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Is is possible to take a mortgage using Bitcoin as collateral? | This doesn't make any sense. For the people who ask you this, suggest that they borrow the money to invest with you. They can use their bitcoins as collateral for the loan. That way, they get the same benefit and your company doesn't go out of business if the price of bitcoin drops, even temporarily, because the loan becomes unsecured. If they want to try to use a volatile asset as collateral and have to figure out how to cover when the price drops temporarily, great. But why should they put that risk on your other investors who may not be so crazy? Also, this obviously won't meet the investor's concerns anyway. Say the price of bitcoin goes up but you lose 10% of the money you borrowed. Clearly, your investors can't have an interest that worth as much as they would have if they held bitcoin since you lost 10%. |
Consolidate my debt? Higher APR, but what does that actually mean? | There's a cliche, "out of the frying pan and into the fire". I've never had the occasion to use it till now. I understand some people find they have a dozen cards and struggle to keep organized. An extra percent or two seems worth the feeling of just one payment to make. In your case, 3 checks (or online payments) per month shouldn't push you to a bad decision. Twice the interest? No thanks. Just make the minimum payments on the two lower rate cards, and pay all you can to the highest rate. Do all you can to cut expenses. The only way out of this is to change your habits avoiding what got you here in the first place. |
5/1 ARM: Lifetime cap, First Adjustment Cap, Margin, and Annual Cap? | If the base rate is USD LIBOR, you can compute this data directly on my website, which uses futures contracts and historical data to create interest rates scenarios for the calculations: http://www.mortgagecalculator3.com/ If your rate index is different, you can still create your own scenarios and check what would happen to your payments. |
How often does a stock price change and where is this defined? | Stocks prices are determined whenever a buyer and seller agree to trade at a given price. The company (you use AAPL as an example) doesn't set its own stock price. Rather, the investors set the price every time it trades. There's no "official" price -- just the last trade. Likewise, you can offer to trade a stock at whatever price you want: that's the definition of a limit order. You might not find a willing buyer or seller at that price, but you can certainly open an order. Stock quotes that you get from your broker or a finance web site reflect the price as last traded. These quotes are updated throughout the trading day and the frequency and delay varies amongst quote providers. Like Knuckle-Dragger suggests in the comments, there are ways to get real-time quotes. It's often more helpful to think in terms of bid/ask instead of "official price". See this question for details. |
Why is the stock market price for a share always higher than the earnings per share? | Earnings per share are not directly correlated to share price. NV Energy, the company you cited as an example, is an electric utility. The growth patterns and characteristics of utilities are well-defined, so generally speaking the value of the stock is driven by the quality of the company's cash flow. A utility with a good history of dividend increases, a dividend that is appropriate given the company's fiscal condition, (ie. A dividend that is not more than 80% of earnings) and a good outlook will be priced competitively. For other types of companies cash flow or even profits do not matter -- the prospects of future earnings matter. If a growth stock (say Netflix as an example) misses its growth projections for a quarter, the stock value will be punished. |
Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses? | I would suggest that you use Emergency Funds for things that have a Low likelihood of happening but if they do happen can be devastating. I used to work as a financial advisor and the sugfestion we gave people is to have about 3 months worth of expenses in cash. This was primarily to cover things luke loss of work or some unforseen even that would prevent you from missing work for an extended period of time. Once you have your emergency fund saved do not touch it! Leave it where it is. Then tou can start working on a savings account for those items that are more likely to happen but dont have as much of a negative impact. |
How to choose a good 401(k) investment option? | There are a lot of funds that exist only to feed people's belief that existing funds are not diversified or specialized enough. That's why you have so many options. Just choose the ones with the lowest fees. I'd suggest the following: I wouldn't mess around with funds that try and specialize in "value" or those target date funds. If you really don't want to think and don't mind paying slightly higher fees, just pick the target date fund that corresponds to when you will retire and put all your money there. On the traditional/Roth question, if your tax bracket will be higher when you retire than it is now (unlikely), choose Roth. Otherwise choose traditional. |
How to acquire skills required for long-term investing? | The key to good investing is you need to understand what you are investing in. That is, if you are buying a company that makes product X, you need to understand that. It is a good idea to buy stock in good companies but that is not sufficient. You need to buy stock in good companies at good prices. That means you need to understand things like price to earnings, price to revenue and price to book. Bob |
GBP savings, what to do with them if leaving the U.K. in about 2 years time? | Key point here is to remember that GBP isnt falling a lot, it has fallen a lot already. If you havent liquidated your position in pounds by now at a higher rate I would personally not bother switching to another currency right now. The pound is near its 10 year low(nearing 2008 capital 'C' Crisis levels) and despite what fear mongers may short the market for, the sun will shine after Brexit as well. Britain has a solid economy and that hasnt fundamentally changed, so even if the pound hasnt seen the absolute periodic lowest point yet(which may still come as brexit talks become more prevalent/near their end), it will eventually pull back up. In essence, you have more to lose acting in panic now than waiting to exchange for a better than today's rate at some point until the eventual Brexit(probably in March 2019) or at any point afterwards(if you wont be needing those savings when you move). |
How much would it cost me to buy one gold futures contract on Comex? | When you buy a futures contract you are entering into an agreement to buy gold, in the future (usually a 3 month settlement date). this is not an OPTION, but a contract, so each party is taking risk, the seller that the price will rise, the buyer that the price will fall. Unlike an option which you can simply choose not to exercise if the price goes down, with futures you are obligated to follow through. (or sell the contract to someone else, or buy it back) The price you pay depends on the margin, which is related to how far away the settlement date is, but you can expect around 5% , so the minimum you could get into is 100 troy ounces, at todays price, times 5%. Since we're talking about 100 troy ounces, that means the margin required to buy the smallest sized future contract would be about the same as buying 5 ounces of gold. roughly $9K at current prices. If you are working through a broker they will generally require you to sell or buy back the contract before the settlement date as they don't want to deal with actually following through on the purchase and having to take delivery of the gold. How much do you make or lose? Lets deal with a smaller change in the price, to be a bit more realistic since we are talking typically about a settlement date that is 3 months out. And to make the math easy lets bump the price of gold to $2000/ounce. That means the price of a futures contract is going to be $10K Lets say the price goes up 10%, Well you have basically a 20:1 leverage since you only paid 5%, so you stand to gain $20,000. Sounds great right? WRONG.. because as good as the upside is, the downside is just as bad. If the price went down 10% you would be down $20000, which means you would not only have to cough up the 10K you committed but you would be expected to 'top up the margin' and throw in ANOTHER $10,000 as well. And if you can't pay that up your broker might close out your position for you. oh and if the price hasn't changed, you are mostly just out the fees and commissions you paid to buy and sell the contract. With futures contracts you can lose MORE than your original investment. NOT for the faint of heart or the casual investor. NOT for folks without large reserves who can afford to take big losses if things go against them. I'll close this answer with a quote from the site I'm linking below The large majority of people who trade futures lose their money. That's a fact. They lose even when they are right in the medium term, because futures are fatal to your wealth on an unpredicted and temporary price blip. Now consider that, especially the bit about 'price blip' and then look at the current volatility of most markets right now, and I think you can see how futures trading can be as they say 'Fatal to your Wealth' (man, I love that phrase, what a great way of putting it) This Site has a pretty decent primer on the whole thing. their view is perhaps a bit biased due to the nature of their business, but on the whole their description of how things work is pretty decent. Investopedia has a more detailed (and perhaps more objective) tutorial on the futures thing. Well worth your time if you think you want to do anything related to the futures market. |
UK: Personal finance book for a twenty-something | Consultant, I commend you for thinking about your financial future at such an early age. Warren Buffet, arguably the most successful investor ever lived, and the best known student of Ben Graham has a very simple advice for non-professional investors: "Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.)" This quote is from his 2013 letter to shareholders. Source: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2013ltr.pdf Buffet's annual letters to shareholders are the wealth of useful and practical wisdom for building one's financial future. The logic behind his advice is that most investors cannot consistently pick stock "winners", additionally, they are not able to predict timing of the market; hence, one has to simply stay in the market, and win over in the long run. |
When should I walk away from my mortgage? | This is a very personal situation of course, but if you can afford the repayments then I recommend keeping the house!. A house is a long term investment and one has to live somewhere. You probably didn't buy the house planning to sell it in 5 years so while in the short term you could suffer a loss on paper chances are things will pick up, they have to eventually. For each boom there is a bust, one for one. |
Can anyone else make an online payment for me? | Your relative in the US could buy a pre-paid Visa (aka Visa gift card) and give you the numbers on that to pay. They're available for purchase at many grocery/convenience stores. In most (all??) cases there'll be a fee of a several dollars charged in addition to the face value of the card. The biggest headache I can think of would be that pre-paid cards are generally only available in $25/50/100 increments; unless the current SAT price matches one of the standard increments they'll have to buy the next card size up and then get the remaining money off it in a separate transaction. A grocery store would be one of the easier places for your relative to do this because cashiers there are used to splitting transactions across multiple payment sources (something not true at most other types of business) due to regularly processing transactions partially paid for via welfare benefits. |
Why does Charles Schwab have a Mandatory Settlement Period after selling stocks? | That is the standard set by most securities exchanges: T+3 : trades complete three days after the bargain has been struck. |
