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Do property taxes get deducted 100% from the Annual Tax Return or only a fraction of them? | If your deductions are higher than the standard deduction, you will be able to subtract property taxes from your income. In your example, that means that taxes are computed based on $95,000. In 2011, the standard deduction varies between $5,800 (single filer) and $11,600 (married filing jointly). Tax credits are subtracted from your tax obligation. The most common tax credit for most people is student loan interest. If you pay $500 in student loan interest, that sum is subtracted from your tax bill. |
What kinds of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) should specifically be avoided? | One of the key things to look for is trading volume. I think the price spread will be better on high volume ETFs, which means you'll be able to sell for more when the time comes. Check Google or Yahoo finance for those stats. |
Does the bid/ask concept exist in dealer markets? | Why would there not be a bid and ask? Dealers make their money in the spread between what they buy it from one entity for and what they sell it to another entity for. This doesn't mean they have to do it auction-style, but they'll still have a different buy price from a sell price, hence "bid" and "ask". |
How are people able to spend more than what they make, without going into debt? | Bezos made very little "money." But he is very wealthy because of stock grants and options, from his previous years. Banks or brokerage firms will lend him (or anyone else) up to half the value of his stock. In Bezos' case, we're talking about billions. So he could, if he wanted to, cash out half of those billions. If the stock continues to go up (as it has), he will be able to cash out more each year. Imagine a person earning $1 a year in cash with $1 billion of stock, on which he can borrow up to $500 million. That, in a nutshell, is Bezos (with larger numbers). |
If I make over 120k a year, what are my options for retirement plans? | All data for a single adult in tax year 2010. Roth IRA 401K Roth 401k Traditional IRA and your employer offers a 401k Traditional IRA and your employer does NOT offer a 401k So, here are your options. If you have a 401k at work, you could max that out. If you make close to $120K, you could reduce your AGI enough to contribute to a Roth IRA. If you do not have a 401k at work, you could contribute to a Traditional IRA and deduct the $5K from your AGI similar to how a 401k works. Other than that, I think you are looking at investing outside of a retirement plan which means more flexibility, but no tax advantage. |
I spend too much money. How can I get on the path to a frugal lifestyle? | Keep track of everything you buy. Write it down and be accountable. Try not to buy anything on credit cards, if the money is not in your account now then you can't afford it. Ask yourself whether what you're buying is a "need" or a "want". If you find that you are buying things because you are bored and you like shopping then try taking up a (cheap) hobby that fills that void and is something you enjoy doing. |
What if 40% of the remaining 60% Loan To Value (ratio) is not paid, or the borrower wants to take only 60% of the loan? | Sorry, I don't think a bounty is the issue here. You seem to understand LTV means the bank you are talking to will lend you 60% of the value of the home you wish to purchase. You can't take the dollars calculated and simply buy a smaller house. To keep the numbers simple, you can get a $600K mortgage on a $1M house. That's it. You can get a $540K mortgage on a $900K house, etc. Now, 60% LTV is pretty low. It might be what I'd expect for rental property or for someone with bad or very young credit history. The question and path you're on need to change. You should understand that the 'normal' LTV is 80%, and for extra cost, in the form of PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) you can even go higher. As an agent, I just sold a home to a buyer who paid 3% down. The way you originally asked the question has a simple answer. You can't do what you're asking. |
Why would a car company lend me money at a very low interest rate? | The car company loans you money at 1 or 2% because it is part of the incentive to get you to buy the car. Car company transactions are complex involving the manufacturer, the dealership, and the financing part of the car company. Not to mention Rebates, the used car transaction, and the leasing department. If they don't offer you a loan then the profit from that part of transaction is lost to an outside company. The better loan rates from the manufacturer are only with shorter term loans and without the rebate. That is why some suggest that you get the rebate, and then go to a credit union for the loan for lowest overall cost and greatest flexibility. The advertised rates are also only for the customers with great credit scores and the room in their clash flow to pay off the loan in a year or two. If you don't fit in that category, the rates will be higher. |
What is a stock warrant? How do warrants work? | In general, a warrant is a security issued by a company allowing the holder to purchase a certain number of a particular class of shares at a certain price for a particular period of time. They differ from exchange traded options (i.e. calls and puts) in that they are issued by the company that issued the underlying shares that they allow you to purchase whereas calls and puts are generally written by other investors. The other big difference between options and warrants is that options are standardized. Any call or put you buy on a particular exchange has basically the same set of rules governing use. By contrast, a warrant may have all kinds of stipulations that must occur before you can execute, such as price events (e.g. only if the stock hits a certain price) or business events (e.g. only if the company elects to defer payment on a bond issued at the same time as the warrant). Warrants are generally a bad choice for small and inexperienced investors since each warrant issue is different and you often need a lawyer or other qualified professional to fully understand all to possible outcomes. |
What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US? | Since all the other answers thus far seem to downplay the risk (likelihood) of the money being seized, I figure I may as well make my comment an answer. Unless you happen to have your legal team travelling with you and your suitcase of cash, you should expect that you'll be questioned extensively, so that any sign of nervousness, inconsistency in your answers or anything you say that doesn't "make sense" to the officer will be used as an excuse to seize your money, and you'll learn an expensive lesson in civil asset forfeiture. The government will file a complaint against your money, leading to a ridiculously named case, such as United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency. Worth noting that while the outcome in this case was not in the government's favor, in the vast majority of cases, the government keeps the cash. Between 9/11 and 2014, U.S police forces have seized over 2.5 billion dollars in cash without search warrants or indictments and returned the money in less than 10% of cases. That last link is kind of a long read, but contains cases where people with completely legitimate money and documentation for their money had it seized anyway, and were only able to recover it after months or years in court. |
What things should I consider when getting a joint-mortgage? | Your lack of numbers makes the question a difficult read. What I'm hearing is "I want a house requiring a mortgage 8X my income." This alone is enough to suggest it's a bad deal. On a personal note, when my wife and I bought our house, it was 2.5X our income. 20% down, so the mortgage was exactly 2X income. And my wife was convinced we were in over our heads. The use of a partner who will take a portion of the profit is interesting, but doesn't change the fact that you are proposing to live in a house that costs far too much for you. If you are determined to buy such a house, I'd suggest you do it with the plan to rent out a room or two to roommates. If you are living in an area where the cost of buying is so high, the demand for rentals is likely high as well. Absent a plan to bring ion more income, I see no good coming from this. Heed the warnings posted in the other two answers as well. |
Which is better when working as a contractor, 1099 or incorporating? | I am surprised no one has mentioned the two biggest things (in my opinion). Or I should say, the two biggest things to me. First, 1099 have to file quarterly self employment taxes. I do not know for certain but I have heard that often times you will end up paying more this way then even a W-2 employees. Second, an LLC allows you to deduct business expenses off the top prior to determining what you pay in taxes as pass-through income. With 1099 you pay the same taxes regardless of your business expenses unless they are specifically allowed as a 1099 contractor (which most are not I believe). So what you should really do is figure out the expense you incur as a result of doing your business and check with an accountant to see if those expenses would be deductible in an LLC and if it offsets a decent amount of your income to see if it would be worth it. But I have read a lot of books and listened to a lot of interviews about wealthy people and most deal in companies not contracts. Most would open a new business and add clients rather than dealing in 1099 contracts. Just my two cents... Good luck and much prosperity. |
How did this day trader lose so much? | Learn something new every day... I found this interesting and thought I'd throw my 2c in. Good description (I hope) from Short Selling: What is Short Selling First, let's describe what short selling means when you purchase shares of stock. In purchasing stocks, you buy a piece of ownership in the company. You buy/sell stock to gain/sell ownership of a company. When an investor goes long on an investment, it means that he or she has bought a stock believing its price will rise in the future. Conversely, when an investor goes short, he or she is anticipating a decrease in share price. Short selling is the selling of a stock that the seller doesn't own. More specifically, a short sale is the sale of a security that isn't owned by the seller, but that is promised to be delivered. Still with us? Here's the skinny: when you short sell a stock, your broker will lend it to you. The stock will come from the brokerage's own inventory, from another one of the firm's customers, or from another brokerage firm. The shares are sold and the proceeds are credited to your account. Sooner or later, you must "close" the short by buying back the same number of shares (called covering) and returning them to your broker. If the price drops, you can buy back the stock at the lower price and make a profit on the difference. If the price of the stock rises, you have to buy it back at the higher price, and you lose money. So what happened? The Plan The Reality Lesson I never understood what "Shorting a stock" meant until today. Seems a bit risky for my blood, but I would assume this is an extreme example of what can go wrong. This guy literally chose the wrong time to short a stock that was, in all visible aspects, on the decline. How often does a Large Company or Individual buy stock on the decline... and send that stock soaring? How often does a stock go up 100% in 24 hours? 600%? Another example is recently when Oprah bought 10% of Weight Watchers and caused the stock to soar %105 in 24 hours. You would have rued the day you shorted that stock - on that particular day - if you believed enough to "gamble" on it going down in price. |
What could be the harm in sharing my American Express statements online? | American Express is great for this use case -- they have two user roles "Account Agent" and "Account Manager" which allow you to designate logins to review your account details or act on your behalf to pay bills or request service. This scheme is designed for exactly what you are doing and offers you more security and less hassle. More details here. |
Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends? | Isn't it true that on the ex-dividend date, the price of the stock goes down roughly the amount of the dividend? That is, what you gain in dividend, you lose in price drop. Yes and No. It Depends! Generally stocks move up and down during the market, and become more volatile on some news. So One can't truly measure if the stock has gone down by the extent of dividend as one cannot isolate other factors for what is a normal share movement. There are time when the prices infact moves up. Now would it have moved more if there was no dividend is speculative. Secondly the dividends are very small percentage compared to the shares trading price. Generally even if 100% dividend are announced, they are on the share capital. On share prices dividends would be less than 1%. Hence it becomes more difficult to measure the movement of stock. Note if the dividend is greater than a said percentage, there are rules that give guidelines to factor this in options and other area etc. Lets not mix these exceptions. Why is everyone making a big deal out of the amount that companies pay in dividends then? Why do some people call themselves "dividend investors"? It doesn't seem to make much sense. There are some set of investors who are passive. i.e. they want to invest in good stock, but don't want to sell it; i.e. more like keep it for long time. At the same time they want some cash potentially to spend; similar to interest received on Bank Deposits. This class of share holders, it makes sense to invest into companies that give dividends, as year on year they keep receiving some money. If they on the other hand has invested into a company that does not give dividends, they would have to sell some units to get the same money back. This is the catch. They have to sell in whole units, there is brokerage, fees, etc, there are tax events. Some countries have taxes that are more friendly to dividends than capital gains. Thus its an individual choice whether to invest into companies that give good dividends or into companies that don't give dividends. Giving or not giving dividends does not make a company good or bad. |
Setting up auto-pay. Should I use my bank that holds mortage or my personal bank? | Depending on your bank you may receive an ACH discount for doing automatic withdrawals from a deposit account at that bank. Now, this depends on your bank and you need to do independent research on that topic. As far as dictating what your extra money goes towards each month (early payments, principal payments, interest payments) you need to discuss that with your bank. I'm sure it's not too difficult to find. In my experience most banks, so long as you didn't sign a contract on your mortgage where you're penalized for sending additional money, will apply extra money toward early payments, and not principal. I would suggest calling them. I know for my student loans I have to send a detailed list of my loans and in what order I want my extra payments toward each, otherwise it will be considered an early payment, or it will be spread evenly among them all. |
What are the risks of Dividend-yielding stocks? | One strategy to consider is a well-diversified index fund of equities. These have historically averaged 7-8% real growth. So withdrawing 3% or 4% yearly under that growth should allow you to withdraw 30+ years with little risk of drawing down all your capital. As a bonus you're savings target would come down from $10 million to $2.5 million to a little under $3.5 million. |
Renting or Buying an House | Some pros and cons to renting vs buying: Some advantages of buying: When you rent, the money you pay is gone. When you buy, assuming you don't have the cash to buy outright but get a mortgage, some of the payment goes to interest, but you are building equity. Ultimately you pay off the mortgage and you can then live rent-free. When you buy, you can alter your home to your liking. You can paint in the colors you like, put in the carpet or flooring you like, heck, tear down walls and alter the floor plan (subject to building codes and safety consideration, of course). If you rent, you are usually sharply limited in what alterations you can make. In the U.S., mortgage interest is tax deductible. Rent is not. Property taxes are deductible from your federal income tax. So if you have, say, $1000 mortgage vs $1000 rent, the mortgage is actually cheaper. Advantages of renting: There are a lot of transaction costs involved in buying a house. You have to pay a realtor's commission, various legal fees, usually "loan origination fees" to the bank, etc. Plus the way mortgages are designed, your total payment is the same throughout the life of the loan. But for the first payment you owe interest on the total balance of the loan, while the last payment you only owe interest on a small amount. So early payments are mostly interest. This leads to the conventional advice that you should not buy unless you plan to live in the house for some reasonably long period of time, exact amount varying with whose giving the advice, but I think 3 to 5 years is common. One mitigating factor: Bear in mind that if you buy a house, and then after 2 years sell it, and you discover that the sale price minus purchase price minus closing costs ends up a net minus, say, $20,000, it's not entirely fair to say "zounds! I lost $20,000 by buying". If you had not bought this house, presumably you would have been renting. So the fair comparison is, mortgage payments plus losses on the resale compared to likely rental payments for the same period. |
Advice on low-risk long-term strategy for extra cash? | So, you have $100k to invest, want a low-maintenance investment, and personal finance bores you to death. Oooohhh, investment companies are gonna love you. You'll hand them a wad of cash, and more or less say "do what you want." You're making someone's day. (Just probably not yours.) Mutual fund companies make money off of you regardless of whether you make money or not. They don't care one bit how carefully you look at your investments. As long as the money is in their hands, they get their fee. If I had that much cash, I'd be looking around for a couple of distressed homes in good neighborhoods to buy as rentals. I could put down payments on two of them, lock in fixed 30-year mortgages at 4% (do you realize how stupid low that is?) and plop tenants in there. Lots of tax write-offs, cash flow, the works. It's a 10% return if you learn about it and do it correctly. Or, there have been a number of really great websites that were sold on Flippa.com that ran into five figures. You could probably pay those back in a year. But that requires some knowledge, too. Anything worthwhile requires learning, maintenance and effort. You'll have to research stocks, mutual funds, bonds, anything, if you want a better than average chance of getting worthwhile returns (that is, something that beats inflation, which savings accounts and CDs are unlikely to do). There is no magic bullet. If someone does manage to find a magic bullet, what happens? Everyone piles on, drives the price up, and the return goes down. Your thing might not be real estate, but what is your thing? What excites you (i.e., doesn't bore you to death)? There are lots of investments out there, but you'll get out of it what you put into it. |
Is engaging in stocks without researching unwise? | Stock recommendations and price history are an unwise way to invest. People that recommend stocks are usually compensation for recommending it. They are paid directly by third parties, that can be paid in shares, they can simply own the stock themselves and if the stock goes up they can sell it to new investors at a higher price (or even a lower price, they may not actually care) Price history does not tell you a complete picture, what kind of price history are you even looking at: "this stock went up, let me buy now at the very top and hope it goes higher, am I too late" "this stock went down let me avoid it" if you don't know why, what, who, when, assets, debt, etc, you shouldn't be buying the stock. |
Is it true that more than 99% of active traders cannot beat the index? | That is such a vague statement, I highly recommend disregarding it entirely, as it is impossible to know what they meant. Their goal is to convince you that index funds are the way to go, but depending on what they consider an 'active trader', they may be supporting their claim with irrelevant data Their definition of 'active trader' could mean any one or more of the following: 1) retail investor 2) day trader 3) mutual fund 4) professional investor 5) fund continuously changing its position 6) hedge fund. I will go through all of these. 1) Most retail traders lose money. There are many reasons for this. Some rely on technical strategies that are largely unproven. Some buy rumors on penny stocks in hopes of making a quick buck. Some follow scammers on twitter who sell newsletters full of bogus stock tips. Some cant get around the psychology of trading, and thus close out losing positions late and winning positions early (or never at all) [I myself use to do this!!]. I am certain 99% of retail traders cant beat the market, because most of them, to be frank, put less effort into deciding what to trade than in deciding what to have for lunch. Even though your pension funds presentation is correct with respect to retail traders, it is largely irrelevant as professionals managing your money should not fall into any of these traps. 2) I call day traders active traders, but its likely not what your pension fund was referring to. Day trading is an entirely different animal to long or medium term investing, and thus I also think the typical performance is irrelevant, as they are not going to manage your money like a day trader anyway. 3,4,5) So the important question becomes, do active funds lose 99% of the time compared to index funds. NO! No no no. According to the WSJ, actively managed funds outperformed passive funds in 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015. 2010 was basically a tie. So 5 out of 9 years. I dont have a calculator on me but I believe that is less than 99%! Whats interesting is that this false belief that index funds are always better has become so pervasive that you can see active funds have huge outflows and passive have huge inflows. It is becoming a crowded trade. I will spare you the proverb about large crowds and small doors. Also, index funds are so heavily weighted towards a handful of stocks, that you end up becoming a stockpicker anyway. The S&P is almost indistinguishable from AAPL. Earlier this year, only 6 stocks were responsible for over 100% of gains in the NASDAQ index. Dont think FB has a good long term business model, or that Gilead and AMZN are a cheap buy? Well too bad if you bought QQQ, because those 3 stocks are your workhorses now. See here 6) That graphic is for mutual funds but your pension fund may have also been including hedge funds in their 99% figure. While many dont beat their own benchmark, its less than 99%. And there are reasons for it. Many have investors that are impatient. Fortress just had to close one of its funds, whose bets may actually pay off years from now, but too many people wanted their money out. Some hedge funds also have rules, eg long only, which can really limit your performance. While important to be aware of this, that placing your money with a hedge fund may not beat a benchmark, that does not automatically mean you should go with an index fund. So when are index funds useful? When you dont want to do any thinking. When you dont want to follow market news, at all. Then they are appropriate. |
