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Tax relief on UK salary income | The broker that is issuing the moneys after vesting is more than likely deducting a notional amount of tax and NI based on UK income tax laws. If you are not a UK resident, then you should pay income tax on those stock options based on your own tax residency. Best thing to do is speak directly with the broker to explai... |
Buying shares in employer's company during IPO | So the key factor here, IMHO, is the amount we are talking about. $2K is just not a lot of money. If you lose every penny, you can recover. On the other hand it is unlikely to make you wealthy. So if I was you I would buy in, more for the fun of it all. Now if it was a large amount of money that we were talking abo... |
How should I invest my money as a young graduate in Europe? | Using a simple investment calculator to get a sense of scale here, to have 70k total, including the 500 a month invested, after ten years you just need returns of 2%. To earn 70k on top of the money invested you would need returns over 20%. To do that in five years you would need over 50% annual return. That is quite... |
Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money? | People in the United States in the mid-2000's thought that real estate was safe. Then they discovered that when the bubble burst the value of their house dropped 10 to 50%. Then they realized that they couldn't sell, even if they had the cash to make the lender whole. Some lost their houses to foreclosure, others walk... |
Equity - date of offer, or date of joining? | Options or Shares vest by date they are granted. It would strike me as odd for anyone to say their shares were given with 4 year vesting, but the clock was pre-started years prior. In my opinion, you have nothing to complain about. |
What will be the long term impact of the newly defined minimum exchange rate target from francs to euro? | The total size of the eurozone economy is $13 trillion, whereas Switzerland'd GDP is about $0.5 trillion, so the eurozone is about 26 times larger. As such, I would not expect this move to have a large effect on the eurozone economy. On the margins, this may decrease somewhat eurozone exports to Switzerland and incre... |
What does it mean “sell on ask” , “sell on bid” in stocks? | Bid and ask prices are the reigning highest buy price and lowest sell price in the market which doesn't mean one must only buy/sell at thise prices. That said one can buy/sell at whatever price they so wish although doing it at any other price than the bid/ask is usually harder as other market participants will gravita... |
How to reconcile performance with dividends? | You didn't identify the fund but here is the most obvious way: Some of the stocks they owned could had dividends. Therefore they would have had to pass them on to the investors. If the fund sold shares of stocks, they could have capital gains. They would have sold stocks to pay investors who sold shares. They also coul... |
How can I verify that a broker I found online is legitimate? | (I answered a similar question before.) Essentially, you shouldn't trust a site you find on the Internet merely because it looks professional and real. Before signing up with any new service provider you found online, you should verify the authenticity of both the organization itself and their web site address. Even i... |
Is it wise to invest in bond fund when interest rates are low? | This is just a pedestrian (my) opinion: Yes, It is wise to invest in bond funds even in a low interest environment. Check out the lazy man's portfolio on bogleheads. The reason is: |
Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | There are two basic ways you can separate your investments from the dollar (or any other currency). |
Is there a legal deadline for when your bank/brokerage has to send your tax forms to you? | I got notice from Charles Schwab that the forms weren't being mailed out until the middle of February because, for some reason, the forms were likely to change and rather than mail them out twice, they mailed them out once. Perhaps some state tax laws took effect (such as two Oregon bills regarding tax rates for higher... |
Why does Warren Buffett say his fund performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market? | Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway took a 50% loss in each of the last two bear markets. His stock even lost 10% in 2015 when the S&P lost 8%. He doesn't have a track record to support the claim that his stock performs relatively better in a bear market, so perhaps it's best to take his letter with a grain of salt. E... |
Finance options for a new furnace. | You walk into the finance company with a written quote from the supplier for the equipment you want to buy. You then fill out forms and sign a promissory note. The finance company then writes out a check to the supplier for the amount of the quoted equipment. Usually you need to provide at least 3 things: They will req... |
Capital Gains in an S Corp | Lets just get to the point...Ordinary income (gains) earned from S-Corp operations (i.e. income earned after all expenses for providing services or selling products) is passed through to the owners/shareholders and taxed at the owner's personal tax rate. Separately, if an S-Corp earns capital gains (i.e. the S-Corp buy... |
