happened. The market opening price is not in general the same as the close of the previous day. It can gap up or down and does frequently. I don't know of an api to find out if the ... |
Is there any data that shows how diversifying results in better returns than just sticking to an all-stock portfolio? | This paper by a Columbia business school professor says: The standard 60%/40% strategy outperforms a 100% bond or 100% stock strategy over the 1926-1940 period (Figure 5) and over the 1990-2011 period (Figure 6). This is based on actual market data from those periods. You can see the figures in the PDF. These are per... |
I have an extra 1000€ per month, what should I do with it? | If I were you, I would save 200 euros for retirement each month and another 800 I would stash away with the hope to start investing soon. I think you have to invest a bigger lump sum, then 1000 euros. It makes sense to invest at least 30K to see any tangible results. My acquaintances started from 50K and now see pretty... |
Why is being “upside down” on a mortgage so bad? | For most people "home ownership" is a long term lifestyle strategy (i.e. the intention is to own a home for several decades, regardless of how many times one particular house might be "swapped" for a different one. In an economic environment with steady monetary inflation, taking out a long-term loan backed by a tangi... |
How do I calculate tax liability on the turnover of a small vendor? | There are quite a few questions as to how you are recording your income and expenses. If you are running the bakery as a Sole Proprietor, with all the income and expense in a business account; then things are easy. You just have to pay tax on the profit [as per the standard tax bracket]. If you running it as indivi... |
Stocks given by company vest if I quit? | Vesting typically stops after you quit. So, if your plan vests 20% per year for 5 years, and you received a one-time stock grant as part of this plan (i.e., ignoring the fact that these often involve new grants each year that vest separately), and you were hired in 2014 and leave at the end of 2016, then you vested 2... |
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... |
Should I pay off my mortgage, begin retirement savings, or build my emergency fund? | Welcome to Money.SE. I will say upfront, Personal Finance is just that, personal, and you are likely to get multiple, perhaps conflicting, answers. Are you sure the PMI will drop off after 2 years? The rules are specific, and for PMI, when prepayments put you at that 78/80% LTV, your bank can require an appraisal, not ... |
Withdrawing cash from investment: take money from underperforming fund? | I think the advice Bob is being given is good. Bob shouldn't sell his investments just because their price has gone down. Selling cheap is almost never a good idea. In fact, he should do the opposite: When his investments become cheaper, he should buy more of them, or at least hold on to them. Always remember this rule... |
Free service for automatic email stock alert when target price is met? | I've used BigCharts (now owned by MarketWatch.com) for a while and really like them. Their tools to annotate charts are great. |
Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage? | I think this is possible under very special conditions. The important part of the description here is probably retired and rich. The answers so far apply to people with "normal" incomes - both in the sense of "not rich" and in the sense of "earned income." If you sit at the top tax bracket and get most of your income... |
How and Where can I easily pull data for the Dow 30? | The current Dow divisor is in Historical Divisor Changes. The OpenOffice GetQuote function offers fields for current dividend either in dollars or yield. |
Yahoo Finance shows incorrect data | Yes, I see the same problem. Google's version seems to be correct, however. |
Remit money to India from balance transfer of credit card | As Dheer has already told you in his answer, your plan is perfectly legal, and there are no US tax issues other than making sure that you report all the interest that you earn in all your NRE accounts (not just this one) as well as all your NRO accounts, stock and mutual fund dividends and capital gains, rental income,... |
What exactly can a financial advisor do for me, and is it worth the money? | Technically, anyone who advises how you should spend or proportion your money is a financial adviser. A person that does it for money is a Financial Advisor (difference in spelling). Financial Advisors are people that basically build, manage, or advise on your portfolio. They have a little more institutional knowledg... |
What home improvements are tax deductible? | On a personal income tax return home improvements are generally not deductible on a federal level. There might be some exceptions made for special tax programs, such as solar panels, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. |
what are the pros and cons of structured deposits? | With reference to the UK: Structured deposits should not be confused with structured products. Structured deposits are often, quite simple deposit accounts. You place your money into what is essentially a deposit account, and are therefore guaranteed not to lose your capital as with any other deposit account. The attr... |
Help: Being charged interest on a loan for which I received no statements telling me of this debt for the past 15 years. Surprise! | There is a ten year statue of limitations on debt collection, bankruptcy, etc. The problem is, if you start paying, even say, $1, you "acknowledge" the debt and the clock starts again. Debt claims fall under the "he said, she said," rubric. In debt restructuring situations, the debtor is taught to write all their credi... |
