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Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire? | A lot of people do this. For example, in my area nice townhouses go for about $400K, so if you have $80,000 you can buy one and rent it. Here are the typical numbers: So you would make $350 per month or $4,200 per year on $80,000 in capital or about 5% profit. What can go wrong: (1) The property does not rent and sits ... |
How should I pay off my private student loans that have a lot of restrictions? | The one thing that I saw in here that raised a big red flag is that you said you "overpaid" on your interest. ALWAYS make sure you tell them that any extra money should be applied to principal only, not to interest. You accrue interest based on your outstanding principal amount, so getting that lower reduces the over... |
Premium classification when selling covered calls in a traditional IRA? | If you hold stock in a traditional IRA and sell a covered call against that stock, the premium received for writing that call belongs to the IRA just as would any other gain, dividend, or interest. It is not a contribution but simply adds to the balance in the IRA. The nature of the gain (capital or ordinary) is not ... |
Should I stockpile nickels? | The question I think is not: "What is a certain material worth in a coin" but "What is a certain material worth in a coin and how much does it cost to get it out of there". Just because something contains a certain element doesn't mean that you can get to it cheaply. Also as George Marian said: I don't think that it is... |
What is title insurance, and should I get title insurance for my home? | Here is a pretty exhaustive article on that question. Long story short, it is an insurance policy against the possibility that the person selling the property to you doesn't legally own it. If there was some mistake or fraud along the way the proper owner could theoretically repossess the property without you getting y... |
Is there a legal deadline for when your bank/brokerage has to send your tax forms to you? | I can't find specific information for Form 1099-DIV for this tax year. However, I found this quote for next tax season that talks about Form 1099-B: Due date for certain statements sent to recipients. The due date for furnishing statements to recipients for Forms 1099-B, 1099-S, and 1099-MISC (if amounts are rep... |
Are warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club worth it? | Also don't just assume that everything that Costco or Sams (we use Costco) sells is cheaper. Still shop around and look for the best price. For us it is definitely worth it. |
Why do new car loans, used car loans, and refinanced loans have different rates and terms? | New car loans, used car loans, and refinances have different rates because they have different risks associated with them, different levels of ability to recoup losses if there is a default, and different customer profiles. (I'm assuming third party lender for all of these questions, not financing the dealer arranges,... |
When trading put options, is your total risk decreased if you are in a position to exercise the option? | In absolute terms the risk is about the same. If you own the stock and your put option goes in the money, then you have the option to get rid of your stock at yesterday's higher price. If you don't, you can sell the option for a higher price than you paid for it. But, as you calculated yourself, the net gain or loss ... |
I am looking for software to scan and read receipts | Try the following apps/services: Receipt Bank (paid service, gathers paper receipts, scans them and processes the data), I've tested it, and it recognizing receipts very well, taking picture is very quick and easy, then you can upload the expenses into your accounting software by a click or automatically (e.g. FreeAgen... |
How to motivate young people to save money | Talk freely about what you can now do because of saving. If you plan to retire sooner than most, or more comfortably than most, and can tie that to something you want them to do, show them that. If you buy a very nice car, or install a pool, and they wish they could afford that, tell them it took 5 or 10 or 20 years to... |
What's a good way to find someone locally to help me with my investments? | I strongly suggest personal referral. Ask all of your friends/family/neighbors/co-workers/dog-sitter what they think of their brokers until you find someone who loves his broker. As for transferring assets, I've found it to be quite easy. It's in the new broker's best interest to get those assets, so he should be more ... |
Mutual Funds Definition and Role | I think you are asking about actively managed funds vs. indexes and possibly also vs. diversified funds like target date funds. This is also related to the question of mutual fund vs. ETF. First, a fund can be either actively managed or it can attempt to track an index. An actively managed fund has a fund manager who t... |
$65000/year or $2500 every two weeks: If I claim 3 exemptions instead of zero, how much would my take home pay be? | I use paycheckcity.com and first punch in my paycheck and make sure it calculates within a few pennies the value of my actual paycheck. Then I fiddle with withholding values, etc. to see the effect of change. It has been very effective for me over the years. |
