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Why do stocks track the price of Oil? | Anthony Russell - I agree with JohnFx. Petroleum is used in making many things such as asphalt, road oil, plastic, jet fuel, etc. It's also used in some forms of electricity generation, and some electric cars use gasoline as a backup form of energy, petrol is also used in electricity generation outside of cars. Source can be found here. But to answer your question of why shares of electric car companies are not always negatively related to one another deals with supply and demand. If investors feel positively about petroleum and petroleum related prospects, then they are going to buy or attempt to buy shares of "X" petrol company. This will cause the price of "X", petrol company to rise, ceteris paribus. Just because the price of petroleum is high doesn't mean investors are going to buy shares of an electric car company. Petrol prices could be high, but numerous electric car companies could be doing poorly, now, with that being said you could argue that sales of electric cars may go up when petrol prices are high, but there are numerous factors that come into play here. I think it would be a good idea to do some more research if you are planning on investing. Also, remember, after a company goes public they no longer set the price of the shares of their stock. The price of company "X" shares are determined by supply and demand, which is inherently determined by investors attitudes and expectations, ultimately defined by past company performance, expectations of future performance, earnings, etc.. It could be that when the market is doing well - it's a good sign of other macroeconomic variables (employment, GDP, incomes, etc) and all these factors power how often individuals travel, vacation, etc. It also has to deal with the economy of the country producing the oil, when you have OPEC countries selling petrol to the U.S. it is likely much cheaper per barrel than domestic produced and refined petrol because of the labor laws, etc. So a strong economy may be somewhat correlated with oil prices and a strong market, but it's not necessarily the case that strong oil prices drive the economy..I think this is a great research topic that cannot be answered in one post.. Check this article here. From here you can track down what research the Fed of Cleveland has done concerning this. My advice to you is to not believe everything your peers tell you, but to research everything your peers tell you. With just a few clicks you can figure out the legitimacy of many things to at least some degree. |
Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” in the US? | Many answers here have given what look to be useful perspectives on your question. I want to point out an interesting technical issue. If an employer contracts with an insurer, it agrees to cover all employees (or all that fill some pre-specified definition and no one else), and to offer only a limited range of options. If you buy insurance directly, you obviously have a huge range of choices, including the (technically illegal) one of no insurance at all. Your first thought is probably, "Hey, that's great! More options, more chances to pick the plan that's right for me." Sorry, no. Yes, you have more options, but so does everyone else. If you are working for some large company, you get insurance, period. If you suspect you have an expensive health condition, you cannot buy more insurance; if you believe yourself to be healthy as a horse, you cannot get skimpier insurance and pocket the difference. Healthy people and sick people are all in the same predictable pool. If you buy insurance freely, the insurer knows that the sicker you are, the more likely you are buy insurance, a phenomenon called adverse selection. As a result, the premiums (fees) a person buying his own insurance pays are much higher, because most of his fellow policy-holders are sickly -- even if he himself is just risk-averse. On the other hand, if you are risk-neutral, if you can survive a $10,000 bill if it happens to arise, you can save big by finding the skimpiest imaginable insurance, where all your fellow policy-holders will be hale and healthy people like yourself. |
Credit card grace period for pay, wait 1 day, charge? | If I understand you correctly, no you shouldn't be charged interest. Lets say you have a billing cycle of monthly (which usually isn't true). You charge $XX per day, ending up at $1000 at the end of January. So February 1st, your bill for your January billing cycle is $1000, due by Feb 15th (lets say). On February 1st, you continue to charge $XX per day. You go to pay your bill online on Feb 14th (to be safe), and you'll usually see on your credit card website something like: You'd hit "Pay my bill", and you'd usually see these options: At the date your cycle was due (Feb 15th), if you haven't paid your full latest statement (lets say you paid $500), they will charge you interest on the entire balance for the period (so interest on $1000, or lets say $50). The other $500 will roll over to the next month, so your next month you'd be somewhere near a $1550 bill. |
Can you explain the mechanism of money inflation? | The mechanism of supply and demand is imperfect. Producers don't know exactly how many purchasers/consumers for a good there are. Some goods, by their nature, are in short supply, and some are plentiful. The process of price discovery is one where (in a nominally free market) producers and purchasers make offers and counter-offers to assess what the price should be. As they do this the historical price changes, usually floating around some long-term average. As it goes up, we experience inflation. As it goes down, deflation. However, there isn't a fixed supply of producers and purchasers, so as new ones arrive and old ones leave, this too has an impact on supply and prices. Money (either in electronic or physical form) needs to be available to reflect the transactions and underpin the economy. Most central banks (at least in more established economies) aim for inflation of 2-4% by controlling the availability of money and the cost of borrowing new money. There are numerous ways they can do this (printing, issuing bonds, etc.). The reason one wants some degree of inflation is because employees will never accept a pay cut even when one would significantly improve the overall economy. Companies often decrease their prices in order to match lower demand, but employees don't usually accept decreased wages for decreased labour demand. A nominal degree of overall money inflation therefore solves this problem. Employees who get a below-inflation wage increase are actually getting a wage cut. Supply and demand must be matched and some inflation is the inevitable consequence of this. |
Typical return for an IRA? How can I assess if my returns were decent? | To me it looks pretty good (10% per year is a pretty good return). Lagging behind the indexes is normal, it is hard to beat the indexes over a long period of time, the longer the period - the lesser the chances to succeed. However, half a year is a relatively short period of time, and you should check your investments a little bit deeper. I'm assuming you're not invested in one thing, so you should check per investment, how it is performing. If you have funds - check each fund against the relevant index for that fund, if you have stocks - check against the relevant industry indexes, etc. Also, check the fees you pay to each fund and the plan, they come out of your pocket, lowering the return. |
Types of investments with built-in puts or similar safety features | An index annuity is almost the same as Indexed Universal Life, except the equity-index annuity is an investment with a guaranteed minimum return, with sometimes a higher return that is a function of the gain in the stock market, but is not associated with a life insurance policy. After a time, you can convert the EIA to a lifetime income (the annuity part) or just cash it out. They often are very complicated, but are constructed by combining bonds with index options (puts) just like indexed universal life. Unfortunately these tend to have high fees and/or commissions, and high (early) surrender charges, which can make them a poor investment. Of course you could just "roll your own" by buying bonds and puts FINRAS bulletin on EIAs, pdf warning. Here's a description of one of these securities: pdf. |
If a company's assets are worth more than its market cap, can one say the shares must be undervalued? | Imagine a poorly run store in the middle of downtown Manhattan. It has been in the family for a 100 years but the current generation is incompetent regarding running a business. The store is worthless because it is losing money, but the land it is sitting on is worth millions. So yes an asset of the company can be worth more than the entire company. What one would pay for the rights to the land, vs the entire company are not equal. |
Explanation on Warren Buffett's famous quote | In the short term the market is a popularity contest In the short run which in value investing time can extend even to many years, an equity is subject to the vicissitudes of the whims by every scale of panic and elation. This can be seen by examining the daily chart of any large cap equity in the US. Even such large holdings can be affected by any set of fear and greed in the market and in the subset of traders trading the equity. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience high variance in the short rurn. in the long term [the stock market] is a weighing machine In the long run which in value investing time can extend to even multiple decades, an equity is more or less subject only to the variance of the underlying value. This can be seen by examining the annual chart of even the smallest cap equities over decades. An equity over such time periods is almost exclusively affected by its changes in value. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience low variance in the long run. |
How Should I Start my Finance Life and Invest? | nan |
May 6, 2010 stock market decline/plunge: Why did it drop 9% in a few minutes? | I hate attributing an event like this to a single cause. That implies that the market is an orderly system where everything operates smoothly. I prefer to see it as much chaotic. When I see a drop like that happen, I'd say that there were a lot of sellers of stocks and all the buyers were bidding less and less for those few minutes. Perhaps the catalyst for that was a typo or a strange order. But in the end all the participants in the market responded by bidding down stocks, not just one person. It takes sides to complete a trade. I know my model is a bit simplistic... I'd be happy if someone corrected me :-) |
Track uninvoiced (pre-invoiced?) expected income in Quicken | You are right on track with your idea of setting up a separate account for invoiced income. Create a new account with the type other asset and call it "Receivables" (or something similar). Every time you invoice a client, enter a credit to this account with the amount of the invoice. Once the client pays and you deposit a check, enter a transfer from the "Receivables" account to the bank account. EDIT I overlooked that you wish to account for not-yet-invoiced income. I think that's a bad idea. It will become confusing and will give you the false sense that your financial condition is better than it really is. There are plenty of stories about businesses that have stellar sales, but fail because of lack of cash flow (the business' bills become due before it gets paid by its own customers). |
What headaches will I have switching from Quicken to GnuCash? | I have not used Quicken; I've used GnuCash exclusively. It feels a bit rough with the UI: Balancing that, the data is stored in a gzip-compressed xml file. The compression is also optional, so you can save it as a plain xml file. This means that you have some hope of recovery if you wind up with a corrupted file. (And for programmer-types, you could keep it in source control for additional peace of mind.) My wife and I have been using it for several years now, and has worked well for us. LWN.net had a pair of Grumpy Editor reviews on personal finance software here and here which would be worth reading. |
What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments? | When you pay monthly, you're making 12 payments / year. Assuming you have a payment of $1000/mo, that's $12,000/year that you're paying for your mortgage. When you opt for bi-weekly, they're saying that you can pay half of your mortgage ($500) bi-weekly (can be configured to align with your paycheck). Since there are ~26 bi-weekly periods in a year, you're making 26 * $500 = $13,000 in mortgage payments each year. Some of these companies charge a fee for you to utilize this service. The main concept behind this is that people are horrible at budgeting on their own, so when $500 is immediately taken from your paycheck, you'll be able to budget around what's left and be able to make that extra payment each year without thinking about it or realizing it. |
