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How to avoid getting back into debt? | I'm going to subtly and cheekily change the obvious advice. There are three ways to deal with negative cashflow, not two: You're currently studying for a degree. You don't say what country you're in or how your studies are funded, but most people in the US, UK, and a fair number of other countries, run up debts while s... |
Free/open source Unix software that pulls info from all my banks/brokers/credit cards? | As far as I can tell there are no "out-of-the-box" solutions for this. Nor will Moneydance or GnuCash give you the full solution you are looking for. I imaging people don't write a well-known, open-source, tool that will do this for fear of the negative uses it could have, and the resulting liability. You can roll-y... |
Company stock listed in multiple exchanges? | listed simultaneously in New York, London, and maybe even some Asian markets - is this correct? If the exchanges are not connected, then in primary market the shares are listed. On other exchanges, the "Depository Receipts" are listed. i.e. the Company will keep say 100,000 shares with the primary stock exchange / depo... |
Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random? | The previous answers make valid points regarding the risks, and why you can't reasonably compare trading for profit/loss to a roll of the die. This answer looks at the math instead. Your assumption: I have an equal probability to make a profit or a loss. Is incorrect, for the reasons stated in other answers. However, t... |
Self-employment alongside full-time job | What you need to do is register as a sole trader. This will automatically register you for self assessment so you don't have to do that separately. For a simple business like you describe that's it. Completing your self assessment will take care of all your income tax and national insurance obligations (although as me... |
How do I figure out if I will owe taxes | If you want to predict the, the easiest solution is to get hold of a copy of last year's tax forms and fill them in with estimated numbers. Odds are that none of the more complicated deductions will apply to you this first time around, so I'd suggest just using the federal 1040EZ, and your state's equivalent, for this... |
Investment strategy for 401k when rolling over soon | The time horizon for your 401K/IRA is essentially the same, and it doesn't stop at the day you retire. On the day you do the rollover you will be transferring your funds into similar investments. S&P500 index to S&P 500 index; 20xx retirement date to 20xx retirement date; small cap to small cap... If your vested portio... |
Why does Charles Schwab have a Mandatory Settlement Period after selling stocks? | TLDR: Why can't banks give me my money? We don't have your money. Who has my money? About half a dozen different people all over the world. And we need to coordinate with them and their banks to get you your money. I love how everyone seems to think that the securities industry has super powers. Believe me, even with... |
how do capital gains work if you don't know the original purchase price? | There are two scenarios to determine the relevant date, and then a couple of options to determine the relevant price. If the stocks were purchased in your name from the start - then the relevant date is the date of the purchase. If the stocks were willed to you (i.e.: you inherited them), then the relevant date is the ... |
Can I locate the name of an account holder by the account number and sort code? (U.K.) | No, the best you can do is (probably) determine the bank, from the sort code. using an online checker such as this one from the UK payments industry trade association. Revealing the name of an account holder is something the bank would typically require a warrant for, I'd expect, or whatever is covered in the account T... |
Why credit cards are sold through banks and not from Visa or MasterCard directly | Visa and Mastercard are not consumer-oriented companies. They do not consider individual consumers as their direct clients, and do not sell directly to them. Instead, their clients are financial institutions who participate in their networks (which is what they're selling). The institutions target the individual consum... |
Credit Card Points from Refund | Because your friend isn't going to like the ~2% charge they have to pay to the credit card company on the $10,000 purchase. Credit card companies make money off of transactions. The cardholder normally doesn't pay any transaction fees (and in fact can make a profit via rewards), but the merchant has to pay a certain am... |
Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT | The mode of payment mentioned by your bank is called the ACH(Automatic Clearing House) which means that anyone(Trusted payment gateway owners like banks themselves) can process payments. There can be a fraud declared against any payment that you have made and you can get every single penny back. This amount can not be ... |
