Question
stringlengths
14
166
Answer
stringlengths
3
17k
What types of receipts do I need to keep for itemized tax deductions?
Businesses are only required to keep receipts over $751. However for individuals, I would throw them all in a shoebox and not worry about organizing them. There's a small chance you'll need to go through them during an audit, and you can worry about reconciling all of them and putting them in order at that point. Jus...
Why is RSU tax basis based on remaining shares after shares are witheld?
You only got 75 shares, so your basis is the fair market value of the stock as of the grant date times the number of shares you got: $20*75. Functionally, it's the same thing as if your employer did this: As such, the basis in that stock is $1,500 ($20*75). The other 25 shares aren't yours and weren't ever yours, so t...
What's the difference between a high yield dividend stock vs a growth stock?
If you are looking to re-invest it in the same company, there is really no difference. Please be aware that when a company announces dividend, you are not the only person receiving the dividend. The millions of share holders receive the same amount that you did as dividend, and of course, that money is not falling from...
Why does short selling require borrowing?
In order to compare the two, you need to compare your entire portfolio, which is not just how much money you have, but how much stock. In both scenarios, you start with (at least, but let's assume) £20 and 0 stock. In your scenario, you buy 10 shares, leaving you with £0 and 10 shares. You then sell it at £1.50/share t...
Legal Financing
Find a lawyer or law firm who wants to represent you and talk to them.
Why doesn't Graham consider gold as an investment?
During Graham's career, gold and currency were the same thing because of the gold standard. Graham did not advise investing in currencies, only in bonds and stocks, the latter only for intelligent speculation. Graham died a couple of years after Nixon closed the gold window, ending the gold standard. Gold may be thoug...
How can a credit card company make any money off me? I have a no-fee card and pay my balance on time
Of course they make money. They double dip in a lot of instances they make 2 - 3% plus $0.30 per transaction from the merchant and then whatever interest you pay on your card. So let's just say in one day you make stops at Starbucks for a $4 Latte, then at Wendy's for lunch for about $8, then you put about $20 worth of...
Further Understanding of Wash Sale Rules
Disallowed losses due to the wash sale rule are added to the basis of the repurchased shares. In your example, on day two you paid $0.70 per share. Then the disallowed $0.30 loss from the previous day gets added to the basis, making your total basis $1.00 per share. When you sell at the end of the day for $1.00 per sh...
Basic questions about investing in stocks
Now a days, your stocks can be seen virtually through a brokerage account. Back in the days, a stock certificate was the only way to authenticate stock ownership. You can still request them though from the corporation you have shares in or your brokerage. It will have your name, corporation name and number of shares yo...
How can I increase my hourly pay as a software developer?
Start by going to Salary.com and figuring out what the range is for your location (could be quite wide). Then also look at job postings in your area and see if any of them mention remuneration (gov't jobs tend to do this). If possible go and ask other people in your field what they think the expected range of salary ...
Why do credit card transactions take up to 3 days to appear, yet debit transactions are instant?
When you swipe your credit card, the terminal at the store makes a request of your bank, and your bank has only a few seconds to accept or reject the transaction. Once the transaction is accepted by your bank, it appears in the Pending transactions. At the end of the business day, the store submits all of the final tra...
Why does money value normally decrease?
You get paid interest on deposits because banks only keep a fraction of the deposits on-hand. The rest is put to other uses, such as loaning money to others. If you deposit money and yield 1% interest, the bank is able to fund an auto loan, at 5%. By saving, you are actually making more capital available in the marketp...
What is the difference between a 'trader' and a 'stockbroker'?
The traditional role of a stockbroker is to arrange for the buying and selling of stock by finding buyers and sellers at an agreed upon price. The broker does not purchase the stock for himself but merely arranges for the stock to be traded. A trader is one who purchases stock with the hope of selling it for a gain. ...
Changing Bank Account Number regularly to reduce fraud
We change it every so often to reduce fraud. If you're absolutely sure you didn't just send money to a scammer impersonating a landlord, this has nothing to do with fraud-- they're playing a game with you. By changing the account number frequently, it makes it more likely you make a mistake in entering the payment acco...