How long should I keep an uncleared transaction in my checkbook? | Typically I'll carry the charge for quite awhile, up to a year. If it hasn't cleared by then, I contact the institution that should have received the money to see what they want to do about it. If they tell me not to worry about it, then I change the payee to be "Overdraft Protection", and consider it as having been spent. That way I build up (slowly) a cushion in my checking account. |
What to do with a 50K inheritance [duplicate] | My grandma left a 50K inheritance You don't make clear where in the inheritance process you are. I actually know of one case where the executor (a family member, not a professional) distributed the inheritance before paying the estate taxes. Long story short, the heirs had to pay back part of the inheritance. So the first thing that I would do is verify that the estate is closed and all the taxes paid. If the executor is a professional, just call and ask. If a family member, you may want to approach it more obliquely. Or not. The important thing is not to start spending that money until you're sure that you have it. One good thing is that my husband is in grad school and will be done in 2019 and will then make about 75K/yr with his degree profession. Be a bit careful about relying on this. Outside the student loans, you should build other expenses around the assumption that he won't find a job immediately after grad school. For example, we could be in a recession in 2019. We'll be about due by then. Paying off the $5k "other debt" is probably a no brainer. Chances are that you're paying double-digit interest. Just kill it. Unless the car loan is zero-interest, you probably want to get rid of that loan too. I would tend to agree that the car seems expensive for your income, but I'm not sure that the amount that you could recover by selling it justifies the loss of value. Hopefully it's in good shape and will last for years without significant maintenance. Consider putting $2k (your monthly income) in your checking account. Instead of paying for things paycheck-to-paycheck, this should allow you to buy things on schedule, without having to wait for the money to appear in your account. Put the remainder into an emergency account. Set aside $12k (50% of your annual income/expenses) for real emergencies like a medical emergency or job loss. The other $16k you can use the same way you use the $5k other debt borrowing now, for small emergencies. E.g. a car repair. Make a budget and stick to it. The elimination of the car loan should free up enough monthly income to support a reasonable budget. If it seems like it isn't, then you are spending too much money for your income. Don't forget to explicitly budget for entertainment and vacations. It's easy to overspend there. If you don't make a budget, you'll just find yourself back to your paycheck-to-paycheck existence. That sounds like it is frustrating for you. Budget so that you know how much money you really need to live. |
How do I choose 401k investment funds? | I would stay away from the Actively Managed Funds. Index funds or the asset allocation funds are your best bet since they have the lowest fees. What is your risk tolerance? How old are you? I would suggest reading: |
Can capital expenses for volunteer purposes be deducted from income? | To be safe you should donate the printer to the charity. Or even better, have the charity purchase it and you donate a equivalent number of dollars directed towards purchasing the equipment. Once your wife no longer volunteers with the charity it should be returned to the charity because they own it. |
If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting? | I would not do a bill of sale for less, but a legal and safe way to reduce the taxes is to write separate bills for the boat, motor and trailer. The taxes are paid at different rates and will represent to full sale price. |
Will unpaid taxes prevent me from getting a business license? | Generally these things are unrelated. Your tax debt is to agency X, your license is (mostly) from agency Y. If your business involves agency X, then it may be a problem. For example, you cannot get a EA license (IRS Enrolled Agent) if you have unsettled tax debt or other tax compliance issues. You should check Michigan state licensing organizations if there are similar dependencies. Also, some background checks may fail, and some state licenses require them to pass. For example, you can probably not get an active bar registration or a CPA license with an unsettled tax debt. You might have a problem with registering as a Notary Public, or other similar position. You can probably not work in law enforcement as a contractor. If you're on an approved payment plan - then your tax debt is settled unless you stop paying as agreed, and shouldn't be a problem. |
Is a stock's trade size history publicly available? | That is called a 'volume chart'. There are many interactive charts available for the purpose. Here is clear example. (just for demonstration but this is for India only) 1) Yahoo Finance 2) Google Finance 3) And many more Usually, the stock volume density is presented together (below it) with normal price vs time chart. Note: There is a friendly site about topics like this. Quant.stackexchange.com. Think of checking it out. |
How to read a balance sheet to determine if a company has enough money to keep paying their employees? | I heard today while listening to an accounting podcast that a balance sheet... can be used to determine if a company has enough money to pay its employees. The "money" that you're looking at is specifically cash on the balance sheet. The cash flows document mentioned is just a more-finance-related document that explains how we ended at cash on the balance sheet. ...even looking for a job This is critical, that i don't believe many people look at when searching for a job. Using the ratios listed below can (and many others), one can determine if the business they are applying for will be around in the next five years. Can someone provide me a pair of examples (one good)? My favorite example of a high cash company is Nintendo. Rolling at 570 Billion USD IN CASH ALONE is astonishing. Using the ratios we can see how well they are doing. Can someone provide me a pair of examples (one bad)? Tesla is a good example of the later on being cash poor. Walk me though how to understand such a document? *Note: This question is highly complex and will take months of reading to fully comprehend the components that make up the financial statements. I would recommend that this question be posted completely separate. |
How does a high share price benefit a company when it is raising funds? | Share price is based on demand. Assuming the same amount of shares are made available for trade then stocks with a higher demand will have a higher price. So say a company has 1000 shares in total and that company needs to raise $100. They decide to sell 100 shares for $1 to raise their $100. If there is demand for 100 shares for at least $1 then they achieve their goal. But if the market decides the shares in this company are only worth 50 cents then the company only raises $50. So where do they get the other $50 they needed? Well one option is to sell another 100 shares. The dilution comes about because in the first scenario the company retains ownership of 900 or 90% of the equity. In the second scenario it retains ownership of only 800 shares or 80% of the equity. The benefit to the company and shareholders of a higher price is basically just math. Any multiple of shares times a higher price means there is more value to owning those shares. Therefore they can sell fewer shares to raise the same amount. A lot of starts up offer employees shares as part of their remuneration package because cash flow is typically tight when starting a new business. So if you're trying to attract the best and brightest it's easier to offer them shares if they are worth more than those of company with a similar opportunity down the road. Share price can also act as something of a credit score. In that a higher share price "may" reflect a more credit worthy company and therefore "may" make it easier for that company to obtain credit. All else being equal, it also makes it more expensive for a competitor to take over a company the higher the share price. So it can offer some defensive and offensive advantages. All ceteris paribus of course. |
Shorting stocks: Indicators that a stock will drop? | First utilize a security screener to identify the security profiles you are looking to identify for identifying your target securities for shorting. Most online brokers have stock screeners that you can utilize. At this point you may want to look at your target list of securities to find out those that are eligible for shorting. The SHO thresold list is also a good place to look for securities that are hard to borrow to eliminate potential target securities. http://regsho.finra.org/regsho-Index.html Also your broker can let you know the stocks that are available for borrowing. You can then take your target securities and then you can look at the corporate filings on the SEC's Edgar site to look for the key words you are looking for. I would suggest that you utilize XBRL so you can electronically run your key word searched in an automated manner. I would further suggest that you can run the key word XBRL daily for issuer filings of your target list of securities. Additional word searches you may want to consider are those that could indicate a dilution of the companies stock such as the issuance of convertible debt. Also the below link detailing real short interest may be helpful. Clearing firms are required to report short interest every two weeks. http://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/short-interest.aspx |
Price of a call option | When I log in to Schwab to look at these options it tells me there's only Adjusted Options available on these terms: Adjusted Options: Multiplier: 100; Deliverable: 15 PTIE; Cash: ---- It does confirm your July Call quote price of $0.05 because the contract, though priced for 100 shares, will only deliver 15 shares. Separately, looking at the company website for news there was a 7 for 1 Reverse Split announced on May 8, which is the culprit for this option adjustment and the seemingly nonsensical call price. |
If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything? | Shareholders can [often] vote for management to pay dividends Shareholders are sticking around if they feel the company will be more valuable in the future, and if the company is a target for being bought out. Greater fool theory |
Prepaying a loan: Shouldn't the interest be recalculated like a shorter loan? | For the mortgage, you're confusing cause and effect. Loans like mortgages generally have a very simple principle behind them: at any given time, the interest charged at that time is the product of the amount still owing and the interest rate. So for example on a mortgage of $100,000, at an interest rate of 5%, the interest charged for the first year would be $5,000. If you pay the interest plus another $20,000 after the first year, then in the second year the interest charge would be $4,000. This view is a bit of an over-simplification, but it gets the basic point across. [In practice you would actually make payments through the year so the actual balance that interest is charged on would vary. Different mortgages would also treat compounding slightly differently, e.g. the interest might be added to the mortgage balance daily or monthly.] So, it's natural that the interest charged on a mortgage reduces year-by-year as you pay off some of the mortgage. Mortgages are typically setup to have constant payments over the life of the mortgage (an "amortisation schedule"), calculated so that by the end of the planned mortgage term, you'll have paid off all of the principal. It's a straightforward effect of the way that interest works in general that these schedules incorporate higher interest payments early on in the mortgage, because that's the time when you owe more money. If you go for a 15-year mortgage, each payment will involve you paying off significantly more principal each time than with a 30-year mortgage for the same balance - because with a 15-year mortgage, you need to hit 0 after 15 years, not 30. So since you pay off the principal faster, you naturally pay less interest even when you just compare the first 15 years. In your case what you're talking about is paying off the mortgage using the 30-year payments for the first 15 years, and then suddenly paying off the remaining principal with a lump sum. But when you do that, overall you're still paying off principal later than if it had been a 15-year mortgage to begin with, so you should be charged more interest, because what you've done is not the same as having a 15-year mortgage. You still will save the rest of the interest on the remaining 15 years of the term, unless there are pre-payment penalties. For the car loan I'm not sure what is happening. Perhaps it's the same situation and you just misunderstood how it was explained. Or maybe it's setup with significant pre-payment penalties so you genuinely don't save anything by paying early. |