How to calculate how far a shorted stock's price can rise before broker issues a margin call? | Most brokers have a margin maintenance requirement of 30%. In your example, it would depend on how much money you're borrowing from your broker on margin. Consider this: You have $250, and short AAPL at $500 on margin. This would be a common scenario (federal law requires investors to have at least 50% of their margin... |
Avoid Capital Gains on Rental | Your question is best asked of a tax expert, not random people on the internet. Such an expert will help you ask the right questions. For example you did not point out the country or state in which you live. That matters. First point is that you will not pay tax on 60K, its expensive to transact real estate, so you... |
Is Bitcoin a commodity or a currency [duplicate] | I would classify Bitcoin as a hybrid. Currency : It is accepted by e-businesses as a form of payment Commodity : Chart illustrating the volatility and speculative nature of Bitcoin |
How do you save money on clothes and shoes for your family? | I speak as a person without kids, but I'll give this a shot anyway, using my memory of the perspective I had when I was a kid. My advice is, if the kids are young enough to not care much, don't be afraid of the thrift store. My parents got a bunch of clothes from the thrift store as I was growing up (around elementar... |
Is there a way to tell how many stocks have been shorted? | Generally the number of shares of a U.S. exchange-listed stock which have been shorted are tracked by the exchange and reported monthly. This number is usually known as the open short interest. You may also see a short interest ratio, which is the short interest divided by the average daily volume for the stock. The ... |
Higher returns from international markets? | Tricky question, basically, you just want to first spread risk around, and then seek abnormal returns after you understand what portions of your portfolio are influenced by (and understand your own investment goals) For a relevant timely example: the German stock exchange and it's equity prices are reaching all time hi... |
Should I collect receipts after paying with a card? | I've seen many people sign a restaurant credit card receipt and walk away. Easy enough for the wait staff to add a tip and total. I doubt this is a high risk area compared to others, but in general, why not take the receipt for verification, or in the case of a good that can be returned, the receipt might be needed. |
What is the difference between trading and non-trading stock? | Every company has Stocks. For the stocks to be traded via some stock exchange, the companies must follow the eligibility criteria and guidelines. Once done, these are then listed on the stock exchange and can be traded. The advantage [amongst others] of listing is liquidity and stocks can easily be bought and sold. ... |
How can I increase my hourly pay as a software developer? | Most full time developer jobs in the US are paid on a salary basis rather than hourly unless you are a contractor. Also, the pay varies widely by region in the US with the West and East coast typically paying the most, but also having the highest cost of living. A site I really like for getting salary data by region an... |
Should I switch to this high rate checking account for my emergency fund? | Check out the "rewards checking" accounts listed on this thread at fatwallet finance forums. You could easily get 3.5% - 4% right now if you are willing to do the rewards checking dance. If not, you should look into the 1-2% accounts at the top. I use Alliant CU and their website is nice (and they give you your credit ... |
From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well? | Discussing individual stocks is discouraged here, so I'll make my answer somewhat generic. Keep in mind, some companies go public in a way that takes the shares that are held by the investment VCs (venture capitalists) and cashes them out of their positions, i.e. most if not all shares are made public. In that case, th... |
What ways are there to invest in stocks, options, indexes, etc, and where should one start (what funds)? | Ryan's suggestion to index for your main strategy is dead on. Your risk is highest with one given stock, and decreases as you diversify. Yet, picking the stocks one at a time is an effort, when done right, it's time consuming. For what one can say about Jim "mad money" Cramer, his advice to spend an hour a month studyi... |
Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments with Monthly Income | Here are my re-run figures. Not counting capital gains taxes, I calculate you need to be making 1.875% per annum or 0.155% per month on your $8,000 investment to break-even on the loan. It's interesting that the return you need to gain to break-even is less than the interest you're paying, even with commission. It h... |
What to do when a job offer is made but with a salary less than what was asked for? | What I do in those cases - assuming I like the job - is ask for a review in 3-months. They usually take this to mean I want a raise-review and give me a raise. What I really want to know is how I'm doing. Some managers will only give feedback in a review instead of every day. |
Options strategy - When stocks go opposite of your purchase? | I cannot believe noone mentioned this so far: Every decision you make is independent from previous decisions (that is, if you only care about your expected gain). This means that your decision whether to buy the option should be the same whether you bought the same option before or not. |
