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Risk and reward of a synthetic option position
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But if underlying goes to 103 at expiration, both the call and the put expire worthless If the stock closes at 103 on expiration, the 105 put is worth $2, not worthless.
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Might I need a credit score to rent, or for any other non-borrowing finances?
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Alas, institutions do not always act rationally, and being an outlier by never having debt may be bad enough. Therein is your problem. The question, then, is do you want to do business with institutions that are not acting rationally? While I cannot specifically speak to Canadian business practices, I have to imagine that in terms of credit history as a prerequisite to a lease, it can't be too different than America. It is possible to live without a credit score. This is typically done by those with enough resources that do not need to borrow money. To make transactions that commonly use credit scores, such as a lease, they will provide personal financial statements (balance sheets, personal income statements, bank statements, pay stubs, tax returns, etc...) to show that they are credit-worthy. References from prior landlords may also be beneficial. Again, the caveat is to elect to only conduct business with those individuals and institutions that are intelligent and rational enough to be able to analyze your financial position (and ability to pay) without a credit score. Therefore, you'll probably have better luck working with individual landlords, as opposed to corporate-owned rental complexes.
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What's the difference between buying bonds and buying bond funds for the long-term?
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Yes, bond funds are marked to market, so they will decline as the composition of their holdings will. Households actually have unimpressive relative levels of credit to equity holdings. The reason why is because there is little return on credit, making it irrational to hold any amount greater than to fund future liquidity needs, risk adjusted and time discounted. The vast majority of credit is held by insurance companies. Pension funds have large stakes as well. Banks hold even fewer bonds since they try to sell them as soon as they've made them. Insurance companies are forced to hold a large percentage of their floats in credit then preferred equity. While this dulls their returns, it's not a large problem for them because they typically hold bonds until maturity. Only the ones who misprice the risk of insurance will have to sell at unfavorable prices. Being able to predict interest rates thus bond prices accurately would make one the best bond manager in the world. While it does look like inflation will rise again soon just as it has during every other US expansion, can it be assured when commodity prices are high in real terms and look like they may be in a collapse? The banking industry would have to produce credit at a much higher rate to counter the deflation of all physical goods. Households typically shun assets at low prices to pursue others at high prices, so their holdings of bonds ETFs should be expected to decline during a bond collapse. If insurance companies find it less costly to hold ETFs then they will contribute to an increase in bond ETF supply.
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Why do banks finance shared construction as mortgages instead of financing it directly and selling the apartments in a building?
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You seem to underestimate the risk of this deal for the inverstors. A person purchasing a residence is happy to pay $70K instead of $150K now, and the only risk they take is that the construction company fails to build the condo. Whatever happens on the estate market in two years, they still saved the price difference between the price of complete apartments and to-be-build apartments (which by the way may be less than $150K-$70K, since that $150K is the price on a hot market in two years). However, an investor aiming to earn money counts on that the property will actually cost $150K in two years, so he's additionally taking the risk that the estate market may drop. Should that happen, their return on investment will be considerably lower, and it's entirely possible they will make a loss instead of a profit. At this point, this becomes yet another high risk investment option, like financing a startup.
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Are Index Funds really as good as “experts” claim?
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Why would it not make more sense to invest in a handful of these heavyweights instead of also having to carry the weight of the other 450 (some of which are mostly just baggage)? First, a cap-weighted index fund will invest more heavily in larger cap companies, so the 'baggage' you speak of does take up a smaller percentage of the portfolio's value (not that cap always equates to better performance). There are also equal-weighted index funds where each company in the index is given equal weight in the portfolio. If you could accurately pick winners and losers, then of course you could beat index funds, but on average they've performed well enough that there's little incentive for the average investor to look elsewhere. A handful of stocks opens you up to more risk, an Enron in your handful would be pretty devastating if it comprised a large percentage of your portfolio. Additionally, since you pay a fee on each transaction ($5 in your example), you have to out-perform a low-fee index fund significantly, or be investing a very large amount of money to come out ahead. You get diversification and low-fees with an index fund.
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How much share do the venture capitalists want if they invest in our website?
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I have worked with venture capitalists on a few different online based tools. There is no rule. I have seen deals go through for as little as 10% and up to 80%. There are a number of factors in place: What it really comes down to in the tech world is "Is this a side job or your life and can you live while your site isn't generating income... and then can you pay others that you need to pay for your site to exist?" Venture capitalists are into risky ventures that offer a high return. They have a portfolio of businesses and one going down will be made up for with a huge return on another. They will shut you down super quick though if they think your team/idea is a dud. What they initially take from your business is so negotiable there is no reason for me to give a number. We might be able to give you a half-assed forecast if you tell us your idea/staff size/current revenue and expenses/projections/amount of investment looking for.
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How can I make a one-time income tax-prepayment to the US Treasury?
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You can make estimated tax payments on Form 1040-ES. Most people who make such payments need to do it quarterly because the typical reasons for making estimated payments is something like self-employment income that a person will get throughout the year. If you have a one-time event like a single, large sale of stock, however, there's nothing wrong with doing it just one quarter out of the year. When it comes time to file your taxes, part of the calculate is whether you were timely quarter-by-quarter not just for the entire year, so if you do have a big "one-time" event mid-year, don't wait until the end of the year to file an estimated payment. Of course, if the event is at the end of the year, then you can make it a 4th quarter estimated payment.
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How much in cash equivalents should I keep in the bank? [duplicate]
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In personal finance circles this is called an Emergency Fund. There are many opinions about how big it needs to be but most seem to come in around 3-6 months worth of your average expenses. Any more than that and you're going to loose money to inflation, less and you will start having problems if you get laid off or have a medical issue.
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What taxes are assessed on distributions of an inherited IRA?
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You've been taking the RMDs. Each year the RMD is calculated by taking the prior 12/31 balance and dividing by the divisor, calculated when you inherited, and dropping by 1 each year. Some great trades and your account balance goes up. That's great, but of course it sends the next RMD higher. I'd understand how marginal rates work and use the withdrawal to "top off" your current bracket. This will help slow the growth and runaway RMD increases.
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Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation?
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I wouldn't buy a house at this time. Your credit card debt is the most expensive thing you have. Which is to say that you want to get rid of it as soon as possible. The lawyer isn't cheap, and your personal situation is not fully resolved. Congratulations on paying off the IRS, and getting up the 401k to 17.5k. Take care of the two things in paragraph 1, first,and then think about buying a house. You're doing too much good work to have it possibly be derailed by home payments.
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Does Tennessee have anything like a principal residence exemption?
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There's no homestead property tax exemption in TN. According to the TN comptroller site: Exemptions Exemptions are available for religious, charitable, scientific, and nonprofit educational uses, governmental property, and cemeteries. Most nongovernmental exemptions require a one-time application and approval by the State Board of Equalization (615/401-7883) and there is a May 20 application deadline. There is no "homestead" exemption, but low income elderly and disabled persons and disabled veterans may qualify for a rebate of taxes on a specified portion of the value of property used as their residence. Business inventories held for sale or exchange by merchants subject to the business gross receipts tax, are not assessable. Farm and residential tangible personal property are not assessable.
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Would selling significantly below market affect the value of a stock
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That amount of shares is too low to create "ripples" in the market. Usually you don't specify the price to sell the stock, unless you are personally on the floor trading the securities. And even then, with a volume of $50,000 it would just mean you threw away $45,000. For most people it would mean setting a $5 sell order, and the broker would understand that as "sell this security so long the price is above $5". When you get to the trading volume required to influence the price, usually you are also bound by some regulations banning some moves. One of them is the Pump and Dump, and even if you are suggesting the opposite, it might be in preparation of this scam. Also, the software used for High Frequency Trading (what all the cool kids[a] in Wall Street are using these days) employ advanced (and proprietary) heuristics to analyze the market and make thousands of trades in a short interval of time. On HTF's speed: Decisions happen in milliseconds, and this could result in big market moves without reason. So a human trader attempting to manipulate the market versus these HTF setups, would be like a kid in a tricile attempting to outrun the Flash (DC comics). [a] Cool Kid: not really kids, more like suited up sharks. Money-eating sharks.
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I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?
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If you know you have picked a bad stock, the sooner you sell the better. There is a tendency to hold a bad stock in the hope that it will pick up again. Most of us fall into this trap. The best way one needs to look at things are;
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Can rent be added to your salary when applying for a mortgage?
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The days are long gone when offered mortgages were simply based on salary multiples. These days it's all about affordability, taking into account all incomes and all outgoings. Different lenders will have different rules about what they do and don't accept as incomes; these rules may even vary per-product within the same lender's product list. So for example a mortgage specifically offered as buy-to-let might accept rental income (with a suitable void-period multiplier) into consideration, but an owner-occupier mortgage product might not. Similarly, business rules will vary about acceptance of regular overtime, bonuses, and so on. Guessing at specific answers: #1 maybe, if it's a buy-to-let product, Note that these generally carry a higher interest rate than owner-occupier mortgages; expect about 2% more #2 in my opinion it's extremely unlikely that any lender would consider rental income from your cohabiting spouse #3 probably yes, if it's a buy-to-let product
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Can used books bought off Amazon be claimed as a tax deduction in Australia?
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Yes, you can. That the books were purchased from abroad is irrelevant: you incurred an expense in the course of earning your income. If the books are expensive (>$300 per set iirc) you will need to deprecate them over a reasonable life time rather than claiming the entire amount up front. It doesn't matter whether what you got was a VAT Invoice; as long as you have some reasonable documentation of the expense you're ok.
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How could the 14th amendment relate to the US gov't debt ceiling crisis?
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Section Four of the amendment reads: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. In other words, if President Obama wants to, he could unilaterally invoke this provision and go ahead and get the money he needs. Good articles describing this in some detail can be found here and here.