Pensions, why bother? | Your gut feeling is absolutely spot on - you shouldn't be worrying about pension now, not at the age of 25. Assuming that you're not a footballer in the middle of the most productive part of your career and already have a fat wad of crunchy banknotes under your pillow that you're looking to set aside for a rainy day when you won't be able to play at your prime any longer. That doesn't mean you shouldn't invest, nor that means that you mustn't save. There are several factors at play here. First of all as a young person you are likely to have a high tolerance for risk, there is still plenty of time to recover should expected returns not materialise. Even a pension fund with the most aggressive risk / return strategy might just not quite do it for you. You could invest into education instead, improve health, obtain a profitable skill, create social capital by building connections, pay for experience, buy a house, start a family or even a business. Next, as a young professional you're unlikely to have reached your full earning potential yet and due to the law of diminishing marginal utility a hundred pounds per month now have greater utility (i.e. positive impact on your lifestyle) than a seven hundred pounds will in 7-10 years time once your earnings plateaued. That is to say it's easier to save £700 month from £3000 and maintain a reasonable level of personal comfort than carve £100 from £1300 monthly income. And last, but not the least, lets face it from a human point of view - forty years is a very long investment horizon and many things might and will change. One of the downsides of UK pensions is that you have very little control over the money until you reach a certain age. Tactically I suggest saving up to build a cushion consisting of cash or near cash assets; the size of the stash should be such that it is enough to cover all of your expenses from a minimum of 2 months to a maximum of a year. The exact size will depend on your personal comfort level, whatever social net you have (parents, wife, partner) and how hard it will be to find a new source of income should the current cease to produce cash. On a strategic level you can start looking into investing any surplus cash into the foundation of what will bring joy and happiness into the next 40 years of your life. Your or your partners training and education is one of the most sensible choices whilst you're young. Starting a family is another one. Both might help you reach you full earning potential much quicker. Finding what you love to do and learning how to do it really well - cash can accelerate this process bringing you quicker there you want to be. If you were a start-up business in front of a huge uncaptured market would you rather use cash to pay dividends or finance growth? |
Why don't some places require a credit card receipt signature, and some do? | Merchants apply in advance for the program, and the amount is limited to less than $25. |
How can my friend send $3K to me without using Paypal? | Three ideas: PayPal is probably the best/cheapest way to transfer small/medium amounts of money overseas. |
Is Bitcoin a commodity or a currency [duplicate] | Its neither. Its a scam. there's no value underlying it, and it has proven to be the most speculative and untrustworthy investment there is. The scam works like a pyramid scam, so the more people come later on the more people who came in earlier on gain, so that is why you see so much hype around it encouraged and fueled by those early adopters who'll cash out at your expense. Imagine people who jumped on the bandwagon when each coin was worth a mere fraction of a dollar - they want you to "invest" at the current price of hundreds of dollars per unit so that they could cash out. You'd be better off with tulips, really. (And don't be discouraged by the downvotes on this answer, of course those scamers will try to shut me down. That will just prove the point.) |
What is a “Junk Bond”? | From wikipedia: In finance, a high-yield bond (non-investment-grade bond, speculative-grade bond, or junk bond) is a bond that is rated below investment grade at the time of purchase. These bonds have a higher risk of default or other adverse credit events, but typically pay higher yields than better quality bonds in order to make them attractive to investors. In terms of your second question, you have the causality backwards. They are called junk bonds because they have a higher risk of default. |
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.) |
How is my employer affected if I have expensive claims on my group health insurance? | Many big companies self insure. They pay the insurance company to manage the claims, and to have access to their network of doctors, hospitals, specialists, and pharmacies; but cover the costs on a shared basis with the employees. Medium sized companies use one of the standard group policies. Small companies either have expensive policies because they are a small group, or they have to join with other small companies through an association to create a larger group. The bigger the group the less impact each individual person has on the group cost. The insurance companies reprice their policies each year based on the expected demographics of the groups, the negotiated rates with the network of providers, the required level of coverage, and the actual usage of the group from the previo year.. If the insurance company does a poor job of estimating the performance of the group, it hits their profits; which will cause them to raise their rates the next year which can impact the number of companies that use them. Some provisions of the new health care laws in the US govern portability of insurance regarding preexisting conditions, minimum coverage levels, and the elimination of many lifetime cap. Prior to these changes the switching of employers while very sick could have a devastating impact on the finances of the family. The lifetime cap could make it hard to cover the person if they had very expensive illnesses. If the illness doesn't impact your ability to work, there is no need to discuss it during the interview process. It won't need to be discussed except while coordinating care during the transition. There is one big issue though. If the old company uses Aetna, and the new company doesn't then you might have to switch doctors, or hospitals; or go out-of-network at a potentially even bigger cost to you. |
What are the risks & rewards of being a self-employed independent contractor / consultant vs. being a permanent employee? | When I worked for myself it was bad because But Ultimately I gave up my business and went to work for a school teaching, and through a series of other jobs ended up in a very stable reliable trustworthy job. When I was younger the variable paycheck didn't outweigh the freedom. Now that I am a dad I only think about having insurance and a secure job. The other option to consider is having a regular job, and then doing a little side work for yourself. You get all the benefits of both (and all the detractions) |
How do you invest in real estate without using money? | I have a friend who had went on a seminar with FortuneBuilders (the company that has Than Merrill as CEO). He told me that one of the things taught in that seminar was how to find funding for the property that you want to flip. One of the things he mentioned was that there are so-called "hard money" lenders who are willing to lend you the money for the property in exchange for getting their name on the property title. Last time I checked it looked like here in Florida we had at least Bridgewell Capital and Fairview Commercial Lending that were in that business. These hard money lenders get their investment back when the house is sold. So there is some underlying expectation that the house can be sold with some profit (to reimburse both the lender and you for your work). That friend of mine did tell me that he had flipped a house once but that he did not receive the funding to that from a lender but from an in-law, however it was through a similar arrangement. |
Does an individual share of a stock have some kind of unique identifier? | I agree with the answer by @Michael that this number doesn't exist. It's hard to see what use it would have and it would be difficult to track. I'm writing a separate answer because I also disagree with the premise of your question: Individual shares of stock have never to my knowledge had such a number. Your comment about numbers on stock certificates identifies the certificate document, which will generally represent multiple shares of stock. That number no more identifies a single share of stock than the serial number on a $10 bill identifies any one of the ten dollars it represents. Even at the "collective" unit of $10, when the bill is eventually replaced with a new one, the new bill has a new number. No continuity. |
Is investing in financial markets a gamble? | I read about the 90-90-90 rule aka 90% of the people lose 90% of the money in 90 days. Anything that happens in 90 days or less is speculation (effectively gambling), not investment. And the 90-90-90 thing sounds around right for inexperienced amateurs going up against professionals in that space. I don't know anyone who actually made significant amount money by investing in stocks or other financial products except those appearing in TVs. Lots and lots and lots of people do. I heard that people who actually encourage common people to invest in stocks are stock brokers and fund managers who actually gain by the fact that more people invest. No. It's true that lots of people will give you advice to by specific stocks or financial instruments that will earn them comission or fees, but the basic idea of investing in the stock market is very sound; ultimately, it's based on the ability of companies to create value and pay dividends. Could you please give some valid reasons to invest in stocks or other financial market. Thank you. Well, what else can you do with your money? Put it in an interest-bearing bank account? Effectively, you'll still be investing in the stock market, the bank is just taking most of the returns in exchange for guaranteeing that you'll never lose money even temporarily. |
What foreign exchange rate is used for foreign credit card and bank transactions? | On Credit Cards [I am assuming you have a Visa or Master card], the RBI does not decide the rate. The rate is decided by Visa or Master. The standard Sheet rate for the day is used. Additionally SBI would mark it up by few paise [FX mark-up spread]. This is shown as mark-up fee. The rate of USD Vs INR changes frequently. On large value [say 1 million] trades even a paise off makes a huge difference and hence the rate is constantly changing [going up or down]. The rates offered to individuals are constant through out the day. They change from day to day and can go up for down. Recently in the past 6 months if you read the papers, Rupee has been going down and is at historic low. On a give day there are 2 rates; - Bank Buy Rate, ie the rate at which Bank will BUY USD from you. Say 61. So it will buy 100 USD and give you Rupees 6100. - Bank Sell rate, ie the rate at which Bank will SELL USD to you. Say 62. So if you want 100 USD, you need to give Bank 6200. The difference between this is the profit to bank. |
What prevents interest rates from rising? | Interest rates are market driven. They tend to be based on the prime rate set by the federal reserve bank because of the tremendous lending capacity of that institution and that other loan originators will often fund their own lending (at least in part) with fed loans. However, there is no mandatory link between the federal reserve rate and the market rate. No law stipulates that rates cannot rise or fall. They will rise and fall as lenders see necessary to use their capital. Though a lender asking 10% interest might make no loans when others are willing to lend for 9%. The only protection you have is that we are (mostly) economically free. As a borrower, you are protected by the fact that there are many lenders. Likewise, as a lender, because there are many borrowers. Stability is simply by virtue of the fact that one market participant with inordinate pricing will find fewer counterparties to transact. |
Should you co-sign a personal loan for a friend/family member? Why/why not? | I know this question has a lot of answers already, but I feel the answers are phrased either strongly against, or mildly for, co-signing. What it amounts down to is that this is a personal choice. You cannot receive reliable information as to whether or not co-signing this loan is a good move due to lack of information. The person involved is going to know the person they would be co-signing for, and the people on this site will only have their own personal preferences of experiences to draw from. You know if they are reliable, if they will be able to pay off the loan without need for the banks to come after you. This site can offer general theories, but I think it should be kept in mind that this is wholly a personal decision for the person involved, and them alone to make based on the facts that they know and we do not. |
Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage? | It depends on the terms of the mortgage. Generally speaking, residential mortgages specifically prohibit letting out a property without the bank's express permission -- but as you say, that tends to assume that the whole property is being let, not just a part of it. Conversely, buy-to-let mortgages generally prohibit living in the property yourself! The final arbiter as to what is allowed under a mortgage is the mortgage provider; so the safest option is to speak to one or more banks, and see what they say. (Note that if you're changing the use of part of a property from business to residential, you may need to apply for permission; check with your local council.) |
How does owning a home and paying on a mortgage fit into family savings and investment? | Your home (the one you live in) is not an investment. Its an expense/liability/asset, but its something you pay for to use, not invest to grow. |
If a company I bought stock in was de-listed but is now listed again under a new symbol, what happened to my shares? | If the company went bankrupt, the issued public shares that were outstanding at the time most likely were voided, in which case your shares are most definitely gone. The company might have done a new stock issuance coming out of bankruptcy with a different symbol, and while it could be substantially the same company, it doesn't mean much for you. It's unfortunate this may be the case, but it is one of the risks of investing. |
Do large market players using HFT make it unsafe for individual investors to be in the stock market? | I don't think that HFT is a game-changer for retail investors. It does mean that amateur daytraders need to pack it up and go home, because the HFT guys are smarter, faster and have more money than you. I'm no Warren Buffet, but I've done better in the market over the last 4 years than I ever have, and I've been actively investing since 1995. You need to do your research and understand what you're investing in. Barring outliers like the "Flash Crash", nothing has changed. You have a great opportunity to buy quality companies with long track records of generous dividends right now for the "safe" part of your portfolio. You have great value stock opportunities. You have great opportunities to take risks on good companies the will benefit from economic recovery. What has changed is that the "set it and forget it" advice that people blindly followed from magazines doesn't work anymore. If you expect to park your money in Index funds and don't manage your money, you're going to lose. Remember that saying "Buy low, sell high"? You buy low when everyone is freaked out and you hear Gold commercials 24x7 on the radio. |
How does cash ISA & share ISA mix together | There are two different types of ISA; the "Cash ISA" for cash savings, and the "Stocks and Shares ISA" for stock market investing. You can transfer funds between these two different types of ISA. If your current cash ISA provider does not provide stocks and shares ISAs, then there may be a fee involved when transferring funds between two different providers. If I am reading your notation correctly, you have contributed the full allowance of GBP15,240 in both the current tax year and the previous tax year. Each year you can contribute GBP15,240 (currently) to your ISAs and this can be done in any combination of cash ISA and stocks and shares ISA. For example, you could put GBP5,240 into your cash ISA and GBP10,000 into your stocks and shares ISA. Regarding your questions : It is also important to understand that once you withdraw money from an ISA, it does not affect your previous contributions or allowances. For example, if you have used your full contribution allowance for the current year and chose to withdraw some funds, then you have still used your full contribution allowance and so you cannot redeposit these funds. |
Is leveraging notoriety to raise stock prices illegal in the US? | Yes, there are legal problems with what he did. To prevent fraud, the US government regulates who can give public investment advice and how they can do it. If you're getting paid to advise an individual, you have to pass certain examinations and maintain ongoing government certification. If you hold a position in a stock you're touting, you legally have to disclose it using particular language. And if you're a corporate insider or hold a significant position in a company, you're restricted on what you can say about the company and when you can say it. Mr. Jackson, aka 50 Cent, held a significant position in the company he tweeted about. My guess is the guys in the suits came to visit Mr. Cent, because if you go to the article the OP links to, at the bottom they mention Mr. Cent's tweet has been deleted and replaced with "go talk to your investment advisor". |
Military Separation | It's not usually a good idea to buy a house as an investment. Buy a house because you want the house, not for an investment. Your money will make more money invested somewhere other than a house. Additionally, based on talking about renting rooms to pay the mortgage and the GI bill, I assume you are planning on going to school and not working? I am not that familiar with VA loans, but I imagine they will require you show some form of income before they are willing to give you a loan. 14% returns over the long run are very good, but last year the market was up almost 30%, if you were only at 14% for last year you left quite a bit on the table. I would advise against individual stocks for investments except as a hobby. Put the majority of your investments into ETF's/low fee mutual funds and keep a smaller amount that you can afford to lose in stocks. |
dividend cover ratio for stocks | Profit after tax can have multiple interpretations, but a common one is the EPS (Earnings Per Share). This is frequently reported as a TTM number (Trailing Twelve Months), or in the UK as a fiscal year number. Coincidentally, it is relatively easy to find the total amount of dividends paid out in that same time frame. That means calculating div cover is as simple as: EPS divided by total dividend. (EPS / Div). It's relatively easy to build a Google Docs spreadsheet that pulls both values from the cloud using the GOOGLEFINANCE() function. I suspect the same is true of most spreadsheet apps. With a proper setup, you can just fill down along a column of tickers to get the div cover for a number of companies at once. |
Why buy insurance? | The odds could very well be in your favor, even when the insurance company expects profit. What matters to you is not the expected amount of money you'll have, but the expected amount of utility you'll get from it: getting enough money to buy food to eat is much more important than getting enough money to be able to buy that fiction book too. The more money you have, the less a dollar is worth to you: consequently, if you have enough money, it's worth spending some to prevent yourself from getting into a situation where you don't have enough money. |
How much is inflation? | To add to MrChrister's answer: Canada also has a Consumer Price Index (CPI) used to measure inflation that is distinct and separate from that maintained by the United States. There are differences in inflation between the U.S. and Canada because our currencies are different, and there may be different items in the "basket" of goods that constitutes the index. You can find current information on the Canadian CPI at Statistics Canada, here: Latest release from the Consumer Price Index. Also, the Bank of Canada – our central bank – maintains a free online Inflation Calculator. The BoC's inflation calculator is handy because you can enter a dollar amount for a past date and it will figure out what that would be in today's dollars. For instance, $100 in 1970 dollars had the same purchasing power (under the CPI) as $561.76 in 2009 dollars! And you're right – if you get a salary increase that is less than the rate of inflation, then in theory you have lost purchasing power. So, anybody really looking for a raise ought to make an effort to get more than the increase in CPI. Of course, some employers are counting on you not knowing that, because any increase that's less than CPI is effectively a salary decrease; which could mean more profit for them, if they are able to increase their prices / revenues at inflation or better. Finally, consider that salary & wage increases also contribute to inflation! Perhaps you've heard of the wage/price inflation spiral. If you haven't, there's more on that here and here. |
Is there a more flexible stock chart service, e.g. permitting choice of colours when comparing multiple stocks? | I don't think there are any web based tools that would allow you to do this. The efforts required to build vs the perceived benefit to users is less. All the web providers want the data display as simple as possible; giving more features at times confuses the average user. |
How can you correlate a company stock's performance with overall market performance? | How can you correlate a company stock's performance with overall market performance. No you can't. There is no simple magic formulae that will result in profits. There are quite a few statistical algorithms that specialists have built, that work most of the times. But they are incorrect most of the times as well. |
Why does Warren Buffett say his fund performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market? | Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway took a 50% loss in each of the last two bear markets. His stock even lost 10% in 2015 when the S&P lost 8%. He doesn't have a track record to support the claim that his stock performs relatively better in a bear market, so perhaps it's best to take his letter with a grain of salt. Edit: As one commenter points out, Mr. Buffett is comparing the book performance of his fund to the market performance of an index. That is an apples to oranges comparison. It's deceptive at best. |
Working on a tax free island to make money? | If you're an American, and willing to give up citizenship, good luck to you. Otherwise, Uncle Sam still wants his due -- Americans are responsible for paying taxes on income earned anywhere on earth, regardless of their residence. |
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 gains distribution, and can be either short term (as in the scenario you described), long term, or a mix of both. It doesn't mean you actually get a distribution, though, but if you don't - it reduces your basis. |
Why do the 1 and 2 euro cent coins exist and why are they used? | I guess other than tradition and inflation, probably because the merchants want them. In the US, what currently costs $2.00 used to cost $0.10. So 75 years ago, those individual cents made a pretty bid difference. Inflation causes prices to go up, but doesn't get us to just change our currencies patterns. In your example, you are assuming that in an average day, the rounding errors you are willing to accept happen a couple of times. 2 or 3 cents here and there mean nothing to you. However to the merchant, doing hundreds or thousands of transactions per day, those few cents up and down mean quite a bit in terms of profit. To an individual, looking at a time frame more than a single day (because who only participates in economies for a single day) there are potentially millions of transactions in a lifetime, mean potentially giving away millions of dollars because they didn't want to wait. And as for the comment that people working each 3 cents every 10 seconds, I would assume at least some of the time when they are waiting for rounding errors, they are not at work getting paid. That concept is assuming that somebody is always willing to pay them for their time regardless of where that person is in the world; I have no facts and wild assumptions, but surely that can't be true for even a majority of workers. Finally, you should be happy if you happy to have an income high enough that you don't care about individual cents. But there are those business people who see opportunity in folks like you and profit greatly from it. I personally worry very much about who has my money; gov't gets paid to the penny and I expect returns to the penny. A super polite service employee who smiled a lot serving me a beer is getting all the rounding errors I have. |
What is the best credit card for someone with no credit history | You have what is called in the biz a "thin file". Check with a Credit Union. They will get you a secured card or maybe a straight credit card. They usually will graduate you from a secured card to a real credit card in 12-18 months. Then you are on your way. You should also sign up for Creditkarma to get your credit report updated every week. They make their money on referring people to credit card companies so you might be able to kill two birds with one stone. |