Can LLC legally lend money to a friend? | I can't say if there is anything specific that makes lending illegal, but if your company goes bankrupt, you might end up in trouble. First, it's a loan. It must be repaid. It must be in the books as a loan, and if your company couldn't pay its bills, you would have to ask for the money back. If the company goes bankr... |
What is “beta” for an investment or a portfolio, and how do I use it? | Beta is an indication of a Stock's risk with respect to the market. For instance if a stock had a beta of 1 it means it is in tandem with the S&P 500. If it is more than 1, the stock is volatile. If it is less than 1, it implies market movement doesn't affect this stock much. Tech stocks and small cap stocks have hig... |
What's the appropriate way to signify an S-Corp? | S-Corp is a corporation. I.e.: you add a "Inc." or "Corp." to the name or something of that kind. "S" denotes a specific tax treatment which may change during the lifetime of the corporation. It doesn't refer to a legal status. |
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 ... |
Anyone please explain the meaning of turnover in this pic? | The Business Dictionary has three definitions of "turnover". When it comes to share dealing, the most likely one is the total value of shares traded on the stock exchange in a given period. |
Should I be worried that I won't be given a receipt if I pay with cash? | In some states, it is your responsibility to pay the sales tax on a transaction, even if the party your purchase from doesn't collect it. This is common with online purchases across state lines; for example, here in Massachusetts, if I buy something from New Hampshire (where there is no sales tax), I am required to pay... |
Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries | They can't keep rising with respect to people's income because eventually you run out of buyers. If there's roughly one house for every five people, then you'd better make sure that the price you set to sell your house is affordable to people in the upper fifth of income scales, or else you are mathematically guarantee... |
What is a good way to keep track of your credit card transactions, to reduce likelihood of fraud? | The best way is to retain the charge slips. After you are done for the month you can discard them. Alternatively if you are using any of the personal finance tool or a simple XLS to track exepnses, it would be easy to figure out what you actually spent and what was not yours. |
Should I invest in the world's strongest currency instead of my home currency? | Currency speculation is a very risky investment strategy. But when you are looking for which currency to denote your savings in, looking at the unit value is quite pointless. What is important is how stable the currency is in the long term. You certainly don't want a currency which is prone to inflation, because it mea... |
What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland? | The cost of living is quite high in New York City. It has the highest CPI (Consumer Price Index) of any city in the U.S. Salaries also tend to be highest in NYC. Just about any bicycle lock sold in the U.S. has an exception in its warranty for NYC. It is the most populous American city. So, why do people deal with ... |
How to interpret these explanatory graphs (about option strategies)? | The blue line is illustrating the net profit or loss the investor will realise according to how the price of the underlying asset settles at expiry. The x-axis represents the underlying asset price. The y-axis represents the profit or loss. In the first case, the investor has a "naked put write" position, having sold ... |
How can a person with really bad credit history rent decent housing? | Having been recently evicted she is unlikely to find any one willing to rent to her at anything close to reasonable terms. Any landlord that would consider it is likely to require a huge deposit. Her best solution may be a hotel/motel with weekly/monthly rates. It is generally much easier to get someone out of a hote... |
What effect would sovereign default of a European country have on personal debt or a mortgage? | If the default happens through mass monetary inflation rather than openly ("We're not paying interest on our bonds") then make sure you pay off your house. There may not be a very long window to do so. If the currency becomes worthless, then it depends on what you have of value that would be accepted by the lender as ... |
Where can I borrow money for investing? | Borrowing to invest is almost always a bad idea. You'd have to take out an unsecured loan, which has a higher interest rate, or a secured loan and put at risk whatever you are securing the loan with. You need some means to make payments on the loan, or if interest is being added to the balance then take the compoundin... |
Does freedom to provide services allow me contracting in Germany without paying taxes there (but in my home EU country)? | You're free to provide services, but if you stay in one country for more than half a year - you're generally considered to be its resident for tax purposes. Germany is no exception to the rule, in fact - this is true to almost any country in the world. If you provide the services from Poland, and never set foot in Germ... |