Are there any other considerations for bonus sacrifice into Pension (UK)
The pension is indeed the clear winner and you haven't missed anything. It's easiest to just compare everything in current numbers as you've done and ignore investment opportunities. Given you expect to pay off your student loan in full, you should consider the repayment as a benefit for you too, so the balance is betw...
2 401k's and a SEP-IRA
Please note that if you are self employed, then the profit sharing limit for both the SEP and Solo 401(k) is 20% of compensation, not 25%. There is no need for a SEP-IRA in this case. In addition to the 401(k) at work, you have a solo-401(k) for your consulting business. You can contribute $18,000 on the employee sid...
How do I get a Tax Exemption Certificate for export from the US if I am in another country?
Depends on the state, in Texas you should charge sales tax because the shipment is going to a freight forwarder in Texas. That being said, once you have the bill of lading you can have your tax credited by the vendor. It is one of the documents the state will except in lieu of sales tax for exports. There are five. ...
Why do people buy stocks that pay no dividend?
Instead of giving part of their profits back as dividends, management puts it back into the company so the company can grow and produce higher profits. When these companies do well, there is high demand for them as in the long term higher profits equates to a higher share price. So if a company invests in itself to gro...
Is there any instance where less leverage will get you a better return on a rental property?
More leverage means more risk. There is more upside. There is also more downside. If property prices and/or rents fall then your losses are amplified. If you leverage at 90% then a 5% fall means you've lost half your money.
Correct way to amend tax return as a result of not correctly reporting gains on sale of private stock based on Installment method?
After much research, the answer is "a": recompute the tax return using the installment sales method because (1) the escrow payment was subject to "substantial restrictions" by virtue of the escrow being structured to pay buyer's indemnification claims and (2) the taxpayer did not correctly elect out of the installment ...
Hiring freelancers and taxes
You need to clarify with Bob what your agreement is. If you and Bob are working together on these jobs as partners, you should get a written partnership agreement done by a lawyer who works with software industry entity formation. You can legally be considered a partnership if you are operating a business together, eve...
What is vested stock and yearly dividends?
Vesting As you may know a stock option is the right to acquire a given amount of stock at a given price. Actually acquiring the stock is referred to as exercising the option. Your company is offering you options over 200,000 shares but not all of those options can be exercised immediately. Initially you will only be ...
Unable to understand logic behind why there is no exit load on liquid fund
I think you are having trouble understanding what 'liquid' means. Liquidity refers to how easily an asset can be converted to cash. More liquid = more easily converted to cash, less liquid, less so. Any kind of exit load is going to make an asset less liquid due to the penalties associated with making the sale. So, the...
Is there a significant danger to market orders as opposed to limit orders?
If you want your order to go through no matter what then you should be using market orders rather than limit orders. With limit orders you may get the price you are after or better but you are not guaranteed to get your order transacted. With a market order you are guaranteed to get you order transacted but may get a p...
How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan?
Very good answers as to how 0% loans are typically done. In addition, many are either tied to a specific large item purchase, or credit cards with a no interest period. On credit card transactions the bank is getting a fee from the retailer, who in turn is giving you a hidden charge to cover that fee. In the case of...
I have savings and excess income. Is it time for me to find a financial advisor?
Many of my friends said I should invest my money on stocks or something else, instead of put them in the bank forever. I do not know anything about finance, so my questions are: First let me say that your friends may have the best intentions, but don't trust them. It has been my experience that friends tell you what th...
What's a normal personal debt / equity ratio for a highly educated person?
What is your biggest wealth building tool? Income. If you "nerf" your income with payments to banks, cable, credit card debt, car payments, and lattes then you are naturally handicapping your wealth building. It is sort of like trying to drive home a nail holding a hammer right underneath the head. Normal is broke...
Can a custodian refuse prior-year IRA/HSA deposit postmarked April 15?
The slips from your bank for your HSA account are for an account already established and thus the bank is willing to accept your deposits even if they arrive at the bank after the April 15 deadline, as long as the postmark is April 15 or earlier. The account exists in the bank, they know who you are, and that the paym...
