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Should I include retirement funds in calculating my asset allocation? | I separate them out, simply because they're for different purposes, with different goals and time-frames, and combining them may mask hidden problems in either the retirement account or the regular account. Consider an example: A young investor has been working on their retirement planning for a few years now, and has a modest amount of retirement savings (say $15,000) allocated carefully according to one of the usually recommended schemes. A majority exposure to large cap U.S. stocks, with smaller exposures to small cap, international and bond markets. Years before however, they mad an essentially emotional investment in a struggling manufacturer of niche personal computers, which then enjoyed something of a renaissance and a staggering growth in shareholder value. Lets say their current holdings in this company now represent $50,000. Combining them, their portfolio is dominated by large cap U.S. equities to such an extent that the only way to rebalance their portfolio is to pour money into bonds and the international market for years on end. This utterly changes the risk profile of their retirement account. At the same time, if we switch the account balances, the investor might be reassured that their asset allocation is fine and diversified, even though the assets they have access to before retirement are entirely in a single risky stock. In neither case is the investor well served by combining their funds when figuring out their allocation - especially as the "goal" allocations may very well be different. |
Cash or Bonds (UK) | The 'appropriate' amount of cash/bonds to hold will be largely a matter of opinion, but here are the general reasons why having at least some is a good idea: Cash is very liquid, and bonds are often mostly liquid. This means you can access them very quickly, without taking on losses. To get the most liquidity out of your bonds, you can do what is called 'laddering'. This means that you take out different bond amounts with different maturity dates, and periodically renew them on a schedule, so that you always have some bonds maturing, which you can access without paying an interest penalty. You can look this term up online for more details. Cash and bonds are low risk. If you have absolutely no low-risk assets, then in the event of, say, a market crash, you may have no savings to fall back on. By owning some bonds, and some equities, you are able to earn a modest return, without being too risky. However, note that some bonds are just as risky as equities - any bond which pays an abnormally high interest rate does so because the entity backing the repayment (government, company, whomever) is thought to not be guaranteed to be able to do so. The 25% figure given by your author is his opinion on the appropriate mix of cash/bonds to equities, but there are many views on the matter. Consider that any 'rule of thumb' in personal finance should be for general consideration only. |
Where do short-term traders look for the earliest stock related news? | I work for a fund management company and we get our news through two different service providers Bloomberg and Thomson One. They don't actually source the news though they just feed news from other providers Professional solutions (costs ranging from $300-1500+ USD/month/user) Bloomberg is available as a windows install or via Bloomberg Anywhere which offers bimometric access via browser. Bloomberg is superb and their customer support is excellent but they aren't cheap. If you're looking for a free amateur solution for stock news I'd take a look at There are dozens of other tools people can use for day trading that usually provide news and real time prices at a cost but I don't have any direct experience with them |
Should I try to negotiate a signing bonus? | I was able to request a modest advance on my salary when I started my first job out of college, for essentially the same reason. Alternatively, you might consider requesting a small personal loan from friends or family. If you have a credit card that can cover things like grocery expenses for that period, this may also be the appropriate time to use it. Buy cheap food, like lentils and beans. :P In the future, once you earn some money, you should keep around a few months' worth of essential expenses in a saving account to avoid this situation. :) |
How can I save on closing costs when buying a home? | Good answers here. I would like to add one more (less obvious) way to save - look for houses that are For Sale By Owner (FSBO). Owner's who are selling without an agent do not have to pay a seller's agent fee. The closing cost savings here are actually on the seller's side of the transaction. However, since you know the seller is saving money, you may be able to negotiate a lower overall selling price with them (or it may be priced lower than comps already) because of this factor. FSBO houses maybe trickier to find than those listed by an agent, because they will not appear on the national MLS used by realtors to find/advertise houses that aren't being sold by their own clients. You may need to physically walk the streets of the neighborhood you're interested in moving to, to look for FSBO yard signs. FSBO sellers may also advertise in local newspapers. |
Is there a standard check format in the USA? | Legally, a check just needs to have a certain list of things (be an instruction to one's bank to pay a specific amount of money to bearer or to a specific entity, have a date, have a signature, etc.) There are anecdotes around of a guy depositing a junk mail check and it accidentally qualifying as a real check (which he turned into a live show), or of writing a check on a door, cow, or "the shirt off your back". What kind of checks your bank will process is technically up to them. Generally, if you get your blank checks printed up by any reputable firm, they'll have similar information in similar places, as well as the MICR line (the account and routing number in magnetic ink on the bottom) to allow for bank to process the checks with automated equipment. As long as it's a standard size, has the MICR line, and has the information that a check needs, your bank is likely to be fine with it. So, there are some standards, but details like where exactly the name of the bank is, or what font is used, or the like, are up to whoever is printing the check. For details on what standards your bank requires in order to process your checks, you'd have to check with your bank directly. Though, it wouldn't surprise me if they just directed you to their preferred check printer provider, as they know that they accept their check format fine. Though as I said, any reputable check printer makes sure that they meet the standards to get processed by banks without trouble. Unless you're a business that's going to be writing a lot of checks and pay a lot of fees for the privilege, a bank is not likely to want to make exceptions for you for your own custom-printed octagonal checks written in ancient Vulcan. |
Should I change 401k investment options to prepare for rising interest rates? | As others have pointed out your bond funds should have short durations, preferably not more than about 2 years. If you are in a bond fund for the long haul meaning you do not have to draw on your bond fund a short time after interest rates have gone up, it is not a big issue. The fund's holdings will eventually turn over into higher interest bearing paper. If bonds do go down, you might want to add more to the fund(s) (see my comment on age-specific asset allocation below). Keep in mind that some stocks are interest sensitive, for example utility stocks which are used as an income source and their dividends compete with rates on CDs which are much safer. Right now CD rates are very low. This could change. It's possible that we may be in an unusually sensitive interest rate period that might have large effects on the stock market, yet to be determined. The reason is that rates have been so low for such a long time that folks that normally would have obtained income streams from bonds have turned to dividend bearing stocks. Some believe that recent market rises are due to such people seeking dividends to enhance cash inflows. If, and emphasis on if, this is true, we could see a sharp drop in the market as sell offs occur as those who want cash streams move from stocks to ultra safe, government insured CDs. Only time will tell if this is going to play out. If retirement for you is 15+ years in the future and the market goes down (bonds or equities), good stuff - it's a buying opportunity in whatever category has dropped. Most important is to keep an eye on your asset allocation and make sure it is appropriate to your age. You did not state the percentages in each category, so further discussion is impossible on that topic. With more than 15 years to go, I personally would be heavily weighted on the equity side, mostly mid-cap and some small equity funds or ETFs in both domestic and international markets. As you age, shuffle some equities into fixed income (bonds, CDs and the like). Work up an asset allocation plan - start thinking about it now. Don't wait. |
How should we prioritize retirement savings, paying down debt, and saving for a house? | Pay the debt down. Any kind of debt equals risk. No debt equals no risk and a better chance to have that money earn you income down the road once it's invested. That and you will sleep so much better knowing you have ZERO debt. You 6 month emergency fund is probably good. Remember to keep it at 6 months living expenses (restaurants don't count as living expenses). |
401k with paltry match or SPY ETF? | Answers: 1. Is this a good idea? Is it really risky? What are the pros and cons? Yes, it is a bad idea. I think, with all the talk about employer matches and tax rates at retirement vs. now, that you miss the forest for the trees. It's the taxes on those retirement investments over the course of 40 years that really matter. Example: Imagine $833 per month ($10k per year) invested in XYZ fund, for 40 years (when you retire). The fund happens to make 10% per year over that time, and you're taxed at 28%. How much would you have at retirement? 2. Is it a bad idea to hold both long term savings and retirement in the same investment vehicle, especially one pegged to the US stock market? Yes. Keep your retirement separate, and untouchable. It's supposed to be there for when you're old and unable to work. Co-mingling it with other funds will induce you to spend it ("I really need it for that house! I can always pay more into it later!"). It also can create a false sense of security ("look at how much I've got! I got that new car covered..."). So, send 10% into whatever retirement account you've got, and forget about it. Save for other goals separately. 3. Is buying SPY a "set it and forget it" sort of deal, or would I need to rebalance, selling some of SPY and reinvesting in a safer vehicle like bonds over time? For a retirement account, yes, you would. That's the advantage of target date retirement funds like the one in your 401k. They handle that, and you don't have to worry about it. Think about it: do you know how to "age" your account, and what to age it into, and by how much every year? No offense, but your next question is what an ETF is! 4. I don't know ANYTHING about ETFs. Things to consider/know/read? Start here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp 5. My company plan is "retirement goal" focused, which, according to Fidelity, means that the asset allocation becomes more conservative over time and switches to an "income fund" after the retirement target date (2050). Would I need to rebalance over time if holding SPY? Answered in #3. 6. I'm pretty sure that contributing pretax to 401k is a good idea because I won't be in the 28% tax bracket when I retire. How are the benefits of investing in SPY outweigh paying taxes up front, or do they not? Partially answered in #1. Note that it's that 4 decades of tax-free growth that's the big dog for winning your retirement. Company matches (if you get one) are just a bonus, and the fact that contributions are tax free is a cherry on top. 7. Please comment on anything else you think I am missing I think what you're missing is that winning at personal finance is easy, and winning at personal finance is hard |
