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Why are residential investment properties owned by non-professional investors and not large corporations? | As other answers have pointed out, professional real estate investors do own residential investment properties. However, small residential units typically are not owned by professional real estate investors as your experience confirms. This has a fairly natural cause. The size of the investment opportunity is insuffici... |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | MoneyDance Is the way to go. I've been using it for years and it works well. It keeps getting better, and best of all, it's completely cross platform! Mac, Windows and linux! |
Ways to save for child's college education where one need not commit to set contributions? [duplicate] | 529 plans. They accumulate earnings over time and by the time your child goes to college you will be able to withdraw funds for college TAX FREE. The best part about 529s is that there are several different options you can choose from, and you aren't limited to the plans sponsored by your state, you can use whichever... |
What are my options to deal with Student Loan debt collectors? | You should hire a lawyer. The fact that they told you your personal information shows that they actually had it, and are not imposters, which is a good thing. The fact that they mislead you means that their intentions are not pure (which is not surprising coming from a collection agency of course). When dealing with co... |
Can I participate in trading Facebook shares on their IPO day from any brokerage? | By definition, an IPO'd stock is publicly traded, and you can buy shares if you wish. There's often an excitement on the first day that doesn't carry over to the next days or weeks. The opening price may be well above the IPO price, depending on that demand. |
Do options always expire on third Friday of every month | Prior to 2005, the only SPY options that existed were the monthly ones that expire on the third Friday of every month. But in 2005, the Chicago Board Options Exchange introduced SPY weekly options that expire every Friday (except that there is no weekly option that expires on the same day as a monthly option). These ... |
Why are earning credit card rewards often tied to groceries and gas? | Every reward program has to have a funding source. If the card gives you x percent back on all purchases. That means that their business is structured to entice you to pump more transactions through the system. Either their other costs are lower, or the increased business allows them to make more money off of late fees... |
How does Robinhood stock broker make money? | Robinhood seems interesting. Some say it's a gimmicky site with a nice UI not an investing or trading platform. From investopedia: 1. For now, the app stays afloat for mainly two reasons. First, the business itself is extremely lean: no physical locations, a small staff, no massive public relations campaigns and only... |
Is there a way to claim a car purchase in the tax return? | You've got two options. Deduct the business portion of the depreciation and actual expenses for operating the car. Use the IRS standard mileage rate of $.575/mile in 2015. Multiply your business miles by the rate to calculate your deduction. Assuming you're a sole proprietor you'll include a Schedule C to your retur... |
How do I analyse moving averages? | If you are going to be a long term investor you are only going to buy and hold. You will not sell. Thus future price is not relevant. Only dividend payout is relevant. Divide the dividend by the price you paid to get the yeald. Edit: once again the sitesite will not allow me to add a comment, so I have to edit a prev... |
Will a credit card company close my account if I stop using it? | The answer is maybe. I had a Chase card without a purchase in over 4 years get canceled out of the blue, without so much as a notification telling me it was at risk for cancelation. They told me they typically close accounts after 24 months of inactivity (not including card fees) but let mine go for longer because I ha... |
After a stock dividend, how do you calculate holding periods for capital gains taxes? | Stock acquired through a (non-taxable) stock dividend has the same holding period as the stock on which the dividend was paid. |
Is it a good strategy to +cash out refi every six months? | When you refinance, there is cost (guess: around $2000-$3000) to cover lawyers, paperwork, surveys, deed insurance, etc. etc. etc. Someone has to pay that cost, and in the end it will be you. Even if you get a "no points no cost" loan, the cost is going to be hidden in the interest rate. That's the way transactions wit... |
What is the median retirement savings in the United States today? | Social security and pensions make up a big part of it. You may want to look at the source of the data. If a person, has 5K at Vanguard, 5K at Fidelity and 100K at the bank; Fidelity will report on that person as having only 5K. Vanguard will do the same. The opening pitch of a life insurance salesman sometimes inclu... |