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Market makers role
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The role of the market maker is to make sure there is a bid and ask on a particular stock. That's it. The market maker ensures that there is a price at which you can buy and a price at which you can sell immediately, but these are not necessarily the best prices. The majority of trades do not involve market makers and occur between two third parties. Whoever said a market order trades with the market maker is thinking of the way stock markets were years ago, not the way they are now. Market orders are supposed to execute immediately and at one time trading with the market makers was the method for executing immediately. If you issue a market order today, it executes with the best available limit order(s) on the other wide of the trade. This may or may not involve a party that identifies as a market maker.
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Trading US stocks from India
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I believe I have to pay taxes in US since it is a US broker. No, not at all. The fact that the broker is a US broker has nothing to do with your tax liabilities. You should update the banks and the broker with your change of status submitting form W8-BEN to them. Consult a tax professional proficient with Indo-US tax treaty as to what you should put in part II. The broker might withhold some of your income and remit it as taxes to the IRS based on what you put in W8-BEN and the type of income, but you can have it refunded (if it exceeds your liability) by submitting a tax return (form 1040-NR). You do have to pay tax in India, based on the Indian tax law, for your profits in the US. Consult with an Indian tax accountant on that. If I'm not mistaken, there are also currency transfer restrictions in India that you should be aware of.
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How much money should I lock up in my savings account?
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One issue which I don't see addressed in the answers so far is how to structure bank accounts to get the highest return possible. What you're describing sounds like a certificate of deposit (CD): 'ranging from 1% for 9 months to 2.3% for 5 years' There is a concept which was once more common called a CD Ladder, which still allows you to access your money, while also giving you the highest interest rate offered by the bank. To set one up you divide your account into 5 equal parts, then open 5 CDs with different periods (1-5 years). Each time a new CD matures (once a year), you purchase another 5 year CD with those funds, plus any new money you want to save. Thus you're getting a higher and higher rate, until all of your accounts are earning the 5 year CD rate, and you're never more than a year away from getting money out of the account if a need comes up.
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No transaction fee ETF trades - what's the catch?
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AFAIK, It's also possible that the ETF company is paying Ameritrade for every trade you make. Even if your brokerage doesn't make you pay a fee to trade ETFs, the company that created and runs the ETF is still making money when you purchase and use their ETFs. See "What motivates each player?" at Yahoo Finance.
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New car: buy with cash or 0% financing
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Some things you missed in your analysis: How will financing change your insurance costs? I.e. what is the difference between the insurance that you would buy for yourself and what they require? Note that it is possible that your insurance preferences are more stringent than the financing company's. If so, this isn't a big deal. But what's important is to consider if that's true. Because if you'd prefer to drive with only the legal minimum insurance and they insist that you have full coverage with no more than a $1000 deductible, that's a significant difference. Remember that you don't have $22.5k for six years. You have an average of $10.5k (($22.5k + -$1500)/2) for six years. Because you make payments ($24k) throughout. So you start with $22.5k and subtract $333.33 a month until you reach -$1500. That neglects both investment gains and potential losses. It's not the $333 payment that will freak out mortgage companies. It's the $24k debt. But that's offset by your $22.5k in assets at the beginning. And the car of course counts as an asset, albeit at lower than its sale value. I.e. from the bank's perspective, paying $22.5k for a car out of savings is almost as bad as borrowing $24k for a car. Both reduce your net worth. Watch out for hidden fees. In particular, 0% interest can often change into higher interest under certain circumstances. If we assume a 7% return for the six years, that's about $1400 the first year and less each year after. Perhaps $4500 over six years. But you aren't going to get a 7% return if you keep $24,000 in a bank account in case you have to pay off the loan. Instead, you'll get more like 1%, less than inflation. Even five year Certificates of Deposit are only about 2%, right around inflation (1.9% for previous twelve months). You can't keep the $24,000 in a securities account and be sure that it will be there when you need it. If the market crashes tomorrow, your $24,000 might be worth $12,000 instead. You'd have to throw in extra money from elsewhere. Instead of making $4500 at the cost of $1500, you'd have paid $25,500 for $12,000. Not a good deal. So for your plan to work, that $24,000 needs to be in an account that won't fall in value. You either need to compromise on the idea of a separate account that is always there when you need it, or you have to accept rather low returns. Personally, I would prefer not to have the debt and not to pay extra on the insurance. But that's me. The potential investment returns are not worth it to me. If you give up the separate account, you can make a few thousand dollars more. But your risk is higher.
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Credit Card Purchase - 'it is the bank's money no[t] yours' ?
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The statement is (in laymans terms - if not in real terms) correct. Most credit cards (I know this to be true for VISA and Mastercard) have dispute processes and will do a chargeback on the merchant - ie take the money back from the supplier in cases where you don't receive the goods or other fraud - Particularly if they can't produce a signature and (for transactions which are not face-to-face) a tracking number. Your exact rights will vary by bank, but mostly they need to follow the guidelines set by the Credit Card company - and you do need to be a bit careful - if you received goods which were fake or a dispute arises you may be up for shipping the goods back to the merchant - and you have a limited - but reasonable time - in which to make the dispute. (The statement "the money is the banks" is not technically true, there is no money involved until you pay it, only credit [ they are very different, but almost no-one knows that, I communicated with a Minister of Finance on the topic], but this is quite technical and as a layman not something you need to worry about here)
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Why is economic growth so important?
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One of the best answers to this question that I've ever read is in a paper published by Robert Lucas in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. That journal is meant to a be a place for experts to write about their area of expertise (in economics) for a general but still technically-minded audience. They recently opened up the journal as free to the public, which is a fantastic resource -- you no longer need a subscription to JSTOR (or whatever) to read it. You can read the abstract to the paper, and find a link to it, here. One of the things that I like a lot about this paper is that it strips out absolutely everything even slightly unnecessary to thinking about a macroeconomy, and just discusses what one can arrive at with a very very simple model. Of course, with great simplicity come sacrifice about details. However, it does a great job of answering your question, "why do people care about growth?" A quick note: the key to understanding the answer to your question is to think about things in terms of "the long term" -- not even looking forward to the future, because we'll be dead by then, but looking back to the past. The key to the importance of growth is that, for the last ~200 years, the US has, on average, had maybe 2-3% "real growth" per year (I'm pulling these numbers out of my head; I think much better numbers are in that paper somewhere). On average, over that period of time, this growth has meant that the quality of life that one has, if one lives in a country experiencing this growth, is enormous compared to countries that do not experience this average growth over that period. Statistically speaking, growth is also somewhat auto-correlated. Roughly speaking, if it was low the last few periods, you can expect it to be low the next period. Same thing if it's high. Then, the reason we care about growth right now: if you have too many periods of low growth, pretty soon the average "over the long term" growth will be pulled down -- and then quality of life can't be higher in the future (which quickly becomes someone's "present"). The paper above makes this point with a very simple model. Of course, none of this touches on distributional issues, which are another issue entirely. With respect to, "The economy needs to grow to just keep up with its debt repayments," I think the answer is along the lines of, "sometimes countries get into debt expecting that growth will increase their resources in the future, and thus they can pay back their debt." That strategy is, of course, the strategy that anyone borrowing ("taking out a loan") should be employing -- you should expect that your future income will be enough to pay back your interest+principle on a loan you took. Otherwise you're irresponsible. At the aggregate level, production is the nation's "income" -- it is what you have, all that you have (as a nation) to pay back any debt you've incurred at the national level.
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I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?
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Most answers have concentrated on this being a scam, however, it is possible this is an innocent mistake. Australian bank account numbers do not have redundant digits to be used to validate an account number; all of the numbers are data and uniquely identify a bank and branch (the BSB number) and an account (the Account number). Computer check digits are not part of bank account numbers because bank account numbers pre-date computers. It is entirely possible that someone entering an incorrect number can, by chance, hit upon an existing account. As the bank clearance system in Australia is entirely automatic there is no cross-checking of account numbers with account names. Internet banking in Australia is not a wire-transfer as is common in places like the USA (although these can be done): here you are effectively accessing your bank's "back office". Nor is it like the BPay service which is used primarily by B to C businesses as a way for their customers to pay their bills; when using this service the biller code will show you who you are paying and the customer number does have check digit validation. I run a business in Australia and it has happened to us on several occasions than an employee or supplier has given us incorrect numbers. Usually, it is not a real account and after a week or so the money makes its way back to us with a message like NO ACCOUNT or A/C CLOSED. Very occasionally, however, the wrong number hits a live account: when that happens the person who f*&ked up needs to contact their bank and try and get the transaction reversed. If there is money in the destination account this usually happens with little fuss, however, if the destination account has been closed or emptied things get problematic. Of course, taking money that isn't yours is stealing even if it happens to be sitting in your bank account. However, unless the sum involved is significant the police are usually not interested in diverting their attention away from "serious" crimes like homicide, armed robbery and terrorism so the aggrieved party is usually on their own. That said, this is probably a scam because they called you rather than your bank doing so. They cannot get your phone number from your account number: they have to know who you are and what your account number is. This is not as hard to do as it sounds since both your name and account number are prominently printed on your cheques and deposit books (possibly your phone number as well which saves them looking it up in the White Pages).
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How do I calculate ownership percentage for shared home ownership?
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Sister is putting down nothing, and paying sub-market rent. It looks to me like if she is assigned anything, it's a gift. You on the other hand, have put down the full downpayment, and instead of breaking even via fair rent, are feeding the property to the tune of $645/mo. In the old days, the days of Robert Allen's "no money down" it was common to see shared equity deals where the investor would put up the down payment, get 1/2 the equity build up, and never pay another dime. This deal reminds me of that, only you are getting the short end of the stick. "you never think something will cause discourse" - I hope you meant this sarcastically. The deal you describe? No good can come of it.
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Why would someone want to sell call options?
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Covered calls, that is where the writer owns the underlying security, aren't the only type of calls one can write. Writing "uncovered calls," wherein one does NOT own the underlying, are a way to profit from a price drop. For example, write the call for a $5 premium, then when the underlying price drops, buy it back for $4, and pocket the $1 profit.
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Live in Oregon and work in Washington: Do I need to file Oregon state taxes?