How bad is it to have a lot of credit available but not used? | I never give advice but I will now because you are getting poor advice. I run between 820 and 835 for a FICO score and have for years. I have a Discover, AMEX, VISA and MC. I have over 200,000 dollars of credit and I never EVER pay interest. I pay off the cards every month. So, does it matter how much credit you have or can you have too much? NO! Bank of America gave me 40,000 dollars credit and I don't even have an account with them except the card. Banks like people who pay their bills on time. Well, the computers at the banks do. LOL...DON'T be afraid of asking for more credit. Your score may drop for two months but that is it. Good luck with your money |
Can an Indian citizen/resident invest in a US company and collect the profits in India? | Every month I will get a return in from my share of the profit which would be used for repayment of capital and interest in India. Not to sure what the business plan is. Please factor all the modalities, Exchange rate fluctuations, etc. My concern is regarding RBI rules and regulations, FEMA guidelines, and Income tax. Under the Liberalized Remittance Scheme; Funds can be transferred outside India. Any profit you make will be taxable in India. You will have to declare this pay tax in as per schedule. |
Does high inflation help or hurt companies with huge cash reserves? | Inflation is bad for people with lots of cash assets. It's good for debtors, particularly debtors with unsecured debt. |
For a car, would you pay cash, finance for 0.9% or lease for 0.9%? | If you want the new car, pay cash for it. Here's why: By paying cash for the car, you immediately save $2,500 off the price of the car. That is not insignificant, it's 8.3% off. By paying cash, you'll never be upside down on the car, and you can sell the car anytime you want. You said that all you need to do is beat the 0.9% interest rate with your investment to come out ahead. That doesn't take into account the discount you would have gotten by paying cash. $30,000 invested for 5 years at 1.6% (rough estimate) would get you $2,500 (the discount), so the rate you need to beat to come out ahead is actually 2.5%. Still doable, but it is much less of a sure thing on a 5 year investment, and much less worth the trouble. New cars are an expensive luxury. If you are wealthy enough, a new car certainly can be appropriate for you. However, if you don't like the idea of paying $30k in cash all at once, that is a strong indication that perhaps the new car is a luxury you aren't in a position to buy at this time. Borrowing the money and paying for it over time makes it psychologically easier to over spend on transportation. |
Interest on Amount Exceeding CC Balance? | In the US, if your monthly statement was issued by the credit card company on January 1 and it showed a balance of $1000, then a payment must be made towards that balance by January 25 or so, not February 1 as you say, to keep the card in good standing. The minimum payment required to keep the card in good standing is specified in your monthly statement, and failure to meet this requirement can trigger various consequences such as an increase in the interest rate charged by the credit card company. With regard to interest charges, whether your purchase of $2000 on January 3 is charged interest or not depends entirely on what happened the previous two months. If you had paid both your monthly statements dated November 1 and December 1 of the previous year in full by the their respective due dates of November 25 and December 25, and the $1000 balance on the January 1 statement is entirely due to purchases (no cash advances) made in December, then you will not be charged interest on your January purchase of $2000 as long as you pay it off in full by February 25 (the charge will appear on your February 1 statement). But, if you had not paid your December 1 statement in full by December 25, then that $1000 billed to you on January 1 will include purchases made during December finance charges on the unpaid balance from the previous month plus finance charges on the purchases made during December. The finance charges will continue to accumulate during January until such time as you pay off the bill in full (these charges will appear on your February 1 statement), hopefully by the due date of January 25. But even if you pay off that $1000 in full on January 25, your charge of $2000 on January 3 will start to accumulate finance charges as of the day it hits the account and these finance charges will appear on your February 1 statement. If you paid off that $1000 on January 10, say, then maybe there will be no further finance charges on the $2000 purchase on January 3 after January 10 but now we are getting into the real fine print of what your credit card agreement says. Ditto for the case when you pay off that $1000 on January 2 and made the $2000 charge on January 3. You most likely will not be charged interest on that $2000 charge but again it depends on the fine print. For example, it might say that you will be charged interest on the average of the daily balances for January, but will not be charged interest on purchases during the February cycle (unless you miss the February 25 payment and the whole cycle starts all over again). As a general rule, it takes two monthly cycles of payment in full by the due date before one gets into the state of no finance charges for new purchases and effectively an "interest-free" loan of $2000 from January 3 (date of purchase) till February 25 (due date of payment). Matters become more complicated when cash advances are taken from a credit card which are charged interest from the day they are taken but don't trigger finance charges on new purchases or the so-called "zero percent balance transfer offers" are accepted. |
When will Canada convert to the U.S. Dollar as an official currency? | The conspiracy buffs think this is already in the works. If you are interested, Google this fictional currency called the "Amero." Or you could just look up the snopes article on Amero. |
taxes, ordinary income, and adjusted cost basis for RSUs | The sale of shares on vesting convolutes matters. In a way similar to how reinvested dividends are taxed but the newly purchased fund shares' basis has to be increased, you need to be sure to have the correct per share cost basis. It's easy to confuse the total RSU purchase with the correct numbers, only what remained. The vesting stock is a taxable event, ordinary income. You then own the stock at that cost basis. A sale after that is long or short term and the profit is the to extent it exceeds that basis. The fact that you got these shares in 2013 means you should have paid the tax then. And this is part two of the process. Of course the partial sale means a bit of math to calculate the basis of what remained. |
How hard for US customers make payments to non-resident freelancer by wire transfer? | Can you tell me please, is it really hard to make international wire transfer for payment my job and can i resolve this problem without using third party services? This is mostly a barrier, the form at times is quite complicated. For Russia, one has to enter "Purpose of remittance" ... at times select intermediate banks, give BIC and other details. This can become unnerving to people who are not used to it. The other option you can try is set-up a credit card gateway and get funds via cards. |
Is it true that more than 99% of active traders cannot beat the index? | Obviously, these numbers can never be absolute simply because not all the information is public. Any statistic will most likely be biased. I can tell you the following from my own experience that might get you closer in your answer: Hence, even though I cannot give you exact numbers, I fully agree that traders cannot beat the index long term. If you add the invested time and effort that is necessary to follow an active strategy, then the equation looks even worse. Mind you, active trading and active asset allocation (AAA) are two very different things. AAA can have a significant impact on your portfolio performance. |
Interest on security deposits paid to landlords, in Michigan? | NO. The legislation requires the landlord to deposit it in a bank. Check out pages 7-10 of the linked document. There is no mention of interest. The second clause, I believe, is probably for large landlords who hold hundreds of thousands of dollars of security. http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/publications/tenantlandlord.pdf Q4 Once collected, what must the landlord do with the security deposit? The landlord must either: a) Deposit the money with a regulated financial institution (e.g., bank), OR b) Deposit a cash bond or surety bond, to secure the entire deposit, with the Secretary of State. ( Note: If the landlord does this, he or she may use the money at any time, for any purpose.) The bond ensures that there is money available to repay the tenant’s security deposit |
How should I decide whether to buy more shares of a stock when its price drops? | There is no way to find out what future will be if you have only quote from past. In other words, nobody is able to trade history successfully and nobody will be able, ever. Quote's movement is not random. Quote is not price. Because brokerage account is not actual money. Any results in past do not guarantee you anything. Brokerage accounts should only have portions of money which you are ready to loose completely. Example: Investment firms recommended buying falling Enron stocks, even when it collapsed 3 times, then - bankrupt, suddenly. What a surprise! |
Foreign currency conversion for international visitors to ecommerce web site? | You probably can get away with only updating the exchange rates once a day and specify that any prices quoted in units other than your home currency are estimates only. If you're planning to accept more than one currency as payment, I'd (a) see about whatever regulations there are for doing so, and (b) build in a nice spread for yourself if you're allowed to, since it is a service you're providing to your customers. If you Google currency converter the first result is just that: a currency converter. |
Why do banks encourage me to use online bill payment? | The paper check method also allows the bank to use your money while the check is in the mail. My bank debits my account immediately, so while my $100 utility bill is traveling the U.S. Postal System for two days, they can make use of my $100 in whatever slush fund they like. |
Is there any instance where less leverage will get you a better return on a rental property? | QUICK ANSWER When it comes to fixed income assets, whether rental real estate or government bonds, it's unusual for highly-leveraged assets to yield less than the same asset unleveraged or lowly-leveraged. This is especially so in countries where interest costs are tax deductible. If we exclude capital losses (i.e. the property sells in future at a price less than it was purchased) or net rental income that doesn't keep up with maintenance, regulatory, taxation, inflation and / or other costs, there is one primary scenario where higher leverage results in lower yields compared to lower leverage, even if rental income keeps up with non-funding costs. This occurs when variable rate financing is used and rates substantially increase. EXPLANATION Borrowers and lenders in different countries have different mortgage rate customs. Some are more likely to have long-term fixed rates; some prefer variable rates; and others are a hybrid, i.e. fixed for a few years and then become variable. If variable rates are used for a mortgage and the reference rates increase substantially, as they did in the US during the 1970s, the borrower can easily become "upside-down," i.e. owe more on the mortgage than the property is then worth, and have mortgage service costs that exceed the net rental income. Some of those costs aren't easy to pass along to renters, even when there are periodic lease renewals or base rent increases referencing inflation rates. Central banks set policies for what would be the lowest short-term rates in a country that has such a bank. Private sector rates are established broadly by supply and demand for credit and can thus diverge markedly from central bank rates. Over time, the higher finance-carrying-cost-to-net-rental-income ratio should abate as (1) rental market prices change to reflect the costs and (2) the landlord can reinvest his net rental income at a higher rate. In the short-term though, this can result in the landlord having to "eat" the costs making his yield on his leveraged fixed income asset less than what he would have without leverage, even if the property was later sold at same price regardless of financing method. ========== Interestingly, and on the flip side, this is one of the quirks in finance where an accounting liability can become, at least in part, an economic asset. If a landlord borrows at a high loan-to-value ratio for a fixed interest rate for the life of the mortgage and rates, variable and fixed, were to increase substantially, the difference between his original rate and the present rates accrues to him. If he's able to sell the property with the loan attached (which is not uncommon for commercial, industrial and sometimes municipal real estate), the buyer will be assuming a liability with a lower carrying cost than his present alternatives and will hence pay a higher price for the property than if it were unleveraged. With long-term rates in many economically advanced countries at historic lows, if a borrower today were to take a long-term fixed rate loan and rates shortly after increased substantially, he may have an instant profit in this scenario even if his property hasn't increased in value. |