Working on a tax free island to make money? | From http://www.taxrates.cc/html/cayman-islands-tax-rates.html: There is no income tax, corporate tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax, inheritance tax, property tax, gift tax or any other kind of direct taxation in Cayman Islands. Cayman Islands government receives the majority of its income from indirect... |
What's a normal personal debt / equity ratio for a highly educated person? | Curious, are you asking about average, or the good numbers? The median family doesn't have $2500 to address an emergency. We are a nation of debtors, and spenders. A young couple at .8 is doing well. It means they saved 20% for a down payment, and just bought a house. Not too tough to buy with 5% down, have no other sa... |
Evidence for timing market in the short run? | The study of technical analysis is generally used (sometimes successfully) to time the markets. There are many aspects to technical analysis, but the simplest form is to look for uptrends and downtrends in the charts. Generally higher highs and higher lows is considered an uptrend. And lower lows and lower highs is co... |
Borrow from 401k for down payment on rental property? | Make sure you can really do what you plan on doing: Look at the maximum loan length and the maximum loan amount. From the IRS- retirement plans faqs regarding loans A qualified plan may, but is not required to provide for loans. If a plan provides for loans, the plan may limit the amount that can be taken as a lo... |
Tax On Unsold Mined Bitcoin | And directly from IRS notice 2014-21 FAQ: Q-1: How is virtual currency treated for federal tax purposes? A-1: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. Q-6: Does a taxpayer have gain or loss... |
Can saving/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire? | I just want to point out a couple of things, and I do not have enough reputation to comment. Saving 50% is totally possible. I know people saving 65%. For more see here EDIT: Let me repeat that 4% it the maximum you can assume if you want to be sure to have at least that return in the long term. It's not the average, i... |
What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate? | The big one is to keep you from refinancing it with someone else to get a better rate. There may also be some funny-money reasons having to do with being able to count this as a new sale. |
What is the equation for an inflation adjusted annuity held in perpetuity? | The question lacks specificity, i.e. when does the initial investment occur, now or one period from now? If now then it is a perpetuity due. I will consider under 2 scenarios, A and B, relating to the size of the initial investment. A. Assuming that the initial investment (C_0) occurs now and each payment thereafte... |
Buy index mutual fund or build my own? | There are only three circumstances where building your own "index" portfolio make sense, in my opinion. |
Long(100%)-Short(-100%) investment explanation | When portfolio positions are reported in percentages, those percentages are relative to the portfolio's base equity. When you start out, that is equal to the cash you have in a portfolio. Later it's the net equity of the portfolio (i.e., how much money you could withdraw if you were to exit all your positions). If yo... |
Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | It's more complicated than that. Governments raise money in a number of ways. First, they tax economic activity within their borders and for connected companies and individuals. Then, some governments have actual revenues from state-owned enterprises (licences, patents, courts, business revenues, and so on). Whatever... |
Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” in the US? | As a contractor, I have done this exact calculation many times so I can compare full time employment offers when they come. The answer varies greatly depending on your situation, but here's how to calculate it: So, subtracting the two and you get I've run many different scenarios with multiple plans and employers, and ... |
Can I claim a tax deduction for working from home as an employee? I work there 90% of the time | The short answer is yes you probably can take the deduction for a home office because the space is used exclusively and you are working there for the convenience of your employer if you don't have a desk at your employers office. The long answer is that it may not be worth it to take the home office deduction as an emp... |
What would I miss out on by self insuring my car? | Convenience, and of course money. In case of an event, you'll have to spend the full worth of money to fix/replace, while if you're insured - you get the insurance to pay for it. It is up to you to decide, if the money saved on the lower premiums worth the risk of paying much more in case of an event. Of course, the ch... |