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Yes. Here's the answer to this question from oregon.gov: 3. I am moving into Oregon. What income will be taxed by Oregon? As an Oregon resident, you are taxed on ALL income regardless of the source of the income. This includes, but is not limited to: You may need to pay estimated taxes if you don't have Oregon withholding on your income.
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Does an employee have the right to pay the federal and state taxes themselves instead of having employer doing it?
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No. An employer is legally obliged to deduct taxes from your pay cheque and send them to the IRS. The only way round that is to either provide evidence of deductions that would reduce your tax bill to nothing, or to become self-employed.
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Is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets?
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I interned for about six months at a firm that employed a few technical analysts, so I'll try to provide what little information I can. Since the bulk of the intra-day trading was decided algorithmically, technical analysts had two main functions: This basically boils down to my answer to your question. There are still enough people, trading firms, etc. who believe in candlestick charting and other visually subjective patterns that if you notice a trend, pattern, etc. before the majority of traders observing, you may be able to time the market successfully and profit. This is becoming increasingly dangerous, however, because of the steps I outlined above. Over time, the charting patterns that have been proven effective (often in many firms individually since the algorithms are all proprietary) are incorporated into computer algorithms, so the "traders" you're competing with to see the pattern are increasingly low-latency computer clusters less than a few blocks from the exchange. Summary: Candlestick charting, along with other forms of subjective technical analysis, has its believers, and assuming enough of these believers trade the standard strategies based on the standard patterns, one could conceivably time the market with enough skill to anticipate these traders acting on the pattern and therefore profit. However, the marginal benefits of doing so are decreasing rapidly as computers take over more trading responsibility. Caveats: I know you're in Australia, where the market penetration of HF/algo traders isn't as high as in the US, so it might be a few more years before the marginal benefits cease to be profitable; that being said, if various forms of technical analysis proved wildly profitable in Australia, above and beyond profits available in other markets, rest assured that large American or British trading firms would already have moved in. My experience is limited to one trading firm, so I certainly can't speak for the industry as a whole. I know I didn't address candlestick charts specifically, but since they're only one piece of visual technical analysis, I tried to address the issue as a whole. This somewhat ties into the debate between fundamental or technical analysis, which I won't get into. Investopedia has a short article on the subject. As I said, I won't get into this because while it's a nice debate for small traders, at large trading firms, they don't care; they want to make profit, and any strategy that can be vetted, whether it's fundamental, technical, or astrological, will be vetted. I want to add more information to my answer to clear up some of the misconceptions in the comments, including those talking about biased studies and a lack of evidence for or against technical analysis (and candlestick charts; I'll explore this relationship further down). It's important to keep in mind that charting methods, including candlestick charts, are visually subjective ways of representing data, and that any interpretations drawn from such charts should, ideally, represent objective technical indicators. A charting method is only as good as the indicators it's used to represent. Therefore, an analysis of the underlying indicators provides a suitable analysis for the visual medium in which they're presented. One important study that evaluates several of these indicators is Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation by Lo, Mamaysky, and Wang. Lest anyone accuse its authors of bias, I should point out that not only is it published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (a highly reputable organization within economics and finance), but also that the majority of its authors come from MIT's Sloan school, which holds a reputation second to none. This study finds that several technical indicators, e.g. head-and-shoulder, double-bottom, and various rectangle techniques, do provide marginal value. They also find that although human judgment is still superior to most computational algorithms in the area of visual pattern recognition, ... technical analysis can be improved by using automated algorithms Since this paper was published in 2000, computing power and statistical analysis have gained significant ground against human ability to identify and exploit for visual pattern detection like candlestick charts. Second, I suggest you look into David Aaronson's book, Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and Statistical Inference to Trading Signals. He finds similar results to the Lo, et. al. paper, in that some technical indicators do add value to the investment process, but those that do are those that can be represented mathematically and thus programmed directly into trading algorithms (thus bypassing visual tools like candlestick charts). He describes how studies, including Lo, et al., have found that head and shoulders patterns are worse than random, i.e. you would earn higher returns if you simply traded at random. That point is worth than repeating. If a day-trader is using a candlestick chart and using head-and-shoulders patterns as part of their toolkit, he's rolling the dice when he uses that pattern and returns that come from its application come from chance. This reminds me of that old story about a company that sends out pamphlets predicting the results of sports games, complete with "strategies" and "data" to back up the predictions. The company sends out several versions of the pamphlet every game, each predicting a different winner. Given a large enough sample size, by the end of the season, there are a few people who have received a pamphlet that accurately predicted the winner for every game and they're convinced the system is perfect. The others weren't so lucky, however. Relying on candlestick charts and TA patterns that are relics from the pre-computerized era is reassuring to some traders and gives them a sense of control and "beating the market," but how long will chance remain on your side? This is why I maintain that visual tools like candlestick charts are a slowly dying medium. They certainly still add value to some trading firms, which is why Bloomberg terminals still ship with this functionality built in, but as more and more research shows, automated algorithms and statistical indicators can provide more value. It's also important to think about whether the majority of the value added by visual tools like candlestick charts comes in the form of profit or a sense of security to traders who learned the field using them over the past few decades. Finally, it's extremely important to realize that the actions of retail investors in the equities market cannot begin to represent the behaviors of the market as a whole. In the equities markets alone, trading firms and institutional investors dwarf retail investors, and the difference in scale is even more vastly pronounced in derivatives and currency markets. The fact that some retail investors use candlestick charts and the technical indicators they (hope) underlie them provides nothing but minor anecdotal evidence as to their effectiveness.
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Apartment lease renewal - is this rate increase normal?
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There could be a number of reasons for a rent increase. The only information I can offer is how I calculate what rent I will charge. The minimum I would ever charge per unit (Mortgage payment + Water) / Number of units This number is the minimum because it's what I need to keep afloat. Keep in mind these are ballpark numbers The target rent ((Mortgage payment + Water) / Number of units)*1.60 I mark up the price 60% for a few reasons. First, the building needs a repair budget. That money has to come from somewhere. Second, I want to put away for my next acquisition and third I want to make a profit. These get me close to my rental price but ultimately it depends on your location and the comparables in the area. If my target rent is 600 a month but the neighbors are getting 700-800 for the same exact unit I might ask more. It also depends on the types of units. Some of my buildings, all of the units are identical. Other buildings half of the units are bigger than the other half so clearly I wouldn't charge a equal amount for them. Ultimately you have to remember we're not in the game to lose money. I know what my renters are going to pay before I even put an offer in on a building because that's how I stay in business. It might go up over the years but it will always outpace my expenses for that property.
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Which credit card is friendliest to merchants?
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Cash is king. PIN-based debit transactions are cheap. In terms of credit cards, a regular (ie. not a gold card) with no rewards has the lowest rates. Bigger merchants with lots of card volume likely have better deals that make the differences less pronounced.
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What can I do when the trading price of a stock or ETF I want to buy is too high?
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You have a couple of options: Auto-investing in an open-end mutual fund. Some companies may waive a minimum if you sign up for an automatic investing, e.g. T. Rowe Price will waive its minimum if you agree to invest $100/month. There may be some lower ones out there as well. Some brokers like ShareBuilder have programs where someone could auto-invest getting fractional shares with each purchase. However, something to consider is what percentage is it costing you to buy each time as it may be quite a bit of friction if you are paying $4 a purchase and only buying $40, this is 10% of your investment being eaten up in costs that I'd highly advise taking the first option.
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Has anyone compared an in-person Tax Advisor to software like Turbo Tax?
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so far the only thing that I can think of that would make me want to go with H&R Block is the guarantee that they offer ( for a fee ) that says they will help you if you are ever audited for a tax return that you filed through them, but I think that is given for both the software and the in person tax preparation. so I guess if you like to ask lots of questions and get the answers nearly immediately I would go with an in person tax preparation person, if they can't answer all your questions then that is something else to think about all together.
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Canadian personal finance software with ability to export historical credit card transactions?
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Yodlee and Mint are good solutions if you don't mind your personal financial information being stored "in the cloud". I do, so I use Quicken. Quicken stores whatever you give to it for as long as you want: so the only question is how to get the credit card transactions you want into it? All my financial institutions allow me to view my credit card statements for a year back, and download them in a form Quicken can read. So you can have a record of your transactions from a year ago right now, and in a year you will have two year's worth.
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Is it possible to make money off of a private company?
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Another way to do this is go to work for that company. Companies in this situation normally offer low pay, long hours, and stock options. Given a sufficient grant, it could be all very lucrative or worthless. Even if you have no electronics background you might be able to work in a different capacity. There were secretaries at various companies that became wealthy off of their stock options.
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Do market shares exhaust?
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RonJohn is right, all shares are owned by someone. Depending on the company, they can be closely held so that nobody wants to sell at a given time. This can cause the price people are offering to rise until someone sells. That trade will cause an adjustment in the ticker price of that stock. Supply and demand at work. Berkshire Hathaway is an example of this. The number of shares is low, the demand for them is high, the price per share is high.
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How do I track investment performance in Quicken across rollovers?
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Hmm, this site says If you use Quicken, you enter a new transaction of type "Corporate Acquisition (stock for stock)." You put investor shares as the "Company acquired", Admiral shares as the "Acquiring company", and the conversion ratio 0.7997754 as the "New shares issued per held share" number. Seems crazy, but maybe that's the way. Edit: This sucks. In the comments, you can see that people have to manually correct the share price for every transaction because of rounding problems.
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In what cases can a business refuse to take cash?