Confirm Dividend Yield | Is my math correct? The Math is correct, however Dividends don't work this way. The Yield is Post Facto. i.e. Given the dividend that is declared every quarter, once calculates the yield. The dividends are not fixed or guaranteed. These change from Quarter to Quarter or at times they are not given at all. The yield is 3.29% and the value is $114 per share. Assuming that the price remains exactly the same for an entire year, and that I purchase only one share, then this should be the math for calculating the yield: 114 x 0.0329 = 3.7506 What the Link is showing is that last dividend of MCD was 0.94 for Q3; that means total for a year will be 0.94*4 [3.76], this means yield will be 3.29%. Note this year there were only 3 Dividend was 0.89 on 26-Feb, 0.89 on 2-Jun and 0.94 on 29-Nov. It is unlikely that there will be one more dividend this year. So for this year the correct post facto calculation would be 0.89+0.89+.94 = 2.72 and hence an yield of 2.38% Also, are there any fees/deductions, or would I receive the amount in full, which should be $3.75? There are no fee deducted. Not sure about US tax treatment on Dividends. |
Emulating a 'long straddle' without buying or selling Options? | Up until your strategy's money losing leg is stopped out, you have zero PnL, while a straddle has lost time value but may gain from price movements - all the PnL at that time you cannot capture with your strategy. Also stop loss cannot guarantee your price. |
Does an Executed Limit Order Imply a Spot Price? | Think of all the limit orders waiting in line, first organized by price, and then by the time the order was placed (earlier orders are closer to the front of the line). In order for your buy order to trade, there must be no other limit orders of 10.01 or higher, or the sellers order would have matched with them instead. So once your order is filled, the price is 10.00, even if just for a millisecond, because there was a trade at 10.00, even though the price might go right back up after the trade. |
Bank will not accept loose change. Is this legal? | Is this even legal? How can a bank refuse to deposit legal tender in the United States? Legal for all debts, public or private, doesn't mean quite what I used to think, either. Per The Fed: This statute means that all United States money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law which says otherwise. Yes, they can refuse loose change. Also, they aren't refusing your deposit, just requiring that it be rolled. What do I do with my change? I do not want to spend the time rolling it, and I am not going to pay a fee to cash my change. There aren't many other options, change is a nuisance. I believe Coinstar machines reduce/remove their fee if you exchange coins for gift cards, so that might be the best option for convenience and retaining value. |
I have an extra 1000€ per month, what should I do with it? | As many before me said but will say again for the sake of completeness of an answer: First off provision to have an emergency fund of 6 months living expenses to cover loss of employment, unforeseen medical issues etc. When that is done you re free to start investing. Do remember that putting all your eggs in one basket enable risks, so diversify your portfolio and diversify even within each investment vehicle. Stocks: I would personally stay away from stocks as it's for the most part a bear market right now (and I assume you re not interested day-trading to make any short term return) and most importantly you dont mention any trading experience which means you can get shafted. Mutual Funds: Long story short most of these work; mainly for the benefit for their management and people selling them. Bonds Instead, I would go for corporate bonds where you essentially buy the seller(aka the issuing company) and unlike gambling on stocks of the same company, you dont rely on speculation and stock gains to make a profit. As long as the company is standing when the bond matures you get your payment. This allows you to invest with less effort spent on a daily basis to monitor your investments and much better returns(especially if you find opportunities where you can buy bonds from structurally sound companies that have for reasons you deem irrelevant, purchase prices in the secondary market for cents in the dollar) than your other long term "stable options" like German issued bonds or saving accounts that are low in general and more so like in the current situation for German banks. Cryptocurrency I would also look into cryptocurrency for the long term as that seems to be past its childhood diseases and its also a good period of time to invest in as even the blue chips of that market are down party due to correction from all time highs and partly due to speculation. As Im more knowledgeable on this than German-locale bonds, a few coins I suggest you look into and decide for yourself would be the obvious ETH & BTC, then a slew of newer ones including but not limited to OmiseGO, Tenx(Pay), Augur and IOTA. Beware though, make sure to understand the basics of security and good practices on this field, as there's no central bank in this sector and if you leave funds in an exchange or your wallet's private key is compromised the money are as good as gone. |
GnuCash register reimbursements | You should be recording the reimbursement as a negative expense on the original account the expense was recorded. Let's assume you have a $100 expense and $100 salary. Total $200 paycheck. You will have something like this In the reports, it will show that the expense account will have $0 ($100 + ($100)), while income account will have $100 (salary). |
I have more than $250,000 in a US Bank account… mistake? | Build a trust. I have a trust account under my name and 3 dependents, FDIC confirmed we're good to 1m. Then I have personal accounts for the 4 of us and a corp account, all at the same bank, each also insured. |
Tax implications of having some self-employment income? | Havoc P's answer is good (+1). Also don't forget the other aspects of business income: state filing fees, county/city filing fees, business licenses, etc. Are there any taxes you have to collect from your customers? If you expect to make more this year, then you should make estimated quarterly tax payments. The first one for 2011 is due around the same time as your federal income tax filing. |
Book or web site resources for an absolute beginner to learn about stocks and investing? | Los Angeles Times Investing 101 http://www.latimes.com/business/la-moneylib,0,3098409.htmlstory Clark Howard's Investing Guide http://www.clarkhoward.com/news/clark-howard/personal-finance-credit/clarks-investment-guide/nFZK/ |
What resources can I use to try and find out the name of the manager for a given fund? | The fund prospectus is a good place to start. |
How can I stop wasting food? | Let me start out by saying I know your pain. One of the most important things to do is have the basics in stock in your larder. They are the sorts of things that keep well, and you can make great simple meals from them whenever, without having to worry about them going off in a matter of days. A simple inventory like this - http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2006/12/06/the-well-stocked-kitchen-staple-foods-you-should-always-have-on-hand/ - can make a big difference. (This list is good, but check the comments for additional suggestions. There are a few extras that commenters reckon you should have and I think they are right - I certainly have more than just what's on that list.) And remember - frozen veg may or may not be as nutritious as fresh, but they are better than nothing. |
What is KIRCHSTRASSE on my statement bill? | POS stands for Point of Sale (like a specific store location) which indicates that the purchase occurred by using your debit card, but it can also be the on-line transaction done via 3-D Secure. Checking with bank, they said that Kirchstrasse transaction could be related to direct marketing subscription service ordered on-line. Investigating further what I've found these kind of transactions are performed by 2BuySafe company registered at Kirchstrasse in Liechtenstein with went through the MultiCards on-line cashier which can be used for paying different variety of services (e.g. in this case it was polish on-line storage service called Chomikuj). These kind of transactions can be tracked by checking the e-mail (e.g. in gmail by the following query: after:2014/09/02 before:2014/09/02 Order). Remember, that if you still don't recognise your transaction, you should call your bank. I have found also some other people concerns about that kind of transactions who ask: Is 2BuySafe.com and www.multicards.com some sort of Scam? Provided answer says: MultiCards Internet Billing is a provider of online credit card and debit card processing and payment solutions to many retailers worldwide. MultiCards was one of the pioneer companies offering this type of service since 1995 and is a PCI / DSS certified Internet Payment Service Provider (IPSP) providing service to hundreds of retail websites worldwide MultiCards is a registered Internet Payment Service Provider and has implemented various fraud protection tools including, but not limited to, MultiCards Fraud Score Tool and 'Verified by Visa' and 'MasterCard SecureCode' to protect card holder's card details. 2BuySafe.com Is also Secured and Verified By GeoTrust The certificate should be trusted by all major web browsers (all the correct intermediate certificates are installed). The certificate was issued by GeoTrust. Entering Incorrect information can lead to a card being rejected as @ TOS 2BuySafe.com is hosted on the Multicards Server site |
How do I adjust to a new social class? | The prices reflect what the market will bear. People have more money, things will likely cost more. Think of it in terms of percentages and you can start to justify the higher housing costs. My father likes to tell me that his first mortgage cost him $75 a month, and he had no idea how he was going to pay it each month. He also earned $3/hr at his job. So his housing costs were 15% of his gross income. My dear father almost passed out when he learned that my mortgage was $1000 a month, but since I earn $4000/month gross, I am really only paying 25% of my salary. (Numbers made up) So if he complains I pay 10% more, so be it, but complaining I pay $925 more isn't worrying to me because of my increased salary. So if your complaint is the amounts, you must take ratios, percentages and relative comparisons. However if you are baffled by people having money and wasting it on silly or foolish purchases, I am with you. I still don't understand why people will use the closest ATM and just pay the $2 fee. Do right by yourself and don't mind what others are up to. |
