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How do I report this cash bonus/tip on income tax return? | Employers are not supposed to give cash gifts to their employees, even if you try to call it a "gift" for tax purposes. Presumably, the reason your wife's employer gave her cash was to be nice and save her taxes on that amount. Her employer already paid tax on that money so that your wife doesn't have to. If she plans to declare it anyway, then she should instead give it back and ask for it to be added to the W2 as an end of year bonus. This way her employer could then deduct the payment and pay her a larger amount of money. (The additional amount would be approximately their tax rate minus about 7.45% for FICA.) In fact, if your wife's tax rate is more than 15% lower than her employer's, then this is actually mathematically best for both parties. |
How do rich people guarantee the safety of their money, when savings exceed the FDIC limit? | Most people who have over $250,000 in liquid cash savings would not want to start putting their money into regular savings accounts in different banks, especially with interest rates as ridiculously low as they are now in 2014-15. People with money will want to diversify their investments in ways that will potentially earn them more money, and they can also afford to seek the advice of financial planners who can help them do this wisely. Even if you decide to put $250,000 into various accounts at different banks, I wouldn't necessarily trust that the FDIC will be able to help you recover your money in the event that your banks go under. The amount of money available to the FDIC to cover such losses pales in comparison to the actual amount of money that Americans have in their bank accounts. |
Do I live in a state for tax purposes if my permanent home is in another state? | You're most likely required to file in both for 2013 - since you've lived in both. From 2014 and on you're definitely a NY resident (since you're renting a place there and live there), and you may very well continue being NJ resident (since you're essentially continue being domiciled there). I suggest talking to a EA/CPA licensed in NY and NJ to try and see what you can do to avoid being resident in both the states, or see if it is at all an issue other than filing everything double. |
Why would someone buy a way out-of-the-money call option that's expiring soon? | Out of the money options often have the biggest changes in value, when the stock moves upward. This person could also gain, by the implied (underlying) volatility of the stock rising if it moves erratically to either side. Still seems to be a very risky game, given only 4 days to expiry. |
As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments? | At 50 years old, and a dozen years or so from retirement, I am close to 100% in equities in my retirement accounts. Most financial planners would say this is way too risky, which sort of addresses your question. I seek high return rather than protection of principal. If I was you at 22, I would mainly look at high returns rather than protection of principal. The short answer is, that even if your investments drop by half, you have plenty of time to recover. But onto the long answer. You sort of have to imagine yourself close to retirement age, and what that would look like. If you are contributing at 22, I would say that it is likely that you end up with 3 million (in today's dollars). Will you have low or high monthly expenses? Will you have other sources of income such as rental properties? Let's say you rental income that comes close to covering your monthly expenses, but is short about 12K per year. You have a couple of options: So in the end let's say you are ready to retire with about 60K in cash above your emergency fund. You have the ability to live off that cash for 5 years. You can replenish that fund from equity investments at opportune times. Its also likely you equity investments will grow a lot more than your expenses and any emergencies. There really is no need to have a significant amount out of equities. In the case cited, real estate serves as your cash investment. Now one can fret and say "how will I know I have all of that when I am ready to retire"? The answer is simple: structure your life now so it looks that way in the future. You are off to a good start. Right now your job is to build your investments in your 401K (which you are doing) and get good at budgeting. The rest will follow. After that your next step is to buy your first home. Good work on looking to plan for your future. |
What does quantitative easing 2 mean for my bank account? | QE2 will mean that there are about $500 billion dollars in existence which weren't there before. These dollars will all be competing with the existing dollars for real goods and services, so each dollar will be worth a little less, and prices will rise a little. This is inflation. You can probably expect 1.5%-2% annual inflation for the US dollar over the next several years (the market certainly does in the aggregate, anyway). This is in terms of US-based goods and services. QE2 will also reduce the amount of other currencies you can get for the same dollar amount. The extent to which this will occur is less clear, in part because other currencies are also considering quantitative easing. Your long-term savings should probably not be in cash anyway, because of the low returns; this will probably affect you far more than the impact of quantitative easing. As for your savings which do remain in cash, what you should do with them depends on how you plan to dispose of them. The value of a currency is usually pretty stable in terms of the local economy's output of goods and services - it's the value in international trade which tends to fluctuate wildly. If you keep your savings in the same currency you plan to spend them in, they should be able to maintain their value decently well in the intermediate term. |
Interaction between health exchange and under-65 Medicare coverage | First off, you should contact your health plan administrator as soon as possible. Different plans may interact differently with Medicare; any advice we could provide here would be tentative at best. Some of the issues you may face: A person with both Medicare and a QHP would potentially have primary coverage from 2 sources: Medicare and the QHP. No federal law addresses this situation. Under state insurance law an individual generally cannot collect full benefits from each of 2 policies that together pay more than an insured event costs. State law usually specifies how insurance companies will coordinate health benefits when a person has primary coverage from more than one source. In that situation, insurance companies determine which coverage is primary and which is secondary. It’s important to understand that a QHP is not structured to pay secondary benefits, nor are the premiums calculated or adjusted for secondary payment. In addition, a person with Medicare would no longer receive any premium assistance or subsidies under the federal law. While previous federal law makes it illegal for insurance companies to knowingly sell coverage that duplicates Medicare’s coverage when someone is entitled to or enrolled in Medicare Part A or Part B, there has been no guidance on the issue of someone who already has individual health insurance and then also enrolls in Medicare. We and other consumer organizations have asked state and federal officials for clarification on this complicated situation. As such, it likely is up to the plan how they choose to pay - and I wouldn't expect them to pay much if they think they can avoid it. You may also want to talk to someone at your local Medicare branch office - they may know more about your state specifically; or someone in your state's department of health/human services, or whomever administers the Exchanges (if it's not federal) in your state. Secondly, as far as enrolling for Part B, you should be aware that if she opts not to enroll in Part B at this time, if your wife later chooses to enroll before she turns 65 she will be required to pay a penalty of 10% per 12 month period she was not enrolled. This will revert to 0 when she turns 65 and is then eligible under normal rules, but it will apply every year until then. If she's enrolling during the normal General Enrollment period (Jan-March) then if she fails to enroll then she'll be required to pay that penalty if she later enrolls; if this is a Special Enrollment Period and extends beyond March, she may have the choice of enrolling next year without penalty. |
What are the downsides that prevent more people from working in high-income countries, and then retiring in low-income (and cost of living) ones? | I know folks who considered retiring to another country. Their conclusion was that while base cost of living was lower, the cost of the things that they enjoy doing -- not to mention the cost of spending time with friends they didn't want to give up -- would be sufficiently higher to erase most of the advantages. Those of us who grew up in or close to cities feel much the same way about moving out to less-populated and less-expensive parts of our own country. Basically, when cost of living is high it tends to be because there are more people who want to live there and are competing for resources (and driving prices up). Low cost of living is generally tied to less-desired locations, for the same reasons. IF you can find a location that appeals to you, and if you can get the resources there which your preferred lifestyle requires, this may make sense. For a while there were a number of professional writers moving from the US to Ireland, in part because the Irish tax structure heavily favored writers and other creative artists. (Katherine Kurtz spent several years living in a renovated Irish castle.) I'm not sure how many have stayed there after the novelty wore off. |
FTB sent refund check for 2011 during audit; Does this really mean that whole audit is over for 2011? | Not it doesn't, and yes they can. If the audit is closed, you should have received invitation to attend the closing conference, and get the summary of decisions from that meeting in writing. I suggest you check with your tax representative about this refund check before cashing it. |
Long term investment for money | What explains the most of the future returns of a portfolio is the allocation between asset classes. In the long term, stock investments are almost certain to return more than any other kinds of investments. For 40+ years, I would choose a portfolio of 100% stocks. How to construct the portfolio, then? Diversification is the key. You should diversify in time (don't put a large sum of money into your stock portfolio immediately; if you have a large sum to invest, spread it around several years). You should diversify based on company size (invest in both large and small companies). You should also diversify internationally (don't invest in just US companies). If you prefer to pick individual stocks, 20 very carefully selected stocks may provide enough diversification if you keep diversification in mind during stock picking. However, careful stock picking cannot be expected to yield excess returns, and if you pick stocks manually, you need to rebalance your portfolio occasionally. Thus, if you're lazy, I would recommend a mutual fund, or many mutual funds if you have difficulty finding a low-cost one that is internationally diversified. The most important consideration is the cost. You cannot expect careful fund selection to yield excess returns before expenses. However, the expenses are certain costs, so prefer low-cost funds. Almost always this means picking index funds. Avoid funds that have a small number of stocks, because they typically invest only in the largest companies, which means you fail to get diversification in company size. So, instead of Euro STOXX 50, select STOXX 600 when investing to the European market. ETFs may have lower costs than traditional mutual funds, so keep ETFs in mind when selecting the mutual funds in which to invest. For international diversification, do not forget emerging markets. It is not excessive to invest e.g. 20% to emerging markets. Emerging markets have a higher risk but they also have a higher return. A portfolio that does not include emerging markets is not in my opinion well diversified. When getting close to retirement age, I would consider increasing the percentage of bonds in the portfolio. This should be done primarily by putting additional money to bonds instead of selling existing investments to avoid additional taxes (not sure if this applies to other taxation systems than the Finnish one). Bond investments are best made though low-cost mutual funds as well. Keep bond investments in your local currency and risk-free assets (i.e. select US government bonds). Whatever you do, remember that historical return is no guarantee of future return. Actually, the opposite may be true: there is a mean reversion law. If a particular investment has returned well in the past, it often means its price has gone up, making it more likely that the price goes down in the future. So don't select a fund based on its historical return; instead, select a fund based on low costs. However, I'm 99% certain that over a period of 40 years, stocks will return better than other investments. In addition to fund costs, taxes are the other certain thing that will be deducted from your returns. Research what options you have to reduce the taxes you need to pay. 401-K was explained in another answer; this may be a good option. Some things recommended in other answers that I would avoid: |