How a company in India can misuse my PAN number and its scanned copy that I provided as an interview candidate? | There is a possibility of misuse. Hence it should be shared judiciously. Sharing it with large / trusted organization reduces the risk as there would be right process / controls in place. Broadly these days PAN and other details are shared for quite a few transactions, say applying for a Credit Card, Opening Bank Accou... |
It's possible to short a stock without paying interest? | It is possible and it depends on your strategy. As short selling interest rates are annual and levied monthly at a prorated rate. Interest rates are also low in general, with the exception of hard to borrow stocks. Therefore you can maintain a short position for weeks on end and notice nothing. Months even, if the posi... |
Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in? | No, assuming by "public company" you mean a corporation. The shareholder's individual liability is limited to their investment. Your shares can go to zero value, but that's the limit. EDIT In regard to the follow-up question in the comments: "Are all companies in the stock market corporations?" the answer is definite... |
How to avoid getting back into debt? | With your windfall, you've been given a second chance. You've become debt free again, and get to start over. Here is what I would recommend from this point on: Decide that you want to remain debt free. It sounds like you've already done this, since you are asking this question. Commit to never borrowing money again. It... |
Car Loan upside down--refinance before selling? | Having just gone through selling a car, I can tell you that CarMax will most likely not be the best solution. I recently sold my '09 Pontiac Vibe which had a KBB and Edmonds value (private party sale) of around $6k. Trade-in value was around $4,800. I took it to the local CarMax for a quote, and they came back with $3,... |
Do options always expire on third Friday of every month | Traditionally options expired on the 3rd Wednesday of the months of Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec as this day was never a holiday. See IMM dates. However as option use exploded there were monthly and weekly options created on different schedules. The exchange will specify when its options expire in the contract. |
Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job? | Politics is certainly part of the equation, in two ways that I can think of. These don't necessarily reflect my views; just trying to explain as I see it. First, there are a lot of interests in having the current, convoluted tax system entrenched. ProPublica did a piece talking about the question you're asking, and Int... |
Capital Gains Tax with Multiple 'buy' Transactions per Stock (U.S.) | According to the following article the answer is "first-in, first-out": http://smallbusiness.chron.com/calculate-cost-basis-stock-multiple-purchases-21588.html According to the following article the last answer was just one option an investor can choose: https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/advice-investing-costbasis?akredi... |
Is it bad practice to invest in stocks that fluctuate by single points throughout the day? | Yes. There are several downsides to this strategy: You aren't taking into account commissions. If you pay $5 each time you buy or sell a stock, you may greatly reduce or even eliminate any possible gains you would make from trading such small amounts. This next point sounds obvious, but remember that you pay a commissi... |
Why would I vote for an increase in the number of authorized shares? | I'll skip the "authorizing...." and go right to uses of new shares: Companies need stock as another liquid asset for a variety of purposes, and if not enough stock is available, then may be forced to the open market to acquire, either by exchanging cash or taking on debt to get the cash. |
I have around 60K $. Thinking about investing in Oil, how to proceed? | This is only a partial answer to your question #1. If you have a conservative approach to savings (and, actually, even if you don't), you should not invest all of your money in any single industry or product. If you want to invest some money in oil, okay, but don't overdo it. If your larger goal is to invest the money... |
Is it a good idea to get an unsecured loan to pay off a credit card that won't lower a high rate? | Why not just get another credit card and transfer the balance? Many of them will give you special perks like x months of no interest for doing so. Also, once you call to actually cancel the card you will see for sure whether they really have any power to negotiate rates. From their perspective 15% APR is more than 0%AP... |
1099-MISC vs K-1 — duplicated numbers? | Well, you won't be double taxed based on what you described. Partners are taxed on income, typically distributions. Your gain in the partnership is not income. However, you were essentially given some money which you elected to invest in the partnership, so you need to pay tax on that money. The question becomes, are y... |
Taxes on transactions of services | It's called bartering and the IRS has a page titled Four Things to Know About Bartering. The summary is - The bottom line is this is taxable. |