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They don't have to take cash if they reasonably told you in advance they don't take cash, because they made fair effort to prevent you from incurring a debt. They don't have to take cash if the transaction hasn't yet happened (not a debt) or if it can be easily undone at no cost to either party - such as a newspaper subscription they can just stop delivering. Both of these reasons are limited by the rules against discrimination, see below. They don't have to take cash if it's impracticable. For instance a transit bus when fares first went to $1.00, it took years to fund new fareboxes able to take paper money. You don't have to take a mortgage payment in pennies. Liquor stores don't have to take $100 bills. (it requires them to keep too much change in the till, which makes them a robbery target). Trouble arises when it appears there's an ulterior motive for the rule. Suppose a Landlord Jim requires rent to be paid with EFT. Rent-controlled Marcie tells the judge "It's a scheme to oust me, he knows I'm unbanked". Jim counters "No. I got mugged last month because criminals know when I collect cash rents." It will turn on whether Jim can show good-faith effort to work with his unbanked tenants to find other ways to pay. If Jim does a particularly bad job of this, he could find himself paying Marcie's legal bills! Even worse if the ulterior motive is discrimination. Chet the plumber hates Muslims. Alice the feed supplier hates the Amish. So they decide to take credit cards only, knowing those people's religions don't allow them. Their goose is cooked once they can't show any other reasonable reason to refuse cash.
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Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?
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Possibly, if you can get them at a discount. But not if you have to pay full price. Say there's a $1 million Jackpot for $1 tickets. The seller might sell 1.25 million of these tickets, to raise $1.25 million pay a winner $1 million, and keep $250,000. In this example, the so-called "expected value" of your $1 ticket is $1 million/1.25 million tickets= 80 cents, which is less than $1. If someone were willing to "dump" his ticket for say, 50 cents, what you paid would be less than the expected value, and over enough "trials," you would make a profit. Warren Buffett used to say that he would never buy a lottery ticket, but would not refuse one given to him free. That's the ultimate "discount." Larger Jackpots would work on the same principle; you would lose money "on average" for buying a ticket. So it's not the size of the Jackpot but the size of the discount that determines whether or not it is worthwhile to buy a lottery ticket.
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Where can one find intraday prices for mutual funds?
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Look at morningstar holdings.It will list the top 25 holdings and their current price.This will give you a good idea of the intra-day price of the fund.
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Should I put more money down on one property and pay it off sooner or hold on to the cash?
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My figuring (and I'm not an expert here, but I think this is basic math) is: Let's say you had a windfall of $1000 extra dollars today that you could either: a. Use to pay down your mortgage b. Put into some kind of equity mutual fund Maybe you have 20 years left on your mortgage. So your return on investment with choice A is whatever your mortgage interest rate is, compounded monthly or daily. Interest rates are low now, but who knows what they'll be in the future. On the other hand, you should get more return out of an equity mutual fund investment, so I'd say B is your better choice, except: But that's also the other reason why I favour B over A. Let's say you lose your job a year from now. Your bank won't be too lenient with you paying your mortgage, even if you paid it off quicker than originally agreed. But if that money is in mutual funds, you have access to it, and it buys you time when you really need it. People might say that you can always get a second mortgage to get the equity out of it, but try getting a second mortgage when you've just lost your job.
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Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when?
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I'm surprised to even hear this question with the current state of devaluation of real estate. One thing I'll add to the other answers is to make sure you are doing a true apples/apples comparison to other investments when considering real estate. You can't just take subtract the purchase price from the sales price to get your ROI. Real estate has very heavy carry costs that you need to factor into any ROI calculation including: One more point: A house that you live in shouldn't be considered an investment, but rather an expense. You have to be able to liquidate an investment and collect your return. Unless you plan to move back in with your parents, you are always going to need a place to live so you can never really cash out on that investment, except perhaps by downgrading your lifestyle or a reverse mortgage.
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What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time?
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There are tonnes, and tonnes of things out there, but you have to be careful what you search for. Be specific about what you want. If you search for "time sheet" for example, you'll just get a bucket of stuff having to do with stylesheets, because there's more of that around. The most common type of small tool for tracking time is usually a timer-type thing that runs as a widget, gadget, or System Tray tool. You have to click it on, then off again, and the nice ones produce a usable output file. CSV, or XLS, or some such. There are tools that track what documents you have open, when you opened them, and when you closed them, and you can sort it out from there. They're a bit resource-heavy, so be careful if you have a low power system. Quickbooks has a little utility that will make file which can be imported into your accounting. Quickbooks is NOT for the average business person. You almost have to be a bookkeeper to get the most out of it. On the other hand, you can have a bookkeeper set it up for you, and at the end of the year your taxes are a one button affair. For Windows software I like to use the site snapfiles.com. It's always been reliable, the rating systems are pretty accurate, they mostly maintain their own copies of the software, they test for viruses, and the let you specify a "freeware only" search ;-) For Mac software I like versiontracker.com. If you're a massive freeware user, like me, sign up for an account, so you can receive alerts regarding updates, and such. Currently I do most of my computer-based organization on a Mac with piece of software by CircusPonies.com called NoteBook. There's a command to insert the time, date, or both, and I just use that when I have a need to record elapsed time. I have even run across (and I forget the name) a piece of software for tracking time on Windows, which had multiple timers which you could set so either they were allowed to run concurrently (lawyers), or only one would run at a time. Anyway… Personally I think freeware is fun, but be careful. It's still the wild frickin west out there. If you don't trust the site you're downloading from, scan it with your anti-virus software before you install it, create a Restore Point, do a full, offsite backup of all your hard drives, unplug your computer from the Internet, send your wife to her mother's, lock the kids in the basement, cross your fingers, and phone the local bishop for a dispensation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensation_(Catholic_Church)).
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Should you check to make sure your employer is paying you the correct superannuation amount? [Australia]
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Yes, there are checks and balances. Employers can be, and have been, prosecuted for failing to pay super before the statutory timeline, which is three months from the pay date. However, it is still in your interests to check for yourself. The most common point for missing super to be discovered is when the company goes broke, at which point it's too late for you. What you should do is Check on your payslips that the right amount is allocated to super. It should be 9% of gross, plus any salary sacrifice or additional component. Check your super fund's half-yearly statements line up the deductions given on your payslip. Consider getting online access to your super account so you can check more quickly. If something is missing, call your super fund and/or payroll office. Resources:
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I am the sole owner of an LLC. Does it make a difference if I file as an S-Corp or a sole-member LLC?
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I'm assuming that when you say "convert to S-Corp tax treatment" you're not talking about actually changing your LLC to a Corporation. There are two distinct pieces of the puzzle here. First, there's your organizational form. Your state, which is where the business is legally formed and recognized, creates the LLC or Corporation. "S-Corp" doesn't come into play here: your company is either an LLC or a Corporation. (There are a handful of other organizational types your state might have, e.g. PLLC, Limited Partnership, etc.; none of these are immediately relevant to this discussion). Second, there's the tax treatment you receive by the IRS. If your company was created by the state as an LLC, note that the IRS doesn't recognize LLCs as a distinct organizational type: you elect to be taxed as an individual (for single member LLCs), a partnership (for multiple member LLCs), or as a corporation. The former two elections are "pass through" -- there's no additional level of taxation on corporate profits, everything just passes through to the owners. The latter election introduces a tax on corporate profits. When you elect pass-through treatment, a single-member LLC files on Schedule C; a multiple-member LLC will prepare a form K-1 which you will include on your 1040. If your company was created by the state as a Corporation (not an LLC), you could still elect pass-through taxation if your company qualifies under the rules in Subchapter S (i.e. "an S-Corp"). States do not recognize "S-Corp" as part of the organizational process -- that's just a tax distinction used by the IRS (and possibly your state's tax authorities). In your case, if you are a single-member LLC (and assuming there are no other reasons to organize as a corporation), talking about "S-Corp tax treatment" doesn't make any sense. You'll just file your schedule C; in my experience it's fairly simple. (Note that this is based on my experience of single- and multiple-member LLCs in just two states. Your state may have different rules that affect state-level taxation; and the rules may change from year to year. I've found that hiring a good CPA to prepare the forms saves a good bit of stress and time that can be better applied to the business.)
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Indian citizen working from India as freelancer for U.S.-based company. How to report the income & pay tax in India?
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There is no reason for you to open a firm. However, it will help you, if you operate separate bank account for business and personal purposes. You can run your business as proprietorship business. Your inward remittance is your income. You can deduct payment made to your colleagues as salary. You should pay them by way of cheques or bank transfer only. You are also entitled to deduct other business expenses provided you keep proper receipt of the same such as broadband connection charges, depreciation on equipment and more importantly, rent on your house. If your total receipt from such income exceeds INR 60,00,000 you will need to withhold tax on payment made to your colleagues as also subject to audit of your accounts. If you want to grow your business, suggest you should take an Import / Export Code in your own name. You can put any further question in this regard.
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Pros and Cons of Interest Only Loans
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Pros: Cons: Before the housing bubble the conventional wisdom was to buy as much home as you could afford, thereby borrowing as much you can afford. Because variable rates lead to lower mortgages, they were preferred by many as you could buy more house. This of course lead to many people losing their home and many thousands of dollars. A bubble is not necessary to trigger a chain of events that can lead to loss of a home. If an interest only borrower is late on a payment, this often triggers a rate increase. Couple that with some other things that can happen negatively, and you are up $hit's creek. IMO it is not wise.
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How does Portfolio Turnover affect my investment?
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may result in more taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. When the fund manager decides to sell shares of a stock, and those shares have grown in value, that growth is a capital gain. If that fund is part of a taxable account then the investors in the fund will have to declare that income/gain on their tax forms. That could require the investors to have to pay taxes on those gains. Of course if the investors are holding the fund shares in a IRA or 401K then there are no taxes due in the near term. A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs... ...These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the previous expense examples, reduce the Fund’s performance. The annual fund operating expenses are the expenses that they can assume will happen every year. They include salaries, the cost of producing statements, paperwork required by the government, research... It doesn't include transaction costs. Which they can't estimate what they will be in advance. If the fund invests in a particular segment of the market, and there is a disruption in that segment, they may need to make many new investments. If on the other hand last year they made great choices the turnover may be small this year. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 3% of the average value of its portfolio. That may be your best indicator.