What is the best use of “spare” money? | With 40% of your take-home available, you have a golden opportunity here. Actually two, and the second builds out easily from the first. Golden Opportunity # 1: Layoff Immunity Ok, not really immunity. Most people don't think of themselves getting laid off, and don't prepare. Of course it may not happen to you, but it can. It's happened to me twice. The layoff itself is an emotional burden (getting rejected is hard), but then you're suddenly faced with a gut-wrenching, "how am I gonna pay the rent????" If you have no savings, it's terrifying. Put yourself in that spot. Imagine that tomorrow, you're out of a job. For how many months could you pay your expenses with the money you have? Three months? One? Not even that? How about shooting for 12 months? It's really, really comforting to be able to say: "I don't have to worry about it for a year". 12 months saved up gives you emotional and financial stability, and it gives you options -- you don't have to take the first job that comes along. Now, saving 12 months of expenses is huge. But, you're in the wonderful spot where you can save 40% of your income. It would only take 2.5 years to save up a year's worth of income! But, actually, it's better than that. Because your 12-month Layoff Immunity fund doesn't have to include the amount for retirement, or taxes, or that 40% we're talking about. Your expenses are less than 60% of take-home -- you'd only need 12 months of that. So, you could have a fully funded 12-Month Layoff Immunity Fund only in a year and a half! Golden Opportunity #2: Freedom Fund Do you like your Job? Would you still do it, if you didn't need the money? If so, great. But if not, why not get yourself into a position where you don't need it? That is, build up enough money from saving and investing to where you can pay your expenses - forever - from your investments. The number to keep in mind is 25. Figure out your annual expenses, and multiply it by 25. That's the amount you'd need to never need a job again. (That works out to a 4% withdrawal rate, adjusting for inflation every year, with a low risk of running out of money. It's a rule of thumb, but smart people doing a lot of math worked it out.) Here you keep saving and investing that 40% in solid mutual funds in a regular, taxable account. Between your savings and the compounding returns off the investments, you could easily have a fully funded "Freedom Fund" by the time you're 50. In fact, by 45 isn't unreasonable. It could be even better. If you live in that high-rent area because of the job, and wouldn't mind living were the rents are lower once you quit, your target amount would be lower. Between that, working dedicatedly toward this goal, and maybe a little luck, you might even be able to do this by age 40. Final Thoughts There are other things you could put that money toward, like a house, of course. The key take-away here, is to save it, and invest it. You're in a unique position of being able to do that with 40% of your income. That's fabulous! But don't think it's the norm. Most people can't save that much, and, once you lose the ability to save that much, it's very difficult to get it back. Expenses creep in, lifestyle "wants" become "needs", and so on. If you get into the habit of spending it, it's very difficult to shrink your lifestyle back down - down to what right now you're perfectly comfortable with. So, spend some time figuring out what you want out of life -- and in the mean time, sock that 40% away. |
Why is auto insurance ridiculously overpriced for those who drive few miles? | Not all miles carry the same amount of risk. A survey by Progressive indicated that accidents are most likely to occur within 5 miles of home, and 77% of accidents occur within 15 miles of home. Only 1% of accidents occurred 50 or more miles from home. That's from 2002, but it seems unlikely to have changed much. Since the miles closest to your home carry more risk, they cost more, and low-mileage discounts reflect that. There are per-mile insurance options in a few states which could save you money, but they do constant monitoring via that ODB2 telematics device, and other insurers offer discounts if you accept their monitoring either in perpetuity or for a limited period of time. Without monitoring, insurers don't know if that 4,000 miles of driving is spread into a few mid-day trips each week, or maybe you're doing all that driving from midnight to 4am on weekends (fatalities far more likely), or from 5-7pm during weekdays (accidents far more likely). Personally, I save ~10% by being a 'low-mileage' driver, and am currently in the middle of a 90-day monitoring, so might go lower, but given that accidents are far more likely close to home, 10% feels pretty significant and appropriate. |
How can I buy and sell the same stock on the same day? | If you're going to be a day trader, you really need to know your stuff. It's risky, to say the least. One of the most important elements to being successful is having access to very fast data streams so that you can make moves quickly as trends stat to develop in the markets. If you're planning on doing this using consumer-grade sites like eTrade, that's not a good idea. The web systems of many of the retail brokerage firms are not good enough to give you data fast enough for you to make good, timely decisions or to be able to execute trades way that day traders do in order to make their money. Many of those guys are living on very thin margins, sometimes just a few cents of movement one way or the other, so they make up for it with a large volume of trades. One of the reasons you were told you need a big chunk of money to day trade is that some firms will rent you out a "desk" and computer access to day trade through their systems if you're really serious about it. They will require you to put up at least a minimum amount of money for this privilege, and $25k may not be too far out of the ballpark. If you've never done day trading before, be careful. It doesn't take much to get caught looking the wrong way on a trade that you can't get out of without losing your shirt unless you're willing to hold on to the stock, which could be longer than a day. Day trading sounds very simple and easy, but it isn't. You need to learn about how it works (a good book to read to understand this market is "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis, besides being very entertaining), because it is a space filled with very sophisticated, well-funded firms and individuals who spend huge sums of money to gain miniscule advantages in the markets. Be careful, whatever you do. And don't play in day trading with your retirement money or any other money you can't afford to walk away from. I hope this helps. Good luck! |
Are there guidelines for whom you should trust for financial advice (online, peer, experts, only myself, etc) | You need to understand how various entities make their money. Once you know that, you can determine whether their interests are aligned with yours. For example, a full-service broker makes money when you buy and sell stocks. They therefore have in interest in you doing lots of buying, and selling, not in making you money. Or, no-fee financial advisors make their money through commissions on what they sell you, which means their interests are served by selling you those investments with high commissions, not the investments that would serve you best. Financial media makes their money through attracting viewers/readers and selling advertising. That is their business, and they are not in the business of giving good advice. There are lots of good investments - index funds are a great example - that don't get much attention because there isn't any money in them. In fact, the majority of "wall street" is not aligned with your interests, so be skeptical of the financial industry in general. There are "for fee" financial advisors who you pay directly; their interests are fairly well aligned with yours. There is a fair amount of good information at The Motley Fool |
Frequency of investments to maximise returns (and minimise fees) | Wow, this turns out to be a much more difficult problem than I thought from first looking at it. Let's recast some of the variables to simplify the equations a bit. Let rb be the growth rate of money in your bank for one period. By "growth rate" I mean the amount you will have after one period. So if the interest rate is 3% per year paid monthly, then the interest for one month is 3/12 of 1% = .25%, so after one month you have 1.0025 times as much money as you started with. Similarly, let si be the growth rate of the investment. Then after you make a deposit the amount you have in the bank is pb = s. After another deposit you've collected interest on the first, so you have pb = s * rb + s. That is, the first deposit with one period's growth plus the second deposit. One more deposit and you have pb = ((s * rb) + s) * rb + s = s + s * rb + s * rb^2. Etc. So after n deposits you have pb = s + s * rb + s * rb^2 + s * rb^3 + ... + s * rb^(n-1). This simplifies to pb = s * (rb^n - 1)/(rb - 1). Similarly for the amount you would get by depositing to the investment, let's call that pi, except you must also subtract the amount of the broker fee, b. So you want to make deposits when pb>pi, or s*(ri^n-1)/(ri-1) - b > s*(rb^n-1)/(rb-1) Then just solve for n and you're done! Except ... maybe someone who's better at algebra than me could solve that for n, but I don't see how to do it. Further complicating this is that banks normally pay interest monthly, while stocks go up or down every day. If a calculation said to withdraw after 3.9 months, it might really be better to wait for 4.0 months to collect one additional month's interest. But let's see if we can approximate. If the growth rates and the number of periods are relatively small, the compounding of growth should also be relatively small. So an approximate solution would be when the difference between the interest rates, times the amount of each deposit, summed over the number of deposits, is greater than the fee. That is, say the investment pays 10% per month more than your bank account (wildly optimistic but just for example), the broker fee is $10, and the amount of each deposit is $200. Then if you delay making the investment by one month you're losing 10% of $200 = $20. This is more than the broker fee, so you should invest immediately. Okay, suppose more realistically that the investment pays 1% more per month than the bank account. Then the first month you're losing 1% of $200 = $2. The second month you have $400 in the bank, so you're losing $4, total loss for two months = $6. The third month you have $600 in the bank so you lose an additional $6, total loss = $12. Etc. So you should transfer the money to the investment about the third month. Compounding would mean that losses on transferring to the investment are a little higher than this, so you'd want to bias to transferring a little earlier. Or, you could set up a spreadsheet to do the compounding calculations month by month, and then just look down the column for when the investment total minus the bank total is greater than the broker fee. Sorry I'm not giving you a definitive answer, but maybe this helps. |