How can I find out which ETFs has holdings in a particular stock? | This ETFchannel.com page shows which ETFs hold Wells Fargo and you can search other stocks the get the same information on that site. This the same information for Google This even tells you what percentage of an ETF is a particular stock. Be warned that this site is not entirely free. You will be limited to 6 pages i... |
What are the tax implications on selling the Share ISA portfolio? | Assets held within an ISA or New ISA are completely free of CGT, so you won't have to pay either income tax or capital gains tax. |
Clarification on student expenses - To file the tax for the next year | Assuming here that you're talking about deducting your tuition as a below the line deduction as a business expense or similar, then it depends. Per 1.162-5, if the education: Then it qualifies as a legitimate business expense and is deductible. If not - if you're going to school for a different career, such as someone... |
What are the common moving averages used in a “Golden Cross” stock evaluation? | Technical analysis is insufficient. You're halfway to figuring it out if you start to question why a 50 day moving average vs 200 vs 173. Invest in companies that are attractively valued vs. their sales/growth/divends/anythingelsereal |
Should I buy my house from my landlord? | Can he legally break your lease if he sells the place? If not I would just keep renting. It doesn't sound like you love the house and you plan on moving or would prefer a different type of place long term. Unless you yourself plan on getting involved in being a renting it out to others in the future - just rent and mo... |
Why does a stock price drop as soon an I purchase several thousand shares at market price? | You might consider learning how the "matching" or "pairing" system in the market operates. The actual exchange only happens when both a buyer and a seller overlap their respect quotes. Sometimes orders "go to market" for a particular volume. Eg get me 10,000 Microsoft shares now. which means that the price starts ... |
What's the purpose of having separate checking and savings accounts? | If your debit card/ATM card is stolen or lost, someone else might be able to withdraw money from the checking account that it is tied to, or buy things with the card and have the money taken out of the checking account to pay the merchant. Subject to daily withdrawal limits imposed by your bank, a considerable amount o... |
Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | The game is not zero sum. When a friend and I chop down a tree, and build a house from it, the house has value, far greater than the value of a standing tree. Our labor has turned into something of value. In theory, a company starts from an idea, and offers either a good or service to create value. There are scams tha... |
Filing Form 7004 if an LLC's only members are husband and wife | Since you both are members of the LLC - it is not a single-member LLC, thus you have to file the tax return on behalf of the LLC (I'm guessing you didn't elect corporate treatment, so you would be filing 1065, which is the default). You need to file form 4868 on behalf of yourselves as individuals, and form 7004 on beh... |
Online brokers with a minimum stock purchase lower than $500 | With InteractiveBrokers there is no minimum trade amount, they also offer Australian Equities. |
How should I begin investing real money as a student? | Without knowing what you are trying to achieve - make a bit of pocket money, become financially independent, invest for retirement, learn trading to become a trader - I'll give you a few thoughts ... The difficulty you will have trading with $400-600 is that brokerage will be a high proportion of your "profits". I'm n... |
Can I make my savings keep in check with or beat inflation over a long time period via index funds? | See the following information: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Treasury_Inflation_Protected_Security You can buy individual bonds or you can purchase many of them together as a mutual fund or ETF. These bonds are designed to keep pace with inflation. Buying individual inflation-protected US government bonds is about as... |
Covered calls: How to handle this trade? | Your broker likely didn't close your position out because it is a covered position. Why interfere with a trade that has no risk to it, from their perspective? There's no risk for the broker since your account holds the shares available for delivery (definition of covered), for if and when the options you wrote (sold) a... |
Question about being a resident | One thing to consider besides what rules Oregon has, is what rules your old state have. Of course the lack of income tax in Nevada means that most people are trying to convince their new state they are still a resident of Nevada. You are a full-year Oregon resident if you live in Oregon all year. You are also a full-... |
What is the best, low risk investment I can make now? | First of all, bear in mind that there's no such thing as a risk-free investment. If you keep your money in the bank, you'll struggle to get a return that keeps up with inflation. The same is true for other "safe" investments like government bonds. Gold and silver are essentially completely speculative investments; over... |