Using stock markets in Europe, how can I buy commodities / resources, to diversify my portfolio? | I recommend avoiding trading directly in commodities futures and options. If you're not prepared to learn a lot about how futures markets and trading works, it will be an experience fraught with pitfalls and lost money – and I am speaking from experience. Looking at stock-exchange listed products is a reasonable approach for an individual investor desiring added diversification for their portfolio. Still, exercise caution and know what you're buying. It's easy to access many commodity-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on North American stock exchanges. If you already have low-cost access to U.S. markets, consider this option – but be mindful of currency conversion costs, etc. Yet, there is also a European-based company, ETF Securities, headquartered in Jersey, Channel Islands, which offers many exchange-traded funds on European exchanges such as London and Frankfurt. ETF Securities started in 2003 by first offering a gold commodity exchange-traded fund. I also found the following: London Stock Exchange: Frequently Asked Questions about ETCs. The LSE ETC FAQ specifically mentions "ETF Securities" by name, and addresses questions such as how/where they are regulated, what happens to investments if "ETF Securities" were to go bankrupt, etc. I hope this helps, but please, do your own due diligence. |
Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? | This would never apply for tax "brackets". It's not as though making an extra dollar will put you into an entire separate bracket, the IRS isn't that bad. They bump up the "brackets" every $50, so you will never turn down a raise because it would cause you to lose income. However if your raise would preclude you from contributing to your IRA because it pushes you over $110,000 then yes, you could turn it down or explain to your boss that it would need to be just a little bit higher to cover your IRA contribution loss. |
Precedent and models for 100% equity available via initial offering? | Specifically I was wondering, how can the founder determine an appropriate valuation and distribution of shares; ie- the amount of equity to make available for public vs how much to reserve for him/herself. This is an art more than science. If markets believe it to be worth x; one will get. This is not a direct correlation of the revenue a start up makes. It is more an estimated revenue it would make in some point in time in future. There are investment firms that can size up the opportunity and advise; however it is based on their experience and may not always be true reflection of value. |
Equity As Part of Compensation | At the most basic level, the employee is getting a share of ownership in the company and would get a percentage of the sales price. That said, as littleadv alluded to, different share classes have different priorities and get paid in different orders. In a bankruptcy, for example, some classes almost never get paid in practice because they are so far down the ladder of priority. The first step you should take would be to try to clarify what you are getting with the company itself. Failing that, contact a financial professional or an attorney in your area who can read the terms and give you a better understanding of the contract before you sign. |
For an equivalent company security, does it make more sense to trade them in country with dividend tax free? | You might have to pay a premium for the stocks on the dividend tax–free exchanges. For example, HSBC on the NYSE yields 4.71% versus HSBC on the LSE which yields only 4.56%. Assuming the shares are truly identical, the only reason for this (aside from market fluctuations) is if the taxes are more favorable in the UK versus the US, thus increasing demand for HSBC on the LSE, raising the price, and reducing the yield. A difference of 0.15% in yield is pretty insignificant relative to a 30% versus 0% dividend tax. But a key question is, does your country have a foreign tax credit like the US does? If so you (usually) end up getting that 30% back, just delayed until you get your tax return, and the question of which exchange to buy on becomes not so clear cut. If your country doesn't have such a tax credit, then yes, you'll want to buy on an exchange where you won't get hit with the dividend tax. Note that I got this information from a great article I read several months back (site requires free registration to see it all unfortunately). They discuss the case of UN versus UL--both on the NYSE but ADRs for Unilever in the Netherlands and the UK, respectively. The logic is very similar to your situation. |
Is gold really an investment or just a hedge against inflation? | From Wikipedia: Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. In Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time. In contrast putting money into something with an expectation of gain without thorough analysis, without security of principal, and without security of return is speculation or gambling. The second part of the question can be addressed by analyzing the change in gold price vs inflation year by year over the long term. As Chuck mentioned, there are periods in which it didn't exceed inflation. More important, over any sufficiently long length of time the US stock market will outperform. Those who bought at the '87 peak aren't doing too bad, yet those who bought in the last gold bubble haven't kept up with inflation. $850 put into gold at the '80 top would inflate today to $2220 per the inflation calculator. You can find with a bit of charting some periods where gold outpaced inflation, and some where it missed. Back to the definition of investment. I think gold fits speculation far better than it does investment. I've heard the word used in ways I'd disagree with, spend what you will on the shoes, but no, they aren't an investment, I tell my wife. The treadmill purchase may improve my health, and people may use the word colloquially, but it's not an investment. |
Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined? | There is another aspect too for the high prices of GOLD. After the current economical crisis people are no more investing in property and a big chunk of investment has been diverted to GOLD. |
How to get a credit card as a minor? | In general, minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts -- which is what credit accounts are -- so an individually held card is probably not an option for you right now. You will not be approved for a credit card because you are minor. The only option credit card wise for you is for your parents to add you on as an authorized user onto their accounts. The upside is that you and your parents can work out a monthly payment for the amount you spend on your equipment, the downside is that if your parents don't pay their credit card bill, your credit score/report can be negatively affected. (This also depends on the bank, however, all the banks I bank with report monthly payment activities on authorized users' credit reports as well. There might be a bank that doesn't.) In terms of credit cards, there is nothing you can do. What you could do as the comments have suggested is either save up money for the equipment you want, or buy something cheaper. |
Finding a good small business CPA? | The first place to look for an accountant is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants which has a directory of CPAs, accounting companies, and local accounting societies. I was also looking for one for my own small firm. It really helps. |
How to calculate how far a shorted stock's price can rise before broker issues a margin call? | Most brokers have a margin maintenance requirement of 30%. In your example, it would depend on how much money you're borrowing from your broker on margin. Consider this: You have $250, and short AAPL at $500 on margin. This would be a common scenario (federal law requires investors to have at least 50% of their margin equity when opening a transaction). If your broker had a requirement of 30%, they would require that for your $500 position, you have at least $500 * .3 = $150 equity. Since you are currently above that number at $250, you will not be hit with a margin call. Say the price of AAPL doubles, and now your position is worth $1000. $1000 * .3 = $300, which is $50 above your initial equity. Your broker will now consider you eligible for a margin call. Most will not execute the call right away, you will often have some time to either sell/cover stock or add funds to your account. But not all brokers will warn you if you are breaking margin requirements, and sometimes margin calls can take you by surprise if you are not paying attention. Also, many will charge interest on extra margin borrowed. |
How might trading volume affect future share price? | There is no direct relationship between volume and stock price. High volume indicates how much stock is changing hands. That can be because people are enthusiastically buying OR enthusiastically selling... and their reasons for doing so may not agree with your own sense of the future value of the stock. Higher volume may mean that the price is more likely to change during the day, but it can be in either direction -- or in no direction at all if there isn't a general agreement on how to react to some piece of news. It's a possibly interesting datum, but it means nothing in isolation. |
Must ETF companies match an investor's amount invested in an ETF? | The point here is actually about banks, or is in reference to banks. They expect you know how a savings account at a bank works, but not mutual funds, and so are trying to dispel an erroneous notion that you might have -- that the CBIC will insure your investment in the fund. Banks work by taking in deposits and lending that money out via mortgages. The mortgages can last up to 30 years, but the deposits are "on demand". Which means you can pull your money out at any time. See the problem? They're maintaining a fiction that that money is there, safe and sound in the bank vault, ready to be returned whenever you want it, when in fact it's been loaned out. And can't be called back quickly, either. They know only a little bit of that money will be "demanded" by depositors at any given time, so they keep a percentage called a "reserve" to satisfy that, er, demand. The rest, again, is loaned out. Gone. And usually that works out just fine. Except sometimes it doesn't, when people get scared they might not get their money back, and they all go to the bank at the same time to demand their on-demand deposits back. This is called a "run on the bank", and when that happens, the bank "fails". 'Cause it ain't got the money. What's failing, in fact, is the fiction that your money is there whenever you want it. And that's really bad, because when that happens to you at your bank, your friends the customers of other banks start worrying about their money, and run on their banks, which fail, which cause more people to worry and try to get their cash out, lather, rinse repeat, until the whole economy crashes. See -- The Great Depression. So, various governments introduced "Deposit Insurance", where the government will step in with the cash, so when you panic and pull all your money out of the bank, you can go home happy, cash in hand, and don't freak all your friends out. Therefore, the fear that your money might not really be there is assuaged, and it doesn't spread like a mental contagion. Everyone can comfortably go back to believing the fiction, and the economy goes back to merrily chugging along. Meanwhile, with mutual funds & ETFs, everyone understands the money you put in them is invested and not sitting in a gigantic vault, and so there's no need for government insurance to maintain the fiction. And that's the point they're trying to make. Poorly, I might add, where their wording is concerned. |
Why did my number of shares of stock decrease? | During a stock split the only thing that changes is the number of shares outstanding. Typically a stock splits to lower its price per share. Sometimes if a company's value is falling it will do a reverse split where X shares will be exchanged for Y shares. This is typically done to avoid being de-listed from an exchange if the price per share falls below a certain threshold, usually $1. Again the only thing changing is the number of shares outstanding. A 20 for 1 reverse split means for every 20 shares outstanding the shareholder will be granted one new share. Example X Co. has 1,000,000 shares outstanding for a price of $100 per share. It does a 1 for 10 split. Now there are 10,000,000 shares outstanding for a price of $10 per share. Example Y Co has 1,000,000 shares outstanding for a price of $1 per share. It does a 10 for 1 reverse split. Now there are 100,000 shares outstanding for a price of $10. Quickly looking at the news for ASTI it looks like it underwent a 20 for 1 reverse split. You should probably look at your statements and ask your broker how the arithmetic worked in your case. Investopedia links for Reverse Stock Split and Stock Split |
P/E (or similar) for index funds? | ycharts.com has "Weighted Average PE Ratio" and a bunch of other metrics that are meant to correspond to well known stock metrics. Other websites will have similar ratios. |
In US, is it a good idea to hire a tax consultant for doing taxes? | There are few things going on here: My advice would be: with 75k income and a regular pay check there isn't a whole let you can do to adjust your tax burden. It's unlikely that any adviser will save enough money to warrant professional advice and the associated cost. Use off the shelf software for tax return and tax planning. |