Why I cannot find a “Pure Cash” option in 401k investments? | Holding pure cash is a problem for 401K companies because they would then have follow banking rules because they would be holding your cash on their balance sheets. They don't want to be in that business. Instead, they should offer at least one option as a cash equivalent - a money market fund. This way the money is held by the fund, not by 401K administrator. Money Market funds invest in ultra-short term paper, such as overnight loans between banks and other debt instruments that mature in a matter of days. So it is all extremely liquid, as close to "Money" as you can get without actually being money. It is extremely rare for a money market fund to lose value, or "break the buck." During the crisis of 2008, only one or two funds broke the buck, and it didn't last long. They had gotten greedy and their short term investments were a little more aggressive as they were trying to get extra returns. In short, your money is safe in a money market fund, and your 401K plan should offer one as the "cash" option, or at least it should offer a short-term bond fund. If you feel strongly that your money should be in actual cash, you can always stop contributing to the 401K and put the money in the bank. This is not a good idea though. Unless you're close to retirement, you'll be much better off investing in a well diversified portfolio, even through the ups and downs of the market. |
Pay off car or use money for down payment | Absolutely do not pay off the car if you aren't planning to keep it. The amount of equity that you have from a trade in vehicle will always be a variable when negotiating a new car purchase. By applying cash (a hard asset) to increase your equity, you are trading a fixed amount for an unknown, variable amount. You are also moving from a position of more certainty for a position of less certainty. You gain nothing by paying off the car, whereas the dealer can negotiate away a larger piece of the equity in the vehicle. |
What is the term for the quantity (high price minus low price) for a stock? | Just guessing here… How about Daily Median price? StockCharts provides a similar value they call VWAP. Which stands for Volume-Weighted Average Price. I believe it is a better 'average' for the day (click on link). |
Cheapest way to wire or withdraw money from US account while living in Europe | Atm machine and my Credit Union account. Low fees (often zero, if the machine is on any of the same networks) and decent exchange rate, and no need to carry cash or traveler's checks to be exchanged. Alternatively, pay by credit card, though there is a foreign transaction fee on that. |
If a startup can always issue new shares, what value is there to stocks/options? | Companies normally do not give you X% of shares, but in effect give you a fixed "N" number of shares. The "N" may translate initially to X%, but this can go down. If say we began with 100 shares, A holding 50 shares and B holding 50 shares. As the startup grows, there is need for more money. Create 50 more shares and sell it at an arranged price to investor C. Now the percentage of each investor is 33.33%. The money that comes in will go to the company and not to A & B. From here on, A & C together can decide to slowly cut out B by, for example: After any of the above the % of shares held by B would definitely go down. |
Merrill Lynch historical stock prices - where to find? | You could try asking Merrill Lynch, (general inquiries) :- http://www.ml.com/index.asp?id=7695_114042 So far I only found a few graphics :- http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/merrill_lynch_and_company/ http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/17/us-merrilllynch-results-idUSWNAS674520080117 http://www.stocktradingtogo.com/2008/09/15/merrill-lynch-saved-by-bank-of-america-buyout/ |
Stock Dividends & Splits: Are they always applied over night? | I've never seen a dividend, split or other corporate action during the day, but I have seen trade suspended a few times when something big happened. The market opening price is not in general the same as the close of the previous day. It can gap up or down and does frequently. I don't know of an api to find out if the dividend was cash or stock, but stock dividends are a lot less common. |
Can I withdraw from my Roth IRA retirement account to fund a startup? | Chris's answer is a great start. Keep in mind that when you withdraw from a Roth IRA, you "shrink" the size of the IRA (i.e. if the start up flourishes, you can't put the $10k you withdrew back, as you're limited to ~$5k in contributions per year). You may want to consider funding your startup with a credit card (ideally a balance transfer of $10k at 0% interest). If you need to, you can always pay your card off with your Roth balance, but if the startup takes off, your IRA is unharmed. (On a side note, I wouldn't feel comfortable quitting my job to do a startup with only $10k in savings, but to each his own!) |
Is SIPC coverage on cash as strong as FDIC? | For cash, SIPC insurance is similar to FDIC insurance. Your losses are not covered, but you're covered in case of fraud. Since your cash is supposed to be in a trust account and not commingled with brokerage's funds, in case of bankruptcy you would still have your cash unless there was fraud. |
How do you calculate the rate of return (ROR) when buying and selling put options? | What Jaydles said. I think of each strategy in terms of Capital at Risk (CaR). It's a good thing to know when considering any position. And then conveniently, the return is always profit / CaR. With covered calls it's pretty easy. Pay $1000 for stock, receive $80 in premium, net CaR is $920. If you own the stock and write calls many times (that expire worthless, or you that you buy back), there are two measurements to consider. First, treat every covered call as a buy-write. Even if you already own the stock, disregard the real cost basis, and calculate from the moment you write the call, using the stock price at that time. The second measure is more complicated, but involves using something like the XIRR function in a spreadsheet. This tracks the series as a whole, even accounting for times where there is no written call outstanding. For the written put, even though your broker may only require 30% collateral in a margin account, mentally treat them as cash-secured. Strike less premium is your true CaR. If the stock goes to zero by expiration, that's what you're on the hook for. You could just compute based on the 30% collateral required, but in my view that confuses cash/collateral needs with true risk. Note: a written put is exactly identical to a covered call at the same strike. If you tend to favor puts over CCs, ask yourself why. Just like a loaded gun, leverage isn't inherently bad, but you sure want to know when you're using it. |
Insurance, healthcare provider, apparent abuse, lack of transparency | I wouldn't classify your treatment as abuse. Medical billing has become more complex not less complex. You need to learn to ask even more questions regarding expenses, you probably need to see these price quotes in writing. You did several things correctly. Staying in-network generally is best because many plans have two deductible limits: In-network, and out-of-network. You need to make sure that the insurance company does credit you with having paid the new patient fee. That will qualify as an expense toward the deductible and your maximum out of pocket for the year. Some doctors offices don't send to insurance companies items that they know will not be covered, not remembering that these costs are critical under the High deductible plans with a health savings account. Doctors offices have problems determining how much the cost to you will be. It depends not just on the insurance company but also which type of plan you have, which sub-plan you have, and are you covered by more than one plan. Not to mention individual deductibles, family deductibles, and annual out-of-pocket amount. All this is wanted prior to the doctor seeing the patient. Most doctors offices will work with you, they know that each insurance plan treats each medical billing code differently, sometimes they make a mistake. Talk to them. |
Why does the share price tend to fall if a company's profits decrease, yet remain positive? | It has got to do with market perceptions and expectation and the perceived future prospects of the company. Usually the expectation of a company's results are already priced into the share price, so if the results deviate from these expectations, the share price can move up or down respectfully. For example, many times a company's share price may be beaten down for increasing profits by 20% above the previous year when the expectation was that it would increase profits by 30%. Other times a company's share price may rise sharply for making a 20% loss when the expectation was that it would make a 30% loss. Then there is also a company's prospects for future growth and performance. A company may be heading into trouble, so even though they made a $100M profit this year, the outlook for the company may be bleak. This could cause the share price to drop accordingly. Conversely, a company may have made a loss of $100M but its is turning a corner after reducing costs and restructuring. This can be seen as a positive for the future causing the share price to rise. Also, a company making $100M in profits would not put that all into the bank. It may pay dividends with some, it may put some more towards growing the business, and it might keep some cash available in case cash-flows fluctuate during the year. |
Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real? | I made upwards of 3M from 200K by trading stocks, which I made from a business that I invested 20K in. HOWEVER, DO NOT use trading stocks as a source of income, you're gambling with your precious cash. There are safer alternatives. |
What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD? | Windfalls can disappear in a heartbeat if you're not used to managing large amounts of money. That said, if you can read a bank statement and can exercise a modicum of self control over spending, you do not need a money manager. (See: Leonard Cohen) First, spend $15 on J.L. Collins' book The Simple Path to Wealth. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30646587-the-simple-path-to-wealth. Plan to spend about 4% of your wealth annually (4% of $1.2 million = $48,000) Bottom line: ALWAYS live within your means. Own your own home free and clear. Don't buy an annuity unless you have absolutely no self control. If it feels like you're spending money too fast, you almost certainly are. |
The doctor didn't charge the health insurance in time, am I liable? | This has a straightforward answer. It's likely that your doctor and the hospital have no responsibility to ensure that your insurance claim is filed in a timely manner. They bill you whether you or they get reimbursed by insurance, or not. The insurance company is more than happy not to pay you any way they can. Sorry if this is harsh, but it's up to you to follow through. See also here. |
How are Canada Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) & related tax measures changing in 2015? | The Child Care Expense Deduction (line 214) dollar limits will each increase by $1000, to new amounts of $8000 for children under 7 and $5000 for children age 7–16. Notes: As a tax deduction, your tax liability gets reduced at your marginal income tax rate, not the lowest tax rate (as would be the case for a tax credit). Yes, you still need receipts from your child care provider to support any claim. The non-refundable child tax credit a.k.a. amount for children under age 18 (line 367) introduced in 2007 is being eliminated starting in tax year 2015 coincident with the UCCB enhancement above. The credit could previously reduce tax liability by ~$340. The Family Tax Cut is being introduced and will be effective for tax year 2014. That is, when you file your 2014 income tax return in early 2015, you may be able to take advantage of this measure for income already earned in 2014. Provided a couple has at least one child under the age of 18, the Family Tax Cut will permit the transfer of up to $50,000 of taxable income from the higher income spouse's income tax return to the lower income spouse's return. While the potential transfer of $50,000 of taxable income to lower tax brackets sounds like a really big deal, the maximum tax relief is capped at $2000. |