Are buyouts always for higher than the market value of a stock? | Can a company not bargain with a dying company for example and buy a falling stock at lower than market value? Of course. If the shareholders agree to it. But why would they, if the market value is higher, agree to sell to someone who offers less? If there's a compelling reason - it can happen. It might happen during... |
Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? | In the United States, savings accounts generally have higher interest rates than checking or money market accounts. Part of this is the government restriction on the number of automated transactions per month that can be done on a savings account: this is supposed to allow banks to lengthen the time frame of the cash ... |
Expiring 401(k) Stock Option and Liquidation Implications | I have had this happen a couple of times because of splits or sales of portions of the company. The general timeline was to announce how the split was to be handled; then the split; then a freeze in purchasing stock in the other company; then a freeze in sales; followed by a short blackout period; then the final trans... |
Is losing money in my 401K normal? | Bottom line is our system is broken. For three years running I am 0% return with over 600k in. Yet, the 401k admin institution charges us all enormous fees that most aren't even aware exist. A helpful tip is to also check out your expense ratios and learn how those work as well so you know how much you are paying in... |
AVS Address Verification System of BOTH Credit and Debit Cards - WHERE, HOW? | Parts of what you want are possible, but taken as a whole, you're out of luck. First of all, there is no master database of every cardholder in the country. The only way to check if information is correct is to ask the issuing bank. The AVS system is a way to automate doing so, but it's possible to call the bank dire... |
Layman's guide to getting started with Forex (foreign exchange trading)? | Currency Trading For Dummies, no offense. The "For Dummies" series is well known for its expertise in every field one can imagine. That said, what prompts you to want to get into this? The average person is very likely to lose money as the long time experts walk away winners. Do you have an urge to trade commodity futu... |
What is the different between 2 :1 split and 1:1 split | There is no such thing as a "one for one" split. It's either N for 1, or 1 for N in a reverse split. And for either, N can't be 1. Yes a 3:2 can happen, but I still read it as 1.5 for 1. |
Any good software for value investment? | As @littleadv and @DumbCoder point out in their comments above, Bloomberg Terminal is expensive for individual investors. If you are looking for a free solution I would recommend Yahoo and Google Finance. On the other side, if you need more financial metrics regarding historic statements and consensus estimates, you s... |
Implications of a Canadian company IPO having a dual TSX/NYSE stock listing? | Investors who are themselves Canadian and already hold Canadian dollars (CAD) would be more likely to purchase the TSX-listed shares that are quoted in CAD, thus avoiding the currency exchange fees that would be required to buy USD-quoted shares listed on the NYSE. Assuming Shopify is only offering a single class of sh... |
Can future rental income be applied to present debt-to-income ratio when applying for second mortgage? | Generally speaking, no they won't. In this case, though I haven't done it myself, I was recommended to put the mortgage on the real estate after it's been leased out and has a contract on it. Then, yes, they will use it for that. But, ex-ante don't expect any bank to count on income from it because, at that point, th... |
What is the cause of sudden price spikes in the FOREX market? | If you do not understand the volatility of the fx market, you need to stop trading it, immediately. There are many reasons that fx is riskier than other types of investing, and you bear those risks whether you understand them or not. Below are a number of reasons why fx trading has high levels of risk: 1) FX trades on ... |
How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser) | The key question is this - What brings you happiness? How much is this behavior actually making you miserable? It's possible, and important, to find balance between frugality and as you say, being a miser. It's also important to understand the diminishing return, and to value not just your hour of time but your happin... |
Types of investments with built-in puts or similar safety features | Many mutual funds include such mechanisms. However, the higher fees for those funds (when compared to simple index funds) may cancel out any improvement the hedging strategy offers. |
Optimal way to use a credit card to build better credit? | In addition to the already good answers: I am assuming you are playing a long game and have no specific need for a high credit score in the next couple of years. This list is just good practice that will raise you score. |
Stock Dividends & Splits: Are they always applied over night? | I've never seen a dividend, split or other corporate action during the day, but I have seen trade suspended a few times when something big happened. The market opening price is not in general the same as the close of the previous day. It can gap up or down and does frequently. I don't know of an api to find out if the ... |
