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Considering buying a house in town with few major employers (economic stability) | BLUF: Continue renting, and work toward financial independence, you can always buy later if your situation changes. Owning the house you live in can be a poor investment. It is totally dependent on the housing market where you live. Do the math. The rumors may have depressed the market to the point where the houses... |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | hledger is a free software, cross-platform double-entry accounting tool I've been working on for a while. It has command-line and web-based interfaces to your local data, and some other interesting features. There's also ledger (http://wiki.github.com/jwiegley/ledger/) which is command-line only. These are.. different,... |
Buying an option in the money, at the money, or out of the money | You can do some very crafty hedging with the variety of options. For instance, deep out of the money options are affected more by changes of market volatility, knowing this you can get long or short vega very easily, as opposed to necessarily betting on changes in the underlying asset. |
What's the least risky investment for people in Europe? | First of all, congratulations on saving some money. So many people these days do not even get that far. As far as investments, what is best for you depends heavily on your: Here is a quick summary of types of assets that are likely available to you, and my thoughts on why they may or may not be a good fit for your situ... |
Long-term capital gain taxes on ETFs? | Generally, ETFs and mutual funds don't pay taxes (although there are some cases where they do, and some countries where it is a common case). What happens is, the fund reports the portion of the gain attributed to each investor, and the investor pays the tax. In the US, this is reported to you on 1099-DIV as capital ga... |
Why buy insurance? | Discussions around expected values and risk premiums are very useful, but there's another thing to consider: cash flow. Some individuals have high value assets that are vital to them, such as transportation or housing. The cost of replacing these assets is prohibitive to them: their cashflow means that their rate of ... |
Need help with the psychology of investing: past failures and future fears | I would read any and all of the John Bogle books. Essentially: We know the market will rise and fall. We just don't know when specifically. For the most part it is impossible to time the market. He would advocate an asset allocation approach to investing. So much to bonds, tbills, S&P500 index, NASDAQ index. In ... |
Can a single-member LLC have a fiscal year not as the calendar year? | I'm no tax expert by any means. I do know that a disreagarded entity is considered a sole proprietor for federal tax purposes. My understanding is that this means your personal tax year and your business tax year must be one and the same. Nevertheless, it is technically possible to have a non-calendar fiscal year as an... |
Can you explain “time value of money” and “compound interest” and provide examples of each? | Here are some really excellent video tutorials on these topics: Introduction to Compound Interest Introduction to Present Value |
What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different'? | To play devil’s advocate to much of what has been written before, it's also worth noting that this is quite an important quote for a sort of reverse reason to what has been discussed before us, that of that fact that virtually every economic situation is different. As it's such a reflexive problem, each and every set o... |
Question about car loan payment | You can earn significantly more than 0.99% in the stock market. I'd pay the $450/month and invest the rest in a (relatively conservative) stock market fund, making monthly withdrawals for the car note. |
Are there any viable alternatives to Paypal for a small site? | I found out about Google checkout today, it looks like it may meet my needs, but I'd still be interested to find out about other options. |
As an independent contractor, should I always charge the client the GST/HST? | Hourly rate is not the determinant. You could be selling widgets, not hours. Rather, there's a $30,000 annual revenue threshold for GST/HST. If your business's annual revenues fall below that amount, you don't need to register for GST/HST and in such case you don't charge your clients the tax. You could still choose t... |
What's the difference between a high yield dividend stock vs a growth stock? | I think Fidelity has a very nice introduction to Growth vs Value investing that may give you the background you need. People love to put stocks in categories however the distinction is more of a range and can change over time. JB King makes a good point that for most people the two stocks you mentioned would both be c... |
What would happen if the Euro currency went bust? | Krugman (Nobel prize in Economy) has just said: Greek euro exit, very possibly next month. Huge withdrawals from Spanish and Italian banks, as depositors try to move their money to Germany. 3a. Maybe, just possibly, de facto controls, with banks forbidden to transfer deposits out of country and limits on cash withdra... |