What are the pros and cons of buying an item on installments with zero percent interest? | If (and only if) there is a zero interest installment plan available, technically the only uncontrollable risk is that there will likely be a hard inquiry on your credit report which may or may not also have a corresponding debt obligation attached to it. (Personally, I recently signed up for one such plan with Google and I had a hard inquiry but no debt added to my report). The other risks are that 1) your monthly payment goes up, so if you are living on a tight budget the added payment might make it harder to meet your next bill, and 2) you could miss a payment which generally triggers interest to accrue retroactively at a high rate, and in some cases could be grounds for immediate repayment. The pro / reward of these plans is that you have to spend less of your capital upfront, which you may be able to use for other purposes (presumably with a higher net present value than purchasing the item you're considering outright). A larger example would be purchasing a new car. You want to buy a $50k car and you have the cash on hand to pay in full, but you are being offered 0% interest for 36 months. You may be more inclined to take a loan at 0% with 0 down payment and invest your money in another vehicle (no pun intended) that offers you a decent rate of return and you will come out ahead in the end. Of course, this example works in a perfect world where you can get such an offer, there are no extra fees available, you aren't worrying about your debt-to-income ratio in preparation for a big purchase like a house, there isn't a higher insurance premium to consider, etc. In short, 0% financing, be it for a phone or a car, can be a nice perk for the informed consumer who is not using the financing as a way to purchase outside their financial means, but it is offered by companies as a way to make people buy things they normally would not and, hopefully, capitalize on people missing payments in order to reap the sweet 20%+ interest rates generally seen with these offers. In your specific situation with the phone, you should consider if you get a discount on your monthly plan for purchasing outright, or if you can get the phone subsidized if you sign a contract (and you know you like your provider enough to stay for its duration). If the monthly plan rate stays the same and you're looking at either $500 now or $500 over 24 months and you don't mind a hard inquiry, there's not much of compelling reason to pass on the financing and hold on to your $500. |
I am not VAT registered. Do I need to buy from my supplier with excl VAT prices or incl VAT? | It's quite common for VAT-registered businesses to quote ex-VAT prices for supply to other businesses. However you're right that when you make an order you will be invoiced and ultimately have to pay the VAT-inclusive price, assuming your supplier is VAT registered. If you're not clear on this then you should check since it obviously makes quite a difference. Since your business is not VAT-registered you cannot charge VAT to your customers. |
How bad is it to have a lot of credit available but not used? | Unless you have a history of over-using credit (i.e. you've gotten yourself into debt trouble), then I think that the banker is giving you bad advice in telling you to get your own credit limit reduced. Having more credit available to you that is left unused will make your utilization ratio lower, which is generally better for your credit score, according to this article on CreditKarma.com. The "sweet spot" seems to be 1-20% utilization of your total credit. (But remember, this is only one factor in your credit score, and not even the biggest-- having a long history of on-time payments counts the most.) My own personal experience seems to bear this out. I have two major credit cards that I use. One card has a high credit limit (high for me anyway) and I use it for just about everything that I buy-- groceries, gas, durable goods, services, you name it. The other card has a limit that is about 1/3 of the first, and I use it for a few recurring bills and occasional purchases where they don't take the first card. I also have a couple of department store cards that I use rather infrequently (typically 1 purchase every 3 months or so). At the end of each month, when the respective statements post, each card has a balance that is 15% or less of the credit limit on that card. I pay off the entire balance on each card each month, and the cycle repeats. I have never been late on a payment, and my credit history for all of these cards goes back 10 years. My credit score is nearly as high as it can go. If having unused credit were a detriment, I would expect my score to be much lower. So, no, having "too much credit available" is not going to hurt you, unless you are not using it at all, or are tempted to abuse it (use too much). The key is to use common sense. Have a small number of cards, keep them active, spend within your means so you can pay off the balance in full after the statement posts, and never be late on your payments. That's all it takes to have good credit. |
Is there software to buy and sell stocks in real time on very small moves in price? | I'm answering in a perspective of an End-User within the United Kingdom. Most stockbrokers won't provide Real-time information without 'Level 2' access, however this comes free for most who trade over a certain threshold. If you're like me, who trade within their ISA Holding each year, you need to look elsewhere. I personally use IG.com. They've recently began a stockbroking service, whereas this comes with realtime information etc with a paid account without any 'threshold'. Additionally, you may want to look into CFDs/Spreadbets as these, won't include the heavy 'fees' and tax liabilities that trading with stocks may bring. |
what is this type of stock trade? | I think that pattern is impossible, since the attempt to apply the second half would seem to prevent executing the first. Could you rewrite that as "After the stock rises to $X, start watching for a drop of $Y from peak price; if/when that happens, sell." Or does that not do what you want? (I'm not going to comment on whether the proposed programmed trading makes sense. Trying to manage things at this level of detail has always struck me as glorified guesswork.) |
Retirement & asset allocation of $30K for 30 year old single guy | If you want to invest in stocks, bonds and mutual funds I would suggest you take a portion of your inheritance and use it to learn how to invest in this asset class wisely. Take courses on investing and trading (two different things) in paper assets and start trading on a fantasy exchange to test and hone your investment skills before risking any of your money. Personally I don't find bonds to have a meaningful rate of return and I prefer stocks that have a dividend over those that don't. Parking some of your money in an IRA is a good strategy for when you do not see opportunities to purchase cashflow-positive assets right away; this allows you to wait and deploy your capital when the opportunity presents itself and to educate yourself on what a good opportunity looks like. |
Recourse with Credit Card company after victimized by fraud? | I agree that you shouldn't give up trying to get your money back, but I strongly feel that this is not sufficient. If they are trying to victimize you, they are trying to victimize others. Taking care of getting your own money back should be your top concern, but contacting any Attorneys General and District Attorneys that have jurisdiction should also be a priority to help others--past, present, and future--that might be caught in this scam. Contact them, contact the police, contact the BBB, contact the local media. Shine a light and make the cockroaches pack up and get out of town. "We got you... you have no recourse" should always be met with the response, "I will shut you down." |
Capital gains on no-dividend stocks - a theoretical question | A stock, at its most basic, is worth exactly what someone else will pay to buy it right now (or in the near future), just like anything else of value. However, what someone's willing to pay for it is typically based on what the person can get from it. There are a couple of ways to value a stock. The first way is on expected earnings per share, most of would normally (but not always) be paid in dividends. This is a metric that can be calculated based on the most recently reported earnings, and can be estimated based on news about the company or the industry its in (or those of suppliers, likely buyers, etc) to predict future earnings. Let's say the stock price is exactly $100 right now, and you buy one share. In one quarter, the company is expected to pay out $2 per share in dividends. That is a 2% ROI realized in 3 months. If you took that $2 and blew it on... coffee, maybe, or you stuffed it in your mattress, you'd realize a total gain of $8 in one year, or in ROI terms an annual rate of 8%. However, if you reinvested the money, you'd be making money on that money, and would have a little more. You can calculate the exact percentage using the "future value" formula. Conversely, if you wanted to know what you should pay, given this level of earnings per share, to realize a given rate of return, you can use the "present value" formula. If you wanted a 9% return on your money, you'd pay less for the stock than its current value, all other things being equal. Vice-versa if you were happy with a lesser rate of return. The current rate of return based on stock price and current earnings is what the market as a whole is willing to tolerate. This is how bonds are valued, based on a desired rate of return by the market, and it also works for stocks, with the caveat that the dividends, and what you'll get back at the "end", are no longer constant as they are with a bond. Now, in your case, the company doesn't pay dividends. Ever. It simply retains all the earnings it's ever made, reinvesting them into doing new things or more things. By the above method, the rate of return from dividends alone is zero, and so the future value of your investment is whatever you paid for it. People don't like it when the best case for their money is that it just sits there. However, there's another way to think of the stock's value, which is it's more core definition; a share of the company itself. If the company is profitable, and keeps all this profit, then a share of the company equals, in part, a share of that retained earnings. This is very simplistic, but if the company's assets are worth 1 billion dollars, and it has one hundred million shares of stock, each share of stock is worth $10, because that's the value of that fraction of the company as divided up among all outstanding shares. If the company then reports earnings of $100 million, the value of the company is now 1.1 billion, and its stock should go up to $11 per share, because that's the new value of one ten-millionth of the company's value. Your ROI on this stock is $1, in whatever time period the reporting happens (typically quarterly, giving this stock a roughly 4% APY). This is a totally valid way to value stocks and to shop for them; it's very similar to how commodities, for instance gold, are bought and sold. Gold never pays you dividends. Doesn't give you voting rights either. Its value at any given time is solely what someone else will pay to have it. That's just fine with a lot of people right now; gold's currently trading at around $1,700 an ounce, and it's been the biggest moneymaker in our economy since the bottom fell out of the housing market (if you'd bought gold in 2008, you would have more than doubled your money in 4 years; I challenge you to find anything else that's done nearly as well over the same time). In reality, a combination of both of these valuation methods are used to value stocks. If a stock pays dividends, then each person gets money now, but because there's less retained earnings and thus less change in the total asset value of the company, the actual share price doesn't move (much). If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then people only get money when they cash out the actual stock, but if the company is profitable (Apple, BH, etc) then one share should grow in value as the value of that small fraction of the company continues to grow. Both of these are sources of ROI, and both are seen in a company that will both retain some earnings and pay out dividends on the rest. |
Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price | Lets look at it this way. Your son bought the car and then 2 days later, he wants to change the price. Will the dealership let him do that after all the paperwork is signed? |