What happens if a purchase is $0.02 in Canada? | The rounding should always follow the same rule. If the value ends in .01 or .02 then you round to .00. Doesn't matter if it's 10.01 rounding to 10.00 or 0.01 to 0.00. The decision on what a company wants to do if an invoice total is $0.01 or $0.02 would be up to the company. The POS system should follow the rule and round to $0.00 if the method of payment is cash, but the company has the right to not give things away for free. They can impose a minimum cash invoice amount of $0.05. But you would do this by requiring the customer to add more items to their purchase. You couldn't just round the invoice up to $0.05 and to charge them $0.05 for a $0.01 item It would be similar to companies having a minimum purchase amount when paying by credit card. If their minimum amount is $10.00 and you want to buy something that's $5.00, you either pay cash or add something to your order. They don't just charge you $10.00 for your $5.00 item. I think this would be a extreme edge case where you have an invoice with a total of $0.01 or $0.02, without any discounts, partial payments, etc. If the customer's total was $10.01 and they paid with a $10.00 gift card, the final amount owing of $0.01 would round down to $0.00 and they wouldn't owe any more. If they had paid cash, the total would have rounded to $10.00 anyway. Similarly, if the customer returned an item and bought a new item, or used coupons, and the total owing was $0.01 or $0.02, then you would round down to $0.00 and they wouldn't pay anything. As BobbyScon said, you can implement some options to allow the company to decide how they want to handle this. You could have an option that doesn't allow a sale to be processed if the total amount is less than $0.03 and the sale doesn't include any discounts, returned items, coupons, etc. The option could be to completely block the sale, require a supervisor override, or just display a warning to the cashier. Best bet is to talk to as many of your current or potential clients as you can to see how they would like this edge case handled. For many, it's probably a mute case since they wouldn't have items that have a unit price less than $0.03. Maybe a place like a hardware store that sells individual nuts, bolts, and washers. |
Is this follow-up after a car crash a potential scam? | You have to realize that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. You want to do things "unofficially" by not reporting the accident (to insurance companies and/or police), but you want to do it "officially" in that you want to have legal recourse if they try to hit you up for more money. The only way to have it both ways is to trust the other person. From a financial perspective, ultimately you need to decide if the monetary cost of your raised insurance premiums, etc., outweighs the cost of whatever money the other party in the accident will try to squeeze out of you (factoring in the likelihood that they will do so). You also would need to factor in the likelihood that, rather than trying to scam you, they'll pursue legal action against you. In short, from a purely monetary perspective, if the legitimate cost of repairs is $700 and the cost to you of doing it by the book via insurance is $2000, you should be willing to be scammed for up to $1300, because you'll still come out ahead. Of course, there are psychological considerations, like whether someone unscrupulous enough to scam you will stop at $1300. But those numbers are the baseline for whatever outcome calculations you want to do. On the more qualitative side of things, it is possible they're trying to scam you, but also possible they're just trying to hustle you into doing everything quickly without thinking about it. They may not be trying to gouge you monetarily, they just want to pressure you so they get their money. I agree with other answerers here that the ideal way would be for them to send you an actual bill after repairs are complete. However, you could ask them to send you a written copy of the repair shop estimate, along with a written letter in which they state that they will consider payment of that amount to resolve the issue and won't pursue you further. The legal strength of that is dubious, but at least you have some documentation that you didn't just try to stiff them. If they won't give you some form of written documentation, I would read that as a red flag, bite the bullet, and contact your insurance company. |
Should I sell my stocks to reduce my debt? | Simply put, the interest you're paying on your loans is eating into any gains you have in the stock market. So, figure out how much you're paying in interest and consider the feasibility of paying off some of the loan. Also figure in if you would be selling the stock at a profit or a loss. Generally speaking, a home loan is typically long-term, with a high principal. I believe the consensus is that it is typically not worth paying down extra on it. A car loan, though, is much shorter term, with a lower principal. It may be worth it to pay that down. I would certainly consider paying down the loan with 10% interest, even without running any numbers. What about doing this without selling stock? The reason I suggest that is that you should not sell the stock unless you truly need the money or for some material reason(s) related to the company, the market, etc. (Of course, one other reason would be to cut losses.) Unless I was looking to sell some stock anyway, I would try other ways to come up with the money to pay down the highest interest loan, at least. If you are thinking of selling stock to pay down debt, definitely run the numbers. |
What is the best strategy for after hours trading? | First you will need a plan stating three main points: You will have to decide what criteria you will use to answer these points. You might use Fundamental Analysis to find what to buy and Technical Analysis to decide when to buy and when to sell (your buy and sell triggers). Once you have a Trading Plan in place you would need to find a broker with conditional orders. You can place conditional buy orders to get in a trade (for example if the price moves above or below a target price). You can place conditional stop loss orders if your trade goes against you, and you can also place conditional profit target stops to automatically get out if rises to your desired profit target. You can place one, two or many conditional orders after hours which will enable you to trade without being in front of your screen all day long. |
Why do stores and manufacturers use mail in rebates? A scam, or is there a way to use them effectively? | It's an effective way to achieve market segmentation without having to ask your customers how rich they are, and you get the benefit of finding out additional information like their address, email etc. The principle is similar to coupons on cereal boxes, anybody can get the rebate/discount if they go to the effort, but people who are cash rich/time poor are less likely to do so than those that really need the money. Joel Spolsky wrote about this and various other pricing mechanisms a while back, I like to reference the article every few weeks. It's well worth a read. Now, if you're retired and living off of social security, $7 an hour sounds pretty good, so you do it, but if you're a stock analyst at Merrill Lynch getting paid $12,000,000 a year to say nice things about piece-of-junk Internet companies, working for $7 an hour is a joke, and you're not going to clip coupons. Heck, in one hour you could issue "buy" recommendations on ten piece-of-junk Internet companies! So coupons are a way for consumer products companies to charge two different prices and effectively segment their market into two. Mail-in rebates are pretty much the same as coupons, with some other twists like the fact that they reveal your address, so you can be direct marketed to in the future. |
Receive credit card payment sending my customer details to a credit card processing company? | Yes, there are a bunch. I have used Paypal and it worked quite nicely. I see endless ads these days for Square, a tiny card reader that you plug into a smartphone that lets you swipe the card. (With Paypal you have to type in the credit card number.) |
How to bet against the London housing market? | While I am not an advocate of shorting anything (unlimited downside, capped upside), you can: |
How to pay bills for one month while waiting for new job? | This is just a partial answer, but I believe the following observations are relevant: |
Should I get a personal loan to pay on my mortgage to go “above water” to qualify for a refinance? | Does it cost money to refi? I know there are quite a few deals out there, I refi'd in June for $500, not bad. But sometimes can cost couple grand. If so, you have up front costs, plus the cost of the personal loan, that probably would break even at some point after your refi, but at what point? Will you sell before then, or even think about it? Or would you break even next year, then its a no brainer. As mentioned by others, do the numbers. |
Is it ever logical to not deposit to a matched 401(k) account? | Some have suggested you can put the money in the 401k then take a loan to pay off the student loan debt. Some things to consider before doing that: Check your 401k plan first. Some plans allow you to continue paying on a loan if you leave the company, some do not. If you have to change jobs before you pay back the 401k loan, you may only have 90 days to completely pay the loan or the IRS will treat this as an early withdrawal, which means taxes and penalties. If you don't have another job lined up, this is going to make things much worse since you will have lost your income and may owe even more to the government (depending on your state, it may be up to 50% of the remaining amount). There are ways to work with some student debt loans to defer or adjust payments. There is no such option with a 401k plan. This may change your taxes at the end of the year. Most people can deduct student loan interest payments. You cannot deduct interest paid to your 401k loan. You are paying the interest to yourself though. It may hurt your long term growth potential. Currently loans on 401k loans are in the 4% range. If you are able to make more than 4% inside of your 401k, you will be losing out on that growth since that money will only be earning the interest you pay back. It may limit flexibility for a few years. When people fall on hard times, their 401k is their last resort. Some plans have a limit on the number of loans you can have at one time. You may need a loan or a withdrawal in the future. Once you take the money out for a loan, you can't access it again. See the first bullet about working with student loan vendors, they typically have ways to work with you under hard circumstances. 401k loans don't. Amortization schedule. Many 401k loans can only be amortized for a max of 5 years, if you currently have 10 year loans, can you afford to pay the same debt back in 1/2 the time at a lower rate? You will have to do the math. When considering debt other than student loans (such as credit cards), if you fall on hard times, you can always negotiate to reduce the amount you owe, or the debt can be discharged (with tax penalties of course). They can't make you take money out. Once it is out, it is fair game. Just to clarify, the above isn't saying you shouldn't do it under any circumstances, it is a few things you need to evaluate before making that choice. The 401k is supposed to be used to help secure your financial future when you can't work. The numbers may work out in the short term, but do they still work out in the long term? Most credit cards require minimum payments high enough to pay back in 7-10 years, so does shortening that to 5 (or less) make up for the (probably early) years of compounding interest for your retirement? I think others have addressed some of this so I won't do the math. I can tell you that I have a 401k loan, and when things got iffy at my job for, it was a very bad feeling to have that over my head because, unlike other debts, there isn't much you can do about it. |