Can I actually get a share of stock issued with a piece of paper anymore? | Yes, indeed. For example, Ford Motor Company's website has a bit about them. Is there any advantage to having an actual physical note instead of a website? You can safeguard them yourself. Which may or may not be a good thing. It certainly brings up a bit of hassle and extra costs if you want to sell them. Though y... |
I'm upside down on my car loan and need a different car, what can I do? | Dealerships make a lot of money in the finance department. One of the thing they play upon is your emotional reaction of purchasing a new vehicle (new to you in this case). They perform all sorts of shenanigans, like adding undercoat, selling gap insurance, or extended warranties. They entice you with a promise of a... |
Start Investing - France | In france you have several options: A good place to starts with: 1% as of may 2015 interest is low, but's money is 100% liquid (you can withdraw antime). You got slightly superior interest rates, and have to wire at least 45€ a month on it. It gives you lots of advantages if you use it to buy a house. You cannot use t... |
Which U.S. online discount broker is the best value for money? | I am very happy with Charles Schwab. I use both their investing tools and banking tool, but I don't do much investing besides buy more shares a random mutual fund I purchase 4 years ago I did once need to call in about an IRA rollover and I got a person on the phone immediately who answered my questions and followed u... |
What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments? | Making extra principal payments will reduce the term of your loan. I wouldn't sign up for a biweekly schedule, just do it yourself so you have more flexibility. A simple spreadsheet will allow you to play "What if?" and make it clear that extra principal payments are most effective early in the term of the loan. My wif... |
How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent? | Any kind of credit contract such as a mobile phone contract (could be SIM only or with a handset) would also help increase your number of accounts and demonstrate a track record of responsible management and repayments. If you have a Pay As You Go phone at present consider a SIM only contract with the same network, and... |
Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year? | I can think of a few good reasons: A company, especially public, usually wants their fourth-quarter earnings to be the strongest of the year. That ends each fiscal year on a high note for the company and its investors, which helps public sentiment and boosts stock prices. So, travel agencies and airlines usually like e... |
Why is there inconsistent returns difference between direct and regular Mutual Funds? | (This answer refers to the US investment landscape) I'm not sure your classification of funds as direct and regular accurately reflects the nature of the mutual fund industry. It's not the funds themselves that are "direct" or "regular." Rather it's the way an investor chooses to invest in them. If you make the inve... |
Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score? | No, don't open a credit card. Get used to paying cash for everything from the beginning. The best situation you can be in is not to have any credit. When it comes time to buy a house, put down %30 percent and your 0 credit score won't matter. This will keep you within your means, and, with governments gathering more an... |
Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options? | The value of an option has 2 components, the extrinsic or time value element and the intrinsic value from the difference in the strike price and the underlying asset price. With either an American or European option the intrinsic value of a call option can be 'locked in' any time by selling the same amount of the under... |
If I pay someone else's property taxes, can I use it as a deduction on my income tax return? | To make matters worse, if you pay the property tax your mother in law can't take the deduction either. You may be better off paying rent and having her handle the property correctly, as a rental. |
Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card? | The truth is that Visa does not require a merchant to enter the cvv number before authorizing a transaction. The only information that is really needed is the credit card number and expiration date. |
How do I get into investing in stocks? | In addition to the advice already given (particularly getting rid of high-interest debt), I would add the following: |
Is there a term that better describes a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) when it is negative? | My experience is in economics, so it may differ from an accounting or personal finance perspective somewhat; that being said, I find it perfectly acceptable to use a term like CAGR when the rate is positive or negative. Economists talk about negative growth rates all the time, and it's universally assumed that growth r... |
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? | It depends on the selling price, but if we can assume the property will be sold at a profit, they are getting a pretty sweet deal at your expense. They are both getting about 5.2% interest on their money, plus the lion's share of any property appreciation. I would say that fair would be either of: |