Filing personal with 1099s versus business s-corp? | Depends whom the 1099 was issued to. If it was issued to your corporation - then its your corporation's income, not yours. Why would it go to your tax return? Your corporation and you are two separate legal entities. You will have to file the 1120S, whether you have corporate income or not, it has to be filed each year. So why make a mess of your reporting and not just report the corporation income on its return and your personal income on your own return? If you no longer use the corporation and all the 1099's are issued to you personally, then just dissolve it so that you won't have to file an empty 1120S every year and pay additional fees for maintaining it. |
If a company in China says it accepts Visa, does it accept all Visas? | Many businesses that accept regular VISA credit cards will not accept VISA purchase cards intended for corporate/gov purchasing departments and able to furnish a more detailed audit trail (purchase order #, lot #, etc.) than a regular credit card. Other merchants take ONLY VISA purchase cards. |
Do you know of any online monetary systems? | This site lets people deposit gold into an account. Once you have an account setup you can pay others in gold online. I haven't used it or know of anyone who has so I cannot provide any feedback to how well it works. |
I'm currently unemployed and have been offered a contract position. Do I need to incorporate myself? How do I do it? | I know this is a little late but here is my answer. No. You do not "need" to incorporate. In fact, incorporating in your situation will cost you in legal fees, administrative headaches, and a fair bit in taxes. The CRA would probably look at your corporation as a personal services corporation and it would not be allowed to claim a number of tax reductions. The tax rate would end up being over the top range (unless you are in Quebec where it would be just under the top marginal range). |
In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive? | To add to Jason's answer; a further mechanism is that of monopoly rents which you mention in your question. Movie theatres are often in shopping complexes (which themselves may offer a particular cinema exclusivity), or physically remote from each other, making price comparison more difficult. Different companies may not offer the same movies (similar to the way phone companies offer difficult-to-compare contract pricing). Once you've paid for your movie ticket, if you're suddenly thirsty or peckish, the theatre is the only place selling snacks. Many theatres (including film theatres) discourage (or refuse) patrons from consuming products purchased elsewhere on site. A sense of "capture" is reinforced with ticket collection at the entrance or some form of barrier (inside vs outside the cordon). A theatre can thus capture their patrons and then leverage that access in order to discriminate amongst the higher-paying consumers mentioned by Jason. |
Why are options created? | In general economic theory, there are always two markets created based on a need for a good; a spot market (where people who need something now can go outbid other people who need the same thing), and a futures market (where people who know they will need something later can agree to buy it for a pre-approved price, even if the good in question doesn't exist yet, like a grain crop). Options exist as a natural extension of the futures market. In a traditional future, you're obligated, by buying the contract, to execute it, for good or ill. If it turns out that you could have gotten a lower price when buying, or a higher price when selling, that's tough; you gave up the ability to say no in return for knowing, a month or three months or even a year in advance, the price you'll get to buy or sell this good that you know you need. Futures thus give both sides the ability to plan based on a known price, but that's their only risk-reduction mechanism. Enter the option. You're the Coors Brewing Company, and you want to buy 50 tons of barley grain for delivery in December in order to brew up for the Super Bowl and other assorted sports parties. A co-op bellies up to close the deal. But, since you're Coors, you compete on price with Budweiser and Miller, and if you end up paying more than the grain's really worth, perhaps because of a mild wet fall and a bumper crop that the almanac predicts, then you're going to have a real bad time of it in January. You ask for the right to say "no" when the contract falls due, if the price you negotiate now is too high based on the spot price. The co-op now has a choice; for such a large shipment, if Coors decided to leave them holding the bag on the contract and instead bought it from them anyway on a depressed spot market, they could lose big if they were counting on getting the contract price and bought equipment or facilities on credit against it. To mitigate those losses, the co-op asks for an option price; basically, this is "insurance" on the contract, and the co-op will, in return for this fee (exactly how and when it's paid is also negotiable), agree to eat any future realized losses if Coors were to back out of the contract. Like any insurance premium, the option price is nominally based on an outwardly simple formula: the probability of Coors "exercising" their option, times the losses the co-op would incur if that happened. Long-term, if these two figures are accurate, the co-op will break even by offering this price and Coors either taking the contract or exercising the option. However, coming up with accurate predictions of these two figures, such that the co-op (or anyone offering such a position) would indeed break even at least, is the stuff that keeps actuaries in business (and awake at night). |
Where I can find S&P 500 stock data history? | I assume you're after a price time series and not a list of S&P 500 constituents? Yahoo Finance is always a reasonable starting point. Code you're after is ^GSPC: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history?p=^GSPC There's a download data button on the right side. |
Work on the side for my wife's company | Depending on how much freelance work we're talking about you could set up a limited company, with you and your wife as directors. By invoicing all your work through the limited company (which could have many other benefits for you, an accountant/advisor would... well, advise...) it's the company earning the money, not you or her personally. You can then pay your wife up to £10,000 per year (as of writing this) without income tax kicking in. You would probably have to pay yourself a small amount to minimise exposure to HMRC's snooping, but possibly not... as far as I'm aware the rules do not state anything about working for free, for yourself - and I wouldn't worry about the ethics, you're already paying plenty into HMRC's bank account through your day job! Some good information here if you're interested: https://www.whitefieldtax.co.uk/web/psc-guide/pscguide-how-does-it-all-work-in-practice-salaries-and-dividends/ |
Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly? | Like all other loan-vs-savings questions, it depends on the terms of the loan. If you have a choice, the usual answer is to pay off the loan with the worst terms (which usually means the highest interest rate) first, and only start with savings when you've paid off all the high-interest loans entirely. If your student loan is on US terms, then pay it off as soon as you can, unless you have commercial debt (credit-card or unsecured personal loan), which you should pay off first, or unless you have or are realistically likely to get eligibility for a forgiveness program. But it does depends on the terms of the debt, which in turn depend on the country you studied in; on UK terms it's a very bad idea to pay off a student loan any faster than you have to. Interest is restricted to the rate of inflation, so good investments probably beat the interest rate of the student loan; the required repayments vary with your income, so savings are more useful than debt repayment if you encounter income difficulties (e.g unemployment) in the future, and finally the debt is automatically forgiven after 30 years, so you may never have to pay it all back anyway - so why pay it off voluntarily if it would get forgiven eventually anyway? |
Process for dissolving a recently-opened Colorado LLC? | Forms for the Colorado LLCs are online. You can find the link to the dissolution form here, and instructions here. IRS instructions are here. That's what they want: To close your business account, send us a letter that includes the complete legal name of the entity, the EIN, the business address and the reason you wish to close your account. If you have a copy of the EIN Assignment Notice that was issued when your EIN was assigned, include that when you write to us at: Internal Revenue Service Cincinnati, Ohio 45999 Everything is pretty straight forward. Note that you might be required to file a initial/final tax return if you had any transactions. |
Long term drip (dividend reinvestment plan) stock | If you sold the stock for a profit, you will owe tax on that profit. Whether it is taxed as short-term or long-term capital gains depends on how long you held the stock before selling it. Presumably you're going to invest this money into mutual funds or something of that sort. Those may pay dividends which can be reinvested, and will grow in value (you hope) just as the individual stock shares would (you hope). Assuming the advice you've been given is at all reasonable, there's no need for buyer's remorse here; you're just changing your investing style to a different point on the risk-versus-return curve. (If you have to ask this question, I tend to agree that you should do more homework before playing with shares in individual companieS ... unless you're getting thess shares at employee discount, in which case you should still seriously consider selling them fairly quickly and reinvesting the money in a more structured manner. In a very real sense your job is itself an "investment" in your employer; if they ever get into trouble you don't want that to hit both your income and investments.) |
When's the best time to sell the stock of a company that is being acquired/sold? | I'm not sure what you expect in terms of answers, but it depends on personal factors. It pretty well has to depend on personal factors, since otherwise everyone would want to do the same thing (either everyone thinks the current price is one to sell at, or everyone thinks it's one to buy at), and there would be no trades. You wouldn't be able to do what you want, except on the liquidity provided by market makers. Once that's hit, the price is shifting quickly, so your calculation will change quickly too. Purely in terms of maximising expected value taking into account the time value of money, it's all about the same. The market "should" already know everything you know, which means that one time to sell is as good as any other. The current price is generally below the expected acquisition price because there's a chance the deal will fall through and the stock price will plummet. That's not to say there aren't clever "sure-fire" trading strategies around acquisitions, but they're certain to be based on more than just timing when to sell an existing holding of stock. If you have information that the market doesn't (and assuming it is legal to do so) then you trade based on that information. If you know something the market doesn't that's going to be good for price, hold. If you know something that will reduce the price, sell now. And "know" can be used in a loose sense, if you have a strong opinion against the market then you might like to invest based on that. Nothing beats being paid for being right. Finally, bear in mind that expected return is not the same as utility. You have your own investment goals and your own view of risk. If you're more risk-averse than the market then you might prefer to sell now rather than wait for the acquisition. If you're more risk-prone than the market then you might prefer a 90% chance of $1 to 90c. That's fine, hold the stock. The extreme case of this is that you might have a fixed sum at which you will definitely sell up, put everything into the most secure investments you can find, and retire to the Caribbean. If that's the case then you become totally risk-averse the instant your holding crosses that line. Sell and order cocktails. |
Is a “total stock market” index fund diverse enough alone? | Good idea to stay only with VTI if you are 30. For 50, I recommend: 65% VTI 15% VOO 10% VXUS 10% BND |