Insider Trading? | I am a flight attendant on a private jet and I hear a bank CEO discussing a merger or a buyout. I proceed to purchase that stock before the announcement. The CEO did not tell me to buy it, I just overheard him. If you are a flight attendant on a private jet that is operated by one of the principals, probably incl... |
Why use ROI if I can use effective compount interest? | Yes though I'd likely put a caveat on that. If you take short-term investments and extrapolate the results to get an annual result this can be misleading. For example, if a stock goes up 10% in a month, assuming this will continue for the next 11 months may not be a great idea. Thus, beware of how much data do you have... |
Best personal finance strategy to control my balance | My bank will let me download credit card transactions directly into a personal finance program, and by assigning categories to stores I can get at least a rough overview of that sidd of things, and then adjust categories/splits when needed. Ditto checks. Most of my spending is covered by those. Doesn't help with cash t... |
Why does gold have value? | A lot of people probably don't agree with him, but Warren Buffett has some great quotes on why he doesn't invest in gold: I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side…Now for that same cube of gold, it would be worth at today’s market prices about... |
What is a “Subscription Rights Offering” of a stock one owns? | After a company goes public, if it wants to raise more money, then it does this by secondary public offering or rights issue. In subscription rights issue gives the right to existing share holders to buy new shares at equal proportion. So if every one buys, they maintain the same percentage of ownership. Generally the ... |
Highstreet bank fund, custom ETF or Nutmeg? | It's a good question, I am amazed how few people ask this. To summarise: is it really worth paying substantial fees to arrange a generic investment though your high street bank? Almost certainly not. However, one caveat: You didn't mention what kind of fund(s) you want to invest in, or for how long. You also mention an... |
Relation between interest rates and currency for a nation | From Indian context, there are a number of factors that are influencing the economic condition and the exchange rate, interest rate etc. are reflection of the situation. I shall try and answer the question through the above Indian example. India is running a budget deficit of 4 odd % for last 6-7 years, which means tha... |
Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when? | I'm surprised to even hear this question with the current state of devaluation of real estate. One thing I'll add to the other answers is to make sure you are doing a true apples/apples comparison to other investments when considering real estate. You can't just take subtract the purchase price from the sales price to... |
how stock market sale work? | As stock prices have declined, the net worth of people has come down. Imagine owning a million shares of a stock worth $100/share. This is worth $100,000,000. Now, if the stock is suddenly trading at $50/share then some would say you have lost $50,000,000. The value of the stock is less. The uncertainty is always there... |
Will an ETF increase in price if an underlying stock increases in price | The ETF supply management policy is arcane. ETFs are not allowed to directly arbitrage their holdings against the market. Other firms must handle redemptions & deposits. This makes ETFs slightly costlier than the assets held. For ETFs with liquid holdings, its price will rarely vary relative to the holdings, slippag... |
Rate of return of stock index | The return from one day to the next is based on the Day's closing price. To be clear - opening prices can be quite different from the prior day close. In your example, they are pretty close, but this is not always the case. Just pull a larger data set to observe this. The above aside, dividends are not reflected in t... |
Why can it be a bad idea to buy stocks after hours? | Unless you want to be a short term day trader, then it is not foolish to be an end of day trader. If you are looking to be a medium to long term trader/investor then it is quite acceptable to put orders in after market close. Some would say it is even less risky, because you are not watching the price fluctuate up and ... |
Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market? | The most significant reason is that if the board of directors of a company neglects the stock value, the stockholders will vote them out of their jobs. |
How much does the volatility change for a 1$ move in the underlying | The volatility measures how fast the stock moves, not how much. So you need to know the period during which that change occurred. Then the volatility naturally is higher the faster is the change. |
Why would a company sell debt in order to buy back shares and/or pay dividends? | It's a tax shelter. Foreign affiliates hold most of Microsoft's cash and investments. The cost of borrowing is much cheaper than repatriating the money and paying taxes. Those bonds are selling at rates similar to US Treasury Debt. Also, many people and organizations with lots of assets still borrow money for day to da... |