How can I lookup the business associated with a FEIN? | I think much of that info is hidden behind pay-walls. Here is one site I've found. http://www.feinsearch.com/ Another that is for non-profits only is guidestar. http://www.guidestar.org/rxg/products/nonprofit-data-solutions/product-information/guidestar-premium/advanced-nonprofit-search.aspx |
How to start personal finances? | A few practical thoughts: A practical thing that helps me immensely not to loose important paperwork (such as bank statements, bills, payroll statement, all those statements you need for filing tax return, ...) is: In addition to the folder (Aktenordner) where the statements ultimately need to go I use a Hängeregistratur. There are also standing instead of hanging varieties of the same idea (may be less expensive if you buy them new - I got most of mine used): you have easy-to-add-to folders where you can just throw in e.g. the bank statement when it arrives. This way I give the statement a preliminary scan for anything that is obviously grossly wrong and throw it into the respective folder (Hängetasche). Every once in a while I take care of all my book-keeping, punch the statements, file them in the Aktenordner and enter them into the software. I used to hate and never do the filing when I tried to use Aktenordner only. I recently learned that it is well known that Aktenordner and Schnellhefter are very time consuming if you have paperwork arriving one sheet at a time. I've tried different accounting software (being somewhat on the nerdy side, I use gnucash), including some phone apps. Personally, I didn't like the phone apps I tried - IMHO it takes too much time to enter things, so I tend to forget it. I'm much better at asking for a sales receipt (Kassenzettel) everywhere and sticking them into a calendar at home (I also note cash payments for which I don't have a receipt as far as I recall them - the forgotten ones = difference ends up in category "hobby" as they are mostly the beer or coke after sports). I was also to impatient for the cloud/online solutions I tried (I use one for business, as there the archiving is guaranteed to be according to the legal requirements - but it really takes far more time than entering the records in gnucash). |
What is the ticker symbol of the mini Google stock? | Google will be issuing Class C shares (under the ticker symbol GOOCV) to current GOOG holders in the beginning of April. The Class C shares and Class A shares will then change symbols, with the Class C shares trading under GOOG. This was announced on January 30th. Details are in this benzinga article: Projected Trading Timeline March 27 - April 2 Record Date - Payment Date Class C shares commence trading on March 27 as GOOCV on a when issued basis Class A shares continue to trade as GOOG, with entitlement to Class C shares Class A shares will also trade on an ex-distribution basis, without entitlement to the Class C shares, as GOOAV April 3 EX Date The ticker for the Class A shares will change from GOOG to GOOGL The ticker for the Class C shares will change from GOOCV to GOOG and commence regular way trading The ticker for the Class A shares that traded on an ex-distribution basis - GOOAV - will be suspended |
Trying to figure out my student loans | Is there anything here I should be deathly concerned about? I don't see anything you should be deathly concerned about unless your career outlook is very poor and you are making minimum wage. If that is the case you may struggle for the next 10 years. Are these rates considered super high or manageable? The rates for the federal loans are around twice as high as your private loans but that is the going rate and there is nothing you can do about it now. 6.5% isn't bad on what is essentially a personal loan. 2-3% are very manageable assuming you pay them and don't let the interest build up. What is a good mode of attack here? I am by no means a financial adviser and don't know the rest of your financial situation, but the most general advice I can give you is pay down your highest interest rate loans first and always try to pay more than the minimum. In your case, I would put as much as you reasonably can towards the federal loans because that will save you money in the long run. What are the main takeaways I should understand about these loans? The main takeaway is that these are student loans and they cannot be discharged if you were to ever declare bankruptcy. Pay them off but don't be too concerned about them. If you do apply for loans in the future, most lenders won't be too concerned about student loans assuming you are paying them on time and especially if you are paying more than the minimum payment. What are the payoff dates for the other loans? The payoff dates for the other loans are a little hard to easily calculate, but it appears they all have different payoff dates between 8 and 12 years from now. This part might be easier for someone who is better at financial calculations than me. Why do my Citi loans have a higher balance than the original payoff amounts? Your citi loans have a higher balance probably because you have not payed anything towards them yet so the interest has been accruing since you got them. |
Paying tax for freelance work while travelling | Having freelanced myself in South America I could give you a sound advice BUT you would first need to answer some questions. 1) How long do you plan on being in South America? At the end of 2017 will you be back in Ireland or still being in South America? In other words was is your country of residence for tax purposes on Dec. 31 2017 ? That is the key element to consider. Link 2) In latin America you can freelance with a legal working permit BUT in all these countries more than 50% of the economy is under the table. In all these countries expatriate work under the table. The question you need to answer is then: Who will be your employer, a company or the owner of this company? Working undeclared in Latin America is very common, what are the risks? The legal risks depend on the country and their laws. In which country will you travel? How long will you stay there? You will have a tourist visa or a working visa? 3) An important detail, your health. Check how long you can be out of Ireland without loosing your social health benefits in Ireland? In my country, if I am abroad for more than 180 days, I loose my national health coverage. Evaluate the amount of days you will be out of Ireland and where you want to be on Dec. 31th. That could change a lot of things in your life. |
Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation? | I'm confused why you think you need a $450k house. That seems extremely high in today's market except perhaps in certain major urban locations. If you're going to live in suburbia or a smaller town/city, you should be able to find a nice 3br house for well under $300k. Before you rule out buying a house, I'd spend some time researching the real estate listings in your area, foreclosures, properties owned by bankruptcy court, etc. - you might be surprised to find a great home for as low as $150-200k. Of course if you live in a place where what I'm saying is completely off-base, please disregard my answer. |
What are some good, easy to use personal finance software? [UK] | CashBase has a web app, an iPhone app and an Android app, all sync'ed up. It doesn't integrate with banks automatically, but you can import bank statements as CSV. Disclaimer: I'm CashBase's founder. |
Should I pay off my car loan within the year? | First, don't owe (much) money on a car that's out of warranty. If you have an engine blow up and repairs will cost the lion's share of the car's bluebook value, the entire car loan immediately comes due because the collateral is now worthless. This puts you in a very miserable situation because you must pay off the car suddenly while also securing other transportation! Second, watch for possible early-payment penalties. They are srill lokely cheaper than paying interest, but run the numbers. Their purpose is to repay the lender the amount of money they already paid out to the dealer in sales commission or kickback for referring the loan. The positive effects you want for your credit report only require an open loan; owing more money doesn't help, it hurts. However, interest is proportional to principal owed, so a $10,000 car loan is 10 times the interest cost of a $1000 car loan. That means paying most of it off early can fulfill your purpose. As the car is nearer payoff, you can reduce costs further (assuming you cna handle the hit) by increasing the deductible on collision and comprehensive (fire and theft) auto insurance. It's not just you paying more co-pay, it also means the insurance company doesn't have to deal with smaller claims at all, e.g. Nodody with a $1000 deductivle files a claim on an $800 repair. If the amount you owe is small compared to its bluebook value, and within $1000-2000 of paid off, the lender may be OK with you dropping collision and comprehensive coverage altogether (assuming you are). All of this adds up to paying most of it off, but not all, may be the way to go. You could also talk to your lender about paying say, 3/4 of it off, and refinancing the rest as a 12-month deal. |
Should I have a higher credit limit on my credit card? | There is no "golden rule" on how high of a credit limit an individual should have. There are 22 year olds that have $100,000 credit limits and 40 year olds that have $1000. The most important thing is to not over spend and pay your balance(s) in full every month. Seeing as you are doing that now, there is no downside to getting an increase. |
What are “equity assets”? | If I hold a bond then I have a debt asset. If I hold physical silver then I have a commodity asset. If I hold the stock of an individual company then I have an equity asset. Equities, commodities and debts are the three kinds of assets that a person can hold. Edit: I forgot one other kind of asset; monetary asset. If I stuff my mattress with cash (USD) I am holding a monetary asset. Short-term Treasury Bills really behave more like a monetary asset than a bond. So besides actual, physical, currency I would categorize T-bill as a monetary asset. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tbills_glance.htm |
Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord? | Here are the issues, as I see them - It's not that I don't trust banks, but I just feel like throwing all of our money into intangible investments is unwise. Banks have virtually nothing to do with this. And intangible assets has a different meaning than you assume. You don't have to like the market, but try to understand it, and dislike it for a good reason. (Which I won't offer here). Do your 401(k) accounts offer company match? When people start with "we'd like to reduce our deposits" that's the first thing we need to know. Last - you plan to gain "a few hundred dollars a month." I bet it's closer to zero or a loss. I'll return to edit, we have recent posts here that reviewed the expenses to consider, and I'd bet that if you review the numbers, you've ignored some of them. "A few hundred" - say it's $300. Or $4000/yr. It would take far less work and risk to simply save $100K in your retirement accounts to produce this sum each year. The investment may very well be excellent. I'm just offering the flip side, things you might have missed. Edit - please read the discussion at How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent? The answers offer a good look at the list of expenses you need to consider. In my opinion, this is one of the most important things. I've seen too many new RE investors "forget" about so many expenses, a projected monthly income reverts to annual losses. |