Do stock prices drop due to dividends? | In the case of mutual funds, Net Asset Value (NAV) is the price used to buy and sell shares. NAV is just the value of the underlying assets (which are in turn valued by their underlying holdings and future earnings). So if a fund hands out a billion dollars, it stands to reason their NAV*shares (market cap?) is a billion dollars less. Shareholder's net worth is equal in either scenario, but after the dividend is paid they are more liquid. For people who need investment income to live on, dividends are a cheap way to hold stocks and get regular payments, versus having to sell part of your portfolio every month. But for people who want to hold their investment in the market for a long long time, dividends only increase the rate at which you have to buy. For mutual funds this isn't a problem: you buy the funds and tell them to reinvest for free. So because of that, it's a prohibited practice to "sell" dividends to clients. |
Do corporate stock splits negate share repurchase programs? | No, I think you are misunderstanding the Math. Stock splits are a way to control relatively where the price per share can be for a company as companies can split or reverse split shares which would be similar to taking dimes and giving 2 nickels for each dime, each is 10 cents but the number of coins has varied. This doesn't create any additional value since it is still 10 cents whether it is 1 dime or 2 nickels. Share repurchase programs though are done to prevent dilution as executives and those with incentive-stock options may get shares in the company that increase the number of outstanding shares that would be something to note. |
Calculating profits on a covered call. What method do you use? | yes, you are double counting. Your profit is between ($7.25 and $8) OR ($7.75 and $8.50). in other words, you bought the stock at $7.75 and sold at $8.00 and made $0.50 on top. Profit = $8.00-$7.75+$0.50 (of course all this assumes that the stock is at or above $8.00 when the option expires. If it's below, then your profit = market price - $7.75 + $0.50 by the way the statement won't call me away until the stock reaches $8.50 is wrong. They already paid $0.50 for the right to buy the stock at $8.00. If the stock is $8.01 on the day of expiration your options will be executed(automatically i believe). |
Is Cost of Living overstated? | You mention: High rent places are usually also high property value places. Given the tax incentives, it seems like a good long term idea to grab a house, so if we assume you have the option of working and buying a house in a high CoL or a low CoL city, I think you'd prefer the high cost. Because essentially, after 30 years, you'd have a million dollar house vs a quarter million dollar house. You've captured three quarters of a million dollars in rent, given my napkin math hypothetical. I think you're forgetting about some of the associated costs with "owning" a home, including: |
Why do banks finance shared construction as mortgages instead of financing it directly and selling the apartments in a building? | Remember that risk should correlate with returns, in an investment. This means that the more risk you take on, the more return you should be receiving, in an efficient marketplace. That's why putting your money in a savings account might earn you <1% interest right now, but putting money in the stock market averages ~7% returns over time. You should be very careful not to use the word 'interest' when you mean 'returns'. In your post, you are calling capital gains (the increase in value of owned property) 'interest'. This may be understating in your head the level of risk associated with property ownership. In the case of the bank, they are not in the business of home construction. Rather than take that risk themselves, they would rather finance many projects being done by construction companies that know the business. The bank has a high degree of certainty of getting its money back, because its mortgages are protected by the value of the property. Part of the benefit of an efficient marketplace is that risk gets 'bought' by individuals who want it. This means that people with a low-risk tolerance (such as banks, people on fixed incomes, seniors, etc.) can avoid risk, and people with a high risk tolerance (stock investors, young people with high income, etc.) can take on that risk for higher average returns. The bank's reasoning should remind you of the risk associated with property ownership: increases in value are not a sure thing. If you do not understand the risk of your investment, you cannot be certain that you are being well compensated for that risk. Note also that most countries place regulations on their banks that limit the amount of their funds that can be placed in 'higher risk' asset classes. Typically, this something along the lines of "If someone places a deposit with your bank, you can only invest that deposit in a low-risk debt-based asset [ie: you can take money deposited by customer A and use it to finance a mortgage for customer B]". This is done in an attempt to prevent collapse of the financial sector, if risky investments start failing. |
Capital gains loss, can IRS waive the loss? | The cap loss can be used to offset future gains or $3000/yr of ordinary income. (I just used up the last of mine from the dot com bubble.) I hope you have future gains that let you use this up quickly. The IRS debt is separate, and I don't imagine they'll let you use any of the loss to offset it. As always, it can't hurt to ask. Their normal payment plans are for 5 years. $40k/yr is a lot. Edit - The IRS does negotiate. I recall, from the dot-com bubble, instances where someone exercised stock grants, but kept the shares. Now, they had a $1M gain, but after year end, the stock crashed. They owed tax on that gain, but the loss was in the next tax year, with nothing to offset. These people were 'regular' guys and gals, no background in finance. I understand the IRS looked at these people and made some exceptions. |
Does the low CAD positively or negatively impact Canadian Investors? | When you want to invest in an asset denominated by a foreign currency, your investment is going to have some currency risk to it. You need to worry not just about what happens to your own currency, but also the foreign currency. Lets say you want to invest $10000 in US Stocks as a Canadian. Today that will cost you $13252, since USDCAD just hit 1.3252. You now have two ways you can make money. One is if USDCAD goes up, two is if the stocks go up. The former may not be obvious, but remember, you are holding US denominated assets currently, with the intention of one day converting those assets back into CAD. Essentially, you are long USDCAD (long USD short CAD). Since you are short CAD, if CAD goes up it hurts you It may seem odd to think about this as a currency trade, but it opens up a possibility. If you want a foreign investment to be currency neutral, you just make the opposite currency trade, in addition to your original investment. So in this case, you would buy $10,000 in US stocks, and then short USDCAD (ie long CAD, short USD $10,000). This is kind of savvy and may not be something you would do. But its worth mentioning. And there are also some currency hedged ETFs out there that do this for you http://www.ishares.com/us/strategies/hedge-currency-impact However most are hedged relative to USD, and are meant to hedge the target countries currency, not your own. |
How do the wealthy pay for things? | I was once the personal assistant to two wealthy NYC sisters. They did not pay for anything. For example, if we were riding the subway, I would pay, and be reimbursed by the Company. They had multiple residences and investment properties. Each property was purchased through a separate Limited Liablity Corporation, and paid for by the Company. When they purchased, donated or sold art, it was through their family Foundation. Their income primarily came from a draw of funds from the family estate, although one of them worked as an architect, which provided further income. |
How is stock price determined? | The answer to each of your questions is no. It is important to appreciate that the "quoted" ticker price may be delayed by say 15 minutes, and thus is not "real-time." |
Can a merchant charge you more in the US if you want to use a credit card? | This isn't so much a legal issue, the prohibition on giving discounts was written into the merchant agreements that most of the major credit card companies enforced on businesses that accepted their credit cards. That is, until the recent Financial Reform Bill (2010) passed Congress. It changes everything. (The logic on this is a little convoluted, so read carefully) Credit card companies can no longer prohibit merchants from requiring a minimum purchase amount to use a credit card. Meaning: That if merchants want to, they can now stop taking credit cards for a $4 latte. Credit card companies can no longer prohibit merchants from giving discounts for cash. Here is an article with a lot more detail: Financial Reform Bill Good News for Credit Card Holders Here is a link to the actual bill details and content: HR 4173 - Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act Here is the relevant part: This subsection is supposed to take affect "at the end of the 12-month period beginning on the date of the enactment of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010." In other words, July 21st, 2011. |
What is a good asset allocation for a 25 year old? | The standard advice is that stocks are all over the place, and bonds are stable. Not necessarily true. Magazines have to write for the lowest common denominator reader, so sometimes the advice given is fortune-cookie like. And like mbhunter pointed out, the advertisers influence the advice. When you read about the wonders of Index funds, and see a full page ad for Vanguard or the Nasdaq SPDR fund, you need to consider the motivation behind the advice. If I were you, I would take advantage of current market conditions and take some profits. Put as much as 20% in cash. If you're going to buy bonds, look for US Government or Municipal security bond funds for about 10% of your portfolio. You're not at an age where investment income matters, you're just looking for some safety, so look for bond funds or ETFs with low durations. Low duration protects your principal value against rate swings. The Vanguard GNMA fund is a good example. $100k is a great pot of money for building wealth, but it's a job that requires you to be active, informed and engaged. Plan on spending 4-8 hours a week researching your investments and looking for new opportunities. If you can't spend that time, think about getting a professional, fee-based advisor. Always keep cash so that you can take advantage of opportunities without creating a taxable event or make a rash decision to sell something because you're excited about a new opportunity. |
What is value investing? What are the key principles of value investing? | Fama-French would be a couple of names if you want to look at this from a value/growth dichotomy. A simplified form of this was to take the stocks with a lower Price/Book Value that would be the value stocks while the others would be the growth. The principle is that some of the beaten-down stocks will appreciate more than the growth stocks will. 6 Ways To Improve Your Portfolio Returns Today also makes note of the "growth vs value" split if you want another reference that way. Historically, growth has been more volatile and produced lower returns, though past performance isn't necessarily always going to hold as some people like to invest in what is known as a "slice & dice" portfolio where a portion in invested in each of 4 corners: Large-growth, large-value, small-growth, and small-value. Some may add in bonds, REITs, and foreign stocks but the idea is that in different years, different parts of the market will do better and this is a way to capture that in a sense. |
How can I find out the credit rating of a company | Dunn & Bradstreet offers detailed credit reports on businesses. They are not cheap, but they appear to have information on RIOCAN. |
Placing limit order and stop loss on same stock at same time | Although this is possible with many brokers, it's not advisable. In many cases you may end up with both trades executed at the same time. This is because during the opening, the stock might spike up or down heavily, bid/ask spread widens, and both of your orders would get picked up, resulting in an instant loss. Your best bet is to place the stop manually sometime after you get filled. |
Is it possible to create a self-managed superannuation fund to act as a mortage offset? (Australia) | You can set up a Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) and use it to buy residential investment property, and as Justin has mentioned even borrow to acquire the investment property through the SMSF. However, you cannot hold your home in the SMSF, as this would be classed as an in-house asset, and you are only allowed to hold a maximum of 5% of the total market value of SMSF as in-house assets. Furthermore, as you already own your house, you are not allowed to transfer residential property into a SMSF from a related party, even if done at current market value (you are allowed to transfer business real property from a related party at current market value). Regarding loans, you are not allowed to lend money from your SMSF to a related party as well. |