Have my parents been bilked? If so, what to do? | If they made deposits 20 years ago, and none since, the S&P is up over 300% since then. i.e. a return of $40,000 on $10,000 invested. We wouldn't expect to see that full return, as a prudent mix of stock and bonds (or any treasury bills/CDs, etc) would lower the overall return during this period. Advice "Transfer the ... |
What is a good investment vehicle for introducing kids to investing? | Buy them a physical stock certificate... you can request them from a broker, or buy through a company like http://www.oneshare.com. Other options: |
How can I calculate interest portion of income when selling a stock? | When you sell the stock your income is from the difference of prices between when you bought the stock and when you sold it. There's no interest there. The interest is in two places: the underlying company assets (which you own, whether you want it or not), and in the distribution of the income to the owners (the divid... |
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house | I would strongly try to influence circumstances so that buying is feasible. That means: Buy something where it is likely that you can resell it at the same price or even higher - or, at the least for significantly more than "total cost of ownership - rent payed elsewhere". For example, if it is in an area where you hav... |
What ETF best tracks the price of gasoline, or else crude oil? | UNG United States Natural Gas Fund Natural Gas USO United States Oil Fund West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil UGA United States Gasoline Fund Gasoline DBO PowerShares DB Oil Fund West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil UHN United States Heating Oil Fund Heating Oil I believe these are as close as you'... |
What types of receipts do I need to keep for itemized tax deductions? | I err on the side of saving all of mine for a while. Just toss them in a box at least. A years' worth is about the size of a shoebox. I started doing this because one year, about a week after I tossed my receipts for the year, I realized that I had a fair bit of allotment left on my flexible savings account to use up... |
How to find a good third-party, 401k management/advice service? | Any fee based financial adviser should be able to help you. I don't think you need to worry about finding a 401K specific adviser. I'm not even sure that's a thing. A good place to start is the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. The reason I specifically mentioned a fee based adviser is that the free ... |
Getting (historical) Standard & Poor Stock Guides | Log in to your Scottrade account, and goto Markets --> Analyst Views --> Click the PDF link for the company. Also, there is also the 'Views and News' part of the web page which has additional information beyond what exist in the reports. |
Privacy preferences on creditworthiness data | See the first item in the list: For our everyday business purposes – such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureaus Note that there's no option for you to limit this sharing. Credit reporting is the business need of the b... |
What's the point of a benchmark? | One reason it matters whether or not you're beating the S&P 500 (or the Wilshire 5000, or whatever benchmark you choose to use) is to determine whether or not you'd be better off investing in an index fund (or some other investment vehicle) instead of pursuing whatever your current investment strategy happens to be. E... |
First time home buyer. How to negotiate price? | In this case, trust the real estate agent; negotiating experience is one of the things you selected them for. Especially if they're suggesting a lower number than you expected, since they get paid on commission and so may be biased the other way. Part of their job is to look for hints about how motivated this seller i... |
Can stock brokerage firms fail? | Brokerages are supposed to keep your money separate from theirs. So, even if they fail as a company, your money and investments are still there, and can be transferred to another brokerage. It doesn't matter if it's an IRA or taxable account. Of course, as is the case with MF Global, if illegally take their client's m... |
Who can truly afford luxury cars? | Most of the people I know that own them are slightly older, and thus in their prime earning years, and many have paid off their homes. That can free up $1000 a month or more in monthly expenses, which would easily cover a nice luxury car payment. If you've got it, and are into cars, why not? What's the point in having... |
Strategies for paying off my Student loans | My advice is that if you've got the money now to pay off your student loans, do so. You've saved up all of that money in one year's time. If you pay it off now, you'll eliminate all of those monthly payments, you'll be done paying interest, and you should be able to save even more toward your business over the next y... |
US citizen married to non-resident alien; how do I file taxes? | Congrats on the upcoming wedding! Here is the official answer to this question, from the IRS. They note that you can choose to treat your spouse as a US resident for tax purposes and file jointly if you want to, by attaching a certain declaration to your tax return. Though I'm not a tax expert, if your partner has sig... |