Credit card statement dates follow pattern? | My guess: they are giving you a constant number of days between when the bill is sent and when it is due. Due dates are usually set either: same date each month IE the 3rd of each month. same day IE first thursday of the month. Note: due date might vary based on weekends. Number of days in the month - date on bill sh... |
What can we conclude/learn from inst. own %? | There are a LOT of reasons why institutional investors would own a company's stock (especially a lot of it). Some can be: The company is in one of the indices, especially big ones. Many asset management companies have funds that are either passive (track index) or more-or-less closely adhere to a benchmark, with the be... |
Is keeping track of your money and having a budget the same thing? | The two are closely related. A budget is a detailed plan for how to spend. Expense tracking is a tool to analyze your previous spending performance. Creating a plan for how to spend your money without any record of your previous spending--is an empty promise to yourself that you will never follow up on. Did I stay with... |
Advice for a college student interested in investment opportunities. | 2.5 years is a short period in the stock market. That means there is a significant chance it will be lower in 2.5 years, whereas it is very likely to be higher over a longer time period like 5-10 years. So if you want the funds to grow for sure then consider an online savings account, where you might earn 1-2%. If you... |
How can I determine if my portfolio's rate of return has been “good”, or not? | It's important to realize that any portfolio, if sufficiently diversified should track overall GDP growth, and anything growing via a percentage per annum is going to double eventually. (A good corner-of-napkin estimate is 70/the percentage = years to double). Just looking at your numbers, if you initially put in the f... |
When to use a stop limit order over a stop order | This is to protect your position in specific highly volatile market conditions. If the stock is free falling and you only have a stop order at $90, it's possible that this order could be filled at $50 or even less. The limit is to protect you from that, as there are certain very specific times where it's better to jus... |
Td Ameritrade Roth IRA question | Since you're 20-30 years out of retirement, you should be 90% to 100% in stocks, and in one or two broad stock market funds likely. I'm not sure about the minimums at TD Ameritrade, but at Vanguard even $3k will get you into the basic funds. One option is the Targeted Retirement Year funds, which automatically rebalanc... |
Should I Purchase Health Insurance Through My S-Corp | I'm not sure about reimbursement, you'll have to talk to a tax adviser (CPA/EA licensed in your State). From what I know, if you pay your own insurance premiums - they're not deductible, and I don't think reimbursements change that. But again - not sure, verify. However, since you're a salaried employee, even if your o... |
What are the implications of a corporate stock repurchase or share buyback program? | the implications are that the company's earnings per share may seem greater, (after the company buys them there will be less shares outstanding), giving wall street the impression that there is more growth potential than there really is. its an accounting gimmick that can work for a few quarters while the company evalu... |
Why will the bank only loan us 80% of the value of our fully paid for home? | Banks and lenders have become a bit more conservative since the housing crisis. 80% is a typical limit. The reason is to minimize the lender's risk if declining property values would put the borrower upside-down on the loan. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/home-equity/how-much-equity-can-you-cash-out-of-home.aspx |
One company asks for picture of my debit card | Believe it or not, what they're asking you is not as unusual as you might think. Our company sells a tremendous amount of expensive merchandise over the Internet, and whenever there's something odd or suspicious about the transaction, we may ask the customer to provide a picture of the card simply to prove they have p... |
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? | No matter what, it is never a bad decision to go 100% debt free. However, you can make debt work in your favor in some cases (investments, education, etc.), but you need to approach it with a plan and long term strategy. Interest, fees, and loss of value can quickly eat up any gains. |
Why is a stock that pays a dividend preferrable to one that doesn't? | Dividend paying stocks are not "better" In particular shareholders will get taxed on the distribution while the company can most likely invest the money tax free in their operations. The shareholder then has the opportunity to decide when to pay the taxes when they sell their shares. Companies pay dividends for a c... |
Putting borrowed money into an SIPP | If it were possible to take a loan out for a SIPP investment in the future .. I would suggest having an equivalent invested amount already in an ISA .. simply to cover you in the event of a job loss including additional cash in a deposit account. Secondly .. to increase your chances of success with this strategy I woul... |
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