Is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets? | Your questions In the world of technical analysis, is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets? It depends on how you define effective. But as a standalone and systematic strategy, it tends not to be profitable. See for example Market Timing with Candlestick Technical Analysis: Using robust ... |
How do you translate a per year salary into a part-time per hour job? | There is no fixed formulae, its more of how much you can negotiate Vs how many others are willing to work at a lower cost. Typically in software industry the rates for part time work would be roughly in the range of 1.5 to 2 times that of the full time work for the same job. With the above premise roughly the company w... |
Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains? | The technical term for it is "timing the market" and if you can pull it off correctly, you will do quite well. The problem is that it is almost impossible to consistently do well. If it were that easy there would be a lot of billionaires walking around. Even Wall street experts haven't been able to predict the market t... |
Payroll question | That $200 extra that your employer withheld may already have been sent on to the IRS. Depending on the size of the employer, withholdings from payroll taxes (plus employer's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes) might be deposited in the US Treasury within days of being withheld. So, asking the employer to reimb... |
Payroll reimbursments | What they are doing is wrong. The IRS and the state might not be happy with what they are doing. One thing you can ask for them to do is to give you a credit card for business and travel expenses. You will still have to submit receipts for expenses, but it will also make it clear to the IRS that these checks are not i... |
Will prices really be different for cash and cards? | I think the question relates to the discussion here: http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2010/10/05/19449/ It was always the case that merchants could discount purchases made with cash. What wasn't allowed is allowing the merchant to charge extra for credit card transactions (presumably to cover the fees the merc... |
A calculator that takes into account portfolio rebalancing? | R has really good package that lets you calculate the return of rebalanced portfolios. The package is called: PerformanceAnalytics (see: http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/PerformanceAnalytics/docs/Return.portfolio). I quickly wrote a small script for you that lets you do exactly what you want. Code: By default the... |
Are there special exceptions to the rule that (US) capital gains taxes are owed only when the gain materializes? | This is really an extended comment on the last paragraph of @BenMiller's answer. When (the manager of) a mutual fund sells securities that the fund holds for a profit, or receives dividends (stock dividends, bond interest, etc.), the fund has the option of paying taxes on that money (at corporate rates) and distributin... |
How to motivate young people to save money | As a 20 year old who has just started earning enough to save, I suggest showing them the different types of lifestyles they could live in the future if they started saving now versus what their life would be like if they didn't save at all. Try showing them actual dollar values as well so it's not just an arbitrary ide... |
Insurance, healthcare provider, apparent abuse, lack of transparency | Just as with any other service provider - vote with your wallet. Do not go back to that doctor's office, and make sure they know why. It's unheard of that a service provider will not disclose the anticipated charges ahead of time. A service provider saying "we won't tell you how much we charge" is a huge red flag, and ... |
Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? | Yes, in 2 ways: As you mention, the price of a home generally grows with inflation - along with other factors (supply and demand in local markets, etc.). Through financing. If you finance 80% of your purchase today, in 2014 dollars, you will pay back in future dollars. Those future dollars are worth less, because of in... |
Why do employer contributions count against HSA limits? | Just like all employee benefits there is a focus on removing or limiting owners of businesses' ability to abuse tax preferences under the guise of an employee benefit. As you point out there is an overall plan maximum 401(k) for employer contributions and match contributions. There is a nondiscrimination test for FSA ... |
Should I cancel an existing credit card so I can open another that has rewards? | Cancelled cards don't fall off the system for a long time, up to ten years. Card terms change, with notice of course, but it can happen at any time. I had a card with a crazy perk, 5% back in Apple Gift cards. This was pre-iPod days, but it was great to get a new computer every two years for free. But it was short liv... |