Should I use put extra money toward paying off my student loans or investing in an index fund? | From a purely financial standpoint (psychology aside) the choice between paying off debt and investing on risky investments boils down to a comparison of risk and reward. Yes, on average the stock market has risen an average of 10% (give or take) per year, but the yearly returns on the S&P 500 have ranged from a high of 37.6% in 1995 to a low of -37% in 2008. So there's a good chance that your investment in index funds will get a better return than the guaranteed return of paying off the loan, but it's not certain, and you might end up much worse. You could even calculate a rough probability of coming out better with some reasonable assumptions (e.g. if you assume that returns are normally distributed, which historically they're not), but your chances are probably around 30% that you'll end up worse off in one year (your odds are better the longer your investment horizon is). If you can tolerate (meaning you have both the desire and the ability to take) that risk, then you might come out ahead. The non-financial factors, however - the psychology of debt, the drain on discretionary cash flow, etc. cannot be dismissed as "irrational". Paying off debt feels good. Yes, finance purists disagree with Dave Ramsey and his approaches, but you cannot deny the problems that debt causes millions of households (both consumer debt and student loan debt as well). If that makes them mindless "minions" because they follow a plan that worked for them then so be it. (disclosure - I am a listener and a fan but don't agree 100% with him) |
I have an extra 1000€ per month, what should I do with it? | Congratulations on getting started in life! John Malloy's (American) research suggests that you should take some time to get used to living on your own, make some friends, and settle into your community. During this time, you can build up an emergency fund. If/when the stock markets do not seem to be in a bear market, you can follow user3771352's advice to buy stock ETFs. Do you hope to get married and have children in the next few years? If so, you should budget time and money for activities where you make new friends (both men and women). Malloy points out that many Americans meet their spouses through women's networks of friends. |
Is the return on investment better with high or low dividends? | Let's say two companies make 5% profit every year. Company A pays 5% dividend every year, but company B pays no dividend but grows its business by 5%. (And both spend the money needed to keep the business up-to-date, that's before profits are calculated). You are right that with company B, the company will grow. So if you had $1000 shares in each company, after 20 years company A has given you $1000 in dividends and is worth $1000, while company B has given you no dividends, but is worth a lot more than $2000, $2653 if my calculation is right. Which looks a lot better than company A. However, company A has paid $50 every year, and if you put that money into a savings account giving 5% interest, you would make exactly the same money either way. |
Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? | Even if the price of your home did match inflation or better — and that's a question I'll let the other answers address — I propose that owning a home, by itself, is not a sufficient hedge against inflation. Consider: Inflation will inflate your living expenses. If you're lucky, they'll inflate at the average. If you're unlucky, a change in your spending patterns (perhaps age-related) could result in your expenses rising faster than inflation. (Look at the sub-indexes of the CPI.) Without income also rising with inflation (or better), how will you cope with rising living expenses? Each passing year, advancing living expenses risk eclipsing a static income. Your home is an illiquid asset. Generally speaking, it neither generates income for you, nor can you sell only a portion. At best, owning your principal residence helps you avoid a rent expense and inflation in rents — but rent is only one of many living expenses. Some consider a reverse-mortgage an option to tap home equity, but it has a high cost. In other words: If you don't want to be forced to liquidate [sell] your home, you'll also need to look at ways to ensure your income sources rise with inflation. i.e. look at your cash flow, not just your net worth. Hence: investing in housing, as in your own principal residence, is not an adequate hedge against inflation. If you owned additional properties to generate rental income, and you retained pricing power so you could increase the rent charged at least in line with inflation, your situation would be somewhat improved — except you would, perhaps, be adopting another problem: Too high a concentration in a single asset class. Consequently, I would look at ways other than housing to hedge against inflation. Consider other kinds of investments. "Safe as houses" may be a cliché, but it is no guarantee. |
How to represent “out of pocket” purchases in general ledger journal entry? | You're lending the money to your business by paying for it directly. The company accounts must reflect a credit (the amount you lend to it) and a debit (what it then puts that loan towards). It's fairly normal for a small(ish) owner-driven company to reflect a large loan-account for the owners. For example, if you have a room at home dedicated for the business it is impractical to pay rent directly via the company. The rental agreement is probably in your name, you pay the rent, and you reconcile it with the company later. You could even charge your company (taxable) interest on this loan. When you draw down the loan from the company you reverse this, debit your loan account and credit the company (paying off the debt). As far as tracking that expenditure, simply handle those third-party invoices in the normal way and file them for reference. |
If I have all this stock just sitting there, how can I lend it out to people for short selling? | You just disclosed that you are new investor to the stock market. I'd advise that you first understand investing a bit better, as most will advise that investors need to be above a certain level before picking individual stocks. That said, most stocks trade in high enough volume and have low enough short interest that they don't fall under the category you seek. You want to first ask your broker if they have such a process, not all do. If so, they would need to provide you with the stocks that fall into this odd situation, specifically, the shares that have traders seeking to short the stock, but the stock is unavailable. Even then, the broker may have requirements that you don't fall into, minimum history with broker, minimum size account, etc. Worse, they are not likely to offer this for 100 shares, but may have a 1000 or higher share requirement. Are you willing to buy some obscure $50/sh priced stock to lend out at 1%/mo? The guy trying to short it is far smarter than both you and I, at least regarding this particular stock. This strategy is more appropriate for the 7 figure net worth investor. If any reader has actual experience with this, I'm happy to hear it. This response is from my recollection of two articles I read about 3 years ago, coincidence they both were published within weeks of each other. |
Implications of receiving small amounts of money on the side | HMRC may or may not find out about it; the risks and penalties involved if they do find out make it unwise not to just declare it and pay the tax on it. Based on the fact you asked the question, I am assuming that you currently pay all your tax through PAYE and don't do a tax return. You would need to register for Self Assessment and complete a return; this is not at all difficult if your tax situation is straightforward, which it sounds like yours is. Then you would owe the tax on the additional money, at whatever applicable rate (which depends on how much you earn in your main job, the rate tables are here: https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates/current-rates-and-allowances ). If it truly is a one off you could simply declare it on your return as other income, but if it is more than that then you would need to look at setting up as Self Employed - there is some good advice on the differences here: http://www.brighton-accountants.com/blog/tax-self-employment-still-employed/ : Broadly, you are likely to be running a business if you have a regular, organised activity with a profit motive, which continues for at least a few months. If the work is one-off, or very occasional (say, a few times per year), or not very organised, or of very low value (say, under £2,000 per year), then it might qualify as casual income. If you think it is beyond the definition of casual income then you would also need to pay National Insurance, as described in the previous link, but otherwise the tax treatment would be the same. |
How do LLC losses affect personal income taxes in the US? | The short answer is yes, losses get passed through to members. Limits/percentages do apply, primarily based on your share in the business. Check out the final post in this thread: http://community2.business.gov/t5/Other-Business-Issues/Paying-oneself-in-a-LLC/td-p/16060 It's not a bad little summary of the profit/loss pass-through. Regarding your 60K/60K example: the amount of money you earn in your day job will impact how much loss you can claim. Unfortunately I can't find anything more recent at the IRS or business.gov, but see this from 2004 - 40K was the limit before the amount you could claim against started to be mitigated: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Tax-Law-Questions-932/tax-loss-pass.htm HTH |
Can saving/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire? | As others have shown, if you assume that you can get 6% and you invest 15% of a reasonable US salary then you can hit 1 million by the time you retire. If you invest in property in a market like the UK (where I come from...) then insane house price inflation will do it for you as well. In 1968 my parents bought a house for £8000. They had a mortgage on it for about 75% of the value. They don't live there but that house is now valued at about £750,000. Okay, that's close to 60 years, but with a 55 year working life that's not so unreasonable. If you assume the property market (or the shares market) can go on rising forever... then invest in as much property as you can with your 15% as mortgage payments... and watch the million roll in. Of course, you've also got rent on your property portfolio as well in the intervening years. However, take the long view. Inflation will hit what a million is worth. In 1968, a million was a ridiculously huge amount of money. Now it's 'Pah, so what, real rich people have billions'. You'll get your million and it will not be enough to retire comfortably on! In 1968 my parents salaries as skilled people were about £2000 a year... equivalent jobs now pay closer to £50,000... 25x salary inflation in the time. Do that again, skilled professional salary in 60 years of £125000 a year... so your million is actually 4 years salary. Not being relentlessly negative... just suggesting that a financial target like 'own a million (dollars)' isn't a good strategy. 'Own something that yields a decent amount of money' is a better one. |
What's the most conservative split of financial assets for my portfolio in today's market? | You don't say your level of consumer debt. You don't say how much of an emergency fund you have. If you have debt, pay it off before you invest. If you don't have an emergency fund (X months' expenses, pick your own X) get that before investing. If you have neither, get a small emergency fund, and then throw as much as you can to getting rid of debt. Beyond that, look for prudent investments. They're not the same as conservative investments. To know what's prudent, learn about the ones you listed and what determines their prices. Learn how or why they go up or down in value. |
Impact of RMD on credit worthiness | I feel like this has nothing to do with income, and as such RMDs will not really help or harm you. After a person passes, credit card companies are unlikely to collect any outstanding balance. Debts cannot be inherited, however, assets can be made to stand for debts. Many assets pass to heirs without the probate process and in some cases all of them pass this way. This leaves creditors with nothing and having to write off the balance. Even if assets do pass through probate heirs may dispute the creditors. In that case credit card balances may not be high enough justify hiring a lawyer to fight for payment; or, if they do the judge may be unsympathetic and offer nothing or pennies on the dollar. The bottom line is that they probably see you, or your demographic, as a poor credit risk and reduced their exposure by lowering your limit. While that is not what they told you, they probably have to carefully structure what they say to avoid any discrimination claims. |
Impact of RMD on credit worthiness | The actual policy will vary based on the specific bank. But, if I were in your shoes I'd include RMDs in my stated income for credit card purposes. |
Can I cash a cashier's check at any bank? | The classic Nigerian scam involves sending fraudulent cashier's checks to unwitting recipients who then deposit them in their account. The bank reverses these deposits once they discover the check is not valid. At least in the US and in the parts of the EU I'm familiar with (the Netherlands), the method of the Nigerian scam is consistent and banks will reverse the deposit after some holding period. Given this, it's unlikely that most banks will convert an arbitrary cashier's check to cash without any means to recover the amount should the check be fraudulent. |