Advice for opening an IRA as a newbie | If you want to 'offset' current (2016) income, only deductible contribution to a traditional IRA does that. You can make nondeductible contributions to a trad IRA, and there are cases where that makes sense for the future and cases where it doesn't, but it doesn't give you a deduction now. Similarly a Roth IRA has poss... |
Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now? | I tend to agree with Rocky's answer. However it sounds like you want to look at this from the numbers side of things. So let's consider some numbers: I'm assuming you have the money to buy the new car available as cash in hand, and that if you don't buy the car, you'll invest it reasonably. So if you buy the new car... |
Why would a person not want to purchase a Personal Liability (Umbrella) insurance policy? | The two questions inherent in any decision to purchase an insurance plan is, "how likely am I to need it?", and "what's the worst case scenario if I don't have it?". The actuary that works for the insurance company is asking these same questions from the other end (with the second question thus being "what would we be ... |
Does it make any sense to directly contribute to reducing the US national debt? | It doesn't make any financial sense for you personally, because the impact on the debt would be so little it would have no significant benefit to you, and you'd be out the money you donated. |
What is the meaning of public stock price data from before the official first day of trading? [duplicate] | For the case of spinoffs it reflects the market as activities as the specific steps that have to be followed take place. For example the spinoff of Leidos from SAIC in 2013. (I picked this one becasue I knew some of the details) On September 9, 2013, the Board of Directors of SAIC, Inc.(Ticker Symbol (NYSE):SAI) appr... |
Does an individual share of a stock have some kind of unique identifier? | There is no unique identifier that exists to identify specific shares of a stock. Just like money in the bank, there is no real reason to identify which exact dollar bills belong to me or you, so long as there is a record that I own X bills and I can access them when I want. (Of course, unlike banks, there is still a 1... |
How should one structure a portfolio given the possibility that a Total Stock Market Index might decline and not recover for a long time? | Common financial advice is just that - it is common and general in nature and not specific for your financial needs, your goals and your risk tolerance. Regarding the possibility of a US market not going anywhere over a long period of time, well it is not a possibility, it has happened. See chart below: It took 13 yea... |
Do I need another health insurance policy? | While I can't say how it is in the Philippines, my wife the insurance broker leads me to believe that individual insurance is more expensive than group coverages in the US almost always. So much so that people will go to great extents to form any sort of business just to insure themselves. If however it is cheaper, ca... |
Are there common stock price trends related to employee option plans? | Whenever a large number of shares to be sold hit the market at the same time the expectation is that the price for each share will drop. The employees in a normal market would be expected to sell some of their shares at the first opportunity. Because during the dot com boom some companies employees were able to become ... |
How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan? | Most 0% interest loans have quite high interest rates that are deferred. If you are late on a payment you are hit with all the deferred interest. They're banking on a percentage of customers missing a payment. Also, this is popular in furniture/car sales because it's a way to get people to buy who otherwise wouldn't, ... |
Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance? | An ideal investment for a highly risk tolerant college grad with a background in software and programming, is a software company. That's because it's the kind of investment that you will be able to judge better than most other people, including yours truly. Hopefully, one day the software company for a highly risk tole... |
How do third-party banks issue car loans? | I have gotten a letter of credit from my credit union stating the maximum amount I can finance. Of course I don't show the dealer the letter until after we have finalized the deal. I Then return in 3 business days with a cashiers check for the purchase price. In one case since the letter was for an amount greater the... |
How much of a down payment for a car should I save before purchasing it? | If and only if by coincidence the car you were already considering from your research includes a 0% finance offer, go ahead a take the financing and save your cash. If however you are being tempted to a different car, or would spend more than you initially thought were wanted to, 0% financing is just another trick to g... |