Should you keep your stocks if you are too late to sell? | If the stock starts to go down DO NOT SELL!! My reasoning for this is because, when you talk about the stock market, you haven't actually lost any money until you sell the stock. So if you sell it lower than you bought it, you loose money. BUT if you wait for the stock to go back up again, you will have made money. |
Deductible expenses paid with credit card: In which tax year would they fall? | Being a professional auditor and accountant, deduction against expenses are claimed in the year in which expenses has been incurred. It has no relationship with when it is paid. For example, we may buy on credit does not mean that they will be allowed in the period in which it is paid. This is against the fundamental a... |
I have savings and excess income. Is it time for me to find a financial advisor? | Whether your financial status is considered "OK" depends on your aspirations. You aren't spending more than you earn and have no debt. That puts you in the category of OK in my book, but the information in your post indicates that you would benefit from some financial advice--100 grand sounds like a lot of money to h... |
What to ask Warren Buffet at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting? | 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 ... |
How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want | Remember where they said "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? That is the essence of this problem. You have freedom including freedom to mess up. On the practical side, it's a matter of structuring your money so it's not available to you for impulse buying, and make it automatic. Have you fully funded your... |
How to incorporate dividends while calculating annual return of a Stock | You simply add the dividend to the stock price when calculating its annual return. So for year one, instead of it would be |
Trouble sticking to a budget when using credit cards for day to day transactions? | Similar to what Adam F says above, except instead of just transfering the amount you spend on the credit card into the high interest account, why not keep the majority of your funds (apart from a small amount, say a couple of hundred for emergencies) in the high interest account until the credit card needs to be paid o... |
New to investing — I have $20,000 cash saved, what should I do with it? | I don't agree with others regarding paying off debt ASAP. You only have auto loan and auto loans are actually good for your credit score. With a mere $6k balance, it is not like you are going to have a problem paying off the loan. Not only that you will build your credit score and this will come in handy when you are p... |
Beginner questions about stock market | First, welcome to Money.SE. If you are interested in saving and investing, this is a great site to visit. Please take the tour and just start to read the questions you find interesting. 1 - even though this is hypothetical, it scales down to an average investor. If I own 1000 shares of the 1 billion, am I liable if th... |
Why does it seem unnecessary to fully save for irregular periodic expenses? | It totally depends on when your expenses hit and whether you might have a larger stock than necessary. If you run your projections against the monthly save and the intervals of when you'll need the money, you might be able to extract some stock from the account. I recommend making this a bit simpler. I operate this wi... |
Consolidating company pensions | I've been down the consolidation route too (of a handful of DC pensions; the DB ones I've not touched, and you would indeed need advice to move those around). What you should be comparing against is: what's the cheapest possible thing you could be doing? Monevators' online platform list will give you an idea of SIPP c... |
Valuing a company and comparing to share price | There are books on the subject of valuing stocks. P/E ratio has nothing directly to do with the value of a company. It may be an indication that the stock is undervalued or overvalued, but does not indicate the value itself. The direct value of company is what it would fetch if it was liquidated. For example, if you bo... |
Does a US LLC need to file taxes if owned by a foreign citizen? | There is no such thing as double taxation. If you pay tax in the US, you CAN claim tax credits from India tax authority. For example, if you pay 100 tax in USA and your tax liability in India is 200, then you will only pay 100 (200 India tax liability minus 100 tax credits on foreign tax paid in the USA). This is alw... |
If I have 10,000 stocks to sell with 23 B market cap | First a quick terminology correction: I believe you're proposing selling 10,000 shares of the stock of a company, not "10,000 stocks". When you sell, you need to decide whether you're selling for a specific minimum price or just selling for whatever price you can get. If you set a specific lower limit on asking price, ... |
How can I invest my $100? | A safe investment would be to get a 5-year CD from Ally Bank. No minimum deposit and no monthly maintenance fees. 1.74% APY at the moment. I would choose a 5-year CD since the early withdrawal penalty is only 60 days interest, which will be negligible for a $100 investment and increasing the term significantly incre... |