How to calculate 1 share movement | Unless other people believe you have a reason for selling at a lower price, your sale probably has no lasting effect at all on the market. Of course, if people see you dump a few million dollars' worth of shares at a discount, they may be inclined to believe you have a reason. But if you just sell a few, they will conc... |
Retirement planning: Pension or personal saving/investing? | with me and my wife coming from different countries, and us both living in a non-native country, we have very little clue where we will eventually settle down. The answer depends on where you reside currently, tax rules and ability to move funds. As well as where you plan to settle down and the tax rules there. From wh... |
How good is Wall Street Survivor for learning about investing? | While I've never used Wall Street Survivor, I took a look over the marketing materials and I've seen multiple similar contests run among investment interns also just out of college. I see some good here and some bad. First off, I love interactive web-based tutorials. I've used one to learn the syntax of a new program... |
Investing in third world countries | Basically, unless you are an investment professional, you should not be investing in a venture in a developing country shown to you by someone else. The only time you should be investing in a developing country is if a "lightbulb" goes off in your head and you say to yourself, "With my engineering background, I can dev... |
How safe is a checking account? | In addition to @mhoran_psprep answer, and inspired by @wayne's comment. If the bank won't let you block automatic transfers between accounts, drop the bank like a hot potato They've utterly failed basic account security principles, and shouldn't be trusted with anyone's money. It's not the bank's money, and you're the... |
Do governments support their own bonds when their value goes down? | Companies do not support their stock. Once the security is out on the wild (market), its price fluctuates according to what investors think they are worth. Support is a whole different concept, financially speaking: Support or support level refers to the price level below which, historically, a stock has had difficulty... |
Does it make sense to take out student loans to start an IRA? | IRA contributions are limited; you cannot "dump the excess into a retirement account like an IRA" if the excess is more than $5500. Furthermore, as @firefly points out, you need to have earned income (technical term is compensation and it includes self-employment income, not just wages) to contribute to an IRA, and the... |
What is the difference between “good debt” vs. “bad debt”? | In general, all forms of debt are bad, as they keep you tied to a financial institution and can be an emotional burden for many. In the book Payback (by Margaret Atwood), debt is even described as a sin. However some forms of debt are necessary and some can help create wealth. "Good" debt: a mortgage - to purchase a ho... |
Is threatening to close the account a good way to negotiate with the bank? | If this matters to you a lot, I agree you should leave. My primary bank account raised chequing account and transaction fees. I left. When I was closing my account the teller asked for the reason (they needed to fill out a form) and I explained it was the monthly fees. Eventually, if a bank gets enough of these, they w... |
What is the opposite of a hedge? | There is no opposite of a hedge, except not having a hedge at all. A "hedge" isn't directional. If you are short, you hedge by having something that minimizes your losses if you are wrong. If you are long, you hedge by having something that minimizes your losses if it decreases in value. If you own a house, you hedge b... |
What's my risk of buying a house for a friend and sell back to him? | This is fraud, the related legal code is "11 USC 548 - Fraudulent transfers and obligations"; also see the wiki page for Fraudulent Conveyance in the United States. Highly suggest cutting off contact with this person, and speaking with a lawyer as soon as possible to make sure you have not already broken the law. |
Does owning BP ADR from US stock market required to pay custody fees | Rules appear to be changing (21NOV2014) Aviva Plc. AV on NYSE pass thru fee is 0.02 cents per ADR but that equals 11% deduction from ADR dividend. For utility or insurance stock that is significant ongoing fee. Registrar in US is Citibank, could be specific to them. This is the first for me except some modest fees on i... |
Are there any benefits of FMLA beyond preserving your job? | In your situation, it sounds like the only added benefit would be insurance continuance. For employees who can't access short-term disability it is a critical protection against losing their job. I just want to emphasize that given that you are in a pretty decent employment situation. |