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Investing for Dummys
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You can't get started investing. There are preliminary steps that must be taken prior to beginning to invest: Only once these things are complete can you think about investing. Doing so before hand will only likely lose money in the long run. Figure these steps will take about 2.5 years. So you are 2.5 years from investing. Read now: The Total Money Makeover. It is full of inspiring stories of people that were able to turn things around financially. This is good because it is easy to get discouraged and believe all kind of toxic beliefs about money: The little guy can't get ahead, I always will have a car payment, Its too late, etc... They are all false. Part of the book's resources are budgeting forms and hints on budgeting. Read later: John Bogle on Investing and Bogle on Mutual Funds One additional Item: About you calling yourself a "dummy". Building personal wealth is less about knowledge and more about behavior. The reason you don't have a positive net worth is because of how you behaved, not knowledge. Even sticking a small amount in a savings account each paycheck and not spending it would have allowed you to have a positive net worth at this point in your life. Only by changing behavior can you start to build wealth, investing is only a small component.
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Why would a restaurant offer a very large cash discount?
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This could be a case of the new chip card technology and dealing with slow reimbursement turnaround time. I recently visited a restaurant who was not using the chip technology, and it refused my card after several attempts. I found out from my bank it was because the restaurant was not set up for chip and I had not eaten there before....I know at the other end it takes far longer for the funds to get to the merchant; banks don't want to part with other people's money.
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What is a “retail revolving account,” and does it improve my credit score?
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A retail revolving account is essentially a credit card offered by a store (or chain of stores) and usable only at that store. In my area, the Sears department store's "Sears card" would be a good example. Stores offer these to capture a bit more profit from the transaction. They don't have to pay someone else's processing fees, and they get to keep any interest you pay. Of course they also accept the costs that go along with retail lending. It operates just like any other revolving-credit card. Read the fine print of the agreement to see what the grace period is, if any, and what APR they're charging after that. These cards also serve as a marketing tool. Some stores don't accept any other card. Some can do "instant approvals" to encourage you to make a large purchase now rather than continuing to shop around. Some may offer special deals only if you use their card -- I paid 0% interest for a year on my refrigerator, which was convenient for me. And so on. Gasoline stations also used to offer their own cards... though these days it's common for them to offer a branded version of one of the major credit cards instead.
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Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed?
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When you take the self employed health care deduction on on Line 29 of form 1040 for 2010 it also will lower your self employment tax. See line 3 of Schedule SE. You report your net earnings from self employment less line 29 from 1040.
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If a mutual fund did really well last year, then statistically speaking, is it likely going to do bad this year?
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This can be answered by looking at the fine print for any prospectus for any stock, bond or mutual fund. It says: "Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.". A mutual fund is a portfolio of common stocks, managed by somebody for a fee. There are many factors that can drive performance of a fund up or down. Here are a few: I'm sure there are many more market influences that I cannot think of that push fund prices up or down. What the fund did last year is not one of them. If it were, making money in the mutual fund market would be as easy as investing in last year's winners and everyone would be doing it.
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How much of a down payment for a car should I save before purchasing it?
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Do you need the car, or is this an optional purchase for you? Do you currently have a car that is in good working order? If you can continue to save for the car instead of buying now, you'll be getting interest on what you've saved -- and that's a lot better than 0% financing.
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If you own 1% of a company's stock, are you entitled to 1% of its assets?
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No. You're entitled to 1% of votes at the shareholders' meeting (unless there's class division between shareholders, that is). If more than 50% of the shareholders vote to close the company, sell off its assets and distribute the proceeds to the owners - you'll get 1% share of the distributions.
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What foreign exchange rate is used for foreign credit card and bank transactions?
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A lot of questions, but all it boils down to is: . Banks usually perform T+1 net settlements, also called Global Netting, as opposed to real-time gross settlements. That means they promise the counterparty the money at some point in the future (within the next few business days, see delivery versus payment) and collect all transactions of that kind. For this example say, they will have a net outflow of 10M USD. The next day they will purchase 10M USD on the FX market and hand it over to the global netter. Note that this might be more than one transaction, especially because the sums are usually larger. Another Indian bank might have a 10M USD inflow, they too will use the FX market, selling 10M USD for INR, probably picking a different time to the first bank. So the rates will most likely differ (apart from the obvious bid/ask difference). The dollar rate they charge you is an average of their rate achieved when buying the USD, plus some commission for their forex brokerage, plus probably some fee for the service (accessing the global netting system isn't free). The fees should be clearly (and separately) stated on your bank statement, and so should be the FX rate. Back to the second example: Obviously since it's a different bank handing over INRs or USDs (or if it was your own bank, they would have internally netted the incoming USDs with the outgoing USDs) the rate will be different, but it's still a once a day transaction. From the INRs you get they will subtract the average FX achieved rate, the FX commissions and again the service fee for the global netting. The fees alone mean that the USD/INR sell rate is different from the buy rate.
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What special considerations need to be made for a US citizen who wishes to purchase a house in Canada?
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About deducting mortgage interest: No, you can not deduct it unless it is qualified mortgage interest. "Qualified mortgage interest is interest and points you pay on a loan secured by your main home or a second home." (Tax Topic 505). According to the IRS, "if you rent out the residence, you must use it for more than 14 days or more than 10% of the number of days you rent it out, whichever is longer." Regarding being taxed on income received from the property, if you claim the foreign tax credit you will not be double taxed. According to the IRS, "The foreign tax credit intends to reduce the double tax burden that would otherwise arise when foreign source income is taxed by both the United States and the foreign country from which the income is derived." (from IRS Topic 856 - Foreign Tax Credit) About property taxes: From my understanding, these cannot be claimed for the foreign tax credit but can be deducted as business expenses. There are various exceptions and stipulations based on your circumstance, so you need to read the official publications and get professional tax advice. Here's an excerpt from Publication 856 - Foreign Tax Credit for Individuals: "In most cases, only foreign income taxes qualify for the foreign tax credit. Other taxes, such as foreign real and personal property taxes, do not qualify. But you may be able to deduct these other taxes even if you claim the foreign tax credit for foreign income taxes. In most cases, you can deduct these other taxes only if they are expenses incurred in a trade or business or in the production of income. However, you can deduct foreign real property taxes that are not trade or business expenses as an itemized deduction on Schedule A (Form 1040)." Note and disclaimer: Sources: IRS Tax Topic 505 Interest Expense, IRS Real Estate (Taxes, Mortgage Interest, Points, Other Property Expenses) , IRS Topic 514 Foreign Tax Credit , and Publication 856 Foreign Tax Credit for Individuals
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Should I buy a home or rent in my situation?
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MY recommendation is simple. RENT The fact that you have to ask the question is a clear sign that you have no business buying a home. That's not to say that it's a bad question to ask though. Far more important then rather it's finically wise for you to buy a home, is the more important question of "are you emotionally ready for the responsibility and permanence" of a home. At best, you are tying your self to the same number of rooms, same location, and same set of circumstances for the next 5-7 years. In that time it will be very unlikely that you will be able to sell the house for a profit, get your minor equity back, or even get a second loan for any reason. You mentioned getting married soon, that means the possibility of more children, divorce, and who knows what else. You are in an emotionally and financially turblunt time in your life. Now is not the right time to buy anything large. Instead rent, and focus on improving your credit rating. In 5 years time you will have a much better credit rating, get much better rates and fees, and have a much better handle on where you want to be with your home/family situation. Buying a house is not something you do on a weekend. For most people it's the culmination of years of work, searching, researching, and preparation. Often times people that buy before they are ready, will end up in foreclosure, and generally have a crappy next 15 years, as they try to work themselves out of the issue.
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I gave an incorrect account number to pay my income taxes
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They will not send a bill, though there's a chance they will eventually send an accusatory letter. You must proactively pay your taxes. The simplest route is to send a check to each taxing authority with the respective full amounts due. I wouldn't bother calling them. You could also file amended returns with each containing the correct information. As a general rule, tax advisors tend to counsel against giving bank account information to the IRS for payment purposes (as opposed to refund purposes), both to protect the timing of payment and to make it slightly more difficult for them to seize or lien your account. If you choose to send a check, you can use Form 1040-V and NY Form IT-201-V. Please triple check your Social Security Number matches your tax return SSN, so they correctly credit you for payment. You may include an explanation of the closed account if you are feeling either fearful or contrite, but if the amount due is paid in full, then neither taxing authority should really care about your error.
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Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation?
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My opinion is to hold off. I don't see housing market rising anytime soon, possibly even going lower, so you don't have to worry about getting in before it rises. Pay off the credit card debt, maybe even earlier if possible, then that flexibility will be there, the divorce proceedings may have an end in sight, and therefore you'll know more about any outcomes from that. The economy is still shaky, the flexibility of renting may come in real handy.
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Why buy bonds in a no-arbitrage market?
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It is my understanding that banks pay less than the going rate on savings accounts and require that the person who takes out a loan pay more than the going rate. That is how the bank gets its money. Usually the going rate is affected by the current inflation rate (but that has not been true for the last few weeks). So that means that, typically, the money you have in the bank is, gradually, losing purchasing power as the bank typically pays you less than the inflation rate. So if you want your money to keep pace with inflation (or do a bit better) then you should buy bonds.
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Is there a way to buy raw oil today and sell it in 1 year time?
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There are many ways of investing either directly or indirectly in oil: all of these options are ways to invest in an expected change in the price of oil at various degrees of directness and risk profiles. Investing in derivative or derivative-like products such as futures and CFDs is very risky and requires a good degree of sophisticated knowledge to manage.
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Changing Bank Account Number regularly to reduce fraud
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We change it every so often to reduce fraud. If you're absolutely sure you didn't just send money to a scammer impersonating a landlord, this has nothing to do with fraud-- they're playing a game with you. By changing the account number frequently, it makes it more likely you make a mistake in entering the payment account. When they come back to you a few days past due saying "we never received your rent," you'll eventually realize it got sent to the wrong account. Now you owe them late fees, and there's really nothing you can do about it-- you did not in fact pay them on time; you sent it to the wrong account! It's an easy way for them to collect an additional few thousand dollars a year. Anytime a small business or landlord says they have to do something "weird" to reduce fraud, chances are it's a pretense to you getting hosed in some way.