How to incentivize a real-estate broker to find me a cheap house | Having just gone through this process as a buyer via broker in Israel, here are my thoughts: Tl;dr: An incentive such as you are suggesting would not be particularly helpful. In this case, your best option is to spend your efforts shopping for a broker that you can trust. The rest: Your main concern is that the broker ... |
Are PINs always needed for paying with card? | For the first part of your question; Refer to related question Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card? The other case of Airport ticket machines, requires the physical presence of card. The assumption is that if you had the card before and after the transaction, it was you... |
What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? | What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? The company's potential residual assets. When a company goes bankrupt it is required to sell its assets to pay off its debts. The funds raised from selling assets go to the following entities: The usual order of debt repayment, in terms of the lender, will be the government... |
How are the best way to make and save money at 22 years old | Make sure you have a budget, there is a pretty cool budget tracker that you can download here (it works in excel and is easy to use). The important thing is to not only make a budget but also keep in touch and track your budget, some free ebooks and other investment ebooks too. Just start with the budget tracker: htt... |
Could capital gains from a stock sale impact my IRA eligibility? | Yes, eligibility for contributing to a Roth IRA is determined by your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) which is based on your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). Now, AGI includes the net capital gains from your transactions and MAGI adds back in things that were subtracted off (e.g. tuition deductions, foreign earned in... |
Where are all those unsold vehicles? | Other than being reduced to clear as others have suggested quite a few get sold to large motor stores. You can often go in and find last years model with around delivery mileage at a very knocked down rate because most people would prefer the latest model direct from the dealer. Doing this allows dealers to clear old s... |
What types of ETFs are taxed differently by the IRS? | Investopedia laid out the general information of tax treatment on the ETF fund structures as well as their underlying asset classes: http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0213/how-tax-treatments-of-etfs-work.aspx |
Where can I get interesting resources on Commodities? | I would recommend that go through some forums where commodities topics be discussed so that if you have some issues related any point in commodities investment you will easily get your question sort out. |
Can I request to change 401k offerings from my employer, e.g. to invest in ETFs? | See if any of the funds they offer are index funds, which will generally have MUCH lower fees and which seem to perform as well as any of the actively managed funds in the same categories. |
ESPP strategy - Sell right away or hold? | For ESPP, the discount that you get is taxed as ordinary income. Capital gains is taxed at the appropriate rate, which is different based on how long you hold it. So, yes, if the stock is going up, |
How can I help my friend change his saving habits? | Get him the book "Total Money Makeover" (http://www.amazon.com/Total-Money-Makeover-Classic-Financial/dp/1595555277/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448904191&sr=8-1&keywords=total+money+makeover) and tell him to follow the baby steps. If he comes to you again or doesn't follow your advice, remind him to follow the baby steps. ... |
How many stocks will I own in n years if I reinvest my dividends? | This answer contains three assumptions: New Share Price: Old Share Price * 1.0125 Quarterly Dividend: (New Share Price*0.01) * # of Shares in Previous Quarter Number of Shares: Shares from Previous Quarter + Quarterly Dividend/New Share Price For example, starting from right after Quarter One: New share price: $20 * 1.... |
Over the long term, why invest in bonds? | 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 migh... |
How does a stake sale affect a company's stock price? | Is it normal for such transactions to create new outstanding shares? Yes a company can create new shares or a Majority share holder can sell some of his stake or it can be a mix of both. how will this news affect the short-term and long-term price of the company's stock? This is opinion based and not apt for this site.... |
Search index futures in Yahoo Finance or Google Finance | Yahoo finance does in fact have futures quotes. But I've found them difficult to search for because you also have to know the expiration codes for the contract to find them. S&P 500 Emini quote for June 2012 |
Taking Losses To Save On Tax | As Dilip said, if you want actual concrete, based in tax law, answers, please add the country (and if applicable, state) where you pay income tax. Also, knowing what tax bracket you're in would help as well, although I certainly understand if you're not comfortable sharing that. So, assuming the US... If you're in the ... |
Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” in the US? | While the other answers try to quantify the value of health care the question you ask is about employee vs contractor. The delta between those regarding benefits goes way beyond health care. In fact because almost every full time employee must have health care offered by their employer the option of "you can have X wi... |
When do companies typically announce stock splits? | In 2005, Apple announced a split on Feb 11... CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a two-for-one split of the Company’s common stock and a proportional increase in the number of Apple common shares authorized from 900 million to 1.8 billion. Each sh... |
What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario? | A book on the power of persuasion. The people will need you to lead them to the glory land like the Deacon* from Waterworld *Dennis Hopper. Study up. |
Are cashiers required to check a credit card for a signature in the U.S.? | Who cares? If your card gets stolen, most cards provide you with 100% liability protection. Just sign the thing! |
US taxation of stock purchase plan for non-resident alien | From my research it looks like its an income NOT effectively connected with the trade of business. This page has the exact details https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/effectively-connected-income-eci |
Can capital gains be used to fund an IRA with tax advantages? | As littleadv suggested, you are mixing issues. If you have earned income and are able to deduct an IRA deposit, where those actual dollars came from is irrelevant. The fact that you are taking proceeds from one transaction to deposit to the IRA is a booking entry on your side, but the IRS doesn't care. By the way, whe... |
How to find cheaper alternatives to a traditional home telephone line? | Cheapest is one thing. You can absolutely shop in the market and find the lowest possible price. I can think of three places to shop, each with an up and downside. I would think that what you really mean is the best price for the service. Just like shopping for a car you have to decide what you need vs what is nice ... |
Why is there so much variability on interest rate accounts | I spent some time comparing banks' interest rates until I realized that it didn't actually matter (to me). The only money I keep in checking and savings accounts is money that I'm going to spend shortly or is part of an emergency fund, and in both those cases convenience of liquidity is far more important than small di... |
Cons of withdrawing money from an Roth IRA account? | In a year with no income, the best advice is to convert existing IRA money to Roth. This lets you take advantage of the 'zero' bracket, the combination of your exemption and standard deduction. This adds to $10,300 for a single person. Other than that, if you are determined to take the money out, just do it. There wou... |
Is there such a thing as a deposit-only bank account? | I would suggest opening a bank account that you use to accept deposits only, and then get a system set up where it automatically transfers the money over to your main account. If not instantly it could transfer the money hourly or daily. Of course you would have to pay a premium for this "peace of mind" ;) |
Why charge gross receipts taxes to the customer? | I'll address one part of your question: There are other taxes that companies pay as well, such as income tax, but don't charge to the customer as a fee. So, why are gross receipts taxes charged to the customer? Things like income tax can't be passed on to the consumer in a direct way, because there's no fixed relations... |
Is my mortgage more likely to be sold if I pre-pay principal? | In a process called collateralization, your mortgage is combined with others to form a security that other can invest in. When done right, this process provides liquidity, more money to be lent for more loans. When done wrong, bad things happen. My mortgage happens to be held by the issuing bank. Yours was sold into s... |
What industries soar when oil prices go up? | Generally speaking, you want to find goods and services that are inelastic and also require oil as a cost. Oil company stocks make record profits when oil is high, because direct demand for oil is relatively inelastic. Profit margins of oil competition should also go up, as this creates inflation in general, as people ... |
How long do credit cards keep working after you disappear? | Generally speaking the bank accounts and credit card accounts remain open. Banks and the credit card companies don't monitor public records on a daily basis. Instead, whoever is handling your estate will need to obtain copies of your death certificate and they will then search your paper records to identify all accou... |
Is the return on investment better with high or low dividends? | Someone (I forget who) did a study on classifying total return by the dividend profiles. In descending order by category, the results were as follows: 1) Growing dividends. These tend to be moderate yielders, say 2%-3% a year in today's markets. Because their dividends are starting from a low level, the growth of divid... |