In-laws moving in (financial/tax implications)? | You are "pool[ing] the sales from both houses as downpayment on the new house." But they are going to pay you rent. Your question as it stands, just opens more questions. What, exactly is the ownership of the new house? If your's (and your wife's) was the money a gift? Ignoring the gift, if that's what it is, and if ... |
What is this fund? | SMID CAP FUND is Fidelity's way of saying SMALL to MID CAP FUND. Small to Medium is self explanatory. Cap is capitalization, and it basically means how much the sum of all the existing shares of the company are worth. Fidelity names the funds inside their 401k plans according to who provides the fund. They also pro... |
Is it smart to only invest in mid- and small-cap stock equity funds in my 401(k)? | Can you easily stomach the risk of higher volatility that could come with smaller stocks? How certain are you that the funds wouldn't have any asset bloat that could cause them to become large-cap funds for holding to their winners? If having your 401(k) balance get chopped in half over a year doesn't give you any paus... |
Why are the banks and their customers in the United States still using checks? [duplicate] | Because it makes money for all parties, and because the general public is reluctant to any change. Who should have an interest to change that? People. And they have no say in it. You can actually do a lot without paper checks nowadays (I only use one per year for car taxes, as they do not accept anything else), but man... |
Can I participate in trading Facebook shares on their IPO day from any brokerage? | Any retail equity brokerage will give you access to the NYSE, and thus Facebook shares as they become available. However, it is important to note that you nor any retail investor will be able to purchase FB at the IPO prices ($33-38 IIRC). The only people who will be able to buy in at that price are the underwriting ... |
If you buy something and sell it later on the same day, how do you calculate 'investment'? | Nothing wrong with the other answers, but here's a "trick" to hopefully make it totally transparent. Imagine that you're not the one implementing this business plan, but someone else is. Let's call this other person your asset manager. So on the first day, you give your asset manager $9. He takes this and generate... |
Credit card issued against my express refusal; What action can I take? | You can always cancel the card and close this account. Consider switching to a bank that has better customer service. Closing accounts typically gets a lot of attention and it's fairly likely they will contact you to reconsider and so you'll have a chance to air your grievances. Whether they have anything to offer tha... |
Are there common stock price trends related to employee option plans? | The stock market is generally a long term investment platform. The share prices reflect more the companies potential to be profitable in the future rather than its actual value. Companies that have good potential can over perform their actual value. We saw this regularly in the early days of the internet prior to t... |
What happens to my savings if my country defaults or restructures its debt? | My 0,02€ - I probably live in the same country as you. Stop worrying. The Euro zone has a 100.000€ guaranty deposit. So if any bank should fail, that's the amount you'll receive back. This applies to all bank accounts and deposits. Not to any investments. You should not have more than 100.000€ in any bank. So, lucky yo... |
Will getting a new credit card and closing another affect my credit? | I once called Amex to cancel a card with an annual fee. Instead, they were able to give me a different card with no fee. They were happy to do it. Of course, Amex has fantastic customer service, while Capital One is not known for it. But, its worth a five minute call, and you will retain your good score. |
Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage? | yes. you can take out 500,000 form your paid of house. you pay back 500,000 at 3.5. percent. you do get a tax break for not owning your house. it is less then 3.5 you are paying back the back. about one forth of that, BUT you take the 500,000 in invest. Now cd low 1 percent, stock is risky. You can do R... |
Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent? | There is a term for this. If you google "House Hacking" you will get lots of articles and advice. Some of it will pertain to multifamily properties but a good amount should be owner occupied and renting bedrooms. I would play with a mortgage calculator like Whats My Payment. Include Principle, interest, taxes and ins... |
Paying taxes on dividends even though your capital gains were $0? | I'd agree that this can seem a little unfair, but it's an unavoidable consequence of the necessary practicality of paying out dividends periodically (rather than continuously), and differential taxation of income and capital gains. To see more clearly what's going on here, consider buying stock in a company with extrem... |
Why was my Credit Limit Increase Denied? | I think they gave you the answer: You haven't previously shown that you can run that particular card up to (near) its existing maximum and then pay it off, so they don't have a strong indication that you can handle that large an unsecured loan. Generally, requests to have the limits raised when there isn't evidence tha... |
How do you invest in real estate without using money? | They're probably talking about flipping houses. The conventional wisdom when flipping is to purchase the property with a mortgage or other loan on day-0. Do the work to rehabilitate it. Get it listed for re-sale promptly (this step has varying strategies) with a profitable price but one that will make it move. Have the... |