Why would a person not want to purchase a Personal Liability (Umbrella) insurance policy? | The two questions inherent in any decision to purchase an insurance plan is, "how likely am I to need it?", and "what's the worst case scenario if I don't have it?". The actuary that works for the insurance company is asking these same questions from the other end (with the second question thus being "what would we be expected to have to pay out for a claim"), using a lot of data about you and people like you to arrive at an answer. It really boils down to little more than a bet between you and the insurance company, and like any casino, the insurer has a house edge. The question is whether you think you'll beat that edge; if you're more likely than the insurer thinks you are to have to file a claim, then additional insurance is a good bet. So, the reasons you might decide against getting umbrella insurance include: Your everyday liability is low - Most people don't live in an environment where the "normal" insurance they carry won't pay for their occasional mistakes or acts of God. The scariest one for most is a car accident, but when you think of all the mistakes that have to be made by both sides in order for you to burn through the average policy's liability limits and still be ruined for life, you start feeling better. For instance, in Texas, minimum insurance coverage levels are 50/100/50; assuming neither party is hurt but the car is a total loss, your insurer will pay the fair market value of the car up to $50,000. That's a really nice car, to have a curbside value of 50 grand; remember that most cars take an initial hit of up to 25% of their sticker value and a first year depreciation of up to 50%. That 50 grand would cover an $80k Porsche 911 or top-end Lexus ES, and the owner of that car, in the U.S. at least, cannot sue to recover replacement value; his damages are only the fair market value of the car (plus medical, lost wages, etc, which are covered under your two personal injury liability buckets). If that's a problem, it's the other guy's job to buy his own supplemental insurance, such as gap insurance which covers the remaining payoff balance of a loan or lease above total loss value. Beyond that level, up into the supercars like the Bentleys, Ferraris, A-Ms, Rollses, Bugattis etc, the drivers of these cars know full well that they will never get the blue book value of the car from you or your insurer, and take steps to protect their investment. The guys who sell these cars also know this, and so they don't sell these cars outright; they require buyers to sign "ownership contracts", and one of the stipulations of such a contract is that the buyer must maintain a gold-plated insurance policy on the car. That's usually not the only stipulation; The total yearly cost to own a Bugatti Veyron, according to some estimates, is around $300,000, of which insurance is only 10%; the other 90% is obligatory routine maintenance including a $50,000 tire replacement every 10,000 miles, obligatory yearly detailing at $10k, fuel costs (that's a 16.4-liter engine under that hood; the car requires high-octane and only gets 3 mpg city, 8 highway), and secure parking and storage (the moguls in Lower Manhattan who own one of these could expect to pay almost as much just for the parking space as for the car, with a monthly service contract payment to boot). You don't have a lot to lose - You can't get blood from a turnip. Bankruptcy laws typically prevent creditors from taking things you need to live or do your job, including your home, your car, wardrobe, etc. For someone just starting out, that may be all you have. It could still be bad for you, but comparing that to, say, a small business owner with a net worth in the millions who's found liable for a slip and fall in his store, there's a lot more to be lost in the latter case, and in a hurry. For the same reason, litigious people and their legal representation look for deep pockets who can pay big sums quickly instead of $100 a month for the rest of their life, and so very few lawyers will target you as an individual unless you're the only one to blame (rare) or their client insists on making it personal. Most of your liability is already covered, one way or the other - When something happens to someone else in your home, your homeowner's policy includes a personal liability rider. The first two "buckets" of state-mandated auto liability insurance are for personal injury liability; the third is for property (car/house/signpost/mailbox). Health insurance covers your own emergency care, no matter who sent you to the ER, and life and AD&D insurance covers your own death or permanent disability no matter who caused it (depending on who's offering it; sometimes the AD&D rider is for your employer's benefit and only applies on the job). 99 times out of 100, people just want to be made whole when it's another Average Joe on the other side who caused them harm, and that's what "normal" insurance is designed to cover. It's fashionable to go after big business for big money when they do wrong (and big business knows this and spends a lot of money insuring against it), but when it's another little guy on the short end of the stick, rabidly pursuing them for everything they're worth is frowned on by society, and the lawyer virtually always walks away with the lion's share, so this strategy is self-defeating for those who choose it; no money and no friends. Now, if you are the deep pockets that people look for when they get out of the hospital, then a PLP or other supplemental liability insurance is definitely in order. You now think (as you should) that you're more likely to be sued for more than your normal insurance will cover, and even if the insurance company thinks the same as you and will only offer a rather expensive policy, it becomes a rather easy decision of "lose a little every month" or "lose it all at once". |
Ask FBI permission to withdraw large sums from your checking or savings? | Is it true you have to file papers with the government in the US to withdraw large sums of cash at your local bank branch? It's true that a currency transaction report (CTR) gets filed with FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) when you make a cash transaction in excess of $10,000. Banks have systems that do this automatically, so you don't have to really do anything other than provide some tax info if not already on file with the bank. The teller can flag your CTR if they think the transaction is suspicious, but there shouldn't be a delay on the withdrawal unless the bank has to make arrangements to have enough cash on hand. Some people don't like the idea of CTR's being filed and therefore make multiple smaller withdrawals, but that can be considered illegal structuring, and can result in confiscated money. |
Why doesn't change in accounts receivable on balance sheet match cash flow statement? | QUICK ANSWER What @Mike Haskel wrote is generally correct that the indirect method for cash flow statement reporting, which most US companies use, can sometimes produce different results that don't clearly reconcile with balance sheet shifts. With regards to accounts receivables, this is especially so when there is a major increase or decrease in the company's allowances for doubtful accounts. In this case, there is more to the company's balance sheet and cash flow statements differences per its accounts receivables than its allowances for doubtful accounts seems responsible for. As explained below, the difference, $1.25bn, is likely owing more to currency shifts and how they are accounted for than to other factors. = = = = = = = = = = DIRTY DETAILS Microsoft Corp. generally sells to high-quality / high-credit buyers; mostly PC, server and other devices manufacturers and licensees. It hence made doubtful accounts provisions of $16mn for its $86,833mn (0.018%) of 2014 sales and wrote off $51mn of its carrying balance during the year. Its accounting for "Other comprehensive income" captures the primary differences of many accounts; specifically in this case, the "foreign currency translation" figure that comprises many balance sheet accounts and net out against shareholders' equity (i.e. those assets and liabilities bypass the income statement). The footnotes include this explanation: Assets and liabilities recorded in foreign currencies are translated at the exchange rate on the balance sheet date. Revenue and expenses are translated at average rates of exchange prevailing during the year. Translation adjustments resulting from this process are recorded to other comprehensive income (“OCI”) What all this means is that those two balance sheet figures are computed by translating all the accounts with foreign currency balances (in this case, accounts receivables) into the reporting currency, US dollars (USD), at the date of the balance sheets, June 30 of the years 2013 and 2014. The change in accounts receivables cash flow figure is computed by first determining the average exchange rates for all the currencies it uses to conduct business and applying them respectively to the changes in each non-USD accounts receivables during the periods. For this reason, almost all multinational companies that report using indirect cash flow statements will have discrepancies between the changes in their reported working capital changes during a period and the dates of their balance sheet and it's usually because of currency shifts during the period. |
Did basically all mutual funds have a significant crash in 2008? | In 2008, the S&P was down 37%. I love charts that show sector performance by year, as it helps show that 2008 wasn't like the crash of 2000-01 which was more tech-centric. Funds that were more geared towards bonds would have been up as the 10 year Treasury was up 20%. I understand you have a low risk tolerance. Over the long term, this will cost you. The CAGR for the S&P from 1928-2011 was 9.23%, for treasuries, 5.14%. This difference adds up dramatically over time. These rates double your stock investments every 8 years on average vs nearly 14 years for bonds. See the MoneyChimp site to tinker with start/finish years to understand long term returns. |
Is insurance worth it if you can afford to replace the item? If not, when is it? | Extended warranty or insurance is a tricky thing. In general, the big screen TV, or other electronics are going to become obsolete before they fail. Laptops, even Macs, are at risk for higher failure rates than other electronics. The question remaining is whether after the item has reached its 3rd or 4th birthday, if you would already be in the market for a newer model. In the big picture, if you have the money to buy a new replacement, or pay for a repair, you are better off to avoid the insurance. The highest failures are in the first year (aka 'infant mortality') and after N years, closer to 7-10, enough for obsolescence, than in years 2-5. |
Options for the intelligent but inexperienced | I strongly suggest you read up the Option Greeks. You can be right about a stocks price movement and still not make money b/c other factors come into play from time or volatility. For a "free" option hedge you can look at collars. Buying puts and selling calls to offset the debit you pay for the transaction. Ex: AAPL is 115, You buy the 110 puts and sell the 120 calls. This gives you a collar around he current price. Your hedged below 110 and can still participate in upside move to 120. Also look into time value. Time decays exponentially in the last 30 days. If you are long this hurts you, if you are short(selling) this is good. Be sure to take this into account. Delta: relation of the option to the underlying stock move on a .01-1 scale, .50 is "normal." Deep in the money options have higher deltas. It is possible other factors can offset this delta move. This is why people will lose money on earnings plays even though they are right. EX: Say you buy an AAPL call at 120, earnings comes out and the stock goes to 121. Even though you are "in the money" your contract may still have less value than what you paid because of VOLATILITY collapse. The market place knows earnings move a stock and that is factored into the price of the options expected volatility. As mentioned watch out for dividend dates. Always be aware of dividend dates and earnings dates and if your contract is going to cover one of these events. Interest rates have an effect as well but since the Fed has near 0 rates there is little impact at the present. Though this could certainly change if the fed starts raising rates. Research the Black Scholes Pricing model. Whenever you trade always think about what the other guys is thinking. Sometimes we forget their is someone else on the other side of my trade that thinks essentially the exact opposite of me. Its a zero sum game. As far as choosing strikes you can look at calculating the At THe money straddle to see if the options are "cheap" [stock Price * Implied Volatility (for 30, 60, 90 days Depending on your holding period)* Sq root of days to expiration] / 19 (which is sq root of days/yr) Add and subtract this number to the current stock price to give you an approximate 1 standard deviation of expected price movement. Keeping with our example. AAPL at 115, lets say your formula spits out a 6; therefore price range is expected to be 109 to 121 for the time period. Helpful for selling options, I would sell the 122 call or the 108 puts. Hope this helps. Start small and get a feel for things. |