What kind news or information would make the price of a stock go up?
There is a highly related question which is much easier to answer: what normally value-increasing news about a company would cause that company to fall in value in the public stock market? By answering that, we can answer your question by proxy. The answer to that question being: anything that makes investors believe t...
Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than “highest interest” first?
This is a slightly different reason to any other answer I have seen here about irrationality and how being rationally aware of one's irrationality (in the future or in different circumstances) can lead you to make decisions which on the face of it seem wrong. First of all, why do people sometimes maintain balances on h...
How do I go about finding an honest & ethical financial advisor?
Most individuals do not need a personal financial advisor. If you are soon entering the world of work, your discretionary investments should be focused on index funds that you commit to over the long run. Indeed, the best advice I would give to anyone just starting out would be: For most average young workers, a financ...
HSBC Hong Kong's “Deposit Plus” Product: What is it, and what strategies to employ?
HSBC, Hang Seng, and other HK banks had a series of special savings account offers when I lived in HK a few years ago. Some could be linked to the performance of your favorite stock or country's stock index. Interest rates were higher back then, around 6% one year. What they were effectively doing is taking the inter...
How are mortgage interest rates determined?
One will find that the fixed 30 year mortgage rate is tightly correlated to the 10 year treasury. An adder of 2-2.5% or so, changing slightly with the rest of the economy, as money can get tight or loose independent of the rate itself. In 2011 we are witnessing low rates yet tough loan standards, this is the phenomenon...
Explain the HSI - why do markets sometimes appear in sync and other times not?
why do markets sometimes appear in sync, but during other times, not so much By "markets" I'm assuming you mean equity indices such as the HSI. Financial products fluctuate with respect to the supply/demand of the traders. There's been a large increase in the number of hedge funds, prop desks who trade relative values ...
Strategies for putting away money for a child's future (college, etc.)?
Saving for school is [fundamentally] no different than saving for any other major purchase: in addition to some of the great answers already provided, here are a couple other thoughts: Just to have the [simplified] numbers handy: If you can increase that to $2000/yr, after 18 years: One final thought - I would personal...
What is a good way to save money on car expenses?
Apparently, if you keep your tires' air filled to the recommended level, your car will burn less gas. I loved this article at WikiHow, which confirmed what I had heard about air in tires, and had others to suggest, such as removing unnecessary items from inside and on your car (such as bike racks, trailer balls) as t...
What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0?
A value of zero or a negative value makes the percent change meaningless. Saying 100% when going from 0 to some other value is simply wrong. I have seen a similar situation several times when looking at a public company with a loss last quarter. On Google Finance or some other service, the PE ratio will be blank, N/A, ...
What is a good rental yield?
I've never heard of rent quoted per week. Are you in the US? In general, after the down payment, one would hope to take the rent, and be able to pay the mortgage, tax, insurance, and then have enough left each year to at least have a bit of emergency money for repairs. If one can start by actually pocketing more than ...
Where can I lookup accurate current exchange rates for consumers?
I want to shop in the currency that will be cheapest in CAD at any given time. How do you plan to do this? If you are using a debit or credit card on a CAD account, then you will pay that bank's exchange rate to pay for goods and services that are billed in foreign currency. If you plan on buying goods and services f...
Can a Roth IRA be used as a savings account?
(To be clear, IRA accounts are just wrappers, and can contain a large variety of investments. I'm restricting myself to the usual setup of investment in the stock market.) So, let's say you have $5000 in savings, as an emergency fund. Of the top of my head, putting some of it into a Roth IRA could backfire in the follo...
Does the stock market create any sort of value?
I probably don't understand something. I think you are correct about that. :) The main way money enters the stock market is through investors investing and taking money out. Money doesn't exactly "enter" the stock market. Shares of stock are bought and sold by investors to investors. The market is just a mechanism f...