Live in California but work for Illinois-based company | They might be concerned with having to charge sales tax in California if they have a single employee in California, creating a nexus situation with CA. If that's the case, or even if there is some other issue, you might be able to switch from being a W2 employee to being a 1099 independent contractor. There's a host of... |
Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card? | As a general premise: In most of the online transactions in case of dispute the benefit of doubt is given to the customer. IE if the customer refuses to pay and claims that its not his transaction, the card company reverses the charges and does not pay the merchant (or recovers if its already paid). There are many ty... |
What are the consequences of not respecting a notice period when leaving a job? | It depends on your employer. They may not care to pursue matters if you don't give enough notice. They might be happy to see you go. Or they might be really sad to see you go, but not feel like they need to punish you. Or they might be really angry to see you go, and decide that they want to punish you to the full exte... |
How Often Should I Chase a Credit Card Signup Bonus? | See the accepted answer for this question. What effect will credit card churning for frequent flyer miles have on my credit score? This does not directly answer 'how often...' that you asked, but it states that the answerer opens 5-15 accounts per year. So the answer to your question is, as often as you want, as long... |
Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what? | Checks are awesome things in that, even if it gets lost the money doesn't change hands until the check is cashed. I would highly recommend NOT signing a check over and putting it in the mail though. Essentially putting your signature on it is saying yes, pay to whomever. Theoretically acceptable, rarely a good idea. Ca... |
How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent? | so if we rent it out we don't want to just charge what we're paying on our mortgage - we'd definitely be losing money if we did that. I think you're overlooking one thing: your profit/loss is not monthly. Your profit is the property that's left after the mortgage ends. Even if you have to add extra $100 every month bec... |
Can I participate in trading Facebook shares on their IPO day from any brokerage? | Yes. The real question is whether you should. You should consider your investment options, and take into the account that there's much more hype than value in many companies. |
Withdrawing cash from investment: take money from underperforming fund? | Bob should treat both positions as incomplete, and explore a viewpoint which does a better job of separating value from volatility. So we should start by recognizing that what Bob is really doing is trading pieces of paper (say Stocks from Fund #1 or Bonds from Fund #2, to pick historically volatile and non-volatile in... |
How can home buying be considered a sound investment with all of that interest that needs to be paid? | Since then I wanted to move out of this house because the property taxes are so high and the mortgage payment is a killer. As I understand this is a property jointly owned by your parents and you. As they are not living staying in the house, you have taken over the mortgage payments for this house along with any other ... |
Insider trading of a linked security like an ETF your company has a heavy weighting in | If you are in a position to have information that will impact the shares of a stock or index fund and you use that information for either personal gain or to mitigate the losses that you would have felt then it is insider trading. Even if in the end your quiet period passes with little or no movement of the stocks in ... |
Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich? | A cautionary tale: About 25 years ago I decided that I should try my hand at investing in some technology companies. I was in the computer biz but decided that I might suffer from myopia there, so I researched some medical startups. And I did some reasonably good research, given the available resources (the Interne... |
Should I use my non-tax advantaged investment account to pay off debt? | Paying off debts will reduce your monthly obligation to creditors (less risk) and also remove the possibility of foreclosure / repossession / lawsuit if you ever lost access to income (less risk). Risk is an important part of the equation that can get overlooked. It sounds like pulling that money out of the market wi... |
Why are stop order called “stop” when it is in fact a “start” condition? | Historically they were conceived as a way to cut losses when the market turned against you. You would tell your broker something like "buy me 100 shares of Anaconda and stop me if it goes below $110" You can read references to this in old books like Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the ABC of Options pricing, or the ... |
How to share income after marriage and kids? | You remind me a lot of myself as I was thinking about marriage. Luckily for me, my wife was much smarter about all this than I was. Hopefully, I can pass along some of her wisdom. Both of us feel very strongly about being financially independent and if possible we both don't want to take money from each other. In marri... |