Using GnuCash for accurate cost basis calculation for foreign investments (CAD primary currency) | You would need to use Trading Accounts. You can enable this, File->Properties->Account settings tab, and check Use Trading Accounts. For more details see the following site: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Trading_Accounts |
How does start-up equity end up paying off? | In the real world, there are only two times you'll see that 5% become worth anything - ie, something you can exchange for cash - 1) if another company buys them; (2) if they go public. If neither of these things happen, you cannot do anything with the stock or stock options that you own. |
Shorting stocks: Indicators that a stock will drop? | First, it's much safer to be shorting stocks over $5 than stocks under $5. I use 3 indicators to show that a stock has topped out and about to drop. Key is the timing cause the initial drop is often the biggest. More close you get in at the top, the higher the risk. Using 1D Charts ONLY: - MACD Indicator: I use the histogram, when it reaches a peak height, and the next day it is down 1 "Step". If you wait til the MACD lines cross, you are pretty late IMHO. Need to get in earlier. Timing is everything. - RSI(15) - Needs to topped out and above 67 meaning, "Over bought" - Do not buy when RSI is high above 70. Often stocks go on a Run up when RSI is over 70! - I use Stoch RSI or CCI to confirm my status on RSI. I like to see that all 3 indicators agree. This gives me a 75% chance that the stock will drop. It may take a day or 2.. so you need patience. |
What is considered high or low when talking about volume? | Volume is really only valuable when compared to some other volume, either from a historical value, or from some other stock. The article you linked to doesn't provide specific numbers for you to evaluate whether volume is high or low. Many people simply look at the charts and use a gut feel for whether a day's volume is "high" or "low" in their estimation. Typically, if a day's volume is not significantly taller than the usual volume, you wouldn't call it high. The same goes for low volume. If you want a more quantitative approach, a simple approach would be to use the normal distribution statistics: Calculate the mean volume and the standard deviation. Anything outside of 1.5 to 2.0 standard deviations (either high or low) could be significant in your analysis. You'll need to pick your own numbers (1.5 or 2.0 are just numbers I pulled out of thin air.) It's hard to read anything specific into volume, since for every seller, there's a buyer, and each has their reasons for doing so. The article you link to has some good examples of using volume as a basis for strengthening conclusions drawn using other factors. |
Possible pro-rated division of asset strategies without a prenup? | Absent a pre-nup, it's a case of "lawyer vs lawyer," you can't count on protecting what you came into the marriage with. In theory, what you propose sounds fair, but the reality of divorce is that everything is fair game. much depends on each spouse's earnings and impact of child-raising. For example, a woman who gives up time in a career may go after more than half, as she may be X years behind in her career path due to the choices made to stay home with the kids. I think each divorce is unique, not cookie cutter. |
Newbie question - Brokerage and selling shares | Capital gains tax is an income tax upon your profit from selling investments. Long-term capital gains (investments you have held for more than a year) are taxed significantly less than short-term gains. It doesn't limit how many shares you can sell; it does discourage selling them too quickly after buying. You can balance losses against gains to reduce the tax due. You can look for tax-advantaged investments (the obvious one being a 401k plan, IRA, or equivalent, though those generally require leaving the money invested until retirement). But in the US, most investments other than the house you are living in (which some of us argue isn't really an investment) are subject to capital gains tax, period. |
Is Stock Trading legal for a student on F-1 Visa in USA? [duplicate] | You can buy and sell stocks, if you like. You'll have to pay taxes on any profits. And short-term is speculating, not investing, and has high risk |
Does Warren Buffett really have a lower tax rate than his secretary? | The scenario you mention regarding capital gains is pretty much the core of the issue. Here's a run-down from PolitiFact.com that explains it a bit. It's important to focus on it being the tax rate, not the tax amount (which I think you get, but I want to reinforce that for other readers). Basically, most of Buffett's income comes from capital gains and dividends, income from investments he makes with the money he already has. Income earned by buying and selling stocks or from stock dividends is generally taxed at 15 percent, the rate for long-term capital gains and qualified dividends. Buffett also mentioned that some of the "mega-rich" are hedge fund managers "who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as 'carried interest,' thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate." We don't know the taxes paid by Buffett's secretary, who was mentioned by Obama but not by Buffett. Buffet's secretary would have to make a high salary, or else typical deductions (such as the child tax credit) would offset taxes owed. Let's say the secretary is a particularly well-compensated executive assistant, making adjusted income more than $83,600 in income. (Yes, that sounds like a lot to us, too, but remember: We're talking about the secretary to one of the richest people in the world.) In that case, marginal tax rates of 28 percent would apply. Then, there would be payroll taxes of 6.25 percent on the first $106,800, money that goes to Social Security, and another 1.45 percent on all income, which goes to Medicare. The secretary’s overall tax rate would be lower than 28 percent, since not all the income would be taxed at that rate, only the income above $83,600. Buffett, meanwhile, would pay very little, if anything, in payroll taxes. In the New York Times op-ed, Buffett said he paid 17.4 percent in taxes. Thinking of the secretary, it gets a little complicated, given how the tax brackets work, but basically, people who make between $100,000 and $200,000 are paying around 20 percent in federal taxes, including payroll and income taxes, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. So in this case, the secretary's rate is higher because so much of Buffett's income comes from investments and is taxed at the lower capital gains rate. Here's Buffet's original Op-Ed in the NYT for those of you that aren't familiar. |
How can I save on closing costs when buying a home? | For example: do I need a realtor, or can I do their job myself? In general in the United States the real estate agent fee is paid by the seller of the property. Their agent will be more than happy keep the entire fee if they don't have to split it with your agent. If you don't have an agent you will be missing somebody who can help you find the property that meets your needs. They can also help explain what the different parts of the contract mean and give you advice regarding making an offer. Do I need to pay for an inspection, or am I likely to save enough money from skipping it to cover potential problems that they would have caught? Inspections are optional. Though the amount you are risking is the entire value of the purchase. If the property has a problem in the foundation, or the septic system, or the plumbing or electrical the cost to fix the issue could render the purchase not worth doing. If you discover the problem a year later and you have to repair the house and have to find temporary housing for a few months, you will regret skipping the inspection. What are some of the ways I can cut expenses on closing costs? Is there any low-hanging fruit? You need to do your homework. When you are ready to purchase a property take good look at the good faith estimate and look at each item. Ask them what the expense covers. Push back against those that seem optional or excessive. Keep in mind that moving the closing date from the end of a month to the start of the next month only changes the timing those charges, it doesn't really save you money. Rolling the costs into the loan sound easy but you have to think about. It means that you will be paying interest on those charges for the life of the loan. It is good that you are starting to think about all the costs. |
Are solar cell panels and wind mills worth the money? | Solar water heaters are definitely questionable in the Northeast -- the season when you most need them is also the season when they are least effective. Solar electric isn't a huge moneymaker, but with rebates on installation and carbon-reduction credits (SRECs) -- and a group purchase discount if you can get one, either at a town level or through organizations like One Block Off The Grid -- it can definitely turn a profit. Early estimate was that my setup would pay its initial costs back in 4 years, and the panels are generally considered to be good for a decade before the cells have degraded enough that the panels should be replaced. I haven't had a negative electric bill yet, but I've gotten close, and my setup is a relatively small one (eight panels facing SSE on a 45-degree roof). Admittedly I've also been working to reduce electricity use; I don't think I have an incandescent bulb left in the house. |
How can my friend send $3K to me without using Paypal? | Have his bank put the money on a gift card or gift cards and have somebody send them to you in the mail. In fact, if you are going to spend the money online all you need is the numbers and codes from the card to spend the money. If you have more time have the bank send you a cashiers check or money order. |
Higher auto insurance costs: keep car or switch to public transit? | So you will be saving $450 + price of commuting gas - cost of transportation + cost of commuting maintenance - the cost of recreational car rentals if decide to go without a car. For some people that cost is not enough to forego the convenience of owning a car. One factor you have not alluded too is your current financial goals. Are you attempting to live a spartan lifestyle in order to dramatically change your net worth? Give up the car. There really is more then the math you are presenting so the decision is very much based upon your behavior and your goals in life. It is very likely that owning the car will be more expensive, but it will also be less convenient. Is that cost great enough to forego the convenience? Only you can decide. |
How to sell option with no volume | A few observations - A limit order can certainly work, as you've seen. I've put in such an order far beyond the true value, and gotten back a realistic bid/ask within 10 minutes or so. That at least gave me an idea where to set my limit. When this doesn't work, an exercise is always another way to go. You'll get the full intrinsic value, but no time value, by definition. Per your request in comment - You own a put, strike price $100. The stock (or ETF) is trading at $50. You buy the stock and tell the broker to exercise the put, i.e. deliver the stock to the buyer of the put. |
What happens when the bid and ask are the same? | In the world of stock exchanges, the result depends on the market state of the traded stock. There are two possibilities, (a) a trade occurs or (b) no trade occurs. During the so-called auction phase, bid and ask prices may overlap, actually they usually do. During an open market, when bid and ask match, trades occur. |
Value of a call option spread | The Explanation is correct. The Traders buys the 1st call and profits linearly form 40$ onwards. At at 45 the short call kick in and neutralizes any further profit on the first call. |
How to manage household finances (income & expenses) [duplicate] | My wife and I have close to equal incomes, and are not young. What we have is this: Some people would classify our system as a bit draconian as we each have "allowance"; however, it makes sure spending does not get out of wack and we work together to meet our goals. |