OTC Markets, Time, and Trading | Something to consider is that in the case of the company you chose, on the OTC market, that stock is thinly traded and with such low volume, it can be easy for it to fluctuate greatly to have trades occur. This is why volume can matter for some people when it comes to buying shares. Some OTC stocks may have really low... |
Merits of buying apartment houses and renting them | I’m not an expert on the VISA/US tax or insurance, but you're making enough mistakes in terms of all the associated costs involved in owning and renting houses/apartments that this already looks potentially unwise at this stage of your investment career. Renting cheap properties/to students involves the property consta... |
Where to find the 5 or 10 year returns for a mutual fund? | Yahoo's primary business isn't providing mutual fund performance data. They aim to be convenient, but often leave something to be desired in terms of completeness. Try Morningstar instead. Their mission is investment research. Here's a link to Morningstar's data for the fund you specified. If you scroll down, you'll... |
What is market capitalization? [duplicate] | Market Capitalization is the equity value of a company. It measures the total value of the shares available for trade in public markets if they were immediately sold at the last traded market price. Some people think it is a measure of a company's net worth, but it can be a misleading for a number of reasons. Share pri... |
Do Americans really use checks that often? | Sorry for this late reply. I currently live in Iceland (I am a United Statesian). People here told me they thought checks were just something that were in movies. I was amazed by this. So here are some reasons that I see to being why it works still in the usa. 1. Social Security system. Most Euro, Nordic countries hav... |
What investments work for these goals? | If you will leave the money invested for a good long while (years) then dividend paying stocks would be appropriate. There are many that pay yields of 3 to 4 percent, which you can take as income or reinvest to compound the growth. There is a lot of good analysis of stocks (and mutual funds that specialize in dividend ... |
When filing a US 1065 as a General Partnership, do we combine our expenditures for a home office? | Your home doesn't belong to the partnership, it belongs to you. So you can (if qualified) deduct home office usage as a business expense on your individual tax return. Same goes to your partner. Similarly any other unreimbursed expense. |
What return are you getting on your money from paying down a mortgage on a rental property? | There are a few ways to look at this question. Assumptions. Per the original post's assumptions, this answer: In other words, if the owner paid the mortgage on its original schedule, the deal could boil down to a $ 40,000 up-front payment, in exchange for $ 200,000 of equity after 30 years. Or the deal could boil down... |
Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year? | Yes, it is unreasonable and unsustainable. We all want returns in excess of 15% but even the best and richest investors do not sustain those kinds of returns. You should not invest more than a fraction of your net worth in individual stocks in any case. You should diversify using index funds or ETFs. |
What's a good personal finance management web app that I can use in Canada? | CashBase has a web app, an iPhone app and an Android app, all sync'ed up. It doesn't integrate with banks automatically, but you can import bank statements as CSV. Disclosure: Filip is CashBase's founder. |
Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? | Yes, in 2 ways: As you mention, the price of a home generally grows with inflation - along with other factors (supply and demand in local markets, etc.). Through financing. If you finance 80% of your purchase today, in 2014 dollars, you will pay back in future dollars. Those future dollars are worth less, because of in... |
Pros/cons of borrowing money using a mortgage loan and investing it in a low-fee index fund? | Risk is the problem, as others have pointed out. Your fixed mortgage interest rate is for a set period of time only. Let's say your 3% might be good for five years, because that's typical of fixed-rate mortages in Canada. So, what happens in five years if your investment has dropped 50% due to a prolonged bear market, ... |
Tax implications of exercising ISOs and using proceeds to exercise more ISOs | This may be a good or a bad deal, depending on the fair market value (FMV) of the stock at the time of exercise. Let's assume the FMV is $6, which is the break even point. In general this would probably be treated as two transactions. So overall you would be cash neutral, but your regular tax income would be increased ... |
What does APR mean I'm paying? | Banks have to disclose up front the Annual Percentage Rate or interest rate that will be charged if you have an outstanding balance on a credit card. However, the APR of 19.9% is not charged all at once. For example if you had a $100 dollar balance on your credit card you would not be charged 19.9% interest or 19.90 ma... |
Employee stock option plan with undefined vesting? | An option without the vesting period and the price at which one can exercise the option is of not much value. If vesting is determined by board, then at any given point in time they can change the vesting period to say 3, 5, 10 years any number. The other aspect is at what price you are allowed to exercise the option, ... |