How to account for Capital Gains (Losses) in double-entry accounting? | Capital is an Asset. Decreasing value of capital is the decreasing value of an asset. When you buy the forex asset * DR Forex Asset * CR Cash When you sell * DR Cash * CR Forex Asset The difference is now accounted for Here is how: Gains (and losses) are modifications to your financial position (Balance sheet). At the end of the period you take your financial performance (Profit and Loss) and put it into your balance sheet under equity. Meaning that afterwards your balance sheet is better or worse off (Because you made more money = more cash or lost it, whatever). You are wanting to make an income account to reflect the forex revaluation so at the end of the period it is reflected in profit then pushed into your balance sheet. Capital gains directly affect your balance sheet because they increase/decrease your cash and your asset in the journal entry itself (When you buy and sell it). If making money this way is actually how you make you make an income it is possible to make an account for it. If you do this you periodically revalue the asset and write off the changes to the revaluation account. You would do something like *DR Asset *CR Forex Revaluation account; depending on the method you take. Businesses mostly do this because if the capital gains are their line of business they will be taxed on it like it is income. For simplicity just account for it when you buy and sell the assets (Because you as an individual will only recognise a profit/loss when you enter and exit). Its easier to think about income and expenses are extensions of equity. Income increases your equity, expenses decrease it. This is how they relate to the accounting formula (Assets = Liabilities + Owners Equity) |
Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? | My wife and I do this. We have one account for income and one for expenditures (and around 7 others for dedicated savings.) Doing this we are forcing ourselves to keep track of all expenditures as we have to manually transfer funds from one to the other, we try to do this periodically (every Wednesday) and then keep the expenditures within what is actually on the account. It is a really good way to keep track of everything. Bear in mind that our bank provides a fast handy smartphone app where we both can check our account as well as transfer funds in less than 10 seconds. (Fingerprint authentication, instant funds transfer as well as zero fees for transfers.) Right now we have a credit card each attached to the expenditures account, but earlier we only had a debit card each and no credit cards. Meaning that when the weekly funds ran out we where simply not able to pay. We did this to mimic living only on cash and when the cash runs out you simply have to stop buying stuff. And at the same time we could accrue quite a bit of savings. I would definitely recommend this if you have problems with over expenditures. |
“Business day” and “due date” for bills | It's likely that your bill always shows the 24th as the due date. Their system is programmed to maintain that consistency regardless of the day of the week that falls on. When the 24th isn't a business day it is good to error on the side of caution and use the business day prior. It would have accepted using their system with a CC payment on the 24th because that goes through their automated system. I would hazard a guess that because your payment was submitted through your bank and arrived on the 23rd it wasn't credited because a live person would have needed to be there to do it and their live people probably don't work weekends. I do much of my bill paying online and have found it easiest to just build a couple days of fluff into the schedule to avoid problems like this. That said, if you call them and explain the situation it is likely that they will credit the late charge back to you. |
How do you invest in real estate without using money? | This is one way in which the scheme could work: You put your own property (home, car, piece of land) as a collateral and get a loan from a bank. You can also try to use the purchased property as security, but it may be difficult to get 100% loan-to-value. You use the money to buy a property that you expect will rise in value and/or provide rent income that is larger than the mortgage payment. Doing some renovations can help the value rise. You sell the property, pay back the loan and get the profits. If you are fast, you might be able to do this even before the first mortgage payment is due. So yeah, $0 of your own cash invested. But if the property doesn't rise in value, you may end up losing the collateral. |
Why do people take out life insurance on their children? Should I take out a policy on my child? | Sales tactics for permanent insurance policies can get pretty sleazy. Sending home a flier from school is a way for an insurance salesperson to get his/her message out to 800 families without any effort at all, and very little advertising cost (just a ream of paper and some toner). The biggest catchphrases used are the "just pennies per day" and "in case they get (some devastating medical condition) and become uninsurable." Sure, both are technically true, but are definitely used to trigger the grown ups' insecurities. Having said that (and having been in the financial business for a time, which included selling insurance policies), there is a place for insurance of children. A small amount can be used to offset the loss of income for the parents who may have to take extended time away from work to deal with the event of the loss of their child, and to deal with the costs of funeral and burial. Let's face it, the percentage of families who have a sufficiently large emergency fund is extremely small compared to the overall population. Personally, I have added a child rider to my own (term) insurance policies that covers any/all of my children. It does add some cost to my premiums, but it's a small cost on top of something that is already justifiably in place for myself. One other thing to be aware of: if you're in a group policy (any life insurance where you're automatically accepted without any underwriting process, like through a benefit at work, or some other club or association), the healthy members are subsidizing the unhealthy ones. If you're on the healthy side, you might consider foregoing that policy in favor of getting your own policy through an insurance company of your choice. If you're healthy, it will always be cheaper than the group coverage. |
Why buy bonds in a no-arbitrage market? | Bonds can increase in price, if the demand is high and offer solid yield if the demand is low. For instance, Russian bond prices a year ago contracted big in price (ie: fell), but were paying 18% and made a solid buy. Now that the demand has risen, the price is up with the yield for those early investors the same, though newer investors are receiving less yield (about 9ish percent) and paying higher prices. I've rarely seen banks pay more variable interest than short term treasuries and the same holds true for long term CDs and long term treasuries. This isn't to say it's impossible, just rare. Also variable is different than a set term; if you buy a 10 year treasury at 18%, that means you get 18% for 10 years, even if interest rates fall four years later. Think about the people buying 30 year US treasuries during 1980-1985. Yowza. So if you have a very large amount of money you will store it in bonds as its much less likely that the US treasury will go bankrupt than your bank. Less likely? I don't know about your bank, but my bank doesn't owe $19 trillion. |
When a stock price goes down, does the money just disappears into thin air? | At any given time there are buy orders and there are sell orders. Typically there is a little bit of space between the lowest sell order and the highest buy order, this is known as the bid/ask spread. As an example say person A will sell for $10.10 but person B will only buy at $10.00. If you have a billion shares outstanding just the space between the bid and ask prices represents $100,000,000 of market cap. Now imagine that the CEO is in the news related to some embezzlement investigation. A number of buyers cancel their orders. Now the highest buy order is $7. There isn't money involved, that's just the highest offer to buy at the time; but that's a drop from $10 to $7. That's a change in market cap of $3,000,000,000. Some seller thinks the stock will continue to fall, and some buyer thinks the stock has reached a fair enterprise value at $7 billion ($7 per share). Whether or not the seller lost money depends on where the seller bought the stock. Maybe they bought when it was an IPO for $1. Even at $7 they made $6 per share. Value is changing, not money. Though it would be fun, there's no money bonfire at the NYSE. |
If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything? | It's important to remember what a share is. It's a tiny portion of ownership of a company. Let's pretend we're talking about shares in a manufacturing company. The company has one million shares on its register. You own one thousand of them. That means that you own 1/1000th of the company. These shares are valued by the market at $10 per share. The company has machinery and land worth $1M. That means that for every dollar of the company you own, 10c of that value is backed by the physical assets of the company. If the company closed shop tomorrow, you could, in theory at least, get $1 back per share. The other $9 of the share value is value based on speculation about the future and current ability of the company to grow and earn income. The company is using its $1M in assets and land to produce goods which cost the company $1M in ongoing costs (wages, marketing, raw cost of goods etc...) to produce and make $2M per year in sales. That means the company is making a profit of $1M per annum (let's assume for the sake of simplicity that this profit is after tax). Now what can the company do with its $1M profit? It can hand it out to the owners of the company (which means you would get a $1 dividend each year for each share that you own) or it can re-invest that money into additional equipment, product lines or something which will grow the business. The dividend would be nice, but if the owners bought $500k worth of new machinery and land and spent another $500k on ongoing costs and next year we would end up with a profit of $1.5M. So in ten years time, if the company paid out everything in dividends, you would have doubled your money, but they would have machines which are ten years older and would not have grown in value for that entire time. However, if they reinvested their profits, the compounding growth will have resulted in a company many times larger than it started. Eventually in practice there is a limit to the growth of most companies and it is at this limit where dividends should be being paid out. But in most cases you don't want a company to pay a dividend. Remember that dividends are taxed, meaning that the government eats into your profits today instead of in the distant future where your money will have grown much higher. Dividends are bad for long term growth, despite the rather nice feeling they give when they hit your bank account (this is a simplification but is generally true). TL;DR - A company that holds and reinvests its profits can become larger and grow faster making more profit in the future to eventually pay out. Do you want a $1 dividend every year for the next 10 years or do you want a $10 dividend in 5 years time instead? |
Can the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) itself go bankrupt? | Not sure if I follow your question completely. Re: What if some fraud takes place that's too big even for it to fund? SIPC does not fund anything. What it does is takes over the troubled brokerage firm, books / assets and returns the money faster. Refer to SIPC - What SIPC Covers... What it Does Not and more specifically SIPC - Why We Are Not the FDIC. SIPC is free for ordinary investors. To get the same from elsewhere one has to pay the premium. Edit: The event we are saying is a large brokrage firm, takes all of the Margin Money from Customer Accounts and loses it and also sell off all the stocks actually shown as being held in customer account ... that would be to big. While its not clear as to what exactly will happens, my guess is that the limits per customers will go down as initial payments. Subsequent payments will only be done after recover of funds from the bankrupt firm. What normally happens when a brokrage firm goes down is some of the money from customers account is diverted ... stocks are typically safe and not diverted. Hence the way SIPC works is that it will give the money back to customer faster to individuals. In absence of SIPC individual investors would have had to fight for themselves. |
Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer | You are talking to the wrong people. Debt collectors are not intimidated by anything you say. Call and tell them that, before you pay the debt, they need to get the paperwork from the company to verify that you actually owe them the money and the amount. You need copies of the original paperwork. This alone may resolve the issue. If not, then call the client company and explain that THEIR debt collection agency is talking to the wrong person. Explain why you are not that person. It may be necessary to tell them that your lawyer advised you that they will be personally held responsible for any damages that you may incur from this debt collector's actions. The client is the one who needs to be intimidated. |