Ways to establish credit history for international student | I think you should try to talk with the credit union at your campus first, they may have offer you a credit card even you don't have any credit history. |
How smart is it really to take out a loan right now? | You are not "the economy". The economy is just the aggregate of what is going on with everyone else. You should make the decision based on your own situation now and projected into the future as best you can. Loan rates ARE at historical lows, so it is a great time to take a loan if you actually need one for some reaso... |
Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply? | A 'Call' gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock at a particular price. The price, called the "strike price" is fixed when you buy the option. Let's run through an example - AAPL trades @ $259. You think it's going up over the next year, and you decide to buy the $280 Jan11 call for $12. Here are t... |
Best steps to start saving money for a fresh grad in Singapore? | Firstly, make sure annual income exceeds annual expenses. The difference is what you have available for saving. Secondly, you should have tiers of savings. From most to least liquid (and least to most rewarding): The core of personal finance is managing the flow of money between these tiers to balance maximizing retur... |
Is there any downside to using temporary credit card numbers with subscription services? | If you've agreed to pay the money, then you owe them whether they have a valid credit card number of yours or not. If they want to report your debt to a collections agency and/or credit bureau, they can. Which would suck for you. It may not be that likely over $9.99 or whatever, but my point is that it's still a small ... |
Stock options: what happens if I leave a company and then an acquisition is finalized? | Having stock options means that you have worked for and rightfully earned a part of the company's capital appreciation. Takeover of the company would indicate someone is interested in the company (something should be valuable). It would be unwise to not strike before the period lapses since the strike price is always l... |
Changes in Capital Gains Tax in the US - Going to 20% in 2011? | Consider doing things that will allow for tax deductions, such as short selling. The IRS has regulations on this as well. And consider that Futures are taxed more favorably than other kinds of investments. (60% taxed as long term, 40% taxed as short term) |
What is the best way for me to invest my money into my own startup? | Ask your accountant about convertable preference shares. This would permit you to loan money to your company and then convert the debt to equity, should you so choose, at a later stage. As with the answer by bstpierre, these are all contractual arrangements conducted at arms-length. |
Does my net paycheck decrease as the year goes on due to tax brackets filling up? | Most countries with income tax, including the USA, design their withholding system so that in straightforward cases, tax is withheld from each month's paycheck on an annualized basis: tax for a month is calculated on the assumption that you will keep earning the same monthly amount for the rest of the year, and the wit... |
Investing small amounts at regular intervals while minimizing fees? | You could just commingle your funds. That way, she also learns how to keep track of things and how to figure things out, rather just learning to have the guy at the brokerage hand her an account statement which she blindly accepts. It might cause some tax problems though if the money grows to be substantial. |
Are in-kind donations from my S-Corp tax-deductible in any way? | The relevant IRS publication is 526, Charitable Contributions. The section titled "Contributions you cannot deduct" begins on page 6; item 4 reads: "The value of your time or services." I read that to mean that, if the website you built were a product, you could deduct its value. I don't understand the legal distinctio... |
Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him? | You are conflating two different types of risk here. First, you want to invest money, and presumably you're not looking at the "lowest risk, lowest returns" end of the spectrum. This is an inherently risky activity. Second, you are in a principal-agent relationship with your advisor, and are exposed to the risk of yo... |
Should I set a stop loss for long term investments? | My broker offers the following types of sell orders: I have a strategy to sell-half of my position once the accrued value has doubled. I take into account market price, dividends, and taxes (Both LTgain and taxes on dividends). Once the market price exceeds the magic trigger price by 10%, I enter a "trailing stop %" ... |
My boss wants to buy me a gift. How do I account for taxes for this? | Gifts given and received between business partners or employers/employees are treated as income, if they are beyond minimal value. If your boss gives you a gift, s/he should include it as part of your taxable wages for payroll purposes - which means that some of your wages should be withheld to cover income, social sec... |