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Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation?
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Basically, in any financial system that features fractional reserve banking, the monetary supply expands during times of prosperity. Stable, low inflation of 2-4% keeps capital available while keeping the value of money stable. It also discourages hoarding of wealth. Banks aren't vaults. They take deposits and make an explicit promise to repay the depositor on demand. Since most depositors don't need to withdraw money regularly, the lend out the money you deposited and maintain a reserve sufficient to meet daily cash needs. When times are good, banks lend to people and businesses who need capital, who in turn do things that add value to the overall economy. When times are bad, people and businesses either cannot get capital or pay more for it, which reduces the number of times that money changes hands and has a negative impact on the wider economy. People who are trying to sell you commodities or who have a naive view of how the economy actually works decry the current monetary system and throw around scary words like "fiat currency" and "inflation is theft". What these people don't realize is that before the present system, where the value of money is based on promises to repay, the gold and silver backed systems also experienced inflation. With gold/silver based money, inflation was driven by discoveries of gold and silver deposits
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Deductions greater than Income : Traditional IRA to Roth Conversion?
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Yes. A most emphatic yes. I suggest you look at your 2014 return and project what 2015 will look like. I'd convert enough to "top off" the 15% bracket. Note, if you overshoot it, and in April 2016, see that you are say $5K into the 25% rate, you can just recharacterize the amount you went over and nail the bracket to the dollar. If you have the time and patience, you can convert into 2 different Roth accounts. One account for one asset class, say large cap stocks/funds, the other, cash/bonds. In April, keep the account that outperformed, and only recharacterize the lagger. Roth Roulette is my name for this strategy. It's risk free, and has the potential to boost the value of your conversions. Edit - To be clear, you are permitted to recharacterize (undo) any or all of the converted amount. You actually have until tax time (4/15 or so) plus the 6 month extension. You can recharacterize for any reason - A personal anecdote - I manage my mother in law's money. She is well under the 25% bracket cutoff. Each year I convert, and each April, recharacterize just enough to be at the top of the 15% bracket. Over $100K has been shifted from Traditional IRA to Roth by now. Taxed at 15% so her daughters will 'not' pay 25% when they withdraw. $10K in tax saved from uncle sam, for my effort of filling out paper twice a year for 12 years now. Well worth my effort.
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I spend too much money. How can I get on the path to a frugal lifestyle?
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For many folks these days, not having a credit card is just not practical. Personally, I do quite a bit of shopping online for things not available locally. Cash is not an option in these cases and I don't want to give out my debit card number. So, a strategy is this: use a credit card for a purchase. Then immediately, or within a couple days, pay the credit card with that amount. Sounds simple but it takes a little effort to do it. This strategy gives you the convenience of a credit card and decreases the interest enormously.
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As an investor or speculator, how might one respond to QE3 taper?
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Any answer for what to do in a taper will assume ceteris paribus because how markets initially react when they suspect a taper may immediately change depending on what data are released after the taper. For instance, I've seen Soros and a few other hedge fund managers hold shorts when expecting a taper because the theory is that the market may fall. However, suppose the market falls 5%, but then positive employment numbers are released. What then? The same holds true for betting against Emerging Markets (EM), something I've seen Jesse Colombo and others suggest; the claim that Emerging Markets are in a bubble thanks to the U.S. Federal Reserve (the more money they release, the more the money goes overseas ...). Again, this is possibly true, but if good data are released after the taper for these emerging markets, they could see growth and those with the shorts could get killed. TL;DR - when we ask about what happens after the taper, we have to remember we're assuming some things about everything else. I do think that the "safest play" post taper is what Bill Gross mentioned about bonds (basically a bubble), as we should see interest rates rise and the Chinese seem to be reluctant to buy as much of U.S. bonds as they have in the past (though some, like Mish, assert the U.S. would welcome this). The other play I like is the VIX (if you think the market will fall) or against (if you think the market will rise). SVXY has been one of the best plays since 2011 (compare it to the SPY for the same time period).
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Hiring freelancers and taxes
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I am not a lawyer or a tax accountant, but from the description provided it sounds to me like you have created two partnerships: one in which you share 50% of Bob's revenue, and another in which you share 50% of the revenue from the first partnership. If this is the case, then each partnership would need to file form K-1 and issue a copy to the partners of that partnership. I think, but I'm not sure, that each partnership would need an Employer Identification Number (EIN; you can apply for and receive these online with the IRS). You would only pay tax on the portion of profits that are assigned to you on the K-1. (If you've accidentally created a partnership without thinking through all the ramifications, you probably want to straighten this out. You can be held liable for the actions of your partners.) On the other hand, if your contract with Bob explicitly makes you a contractor and not a partner, then Bob should probably be issuing a 1099 to you. Similarly for you and Joe -- if your contract with Joe makes him a subcontractor, then you may need to get an EIN and issue him a 1099 at the end of the year. The money you pay to Joe is a business expense, and would be deducted from the profits you show on your Schedule C. In my opinion, it would be worth the $200 fee paid to a good CPA to make sure you get this right.
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How do I notify the IRS of a new member to an LLC?
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You don't need to notify the IRS of new members, the IRS doesn't care (at this stage). What you do need, if you have a EIN for a single-member LLC, is to request a new EIN since your LLC is now a partnership (a different entity, from IRS perspective). From now on, you'll need to file form 1065 with the IRS in case of business related income, on which you will declare the membership distribution interests on Schedules K-1 for each member.
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Why is tax loss harvesting helpful for passive investing?
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Your assertion that you will not be selling anything is at odds with the idea that you will be doing tax loss harvesting. Tax loss harvesting always involves some selling (you sell stocks that have fallen in price and lock in the capital losses, which gives you a break on your taxes). If you absolutely prohibit your advisor from selling, then you will not be able to do tax loss harvesting (in that case, why are you using an advisor at all?). Tax loss harvesting has nothing to do with your horizon nor the active/passive difference, really. As a practical matter, a good tax loss harvesting plan involves mechanically selling losers and immediately putting the money in another stock with more-or-less similar risk so your portfolio doesn't change much. In this way you get a stable portfolio that performs just like a static portfolio but gives you a tax benefit each year. The IRS officially prohibits this practice via the "wash sale rule" that says you can't buy a substantially identical asset within a short period of time. However, though two stocks have similar risk, they are not generally substantially similar in a legal sense, so the IRS can't really beat you in court and they don't try. Basically you can't just buy the same stock again. The roboadvisor is advertising that they will perform this service, keeping your portfolio pretty much static in terms of risk, in such a way that your tax benefit is maximized and you don't run afoul of the IRS.
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Should I buy a house with a friend?
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I'd be curious to compare current rent with what your overhead would be with a house. Most single people would view your current arrangement as ideal. When those about to graduate college ask for money advice, I offer that they should start by living as though they are still in college, share a house or multibedroomed apartment and sack away the difference. If you really want to buy, and I'd assume for this answer that you feel the housing market in your area has passes its bottom, I'd suggest you run the numbers and see if you can buy the house, 100% yours, but then rent out one or two rooms. You don't share your mortgage details, just charge a fair price. When the stars line up just right, these deals cost you the down payment, but the roommates pay the mortgage. I discourage the buying by two or more for the reasons MrChrister listed.
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I keep getting overcharged at the grocery store. Foul play?
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Of course, there is no way for us to know whether or not the clerk is trying to rip you off $1.29 at a time, but I can't understand the possible motivation for doing so. I would imagine that most people would catch this at some point, so for a store to consistently overcharge for something like this is really bad for business. They would be risking upsetting a customer all for the potential gain of $1.29. I have to assume that it is not malice, but incompetence. We don't know what caused the clerk to be confused, but it is not really our concern. From what I can tell, you've gotten the right price in the end. You were ultimately charged for two drinks, and the extra $1.29 that you were charged was refunded. Since it happened three times, you have to decide how badly you want these drinks in the future. If you choose to return, you'll just have to expect the possibility that it will ring up incorrectly, and you'll have to get it fixed. If that seems like too much hassle, then don't return to this store.
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Why is early exercise generally not recommended for an in-the-money option?
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For a deep in the money, it almost makes no difference because the intrinsic value, the price of the option, is seldom far above the liquidation value, the price of the underlying less the strike price. For an at the money, ceteris paribus, an early exercise would immediately cut the value of the option to 0; however, life is not so simple as JB King has shown. Purely theoretically, for an at or near the money option, an early exercise will be an instantaneous cost because the value after exercise is less than the previously trading or implied option price.
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Can I write off (deduct) expenses in a period where my corporation makes no money?
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Your corporation would file a corporate income tax return on an annual basis. One single month of no revenue doesn't mean much in that annual scheme of things. Total annual revenue and total annual expenses are what impact the results. In other words, yes, your corporation can book revenues in (say) 11 of 12 months of the year but still incur expenses in all months. Many seasonal businesses operate this way and it is perfectly normal. You could even just have, say, one super-awesome month and spend money the rest of the year. Heck, you could even have zero revenue but still incur expenses—startups often work like that at first. (You'd need investment funding, personal credit, a loan, or retained earnings from earlier profitable periods to do that, of course.) As long as your corporation has a reasonable expectation of a profit and the expenses your corporation incurs are valid business expenses, then yes, you ought to be able to deduct those expenses from your revenue when figuring taxes owed, regardless of whether the expenses were incurred at the same approximate time as revenue was booked—as long as the expense wasn't the acquisition of a depreciable asset. Some things your company would buy—such as the computer in your example—would not be fully deductible in the year the expense is incurred. Depreciable property expenses are deducted over time according to a schedule for the kind of property. The amount of depreciation expense you can claim for such property each year is known as Capital Cost Allowance. A qualified professional accountant can help you understand this. One last thing: You wrote "write off". That is not the same as "deduct". However, you are forgiven, because many people say "write off" when they actually mean "deduct" (for tax purposes). "Write off", rather, is a different accounting term, meaning where you mark down the value of an asset (e.g. a bad loan that will never be repaid) to zero; in effect, you are recognizing it is now a worthless asset. There can be a tax benefit to a write-off, but what you are asking about are clearly expense deductions and not write-offs. They are not the same thing, and the next time you hear somebody using "write off" when they mean "deduction", please correct them.