Why Are Credit Card Rates Increasing / Credit Limits Falling? | Of course your situation is very hurtful at a personal level, and I sympathize. I just don't get your point about being driven further into debt? It would seem that with a lower credit score you are prevented from taking on more debt. That can absolutely be hurtful especially to someone who runs a business that relies on short term credit. As for why they do this, they do it to reduce their risk - they don't want to lend more money, they are afraid that you will lose your job and default. Of course it is not as personal as I am writing it, not for you (they don't target you personally - they target your credit profile) and not for them (it is a matter of how the market views the debt and how much they can trade on such debt, not what they want to do personally). As for the TARP bailouts not releasing enough credit - this is reality. Goverment always thinks it can influence the situation more than it actually can. In order to unfreeze credit there needs to be a growing economy that makes the risk look acceptable. No amount of Goverment nudging will really change that more than marginally. By the way, legislation like this (forcing credit card companies to not raise their rates) can lead to credit restrictions. By artifically forcing the rates down the risk has to be ballanced somewhere - so it will be ballanced by lowering credit lines or by other means. Like any price control, if you restrict the price, it causes shortages. Intrest rates are the price of credit. |
How to share income after marriage and kids? | Some basic thoughts, mostly on fairness. I guess the answer doesn't really fit this site, it's more about ethics, but this fits the question which isn't really just about money either. So when both work the same amount, it seems appropriate that both get the same mount of money, doesn't it? That is, the scheme of (as already contained in your question and in some other answers) is fair by this logic. Pay attention to hidden money: for example the one who works more for money might automatically get a pension funded this way. This is hidden money which already goes to only one partner, so when dividing equally, you'll need to take that into account (or just include "equal pensions for both" in the family's needs directly). |
What name is given to a value such as this? | This is called "change" or "movement" - the change (in points or percentage) from the last closing value. You can read more about the ticker tape on Investopedia, the format you're referring to comes from there. |
What are the common income tax deductions used by “rich” salaried households? | As was stated, households earning over $250k/yr don't all get their income one way. Below that threshold, even in the six figure range, most households are in one of two categories; salary/wage/commission workers, and those living off of nest eggs/entitlements (retired, disabled, welfare). Above $250k, though, are a lot of disparate types of incomes: Now, you specifically mentioned wage earners above $250k. Wage earners typically have the same "tax havens" that most of us do; the difference is usually that they are better able to make use of them: In other words, there are many ways for a high-end wage earner to live the good life and write a lot of it off. |
Should you diversify your bond investments across many foreign countries? | The Vanguard Emerging Market Bond Index has a SEC yield of 4.62%, an expense ratio of 0.34%, a purchase fee of 0.75%, and an average duration of 6.7 years. The Vanguard Emerging Market Bond Index only invests in US Dollar denominated securities, so it is not exposed to currency risk. The US Intermediate Term Bond Index Fund has a SEC yield of 2.59%, an expense ratio of 0.1% and an average duration of 6.5 years. So after expenses, the emerging market bond fund gives you 1.04% of extra yield (more in subsequent years as the purchase fee is only paid once). Here are the results of a study by Vanguard: Based on our findings, we believe that most investors should consider adding [currency risked] hedged foreign bonds to their existing diversified portfolios. I think a globally diversified bond portfolio results in a portfolio that's more diversified. |
In Canada, can a limited corporation be used as an income tax shelter? | Revenue Canada allows for some amount of tax deferral via several methods. The point is that none of them allow you to avoid tax, but by deferring from years when you have high income to years when you have lower income allows you to realize less total tax paid due to the marginal rate for personal income tax. The corporate dividend approach (as explained in another answer) is one way. TFSAs are another way, but as you point out, they have limits. Since you brought TFSAs into your question: About the best and easiest tax deferral option available in Canada is the RRSP. If you don't have a company pension, you can contribute something like 18% of your income. If you have a pension plan, you may still be able to contribute to an RRSP as well, but the maximum contribution amount will be lower. The contribution lowers your taxable income which can save you tax. Interest earned on the equity in your RRSP isn't taxed. Tax is only paid on money drawn from the plan because it is deemed income in that year. They are intended for retirement, but you're allowed to withdraw at any time, so if you have little or no income in a year, you can draw money from your RRSP. Tax is withheld, which you may or may not get back depending on your taxable income for that year. You can think of it as a way to level your income and lower your legitimate tax burden |
Does the IRS reprieve those who have to commute for work? | When I have a question about my income taxes, the first place I look is generally the Giant Book of Income Tax Information, Publication 17 (officially called "Your Federal Income Tax"). This looks to be covered in Chapter 26 on "Car Expenses and Other Employee Business Expenses". It's possible that there's something in there that applies to you if you need to temporarily commute to a place that isn't your normal workplace for a legitimate business reason or other business-related travel. But for your normal commute from your home to your normal workplace it has this to say: Commuting expenses. You cannot deduct the costs of taking a bus, trolley, subway, or taxi, or of driving a car between your home and your main or regular place of work. These costs are personal commuting expenses. You cannot deduct commuting expenses no matter how far your home is from your regular place of work. You cannot deduct commuting expenses even if you work during the commuting trip. |
Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it? | The government could actually do either one to expand the money supply as necessary to keep up with rising productivity / an increased labor supply. The question is merely political. In the case of the US, printing money involves convincing politicians to spend it. While we currently run a deficit, there is a large lobby within the US who are incredibly anti-deficit, and are fighting against this for no good reason. If the money supply were left in their hands, we would end up with a shrinking money supply and rapid deflation. On the other hand, the Fed can simply bypass the politicians, and control the money supply directly by issuing bonds. It's easier for them, they don't have to explain it to voters (only to economists), and it gives them more direct control without any messy political considerations like which programs to expand or cut. |
Website for managing personal cash inflow and outflow, applicable to India? | There are sites in India that offer this, http://www.intuit.in/ is one such site. Apart from this some banks like ICICI offer this to limited extent. |
Non Resident Alien(Working full time on F1-OPT) new car sales tax deduction | A non-resident alien is only allowed for deductions connected to producing a US-sourced income (See IRC Sec. 873). Thus you can only deduct things that qualify as business expenses, and State taxes on your wages. In addition you can deduct a bunch of stuff explicitly allowed (like tax preparation, charitable contributions, casualty losses, etc) but sales tax is not in that list. |
Why do credit cards have minimum limits? | I believe it's just to limit the less well-off from acquiring one. If your credit history and income do not support a $15,000 credit limit, then don't even think about applying for an Altitude Black card. If they do, then don't bother with a student card. It's primarily about market segmentation by wealth or income. |
Does it make sense to take out student loans to start an IRA? | I will split my answer in a few sections... Note: I will not address the legal aspect of the question. If you can or not use Federal money to invest. 1st - Investments with Student Loan 2nd - IRA as the Instrument I hope this helps! |
What happens to internal stock when a company goes public? | You'd likely be subject to a lock-up period before you could sell the shares along with possibly having other rules about how you could sell your shares as you'd likely be seen as an insider that may have information that gives you an unfair advantage for selling the stock possibly. Depending on how far in advance you hold the shares, you may or may not have adjustments in the valuation and number of shares as some companies may do a split or reverse split when preparing for an IPO. A company I worked for in the late 1990s had an IPO and my stock options had a revised strike price because of a reverse stock split that was done prior to the IPO. |
How can one get their FICO/credit scores for free? (really free) | Check with your bank. As of January, 2015, the following banks and credit unions are offering free credit-scores: Announced, in the pipeline: Source: Banks to offer FICO credit scores for free Personal Experience: I've been receiving free FICO score from my credit union for more than 6 months now. Advice: Most people have multiple bank/credit-union accounts. The FICO score will be the same whoever offers it. If none of your financial institutions offer you a free credit-score then you may opt for free services like creditkarma.com or other paid services. None of them are the widely used FICO scores, but they can be a good gauge of your credit standing. Please note that a credit-score is number summarizing your credit-report and should not be confused. In the news: |
How is my employer affected if I have expensive claims on my group health insurance? | Your employers insurance premiums will definitely go up if there are a lot of claims when it is time for them to renew their policy. It is also possible that if this happens the employer will pass along some of the additional cost to employees. The insurance company will not try to have you removed, it doesn't work that way with group policies. They just jack up the price as mentioned previously. If you take a new job your cancer will affect the future employer in the same way. As to whether you should keep it a secret, I don't think it is something you have to disclose unless it affects your ability to perform your job, even then it may be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is true that some employers could exhibit some bias because of this, especially a small company that is likely to have a small group that is more likely to see price hikes because of a single employee making expensive claims. Bottom line: I wouldn't lie about it to a future employer, but I wouldn't volunteer that information either unless it is material to your job performance. |
How to calculate years until financial independence? | The definition I use for financial independence is 99% confidence that, at a specific estimated spending rate per year (allowing for estimated inflation, and budgeting for likely medical emergencies, and taxes on taxable investments), the money will outlast me. This translates to needing an average annual return on investment which covers the average yearly spending. For my purposes, that works out to my relying on being able to draw only a 4% income from the money each year, which should give me good odds of the money not just being sufficient but being able to deliver that rate "forever". (Historically, average US stock market rate if return is around 8%.) That is overkill, if course, I could plan on the money just barely lasting past my 120th birthday or something of that sort, but the goal us to be pretty sure not only that I won't run out but that I will have some cash unexpected needs. Which in turn means that I estimate I need investments 1/.04 times the yearly spending estimate to declare the "forever" independence/retirement, or 25x the yearly. From that, I can calculate how much longer, at a given savings rate and rate of return, it'll take for me to reach that target. Obviously you need to adjust all these numbers to reflect your opinions/understanding if the market, your own needs, your priorities and expected maximum age, and the phase of Saturn's moons. But that's the basic rationale. Or you can pay a financial planner to give you this number, and a strategy for getting there, based on the numbers you give him or her plus some statistical analysis of the market's overall history. |