What happens to my stocks when broker goes bankrupt? | Here is my perception of the situation, obtained from reading Degiro's Client Agreement. If Degiro shuts down, it will notify you about the fact at least one month in advance, and you will have enough time to order a transfer of your positions to a different broker. If Degiro shuts down unexpectedly, your assets will r... |
How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score? | I wrote an article about FICO scoring which shows that 30% of your score is based on utilization or amount owed. I can't say exactly how much your score will rise, or how long it will take, but your score will improve dramatically from what you propose. This chart is from Credit Karma, and it shows how zero utilizat... |
Can my rent to own equity be used as a downpayment? | I think you need to go to a local bank and ask. The key thing is paper trail. For any mortgage I've gotten on a new purchase, the bank needs to see where the down payment came from and how it got to the seller. In this case, it can go either way. If the value is truly 100% to the 80% you are looking to finance, and the... |
Is there legal reason for restricting someone under 59-1/2 from an in-service rollover from a 401K to an IRA? | I don't think there's a rule -- (I can't comment) but Brick cited IRS rules...but IMO Brick missed one thing -- @ashur668 is not looking for a distribution, but is looking for a rollover. My best guess: that this part of the ruleset is not well defined, and your (and my) employer have chosen to interpret any withdrawl... |
Malaysian real estate: How to know if the market is overheated or in a bubble? | I think the only sure way to know if there is a bubble is to wait till it bursts and buy then. If it would be easy to tell there wouldn't be any bubbles. |
Is a fixed-price natural gas or electricity contract likely to save money? | The answer to this question will vary considerably by state and how utilities are regulated in your area. In New York, ESCOs (Energy Supply Companies) are almost always a ripoff for consumers versus the old-style regulated utility (in NY the utility supply markups are tightly regulated, but ESCOs are less regulated). ... |
How does Value Averaging work in practice? | Value averaging has you shift the balance of your portfolio over time, not the amount of contributions. So you can only do it if you have a portfolio holding both risky assets (shares etc) and some cash. You start out by making a plan about how much you will contribute every month and at what rate you expect the share... |
Regarding Australian CBS takeover of TEN | they are purchasing the company" is this correct? Yes this is correct. If I purchase a "company" here in Australia, I also purchase its assets and liabilities Yes that is correct. How can it be NIL? How can it be legal? The value of shares [or shareholders] is Assets - liabilities. Generally a healthy company has Asset... |
Saving up for an expensive car | The question is how does $16,000/year for 6.5 years fit into your budget. Or to put it another way, what won't you be spending that money on? Housing, food, vacations, retirement fund, investments (though you can invest your car fund in the meantime), building a hefty emergency fund, kids college funds, saving for a do... |
Does Apple have $0 of treasury stock? | Treasury stock is not really represented in the Balance Sheet as a "Treasury stock" line item in the assets. Some companies will break out Treasury Shares as a line item in the "Shareholders Equity" heading of the balance sheet but Apple hides it in the "Shares Issued and Outstanding" counts under the "Shareholders Eq... |
Why are credit cards preferred in the US? | Personally, I use my credit cards for everything because I get reward points (or, cash back, depending on the card), and I build credit history. I've had credit cards since I was 18 (now 22), and my credit score is in the higher end 700s which I'm told is pretty good for my age. Additionally, since I put my rent and la... |
Taxes due for hobbyist Group Buy | From the poster's description of this activity, it doesn't look like he is engaged in a business, so Schedule C would not be appropriate. The first paragraph of the IRS Instructions for Schedule C is as follows: Use Schedule C (Form 1040) to report income or loss from a business you operated or a profession you pract... |
Why does it take so long to refund to credit card? | It's not usually apparent to the average consumer, but there's actually two stages to collecting a payment, and two ways to undo it. The particular combination that occurs may lead to long refund times, on top of any human delays (like Ben Miller's answer addresses). When you pay with a credit card, it is typically on... |
How high should I set my KickStarter funding goal in order to have $35,000 left over? | I think you might be missing something important here. If you are running a business, then any expenses that your business incurs are deductible. Yes, Kickstarter would report the full amount. The IRS requires them to report everything that you raised. However, the Kickstarter and Amazon fees would be a business expen... |