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What does “Income generated in the U.S.” mean?
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It means you must pay federal (and possibly state) tax on any income you produce in America -- including Internet and mail-order sales. Tax treaties may keep you from having to pay tax on it again in your own country, or may not.
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What does this mean? SELL -10 VERTICAL $IYR 100 AUG 09 32/34 CALL @.80 LMT
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SELL -10 VERTICAL $IYR 100 AUG 09 32/34 CALL @.80 LMT 1) we are talking about options, these are a derivative product whose price is based on 6 variables. 2) options allow you to create risk out of thin air, and those risks come with shapes, and the only limit is your imagination (and how much your margin/borrowing costs are). Whereas a simple asset like the shares for $IYR only has a linear risk profile. stock goes up, you make money, stock goes down, you lose money, and that risk graph looks linear. a "vertical" has a nonlinear risk profile 3) a vertical is a type of "spread" that requires holding options that expire at the same time, but at different strike prices. 3b) This particular KIND of vertical is called a bear call spread (BCS). Since you are bearish (this makes money if the stock goes down, or stays in a very specific range) but are using calls which are a bullish options product. 4) -10 means you are selling the vertical. +10 means you are buying the vertical. A "long" vertical is initiated by buying an option closer to the money, and selling an option at a higher strike price. This would be +X A "short" vertical is initiated by selling an option closer to the money and buying an option at a higher strike price. The quantity would be -X 5) 32/34 stands for the strike prices. so you would be selling 10 call options at the 32 strike price, and buying 10 call options at the 34 strike price, both options expire in August 6) LMT stands for limit order, and $.80 is the limit order price that is desired. OPENING a vertical spread requires knowledge of options as well as how to send orders. MANAGING a vertical requires even more finesse, as you can "leg-in" and "leg-out" of spreads, without sending the entire order to the exchange floor at once. There is much to learn.
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When are investments taxed?
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An investment is sold when you sell that particular stock or fund. It doesn't wait until you withdraw cash from the brokerage account. Whether an investment is subject to long term or short term taxes depends on how long you held that particular stock. Sorry, you can't get around the higher short term tax by leaving the money in a brokerage account or re-investing in something else. If you are invested in a mutual fund, whether it's long or short term depends on when you buy and sell the fund. The fact that the fund managers are buying and selling behind your back doesn't affect this. (I don't know what taxes they have to pay, maybe you really are paying for it in the form of management fees or lower returns, but you don't explicitly pay the tax on these "inner" transactions.) Your broker should send you a tax statement every year giving the numbers that you need to fill in to the various boxes of your income tax form. You don't have to figure it out. Of course it helps to know the rules. If you've held a stock for 11 1/2 months and are planning to sell, you might want to consider waiting a couple of weeks so it becomes a long term capital gain rather than short term and thus subject to lower tax.
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Which dividend bearing stock should be chosen by price?
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Don't ever quantify a stock's preference/performance just based on the dividend it is paying out Volatility defined by movements in the the stock's price, affected by factors embedded in the stock e.g. the corporation, the business it is in, the economy, the management etc etc. Apple wasn't paying dividends but people were still buying into it. Same with Amazon, Berkshire, Google. These companies create value by investing their earnings back into their company and this is reflected in their share prices. Their earnings create more value in this way for the stockholders. The holding structures of these companies also help them in their motives. Supposedly $100 invested in either stocks. For keeping things easy, you invested at the same time in both, single annual dividend and prices more or less remain constant. Company A: $5/share at 20% annual dividend yield. Dividend = $20 Company B: $10/share at 20% annual dividend yield Dividend = $20 You receive the same dividend in both cases. Volatility willn't affect you unless you are trading, or the stock market tanks, or some very bad news comes out of either company or on the economy. Volatility in the long term averages out, except in specific outlier cases e.g. Lehman bankruptcy and the financial crash which are rare but do happen. In general case the %price movements in both stocks would more or less follow the markets (not exactly though) except when relevant news for either corporations come out.
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Purpose of having good credit when you are well-off?
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A $250K earner might have $4M in retirement savings and $500K in available funds, but doesn't wish to spend all his liquidity on the house. In general, a house might cost 2-3 times one's annual income. It would take many years to get that saved up. They might want to have the house sooner. It all goes back to choice, priorities, personal preference.
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Are there any catches with interest from banks? Is this interest “too good to be true”?
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The 1.09% is per year, not per month. Not too bad for a regular savings, but it's just interest rates in general that are bad right now. The inflation rate should be 3.8% currently so if you hide your money in a bank you'll end up with a loss of 2% in buying power in a year... If you open an CD (Certificate of Deposit), the best APY would be around 2.2% for a 5 years one and you will still get hit by the inflation. You might want to invest those money somewhere else and in some other ways. The stock market might give you excellent entry points soon (if not right now) but since you're very young and inexperienced I strongly recommend to do tons of research and ask for advice from experienced people before you jump into these kind of things by yourself.
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Market Making vs Market Taking (Quotes vs Orders)
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This is too lengthy for a comment. The following quoted passages are excerpted from this Money SE post. Before electronic trading and HFTs specifically, trading was thin and onerous. No. The NYSE and AMEX were deep, liquid and transparent for nearly 75 years prior to high frequency trading (HFT), in 2000 or so. The same is true for NASDAQ, but not for as many years, as NASDAQ is newer, being an electronic market. The point is that it existed, and thrived, prior to HFT. The NASDAQ can be active and functional, WITH or WITHOUT high frequency trading. This is not historically true, nor is it true now: Without a bid or ask at any given time, there could be no trade... Market makers, also known as specialists, were responsible for hitting the bid and taking the offer on whatever security they covered. They had a responsibility assigned to them by the exchange. Yes, it was lucrative! There was risk, and they were rewarded for bearing it. There is a trade-off though. Specialists provided greater stability on a systemic level, although other market participants paid for that cost. Prior to HFT, traders who were not market makers were often bounded by, boxed in, by the toll paid to market makers. Market makers had different, much higher capital and solvency requirements than other traders. Most specialists/market makers had seats, or shared a seat on the NYSE or AMEX. Remember that market makers/specialists are specific to stock markets, whereas HFT is not. If this is true, then we are in trouble: HFTs have supplanted the traditional market maker Why? Because trading volume is LOWER now than it was in the 1990's! EDIT In the comments, I noticed that OP was asking about the difference between I suggest reading this very accurate, well-written answer to a related question, The spread goes to the market maker, is the market maker the exchange? That explains the difference between
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Finding Uncorrelated Assets
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Have a look at: Diversify Portfolio. The site provides various tools all focused on correlation, diversification and portfolio construction. You can scan through every stock and ETF listed on the NASDAQ and NYSE to find any kind of correlation you're looking for. You can also create a portfolio and then analyze all the correlations within it, or search for specific stocks that can be added to the portfolio based on correlation and various other factors.
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Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than “highest interest” first?
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If the balance on the low rate loan is very high (say, an IBR student loan at 6% that accumulates interest every year), and the balance on the high rate loan (say, a CC at 18%) is comparatively very small, then you'd want to make sure that you've at least "stopped the bleeding" on the high balance loan before starting to pay off the CC.
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Why are taxes on actively managed funds higher than those on index funds?
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This depends on the particular index, of course. Capital gains taxes occur when stock is sold (for a profit). This occurs less frequently in an index fund: Where an active manager frequently buys and sells stocks (after all, he wants to be active :-) ), the index fund only sells stocks when the particular stock leaves the index. For an index such as the S&P 500 this does not happen that often. The more specific the criteria of the index fund, the more often the selling of stock and thus the need to pay capital gains taxes occurs.
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Buying an ETF vs. The explicit Index
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To add to Dheer's point, the vast majority of retail investors will have to pay fees and use up a large amount of valuable time on the entrance and exit of each stock, and each and every time you rebalance as the index weightings change. These also add up extremely fast vs the few basis points the large and liquid ETFs charge for this service.
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Company wants to sell all of its assets, worth more than share price?
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The stock exchange here serves as a meeting place for current shareholders who want to sell their shares to someone else. This has nothing to do with liquidation, which is a transaction between the company and its shareholders. A company does not have to be listed on an exchange to make distributions to shareholders.
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Is there anything I can do to prepare myself for the tax consequences of selling investments to buy a house?
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Have you changed how you handle fund distributions? While it is typical to re-invest the distributions to buy additional shares, this may not make sense if you want to get a little cash to use for the home purchase. While you may already handle this, it isn't mentioned in the question. While it likely won't make a big difference, it could be a useful factor to consider, potentially if you ponder how risky is it having your down payment fluctuate in value from day to day. I'd just think it is more convenient to take the distributions in cash and that way have fewer transactions to report in the following year. Unless you have a working crystal ball, there is no way to definitively predict if the market will be up or down in exactly 2 years from now. Thus, I suggest taking the distributions in cash and investing in something much lower risk like a money market mutual fund.
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Uni-Select (UNS.TO) Market Cap Incorrect?
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Note that your link shows the shares as of March 31, 2016 while http://uniselect.com/content/files/Press-release/Press-Release-Q1-2016-Final.pdf notes a 2-for-1 stock split so thus you have to double the shares to get the proper number is what you are missing. The stock split occurred in May and thus is after the deadline that you quoted.
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W-4 and withholding taxes for self-employed spouse
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When you enter your expected gross income into the worksheet - just enter $360000 and leave everything else as is. That should give you the right numbers. Same for State (form DE-4).
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Should a high-school student invest their (relative meager) savings?