PayPal wants me to “add a bank account”, another funding source. Credit card isn't working. Why? | Have you checked to make sure that your card isn't at the limit, or at risk of expiring soon? Maybe PayPal has a policy to reject credit cards with expiry dates that fall within their buyer/seller protection periods? But to answer your question, no, I've never had this happen to me before. |
Hiring a teenager as a household employee | Here is what I was able to find: Yes, but there are special instructions for minors: Working hours: New York State labor laws are slightly more strict than the federal: https://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/nyvsfed.shtm Minimum wage: The Dept of Labor's Youth & Labor page states: Occupa... |
Non-qualified Savings Plan vs. 401(k) for Highly Compensated Employee | Also, in (5), is it considered unpaid wages? Because that's pretty high on the bankruptcy hierarchy. No. It is near the bottom, in with unsecured debt. If you have access to the plan documents, see if the plan has the phrase "rabbi trust" anywhere in it. This means that the money is not kept comingled with the corpora... |
Index fund that tracks gold and other commodities | I don't know answers that would be specific to Canada but one of the main ETF funds that tracks gold prices is GLD (SPDR Gold Trust) another is IAU (iShares Gold Trust). Also, there are several ETF's that combine different precious metals together and can be traded. You can find a fairly decent list here on the Stock E... |
Buying a foreclosed property | No, it is not true. It depends on the market, the banks' inventory, the original debt that was owed, etc etc. The banks generally want to recover their money, so in case of underwater properties they may end up hold a property for years until prices bounce back (as it happened during the last crisis when many houses we... |
Is it better for a public company to increase its dividends, or institute a share buyback? | I would prefer a dividend paying company, rather than share appreciation. And I would prefer that the dividends increase over time. |
gnucash share fractions | As BrenBarn stated, tracking fractional transactions beyond 8 decimal places makes no sense in the context of standard stock and mutual fund transactions. This is because even for the most expensive equities, those fractional shares would still not be worth whole cent amounts, even for account balances in the hundreds... |
Where should a young student put their money? | It really is dependent upon your goals. What are your short term needs? Do you need a car/clothing/high cost apartment/equipment when you start your career? For those kinds of things, a savings account might be best as you will need to have quick access to cash. Many have said that people need two careers, the one t... |
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house | Firstly, I'm going to do what you said and analyze your question taking your entire family's finances into account. That means giving you an answer that maximizes your family's total wealth rather then just your own. If instead of that your question really was, should I let my parents buy me a house and live rent free,... |
1.4 million cash. What do I do? | You can get an investment manager through firms like Fidelity or E*Trade to manage your account. It won't be someone dedicated exclusively to you, but you're in the range where they'd take you as a managed account customer. Another option would be to get a financial planner (CFP or something) help you to identify your ... |
Why do financial institutions charge so much to convert currency? | Mainly because they can. Yes, there is a cost for banks to execute such transactions, and yes, there is a cost to cover the implied risks, but it is far from 3 or 4%. There are banks that charge a flat rate of less than 30$ (and no percentage), so for larger amounts, it is worth shopping around. Note that for smaller ... |
Investing in low cost index fund — does the timing matter? | A much less verbose answer is. Don't worry about buying low. You have a whole lifetime to dollar cost average your retirement dollars. |
How risky are penny stocks? | Consider firstly that they're penny stocks for a reason - the company just isn't worth much. Yes, it could take off but this happenstance is rarer than you think. Next, there is the problem of how you'd find out what the good stocks to invest in are. Here in the UK, reliable news about stocks outside the FTSE indexes (... |
Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use? | My husband used this device at work in an organization/club that collects dues for fundraisers. The fundraisers are only for the club. So I think that is not business at all. They have no business tax id#, etc? and they use it for personal reasons when collecting money via Cc#'s if this helps you. |
What's a good free checking account? | Capital One 360. No minimums balance, no fees. Everything's online. Make deposits using an app or an image of the check. ATMs are free almost everywhere. |
Quote driven and order driven financial markets | - In a quote driven market, must every investor trade with a market maker? In other words, two parties that are both not market makers cannot trade between themselves directly? In a way yes, all trades go through a market maker but those trades can be orders put in place by a "person" IE: you, or me. - Do... |