How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want
I use cash exclusively. I go to the cash machine once a week and withdraw the money I want to spend in one week (so I have to plan if I want to buy something expensive). Otherwise I leave the card at home. As bonus you get anonymity, i.e. big brother cannot track you.
stock(paper) delivery to home
Getting "physical stocks" will in most cases only be for the "fun of it". Most stocks nowadays are registered electronically and thus the physical stock will be of no value - it will just be a certificate saying that you own X amount of shares in company X; but this information is at the same time registered electronic...
Understanding option commission costs
The option commissions with IB for trading in the US market are between $0.25 to $0.70 per contract. However if you are looking to trade in Canada, where you are from, their option commission for Canada are $1.50 per contract (as you mention in your question). Note that each contract is for 100 shares, so if you wanted...
Organizing Expenses/Income/Personal Finance Documents (Paperless Office)
If it was me, I would organize something along these lines. in large part because down the road when it comes time to purge stuff like small receipts, utility bills etc, you'll be doing it per year, at the 7 year point or something similar. Year first Under that major categories such as Mortgage, Utilities, Credit, Ma...
What do I need to start trading in the NSE (National Stock Exchange)?
Yes Absolutely! You will need to provide Sharekhan with a cancelled cheque from OBC which has your account number and name on it. They will link that to your DMAT account, and any settlements/dividends paid will directly be deposited into your OBC bank account. Any time you need to deposit money into your DMAT account...
How can I find/compare custodians for my HSA in the United States?
The account I have found that works best as a HSA is Alliant Credit Union. They have fee-free HSA (no fees for almost all types of transactions or monthly fees) and a fairly decent online banking website. I've been with them for about 5 years now without trouble. FYI - They are a credit union not a bank so you do have ...
Break Even On Options Contracts
Simple answer: Breakeven is when the security being traded reaches a price equal to the cost of the option plus the option's strike price, assuming you choose to exercise it. So for example, if you paid $1.00 for,say, a call option with a strike price of $19.00, breakeven would be when the security itself reaches $20.0...
Do rental car agencies sell their cars at a time when it is risky for the purchaser?
I've been told by staff in my local car hire agency that they get such big discounts that they actually make money selling the cars, so they replace all their cars every six months (in the UK the number plate indicates when the car was registered, in six month periods). This suits the manufacturers, because it means th...
Responsible investing - just a marketing trick?
A share is just a part ownership of a company. If you buy a share of a green stock in the open market, you now just own part of a green company. Just like if you buy a house, the money you paid moves to the former owner, but what you are getting is a clear asset in return that you now own. Via mutual funds/indexes thi...
Are 'no interest if paid in in x months' credit cards worth it?
It has been reported in consumer media (for example Clark Howard's radio program) that the "no interest for 12 months" contracts could trick you with the terms and the dates on the contract. Just as an example: You borrow $1000 on 12/1/2013, same as cash for 12 months. The contract will state the due date very clearly...
Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price
I've been an F&I Manager at a new car dealership for over ten years, and I can tell you this with absolute certainty, your deal is final. There is no legal obligation for you whatsoever. I see this post is a few weeks old so I am sure by now you already know this to be true, but for future reference in case someone in ...
At what price are dividends re-invested?
Keep in mind the ex-dividend date is different from the payable date (the day the dividend is paid). That means the market price will already have adjusted lower due to the dividend. Short answer: you get the lower price when reinvesting. So here's Vanguard's policy, it should be similar to most brokers: When reinvesti...
Buying my first car out of college
Think about it. IF you save $15K by buying a Honda or a Mazda, you can invest those money at modest 5% average, you'll have over 60K before you retire, which allows you to retire at least a year earlier.... So it is worth working an extra year in your life to have a fancier car? And that's a conservative investment.
Should we buy a house, or wait?
You are very young, you make a huge amount of money, and you have (from what information you provide) very little debt. If you simply want to buy a house for whatever reason, sure, but be honest with yourself about why you want to buy it. I see a lot of people who think they're doing it for smart financial reasons, but...
Comparing/reviewing personal health insurance plans for the self-employed
Here's an old-ish article from the NYT that discusses this.
Car finance, APR rates and per week in adverts; help understanding them
Easier to copy paste than type this out. Credit: www.financeformulas.net Note that the present value would be the initial loan amount, which is likely the sale price you noted minus a down payment. The loan payment formula is used to calculate the payments on a loan. The formula used to calculate loan payments is e...