What is the cause of sudden price spikes in the FOREX market? | It depends on the currency pair since it is much harder to move a liquid market like Fiber (EURUSD) or Cable (GBPUSD) than it is to move illiquid markets such as USDTRY, however, it will mostly be big banks and big hedge funds adjusting their positions or speculating (not just on the currency or market making but also ... |
What steps should be taken, if any, when you find out your home's market value is underwater, i.e. worth less than the mortgage owed? | Do you still enjoy living in your home? Can you afford the mortgage payments? Is there a reason for you to move, such as a relocation for work, or your third kid is on the way and your current house is already crowded with two? Those questions are more important than "Is my home worth more than what I owe on it". Ultim... |
Is an interest-only mortgage a bad idea? | Generally, interest-only mortgages are a bad idea, because a lot of people get them so that they can buy more house than they could otherwise afford (lower payment = affordable, in their minds). If the house continues to go up in value, they probably get away with it, because when the balance becomes due, they can ref... |
Personal checks instead of business ones | I'll assume you are asking about a check for some kind of work or service that you provided them, that they hired your company to do. No large business will do that. In their records they have a contract with your company to provide services. If they write you a personal check it won't match with the contract, and when... |
Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses? | For me, the emergency fund is meant to cover unexpected, but necessary expenses that I didn't budget for. The emergency fund allows me to pay for these things without going into debt. Let's say that my car breaks down, and I don't have any money in my budget for fixing it. I really need to get my car fixed, so I spen... |
Efficient International money transfer | Wiring is the best way to move large amounts of money from one country to another. I am sure Japanese banks will allow you to exchange your Japanese Yen into USD and wire it to Canada. I am not sure if they will be able to convert directly from JPY to CND and wire funds in CND. If you can open a USD bank account in... |
Is it possible to lower the price of a stock while buying? | You can choose to place successively lower buy limit orders, but whether they get filled or not is not a given; it depends on whether sellers care to accept your bid. In your example of a 49.98 / 50.01 spread, if you place a buy with limit of 49.99, it won't get filled (if the order reaches the market while still at 49... |
In today's low interest environment, is it generally more economical to buy or lease a new car in the US? | There are two reasons leases are generally a worse deal than buying. First, inherent in the lease is the concept of trading in the car at the end of the lease term. As we all know, cars depreciate the most in the first year or two. By repeatedly leasing cars on short time frames, you own the vehicles during those most ... |
Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real? | It's possible to make money in the market - even millions if you "play your cards right". Taking the course being offered can be educational but highly unlikely to increase your chances of making millions. Experience and knowledge of the game will make you money. The stock market is a game. |
value of guaranteeing a business loan | You are confining the way you and the other co-founders are paid for guaranteeing the loan to capital shares. Trying to determine payments by equity distribution is hard. It is a practice that many small companies particularly the ones in their initial stage fall into. I always advise against trying to make payments wi... |
At what point should I go into credit card debt? | Borrowing money to pay living expenses will not last long. Also, banks and credit card agencies are very expert at detecting people who try to live off of debt (as you might expect) and they will cut you off completely as soon as they figure out what you are doing. As a general rule, if you go six months without paying... |
Selling mutual fund and buying equivalent ETF: Can I 1031 exchange? | You cannot do a 1031 exchange with stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or ETFs. There really isn't much difference between an ETF and its equivalent index mutual fund. Both will have minimal capital gains distributions. I would not recommend selling an index mutual fund and taking a short-term capital gain just to buy the eq... |
Accepting personal “donations” (not as a non-profit) | I see two ways you can handle this. Use the gifts for the purpose of creating more free software. This is fundraising, and your cause is writing free software. The language is a little tricky from the PayPal Donate button (emphasis mine): This button is intended for fundraising. If you are not raising money for a c... |
Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car? | If you are going to finance a used car, it is frequently best to arrange financing before you even pick out the car. The easiest way I recommend is to talk to a local credit union or two. They'll be able to tell you your interest rate and terms without having to talk to the dealer at all. Most likely, they'll be ... |
Can I cash a cashier's check at any bank? | The classic Nigerian scam involves sending fraudulent cashier's checks to unwitting recipients who then deposit them in their account. The bank reverses these deposits once they discover the check is not valid. At least in the US and in the parts of the EU I'm familiar with (the Netherlands), the method of the Nigeri... |
Anyone please explain the meaning of turnover in this pic? | The Business Dictionary has three definitions of "turnover". When it comes to share dealing, the most likely one is the total value of shares traded on the stock exchange in a given period. |
What is a good size distribution for buying gold? | If the "crash" you worry about is a dissolution of the euro, then the main thing you should concern yourself with is liquidity. For that, purchase the most highly liquid gold ETF or futures contract, whichever is more appropriate for the total amount of money involved. Any other way and you will lose a significant ch... |
Tax benefits of recycling | If they charge a fee to accept an item, it's reasonable to assume the item has insignificant value, so the only tax-deductible bit would be the money you donated to their charity. What you describe sounds like a fee for service, not a charitable donation. The organization should provide a fee breakdown to show what per... |
Possible Risks of Publicizing Personal Stock Portfolio | I am considering making my investment history publicly available online What is the benefit you are looking for by doing this? Just to establish that you are a successful investor, so in long run can predict things ... have tons of followers? If so yes. Go ahead. Updates to the portfolio would have to be near real-time... |
Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks? | Why would a shareholder lend the investor the shares? Some brokers like IB will pay you to lend your shares: http://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/node/1838 If you buy shares on margin, you don't have much of a choice. Your broker is allowed to lend your shares to short-sellers. |
Can I predict if it is better to save money in USD or local currency? | Typically, the higher interest rates in local currency cover about the potential gain from the currency exchange rate change - if not, people would make money out of it. However, you only know this after the fact, so either way you are taking a risk. Depending on where the local economy goes, it is more secure to go wi... |
Best Time to buy a stock in a day | Buy it at the close. That way you won't lose money (even if marked to market) on the day. |
Is insurance worth it if you can afford to replace the item? If not, when is it? | The key point to answer the question is to consider risk aversion. Assume I suggest a game to you: Throw a coin and if you win, you get $5, if you lose nothing happens. Will you play the game? Of course, you will - you have nothing to lose! What if I suggest this: If you win, you get $10,000,005 and if you lose you mus... |
What foreign exchange rate is used for foreign credit card and bank transactions? | A lot of questions, but all it boils down to is: . Banks usually perform T+1 net settlements, also called Global Netting, as opposed to real-time gross settlements. That means they promise the counterparty the money at some point in the future (within the next few business days, see delivery versus payment) and collec... |
What kind of symbol can be shorted? | Any publicly traded financial instrument can be sold short, in theory. There are, however, many regulations associated with short sales of US equities that may prevent certain stocks from being sold short at certain times or through certain brokers. Some examples: the most basic requirement (this isn't a regulation, i... |
How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser) | Ultimately, money derives its value from being spend on a good or service. Investing it is an act of denying your present-self a good or service so that your future-self can obtain (hopefully more) goods or services. Investing is a sensible and responsible default position, but you clearly have passed the point at whic... |
Why is a “long put” called long if you have a higher net position if the price decreases? | You need to interpret "security" appropriately in Wikipedia's definition. You should think of it as saying: to be long in a put, means the holder of the position owns the put and will profit if the price of the put goes up And what makes the price of the put go up? -- the price of the underlying stock going down. |
Can I buy a new house before selling my current house? | You can make a contingent offer: "I will buy this house if I sell my own." In a highly competitive environment, contingent offers tend to be ignored. (Another commentator described such a contingency clause as synonymous with "Please Reject Me".) You can get a bridge loan: you borrow money for a short term, at punishi... |