Should I stockpile nickels? | I agree with George. I'll also add that you have to think about the cost of melting the coins for their raw materials. Not exactly free in terms of equipment, facilities and energy costs. |
Calculating Pre-Money Valuation for Startup | Since you have no sales, I'd likely question how well could you determine the value of the company's assets in a reasonable fashion. You may be better to estimate sales and discount that back to a current valuation. For example, insurance companies could determine that if you wanted to be paid $x/month for the rest of your life, the present day value of that is $y. There are similar mechanisms for businesses but this does get tricky as the estimates have to be somewhat conservative and you have to be prepared for some other scenarios. For example, if you got the $200,000 then would you really never have to ask for more external equity financing in the future or is it quite likely that you'd want another infusion down the road? While you can mark it at $1,000,000 there will be questions about why that value that you'd have to answer and saying, "Cause I like big round numbers," may not go over well. My suggestion is to consider what kind of sales will the company have over the next 5 years that you could work back to determine a current price. If you believe the company can have $5,000,000 in sales over the 5 years then it may make sense to place the current valuation of $1,000,000 on it. I wouldn't look too much into the money and time you've invested as that isn't likely to go over well with investors that just because you've put in what is worth $x, the business may or may not be worth that. The challenge is that without sales, it is quite difficult to get an idea of what is the company worth. If it makes billions, then it is worth a lot more than a company that never turns a profit. Another way to consider this is the question of what kind of economic output do you think you could do working here for the next 5 years? Could you do thousands of dollars of work, millions of dollars or just a few bucks? Consider how you want this to be seen where if you want some help look up episodes of TV shows like "Dragon's Den" or "Shark Tank" as these give valuations often as part of the pitch which is what you are doing. |
When the market price for a stock is below a tender offer's price, is it free money (riskless) to buy shares & tender them? | That price is the post-tender price, which already reflects arbitrage. It's less than $65 on the market because that's the highest offer out there and the market price reflects the risk that the $65 will not be paid. It also reflects the time value of money until the cash is disbursed (including blows to liquidity). In other words, you are buying the stock burdened with the risk that it might rapidly deflate if the deal falls through (or gets revived at a lower price) or that your money might be better spent somewhere other than waiting for the i-bank to release the tender offer amount to you. Two months ago JOSB traded around $55, and four months ago it traded around $50. If the deal fails, then you could be stuck either taking a big loss to get out of the stock or waiting months (or longer) in the hope that another deal will come along and pay $65 (which may leave you with NPV loss from today). The market seems to think that risk is pretty small, but it's still there. If the payout is $65, then you get a discount for time value and a discount for failed-merger risk. That means the price is less than $65. You can still make money on it, if the merger goes through. Some investors believe they have a better way to make money, and no doubt the tender offer of the incipient merger of two publicly traded companies is already heavily arbitraged. But that said, it may still pay off. Tender offer arbitrage is discussed in this article. |
Why do stocks gap up after a buyout is announced? | The "random walk" that you describe reflects the nature of the information flow about the value of a stock. If the flow is just little bits of relatively unimportant information (including information about the broader market and the investor pool), you will get small and seemingly random moves, which may look like a meander. If an important bit of information comes out, like a merger, you will see a large and immediate move, which may not look as random. However, the idea that small moves are a meander of search and discovery and large moves are immediate agreements is incorrect. Both small moves and large moves are instantaneous agreements about the value of a stock in the form of a demand/supply equilibrium. As a rule, neither is predictable from the point of view of a single investor, but they are not actually random. They look different from each other only because of the size of the movement, not because of an underlying difference in how the consensus price is reached. |
How Warren Buffett made his money | There is actually a recent paper that attempted to decompose Buffett's outperformance. I've quoted the abstract below: "Berkshire Hathaway has realized a Sharpe ratio of 0.76, higher than any other stock or mutual fund with a history of more than 30 years, and Berkshire has a significant alpha to traditional risk factors. However, we find that the alpha becomes insignificant when controlling for exposures to Betting-Against-Beta and Quality-Minus-Junk factors. Further, we estimate that Buffett’s leverage is about 1.6-to-1 on average. Buffett’s returns appear to be neither luck nor magic, but, rather, reward for the use of leverage combined with a focus on cheap, safe, quality stocks. Decomposing Berkshires’ portfolio into ownership in publicly traded stocks versus wholly-owned private companies, we find that the former performs the best, suggesting that Buffett’s returns are more due to stock selection than to his effect on management. These results have broad implications for market efficiency and the implementability of academic factors." |
Calculating the total capital of a company? | Opening capital = opening assests-opening liabilities |
Why are there hidden bids and offers in the US stock market for the more illiquid stocks? | When you place a bid between the bid/ask spread, that means you are raising the bid (or lowering the ask, if you are selling). The NBBO (national best bid and offer) is now changed because of your action, and yes, certain kinds of orders may be set to react to that (a higher bid or lower ask triggering them), also many algorithms (that haven't already queued an order simply waiting for a trigger, like in a stop limit) read the bid and ask and are programmed to then place an order at that point. |
Any extra fees charged by passive stock and bond ETFs on top of the standard fees? | Brokers will have transaction fees in addition to the find management fees, but they should be very transparent. Brokering is a very competitive business. Any broker that added hidden fees to their transactions would lose customers very quickly to other brokers than can offer the same services. Hedge funds are a very different animal, with less regulation, less transparency, and less competition. Their fees are tolerated because the leveraged returns are usually much higher. When times are bad, though, those fees might drive investors elsewhere. |
Walking away from an FHA loan | Nearly every state in the US is full-recourse. If one doesn't seek bankruptcy protection, creditors can seek judgement, and collect assets. Foreclosures frequently sell for approximately half the market price. Considering unemployment risk, homes can be risky. A far better way to accumulate wealth is with equities (stocks). However, the risk converts from insolvency to liquidation since during times of high unemployment, equities are also cheap, causing any liquidation used to fund current expenses to be potentially ruinous. |
Scam or Real: A woman from Facebook apparently needs my bank account to send money | Well, all of the previous answers already mentioned the upcoming scam and danger situation for your financial position. I thoroughly read all answers and wanted to add a few more lines on it. Cort Ammon) already shows details of it. Any kind of financial transaction involving a complete stranger is the first big scam tag that shows up and this should always 'Never Fall In' type situation. If you open a new bank account or give away any existing bank account to this lady, other than just losing some amount, you might pay earlier than clearing checks you deposited on behalf of your 'stranger' partner. Depending on their target/plan/experience with your bank account they can make you a victim of a bigger crime. There is a full length of scam plans, like sending you false checks to deposit and ask you withdrew money to send them back to even having very big incoming transaction to your account sitting idle on your account which might originate from a crime beyond the financial domain. You can try to be smart, thinking in mind, well, let them send some, I will never send them back before bank declare the deposited checks got horned and clear (and send back the amount after keeping your share). But, still you will face problems later. Even if your account fills up with real money and after confirming with bank you find it OK and never return them (scam a scammer). Still you will not have any valid authority or answer describing how/why you got this money if someone ask you later. Depending on scammer's ability, they might even give you control over fund to spend for your own (to gain some trust from your part). On this type of scam it is a sign of an even bigger danger. I live such a country, Bangladesh, from where recently they successfully transferred out around US$10 millions using a bank account of an outsider like you keeping in between source of money and final unknown destination. The result is the owner / operator of those accounts used for these transfers are now under law enforcement pressure, not only just to find out where ultimately money has gone, but for sure they will face some degree of charge for helping transfer of illegal money overseas". For someone who is not part of a full scam chain it is a big deal. It might ruin their life forever. To be on the safe side, and help protect others from falling on the same type of problem you may contact your local law enforcement agency. Depending on the situation, they might be interested to run a sting operation using your information and support to catch and stop the crime going to happen soon or later. I would give a rare chance of 2% legitimate reason for anyone to use a third-party bank account to pay some other living either different country (still it is not legal, but a lower-type crime). But obviously they will not ask randomly over the Internet/social network sites. In your case this is a real scam. Be careful and stay safe; Good Luck. |
What does the term “match the market” mean? | There was a time when everyone felt their goal was to beat the respective index they followed. But of course, in aggregate, that's a mathematical impossibility. The result was that the average say large cap fund, whose benchmark index would be the S&P, would lag on average by 1-2%. A trend toward ETFs that would match the market had begun, and the current ETFs that follow the S&P are sub .1% expense. For the fact that studies (Google "Dalbar" for examples) show the typical investor lags not by 1% or 2%, but by far more for reasons of bad timing, my own statement that "I've gotten a return these past years of .06% less than the S&P" would have been seen many years ago as failure, now it's bragging. It handily beats the typical investor and yet, can be had by anyone wishing to stay the course, keep the ETF very long term. |
How are long term capital gains taxes calculated? | You pay taxes on capital gains when you realize your gains by selling the investment property. Also, in the US, taxes on capital gains are computed at special rates depending on your current income level, and so when you realize your gains two years from now, you will pay taxes on the gains at the special rate then applicable to your income level for the year of sale. Remember also that the US Congress can change the tax laws at any time between now and the time you sell your stocks, and so the rates you are looking at now may have changed too. |