Solo-401k interaction with employer sponsored 401k. Limits of contribution from Schedule C income | Alright, team! I found answers to part 1) and part 2) that I've quote below, but still need help with 3). The facts in the article below seem to point to the ability for the LLC to contribute profit sharing of up to 25% of the wages it paid SE tax on. What part of the SE tax is that? I assume the spirit of the law... |
Is there anything I can do to prepare myself for the tax consequences of selling investments to buy a house? | Don't let tax considerations be the main driver. That's generally a bad idea. You should keep tax in mind when making the decision, but don't let it be the main reason for an action. selling the higher priced shares (possibly at a loss even) - I think it's ok to do that, and it doesn't necessarily have to be FIFO? It... |
What can I take from learning that a company's directors are buying or selling shares? | It is not clear when you mean "company's directors" are they also majority owners. There are several reasons for Buy; Similarly there are enough reasons for sell; Quite often the exact reasons for Buy or Sell are not known and hence blindly following that strategy is not useful. It can be one of the inputs to mak... |
What ETF best tracks the price of gasoline, or else crude oil? | Do not buy any commodity tracking ETF without reading and understanding the prospectus. Some of these things get exposure to the underlying commodity via swaps or other hocus-pocus derivatives, so you're really buying credit obligations from some bank. Others are futures based, and you need to understand your potential... |
Problems with Enterprise Value and better valuation techniques | This is an example from another field, real estate. Suppose you buy a $100,000 house with a 20 percent down payment, or $20,000, and borrow the other $80,000. In this example, your "equity" or "market cap" is $20,000. But the total value, or "enterprise value" of the house, is actually $100,000, counting the $80,000 mo... |
Understanding SEC Filings | There are a whole host of types of filings. Some of them are only relevant to companies that are publicly traded, and other types are general to just registered corps in general. ... and many more: http://reportstream.io/explore/has-form Overall, reading SEC filings is hard, and for some, the explanations of those fili... |
Stock valuation - Volkswagen | (I live in the UK and along with my wife we both drive Volkswagen cars.) A few factors: VW is widely acknowledged as having some of the best diesel car engines. -Now lot of people are questioning if diesel car will be outlawed. VM management has just said they don’t know what their workers are doing! The USA has made ... |
Money market account for emergency savings | Most emergencies are less than 1,000 in nature. As such I would keep at least that amount in a checking/savings account at the bank from which you pay your bills or can get cash from. This amount may increase so you can avoid low balance fees, or because of the nature of your life style and income. Beyond that, you c... |
Mutual fund value went down, shares went up, no action taken by me | You did something that you shouldn't have done; you bought a dividend. Most mutual fund companies have educational materials on their sites that recommend against making new investments in mutual funds in the last two months of the year because most mutual funds distribute their earnings (dividends, capital gains etc)... |
Online Foreign Exchange Brokerages: Which ones are good & reputable for smaller trades? | I used XE trade once several years ago. I found them quite easy to use after the slightly fiddly account setup process (needed for security/anti-money laundering I think). I trusted them because I'd been using their online FX rates for a long time. I can't really comment on the specific questions you ask though as this... |
Understanding the Nasdaq insider trading information | Their argument is mostly nonsense. Take someone like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. He has a not very large salary, and makes a lot more money through stock bonuses. You would never, ever expect him to buy Apple shares. And assuming that he doesn't want to end up one day as the richest man in the cemetery, you would expect hi... |
Using a self-directed IRA to buy vacation condo, rent it out to an LLC for $1 | Self directed IRAs have rules to prevent self-dealing of this sort called "prohibited transactions". You can't buy or sell or lease assets or obtain services from anyone closely linked to you or any beneficiaries of the IRA. You can't loan yourself money from the IRA, and you can't deliberately take the proceeds that s... |
What does “interest rates”, without any further context, generically refer to? | The generic representative of interest rates is the 10 year treasury bond rate. (USA). As an approximation most other interest rates do tend to move up and down with the treasury rate, but with more or less sensitivity. Another prominently discussed interest rate is the short term loan rate established by the Federal ... |