How and where can I deposit money to generate future payments / income? | Reversing your math, I am assuming you have $312K to work with. In that case, I would simply shop around your local banks and/or credit unions and have them compete for your money and you might be quite surprised how much they are willing to pay. A couple of months ago, you would be able to get about 4.25% from Israel Bonds in Canada on 5 years term (the Jubilee product, with minimum investment of $25K). It's a bit lower now, but you should still be able to get very good rates if you shop around tier-2 banks or credit unions (who are more hungry for capital than the well-funded tier-1 banks). Or you could look at preferred shares of a large corporation. They are different from common shares in the sense they are priced according to the payout rate (i.e. people buy it for the dividend). A quick screen from your favorite stock exchange ought to find you a few options. Another option is commercial bonds. You should be able to get that kind of return from investment grade (BBB- and higher) bonds on large corporations these days. I just did a quick glance at MarketWatch's Bond section (http://cxa.marketwatch.com/finra/BondCenter/Default.aspx) and found AAA grade bonds that will yield > 5%. You will need to investigate their underlying fundamentals, coupon rate and etc before investing (second thought, grab a introduction to bonds book from Chapters first). Hope these helps. |
Do “Instant Approved” credit card inquires appear on credit report? | It is not delayed and if it didn't show yet - will not show on that agency's credit report. However, you may find it on another agency's report. There are three major agencies, and creditors don't always check all of them (each inquiry costs them money). |
Good Percentage Return on Equity? | Yes definitely Warren Buffet averaged returns of only around 21% throughout his 40 years in business. ROE of 23% is probably more than double the ROE of most companies , whats more as the saying goes its easier to grow sales from 1 million to 100 million than to grow sales from 100 million to 10 billion |
Am I entitled to get a maintenance loan? | I think you're eligible for the tuition fee loan but not the maintenance loan. I think that SFE were suggesting that you'd be eligible under point 4 here 4: People with the right of permanent residence in the UK If you satisfy all the conditions under this category, you will be eligible for full Student Support. To be eligible: (a) you have the right of permanent residence in the UK; and (b) you are ordinarily resident in England on the first day of the first academic year of your course; and (c) you were ordinarily resident in the UK and Islands for three years before the first day of the first academic year of the course; and (d) if your three-year residence in the UK and Islands was at any time mainly for the purpose of receiving full-time education, you must have been ordinarily resident in the UK or elsewhere in the EEA and/or Switzerland immediately prior to the three-year period of ordinary residence in the UK and Islands. It does not matter if you were in the EEA and/or Switzerland mainly in order to receive full-time education during this earlier period. Point (b) would be the reason for asking you to prove you were in England on 1 September, but since you were under three years old when you left the UK, you wouldn't satisfy point (c). You should be eligible for the tuition fee loan under point 2 2: EU nationals, and family If you satisfy all the conditions under this category only, you are eligible only for a loan to pay your tuition fees. To be eligible: (a) on the first day of the first academic year of the course, you must be: a UK national; or a non-UK EU national who is in the UK as a self-sufficient person or as a student; the relevant family member of such a person above; and (b) you must have been ordinarily resident in the EEA and/or Switzerland for three years before the first day of the first academic year of the course; and (c) the main purpose for your residence in the EEA and/or Switzerland must not have been to receive full-time education during any part of the three year period. |
Lump sum annuity distribution — do I owe estate tax? | The page you linked shows "Federal changes eliminated Florida's estate tax after December 31, 2004" but no, estates are settled by the decedent's executor in the decedent's state. You receive an inheritance net of estate tax if any was due. |
Should I buy or lease a car given that its not a super luxury car and I only drive 15 miles/d on avg? | Alternative: buy a recent-model used car in good condition. Or buy an older car in good condition. Let someone else pay the heavy depreciation that happens the moment you drive a new car off the dealer's lot. |
Deposit a cheque in an alternative name into a personal bank account (Australia) | Unfortunately, Australian bureocrats made it impossible to register a small business without making the person's home address, full name, date of birth and other personal information available to the whole world. They tell us the same old story about preventing crime, money laundering and terrorism, but in fact it is just suffocating small business in favour of capitalistic behemoths. With so many weirdos and identity thieves out there, many people running a small business from home feel unsafe publishing all their personal details. I use a short form of my first name and real surname for my business, and reguraly have problems cashing in cheques written to this variation of my name. Even though I've had my account with this bank for decades and the name is obviously mine, just a pet or diminitive form of my first name (e.g. Becky instead of Rebecca). This creates a lot of inconvenience to ask every customer to write the cheque to my full name, or make the cheque "bearer" (or not to cross "or bearer" if it is printed on the cheque already). It is very sad that there is protection for individual privacy in Australia, unless you can afford to have a business address. But even in this case, your name, date of birth and other personal information will be pusblished in the business register and the access to this information will be sold to all sorts of dubious enterprises like credit report companies, debt collectors, market researchers, etc. It seems like Australian system is not interested in people being independent, safe, self-sufficient and working for themselves. Everyone has to be under constant surveliance. |
Losing Money with Norbert's Gambit | Can someone please clarify if Norbert's gambit is the optimal procedure to exchange CAD to USD? I'm not sure I'd call an arbitrage trade the "optimal procedure," because as you point out you're introducing yet another point of risk in to the transaction. I think buying the foreign currency for an agreed upon price is the "optimal procedure." If you must use this arbitrage trade, try with a government bond fund; they're typically very stable. |
Student loan payments and opportunity costs | Staying with your numbers - a 7% long term return will have a tax of 15% (today's long term cap gain tax) resulting in a post tax of 5.95%. On the other hand, even if the student loan interest remains deductible, it's subject to phaseout and a really successful grad will quickly lose the deduction. There's a similar debate regarding mortgage debt. When I've commented on my 3.5% mortgage costing 2.5% post tax, there's no consensus agreeing that this loan should remain as long as possible in favor of investing in the market for its long term growth. And in this case the advantage is a full 3.45%/yr. While I've made my decision, Ben's points remain, the market return isn't guaranteed, while that monthly loan payment is fixed and due each month. In the big picture, I'd prioritize to make deposits to the 401(k) up to the match, if offered, pay down any higher interest debt such as credit cards, build an emergency account, and then make extra payments to the student loan. Keep in mind, also - if buying a house is an important goal, the savings toward the downpayment might take priority. Student Loans and Your First Mortgage is an article I wrote which describes the interaction between that loan debt and your mortgage borrowing ability. It's worth understanding the process as paying off the S/L too soon can impact that home purchase. |
How frequently should I request additional credit? | I don't know of a guideline to how often you can ask for an increase. You can ask as often as you like. As for consequences, refer to Is there a downside to asking for a credit increase?, where the consensus is that, aside from a possible (temporary) hard pull on your credit report, there's probably no risk to asking. Depending on your credit score/history, and especially in the current economy, you may get "no" as an answer most often. You can try talking to your card's Credit Department or even Customer Retention Department as they may have more leverage. They may say yes or no or that they need to review your account. When you do ask for an increase, I would make sure to ask if there will be a hard pull on your report, if there is any cost or downside to applying, and to make sure that this would be an increase to your current credit line, not a new account. |
How do I find out the Earnings Per Share of a Coca Cola Co Share? | Market cap should be share price times number of shares, right? That's several orders of magnitude right there... |
Should you always max out contributions to your 401k? | As long as you're in a lower tax bracket - you would probably be better off paying the taxes now, and investing into the Roth IRA/401K. However, you should be investing for your retirement now, and not later, because of the compounding effect, and also you'll gain the employer matching (if available). |
Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT | I'd consider this offer. Keep in mind, any time you write a check, there's the information he's asking for. If it makes you feel comfortable, use the small balance account, or set up a 4th one you'll use for these incoming deposits only. |
Abundance of Cash - What should I do? | There's a few different types of investments you could do. As poolie mentioned, you could split your money between the Vanguard All World ex-US and Vanguard Total Stock Market index. A similar approach would be to invest in the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF. You wouldn't have to track separate fund performances, at the downside of not being able to allocate differential amounts to the US and non-US markets (Vanguard will allocate them by market cap). You could consider investing in country-specific broad market indices like the S&P 500 and FTSE 100. While not as diversified as the world indices, they are more correlated with the country's economic outlook. Other common investing paradigms are investing in companies which have historically paid out high dividends and companies that are under-valued by the market but have good prospects for future growth. This gets in the domain of value investing, which an entire field by itself. Like Andrew mentioned, investing in a mutual fund is hassle-free. However, mutual fees/commissions and taxes can be higher (somewhere in the range 1%-5%) than index funds/ETF expense ratios (typically <0.50%), so they would have to outperform the market by a bit to break-even. There are quite a few good books out there to read up about investing. I'd recommend The Intelligent Investor and Millionaire Teacher to understand the basics of long-term investing, but of course, there are many other equally good books too. |
How can I trade in U.S stock exchange living in India by choosing the broker in U.S? | OptionsXpress includes India in the list of countries where is possible to open an international account to invest in the US Stock Market. They just merged with Charles Schwab and they have a nice online trading platform. Stocks and ETFs are little bit pricey.. Get in touch with them to get more information. |