Why do sole proprietors in India generally use a current account? | No. Current account is not a requirement. You can use savings account. You would need to pay taxes on interest. Savings account have limitation on number of withdrawal in a quarter, hence most sole proprietorship have current account. |
When an in-the-money stock option expires does the broker always execute it or does its value become worthless if the owner doesn't execute it? | It depends on the broker, each one's rules may vary. Your broker should be able to answer this question for how they handle such a situation. The broker I used would execute and immediately sell the stock if the option was 25 cents in the money at expiration. If they simply executed and news broke over the weekend (option expiration is always on Friday), the client could wake up Monday to a bad margin call, or worse. |
Is there any benefit to investing in an index fund? | Index funds may invest either in index components directly or in other instruments (like ETFs, index options, futures, etc.) which are highly correlated with the index. The specific fund prospectus or description on any decent financial site should contain these details. Index funds are not actively managed, but that does not mean they aren't managed at all - if index changes and the fund includes specific stock, they would adjust the fund content. Of course, the downside of it is that selling off large amounts of certain stock (on its low point, since it's being excluded presumably because of its decline) and buying large amount of different stock (on its raising point) may have certain costs, which would cause the fund lag behind the index. Usually the difference is not overly large, but it exists. Investing in the index contents directly involves more transactions - which the fund distributes between members, so it doesn't usually buy individually for each member but manages the portfolio in big chunks, which saves costs. Of course, the downside is that it can lag behind the index if it's volatile. Also, in order to buy specific shares, you will have to shell out for a number of whole share prices - which for a big index may be a substantial sum and won't allow you much flexibility (like "I want to withdraw half of my investment in S&P 500") since you can't usually own 1/10 of a share. With index funds, the entry price is usually quite low and increments in which you can add or withdraw funds are low too. |
What are the differences between gold/siver “coin” vs. “round”? | littleadv gave a great answer, but neglected to mention one thing. Modern minted coins usually only contain a (high) percentage of a precious metal. For example pre-1965 quarters are 90% silver and 10% other, to maintain strength and durability. Rounds of silver bullion are usually .9999%, or fine, silver, which is considerably softer. |
Less than a year at my first job out of college, what do I save for first? | I recommend saving for retirement first to leverage compound interest over a long time horizon. The historical real return on the stock market has been about 7%. Assuming returns stay at 7% in the future (big assumption, but don't have any better numbers to go off of), then $8,000 saved today will be worth $119,795 in 40 years (1.07^40*8000). Having a sizable retirement portfolio will give you peace of mind as you progress through life and make other expenditures. If you buy assets that pay you money and appreciate, you will be in a better financial position than if you buy assets that require significant cash outflows (i.e. property taxes, interest you pay to the bank, etc.) or assets that ultimately depreciate to zero (a car). As a young person, you are well positioned to pay yourself (not the bank or the car dealership) and leverage compound interest over a long time horizon. |
What are the tax implications of exercising options early? | Despite a fair number of views, no one besides @mbhunter answered, so I'll gather the findings of my own research here. Hopefully, this will help others in similar situations. If you spot any errors, please let me know! |
How were self employed folk taxed in the U.K. before 1997 | This link: http://www.ifs.org.uk/fs/articles/ewgm_feb93.pdf (from 1996, describing the proposals for the change) seems to answer the question in its description of "the current system" - they had to file business accounts and it was calculated by the Inland Revenue from that. |
Methods for forecasting price? | Assuming a price is set on an free market there are particular difficulties to pricing. A free market is one where the price is entirely determined by the willingness of people to buy and sell at a particular price point. What you perceive as price, is actually the "tick", i.e. the quote of the last transaction. The first and most serious major obstacle to pricing is a variation of the prisoners dilemma, a psychological phenomenon. For instance, bitcoin might be worth 4$ now, but you believe it will be worth 5$ in 3 days. Will you buy bitcoin? If acting only on your conviction, yes. But what if you consider what other people will do? Will others believe bitcoin will be worth 5$ in 3 days? Will they act on their conviction? Will the others believe that others believe that it wil be worth 5$ in 3 days, and will the others believe that the others who believe will act on their conviction? Will the others believe that others believe of still others who believe that they will act on their conviction? It goes on like this ad-infinitum. The actual behavior of any individual on the market is essentially chaotic and unpredictable (for the reason stated above and others). This is related to a phenomenon you call market efficiency. An efficient market always reflects the optimal price-point at any given time. If that is so, then you cannot win on this market, because at the time you would have to realize a competitive edge, everybody else has already acted on that information. Markets are not 100% efficient of course. But modern electronic markets can be very, very efficient (as say compared to stock markets fro 100 years ago, where you could get a competitive edge just by having access to a fast courier). What makes matters rather more difficult for price forecasting is that not only are humans engaging in the market, machines are as well. The machines may not be terribly good at what they do, but they are terribly fast. The machines that work well (i.e. don't loose much) will survive, and the ones that don't will die in short order. Since speed is one of the major benefits of the machines over humans, they tend to make markets even more efficient. Another phenomenon to price forecasting is that of information and entropy. Suppose you found a reliable method to predict a market at a given time. You act on this information and indeed you make a profit. The profit you will be able to achieve will diminish over time until it reaches zero or reverts. The reason for this is that you acted on private information, which you leaked out by engaging in a trade. The more successful you are in exploiting your forecast, the better you train every other market participant to react to their losses. Since for every trade you make successfully, there has to be somebody who lost. People or machines who lose on markets usually exit those markets in some fashion. So even if the other participants are not adjusting their behavior, your success is weeding out those with the wrong behavior. Yet another difficulty in pricing forecasts are black-swan events. Since information can have a huge impact on pricing, the sudden appearance of new information can throw a conservative forecast completely off the rails and incur huge losses (or huge unexpected benefits). You cannot quantify black-swan events in any shape or form. It is my belief that you cannot predict efficient and well working markets. You might be able to predict some very sub-optimal markets, but usually, hedge-funds are always on the hunt for inefficient markets to exploit, so by simple decree of market economics, the inefficient markets tend to be a perpetually dying species. |
Why are options created? | At my soon to be legendary Stock Options Cafe, I recently wrote an article "Betting On Apple at 9 to 2." It described a trade in which a 35% move in a stock over a fixed time (2 years) would result in a 354% gain in one's bet. In this case, the options serve to create remarkable leverage for speculators. In general, option help provide liquidity and extend the nature of the risk/reward curve. There are option trades that range from conservative (e.g. a 'covered call') to wildly speculative, as the one I described above. |
What does PMI mean? | Private Mortgage Insurance. It's money that you pay to an insurance company to make the lender whole in the event that you go into default. It's a real waste of money for you. If you are trying to finance more than 80% of the value of a home, a standard mortage is likely to require that you get PMI. Nowadays there are other options which involve paying substantially more interest. |
What happens to your spouse's sole proprietorship if they die? | For sure you should get a lawyer on this one, but it would seem to me that the simplest path forward would be to convert the business to a partnership where both spouses are owners, and to write a clause into the partnership agreement stipulating what happens upon death of a partner. Such an approach really should be done with a lawyer to make sure that it's all legally sound and will stand up in court if needed. |
Taking partial capital loss purely for tax purposes | When a question is phrased this way, i.e. "for tax purposes" I'm compelled to advise - Don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog. In theory, one can create a loss, up to the $3K, and take it against ordinary income. When sold, the gains may be long term and be at a lower rate. In reality, if you are out of the stock for the required 30 days, it will shoot up in price. If you double up, as LittleAdv correctly offers, it will drop over the 30 days and negate any benefit. The investing dog's water bowl is half full. |
Where should I park my money if I'm pessimistic about the economy and I think there will be high inflation? | Given those assumptions (which I happen to think are reasonable) it seems to me the obvious place is to buy non-Australian assets, such as the Vanguard VTS (total US share market) and VEU (world ex-US) ETFs, and perhaps also some international fixed-interest ETFs. I think keeping a certain amount of cash would be prudent anyhow. If you felt very sure this was going to happen, you could borrow in Australia and buy foreign assets, expecting that as the AUD falls, the relative cost of the borrowing will also fall. This is obviously fairly risky, not least because Australian interest rates are already high and may go much higher, and while the rates go up the exchange rate will also likely go up. As I mentioned on another answer, I think buying gold or other commodity instruments is a poor choice here because the Australian economy and the AUD is so tied to those prices already. |
Saving for a non-necessity | 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 |
Is it usual for a tradesperson not to charge VAT? | Assuming this to be in the UK, and I suspect the rules are similar elsewhere, this indeed may be true. There is a threshold beneath which a business does not have to register for VAT - currently a turnover of £81,000. A non VAT registered business does not charge VAT but also cannot reclaim the VAT on their business expenses. For some businesses below the threshold it is worthwhile registering because the amount they can reclaim is significant. However, there are also many small businesses that do a lot of cash only jobs so as to not put the money through the books and therefore avoid any tax liability. There are also many who will get the the customer to buy materials direct to avoid including these in their turnover. Like every type of tax rule there is a grey area between people trying to avoid paying more tax than is needed and dodgy deals to avoid paying their fair share of tax. |