Should I set a stop loss for long term investments? | Stop loss orders are the exact opposite of what you should be doing if you are implementing a long term buy-and-hold strategy. The motivation of a buy-and-hold strategy is that in the long term, the market rises even despite the occasional crash or recession. Setting a stop loss simply increases the probability that you will sell for a low price in a temporary market downturn. Unless you are likely to need near-term liquidity (in which case you're not a long term investor), that makes no sense. |
How do I choose between buying a car or buying a plot of land in Pakistan? | “The plot of land definitely is going to give better results in long term.” Will it? Land is not guaranteed to go up in value. And a car can provide more employment opportunities for you. You need to look at your specific situation—with specific numbers—rather than using rules of thumb as hard guidelines. |
Am I exposed to currency risk when I invest in shares of a foreign company that are listed domestically? | Yes, you're still exposed to currency risk when you purchase the stock on company B's exchange. I'm assuming you're buying the shares on B's stock exchange through an ADR, GDR, or similar instrument. The risk occurs as a result of the process through which the ADR is created. In its simplest form, the process works like this: I'll illustrate this with an example. I've separated the conversion rate into the exchange rate and a generic "ADR conversion rate" which includes all other factors the bank takes into account when deciding how many ADR shares to sell. The fact that the units line up is a nice check to make sure the calculation is logically correct. My example starts with these assumptions: I made up the generic ADR conversion rate; it will remain constant throughout this example. This is the simplified version of the calculation of the ADR share price from the European share price: Let's assume that the euro appreciates against the US dollar, and is now worth 1.4 USD (this is a major appreciation, but it makes a good example): The currency appreciation alone raised the share price of the ADR, even though the price of the share on the European exchange was unchanged. Now let's look at what happens if the euro appreciates further to 1.5 USD/EUR, but the company's share price on the European exchange falls: Even though the euro appreciated, the decline in the share price on the European exchange offset the currency risk in this case, leaving the ADR's share price on the US exchange unchanged. Finally, what happens if the euro experiences a major depreciation and the company's share price decreases significantly in the European market? This is a realistic situation that has occurred several times during the European sovereign debt crisis. Assuming this occurred immediately after the first example, European shareholders in the company experienced a (43.50 - 50) / 50 = -13% return, but American holders of the ADR experienced a (15.95 - 21.5093) / 21.5093 = -25.9% return. The currency shock was the primary cause of this magnified loss. Another point to keep in mind is that the foreign company itself may be exposed to currency risk if it conducts a lot of business in market with different currencies. Ideally the company has hedged against this, but if you invest in a foreign company through an ADR (or a GDR or another similar instrument), you may take on whatever risk the company hasn't hedged in addition to the currency risk that's present in the ADR/GDR conversion process. Here are a few articles that discuss currency risk specifically in the context of ADR's: (1), (2). Nestle, a Swiss company that is traded on US exchanges through an ADR, even addresses this issue in their FAQ for investors. There are other risks associated with instruments like ADR's and cross-listed companies, but normally arbitrageurs will remove these discontinuities quickly. Especially for cross-listed companies, this should keep the prices of highly liquid securities relatively synchronized. |
Any good software for value investment? | I hope people don’t see this as being facetious but invest some time in learning to do that with Excel. Most financial information websites (Yahoo, MSN, etc.) will allow you to extract all the data you need into excel. This way you can learn to do analysis with something that isn’t a "black box" (as to mean you don’t know the exact equations behind the outputs) whereas with excel you can delve into and really understand the equations behind the numbers you are looking at. If you use Bloomberg it does all that for you but if you are just starting out you may not truly understand what it means and how everything is connected. If you create the same with excel you have no choice but to deeply understand because you built it from scratch! I'm certian there are plenty of tutorials to help you out there as every analyst who has worked in finance since the advent of excel has had to create these at one time or another. Good luck! |
How to rescue my money from negative interest? | I'd prefer having it (more or less) fluent at any time, if possible... And the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will do their darndest to make this a costly option. That's exactly the point of negative interest rates. They don't want to help you saving money. So you will have to choose what to give up: liquidity, or profitability. But for now, you still have alternatives. The way you described it one could think that all banks will soon start to charge all their clients. That's just a distortion of facts. If you are happy with a (close to) 0 income, you might consider opening multiple bank accounts. Many banks charge the negative interest only from certain thresholds (i.e. CHF 100k). Since you're clearly a Swiss resident, that's easy to do for you. If you don't want to give up making an income, then you have to sacrifice liquidity. There simply aren't any short term (less than 2-3 years) instruments in Swiss Franc that are both safe and yielding a positive income. Which means that you will have to take much more risk then you had with a savings account. Ask your advisor for an investment proposal, but also consider bank independent advisors. |
Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined? | does it mean uncontrolled severe deflation/inflation is more likely to occur compared to "normal" currencies such as USD, EUR etc? Look at the chart referenced in the link in your question. It took approximately 50 years for annual production of gold to double from 500 tons to 1000 tons. It took approximately 40 years for annual production to double from 1000 tons to 2000 tons. Compare that to the production of US dollars by the Federal Reserve (see chart below obtained from here). US dollar production doubled in DAYS. Which one do you think will lead to uncontrolled inflation/deflation? Update: Why did I include a chart of the FED's balance sheet? Because this is the way newly printed money is introduced - the FED will purchase something from banks (mortgage-backed securities, US treasuries, etc.) with newly printed money. The banks can then loan this money to people who then deposit the money into other banks who loan those deposits to other people and so on. This is how the fractional reserve process expands the money supply. This is why I did not include a chart of the money supply since that is counting the same money multiple times. If I deposited 100 newly minted coins into a bank and that bank proceeded to loan out 80 of my coins where 80 are deposited into another bank who then proceeds to loan out 60 of the coins, and so on....the production of coins only changed by the initial 100 that I minted - not by the fractional reserve multiple. There are historical examples of inflation with gold and silver as duff has pointed out. None of them come close in magnitude to the inflation experienced with government fiat money. |
Dividend yield for multiple years? | Dividend yield is a tough thing to track because it's a moving target. Dividends are paid periodically the yield is calculated based on the stock price when the dividend is declared (usually, though some services may update this more frequently). I like to calculate my own dividend by annualizing the dividend payment divided by my cost basis per share. As an example, say you have shares in X, Co. X issues a quarterly dividend of $1 per share and the share price is $100; coincidentally this is the price at which you purchased your shares. But a few years goes by and now X issues it's quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, and the share price is $160. However your shares only cost you $100. Your annual yield on X is 6%, not the published 3.75%. All of this is to say that looking back on dividend yields is somewhat similar to nailing jello to the wall. Do you look at actual dividends paid through the year divided by share price? Do you look at the annualized dividend at the time of issue then average those? The stock price will fluctuate, that will change the yield; depending on where you bought your stock, your actual yield will vary from the published amount as well. |
Asset management after leaving the USA | Yes to all three. However, |
Is dividend included in EPS | EPS is often earnings/diluted shares. That is counting shares as if all convertible securities (employee stock options for example) were converted. Looking at page 3 of Q4 2015 Reissued Earnings Press Release we find both basic ($1.13) and diluted EPS ($1.11). Dividends are not paid on diluted shares, but only actual shares. If we pull put this chart @ Yahoo finance, and hovering our mouse over the blue diamond with a "D", we find that Pfizer paid dividends of $0.28, $0.28, $0.28, $0.30 in 2015. Or $1.14 per share. Very close to the $1.13, non-diluted EPS. A wrinkle is that one can think of the dividend payment as being from last quarter, so the first one in 2015 is from 2014. Leaving us with $0.28, $0.28, $0.30, and unknown. Returning to page three of Q4 2015 Reissued Earnings Press Release, Pfizer last $0.03 per share. So they paid more in dividends that quarter than they made. And from the other view, the $0.30 cents they paid came from the prior quarter, then if they pay Q1 2016 from Q4 2015, then they are paying more in that view also. |
How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent? | I think you are trying to figure out what will be a break-even rental rate for you, so that then you can decide whether renting at current market rates is worth it for you. This is tricky to determine because future valuations are uncertain. You can make rough estimates though. The most uncertain component is likely to be capital appreciation or depreciation (increase or decrease in the value of your property). This is usually a relatively large number (significant to the calculation). The value is uncertain because it depends on predictions of the housing market. Future interest rates or economic conditions will likely play a major role in dictating the future value of your home. Obviously there are numerous other costs to consider such as maintenance, tax and insurance some of which may be via escrow and included in your mortgage payment. Largest uncertainty in terms of income are the level of rent and occupancy rate. The former is reasonably predictable, the latter less so. Would advise you make a spreadsheet and list them all out with margins of error to get some idea. The absolute amount you are paying on the mortgage is a red herring similar to when car dealers ask you what payment you can afford. That's not what's relevant. What's relevant is the Net Present Value of ALL the payments in relation to what you are getting in return. Note that one issue with assessing your cost of capital is, what's your opportunity cost. ie. if you didn't have the money tied up in real estate, what could you be earning with it elsewhere? This is not really part of the cost of capital, but it's something to consider. Also note that the total monthly payment for the mortgage is not useful to your calculations because a significant chunk of the payment will likely be to pay down principal and as such represents no real cost to you (its really just a transfer - reducing your bank balance but increasing your equity in the home). The interest portion is a real cost to you. |