What is considered a business expense on a business trip? | The IRS Guidance pertaining to the subject. In general the best I can say is your business expense may be deductible. But it depends on the circumstances and what it is you want to deduct. Travel Taxpayers who travel away from home on business may deduct related expenses, including the cost of reaching their destination, the cost of lodging and meals and other ordinary and necessary expenses. Taxpayers are considered “traveling away from home” if their duties require them to be away from home substantially longer than an ordinary day’s work and they need to sleep or rest to meet the demands of their work. The actual cost of meals and incidental expenses may be deducted or the taxpayer may use a standard meal allowance and reduced record keeping requirements. Regardless of the method used, meal deductions are generally limited to 50 percent as stated earlier. Only actual costs for lodging may be claimed as an expense and receipts must be kept for documentation. Expenses must be reasonable and appropriate; deductions for extravagant expenses are not allowable. More information is available in Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses. Entertainment Expenses for entertaining clients, customers or employees may be deducted if they are both ordinary and necessary and meet one of the following tests: Directly-related test: The main purpose of the entertainment activity is the conduct of business, business was actually conducted during the activity and the taxpayer had more than a general expectation of getting income or some other specific business benefit at some future time. Associated test: The entertainment was associated with the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business and occurred directly before or after a substantial business discussion. Publication 463 provides more extensive explanation of these tests as well as other limitations and requirements for deducting entertainment expenses. Gifts Taxpayers may deduct some or all of the cost of gifts given in the course of their trade or business. In general, the deduction is limited to $25 for gifts given directly or indirectly to any one person during the tax year. More discussion of the rules and limitations can be found in Publication 463. If your LLC reimburses you for expenses outside of this guidance it should be treated as Income for tax purposes. Edit for Meal Expenses: Amount of standard meal allowance. The standard meal allowance is the federal M&IE rate. For travel in 2010, the rate for most small localities in the United States is $46 a day. Source IRS P463 Alternately you could reimburse at a per diem rate |
What are the ins/outs of writing-off part of one's rent for working at home? | Before starting to do this, make sure that you are squeaky clean in all aspects of your tax preparation and are prepared to back up any claims that you make with documentation. Home office deductions are a huge red flag that often trigger audits. Follow mbhunter's advice and be incredibly meticulous about following the rules and keeping records. |
My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking? | If you really want to help your friend buy a house, make a counter-offer to buy the house yourself and lease it to your friend, with the option to buy for original purchase cost, plus all interest paid so far to the bank, plus closing costs and other expenses incurred by you, minus payments made so far by the friend. Otherwise, just no. The other answers already detail why. |
Why do some symbols not have an Options chain for specific expiration dates? | Short answer: Liquidity. Well, you have to see it from an exchange's point of view. Every contract they put up is a liability to them. You have to allocate resources for the order book, the matching engine, the clearing, etc. But only if the contract is actually trading they start earning (the big) money. Now for every new expiry they engage a long term commitment and it might take years for an option chain to be widely accepted (and hence before they're profitable). Compare the volumes and open interests of big chains versus the weeklies and you'll find that weeklies can still be considered illiquid compared to their monthly cousins. Having said that, like many things, this is just a question of demand. If there's a strong urge to trade July weeklies one day, there will be an option chain. But, personally I think, as long as there are the summer doldrums there will be no rush to ask for Jul and Aug chains. |
Money put down on home | To quote Judge Judy: "Our courts are not in the business of settling assets of couples who decide to play house". This is one of the reasons we put off buying houses with a partner until we are married. The courts have rules for couples who marry, then split, but none for those who don't. In the scenerio you spelled out, you are at the mercy of your ex-boyfriend as far as getting your downpayment back. Legally, you are entitled to 50% of the funds remaining after the sale and expenses. |
Confirm Dividend Yield | There are lots of provisos, but in general you are correct. The provisos, off the top of my head: The only fees will be any brokerage fees when you purchase the stock. I haven't seen any handling fees when you get the dividend, but it may depend on how you hold the stock. |
Is there such a thing as “stock insurance”? | Yes, you can insure against the fall in price of stock by purchasing a put option. You pay for a put and if the price of the share falls below the "strike price" of the put, then you can exercise the put. On exercise, the person who sold you the put contract agrees to buy the stock for the strike price, even though that strike price is higher than the market price. You can adjust the level of insurance by buying put options at higher or lower prices, or buying fewer put options than shares you own (leaving some shares uninsured). Alternatively, you can minimize your risk exposure by investing in an index or other fund, which gives you partial ownership in a large number of shares. That means on any given day, lots of shares do worse and lots of shares do better. You can reduce the need for insurance by purchasing a lower-risk, lower-growth financial product. |
Home owners association for houses, pro/cons | I think it depends a lot on your idea of how you should relate to your neighbors. Personally, I think that I should be allowed to do just about whatever I want with my property, and I grant my neighbor the same right. If my neighbor wants to paint his house purple with orange stripes and fill his front lawn with pink flamingos, I think that's his right. If I don't like it, I don't have to look at his house. (I would draw the line at things that I cannot avoid by simply looking the other way, like running jet engines in his back yard at 2 in the morning, as I could not avoid the noise. Or dumping toxic waste on the street, as it will cause health problems. Etc.) Others think it IS their business what their neighbor does with his property and want to be able to control it. They want someone who has the authority to force everyone in the neighborhood to paint their house in colors deemed acceptable, to meet certain requirements for yard work. And that's what Home Owners Associations are for: to require that everyone in the neighborhood maintain their property according to a standard set by the HOA, which should theoretically represent the wishes of the majority. Of course the price you pay for giving you the right to tell your neighbor what kind of fence he is allowed to have is that now your neighbors can tell you what kind of fence you can have. Advocates of HOAs often say that they are necessary to protect property values. Personally I think this is something of a circular argument: I must have the right to prevent my neighbor from doing something that, in my opinion, makes his house ugly, not because I necessarily have no choice but to stare out my window at his house all day and be repulsed by it, but because someday I may want to sell my house to someone who will have no choice but to stare out the window at his house all day and be repulsed by it and so will not want to buy my house. Of course if we all just minded our own business, this wouldn't be an issue. Okay, this was pretty much an anti-HOA post, but I did TRY to state the other side of it. |
Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly? | You become a teacher; generally K-12, but I have heard from the DOE that teachers at state schools qualify as well. This is not 100% correct. Teaching in certain disciplines and areas (STEM, Special Education, Title 1 schools) can qualify for student loan debt forgiveness DEPENDING on the type of debt. For instance, I believe the Federal loan forgiveness program only covers debt remaining after 10 years of teaching in a qualified discipline. Do verify this as it's been several years since I looked into the matter. The DOE has a student loan forgiveness program, but the scope of it is somewhat narrow. I would encourage anyone considering this approach to investigate it in detail before committing to a career in teaching. Some states have similar programs, but they typically have limitations as well. |
Any problem if I continuously spend my credit card more than normal people? | How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score? might answer your question if US based. In the US, what counts is what shows on the bill. I've run $20K through a card with a $10K limit, but still ended the month under $2K by making extra payments. As long as you stay ahead of the limit by making mid-cycle payments, I see no issue with this strategy. If you keep running $30K/mo through a card with a $10K limit, the bank will eventually catch this and raise your limit as you will have proven you are more credit worthy. |
Optimal down payment amount | The optimal down payment is 100%. The only way you would do anything else when you have the cash to buy it outright is to invest the remaining money to get a better return. When you compare investments, you need to take risk into account as well. When you make loan payments, you are getting a risk free return. You can't find a risk-free investment that pays as much as your car loan will be. If you think you can "game the system" by taking a 0% loan, then you will end up paying more for the car, since the financing is baked into the sales [price in those cases (there is no such thing as free money). If you pay cash, you have much more bargaining power. Buy the car outright (negotiating as hard as you can), start saving what you would have been making as a car payment as an emergency fund, and you'll be ahead of the game. For the inflation hedge - you need to find investments that act as an inflation hedge - taking a loan does not "hedge" against inflation since you'll still be paying interest regardless of the inflation rate. The fact that you'll be paying slightly less interest (in "real" terms) does not make it a hedge. To answer the actual question, if your "reinvestment rate" (the return you can get from investing the "borrowed" cash) is less than the interest rate, then the more you put down, the greater your present value (PV). If your reinvestment rate is less than the interest rate, then the less you put down the better (not including risk). When you incorporate risk, though, the additional return is probably not worth the risk. So there is no "optimal" down payment in between those mathematically - it will depend on how much liquid cash you need (knowing that every dollar that you borrow is costing you interest). |
How do i get into investing stocks [duplicate] | Everything that I'm saying presumes that you're young, and won't need your money back for 20+ years, and that you're going to invest additional money in the future. Your first investments should never be individual stocks. That is far too risky until you have a LOT more experience in the market. (Once you absolutely can't resist, keep it to under 5% of your total investments. That lets you experiment without damaging your returns too much.) Instead you would want to invest in one or more mutual funds of some sort, which spreads out your investment across MANY companies. With only $50, avoiding a trading commission is paramount. If you were in the US, I would recommend opening a free online brokerage account and then purchasing a no-load commission-free mutual fund. TD Ameritrade, for example, publishes a list of the funds that you can purchase without commission. The lists generally include the type of fund (index, growth, value, etc.) and its record of return. I don't know if Europe has the same kind of discount brokerages / mutual funds the US has, but I'd be a little surprised if it didn't. You may or may not be able to invest until you first scrape together a $500 minimum, but the brokerages often have special programs/accounts for people just starting out. It should be possible to ask. One more thing on picking a fund: most charge about a 1% annual expense ratio. (That means that a $100 investment that had a 100% gain after one year would net you $198 instead of $200, because 1% of the value of your asset ($200) is $2. The math is much more complicated, and depends on the value of your investment at every given point during the year, but that's the basic idea.) HOWEVER, there are index funds that track "the market" automatically, and they can have MUCH lower expense fees (0.05%, vs 1%) for the same quality of performance. Over 40 years, the expense ratio can have a surprisingly large impact on your net return, even 20% or more! You'll want to google separately about the right way to pick a low-expense index fund. Your online brokerage may also be able to help. Finally, ask friends or family what mutual funds they've invested in, how they chose those funds, and what their experience has been. The point is not to have them tell you what to do, but for you to learn from the mistakes and successes of other experienced investors with whom you can follow up. |