Why does a stock price drop as soon an I purchase several thousand shares at market price? | Any time a large order it placed for Buy, the sell side starts increasing as the demand of Buy has gone up. [Vice Versa is also true]. Once this orders gets fulfilled, the demand drops and hence the Sell price should also lower. Depending on how much was the demand / supply without your order, the price fluctuation would vary. For examply if before your order, for this particular share the normal volume is around 100's of shares then you order would spike things up quite a bit. However if for other share the normal volume is around 100000's then your order would not have much impact. |
What is a subsidy? | subsidy - financial support. For example subsidized housing - when the government pays a part of your rent (usually for low income families). or subsidized student loan - when somebody else is paying interest on the money you borrowed while you are in school. |
Does working in finance firms improve a person's finance knowledge? | Depends on what work you're doing. If you aren't doing a job which involves working with and understanding the data, probably not. |
If a stock has only buyers and no sellers how does its price go up? | You are interpreting things wrong. Indian Infotech and Software Ltd (BOM:509051) clearly has volume and trades. The MoneyControl site says Your words like "Nobody is selling the stock" and "no trade going on" are completely unfounded. |
Related Hedges (How do they work?) | In this type of strategy profit is made when the shares go down as your main position is the short trade of the common stock. The convertible instruments will tend to move in about the same direction as the underlying (what it can be converted to) but less violently as they are traded less (lower volatility and lower volume in the market on both sides), however, they are not being used to make a profit so much as to hedge against the stock going up. Since both the bonds and the preference shares are higher on the list to be repaid if the company declares bankruptcy and the bonds pay out a fixed amount of interest as well, both also help protect against problems that may occur with a long position in the common stock. Essentially the plan with this strategy is to earn fixed income on the bonds whilst the stock price drops and then to sell both the bonds and buy the stock back on the market to cover the short position. If the prediction that the stock will fall is wrong then you are still earning fixed income on the debt and are able to convert it into stock at the higher price to cover the short sale eliminating, or reducing, the loss made on the short sale. Effectively the profit here is made on the spread between the price of the bond, accounting for the conversion price, and the price of the stock and that fixed income is less volatile (except usually in the junk market) than stock. |
How to find historical stock price for a de-listed or defunct company? | http://www.euroinvestor.com/exchanges/nasdaq/macromedia-inc/41408/history will work as DumbCoder states, but didn't contain LEHMQ (Lehman Brother's holding company). You can use Yahoo for companies that have declared bankruptcy, such as Lehman Brothers: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=LEHMQ&a=08&b=01&c=2008&d=08&e=30&f=2008&g=d but you have to know the symbol of the holding company. |
Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage? | I'd talk to a solicitor and see if you can structure the purchase in a way that breaks the property into three pieces. One would be the freehold of the whole building, one would be a long lease on the downstairs part (on which you would get a residential mortgage) and one would be a long lease on the upstairs flat (on which you would get a buy-to-let mortgage). Since there's essentially no price premium for freehold as opposed to long lease, you should be able to raise enough money from the two mortgages to fund the purchase. |
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough? | Lotteries are like the inverse of insurance policies. Instead of paying money to mitigate the impact of an unlikely event which is extremely negative, you are paying money to obtain a chance of experiencing an unlikely event which is extremely positive. One thing to keep in mind regarding lotteries is the diminishing marginal utility of money. If you know you'll never use more than say $100 million in your entire life, no matter how much money you might acquire, then buying tickets for lotteries where the grand prize is over $100 million stops being increasingly "worth the price of entry". Personally, I'd rather play a lottery where the grand prize is sub-100 million, and where there are no prizes which are sub-1 million, because I do not believe that any other amounts of winnings are going to be life-changing for me in a way that I am likely to fully appreciate. |
Is it possible to trade CFD without leverage? | Yes, just set aside the amount of money. If you buy a cfd long in a stock for a 1000$, set aside 1000$. If you buy a cfd short, set aside the same amount and include a stoploss at the value at which the money is depleted. In this case however, you can stil lose more, because of opening gaps. By doing this, you replicate the stock return, apart from the charged interest rate. |
Working remotely from Canada for a US company. How to get paid? | I'm no lawyer and no expert, so take my remarks as entertainment only. Also see this question. If you have a U.S. SSN which is eligible for work, they may be able to pay you on 1099 basis with your SSN as a sole proprietor, unless they have some personal reason for avoiding that. So perhaps try asking about that specifically. HR policies can be weird and tricky, maybe a nudge in the right direction will help. Not What You Asked: regardless, I might recommend you register as an LLC and get an EIN (sort of SSN for companies) for a variety of reasons. It's called a "limited liability" company for a reason. You may also have an easier time reaping various business-related rewards, like writing off expenses. If you do so, consider a state with no income tax like Wyoming. (Or, for convenience sake, WA if you live in BC, or maybe NH if you live in Ontario.. etc.) |
Does buying and selling a stock OR holding onto it make a company look better? | I have watched the ticker when I have made a transaction. About ¼ of the time my buy (or sell) actually moves the going price. But that price movement is wiped out by other transactions within two (or so) munites. Is your uncle correct? Yes. Will anyone notice? No. |
Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | The earlier you are in your career, the more willing you should be to take a better opportunity even if it has a short-term financial cost. You go to college even if McDonald's has an opening. After college you may take an entry level job with better long-term prospects even if a higher paying job is available. You may train for some professional qualification. Having expenses you have to pay limits your flexibility to do this. A variable rate loan that goes up later may give you the freedom to make better decisions early on. Thus in this case it may be worthwhile. That said - be very wary of variable rate loans. Unless you have iron discipline, they give the opportunity to bury yourself. |
What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US? | Bad plan. This seems like a recipe for having your money taken away from you by CBP. Let me explain the biases which make it so. US banking is reliable enough for the common citizen, that everyone simply uses banks. To elaborate, Americans who are unbanked either can't produce simple identity paperwork; or they got an account but then got blacklisted for overdrawing it. These are problems of the poor, not millionaires. Outside of determined "off the grid" folks with political reasons to not be in the banking and credit systsm, anyone with money uses the banking system. Who's not a criminal, anyway. We also have strong laws against money laundering: turning cash (of questionable origin) into "sanitized" cash on deposit in a bank. The most obvious trick is deposit $5000/day for 200 days. Nope, that's Structuring: yeah, we have a word for that. A guy with $1 million cash, it is presumed he has no choice: he can't convert it into a bank deposit, as in this problem - note where she says she can't launder it. If it's normal for people in your country to haul around cash, due to a defective banking system, you're not the only one with that problem, and nearby there'll be a country with a good banking system who understands your situation. Deposit it there. Then retain a US lawyer who specializes in this, and follow his advice about moving the money to the US via funds transfer. Even then, you may have some explaining to do; but far less than with cash. (And keep in mind for those politically motivated off-the-financial-grid types, they're a bit crazy but definitely not stupid, live a cash life everyday, and know the law better than anybody. They would definitely consider using banks and funds transfers for the border crossing proper, because of Customs. Then they'll turn it into cash domestically and close the accounts.) |
Retirement planning 401(k), IRA, pension, student loans | I'd suggest you avoid the Roth for now and use pretax accounts to get the greatest return. I'd deposit to the 401(k), enough to get as much match as permitted, then use a traditional IRA. You should understand how tax brackets work, and aim to use pre-tax to the extent it helps you avoid the 25% rate. If any incremental deposit would be 15% money, use Roth for that. Most discussions of the pre-tax / post tax decision talk about 2 rates. That at the time of deposit and time of withdrawal. There are decades in between that shouldn't be ignored. If you have any life change, a marriage, child, home purchase, etc, there's a chance your marginal bracket drops back down to 15%. That's the time to convert to Roth, just enough to "top off" the 15% bracket. Last, I wouldn't count on that pension, there's too much time until you retire to count on that income. Few people stay at one job long enough to collect on the promise of a pension that takes 30+ years to earn, and even if you did, there's the real chance the company cancels the plan long before you retire. |
At what point do index funds become unreliable? | The argument you are making here is similar to the problem I have with the stronger forms of the efficient market hypothesis. That is if the market already has incorporated all of the information about the correct prices, then there's no reason to question any prices and then the prices never change. However, the mechanism through which the market incorporates this information is via the actors buying an selling based on what they see as the market being incorrect. The most basic concept of this problem (I think) starts with the idea that every investor is passive and they simply buy the market as one basket. So every paycheck, the index fund buys some more stock in the market in a completely static way. This means the demand for each stock is the same. No one is paying attention to the actual companies' performance so a poor performer's stock price never moves. The same for the high performer. The only thing moving prices is demand but that's always up at a more or less constant rate. This is a topic that has a lot of discussion lately in financial circles. Here are two articles about this topic but I'm not convinced the author is completely serious hence the "worst-case scenario" title. These are interesting reads but again, take this with a grain of salt. You should follow the links in the articles because they give a more nuanced understanding of each potential issue. One thing that's important is that the reality is nothing like what I outline above. One of the links in these articles that is interesting is the one that talks about how we now have more indexes than stocks on the US markets. The writer points to this as a problem in the first article, but think for a moment why that is. There are many different types of strategies that active managers follow in how they determine what goes in a fund based on different stock metrics. If a stocks P/E ratio drops below a critical level, for example, a number of indexes are going to sell it. Some might buy it. It's up to the investors (you and me) to pick which of these strategies we believe in. Another thing to consider is that active managers are losing their clients to the passive funds. They have a vested interest in attacking passive management. |