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card | One thing that has not been pointed out as a disadvantage of using Credit Cards: people tend to spend more. You can see This Study, and this one, plus about 500 others. On average people tend to spend about 17% more with credit cards then with cash. This amount dwarphs any perks one gets by having a credit card. ... |
Is there a general guideline for what percentage of a portfolio should be in gold? | The "conventional wisdom" is that you should have about 5% of your portfolio in gold. But that's an AVERAGE. Meaning that you might want to have 10% at some times (like now) and 0% in the 1980s. Right now, the price of gold has been rising, because of fears of "easing" Fed monetary policy (for the past decade), culmina... |
When and how should I pay taxes on ForEx trades? | Legally speaking, when you convert that bit-coin onto something else, the Israeli Tax Authority will look into the value of that something else, compare it to the original value of the previous something else you used to buy bit-coins (USD, in your example), and charge you capital gain taxes for the difference. Accordi... |
Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends? | Dividends telegraph that management has a longer term focus than just the end of quarter share price. There is a committment to at least maintain (if not periodically increase) the dividend payout year over year. Management understands that cutting or pausing dividends will cause dividend investors in market to dump ... |
Is it possible for US retail forex traders to trade exotic currencies? | The vast majority of retail Forex brokers are market makers, rather than ECNs. With that said, the one that fits your description mostly closely is Interactive Brokers, is US-based, and well-respected. They have a good amount of exoitcs available. Many ECNs don't carry these because of the mere fact that they make mon... |
Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it? | I bought a Thinkpad in Dec 2007 using BillMeLater, which was working with IBM/Lenovo at that time. I was getting the notebook at the lowest price available, from the manufacturer. I had the money to pay for it -- around $1400. But I went ahead and took the offer from BillMeLater. It was essentially a 12-month zero-... |
Does the common advice about diversification still hold in times of distress | The common advice you mentioned is just a guideline and has little to do with how your portfolio would look like when you construct it. In order to diversify you would be using correlations and some common sense. Recall the recent global financial crisis, ones of the first to crash were AAA-rated CDO's, stocks and so o... |
Can I deduct taxes for home office as a freelance computer software developer? | This answer is assuming you're in the US, which apparently you're not. I doubt that the rules in the EU are significantly different, but I don't know for sure. In case of an IRS control, is it ok to say that I regularly connect remotely to work from home although in the work contract it says I must work at client's... |
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough? | I realize that most posters are US based, but the UK on Saturday had its biggest ever payout (a miserable £60m). Because of the rules there, the estimated "value" of a £2 ticket was between £3 and £5. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/09/national-lottery-lotto-drawing-odds-of-winning-maths |
How can I increase my hourly pay as a software developer? | Short term: ask for a raise or look for a new job that pays more. Longer term: |
What's the difference when asked for “debit or credit” by a store when using credit and debit cards? | When using a debit card in a "credit" way, you don't need to enter your PIN, which protects you from skimmers and similar nastiness. Also, assuming it's a Visa or Mastercard debit card, you now have access to all of the fraud protection and other things that you would get with a credit card. The downside for the mercha... |
Is it advisable to go for an auto loan if I can make the full payment for a new car? | What percentage of your savings is the full car payment? If it's a significant chunk, then I'd finance some of the cost of the car in order to maintain liquidity. |
Is a currency “hedged” ETF actually a more speculative instrument than an unhedged version? | I will just try to come up with a totally made up example, that should explain the dynamics of the hedge. Consider this (completely made up) relationship between USD, EUR and Gold: Now lets say you are a european wanting to by 20 grams of Gold with EUR. Equally lets say some american by 20 grams of Gold with USD. Their... |
Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks? | Why would a shareholder lend the investor the shares? Some brokers like IB will pay you to lend your shares: http://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/node/1838 If you buy shares on margin, you don't have much of a choice. Your broker is allowed to lend your shares to short-sellers. |
No-line-of-credit debit card? | This arrangement might be a bit of a pain, but what about Visa gift card(s)? The transfer of money just doesn't happen if the money isn't already on the card. See here. |
Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer | I can ONLY WISH this would happen to me. Get every scrap of information that you can. DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT..and then get a nice sleazy lawyer to sue the collector AND your employer if they leaked anything... Plain and simple, it's illegal and there are very nice protections in place for such. |
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