Pension or Property: Should I invest in more properties, or in a pension? | I think the real answer to your question here is diversification. You have some fear of having your money in the market, and rightfully so, having all your money in one stock, or even one type of mutual fund is risky as all get out, and you could lose a lot of your money in such a stock-market based undiversified investment. However, the same logic works in your rental property. If you lose your tennant, and are unable to find a new one right away, or if you have some very rare problem that insurance doesn't cover, your property could become very much not a "break even" investment very quickly. In reality, there isn't any single investment you can make that has no risk. Your assets need to be balanced between many different market-investments, that includes bonds, US stocks, European stocks, cash, etc. Also investing in mutual funds instead of individual stocks greatly reduces your risk. Another thing to consider is the benefits of paying down debt. While investments have a risk of not performing, if you pay off a loan with interest payments, you definitely will save the money you would have paid in interest. To be specific, I'd recommend the following plan - |
Company asking for card details to refund over email | Personally, I would just dispute this one with your CC. I had a situation where a subscription I had cancelled the prior year was billed to me. I called up to have a refund issued, they couldn't find me in their system under three phone numbers and two addresses. The solution they proposed was "send us your credit card statement with the charge circled," to which I responded "there's no way in hell I'm sending you my CC statement." Then I disputed the charge with the CC bank and it was gone about two days later. I partially expect to have the same charge appear next year when they try to renew my non-existent subscription again. Now, whether or not this is a normal practice for the company, or just a call center person making a good-faith but insecure attempt to solve your problem is irrelevant. Fact of the matter is, you tried to resolve this with the merchant and the merchant asked for something that's likely outside the bounds of your CC Terms and Conditions; sending your entire number via email. Dispute it and move on. The dispute process exists for a reason. |
Who buys variable annuities? | I wrote a detailed answer about variable annuities on another question, but I want to include one specific situation where a variable annuity may be the right course of action. (For the sake of simplicity, I'm quoting directly from that answer): Three-quarters of US states protect variable annuity assets from creditors. Regular IRA's don't benefit from protection under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and may therefore be more vulnerable to creditors. If you're a potential target for lawsuits, e.g. a doctor worried about medical malpractice suits, variable annuities may be an option for you. As always, you should consult a legal/tax professional to see if this might be a good option for you to consider. The SEC also has a fantastic publication on variable annuities that provides a great deal of information. It's not directly related to this question because it doesn't necessarily focus on the circumstances in which they might be a good fit for you, but it's educational nevertheless and should give you more than enough information to properly evaluate any policy you're looking to buy. |
Free Historical Commodity Prices in txt? | Goldprice.org has different currencies and historical data. I think silverprice.org also has historical data. |
Are precious metals/collectibles a viable emergency fund? | If it were me, I would convert it to cash and keep it in a liquid account. The assumption that silver will increase in value is misguided. From 1985 to 2002, it was flat. It's gone up and been far more volatile since then, and there has been significant declines which could eat at the stability of an emergency fund. Precious metals are speculation, not investing. They do not create wealth. Investing is typically considered too volatile for an emergency fund, more so keeping the money in metals. Making it more difficult to get to, like keeping it in a separate account might also fight against frivolous or accidental spending. Also there tends to be high transaction costs when liquidating metals. I found the best way is to use eBay. After some further comments and clarification here I suspect you are dealing with something else. Namely, the "white picket fence". Again, this is supposition, but perhaps she envisions the two of you married and hosting a dinner party using the passed down silver. This could be a strong emotional bond, and as such it could trump the logical arguments. Keeping it as an emergency fund: foolish. You helping her keep it because you are planning a life together: smart. |
If our economy crashes, and cash is worthless, should i buy gold or silver | Neither. Food, fuel, and tools. Books on how to make and use basic tools -- the books published for farmers who want to kluge their own solutions might be helpful. Heck, help defend a library; it will be beyond price as soon as things settle out a bit. Having skills like blacksmithing and knowing how to teach could go a long way. SF really has explored this in better detail than we could possibly cover here. |
What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0? | What is the probability of a real occasion (meaning not just an example) being exactly zero? Even if you have 0.1 you can still do the math. Also, it is kind of depending on the occasion. For example, you want to calculate the ROI of an investment for which you had zero capital and you made that investment with leverage, meaning you got a loan. In order to get that loan you should have provided a collateral, so in this case as a starting sum you use the collateral. In another example, say EAT it's difficult to have exactly zero. So, in most cases you won't have to deal with zero values, only positives and negatives. |
Choosing the limit when making a limit order? | Never. Isn't that the whole idea of the limit order. You want a bargain, not the price the seller wants. And when the market opens it is volatile at the most, just an observation mayn't be correct. Let it stabilize a bit. The other thing is you might miss the opportunity. But as an investor you should stick to your guns and say I wouldn't buy any higher than this or sell any lower than this. As you are going long, buying at the right price is essential. You aren't going to run away tomorrow, so be smart. Probably this is what Warren Buffet said, it is important to buy a good stock at the right price rather than buying a good stock at the wrong price. There is no fixed answer to your question. It can be anything. You can check what analysts, someone with reputation of predicting correctly(not always), say would be the increase/decrease in the price of a stock in the projected future. They do quite a lot of data crunching to reach a price. Don't take their values as sacrosanct but collate from a number of sources and take an average or some sorts of it. You can then take an educated guess of how much you would be willing to pay depending the gain or loss predicted. Else if you don't believe the analysts(almost all don't have a stellar reputation) you can do all the data crunching yourself if you have the time and right tools. |
Good book-keeping software? | Xero and WaveAccounting can make things easy, but they also have their limitations. I've used both for short periods of time but found both of them to be lacking. While the "ease" is appealing, the ability to drill into the details and get good reports is the downfall of both of these accounting systems. QuickBooks may seem like the easy answer here, but it really is the best for getting the power you want without getting too complicated. |
What to sell when your financial needs change, stocks or bonds? | You have to understand what risk is and how much risk you want to take on, and weight your portfolio accordingly. I think your 80/20 split based on wrong assumptions is the wrong way to look at it. It sounds like your risk appetite has changed. Risk is deviation from expected, so risk is not bad, and you can have cases where everyone would prefer the riskier asset. If you think the roulette table is too risky, instead of betting $1, stick 50c in your pocket and you changed the payoffs from $2 or 0 to 50c or $1.50 If your risk appetite has changed - change your risk exposure. If not, then all you are saying is I bought the wrong stuff earlier, now I should get out. |
Obtaining Private Prospectuses | How can I get quarterly information about private companies? Ask the owner(s). Unelss you have a relationship and they're interested in helping you, they will likely tell you no as there's no compelling reason for them to do so. It's a huge benefit of not taking a company public. |
I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget? | It's simple, really: Practice. Fiscal responsibility is not a trick you can learn look up on Google, or a service you can buy from your accountant. Being responsible with your money is a skill that is learned over a lifetime. The only way to get better at it is to practice, and not get discouraged when you make mistakes. |
When to start investing in an index fund? Wait for a bear market, use dollar cost-averaging, or another approach? | The fact that you are choosing index fund means you are surely not one of those investors who can correctly judge dips. But buying on dips is still important. You can use a method called Dollar Value Averaging. It is better than Dollar Cost Averaging. Just make sure you apply a lower limit and an upper limit to be more predictable. Suppose you have 10000 to invest. Use limits like minimum 200 investment when index is high, maximum 600 investment when index is down and when index gives normal returns, invest 400. Do this for about 2 years. More than 2 years is not recommended. I myself use this method and benefit a lot. |
How to double-entry bookkeep money incoming from sold items | If you were a business, all your assets would have a dollar value, so when you sold them you'd decrease the amount of assets by that amount and increase in cash, and if there was a profit on the sale it would go in as income, if there was loss it would count as a cost (or a loss)... so if there was a profit it would increase Equity, a loss then it would decrease Equity. Since it's not really worthwhile doing a estimated cost for everything that you have, I'd just report it as income like you are doing and let the amount of equity increase proportionately. So, implicitly you always had roughly that amount of equity, but some of it was in the form of assets, and now you're liquidating those assets so the amount shows up in GnuCash. When you buy new things you might sell later, you could consider adding them as assets to keep track of this explicitly (but even then you have problems-- the price of things changes with time and you might not want to keep up with those price changes, it's a lot of extra work for a family budget) -- for stuff you already have it's better to treat things as you are doing and just treat the money as income-- it's easier and doesn't really change anything-- you always had that in equity, some of it was just off the books and now you are bringing it into the books. |
Google Finance gain value incorrect because of currency fluctuation | You can easily build a Google Sheet spreadsheet to track what you want as Sheet has a 'googlefinance()' function to look-up the same prices and data you can enter and track in a Google Finance portfolio, except you can use it in ways you want. For example, you can track your purchase price at a fixed exchange rate, track the current market value as the product of the stock's price times the floating exchange rate, and then record your realized profit and loss using another fixed exchange rate. You don't have to record the rates either, as googlefinance() func is able to lookup prices as of a particular date. You can access Google Sheet through a web browser or Android app. |