When should I open a “Line of credit” at my bank? | I have a line of credit that I have attached to my checking account in case of an overdraft. Since I haven't over drafted my checking account in 4 years, I typically borrow the minimum $5 from the line of credit and then pay it back the next day. This usually costs me a couple of cents and I have to do it twice a y... |
What is the meaning of Equal Housing Lender? Do non-banks need to display it? | If a bank is evaluating a persons qualifications to qualify for a loan they have to follow the FDIC and HUD guidelines for equal opportunity credit. If they offer mortgages they will use the phrase equal housing. from the lending club website (fine print area): 2 This depiction is a summary of the processes for obtaini... |
The doctor didn't charge the health insurance in time, am I liable? | Here's my thought - call the insurance company back. Ask them to just tell you what the "reasonable and customary" approved payment would be. Offer that exact amount to the hospital, it's what they would have gotten anyway, and you learned a cheap lesson. |
In Canada, can a limited corporation be used as an income tax shelter? | Revenue Canada allows for some amount of tax deferral via several methods. The point is that none of them allow you to avoid tax, but by deferring from years when you have high income to years when you have lower income allows you to realize less total tax paid due to the marginal rate for personal income tax. The corp... |
Can a stock exchange company actually go bust? | A stock exchange is a marketplace where people can bring their goods [shares] to be traded. There are certain rules. Stock Exchange does not own any shares of the companies that are trading in. The list of who owns with stock is with the registrar of each company. The electronic shares are held by a Financial Institut... |
What would be the signs of a bubble in silver? | If markets were perfectly efficient, the price should reflect everything that is currently known about the future of a commodity. If it is known that silver is currently under-valued, then investors would be buying it -- driving the price up. Conversely, if silver is currently over-valued, then investors would be sel... |
What kinds of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) should specifically be avoided? | Stay away from leveraged or synthetic ETFs. This answer talks about why leveraged ETFs are dangerous. There are numerous articles to be found by searching for "leveraged etf". My answer to this question links to one of the more accessible explanations I've read. |
Evaluating stocks useless? | Is evaluating stocks just a loss of time if the stock is traded very much? Not at all! Making sound investment decisions based on fundamental analysis of companies will help you to do decide whether a given company is right for you and your risk appetite. Investing is not a zero-sum game, and you can achieve a positive... |
Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS | Etiquette doesn't really come into the picture here. The business offers a service and I choose to accept it. Personally, I use my debit card as much as possible. For every transaction, I record it in my checkbook. Then, when I do reconciling, I know exactly how much I paid for various categories of stuff. Good for bud... |
What does “100% stock dividend” mean? | A 100% stock dividend means that you get one share of the "stock dividend" for every share you own. For example, Google did this in 2014 when they gave all of their Class A shareholders one class C share for every Class A that they owned. If the 100% stock dividend is for the exactly the same stock, it is basically the... |
What steps should be taken, if any, when you find out your home's market value is underwater, i.e. worth less than the mortgage owed? | Step back and take a deep breath. Pay your mortgage. repeat 1 and 2 monthly until equity > mortgage. |
How should minor children be listed as IRA beneficiaries? | I think that "better" is up to a discussion, but the difference is that while in trust you can control the money after your death in some way - giving it directly to children means you have no such control. I.e.: in trust you can stipulate that the children will be able to spend the money under certain terms or in cert... |
Gap in domestic Health Insurance coverage, expect higher premiums? | The insurance company is must assume you do have a preexisting condition you are unaware of. The reason for that is that Affordable Care Act precludes the Insurance company from denying coverage of them if you do. Insurance companies are businesses. They are in business to make money(unless you have a nonprofit insu... |
Legitimate unclaimed property that doesn't appear in any state directory? | for full disclosure I'm an Independent Contractor and work with Jeff Richman. @ Neil: Question 1: How legitimate is this? If you were never contacted by the company you would never know about the money. Period, end of story. Not trying to be rude but that is the bottom line truth. Look up asset recovery businesses. T... |