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Is investing a good idea with a low amount of money? Yes. I'll take the angle that you CAN invest in penny stocks. There's nothing wrong with that. The (oversimplified) suggestion I would make is to answer the question about your risk aversion. This is the four quadrant (e.g., http://njaes.rutgers.edu:8080/money/riskquiz/) you are introduced to when you first sit down to open your brokerage (stocks) or employer retirement account (401K). Along with a release of liability in the language of "past performance is not an indicator..." (which you will not truly understand until you experience a market crash). The reason I say this is because if you are 100% risk averse, then it is clear which vehicles you want to have in your tool belt; t-bills, CDs, money market, and plain vanilla savings. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. Don't let anyone make you feel otherwise with remarks like "your money is not working for you sitting there". It's extremely important to be absolutely honest with yourself in doing this assessment, too. For example, I thought I was a risk taker except when the market tumbled, I reacted exactly how a knee-jerk investor would. Also, I feel it's not easy to know just how honest you are with yourself as we are humans, and not impartial machines. So the recommendation I would give is to make a strong correlation to casino gambling. In other words, conventional advice is to only take "play money" to the casino. This because you assume you WILL lose it. Then you can enjoy yourself at the casino knowing this is capital that you are okay throwing in the trash. I would strongly caution you to only ever invest capital in the stock market that you characterize as play money. I'm convinced financial advisors, fund managers, friends will disagree. Still, I feel this is the only way you will be completely okay when the market fluctuates -- you won't lose sleep. IF you choose this approach, then you can start investing any time. That five drachma you were going to throw away on lottery tickets? transfer it into your Roth IRA. That twenty yen that you were going to ante in your weekly poker night? transfer it into your index fund. You already got past the investors remorse of (losing) that money. IF you truly accept that amount as play money, then you CAN put it into penny stocks. I'll get lots of criticism here. However, I maintain that once you are truly okay with throwing that cash away (like you would drop it into a slot machine), then it's the same whether you lose it one way or in another investment vehicle.
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Do tax-exempt bond fund earnings need to be reported on taxes?
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Tax-exempt interest (and dividends attributable to tax-exempt interest) is required to be reported on Form 1040 line 8b (or the analogous line of Form 1040A). While it is not directly taxed, it does come into play in the calculation of taxable income and various credits. For example, tax-exempt interest is counted when determining the portion of Social Security benefits to be included in gross income.
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How can I register a UK business without providing a business address?
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You don't have to provide your personal home address per se. You can provide a legal address where Companies house can send across paper correspondence to. Companies house legally requires an address because directors are liable to their shareholders(even if you are the only shareholder) and to stop them from disappearing just like that with shareholder's money. Moreover your birth date will also be visible on websites which provide comapnies information. You can ask these websites to stop sharing your personal information. Every company must have a registered office within the UK which is the official legal address of the company. It must be a physical address (i.e. not a PO Box without a physical location) as Companies House will use this address to send correspondence to. To incorporate a private limited company you need at least one director, who has to be over 16 years of age. You may also have a secretary, but this is optional. The information you will need to supply for each officer includes: You may also have officers that are companies or firms, and for these you will need to supply the company or firm name, its registered office address, details of the legal form of the company, where it is registered and if applicable its registration number.
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Margin Call Question
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The initial position is worth 40000. You post 50% margin, so you deposited 20000 and borrowed 20000. 6% of 20000 is 1200.
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Saving for a non-necessity
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Your question is rather direct, but I think there is some underlying issues that are worth addressing. One How to save and purchase ~$500 worth items This one is the easy one, since we confront it often enough. Never, ever, ever buy anything on credit. The only exception might be your first house, but that's it. Simply redirect the money you would spend in non necessities ('Pleasure and entertainment') to your big purchase fund (the PS4, in this case). When you get the target amount, simply purchase it. When you get your salary use it to pay for the monthly actual necessities (rent, groceries, etc) and go through the list. The money flow should be like this: Two How to evaluate if a purchase is appropriate It seems that you may be reluctant to spend a rather chunky amount of money on a single item. Let me try to assuage you. 'Expensive' is not defined by price alone, but by utility. To compare the price of items you should take into account their utility. Let's compare your prized PS4 to a soda can. Is a soda can expensive? It quenches your thirst and fills you with sugar. Tap water will take your thirst away, without damaging your health, and for a fraction of the price. So, yes, soda is ridiculously expensive, whenever water is available. Is a game console expensive? Sure. But it all boils down to how much do you end up using it. If you are sure you will end up playing for years to come, then it's probably good value for your money. An example of wrongly spent money on entertainment: My friends and I went to the cinema to see a movie without checking the reviews beforehand. It was so awful that it hurt, even with the discount price we got. Ultimately, we all ended up remembering that time and laughing about how wrong it went. So it was somehow, well spent, since I got a nice memory from that evening. A purchase is appropriate if you get your money's worth of utility/pleasure. Three Console and computer gaming, and commendation of the latter There are few arguments for buying a console instead of upgrading your current computer (if needed) except for playing console exclusives. It seems unlikely that a handful of exclusive games can justify purchasing a non upgradeable platform unless you can actually get many hours from said games. Previous arguments to prefer consoles instead of computers are that they work out of the box, capability to easily connect to the tv, controller support... have been superseded by now. Besides, pc games can usually be acquired for a lower price through frequent sales. More about personal finance and investment
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Why would a long-term investor ever chose a Mutual Fund over an ETF?
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First, it's not always the case that ETFs have lower expenses than the equivalent mutual funds. For example, in the Vanguard family of funds the expense ratio for the ETF version is the same as it is for the Admiral share class in the mutual fund version. With that in mind, the main advantages of a mutual fund over an equivalent ETF are: From a long-term investor's point of view, the main disadvantage of mutual funds relative to ETFs is the minimum account sizes. Especially if the fund has multiple share classes (i.e., where better classes get lower expense ratios), you might have to have quite a lot of money invested in the fund in order to get the same expense ratio as the ETF. There are some other differences that matter to more active investors (e.g., intraday trading, options, etc.), but for a passive investor the ones above are the major ones. Apart from those mutual funds and ETFs are pretty similar. Personally, I prefer mutual funds because I'm at a point where the fund minimums aren't really an issue, and I don't want to deal with the more fiddly aspects of ETFs. For investors just starting out the lower minimum investment for an ETF is a big win, as long as you can get commission-free trades (which is what I've assumed above.)
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Do I have to sell worthless stock to claim a loss and clean up?
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Generally, to be able to write off worthless securities, you need to show that they're indeed worthless. It's not necessarily easy, as you need to prove that there's no way they will regain any value in the future. What is usually done, instead, is very simple: you sell them. Many brokers are aware of this problem and will assist by buying these securities from you at a nominal price (E*Trade, for example, for $0.01, ScotTrade for $0.00), and providing a proper trade confirmation. This is a bona fide sale, so if the stock does regain value - it will be a profit for the broker. In this case - you just report it as a sale at loss. Check with your broker if they support such a solution.
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Over the long term, why invest in bonds?
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Many folks use bonds to diversify their portfolio since bonds rise and fall in value at different times and for different reasons than stocks. Bonds pay interest on a regular basis (usually monthly or quarterly) and so some people invest in bonds in order to match the interest payments to some regular expense they might have. The interest payment does not change (fixed income). For individual bonds, there is a maturity date at which you can expect to receive the face value of the bond (the issuer's creditworthiness is important here). You can make a little money on a bond by buying it when its value is lower than its face value and either selling later for a higher value, or waiting for it to mature. Often the minimum investment for a single bond is high, so if you don't have a large enough amount, you can still get the performance of bonds through a bond fund. These do not mature, so you don't have a guarantee of a return of your investment. However, they have access to more bonds than retail investors, so the funds can keep your money more fully invested. If you don't need the income, you can reinvest the dividends and have a little extra capital growth this way.
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Are stock investments less favorable for the smaller investor?
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You have got it wrong. The profit or loss for smaller investor or big investor is same in percentage terms.
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S&P is consistently beating inflation?
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TL;DR: Because stocks represent added value from corporate profits, and not the price the goods themselves are sold at. This is actually a very complicated subject. But here's the simplest answer I can come up with. Stocks are a commodity, just like milk, eggs, and bread. The government only tracks certain commodities (consumables) as part of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). These are generally commodities that the typical person will consume on a daily or weekly basis, or need to survive (food, rent, etc.). These are present values. Stock prices, on the other hand, represent an educated guess (or bet) on a company's future performance. If Apple has historically performed well, and analysts expect it to continue to perform, then investors will pay more for a stock that they feel will continue pay good dividends in the future. Compound this with the fact that there is usually limited a supply of stock for a particular company (unless they issue more stock). If we go back to Apple as an example, they can raise their price they charge on an iPhone from $400 to $450 over the course of say a couple years. Some of this may be due to higher wage costs, but efficiencies in the marketplace actually tend to drive down costs to produce goods, so they will probably actually turn a higher profit by raising their price, even if they have to pay higher wages (or possibly even if they don't raise their price!). This, in economics, is termed value added. Finally, @Hart is absolutely correct in his comment about the stocks in the S&P 500 not being static. Additionally, the S&P 500 is a hand picked set of "winners", if you will. These are not run-of-the-mill penny stocks for companies that will be out of business in a week. These are companies that Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC thinks will perform well.
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What are some good books for learning stocks, bonds, derivatives e.t.c for beginner with a math background?
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My personal favorites are Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives by John C Hull Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman Expected Returns - Antti Ilmanen [check out the video : How to Think About Expected Returns] It is a 600 page book … A summary of it: Without a rational expectation of expected returns, investing can lead to severe disappointment and disillusionment. Making a good model to forecast expected returns is so difficult. Near-term expectation is almost impossible. The key is very very much about focusing on the long-term, and on getting returns that are feasible, not outlandish. There are three pillars that are central: Practically, the work of an investment manager today involves finding many different sources of returns, and diversifying effectively between them, and finally being humble about what returns we can expect today.
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