How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car? | Regardless of your circumstances, the amount of money you should put into a car is about $6000-8000 or the amount of cash you actually have, whichever is less. You can get a very reliable gently-used car in that price range, and a car that's plenty good to drive for basically whatever your budget is, down to about $1500-2000 or so. Spending more is never a financially sound decision; it's purely a luxury expenditure. Buying a car with a loan is always a financially bad decision. |
When should I walk away from my mortgage? | Interestingly enough, "strategic default" seems to be more common than one might think in California and there is actually a lot of information available on it, to include a calculator that breaks down the numbers for you (although affiliated with a law office). Speaking from a purely financial standpoint, walking away only makes sense if it puts you in a better financial position than you were before while you had the mortgage. If you look at the downsides of walking away: The issues with the credit rating are will known but you need to take into account any open lines of credit you currently have as well as any need you might have to open a line of credit in the future. If you currently have credit cards, will the rates go up after the hit? On the housing side of things, you mortgage payment is currently a known quantity that will not change for the duration of the mortgage unless you do something to change it. However, it is fairly rare for rents to not change between years and if you want an apartment or house similar to what you currently have, you might find that the rent will fluctuate quite a bit between years and in the long run the rent might run higher than your current mortgage payment. Likewise, in the shorter term, if the landlord runs a credit check they might adjust what the rent is (or deny you the apartment) on the basis of the black mark on your history for reasons that other have mentioned. Another item to take into account is if you need to get a job in the future. Depending upon what you do for a living this might be a non-issue; however, if you are in a position of trust, walking away from a mortgage payment will reflect negatively upon your character unless you have a very good reason for it. This can lead to a loss of employment opportunities. Next, if you walk away from the mortgage you are walking away from the current value of the home and any future value that the home might have. If you like where you are living and aren't planning on moving to another part of the country, you are gambling that the market will not recover or that you would reach parity with what you owe by the time you need to sell the house. If you do plan on staying where you are and the house is in good repair, then in the long run you might be giving up quite a bit of money by walking away. These are a lot of factors to take into account though so its really hard to say one way or another if a strategic default is a good idea. In the long run you might come out ahead but knowing when that date is can be difficult to calculate. Likewise, in the long run it might adversely affect you and you might come to regret the decision. If the payments themselves are a bit too high, perhaps you can refinance or negotiate with the bank for a lower payment? If you get a better rate but keep your monthly payments the same then you might reach parity with the mortgage much faster which would also be to your advantage. |
What happens to unvested RSUs when a public company is bought out by private firm? | I would ask your HR or benefits department to be certain, but here's how I read that without any specific knowledge of the situation: What is right to receive the RSU consideration? Company A was bought by Company B. You had unvested Restricted Stock Units in A, which is now gone. B is saying that you now have the right to receive consideration equivalent to the value of those RSUs in A. Since B is private, there's no publicly traded stock, so it will likely be in cash, but read the rest of the paperwork or talk to HR to be certain. For example, if you had 100 RSUs vesting next year and the price of stock in A was $50 when the company was bought, those RSUs would be worth $5,000. B is give you the right to consideration for those RSUs, hopefully for somewhere around $5,000. That consideration is unvested, meaning you must stay employed until the vesting period in order to claim that right. If you are fired without cause (i.e. laid off), you will receive those unvested claims as compensation. I assume the same will be applicable if employee leaves the company Probably not. In any situation, if you voluntarily leave a company, any unvested stock, RSUs, options, etc. are forfeited. |
Is it possible to be subject to cash withdrawal even if you don't use ATM? | Probably not. I say probably because your credit card's terms of service may treat certain purchases (I'm thinking buying traveler's checks off-hand) as cash advances. See also this question. |
Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value? | They start at a higher price and repairs are more expensive than with a standard car. From my experience, many luxury cars get too expensive to keep after about 10 years due to increased maintenance costs. |
Transfer from credit to debit | I've called both BofA and Amex Customer Support, and they couldn't help. That's because you cannot. Debit card is tied to your checking account, so you can do a cash advance from your AMEX and deposit it to your BOA checking account. It will then be available to use with your debit card. |
How much money should I put on a house? | I Usually would not say this but if you can just put down 20% I would do that and get a 15 year mortgage. The rates are so low on 15 year mortgage that you should be able to make more than the 3% in the market per year and make some money. I wouldn't be surprised if for 1/2 of the term of your loan you will be able to make that just in interest. Basically I have done this for my house and my rental properties. So I have put my money where my mouth is on this. I have made over 9% each of the last three years which has made me $12,000 dollars above and beyond over what I would have paid in interest per year. So it a decision that net me $36,000 for doing nothing. Now the market is going to be down some of those years so lets see how it works out but I have history on my side. Its not about timing the market its about time in the market. And 15 years in the market is a pretty safe bet albeit not as safe as just dumping you money in the mortgage. |
If I have 10,000 stocks to sell with 23 B market cap | You will almost certainly be able to sell 10,000 shares at once. The question is a matter of price. If you sell "at market" then you may get a lower price for each "batch" of the stock sold (one person buys 50, another buys 200, another buys 1000 etc) at varying prices. Will you be able to execute a single order to sell them all at the same price at the same time? Nobody can say, and it's not really a function of the company size. The exchange has what's called "open interest" which roughly correlates to how many people have active orders in at a given price. This number is constantly changing alongside the bid and ask (particularly for active stocks). So let's say you have 10,000 shares and you want to sell them for $100 each. What you need is at least 10,000 in open interest at $100 bid to execute. By contrast let's say you issue a limit order at $100 for 10,000 shares. Your ask will stay outstanding at that price and you'll be filled at that price if there are enough buyers. I you have a limit sell order at $100 for 10,000 shares the strike price of the stock cannot go to $100.01 until all of your sell orders are filled. |
Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest? | While technically true, a card issuer can cancel your card for almost any reason they want, it's highly unlikely they'll cancel it because you pay your bills! There are many, many people out there that pay their bills in full every month without ever paying a cent in credit card interest. I wouldn't ever purposefully incur any interest on a credit card. Related anecdote: I used to have a credit card that I only used for gas purchases because they gave 5% off for fuel. The issuer eventually discontinued the program (I assume because people like me took advantage of it.) So while they didn't cancel my card, the bonus eventually went away. I miss that card. My conclusion: if you can take advantage of promotional rates, by all means, go for it. You don't owe them any favors. Enjoy it as long as it lasts. |
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? | Actually if you look at a loan for $115,000 over 30 years at current interest rates you would have a payment of about $500 a month. I would argue your $500 monthly payments are building equity the same way a loan repayment schedule would. Is your agreement in writing? If it is, there's nothing you can do unless they agree. If it's not then write up a contract for a $115k loan that you will pay back over 30 years at $500 a month with the amortization table. That will show how much equity you're building over time. (It's not much the first 10 years!) Note that some states require real estate contract to be in writing or else they are voidable by either party. Whatever you do, get something in writing or you'll probably either end up in court or feeling bitter for the next few decades. |
Why does it seem unnecessary to fully save for irregular periodic expenses? | If you just had one expense once a year of $1200, you would put in $100 a month. The average balance is going to be $600 in that case - the 0 and $1200 months average to $600, as do the $100 and $1100, the $200 and $1000, and so on. If you had one expense twice a year of $600 and put in $100 per month it will average to $300. You have a mix of 3/6/12 months - does 8 months seem reasonable as an "average" frequency? If so, there should be about a 4 month slush all the time. Now instead of one expense averaged over 12 months, imagine 12 accounts, each needing $100 a month. If you started at zero, you would put in $1200 the first month and immediately spend it. One account would go from +100 (its share of what you put in) to -1100 while the rest are all at +100. Overall your balance would be zero. Then the next month you would again deposit 1200 and spend 1200, bringing one account to -1000, one to -1100, and the rest to +200. You average to zero actually on deposit because some of the "accounts" have negative balances and some have positive. But aren't doing that. You "caught up" the months you were behind. So it would be like putting in $1200 for the first account, $1100 for the second, $1000 for the third and so on - a total of $7800. Then you take out $1200 and go down to 6600. The next month you put in $1200 and take out $1200 but you will always have that $6600 amount in there. All of the accounts will have positive balances - averaging $550 in this example. |
How does Google Finance calculate the Institution Owned metric for a stock | Institutional ownership has nearly lost all meaning. It used to mean mutual funds, investment banks, etc. Now, it means pension funds, who hold the rest of the equity assets directly, and insiders. Since the vast majority of investors in equity do not hold it directly, "institutions" are approaching 100% ownership on all major equities. Other sites still segment the data. |
Why do moving average acts as support and resistance? | It's not stopped. Crossing a moving average is considered a signal to buy or sell. Yahoo stock charts offer the ability to add moving averages to the charts, and you can observe all stocks cross the line regularly. As a contrast to Victor's charts, you can see that Apple, over the last two years, has traded above and below the 50 day MA. A believer in technical analysis using MA will observe a buy signal in Dec '11 just under $400, with a sell in mid-$500s in May. Moving averages are a form of following the trend, and work well when either trend is strong. It's when the stock is too close to the line that's it's tough to call whether it's time to be in or out. |