Is there a “reverse wash sale” rule? | Yes, the newly bought shares will have a long-term holding period, regardless of when you sell them. In addition, it's only a wash sale if you sold the first shares for a loss; it's not a wash sale if you sold them for a gain. Wikipedia mentions this: When a wash sale occurs, the holding period for the replacement stock includes the period you held the stock you sold. Example: You've held shares of XYZ for 10 years. You sell it at a loss but then buy it back within the wash sale period. When you sell the replacement stock, your gain or loss will be long-term — no matter how soon you sell it. Charles Schwab also mentions this: Here's a quick example of a wash sale. On 9/30/XX, you buy 500 shares of ABC at $10 per share. One year later the stock price starts to drop, and you sell all your shares at $9 per share on 10/4/XY. Two days later, on 10/6, ABC bottoms out at $8 and you buy 500 shares again. This series of trades triggers a wash sale. The holding period of the original shares will be added to the holding period of the replacement shares, effectively leaving you with a long-term position. |
For the first time in my life, I'm going to be making real money…what should I do with it? | If I may echo the Roth comment - The Roth is a tax designation, not an end investment, so you still need to research and decide what's appropriate. I recommend the Roth for the long term investments, but keep in mind, even if you feel you may need to tap the Roth sooner than later, all deposits may be withdrawn at any time with no tax or penalty. Roth is great to store the emergency money for many if they aren't 100% sure they have enough cash to save for retirement. As you get further along, and see that you don't need it, change how it's invested to longer term, a mix of stocks (I prefer ETFs that mimic the S&P) |
Estate taxes and the top 1 percent by net worth | There are two key reasons: Consider a family of four, two kids and two adults, that has a net worth of $20 million. Each of these four people live in a top 1% household. But any of those four people can die, and their estate will not pay any estate tax. Both kids and one spouse can die, and still no estate tax will be paid. Only when the last spouse dies would there be any estate tax. Also, consider a person who dies but whose assets do not flow into their estate. For example, their assets could be held in an inter-vivos trust. People with higher net worths are much more likely to use trusts to avoid or minimize estate taxes. |
What implications does having the highest household debt to disposable income ratio have on Australia? | Stock market Tends to follow the DJIA and FTSE, so unlikely to see an Australia-only crash, especially while resources are doing so well. If China's growth slows before other ailing sectors improve, a downturn becomes more likely and the potential severity of the downturn increases. Economy A huge question to which I would refer you to Steve Keen: http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/ See A Fork in the Road. Housing Market It's a bubble, stupid! Seriously, it's as though the Aussies waited for the US to get done and then simply borrowed the copy book. There are a multitude of articles out there about likely outcomes from where the housing market is and where it's going. See this for a sample of what's out there: http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2010/07/26/aussie-housing-bubble-gets-popped-with-chinese-credit-crash/ Note: All three of the areas you raise - economy, stock mkt, housing - are so intertwined that it's tricky separating them out. A lot of reading on Steve Keen's site can help. |
How is my employer affected if I have expensive claims on my group health insurance? | I don't think so. There is a provision in ObamaCare called "community rating" that applies starting in 2014. Insurance companies must place individual and small group plans into a pool of people from the same geographical region. The same plan must cost the same for all small businesses from the same region. So having employees who have high costs will not significantly affect the company's cost; it will get factored into the cost for all people in the area; but the effect gets averaged out over all businesses and individuals who have plans. |
How can I save money on a gym / fitness membership? New Year's Resolution is to get in shape - but on the cheap! | If you're determined to save money, find ways to integrate exercise into your daily routine and don't join a gym at all. This makes it more likely you'll keep it up if it is a natural part of your day. You could set aside half the money you would spend on the gym towards some of the options below. I know it's not always practical, especially in the winter, but here are a few things you could do. One of the other answers makes a good point. Gym membership can be cost effective if you go regularly, but don't kid yourself that you'll suddenly go 5 times a week every week if you've not done much regular exercise. If you are determined to join a gym, here are a few other things to consider. |
Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options? | An option gives you an option. That is, you aren't buying any security - you are simply buying an option to buy a security. The sole value of what you buy is the option to buy something. An American option offers more flexibility - i.e. it offers you more options on buying the stock. Since you have more options, the cost of the option is higher. Of course, a good example makes sense why this is the case. Consider the VIX. Options on the VIX are European style. Sometimes the VIX spikes like crazy - tripling in value in days. It usually comes back down pretty quick though - within a couple of weeks. So far out options on the VIX aren't worth just a whole lot more, because the VIX will probably be back to normal. However, if the person could have excercised them right when it got to the top, they would have made a fortune many times what their option was worth. Since they are Euroopean style, though, they would have to wait till their option was redeemable, right when the VIX would be about back to normal. In this case, an American style option would be far more valuable - especially for something that is difficult to predict, like the VIX. |
What would be a wise way to invest savings for a newly married couple? | I agree with @Pete that you may be well-advised to pay off your loans first and go from there. Even though you may not be "required" to make payments on your own loan based on your income, that debt will play a large factor in your borrowing ability until it is gone, which hinders your ability to move toward home ownership. If you are in a fortunate enough position to totally pay off both your loan and hers from cash on hand then you should. It would still leave you with more than $112,000 and no debt, which is a big priority and advantage for a young couple. Mind you, this doesn't keep you from starting an investment plan with some portion of the remaining funds (the advice to keep six months' income in the bank is very wise) through perhaps a mutual fund if you don't want to directly manage the investments yourself. The advantage of mutual funds is the ability to choose the level of risk you're willing to take and let professionals manage how to achieve your goals for you. You can always make adjustments to your funds as your circumstances change. Again, I'd emphasize ridding yourself of the student loan debt as the first move, then looking at how to invest the remainder. |
Should I pay off my student loans or keep it in the bank? [duplicate] | Basically you have 4 options: Use your cash to pay off the student loans. Put your cash in an interest-bearing savings account. Invest your cash, for example in the stock market. Spend your cash on fun stuff you want right now. The more you can avoid #4 the better it will be for you in the long term. But you're apparently wise enough that that wasn't included as an option in your question. To decide between 1, 2, and 3, the key questions are: What interest are you paying on the loan versus what return could you get on savings or investment? How much risk are you willing to take? How much cash do you need to keep on hand for unexpected expenses? What are the tax implications? Basically, if you are paying 2% interest on a loan, and you can get 3% interest on a savings account, then it makes sense to put the cash in a savings account rather than pay off the loan. You'll make more on the interest from the savings account than you'll pay on interest on the loan. If the best return you can get on a savings account is less than 2%, then you are better off to pay off the loan. However, you probably want to keep some cash reserve in case your car breaks down or you have a sudden large medical bill, etc. How much cash you keep depends on your lifestyle and how much risk you are comfortable with. I don't know what country you live in. At least here in the U.S., a savings account is extremely safe: even the bank goes bankrupt your money should be insured. You can probably get a much better return on your money by investing in the stock market, but then your returns are not guaranteed. You may even lose money. Personally I don't have a savings account. I put all my savings into fairly safe stocks, because savings accounts around here tend to pay about 1%, which is hardly worth even bothering. You also should consider tax implications. If you're a new grad maybe your income is low enough that your tax rates are low and this is a minor factor. But if you are in, say, a 25% marginal tax bracket, then the effective interest rate on the student loan would be more like 1.5%. That is, if you pay $20 in interest, the government will then take 25% of that off your taxes, so it's the equivalent of paying $15 in interest. Similarly a place to put your money that gives non-taxable interest -- like municipal bonds -- gives a better real rate of return than something with the same nominal rate but where the interest is taxable. |
Buying and selling the same stock | Elaborating on kelsham's answer: You buy 100 shares XYZ at $1, for a total cost of $100 plus commissions. You sell 100 shares XYZ at $2, for a total income of $200 minus commissions. Exclusive of commissions, your capital gain is $100 for this trade, and you will pay taxes on that. Even if you proceed to buy 200 shares XYZ at $1, reinvesting all your income from the sale, you still owe taxes on that $100 gain. The IRS has met this trick before. |
Getting correlation from regression slope (Completely stumped) | I just used the formula in below link and did some math. I have that book too but haven't looked at it yet really. Lots of maths to have fun with. Let me know if this is correct or needs fixing. Source: http://wiki.fool.com/How_to_Calculate_Beta_From_Volatility_%26_Correlation |
What foreign exchange rate is used for foreign credit card and bank transactions? | In addition to the SELL rate on the statement transaction day, currency conversion fees of 0 - 3% is applied, depending on the card issuing bank. |
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