Is it financially advantageous and safe to rent out my personal car?
I'm going to address a couple of extra issues over and above mhoran_psprep's great answer. Insurance A lot of the jobs you describe require that you have additional insurance over and above what you currently have, normally insurance that lets you drive for payment. You should insist that anyone you rent to has this in...
Buying a home with down payment from family as a “loan”
Keep in mind that lenders will consider the terms of any loans you have when determining your ability to pay back the mortgage. They'll want to see paperwork, or if you claim it is a gift they will require a letter to that effect from your relative. Obviously, this could effect your ability to qualify for a loan.
Strategic countermeasures to overcome crisis in Russia
If you have significant assets, such as a large deposit, then diversification of risks such as currency risk is good practice - there are many good options, but keeping 100% of it in roubles is definitely not a good idea, nor is keeping 100% of it in a single foreign currency. Of course, it would be much more benefici...
Do I need to own all the funds my target-date funds owns to mimic it?
Over time, fees are a killer. The $65k is a lot of money, of course, but I'd like to know the fees involved. Are you doubling from 1 to 2%? if so, I'd rethink this. Diversification adds value, I agree, but 2%/yr? A very low cost S&P fund will be about .10%, others may go a bit higher. There's little magic in creating ...
Taking partial capital loss purely for tax purposes
Note that the rules around wash sales vary depending on where you live. For the U.S., the wash sale rules say that you cannot buy a substantially identical stock or security within 30 days (before or after) your sale. So, you could sell your stock today to lock in the capital losses. However, you would then have to wai...
Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses?
If you think about it, it's really all one big pot of money. The idea behind an "emergency fund" is that you want to make sure your financial life has stability: it's not going to be suddenly driven into the red, below $0. As long as that doesn't happen, you can figure out how to live your life as you want. The reaso...
What are the reasons to get more than one credit card?
Many reasons mentioned already. The reason why I have multiple is missing: I have a personal card for my private use and a company card for company use.
Using simple moving average in Equity
A shorter term MA would be used for short term changes in price whilst a long term MA would be used for longer term movements in price. A 200 day SMA is widely used to determine the trend of the stock, simply a cross above the 200 day SMA would mean the stock may be entering an uptrend and a cross below that the price...
How can a company charge a closed credit card?
Wow, I had never heard of this before but I looked into it a bit and Mikey was spot on. It seems that if you don't pay attention to the fine print when making credit card purchases (as most of us tend to skip) many companies have stipulations that allow continued charges if they are recurring fees (monthly, yearly, etc...
Is technical analysis based on some underlying factors in the market or do they work simply because other people use them?
Both explanations are partly true. There are many investors who do not want to sell an asset at a loss. This causes "resistance" at prices where large amounts of the asset were previously traded by such investors. It also explains why a "break-through" of such a "resistance" is often associated with a substantial "mo...
Is it possible to allocate pre-tax money to a specific stock?
Whether an investment is pre-tax is determined by the type of account (i.e., tax-advantaged vs ordinary taxable account), but whether you can invest in individual stocks is determined by the provider (i.e., the particular bank where you have the account). These are orthogonal choices. If you want to invest in individ...
Are cashiers required to check a credit card for a signature in the U.S.?
Per their merchant agreements, Visa and MasterCard say that the signature on the back of the card is the proper way to identify the card holder. If a card is not signed, the merchant is supposed to check your ID and make you sign the card before accepting it for payment. Merchants are not allowed the require an ID fo...
Finance options for a new furnace.
You walk into the finance company with a written quote from the supplier for the equipment you want to buy. You then fill out forms and sign a promissory note. The finance company then writes out a check to the supplier for the amount of the quoted equipment. Usually you need to provide at least 3 things: They will req...
Learn investing as a programmer
My master's thesis was on using genetic algorithms and candle stick method. If you are familiar, the AI was used to answer questions like "what is a long day", which is not formally defined in most candle stick texts. So in theory unlimited potential for learning including teaching machines to learn. Wall street pa...
Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire?
This is a well worn path and not a bad idea. There are quite a few pitfalls but there are a lot of resources to learn for other people's mistakes. Having a plan and doing your research should help you avoid most of them. Here is some general advice to help get you started on the right foot. Know the market you are i...
Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score?
I also feel it's important to NOT get a credit card. I'm in my mid 30's and have had credit cards since I was 20, as has everyone I know. Every single one of those people, with the exception of my dad, is currently carrying some amount of credit card debt - almost always in the thousands of dollars. Here is the essent...
How does giving to charity work?
If I donate $10,000 to charity then I can deduct that $10,000 from my income and not pay income taxes on it. So if I make $50,000 a year then I will only pay income taxes on $40,000 instead of $50,000 since I donated $10,000 to charity. This is what is meant when charity contributions are said to be tax deductible. D...
How long should I keep my bills?
Shred it all. You might want to keep a record going back at most a year, just in case. But just in case of what? What is a good idea is to have an electronic record. It's a good practice to know how your spending changes over time. Beyond that, it's just a fire hazard. The thing is, I know I'm right in the above p...
Where can I find the current price to rent ratio of the locality of my interest?
Chris, this is an arbitrage question with a twist: you cannot treat the location you want to live objectively. For example, why not SoCal instead of Texas? Yes, SoCal's expensive but what if you account for the weather? This question is very interesting for me personally: something I am going to focus on myself, soon, ...
When is it better to rent and when is better buy in a certain property market?
Besides the long-term concern about which is cheaper, which has already been addressed by other answers, consider your risk exposure. Owning property has financial risks associated with it, just like owning stocks or bonds. The risk-related downsides of owning a home as an asset include: The risk-related upsides of own...
How prudent would it be to invest (stocks/equity) in businesses that are based on Cash transactions?
If they're hiding their profits from the government, what makes you think they wouldn't hide their profits from their shareholders?
In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive?
John R. Lott, Jr. and Russell D. Roberts argue that popcorn in movie theaters has a price commensurate with its much higher cost. See also Lott's criticism of the Gil and Hartmann paper.
Stock Dividends & Splits: Are they always applied over night?
I've never seen a dividend, split or other corporate action during the day, but I have seen trade suspended a few times when something big happened. The market opening price is not in general the same as the close of the previous day. It can gap up or down and does frequently. I don't know of an api to find out if the ...
Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard/Visa?
My view is from the Netherlands, a EU country. Con: Credit cards are more risky. If someone finds your card, they can use it for online purchases without knowing any PIN, just by entering the card number, expiration date, and security code on the back. Worse, sometimes that information is stored in databases, and those...
Will paying off my car early hinder my ability to build credit?
1) How long have you had the car? Generally, accounts that last more than a year are kept on your credit report for 7 years, while accounts that last less than a year are only kept about 2 years (IIRC - could someone correct me if that last number is wrong?). 2) Who is the financing through? If it's through a used ca...
When to convert employee shares in an RRSP into cash, even if there is a penalty?
The cost to you for selling is 3/8% of a years salary, this is what you won't get if you sell. Tough to calculate the what-if scenarios beyond this, since I can't quantify the risk of a price drop. Once the amount in he stock is say,10%, of a years salary, if you know a drop is coming, a sale is probably worth it, for ...
Where can I find definitive terms for a preferred share?
This site has the best information I could find, other than a Bloomberg terminal: Quantumonline.com QUANTUMONLINE.COM SECURITY DESCRIPTION: SCANA Corp., 2009 Series A, 7.70% Enhanced Junior Subordinated Notes, issued in $25 denominations, redeemable at the issuer's option on or after 1/30/2015 at $25 per share plus...
Will I always be able to get a zero-interest credit card?
No. There is no guarantee that credit card issuing banks will always use 0% introductory rates to entice anyone.
What evidence or research suggests that mid- or small-capitalization stocks should perform better than large caps?
I think it's safe to say that Apple cannot grow in value in the next 20 years as fast as it did in the prior 20. It rose 100 fold to a current 730B valuation. 73 trillion dollars is nearly half the value of all wealth in the world. Unfortunately, for every Apple, there are dozens of small companies that don't survive....