What is an “at close order” in the stock market? | Usually backtests for (long-term) strategies are evaluated on a end-of-day basis where you only consider close prices. If your strategy performs well in these backtests, hopes are that if you use a market-on-close (MOC) order your performance will not diverge too much from the backtest. The fact that it won't diverge m... |
If I have all this stock just sitting there, how can I lend it out to people for short selling? | You just disclosed that you are new investor to the stock market. I'd advise that you first understand investing a bit better, as most will advise that investors need to be above a certain level before picking individual stocks. That said, most stocks trade in high enough volume and have low enough short interest that... |
Is it safer to send credit card number via unsecured website form or by e-mail? What safer options are there? | Here's one option: Telephone is a lower-tech yet relatively more secure means for transmitting your payment information when a secure web site isn't available. And yet another option: You could send them an encrypted email, but this would require tools (e.g. GPG), setup (public keys), and expertise on their end which... |
If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down? | As others have already pointed out, the bank isn't getting your money upfront - the cash goes to the dealer and the bank will be financing you a much smaller amount. They really don't have any incentive to give you a better interest rate, but it never hurts to ask. The more important (and unasked) question is should yo... |
Are large companies more profitable than small ones? | There is no general theory to support the notion that larger companies will be more profitable than smaller companies. Economies of scale are not always positive, one can have diseconomies of scale too. It is more common to talk about an optimal firm size, even going back to Stigler's (1958) "The Economies of Scale.... |
How does stock dilution work in relation to share volume? | Let me answer with an extreme example - I own the one single share of a company, and it's worth $1M. I issue 9 more shares, and find 9 people willing to pay $1M for each share. I know find my ownership dropped by 90%, and I am now a 10% owner of a business that was valued at $1M but with an additional $9M in the bank f... |
Multiple people interested in an Apartment | I don't know how many people "a ton" is, but if you are getting more than, say, 6 people who are qualified to rent, you've priced it too low. Better to ask for $1200, and have a potential tenant haggle or ask you to reduce the price than to have 6 people want it for $900. It's worth it to run a credit report, and let ... |
Should I refi a rental property to reduce income tax from positive cash flow and use the equity pulled out to fund an annuity? | You need to do a bit more research and as @littleadv often wisely advises, consult a professional, in this case a tax layer or CPA. You are not allowed to just pull money out of a property and write off the interest. From Deducting Mortgage Interest FAQs If you own rental property and borrow against it to buy a home, ... |
Should I have more than one brokerage account? | I believe the answer here is no: SIPC protection of customers with multiple accounts is determined by "separate capacity." Each separate capacity is protected up to $500,000 for securities and cash (including a $250,000 limit for cash only). Accounts held in the same capacity are combined for purposes of the SIPC prote... |
Is there anything I can do to prepare myself for the tax consequences of selling investments to buy a house? | 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 bi... |
Are there special exceptions to the rule that (US) capital gains taxes are owed only when the gain materializes? | In addition to the expatriation case already mentioned by Ben Miller, traders/investors are required to use mark-to-market accounting on certain investments. These go by Section 1256 contracts due to the part of the law that defines them. Mark-to-market is also required on straddles (combination of a long and and a ... |
What should I be aware of as a young investor? | I'm 39 and have been investing since my very early 20's, and the advice I'd like to go back and give myself is the following: 1) Time is your friend. Compounding interest is a powerful force and is probably the most important factor to how much money you are going to wind up with in the end. Save as much as you possibl... |
My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking? | Wrong way round. Transitional arrangements are non-binding guidelines that the lenders can observe if they choose to. The borrower - like your friend - doesn't get to choose whether to use them or not. Your friend obviously can't afford the property, so if you do this, all I can say is congratulations on buying your n... |
Employer reported ESPP ordinary income on wrong year's W-2 | You mentioned that the 1099B that reports this sale is for 2014, which means that you got the proceeds in 2014. What I suspect happened was that the employer reported this on the next available paycheck, thus reporting it in the 2015 period. If this ends up being a significant difference for you, I'd argue the employer... |