What US tax laws apply to a 13 year old game developer? | After doing a little research, I was actually surprised to find many internet resources on this topic (including sites from Intuit) gave entirely incorrect information. The information that follows is quoted directly from IRS Publication 929, rules for dependents First, I will assume that you are not living on your own, and are claimed as a "dependent" on someone else's tax return (such as a parent or guardian). If you were an "emancipated minor", that would be a completely different question and I will ignore this less-common case. So, how much money can you make, as a minor who is someone else's dependent? Well, the most commonly quoted number is $6,300 - but despite this numbers popularity, this is not true. This is how much you can earn in wages from regular employment without filing your own tax return, but this does not apply to your scenario. Selling your products online as an independent game developer would generally be considered self-employment income, and according to the IRS: A dependent must also file a tax return if he or she: Had wages of $108.28 or more from a church or qualified church-controlled organization that is exempt from employer social security and Medicare taxes, or Had net earnings from self-employment of at least $400. So, your first $400 in earnings triggers absolutely no requirement to file a tax return - blast away, and good luck! After that, you do not necessarily owe much in taxes, however you will need to file a tax return even if you owe $0, as this was self-employment income. If you had, for instance, a job at a grocery store, you could earn up to $6,300 without filing a return, because the store would be informing the IRS about your employment anyway - as well as deducting Medicare and Social Security payments, etc. How much tax will you pay as your income grows beyond $400? Based upon the IRS pages for Self-Employment Tax and Family Businesses, while you will not likely have to pay income tax until you make $6,300 in a year, you will still have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes after the first $400. Roughly this should be right about 16% of your income, so if you make $6000 you'll owe just under $1000 (and be keeping the other $5000). If your income grows even more, you may want to learn about business expense deductions. This would allow you to pay for things like advertisement, software, a new computer for development purposes, etc, and deduct the expenses out of your income so you pay less in taxes. But don't worry - having such things to wonder about would mean you were raking in thousands of dollars, and that's an awfully good problem to have as a young entrepreneur! So, should you keep your games free or try to make some money? Well, first of all realize that $400 can be a lot harder to make when you are first starting in business than it probably sounds. Second, don't be afraid of making too much money! Tax filing software - even totally free versions - make filing taxes much, much easier, and at your income level you would still be keeping the vast majority of the money you earn even without taking advantage of special business deductions. I'd recommend you not be a afraid of trying to make some money! I'd bet money it will help you learn a lot about game development, business, and finances, and will be a really valuable experience for you - whether you make money or not. Having made so much money you have to pay taxes is not something to be afraid of - it's just something adults like to complain about :) Good luck on your adventures, and you can always come back and ask questions about how to file taxes, what to do with any new found wealth, etc! |
Is there a good forum where I can discuss individual US stocks? | I would recommend looking at The Motley Fool. |
Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries | Your friends are overlooking a couple of problems with house prices and salaries being out of whack: Home 'equity' is a paper gain unless you realize it by selling the house. If you don't, but use the 'home ATM', all you're doing is piling up more debt that's secured on an asset that has downside risk. Ask anybody who's refinanced their house to buy a new boat or SUV in 2006/2007. In other words you're remortgaging the chickens before the eggs hatched. Of course they're also forgetting that all this debt will have to be paid back at some point, and that usually takes income, not equity. In a certain sense the housing market is a pyramid scheme that requires an influx of new buyers to maintain prices. Very simply, if you can't sell your house to buy a bigger one because the first time buyer you're trying to sell it to can't afford the down payment or the payment on the mortgage, then you can't sell your house to buy a bigger/better/nicer one and the next person in the chain can't sell his/hers. Cue the domino effect. House prices are only sustainable if people actually can afford to buy houses and if there's a massive disconnect between house prices and salaries, then house prices will fall eventually. It might just take a little longer depending on the amount of creative financing options that will eventually dry up. |
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 market based health insurance premiums be factored into 6 months emergency fund savings? | Yes, it should be. As, where one has insurance, its an expense one would expect one to continue to incur in a normal budgetary emergency, even drop in the extreme. |
Does a stock really dip in price on the ex-dividend date? And why would it do this? | This effect has much empirical evidence as googling "dividend price effect evidence" will show. As the financial economic schools of thought run the gamut so do the theories. One school goes as far to call it a market inefficiency since the earning power thus the value of an equity that's affected is no different or at least not riskier by the percentage of market capitalization paid. Most papers offer that by the efficient market hypothesis and arbitrage theory, the value of an equity is known by the market at any point in time given by its price, so if an equity pays a dividend, the adjusted price would be efficient since the holder receives no excess of the price instantly before payment as after including the dividend since that dividend information was already discounted so would otherwise produce an arbitrage. |
I have $12k in a Chase checking account, but want to start earning interest/saving/investing/etc to make more money. What should I do? | First thing's first: migrate your savings to an interest-bearing savings account (such as from Ally Bank). While it still lags behind inflation, 0.84% is still better than 0.00%. Short-term CDs are also an option. I've personally thought about experimenting with peer-to-peer lending, but a few thousand in savings isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, and you don't want it tied up in a risky, speculative loan when you might need it the most. As the others have said, the general savings rules apply too: pay off high-interest debt, divert more money into your 401k (especially if you aren't hitting the match yet), then work on either whittling down other debts or saving more for a big purchase in the future. |
What's best investment option? Mutual fund or Property [duplicate] | nan |
Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time? | As some others have pointed out, it's key to remember the difference in market value and accounting value. To simplify things, book value is the only item that specifically depreciates... it happens in the world of accounting to try to time "when did I use a long term asset?" with "when did I obtain value from that asset?" For a house, governments usually allow owners to claim depreciation of the building over a set period of time. This does not affect your resale value of the house. Similarly, for a commercial property, governments set laws for how an individual or a company can time the "use" of that asset vs. their accounting. Some companies can have totally depreciated ("zero cost") assets that are still very productive. Market Property values are derived from 3 specific sources: Value in Trade is an estimate of the value that others would be willing to pay for a similar asset. That's why you can buy a house today, and in a "normal" market, the same house should be worth a similar amount of money in the future. Value in Use can be more interesting... this is where a farmer can extract $100,000 in value per year from 10 acres of land. But as a region develops, a manufacturing company can generate $300,000 per year from the same 10 acres of land. The company can buy out the farmer at a 'fair' price (>$100,000 per year) and still net positive from the investment. Income Approach tends to be focused on properties that have a cash flow, but can be adapted to other property estimates. It evaluates the current "business case" for any property with the cost of money down, the overall investment price, and the expected value from any returns. Remember, the market value is very simply, the price you could obtain if you sold the asset at a given time. It is rarely considered in terms of "how much will this go down?". Book value is an accounting exercise and declines by a set amount every year, because it means you can estimate the "cost" of owning an asset vs the value it generates in a particular time period. |
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. |
How do I figure out the market value of used books? | Text Book values drop rather rapidly and fluctuate quite a bit based on when you are selling (January and August-September when semesters generally start) them. I generally sell my old text books on Amazon for 10-15% less than the peak price over the last 6 months or a year if that much data is available (I use camelcamelcamel.com to get historical data). They generally sell pretty quick so I would say it is a fair price. |
Where should I park my money if I'm pessimistic about the economy and I think there will be high inflation? | For diversification against local currency's inflation, you have fundamentally 3 options: Depending on how sure you are on your prediction, and what amount of money you're willing to bet to "short the country", you might also consider a mix of approaches from the above. Good luck. |
How bad is it to have a lot of credit available but not used? | While @BrianRogers makes some good points, there are a few things you need to consider from the FICO perspective that I want to lay out simply for you: |
Is CLM a stock or an ETF? | Ask your trading site for their definition of "ETF". The term itself is overloaded/ambiguous. Consider: If "ETF" is interpreted liberally, then any fund that trades on a [stock] exchange is an exchange-traded fund. i.e. the most literal meaning implied by the acronym itself. Whereas, if "ETF" is interpreted more narrowly and in the sense that most market participants might use it, then "ETF" refers to those exchange-traded funds that specifically have a mechanism in place to ensure the fund's current price remains close to its net asset value. This is not the case with closed-end funds (CEFs), which often trade at either a premium or a discount to their underlying net asset value. |
Does an index have a currency? | In practice, most (maybe all) stock indices are constructed by taking a weighted average of stock prices denominated in a single currency, and so the index implicitly does have that currency - as you suggest, US dollars for the S&P 500. In principle you can buy one "unit" of the S&P 500 for $2,132.98 or whatever by buying an appropriate quantity of each of its constituent stocks. Also, in a more realistic scenario where you buy an index via a tracker fund, you would typically need to buy using the underlying currency of the index and your returns will be relative to that currency - if the index goes up by 10%, your original investment in dollars is up by 10%. |
Is there software to buy and sell stocks in real time on very small moves in price? | Note that the pros pay for extremely fast access and are literally fighting over nanoseconds to get every possible advantage. Your system won't come close to that by several orders of magnitude. Consider the implications for the kinds of automated trading you want to perform. (Pico was overstating it. Nano, at the processor level and in terms of which transaction is first into the buffers, is certainly true. A millisecond is a Long Time in this domain.) |