Who creates money? Central banks or commercial banks? | Empirial evidence for the second scenario: Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The theories and the empirical evidence. Excerpt: It was examined whether in the process of making money available to the borrower the bank transfers these funds from other accounts (within or outside the bank). In the ... |
Is there a good rule of thumb for how much I should have set aside as emergency cash? | Since it's not tagged united-states, I'd like to offer a more general advice. Your emergency fund should match the financial risks that are relevant to you. The two main classes of financial risk are of course a sudden increase in costs or a decrease in income. You'd have to address both independently. First, loss of i... |
Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord? | As a general rule, diversification means carrying sufficient amounts in cash equivalents, stocks, bonds, and real estate. An emergency fund should have six months income (conservative) or expenses (less conservative) in some kind of cash equivalent (like a savings account). As you approach retirement, that number sh... |
What are the best software tools for personal finance? | http://www.Mvelopes.com Mvelopes is envelope-style budgeting in an online application. I've tried all of the other applications and I choose to pay for this one for the following reasons: |
Is it possible to know the probability that a trade is successful? | If you had a trading system, and by trading system I mean the criteria setup that you will take a trade on, then once a setup comes up at what price will you open the trade and at what price you will close the trade. As an example, if you want to buy once price breaks through resistance at $10.00 you might place your b... |
Further Understanding of Wash Sale Rules | Disallowed losses due to the wash sale rule are added to the basis of the repurchased shares. In your example, on day two you paid $0.70 per share. Then the disallowed $0.30 loss from the previous day gets added to the basis, making your total basis $1.00 per share. When you sell at the end of the day for $1.00 per sh... |
How to approach building credit without a credit card | One possible route is to try to have no credit. This is different than bad credit. If you build up a good downpayment (20%), a number of banks would do manual underwriting for you. |
What is a good asset allocation for a 25 year old? | First, I'd recommend that you separate "short-term" assets from "long-term" assets in your head. Short-term assets are earmarked for spending on something specific in the near future or are part of your emergency fund. These should be kept in cash or short bond funds. Long-term assets are assets that you can take s... |
What are the implications of a corporate stock repurchase or share buyback program? | Ignoring taxes, a share repurchase has exactly the same effect on the company and the shareholders' wealth as a cash dividend. In either case, the company is disbursing cash to its shareholders; in the former, in exchange for shares which shareholders happen to be selling on the market at the time; in the latter, equal... |
Long term saving: Shares, Savings Account or Fund | Congratulations on a solid start. Here are my thoughts, based on your situation: Asset Classes I would recommend against a long-term savings account as an investment vehicle. While very safe, the yields will almost always be well below inflation. Since you have a long time horizon (most likely at least 30 years to reti... |
I'm 20 and starting to build up for my mortgage downpayment, where should I put my money for optimal growth? | The highest growth for an investment has historically been in stocks. Investing in mature companies that offer dividends is great for you since it is compound growth. Many oil and gas companies provide dividends. |
Responsible investing - just a marketing trick? | A share is just a part ownership of a company. If you buy a share of a green stock in the open market, you now just own part of a green company. Just like if you buy a house, the money you paid moves to the former owner, but what you are getting is a clear asset in return that you now own. Via mutual funds/indexes thi... |
If I short-sell a dividend-paying stock, do I have to pay the dividend? | You could hold a long position in some company XXXX and then short your own shares (assuming your broker will let you do that). The dividend that would have gone to you would then go to whoever is holding the shares you short sold. You just don't get a dividend. If you're going to short in a smart way... do it on a... |
Is there any reason to choose my bank's index fund over Vanguard? | That expense ratio on the bank fund is criminally high. Use the Vanguard one, they have really low expenses. |
Which U.S. online discount broker is the best value for money? | I've never used them myself, but Scottrade might be something for you to look at. They do $7 internet trades, but also offer $27 broker assisted trades (that's for stocks, in both cases). Plus, they have brick-and-morter storefronts all over the US for that extra "I gotta have a human touch". :-) Also, they do have af... |
Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership? | You can buy a new Toyota from a non-dealer, but not from Toyota directly as they have no retail distribution capability. There is no need to buy directly from Toyota if you want to get a new car without going through a dealer. In many cases people buy new cars but have to sell them immediately for one reason or another... |
What's the appeal of dividends in investing? [duplicate] | A dividend is one method of returning value to shareholders, some companies pay richer dividends than others; some companies don't typically pay a dividend. Understand that shareholders are owners of a company. When you buy a stock you now own a portion (albeit an extremely small portion) of that company. It is up to... |
How to execute a large stock purchase, relative to the order book? | I normally just do a buy limit at the price I want to buy it at. Then it executes when it's that price or lower, but there's still a chance you might purchase some shares at a larger price. But since we're small fry and using brokerages, there's not much we can do about it. |
Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? | It's important to distinguish between speculation and investing. Buying something because you hope to make money on market fluctuations is speculation. Buying something and expecting to make money because your money is providing actual economic value is investing. If Person A buys 100 shares of a stock with the intent... |
Why ADP does not accurately withhold state and federal income tax (even if W4 is correct)? | ADP does not know your full tax situation and while the standard exemption system (actually designed by the IRS not ADP) works fairly well for most people it is an approximation. This system is designed so most people will end up with a small refund while some people will end up owing small amounts. So, while it is p... |
What taxes does a US citizen doing freelance work (self-employed) in the UK have to pay to the US government? | You will be filing the exact same form you've been filing until now (I hope...) which is called form 1040. Attached to it, you'll add a "Schedule C" form and "Schedule SE" form. Keep in mind the potential effect of the tax and totalization treaties the US has with the UK which may affect your filings. I suggest you tal... |
Gigantic point amount on rewards card - what are potential consequences? | If you want to maximize your expected benefits, at minimal risk of financial repercussions or sleepless nights, I would suggest the following. Send an email explaining the situation, and announce that you plan to use the points if they do not advise otherwise. Here is an example message: Dear sir/madam, I recently cont... |
Does my net paycheck decrease as the year goes on due to tax brackets filling up? | No, you will (generally speaking) not see a decrease in your net earnings from crossing a tax bracket: This means that your highest marginal rate (the top bracket you fall into) only applies to the portion of your income that is in that bracket, not your total income. This helps ensure that your total tax burden does n... |
Why not just invest in the market? | Most of it is probably due to ignorance and disbelief. A few years ago, I started doing week-long trades with my IRA. For a while I would make money each time, and over the first year I had about a 20% rate of return. If you asked me if I thought I was smarter than other people in the market, I would've told you no - I... |
How do you find out who the investors are in a U.S. stock? e.g. how ownership may be concentrated? | I don't think that you will be able to find a list of every owner for a given stock. There are probably very few people who would know this. One source would be whoever sends out the shareholder meeting mailers. I suspect that the company itself would know this, the exchange to a lesser extent, and possibly the broker... |
Using a FOREX platform to actually change money | If you wanted to spend money in another country, a specialist credit card would be the most cost-effective way. Near-spot exchange rate, zero-loading, no/low ATM fees. Likewise a pre-paid debit card would also allow for money transfer across borders. If this is the right situation, FOREX trading platforms are overkill ... |
Do I need multiple credit monitoring services? | Monitoring your credit doesn't do much. There are some vendors that actually have staff to repair your credit/identity. Substantially all of the credit monitoring services do what they say and monitor. If you have a problem they notify you then point you to the place(s) that you can work with to repair the issue. Thi... |
Do I even need credit cards? | I can't answer the question if you should or shouldn't get a credit card; after all, you seem to manage fine without one (which is good). I started using credit cards when I lived in the UK as the consumer protection you get from a credit card there tends to be better than from a debit card. I'd also treat it as a debi... |
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