Put idle savings to use while keeping them liquid | I suppose it depends on how liquid you need, and if you're willing to put forth any risk whatsoever. The stock market can be dangerous, but there are strategies out there that will allow you to insure yourself against significant loss, while likely earning you a decent return. You can buy and sell options along with stocks so that if the stock drops, your loss is limited, and if it goes up or even stays where it's at, you make money (a lot more than 1% annually). Of course there's risk of loss, but if you plan ahead, you can cap that risk wherever you want, maybe 5%, maybe 10%, whatever suits your needs. And as far as liquidity goes, it should be no more than a week or so to close your positions and get your money if you really need it. But even so, I would only recommend this after putting aside at least a few thousand in a cash account for emergencies. |
How do historically low interest rates affect real estate prices? | Interest rates do generally affect house prices but other factors do too, especially the unemployment rate. However, everything else being equal, when interest rates drop, it makes the borrowing of money cheaper so tends to stimulate the economy and the housing market, increasing the demand for houses and generally causes house prices to increase (especially if the supply of new housing doesn't increase with the demand). When interest rates go up the opposite happens. Usually interest rates go down in order to stimulate a slowing economy and interest rates go up to slow down an overheated economy. Regarding your situation you are able to get a 30 year fixed rate at today’s interest rates (in Australia the longest fixed rate you can get is for 10 years and the rate is usually 1 or 2 percent higher than the standard variable rate. Most people here go for the variable rate or a fixed rate of between 1 to 3 years). This means that even if rates do go up in the future you won't be paying a higher rate, which is a positive for you. You are buying the house to live in so as long as you can keep making the repayments you should not be too worried if the price of the house drops sometime in the future, because if your house has dropped and you want to sell to buy another house to live in, then that house would have also dropped relative to yours (give or take). So your main worry is that rates will go up causing both house prices to fall and unemployment to rise, and you yourself losing your job and eventually your house. It is a risk, but what you need to consider is if you can manage that risk. Firstly, I believe rates won't be going up in the US for a number of years, and if and when they do start going up they will most probably start going up slowly. So you have some time on your side. Secondly, what can you do between now and when interest rates do start going up in a few years: Try to put more saving away to increase your safety net from 6 months to 12 months or more, or make extra repayments into your home loan so that you are ahead if things do go wrong. If you are worried that you could lose your job, what can you do to reduce your chances of losing your job or increasing your chances of getting a new job quickly if you do lose it? Improve your current skills, get new skills, become an invaluable employee, or look at possible opportunities to start your own business. Do your own research on the types of houses you are looking at buying, the more houses you look at the better prepared you will be when the right house at the right price comes along, and the less chance that you will be rushed into buying what might be an overpriced house. So to sum it up; do as much research as you can, have an understanding of what your risks are and how you are going to manage those risks. |
How can I detect potential fraud in a company before investing in them? | Even without fraud, a company can get into serious trouble overnight, often through no fault of their own. That's part of the hazard of being part owner of a company -- which is what a share of stock is. As a minority owner not involved in actually running the business, there really isn't a lot you can do about that excep to play the odds and think about how that risk compares to the profit you're taking (which is one reason the current emphasis on stock price rather than dividends is considered a departure from traditional investing) and, as everyone else has said, avoid putting too much of your wealth in one place. |
How can I determine which stores are regarded as supermarkets for a rewards credit card? | Credit card companies organize types of businesses into different categories. (They charge different types of businesses different fees.) When a business first sets up their credit card processing merchant account, they need to specify the category. Here is a list of categories that Visa uses. Grocery stores and supermarkets are category number 5411. Other types of businesses, such as the examples you provided in your question, have a different category number. American Express simply looks at the merchant category code for each of your transactions and only gives you rewards for the ones in the grocery store category. It's all automated. They likely don't have a list of every grocery store in the US, and even if they did, they would probably not provide it to the public, for proprietary reasons. If you are in doubt about whether or not a particular store is in the grocery category, you'll just have to charge it to your card and see what happens. Often, the category of transaction will be shown for each transaction on your credit card's website. |
Small investing for spending money? | The existing answers are good, I justed wanted to provide a simpler answer to your question: Would I be able to invest this in a reasonable way that it would provide me with say $200 spending money per month over the school year? No. There is no way to invest $10,000 to reliably get $200 every month. Any way that you invest it that has even the possibility of getting that much will have a significant possibility of losing a lot of money. If you want to get "free" spending money out without risk of losing money, you're unlikely to be able to find an investment that will give you more than a couple dollars per month. |
What are the risks of Dividend-yielding stocks? | Yep, there just is no free lunch. So called high dividend stocks are usually from companies that have stable cash flows but relatively little or moderate growth potential. Utility companies come to mind, let's take telecommunications as an example. Such stocks, usually, indeed are considered more conservative. In a bull market, they won't make high jumps, and in a bear market they shouldn't experience deep falls. I mean, just because the stock market fell by 10%, you're not going to stop using your phone. The stock might suffer a bit but the divided is still yielding you the same. However, fundamental data can have a significant impact. Let's say a recession hits the country of the telco. People might not get the newest iPhone and lock in to an expensive contract anymore, they might use cheaper forms of communication, they might stop paying bills, go bankrupt etc. This will have a severe impact on the company's cash flow and thus hit the stock in a double whammy: One, the dividend is gone. Two, the price will fall even further. There are basically two scenarios after that. Either the recession is temporary and your stock became a regular growth stock that at some point might bounce back and re-establish at the previous levels. Or the economy has contracted permanently but regained stability in which case you will again have a stock with a high dividend yield but based on a lower price. In conclusion: High dividend stocks make sense in a portfolio. But never consider their income to be safe. Reduce your risk by diversifying. |
Covered call and put options as separate trades | Yes, if the call expires worthless, leaving you with stock. Then you can exercise your put when the stock goes below put strike price. |
How do I hedge properly against inflation and other currency risks? | I apply what you term 'money' to the word 'commodity'. And I agree with littleadv, you are just selling us your perspective on (such things as) precious metals. What I want you to think about is these truths: When used as currency gold just has two values: utility value and currency value. I hold it is better to separate the two. There is not enough gold in the earth to represent the value in aggregate economies of the world. Trying to go back to the gold standard would only induce an unimaginable hyperinflation in gold. Recent years shows that gold does not retain value. See the linked chart. |
Didn't apply for credit card but got an application denied letter? | Do you have any ties to your old address? In particular are you the LANDLORD? This could have been a precursor application to test identity evidence and setup a mortgage. The perps may even have legally changed their name to yours and even be living in, or close to the house if it is a share house to intercept this kind of mail. Otherwise someone's database may have been breached, so it is important you try to work out where this information used in the application came from. If they are an illegal you may be racking up Council Tax somewhere or end up paying income tax on their earnings. In any case your character has probably now been damaged. So do follow it up right smartly. |
Should I stockpile nickels? | At one point it was illegal to melt silver coins in the US, but it is legal now. I don't know that will happen with copper coins, but that's what happened with silver coins. Accumulating nickels and leaving them as-is (in their spendable state) is legal. It's also a way to take physical ownership of copper. I expect to see more sales of nickels based on weight. People are already selling high-copper-content cents on eBay, by weight. There are machines in production that sort the zinc ones from the copper ones. Gresham's Law has small business backing. ;) Copper cents are already worth twice their face value in the copper content. Nickels will get up there, too. They are awfully heavy and bulky relative to their value, though. Precious metals give you better bang for your ounce. |
JCI headache part 2: How to calculate cost basis / tax consequences of JCI -> ADNT spinoff? | OK, I found this filing by JCI on the SEC website: U.S. Federal Income Tax Consequences of the Distribution to U.S. Holders For U.S. federal income tax purposes, the distribution will not be eligible for treatment as a tax-free distribution by Johnson Controls with respect to its stock. Accordingly, the distribution will be treated as a taxable distribution by Johnson Controls to each Johnson Controls shareholder in an amount equal to the fair market value of the Adient ordinary shares received by such shareholder (including any fractional shares deemed received and any Adient ordinary shares withheld on account of any Irish withholding taxes), determined as of the distribution date (such amount, the "Distribution Amount"). The Distribution Amount received by a U.S. holder will be treated as a taxable dividend to the extent of such U.S. holder's ratable share of current or accumulated earnings and profits of Johnson Controls for the taxable year of the distribution (as determined under U.S. federal income tax principles). Any portion of the Distribution Amount that is treated as a dividend will not be eligible for the dividends-received deduction allowed to corporations under the Code. My broker's 1099-B form tells me that I received a Qualified Dividend from JCI on 10/31/2016 of $512.44, which would be equivalent to $45.349 valuation of ADNT as of the spinoff date for my 11.3 shares (before the 0.3 shares were sold as cash-in-lieu) . |
Did basically all mutual funds have a significant crash in 2008? | The literal answer to your question is that a number of different types of mutual funds did not have significant downturns in 2008. Money Market Funds are intended to always preserve capital. VMMXX made 2.77% in 2008. It was a major scandal broke the buck, that its holders took a 3% loss. Inverse funds, which go up when the market goes down, obviously did well that year (RYARX), but if you have a low risk tolerance, that's obviously not what you're looking for. (and they have other problems as well when held long-term) But you're a 24-year-old talking about your retirement funds, you should have a much longer time horizon, at least 30 years. Over a period that long, stocks have never had negative real (inflation-adjusted) returns, dating back at least to the civil war. If you look at the charts here or here, you can see that despite the risk in any individual year, as the period grows longer, the average return for the period gets tighter and tighter. If you look at the second graph here, you see that 2011 was the first time since the civil war that the trailing 30-year return on t-bills exceeded that for stocks, and 1981-2011 was period that saw bond yields drop almost continuously, leading to steady rise in bond prices. Although past performance is no guarantee of future results, everything we've seen historically suggests that the risk of a broad stock-market portfolio held for 30 years is not that large, and it should make up the bulk of your holdings. For example, Vanguard's Target retirement 2055 fund is 90% in stocks (US + international), and only 10% in bonds. |