At what price are dividends re-invested? | If a stock is trading for $11 per share just before a $1 per share dividend is declared, then the share price drops to $10 per share immediately following the declaration. If you owned 100 shares (valued at $1100) before the dividend was declared, then you still own 100 shares (now valued at $1000). Generally, if the dividend is paid today, only the owners of shares as of yesterday evening (or the day before maybe) get paid the dividend. If you bought those 100 shares only this morning, the dividend gets paid to the seller (who owned the stock until yesterday evening), not to you. You just "bought a dividend:" paying $1100 for 100 shares that are worth only $1000 at the end of the day, whereas if you had just been a little less eager to purchase right now, you could have bought those 100 shares for only $1000. But, looking at the bright side, if you bought the shares earlier than yesterday, you get paid the dividend. So, assuming that you bought the shares in timely fashion, your holdings just lost value and are worth only $1000. What you do have is the promise that in a couple of days time, you will be paid $100 as the dividend, thus restoring the asset value back to what it was earlier. Now, if you had asked your broker to re-invest the dividend back into the same stock, then, assuming that the stock price did not change in the interim due to normal market fluctuations, you would get another 10 shares for that $100 dividend making the value of your investment $1100 again (110 shares at $10 each), exactly what it was before the dividend was paid. If you didn't choose to reinvest the dividend, you would still have the 100 shares (worth $1000) plus $100 cash. So, regardless of what other investors choose to do, your asset value does not change as a result of the dividend. What does change is your net worth because that dividend amount is taxable (regardless of whether you chose to reinvest or not) and so your (tax) liability just increased. |
Looking to buy a property that's 12-14x my income. How can it be done? | It is your choice to have "insignificant income", and that has consequences. One is that you cannot borrow money to purchase a home independent of your credit score. In order to purchase a home you must also have the ability to repay in addition to a good history. IMHO your question suggest that you have a unrealistic outlook on life. If you cannot come up with 10K, how can you afford a home? What happens when the HVAC system goes out? While I certainly hope you meet and exceed your goals, you can change your whole world by simply getting a job at a fast food restaurant. When you are not working you can then do the entrepreneurship thing. Life is often a choice of priorities. If you choose to "back-burner" the entrepreneur dream, for a time, and choose to focus on earning the best possible wage. Then perhaps you could afford to purchase a place of your own. |
What is the purpose of endorsing a check? | I believe the banks are protecting themselves when they "require" your endorsement. Years ago. they used to ask for your endorsement, and not require it. If you endorse the check, it legally authorizes them to debit your account, if the check is later returned for non-sufficient funds (NSF). It mostly protects the bank, and not the customer. |
Is it wise to have plenty of current accounts in different banks? | Its actually a good thing. The #1 factor to your credit score is your credit utilization. So if you don't spend money unwisely and they don't have any annual fee I would keep them and use them each twice a year to keep them in your credit mix. |
Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum? | It is only wise to invest in what you understand (ala Warren Buffet style). Depending on how much money you have, you might see fit to consult a good independent financial advisor instead of seeking advice from this website. A famous quote goes: “Those who say, do not know. Those who know, do not say” |
Where can I find accurate historical distribution data for mutual funds? | I keep spreadsheets that verify each $ distribution versus the rate times number of shares owned. For mutual funds, I would use Yahoo's historical data, but sometimes shows up late (a few days, a week?) and it isn't always quite accurate enough. A while back I discovered that MSN had excellent data when using their market price chart with dividends "turned on," HOWEVER very recently they have revamped their site and the trusty URLs I have previously used no longer work AND after considerable browsing, I can no longer find this level of detail anywhere on their site !=( Happily, the note above led me to the Google business site, and it looks like I am "back in business"... THANKS! |
If I have a lot of debt and the housing market is rising, should I rent and slowly pay off my debt or buy and roll the debt into a mortgage? | Buy and Hope is a common investment strategy. It's also one that will keep you poor. Instead of thinking about saving money to put against a credit card or line of credit using your own job and hard-earned dollars, why not use someone else's money? If you have enough of a down payment for a property of your own, consider a duplex, triplex, or 4-plex where you live in one of the units. Since you will be living there you only need 5% down as opposed to 20% down if you do not live there. This arrangement gives you a place to live while you have other people paying your mortgage and other debts. If done properly, you can find a place that is cash-flow positive so you basically live rent-free. This all assumes you have a down payment and a bank that will work with you. Your best bet is to discuss your situation with a mortgage broker. They know all the rules, and which banks have the best deal for you. A mortgage broker works on your behalf and is paid by the lending institution, not you. There are various caveats with this strategy, and they all revolve around knowing what to do and how to execute the plan. I suggest Googling Robert Kiyosaki and reading "Rich Dad Poor Dad" before taking this journey. He offers a number of free and paid seminars that teach people how to purchase real estate and make it pay. I have taken the free evening seminar and the $500 weekend seminar on how to purchase properties and make money with them. Note that I have no affiliation with Kiyosaki, and I do find his methods to work. |
Getting started in stock with one special field of activity | You are always best off investing in things you understand. If you have a deep understanding of the aeronautical industry, say, you are a Vice President at Boeing and have been working at Boeing for 40 years, then that would be a reason for investing in that sector: because you may be able to better evaluate different companies in that sector. If you are a novice in the sector, or just have an amateur interest in it, then it may not be a good idea, because your knowledge may not be sufficient to give you much of an advantage. Before focusing on one investment of any type, industry sector based, or otherwise, you want to ask yourself: am I an expert in this subject? The answer to that question will have a big impact on your success. |
Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY? | This is Ellie Lan, investment analyst at Betterment. To answer your question, American investors are drawn to use the S&P 500 (SPY) as a benchmark to measure the performance of Betterment portfolios, particularly because it’s familiar and it’s the index always reported in the news. However, going all in to invest in SPY is not a good investment strategy—and even using it to compare your own diversified investments is misleading. We outline some of the pitfalls of this approach in this article: Why the S&P 500 Is a Bad Benchmark. An “algo-advisor” service like Betterment is a preferable approach and provides a number of advantages over simply investing in ETFs (SPY or others like VOO or IVV) that track the S&P 500. So, why invest with Betterment rather than in the S&P 500? Let’s first look at the issue of diversification. SPY only exposes investors to stocks in the U.S. large cap market. This may feel acceptable because of home bias, which is the tendency to invest disproportionately in domestic equities relative to foreign equities, regardless of their home country. However, investing in one geography and one asset class is riskier than global diversification because inflation risk, exchange-rate risk, and interest-rate risk will likely affect all U.S. stocks to a similar degree in the event of a U.S. downturn. In contrast, a well-diversified portfolio invests in a balance between bonds and stocks, and the ratio of bonds to stocks is dependent upon the investment horizon as well as the individual's goals. By constructing a portfolio from stock and bond ETFs across the world, Betterment reduces your portfolio’s sensitivity to swings. And the diversification goes beyond mere asset class and geography. For example, Betterment’s basket of bond ETFs have varying durations (e.g., short-term Treasuries have an effective duration of less than six months vs. U.S. corporate bonds, which have an effective duration of just more than 8 years) and credit quality. The level of diversification further helps you manage risk. Dan Egan, Betterment’s Director of Behavioral Finance and Investing, examined the increase in returns by moving from a U.S.-only portfolio to a globally diversified portfolio. On a risk-adjusted basis, the Betterment portfolio has historically outperformed a simple DIY investor portfolio by as much as 1.8% per year, attributed solely to diversification. Now, let’s assume that the investor at hand (Investor A) is a sophisticated investor who understands the importance of diversification. Additionally, let’s assume that he understands the optimal allocation for his age, risk appetite, and investment horizon. Investor A will still benefit from investing with Betterment. Automating his portfolio management with Betterment helps to insulate Investor A from the ’behavior gap,’ or the tendency for investors to sacrifice returns due to bad timing. Studies show that individual investors lose, on average, anywhere between 1.2% to 4.3% due to the behavior gap, and this gap can be as high as 6.5% for the most active investors. Compared to the average investor, Betterment customers have a behavior gap that is 1.25% lower. How? Betterment has implemented smart design to discourage market timing and short-sighted decision making. For example, Betterment’s Tax Impact Preview feature allows users to view the tax hit of a withdrawal or allocation change before a decision is made. Currently, Betterment is the only automated investment service to offer this capability. This function allows you to see a detailed estimate of the expected gains or losses broken down by short- and long-term, making it possible for investors to make better decisions about whether short-term gains should be deferred to the long-term. Now, for the sake of comparison, let’s assume that we have an even more sophisticated investor (Investor B), who understands the pitfalls of the behavior gap and is somehow able to avoid it. Betterment is still a better tool for Investor B because it offers a suite of tax-efficient features, including tax loss harvesting, smarter cost-basis accounting, municipal bonds, smart dividend reinvesting, and more. Each of these strategies can be automatically deployed inside the portfolio—Investor B need not do a thing. Each of these strategies can boost returns by lowering tax exposure. To return to your initial question—why not simply invest in the S&P 500? Investing is a long-term proposition, particularly when saving for retirement or other goals with a time horizon of several decades. To be a successful long-term investor means employing the core principles of diversification, tax management, and behavior management. While the S&P might look like a ‘hot’ investment one year, there are always reversals of fortune. The goal with long-term passive investing—the kind of investing that Betterment offers—is to help you reach your investing goals as efficiently as possible. Lastly, Betterment offers best-in-industry advice about where to save and how much to save for no fee. |
Why would I vote for an increase in the number of authorized shares? | I'll skip the "authorizing...." and go right to uses of new shares: Companies need stock as another liquid asset for a variety of purposes, and if not enough stock is available, then may be forced to the open market to acquire, either by exchanging cash or taking on debt to get the cash. |
Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing | Great questions -- the fact that you're thinking about it is what's most important. I think a priority should be maximizing any employer match in your 401(k) because it's free money. Second would be paying off high interest debt because it's a big expense. Everything else is a matter of setting good financial habits so I think the order of importance will vary from person to person. (That's why I ordered the priorities the way I did: employer matching is the easiest way to get more income with no additional work, and paying down high-interest debt is the best way to lower your long-term expenses.) After that, continue to maximize your income and savings, and be frugal with your expenses. Avoid debt. Take a vacation once in a while, too! |