The Asset Allocation Paradox | Asset Allocation serves many purposes, not just mitigating risk via a diversification of asset classes, but also allowing you to take a level of risk that is appropriate for a given investor at a given time by how much is allocated to which asset classes. A younger investor with a longer timeframe, may wish to take a l... |
How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser) | It took me a very longtime to learn that I no longer need to live like a starving student... and even now I live like a well-off student. And that's OK -- my needs and tastes are mostly simple. There's no reason to spend just for the sake of spending... but if you want something, and really can afford it after setting ... |
Selecting between investment vehicles for income | It sounds like you are interested in investing in the stock market but you don't want to take too much risk. Investing in an Index EFT will provide some diversification and can be less risky than investing in individual stocks, however with potentially lower returns. If you want to invest your money, the first thing yo... |
Should I have more than one brokerage account? | I believe the answer here is no: SIPC protection of customers with multiple accounts is determined by "separate capacity." Each separate capacity is protected up to $500,000 for securities and cash (including a $250,000 limit for cash only). Accounts held in the same capacity are combined for purposes of the SIPC prote... |
Who are the sellers for the new public stocks? | In an IPO the seller is the Company selling new shares. Some of the IPOs also include something called "secondary" sales which are existing holders selling at the same time at the IPO price. But that is a but more unusual. And as someone noted, the $68 is the price paid for the people who bought at the IPO (the aggre... |
How are mortgage interest rates determined? | One will find that the fixed 30 year mortgage rate is tightly correlated to the 10 year treasury. An adder of 2-2.5% or so, changing slightly with the rest of the economy, as money can get tight or loose independent of the rate itself. In 2011 we are witnessing low rates yet tough loan standards, this is the phenomenon... |
How does my broker (optionsXpress) calculate probabilities that the stock will hit a certain price? | Their algorithm may be different (and proprietary), but how I would to it is to assume that daily changes in the stock are distributed normally (meaning the probability distribution is a "bell curve" - the green area in your chart). I would then calculate the average and standard deviation (volatility) of historical r... |
Can everyday people profit from unexpected world events? | NASDAQ has Pre and After market : NASDAQ Trading Schedule Regular Trading Session Schedule The NASDAQ Stock Market Trading Sessions (Eastern Time) Pre-Market Trading Hours from 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Market Hours from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. After-Market Hours from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Quote and order-entry fr... |
What prevents investors from buying high yield stocks and selling them as soon as their dividend is paid out? | Although the market discussion by other answers is correct, the tax structure of many developed nations (I am familiar with Canada in particular) offers a preferred tax rate for dividend income compared to taxable gains. Consequently, if your portfolio is large enough to make transaction fees a very small percentage ... |
Why are stocks having less institutional investors a “good thing”? | Institutional investors are the "elephant" in the room. When they "sneeze," everyone else "catches cold." They're fine, if they're buying after YOU do. They're not bad, if you want to buy after they sell en masse. But when you read about moves of 10 percent, 15 percent or more in a single day, it's because a bunch of i... |
How can you possibly lose on investments in stocks? | Once you buy stocks on X day of the month, the chances of stocks never actually going above and beyond your point of value on the chart are close to none. How about Enron? GM? WorldCom? Lehman Brothers? Those are just a few of the many stocks that went to 0. Even stock in solvent companies have an "all-time high" th... |
How do I calculate what percentage of my portfolio is large-, mid- or small- cap? | The portfolio manager at Value Research Online does this very nicely. It tracks the underlying holdings of each fund, yielding correct calculations for funds that invest across the board. Take a look at the screenshot from my account: If you have direct equity holdings (e.g., not through a mutual fund), that too gets ... |
Why do some people say a house “not an investment”? | There's an old saying: "Never invest in anything that eats or needs maintenance." This doesn't mean that a house or a racehorse or private ownership of your own company is not an investment. It just points out that constant effort is needed on your part, or on the part of somebody you pay, just to keep it from losing... |
How do I get a list of the top performing funds between two given dates? | The closest I can think of from the back of my head is http://finviz.com/map.ashx, which display a nice map and allows for different intervals. It has different scopes (S&P500, ETFs, World), but does not allow for specific date ranges, though. |
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