Lease vs buy car with cash? | If you are talking straight dollars then leasing is always a losing proposition when compared with purchasing. The financial workings of leasing are so confusing that people don’t realize that leasing invariably costs more than an equivalent loan. And even if they did, the extra cost is difficult to calculate. Stil... |
What is a bond fund? | As Michael Pryor answered, a bond fund is a mutual fund that invests in bonds. I'd also consider an ETF based on bonds to be a bond fund, but I'm not sure that all investors would consider these as "bond funds". Not all bond funds are the same -- just like stock funds. You can classify bond funds based on the issuer of... |
In Australia, how to battle credit card debt? | Short-term, getting a balance transfer will help. It'll reduce the interest you pay. You can also reduce the interest you pay on your cars if you are able to consolidate your debt into a personal loan. To your question about debt consolidation companies, as far as I know, that's all they do. However, long-term, there... |
Having a separate bank account for business/investing, but not a “business account?” | Having a separate checking account for the business makes sense. It simplifies documenting your income/expenses. You can "explain" every dollar entering and exiting the account without having to remember that some of them were for non-business items. My credit union allowed me to have a 2nd checking account and allowed... |
How is “The People's Trust” not just another Investment Trust? | Well the People's Trust's IPO prospectus is now (2017-09-08) available for all to read (or there's a smaller "information leaflet"). (May need some disclaimers to be clicked to get access). Both have a "highlights" bullet-point list: Coverage here has a comment thread with some responses by the founder attempting to ... |
How do I get rid of worthless penny stocks if there is no volume (so market/limit orders don't work) and my broker won't buy them from me? | I dug up an old article on Motley Fool and one approach they mention is to get the stock certificates and then sell them to a friend: If the company was liquidated, you should receive a 1099-DIV form at year's end showing a liquidating distribution. Treat this as if you sold the stock for the amount of the distrib... |
Why would preferred shares have less potential for capital gain compared to common stock? | True blue preferred shares are considered loose hybrids of credit and equity. They are more senior than common equity in bankruptcy liquidation but pay out a dividend which is not mandatory. Financial institutions issue the bulk of genuine preferred shares because of their need for more flexibility than a bond but not... |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | www.mint.com is a very good web site that can upload your financial data from your bank and analyze it for you. Security concerns seem to have been addressed reassuringly. |
How to take advantage of home appreciation | There are basically two ways to get value out of an appreciating asset such as a home: (a) Sell it and take the profit. In the case of a home, you presumably still have to live somewhere, so unless you buy a cheaper home to replace it, this doesn't get you anywhere. If you can get another house that is just as nice and... |
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance? | It depends. "High net worth individuals" is very subjective. Lets say a person is worth 1.5 million. High, but not super high. For one, they should have an umbrella policy. Until your net worth is above 300K, you really don't need an umbrella policy. They should insure their home and cars, but should probably ha... |
How to decide which private student loan is right for me? | I speak from a position of experience, My BS and MS are both in Comp Sci. I know very little about loans or finances. That is very unfortunate as you are obviously an intelligent human being. Perhaps this is a good time to pause your formal education and get educated in personal finance. To me, it is that important. ... |
What are some good ways to control costs for groceries? | If you are willing to use one main credit card for shopping, use a grocery points rewards card like PC Financial Mastercard. Pay for the groceries using the card to earn points and use those points to reduce costs. The only limitation is that you must shop at Loblaws, Superstore, No Frills, Zehrs, Fortinos. It works... |
Diversification reduces risk, but does this base on the assumption that expected return of each asset is always in proportion to its risk? | If you have 100% of your money in one security that is inherently more risky than splitting your money 50/50 between two securities, regardless of the purported riskiness of the two securities. The calculations people use to justify their particular breed of diversification may carry some assumptions related risk/rewar... |
Why are capital gains taxed at a lower rate than normal income? | Here are three key factors that you do not explicitly state: So while I cannot say exactly why the tax law is the way it is, I can infer that it encourages long-term investments rather than short-term, which would seem to be a good thing for society overall. The fast that capital gains are taxed at all somewhat discou... |
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