Is it safe to take a new mortgage loan in Greece? | The safest financial decisions that you can make in Greece involve getting your money out of Greece. That said, it depends. If the economy is going to implode and you'll be out of the job with devalued savings -- you'll be bankrupt anyway. You didn't mention enough about your situation for anyone to really answer the q... |
How much will a stock be worth after a merger? | For the first and last questions, I can do this multiple ways. For the middle question, I'll just make up values. If you want different ones, you will have to redo the math. I am going to assume that you participate in the merger exchange, swapping your share for their offer. If you own one share, it depends how ... |
What are the marks of poor investment advice? | To evaluate any advice, this lists some of the things to consider: There are good advisors out there. There are also Bernie Madoffs who give the entire industry a black eye. In the end, the best path is to educate yourself, read as much as you can before you invest. Better to lose a bit by staying out of the market tha... |
Why do stock exchanges close at night? | Here are some plausible reasons why markets might continue to close: |
Why charge gross receipts taxes to the customer? | the state of New Mexico provides guidance in this exact situation. On page 4: Gross receipts DOES NOT include: Example: When the seller passes tax to the buyer, the seller should separate, or “back out”, that tax from the total income to arrive at "Gross Receipts," the amount reported in Column D of the CRS-1 Form.... |
Do I still need to file taxes with the Canadian government if I am working in the U.S. on a TN visa for a few years? | The other answer has mentioned "factual resident", and you have raised the existence of a U.S./Canada tax treaty in your comment, and provided a link to a page about determining residency. I'd like to highlight part of the first link: You are a factual resident of Canada for tax purposes if you keep significant resid... |
How to send money from europe to usa EUR - USD? | PayPal. Or even Western Union or MoneyGram. Despite their fees, there is a reason those companies are still in business. |
In Canada, how much money can I gift a friend or family member without them being taxed on it? | If the person gifting the property owed any debt to Canada Revenue Agency on the date of gift, you may getting a nice letter from Canada Revenue Agency advising you to settle the donor's tax liability with the property gifted. |
What's the best gold investment strategy for a Singapore resident? | With gold at US$1300 or so, a gram is about $40. For your purposes, you have the choice between the GLD ETF, which represents a bit less than 1/10oz gold equivalent per share, or the physical metal itself. Either choice has a cost: the commission on the buy plus, eventually, the sale of the gold. There may be ongoing ... |
Where can you find dividends for Australian Stock Market Shares (ASX) for more than 2 years of data? | You can register with an online broker. You can usually join most online brokers for free and only have to fund your account if you decide to place a trade. You may also check out the website of the actual companies you are interested in. They will provide current and historic data of the company's financials. For BHP ... |
Long term investing alternative to mutual funds | Typically mutual funds will report an annualized return. It's probably an average of 8% per year from the date of inception of the fund. That at least gives some basis of comparison if you're looking at funds of different ages (they will also often report annualized 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10- year returns, which are probably ... |
What should I be doing to protect myself from identity theft? | http://annualcreditreport.com gives you free access to your 3 credit bureau records. (Annual, not "free". The "free" guys will try to sell you something.) |
Can I invest in the housing market via the stock exchange? | Have you considered a self-directed IRA to invest, rather than the stock market or publicly traded assets? Your IRA can actually own direct title to real estate, loan money via secured or unsecured promissory notes much like a hard money loan or invest into shares of an entity that invests in real estate. The only nuan... |
Large BUY LIMIT orders' effect on a stock's price | Traders sometimes look at the depth of the book (number of outstanding limit orders) to try and gauge the sentiment of the market or otherwise use this information to formulate their strategy. If there was a large outstanding buy order at $49.50, there's a decent chance this could increase the price by influencing oth... |
Right account for local purchases, loan EMI, and investments | What is the best and most economical way for me to pay the loan EMIs directly? (whether from a Singapore account or a NRE/NRO account) It is advisable to have it via the NRE account as this would be easier. If you already have funds in NRO account, you can use that before you use the funds from NRE account. For all exp... |
Credit card issued against my express refusal; What action can I take? | You can always cancel the card and close this account. Consider switching to a bank that has better customer service. Closing accounts typically gets a lot of attention and it's fairly likely they will contact you to reconsider and so you'll have a chance to air your grievances. Whether they have anything to offer tha... |