Mortgage sold to yet another servicer. What are my options? | Your mortgage terms are locked in; the servicer/new owner cannot change the terms without your consent, but the servicer can be more aggressive in taking action (as specified in your mortgage contract) against you. For example, if the mortgage agreement calls for penalties for missing a payment or making it late, your friendly neighborhood banker might waive the penalty if the payment is received a day late once (but perhaps not the second or the third time), but the servicer doesn't know you personally and does not care; you are hit with the penalty right away. If the payment was received a day late because of delays in the post office, too bad. If you used a bank bill payment service that "guarantees" on-time arrival, talk to the bank. All perfectly legal, and what you agreed to when you signed the contract. If you can set up electronic payments of your mortgage payments, you can avoid many of these hassles. If you are sending in more money than what is due each month, you should make sure that the extra money reduces the principal amount owed; easy enough if you are sending a physical check with a coupon that has an entry line for "Extra payment applied to principal" on it. But, the best mortgage contracts (from the bank's point of view) are those that say that extra money sent in applies to future monthly installments. That is, if you send in more than the monthly payment one month, you can send in a reduced payment next month; the bank will gladly hold the extra amount sent in this month and apply it towards next month's payment. So, read your mortgage document (I know, I know, the fine print is incomprehensible) to see how extra money is applied. Finally, re-financing your mortgage because you don't like the servicer is a losing proposition unless you can, somehow, ensure that your new bank will not sell your new mortgage to the same servicer or someone even worse. |
How to Explain “efficient frontier” to child? | I would let them get their hands dirty, learn by practicing. Below you can find a simple program to generate your own efficient frontier, just 29 lines' python. Depending on the age, adult could help in the activity but I would not make it too lecturing. With child-parent relationship, I would make it a challenge, no easy money anymore -- let-your-money work-for-you -attitude, create the efficient portfolio! If there are many children, I would do a competition over years' time-span or make many small competitions. Winner is the one whose portfolio is closest to some efficient portfolio such as lowest-variance-portfolio, I have the code to calculate things like that but it is trivial so build on the code below. Because the efficient frontier is a good way to let participants to investigate different returns and risk between assets classes like stocks, bonds and money, I would make the thing more serious. The winner could get his/her designed portfolio (to keep it fair in your budget, you could limit choices to index funds starting with 1EUR investment or to ask bottle-price-participation-fee, bring me a bottle and you are in. No money issue.). Since they probably don't have much money, I would choose free software. Have fun! Step-by-step instructions for your own Efficient Frontier Copy and run the Python script with $ python simple.py > .datSimple Plot the data with $ gnuplot -e "set ylabel 'Return'; set xlabel 'Risk'; set terminal png; set output 'yourEffFrontier.png'; plot '.datSimple'" or any spreadsheet program. Your first "assets" could well be low-risk candies and some easy-to-stale products like bananas -- but beware, notice the PS. Simple Efficient-frontier generator P.s. do not stagnate with collectibles, such as candies and toys, and retailer products, such as mangos, because they are not really good "investments" per se, a bit more like speculation. The retailer gets a huge percentage, for further information consult Bogleheads.org like here about collectible items. |
If a company has already IPO'ed and sold its shares, what is the incentive to keep making money? | A company doesn't offer up 100% of its shares to the market. There's a float amount of varying significance, maybe 30% of the shares are put up for public offer. Generally some amount of current shareholders will pledge some or all of their shares for offer to the public. This may be how the venture capital, private equity or other current investors cash out their initial investment. The company may issue new shares in order to raise money for some initiative. It may be a combination of existing shares and new. Additionally, a company may hold some "treasury shares" on its balance sheet. In this instance fluctuations in the share price directly affect the health of the balance sheet. As far as incentive goes, stock options to management and C-Suite employees keep everyone interested in an increasing stock price. |
Why is it good to borrow money to buy a house? | First, as others have commented, the idea that getting a mortgage to buy a house is always a good idea is false. It depends on a number of factors including the current interest rate, what you think the future interest rate will do over the life of your mortgage, the relative cost of renting vs. buying, and how long you would stay in the house that you bought. To the extent that a mortgage for a house is more often recommended than buying other goods on credit, it is for these reasons: Except for #1 above, you could and can find other situations where taking a loan makes more sense than buying in cash. This more true if you have the resources and the skill to invest money at a rate that beats the interest rate you pay to the creditor. The general advice not to try this rests in the fact that most people don't have the resources or the skill to actually make this pay off, especially on high-interest rate loans or over short time periods. |
Dalbar: How can the average investor lose money? | I think you are mixing two different concepts here. The average investor, in the quoted reference, means an average single investor like you or like me. the average investor consistently under-performs the market. However, you then ask the question and you seem to refer to all investors as a group; individuals, institutions, investment banks, et al. since together, investors own 100% of the stock in every company? Every investor could match the performance of the market easily and at low fees by simply buying an S&P index fund and holding it. In fact, some investors can even beat the market with the addition of some stocks. Here is the ten-year chart of Berkshire-Hathaway B compared to the S&P 500. There are other examples. However, few of us have the discipline to do so. We read questions here every week about the coming turbulence in the market, about the next big trend, about the next bubble, etc. The average investor thinks he is smarter than the market and buys on a whim or sells likewise and misses out on the long, slow overall growth in the markets. Finally, the title of your question is “Dalbar: How can the average investor lose money?” I doubt that the average investor loses money in the past several years. Not making as much money as is easily possible is not at all the same as losing money. |
What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent? | There are several things that are missing from your estimate: The terms for the mortgage for a rental property will be different. You may be required to have a larger down payment. When approving you for the mortgage they will not count all the rental income as income, they will assume periodic vacancies. This difference may impact other credit you will be getting in the near future. |
Smart to buy a house in college? | NORMALLY, you don't want to buy in a bad neighborhood. The one exception is "gentrification," that is middle class people are moving in because of a good location (which you seem to have). The other important thing to do is to cover your mortgage. Four "guys" at $500 a month will do for an $1800 mortgage. The nice thing is that you are your own tenant for two years and can watch the place. The downside of the neighborhood may be that you can't rent the place to four "girls" or two girls and two guys even after you leave; it will always have to be "guys." I'd advise most people to pass. With your financial standing and entrepreneurial background, you might just be able to take this risk, and learn from it for your future dealings if it doesn't pan out. (Donald Trump "cut his teeth" on a slum complex in Cincinnati.) Hear what I (and others) have to say, then do what "feels right," based on your best judgment, of which you probably have plenty. |
Is it better to miss the dividend and buy the undervalued stock? | The stock tends to drop by the amount of the dividend -- or if you prefer to think of it this way, the stock price has been pushed up by the amount of the dividend before it was paid out. Really, all this shift does is factor out the impending dividend's effect on the real purchase cost of the stock. As such it's pretty much irrelevant except that, of course, the dividend is short-term gain that you have to pay taxes on almost immediately. Which also tends to get figured into the price folks are willing to pay for the stock. Conclusion: no, there's no real opportunity here. There's a slight tax reason to avoid buying right before dividends are paid, but that's about it. Basic principle: If it's simple and obvious,the market has already accounted for it. |
Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks? | One thing no one else has touched on is the issue of time frame. If I'm looking to hold my shares over the next few years, I don't mind riding out a few short-term bumps, while the short-seller is looking to make a quick profit on some bad news. Sure, I could sell and rebuy, but that's a lot of hassle, not to mention commissions and tax issues. |
Please explain: What exactly is a CDS or “Credit Default Swap”? | A Credit Default Swap is a derivative, a financial contract with a value dependent upon another asset. A CDS, in essence, is exactly what it sounds like a swap upon default. The typical arrangement is that a holder of non-risk free credit enters into an arrangement with a counterparty to pay the counterparty a portion of the income received from the non-risk free credit in exchange for being able to force the counterparty to deliver risk free credit if the non-risk free credit defaults. Banks use this mechanism to reduce the risk of the loans they produce while packaging them to be resold to investors. Banks will typically buy CDSes on mortgages and corporate bonds, paying part of the income from interest payments received, to have the right to force counterparties, typically hedge funds and insurance companies, to swap national Treasuries upon the event that the mortgages or corporates default. The banks receive less income yet are able to take on more inventory to sell to investors so that more loans can be made to borrowers, households and corporations. Hedge funds typically take on more complex arrangements while insurance companies sell CDSes because they are usually overflowing with risk-free assets yet are starved for income. |
Average Price of a Stock | I would have to disagree with the other responders. In technical analysis of stock charts, various short and long term moving averages are used to give an indication of the trend of the stock in the short and long term, as compared to the current price. I would prefer to use the term moving average (MA) rather than average as the MA is recalculated every day (or at appropriate frequencies for your data) on the period you are using. I would also expand on the term "moving average". There are two that are commonly used Going back to the question, of the value of this number, For example if the current price is above the 200 day EWMA and also above the 30 day EWMA, then the stock is broadly trending upwards. Conversely if current price is below the 200 day EWMA and also below the 30 day EWMA, then the stock is broadly trending downwards. These numbers are chosen on the basis of the market you are trading in, the volatility and other factors. For another example of how a number of moving averages are used together, please have a read of Daryl Guppy's Multiple Moving Average, though this does not use moving averages as large as 200 days. |
Advantages of paying more of your mortgage while you know you won't continue to live there your whole life | Another factor: When you sell this house and buy the next one, the more equity you have the easier the loan process tends to be. We rolled prior equity into this house and had a downpayment over 50%--and the lender actually apologized for a technicality I had to deal with--they perfectly well knew it was a basically zero-risk loan. |
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