Why would a public company not initiate secondary stock offerings more often? | What prevents a company from doing secondary public stock offerings on regular basis? The primary goal of a company doing secondary public offering is to raise more funds, that can be utilized for funding the business. If no funding is needed [i.e. company has sufficient funds, or no expansion plans], this funding creates a drag and existing shareholder including promoters loose value. For example with the current 100 invested, the company is able to generate say 125 [25 as profit]. If additional 100 is taken as secondary public offering, then with 200, the company should mark around 250, else it looses value. So if the company took additional 100 and did not / is not able to deploy in market, on 200 they still make 25 as profit, its bad. There are other reasons, i.e. to fight off hostile acquisition or dilute some of promoters shares etc. Thus the reasons for company to do a secondary PO are few and doing it often reduces the value for primary share holders as well as minority share holders. |
Taxable income on full-time job + business earnings | Possible alternative: In my case, the part-time locksmithing is a small enough portion of my I come that I just submit it as hobby income, rather than trying to track it as a separate entity. |
How can I investigate historical effect of Rebalancing on Return and Standard Deviation? | From Vanguard's Best practices for portfolio rebalancing: |
How to mitigate the risk of Euro Stoxx 50 ETF? | You could go with either of: Choosing this you'd pretty much have minimized your risk by using the whole world asa market. |
Priced out of London property market. What are my accommodation investment options? | Real Estate is all local. In the United States, I can show you houses so high the rent on them is less than 1/3% of their value per month, eg. $1M House renting for less than $3500. I can also find 3 unit buildings (for say $200K) that rent for $3000/mo total rents. I might want to live in that house, but buy the triplex to rent out. You need to find what makes sense, and not buy out of impulse. A house to live in and a house to invest have two different sets of criteria. They may overlap, but if the strict Price/Rent were universal, there would be no variation. If you clarify your goal, the answers will be far more valuable. |
How to report Canadian income from a small contract job? | It's pretty easy. In the Interview Setup for Ufile, check the box for "Self-employment business income". Then during the process of filling everything out, you'll get a Self-Employment screen. It'll ask for the name of your business, but just put your own name since you don't have one. For the 6-digit classification code, click the ? button and look through the list for the industry that best matches the one for whom you wrote the technical report. Or you can go with 711500: Independent artists, writers and performers. It doesn't really matter that much so don't worry if it's a poor match. It will also ask you for your income and expenses. I don't know exactly what costs you might have incurred to write your report, but you can likely claim a very tiny amount of "home office" expenses. Costs like rent (or mortgage interest + property tax), utilities, and home insurance can be claimed, but they have to be pro-rated for the time you were actually doing the work, and are based on the amount of space you used for the work. For example, if you paid $1000 rent and $200 utilities for the month in which the work was done, and it took you 20 of the 31 days in that month to actually do the work, and you used a room that makes up about 10% of the square footage of your home, then you can claim: $1200 * 20/31 * 0.1 = $77.42 for your home office expenses. If you also used that room for non-business purposes during that time, then you reduce it even further. Say, if the room was also used for playing video games 50% of the time, then you'd only claim $38.71 |
Old Cancelled Cards | Closed accounts are used when calculating Average Age of Accounts (AAoA) by FICO. They will drop off your report 7 years after their closure, at which time your AAoA will decrease and most likely lower your credit score. Keeping your oldest card with an annual fee (AF) is a tough question. Since the exact calculations are a secret, it's hard to quantify the value of that card. Keep in mind that if you do decide to close it now (or right before the next AF) it will continue to count for the next 7 years. What you can do is the following: Assume you won't be applying for any new cards in the next 7 years. Look at all your current accounts and calculate the AAoA of all of them that would still be on your report 7 years from now. Calculate it with and without your oldest card. The difference will show you the effect closing the card today will have. There is a potential way to raise your AAoA depending on if you have an AMEX card. AMEX reports all accounts as being open from your original 'member since' date. If your oldest AMEX (ever, not necessarily still open) is older than your AAoA, opening a new AMEX will actually raise your average. age of accounts is 15% of your score. note that some websites that calculate your AAoA for you (like creditkarma) don't count closed accounts, but since FICO does the age those websites generate should be ignored. |
Why would selling off some stores improve a company's value? | Maybe the location isn't yet, but will soon become a new loss. For example older soon out of warranty equipment, new tax laws in the locality soon to take affect or even just declining sales over the past periods of measurement. Perhaps labor disputes or other locality issues make running the store difficult. There is the possibility that the land the location occupies is worth more sold to the new big box retailer than it will be in the next 10 years of operation. In some cases, companies want to have a ton of cash on hand, or would sell assets to pay off debt. |
Issuing bonds at discount - computing effective interest rate | Yes, the "effective" and "market" rates are interchangeable. The present value formula will help make it possible to determine the effective interest rate. Since the bond's par value, duration, and par interest rate is known, the coupon payment can be extracted. Now, knowing the price the bond sold in the market, the duration, and the coupon payment, the effective market interest rate can be extracted. This involves solving large polynomials. A less accurate way of determining the interest rate is using a yield shorthand. To extract the market interest rate with good precision and acceptable accuracy, the annual coupon derived can be divided by the market price of the bond. |
Should I use Mint.com? Is it secure / trusted? [duplicate] | Yes, there is such possibility. Also, there's a possibility people made your computer, your operation system, your browser, etc. put there some code there that would intercept your communications and steal your money. So could bank clerks (and unlike all other examples, this really happened in real world, numerous times, though usually at smaller banks), ATM makers, etc. In the modern world, you rely on things made by thousands of people, this is a part of modern world's conveniences. You don't have to use it - you can store all your money in a big jar in your basement and nobody but occasional thief breaking in could take it. However, fraudulent unauthorized transactions in most banks can be rolled back, and any transaction is reported to you. So fraud from mint.com people would be quite low on my list of risks. Much bigger risk is that somebody could break into mint.com servers and steal information about your accounts from there or install some malicious code. I believe they have good protections, but no security system is perfect. You need to evaluate how the convenience of using mint.com compares to your personal feeling about this risk. If you feel you couldn't sleep at night knowing somewhere out there there is information about your money - don't use it. I don't worry about it too much as I know the chance of it happening is low and the chance of getting the money back if it happens is high, but if you feel differently - don't do it. |
Are there any consequences for investing in Vanguard's Admiral Shares funds instead of ETF's in a Roth IRA? | ETFs purchases are subject to a bid/ask spread, which is the difference between the highest available purchase offer ("bid") and the lowest available sell offer ("ask"). You can read more about this concept here. This cost doesn't exist for mutual funds, which are priced once per day, and buyers and sellers all use the same price for transactions that day. ETFs allow you to trade any time that the market is open. If you're investing for the long term (which means you're not trying to time your buy/sell orders to a particular time of day), and the pricing is otherwise equal between the ETF and the mutual fund (which they are in the case of Vanguard's ETFs and Admiral Shares mutual funds), I would go with the mutual fund because it eliminates any cost associated with bid/ask spread. |
How would I go about selling the stock of a privately held company? | The easiest way to find a buyer should be to ask the company to connect you to some of their other shareholders. I imagine they are much more likely to take those shares off you than a random investor on the street. Otherwise, well, talk to people. At a golf club, maybe? :) Valuation is not going to be very straightforward. Basically you'll get whatever someone is willing to pay. That's what FMV means when there's no real "market". Realistically, the price is mainly going to be based on divididend history and the company's assets, discounted for risk and liquidity (you're currently feeling the reason for the latter discount). |
Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] | How much can I save? Depends on inflation and what other investment opportunities you have. It could end up costing you millions. Can I pay $12,000 extra once a year or $1000 every month - which option is better? It depends on how risk adverse you are. The first option does sound better, but for a 30 year mortgage, is it that significant? How much of your time is it going to cost you to do it every month? What is keeping you from doing it every day? How much is your time worth to you. Giving the bank its money sooner is always better than giving it it's money from a saving interest perspective. When is the best time to pay? See above. |
How do you go about buying a house directly from an owner? I.e. no broker involved? | You don't have to use an agent (broker, as you call it), but it is strongly advised. In some counties lawyers are required, in some not. Check your local requirements. Similarly the escrow companies that usually deal with recording and disbursing of money. You will probably not be able to get a title insurance without using an escrow service (I'm guessing here, but it makes sense to me). You will not be able to secure financing through a bank or a mortgage broker without an escrow company, and it might be hard without an agent. Agents required by law to know all the details of the process, and they can guide you through what to do and what to look into. They have experience reading and understanding the inspection reports, they know what to demand from the seller (disclosures, information, etc), they know how and from where to get the HOA docs and disclosures, and can help you negotiate the price knowing the market information (comparable sales, comparable listings, list vs sales statistics, etc). It is hard to do all that alone, but if you do - you should definitely get a discount over the market price of the property of about 5% (the agents' fees are up to 5% mostly). I bought several properties in California and in other states, and I wouldn't do it without an agent on my side. But if you trust the other side entirely and willing to take the risk of missing a step and having problems later with title, mortgage, insurance or resale, then you can definitely save some money and do it without an agent, and there are people doing that. |
Does investing in a company support it? | As others have said, it simply makes you a part owner. Even if you have ethical objections to a company's behavior, I'd argue that investing in it and using the proxy votes to influence the company's decisions might be even more ethical than not investing. |
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