Is a fixed-price natural gas or electricity contract likely to save money? | In my area, the fixed prices are based on an average. My gas company will look at my previous months (six months if I remember correctly) payments and give me an average based on that amount. Then I am contracted for a year based on that average. If I lower my costs, I'm under contract and will not see the savings but ... |
What are the reasons to get more than one credit card? | 3 reasons I can think of: I once worked for a bank and when credit scoring for loans, if you had been approved by different institutions, you were given a better score. So if you held a Visa and Mastercard (as opposed to two Visa cards) your credit score would go higher. More than 6 cards though looked suspicious and y... |
CD interest rate US vs abroad, is there a catch? | If you invest in a foreign bank you are subject to their financial rules and regulations. If you put your money with their CD it will be converted to UAH (grivna) and you will be paid back in UAH, which introduces the exchange rate risk. FDIC is not the only reason why a CD in a US bank pays a lower interest, but it c... |
Are credit histories/scores international? | It's not just that credit history is local; it's that it's a private business run for profit. The "big three" credit bureaus in the US are Experian, Equifax and Transunion. They collect information on debt usage and abuse from various companies in the US, and charge a fee to provide that information (and their judgeme... |
Is 6% too high to trade stocks on margin? | That seems a little high in my experience. I've used a home equity line of credit instead, as the rates are much lower (~3.5%). |
Do large market players using HFT make it unsafe for individual investors to be in the stock market? | There's a lot of hype about HFT. It involves computers doing things that people don't really understand and making a bunch of rich guys a bunch of money, and there was a crisis and so we hate rich wall street guys this year, and so it's a hot-button issue. Meh. There's some reason for concern about the safety of the ma... |
Is the Chrysler extended warranty coverage worth it? | I haven't looked at that warranty in detail, but generally speaking this should help. What is GAP insurance? In the case of a total loss/write off gap insurance covers the outstanding finance after your regular insurance pay out. The two won't match up usually because of the depreciation right after you buy the car. Fo... |
Do I not have a credit score? | I'm the contrarian in the crowd. I think credit scores and debt are the closest thing to evil incarnate. You're in good company. The absence of a credit score simply means the agencies have insufficient data in their behavioral model to determine how profitable your business would be to the bank. The higher your score,... |
Are prepayment penalties for mortgages normal? | It's not uncommon to have a small penalty if you pre-pay the mortgage in a short time. After all, making the loan isn't free for the bank. But as Nathan says, if a bank is planning to try very hard to stop you from giving them money, there is probably a reason. Try to convince your wife: there is nothing inherently wr... |
What's the formula for profits and losses when I delta hedge? | You don't mention any specific numbers, so I'll answer in generalities. Say I buy a call option today, and I short the underlying stock with the delta. The value will be the value of the option you bought less the value of the stock you are short. (your premium is not included in the value since it's a sunk cost, but i... |
How can I buy and sell the same stock on the same day? | Because it takes 3 business days for the actual transfer of stock to occur after you buy or sell to the next owner, your cash is tied up until that happens. This is called the settlement period. Therefore, brokers offer "margin", which is a form of credit, or loan, to allow you to keep trading while the settlement peri... |
How exactly does a country devalue its currency? | Currencies that are pegged or fixed require that foreign currencies are held by the central issuer at a proportional amount. This is analogous to having a portfolio of currencies that the central bank issues shares from - in the form of its own currency. We will continue with this analogy, if the central bank says thes... |
Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? | Another possibly significant issue, is that the number ten thousand is very important in the Japanese language. In Japanese, you count in ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, BUT instead of a 'hundred thousand', you have ten ten thousands. and then one hundred ten thousands, and then a thousand ten thousan... |
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card | Personally the main disadvantages are perpetuation of the credit referencing system, which is massively abused and woefully under regulated, and encouraging people to think that it's ok to buy things you don't have the money to buy (either save up or question price/necessity). |
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