What exactly happens during a settlement period?
Securities clearing and settlement is a complex topic - you can start by browsing relevant Wikipedia articles, and (given sufficient quantities of masochism and strong coffee) progress to entire technical books. You're correct - modern trade settlement systems are electronic and heavily streamlined. However, you're ne...
Optimal Asset Allocation
There are some good answers about the benefits of diversification, but I'm going to go into what is going on mathematically with what you are attempting. I was always under the assumption that as long as two securities are less than perfectly correlated (i.e. 1), that the standard deviation/risk would be less than if I...
What size “nest egg” should my husband and I have, and by what age?
One more thing to consider is that $1M today is not the same as $1M 30 years from now because of inflation. Consider that just 30 years ago (1980) the average house price in the US was only about $69K and a new car cost around $7K on average. When you retire, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that you could be pay...
Need help with the psychology of investing: past failures and future fears
As an investor you must remember to forgive yourself. However, you must not only forgive but make it up to yourself by putting in the hours of study necessary to ensure that what you are forgiving yourself for will not happen again. Studying (finance, fundamental analysis, statistics, etc.)will also help you to worry l...
Why do stock exchanges close at night?
I believe there are electronic exchanges that run continuously, but the older ones don't want to change their practices since some people may have strategies which (claim they) are based on this behavior so there would be a lot of unhappy people if it was altered. The pause doesn't seem to do any harm. There are alte...
Is Amazon's offer of a $50 gift card a scam?
These kinds of credit card offers are incredibly common. More often you will get a certain reward if you spend $X within Y days of getting the card. In many cases you can take advantage of them with very little downside. However, are you responsible enough to have a credit card and be able to pay off the balance every ...
Choose online stock trading companies
This very informative link gives a clear and comprehensive comparison (pros and cons) of various popular brokers: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/best-online-brokers-for-stock-trading/ (Best Online Brokers for Stock Trading 2016) There are indeed some significant cons for the super-low commission fee. Just fo...
As an investing novice, what to do with my money?
I'm normally not a fan of partitioning investment money into buckets but your case may be the clearest case for it I've seen in awhile. Your income and saving is good and you have two clearly defined goals of retirement saving and saving for a house each with very different time frames ~30 years and 3-5 years respecti...
How to Explain “efficient frontier” to child?
I would let them get their hands dirty, learn by practicing. Below you can find a simple program to generate your own efficient frontier, just 29 lines' python. Depending on the age, adult could help in the activity but I would not make it too lecturing. With child-parent relationship, I would make it a challenge, no e...
Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest
A professional home inspection will clue you in on any problems you might be buying, so it's important in any real estate transaction. If the seller finances the loan, you need a lawyer. It might be a nice opportunity - being in the right place at the right time. You just have to investigate all angles.
What are 'business fundamentals'?
From http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Business+Fundamentals The facts that affect a company's underlying value. Examples of business fundamentals include debt, cash flow, supply of and demand for the company's products, and so forth. For instance, if a company does not have a sufficient sup...
Which Earnings Figure for Graham's “Stock Selection for the Defensive Investor”?
In the Income Statement that you've linked to, look for the line labeled "Net Income". That's followed by a line labeled "Preferred Dividends", which is followed by "Income Available to Common Excl. Extra Items" and "Income Available to Common Incl. Extra Items". Those last two are the ones to look at. The key is that ...
How to deposit a cheque issued to an associate in my business into my business account?
Just have the associate sign the back and then deposit it. It's called a third party cheque and is perfectly legal. I wouldn't be surprised if it has a longer hold period and, as always, you don't get the money if the cheque doesn't clear. Now, you may have problems if it's a large amount or you're not very well know...
When people say 'Interest rates are at all time low!" … Which interest rate are they actually referring to?
As Sean pointed out they usually mean LIBOR or the FFR (or for other countries the equivalent risk free rate of interest). I will just like to add on to what everyone has said here and will like to explain how various interest rates you mentioned work out when the risk free rate moves: For brevity, let's denote the ris...