My Brokerage statement shows “Adjusted due to previous wash sale disallowed loss” what does this mean? | Summary of accepted answer: Your "loss" will not count as a loss (to the IRS). Which means no tax deduction for a "short-term capital loss" (on that sale). Instead, the IRS simply pretends like you had paid less for the stock to begin with. |
Who buys variable annuities? | An annuity makes sense in a few different scenarios: In general, they are not the best deal around (and are often ripoffs), and will almost certainly be a bad deal if pitched by a tax preparer, insurance salesman, etc. Keep in mind that any "guarantees" offered are guarantees made by an insurance company. The only backing up of that claim in the event of a company failing is protection from your state's Guaranty Association. (ie. not the Feds) |
Is there an academic framework for deciding when to sell in-the-money call options? | based on my understanding of your query...well you need to understand ATM and ITM options. The delta and gamma factor specifically. Usually delta of ATM is around 0.5 while ITM option is above than that say 0.6 or 0.8 or 0.9 and deep ITM is very close to 1. for every movement of 1 buck the ITM will move say 1.6, ATM 0.5 and OTM 0.3 approx Say a ABC stock price is Rs. 300 so if you check option chart you try to see which one is closer. Suppose you find strikeprice of 320 / 300 / 280. So 320 is ITM, 300 is ATM and 280 is OTM for call options. So will the delta value (e.g 0.66 / 0.55 / 0.35). So suppose if stock price rise by 7% i.e Rs. 321 then strikeprice will rise simultaneously. Say ATM CE300 is rs.10 it will start rising by 0.55 i.e. Rs.10.55. The moment the share price move from Rs.300 to Rs.320 your ATM will turn to ITM. Now the tricker part if you buy OTM and the share price rise by 15% your OTM will now become ITM and your profit will roll around 100% to 120% approx. Hope it answers your query |
Co-signer deceased | Co-signing is not the same as owning. If your elderly lady didn't make any payments on the loan, and isn't on the ownership of the car, and there was no agreement that you would pay her anything, then you do not owe either her or her daughter any money. Also the loan is not affecting the daughter's credit, and the mother's credit is irrelevant (since she is dead). However you should be aware that the finance company will want to know about the demise of the mother, since they can no longer make a claim against her if you default. I would start by approaching the loan company, telling them about the mother's death, and asking to refinance in your name only. If you've really been keeping up the payments well this could be OK with them. If not I would find someone else who is prepared to co-sign a new loan with you, and still refinance. Then just tell the daughter that the loan her mother co-signed for has been discharged, and there is nothing for her to worry about. |
Prize Money, Taxes and Foreign / International Students | The committee folks told us Did they also give you advice on your medication? Maybe if they told you to take this medicine or that you'd do that? What is it with people taking tax advice from random people? The committee told you that one person should take income belonging to others because they don't know how to explain to you which form to fill. Essentially, they told you to commit a fraud because forms are hard. I now think about the tax implications, that makes me pretty nervous. Rightly so. Am I going to have to pay tax on $3000 of income, even though my actual winning is only $1000? From the IRS standpoint - yes. Can I take in the $3000 as income with $2000 out as expenses to independent contractors somehow? That's the only solution. You'll have to get their W8's, and issue 1099 to each of them for the amounts you're going to pay them. Essentially you volunteered to do what the award committee was supposed to be doing, on your own dime. Note that if you already got the $3K but haven't paid them yet - you'll pay taxes on $3K for the year 2015, but the expense will be for the year 2016. Except guess what: it may land your international students friends in trouble. They're allowed to win prizes. But they're not allowed to work. Being independent contractor is considered work. While I'm sure if USCIS comes knocking, you'll be kind enough to testify on their behalf, the problem might be that the USCIS won't come knocking. They'll just look at their tax returns and deny their visas/extensions. Bottom line, next time ask a professional (EA/CPA licensed in your State) before taking advice from random people who just want the headache of figuring out new forms to go away. |
Is a currency “hedged” ETF actually a more speculative instrument than an unhedged version? | I will just try to come up with a totally made up example, that should explain the dynamics of the hedge. Consider this (completely made up) relationship between USD, EUR and Gold: Now lets say you are a european wanting to by 20 grams of Gold with EUR. Equally lets say some american by 20 grams of Gold with USD. Their investment will have the following values: See how the europeans return is -15.0% while the american only has a -9.4% return? Now lets consider that the european are aware that his currency may be against him with this investment, so he decides to hedge his currency. He now enters a currency-swap contract with another person who has the opposite view, locking in his EUR/USD at t2 to be the same as at t0. He now goes ahead and buys gold in USD, knowing that he needs to convert it to EUR in the end - but he has fixed his interestrate, so that doesn't worry him. Now let's take a look at the investment: See how the european now suddenly has the same return as the American of -9.4% instead of -15.0% ? It is hard in real life to create a perfect hedge, therefore you will most often see that the are not totally the same, as per Victors answer - but they do come rather close. |
Who buys variable annuities? | Two types of people: (1) Suckers (2) People who feel that investment advisors/brokers make too little money and want to help out by paying insane commissions. Think I'm kidding. Check out this article: "Variable Annuity Pros and Cons" Seriously, for 99% of us, they are a raw deal for everyone except the person selling them. |
Adding a 180 day expiration to checks | While you can print that on the check, it isn't considered legally binding. If you are concerned about a check not being deposited in a timely manner, consider purchasing a cashier's check instead. This doesn't solve the problem per se, but it transfers responsibility of tracking that check from you to the bank. |
How does the currency between countries relate | Firstly currency prices, like any asset, depend on supply and demand. Meaning how many people want to exchange a currency to another one vs. wanting to buy that currency using another currency. Secondly, it really depends on which country and economy you are talking about. In emerging economies, currencies are very often influenced by the politics of that country. In cases like the US, there are a myriad reasons. The USD is mostly governed by psychology (flight to safety) and asset purchases/sales. In theory, currencies balance, given the inflation of a country and its trade with other countries. e.g. Germany, which was always exporting more than it was importing, had the problem of a rising currency. (Which would make its exports more expensive on foreign markets. This is the balancing act.) |
Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income? | There is only one way to create "stable" income using options: write COVERED calls. This means you must own some stocks which offer an active and liquid option market (FB would be good; T would be useless.) In other words, you need to own some "unstable" stocks, tickers that have sometimes scary volatility, and of course these are not great stocks for a retiree. But, let's assume you own 500 shares of FB, which you bought in June of 2015 for $75. Today, you could have been paid $2,375 for selling five Mar18'16 $105 Calls. Your reasoning is: So, the rule is: ONLY SELL COVERED CALLS AT A PRICE YOU WOULD BE HAPPY TO ACCEPT. If you follow the rule, you'll generate more-or-less "stable" income. Do not venture off this narrow path into the rest of Option Land. There be dragons. You can select strike prices that are far out of the money to minimize the chance of being exercised (and sweeten the deal by collecting an even higher price if the stock flies that high). If you are thinking about doing this, study the subject thoroughly until you know the terminology backwards and forwards. (Don't worry about "the greeks" since market makers manipulate implied volatility so wildly that it overrides everything else.) |
New to Stock Trading | Good ones, no there are not. Go to a bookstore and pick up a copy of "The Intelligent Investor." It was last published in 1972 and is still in print and will teach you everything you need to know. If you have accounting skills, pick up a copy of "Security Analysis" by Benjamin Graham. The 1943 version was just released again with a 2008 copyright and there is a 1987 version primarily edited by Cottle (I think). The 1943 book is better if you are comfortable with accounting and the 1987 version is better if you are not comfortable and feel you need more direction. I know recent would seem better, but the fact that there was a heavy demand in 2008 to reprint a 1943 book tells you how good it is. I think it is in its 13th printing since 2008. The same is true for the 72 and 87 book. Please don't use internet tutorials. If you do want to use Internet tutorials, then please just write me a check now for all your money. It will save me effort from having to take it from you penny by penny because you followed bad advice and lost money. Someone has to capture other people's mistakes. Please go out and make money instead. Prudence is the mother of all virtues. |
What is the rate of return for a security when there is no risk-free rate (CAPM)? | For starters, the risk-free rate has nothing to do with stocks. It would be independent of anything. It pays out the same return in all states of nature. The definition of a risk-free asset is that regardless of how the universe turns out, including a meteor striking the Earth killing everyone but the recipient, then the payout would happen exactly as planned. One could imagine a computer still being on, connected to a power supply and printing a check. Most people use the 90-day t-bill as the risk-free rate. A beta greater than one implies it is more volatile than the market, not that it moves more perfectly. The CAPM should not be used for this. Cryptocurrencies should not be used with this model because they have valuation dynamics related to the new issue of coins. In other words, they have non-market price movements as well as market price movements. In general, you should not use the CAPM because it doesn't work empirically. It is famous, but it is also wrong. A scientific hypothesis that is not supported by the data is a bad idea. My strong recommendation is that you read "The Intelligent Investor," by Benjamin Graham. It was last published in 1972, and it is still being printed. I believe Warren Buffett wrote the current forward for it. Always go where the data supports you and never anywhere else, no matter how elegant. Finally, unless you are doing this like a trip to Vegas, for fun and willing to take the losses, I would avoid cryptocurrencies because you don't know what you are doing yet. It is obvious from the posting. I have multiple decades working in every type of financial institution and at every level, bottom to top. I also have a doctorate, and I am an incredible researcher. I am professionally qualified in three different disciplines. If you want to learn how to do this, start with the "Intelligent Investor." Get a basic book on accounting and learn basic accounting. Pick up economics textbooks at least through "Intermediate" for both microeconomics and macroeconomics. Get William Bolstad's book "Introduction to Bayesian Statistics." You will need them for reasons that go very far beyond this post. Trust me; you want to master that book. Find a statistician and ask them to teach it to you as a special topics course. It will help you as both either a Marine officer or a Naval officer. Then after that pick up a copy of "Security Analysis." Either the 1943 copy (yes it is in print) by Benjamin Graham if you feel good about accounting, or the 1987 copy by Cottle under the Graham/Dodd imprimatur. Then, if you are still interested in cryptocurrencies and they will be blasé by then, then pick up an economics textbook on money. If I were you, I would learn about Yap money, commodity money, and prison money first, then you might understand why a cryptocurrency may not be an investment for you. |
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