What's the benefit of a credit card with an annual fee, vs. a no-fee card? | How would you respond to these cases: Limited card options - If someone has a bad credit record the cards available may only be those with an annual fee. Not everyone will have your credit record and thus access to the cards you have. Some annual fees may be waived in some cases - Thus, someone may have a card with a fee that could be waived if enough transactions are done on the card. Thus, if someone gives enough business to the credit card company, they will waive the fee. On the point of the rewards, if the card is from a specific retailer, there could be a 10% discount for using that card and if the person purchases more than a couple thousand dollars' worth from that store this is a savings of $200 from the retail prices compared to what would happen in other cases that more than offsets the annual fee. If someone likes to be a handyman and visits Home Depot often there may be programs to give rewards in this case. Credit cards can be useful for doing on-line purchases, flight reservations, rental cars and a few other purchases that to with cash or debit can be difficult if not close to impossible. Some airline cards have a fee, but presumably the perks provide a benefit that outweigh that fee over the year. I'm thinking of the Citibank cards tied to American Airlines, first year free, then an $85 fee. |
Does bull/bear market actually make a difference? | Who are the losers going to be? If you can tell me for certain which firms will do worst in a bear market and can time it so that this information is not already priced into the market then you can make money. If not don't try. In a bull market stocks tend to act "normally" with established patterns such as correlations acting as expected and stocks more or less pricing to their fundamentals. In a bear market fear tends to overrule all of those things. You get large drops on relatively minor bad news and modest rallies on even the best news which results in stocks being undervalued against their fundamentals. In the crash itself it is quite easy to make money shorting. In an environment where stocks are undervalued, such as a bear market, you run the risk that your short, no matter how sure you are that the stock will fall, is seen as being undervalued and will rise. In fact your selling of a "losing" stock might cause it to hit levels where value investors already have limits set. This could bring a LOT of buyers into the market. Due to the fact that correlations break down creating portfolios with the correct risk level, which is what funds are required to do not only by their contracts but also by law to an extent, is extremely difficult. Risk management (keeping all kinds to within certain bounds) is one of the most difficult parts of a manager's job and is even difficult in abnormal market conditions. In the long run (definitions may vary) stock prices in general go up (for those companies who aren't bankrupted at least) so shorting in a bear market is not a long term strategy either and will not produce long term returns on capital. In addition to this risk you run the risk that your counterparty (such as Lehman brothers?) will file for bankruptcy and you won't be able to cover the position before the lender wants you to repay their stock to them landing you in even more problems. |
Why would a central bank or country not want their currency to appreciate against other currencies? | It would essentially make goods from other countries more cheaper than goods from US. And it would make imports from these countries to China more expensive. The below illustration is just with 2 major currencies and is more illustrative to show the effect. It does not actually mean the goods from these countries would be cheaper. 1 GBP = 1.60 USD 1 EUR = 1.40 USD 1 CNY = 0.15 USD Lets say the above are the rates for GBP, EUR, CNY. The cost of a particular goods (assume Pencils) in international market is 2 USD. This means for the cost of manufacturing this should be less than GBP 1.25 in UK, less than 1.43 in Euro Countires, less than 13.33 CNY in China. Only then export would make sense. If the real cost of manufacturing is say 1.4 GBP in UK, 1.5 EUR in Euro countires, clearly they cannot compete and would loose. Now lets say the USD has appreciated by 20% against other currencies. The CNY is at same rate. 1 GBP = 1.28 USD 1 EUR = 1.12 USD 1 CNY = 0.15 USD Now at this rate the cost of manufacturing should be less than GBP 1.56 GBP, less than 1.78 EUR in Euro Countires. In effect this is more than the cost of manufacturing. So in effect the goods from other countires have become cheaper/compatative and goods from China have become expensive. Similarly the imports from these countires to China would be more expensive. |
Can a dealer keep my deposit (on a non-existant car) if my loan is not approved? | Without the contract it's hard to say for sure, but Consumer Reports indicates that it's pretty easy to lose these deposits; they're not as well protected as other deposits or purchases (depending on your state and other details). You should make an effort to comply with all of the requests from the financing arm promptly, and in particular you should probably highlight that you could afford to pay for the car in cash (and be prepared to show bank/money market/investment statements to back that up). Credit is mostly a numbers game, but there is a human on the other side making the decision (assuming you're remotely close) and that makes a big difference. I would be prepared to walk away from your deposit if they come back and offer you a 5% APR or similar (and you're uncomfortable with the loan at that rate) - over 5 years, a $20k loan at 5% APR will cost you several thousand dollars; it might be worth it even if they don't give you your deposit back. And if you're clearly ready to walk away from the deposit, that might cause them to negotiate in better faith. Some tips, both from that article and my general experience: |
Fractional Reserve Banking and Insolvency | You bet if it was so simple. This is when financial acumen comes into its true form. The bank would never ever want to go insolvent. What it does is, take insurance against the borrower defaulting. Remember the financial crisis of 2008 which was the outcome of borrowers defaulting. The banks had created derivatives based on the loans distributed. CDO, CDS are some of the simple derivatives banks sell to cover their backs in case of defaults. There are derivatives using these derivatives as underlyings which they then sold it across to other buyers including other banks. Google for Fabrice Tourre and you would realise how much deep the banks go to save themselves from defaulters. If everything fails then go to the government for help. That was what happened when the US government doled out $600 billion to save the financial sector. |
What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US? | The US Customs and Border Protection website states that there is no limit to the amount of currency that can be brought into or taken out of the US. There is no limit on the amount of money that can be taken out of or brought into the United States. However, if a person or persons traveling together and filing a joint declaration (CBP Form 6059-B) have $10,000 or more in currency or negotiable monetary instruments, they must fill out a "Report of International Transportation of Currency and Monetary Instruments" FinCEN 105 (former CF 4790). The CBP site also notes that failure to declare currency and monetary instruments in excess of $10,000 may result in its seizure. Further, the site states that the requirement to report currency on a FinCEN 105 does not apply to imports of gold bullion. However, the legal website The Law Dictionary includes details of how money laundering laws may come into play here : As part of the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, U.S. law enforcement agencies have significantly increased their vigilance over money laundering. To this effect, travelers who carry large amounts of cash without supporting documentation of its legitimate source may be subject to secondary inspections and seizure of funds. In some cases, law enforcement may confiscate cash in excess of $10,000 until supporting documents are produced. So far, I have described the "official" position. However, reading between the lines, I think it is fair to say that in the current climate if you show up at an entry point with a suitcase full of a large amount of cash you would face considerable scrutiny, regardless of any supporting documentation you may present. If you fail to present supporting documentation, then I think your cash would certainly be seized. If you are a US resident, then you would be given the opportunity to obtain satisfactory documentation. If you did present documentation, then I think your cash would be held for as long as it would take to verify the validity of the documentation. Failure to present valid documentation would result in money laundering charges being brought against you and the matter would rest before the courts. If you are not a US resident, then failing to produce supporting documentation would mean your cash being seized and entry into the US would almost certainly be denied. You would then have to deal with the situation from outside of the US. If you did produce supporting documentation, then again I suspect the cash would be held for as long as it takes to verify the validity of the documentation. Whether or not you were allowed to enter the US would depend on what other documentation you possess. |
In a house with shared ownership, if one person moves out and the other assumes mortgage, how do we determine who owns what share in the end? | The answer is "it depends". What does it depend on? If it's a breakup situation, good luck. Whatever you do, get this issue settled as quickly as possible. In the future, don't make significant purchases with people unless you have a written contract or you are married. |
Can I participate in trading Facebook shares on their IPO day from any brokerage? | Any retail equity brokerage will give you access to the NYSE, and thus Facebook shares as they become available. However, it is important to note that you nor any retail investor will be able to purchase FB at the IPO prices ($33-38 IIRC). The only people who will be able to buy in at that price are the underwriting investment banks and major investors who have subscribed to the IPO. You, and all the other retail investors will only be able to buy in as those major investors offer shares on the secondary market. This being Facebook, there will probably be a significant premium over the IPO price, both due to demand and systemic underpricing of IPOs to encourage the opening 'pop'. So, if you're intent on buying in at the IPO, pay close attention as the date approaches. Look at how the recent big IPOs have performed (GRPN, LNKD come to mind). Know how much you're willing to commit and what price you want. However, no one is going to know what the opening market price will be come Friday morning. Be watching your financial data source / analysis of choice and be prepared to make a judgement. |
Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries | The three basic needs are food, clothing, and shelter. Housing falls into the third category. Because it is "basic," housing takes up a large part of one's disposable income. The rule of thumb is that you shouldn't spend more than 25% of your income on rent or mortgages. And that is income BEFORE taxes. Anything much more than that takes up too much of one's budget. You simply CAN'T double housing's share of the budget from 25% to 50%. Whereas, it's easy to go from 1% to 2% for say, a cellphone upgrade. In the long run, housing prices are constrained by the size of people's housing budgets, which in turn are tied to incomes. Nowadays, that includes FOREIGN buyers. So there may be a case where west coast housing prices are driven up by Asian buyers, or Florida housing by buyers from Latin America, driving Americans out of local markets. |
How should I interpret this industry research? | As BobbyScon said in the comments, invest in a company that is developing in that field. Or invest in a company which supplies that field. The people who got rich in the California gold rush were those selling shovels and other miners' supplies. Or bet against whatever you think this will displace. If automobiles are the hot new thing, it might be a bad time to invest in harness leather. Or ... figure out how else it might impact the economy and invest appropriately. But you have to do that evaluation yourself. Or ignore it and stick with your existing strategy, which should have been diversified enough to deliver reasonable results whether this sector takes off or not. Remember that if someone gives you a free tip, they are probably just hoping to pump up the value of their own stock rather than help you. |
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