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I am looking for software to scan and read receipts
Scanning receipts is easy and any decent scanner will do a good job for you. The difficult part is the software that 'extracts' the data. Today there is no software that can do this really well because there is just too great a range of receipts (e.g. handwritten receipts, receipts in foreign languages, etc.). For this...
How can I make a profit by selling a stock short?
Being "long" - expecting the price to go up to make a profit - is a two step process: 1) buy 2) sell Being "short" - expecting the price to go down to make a profit - is a 5 step process: 1) borrow someone else's asset 2) sell their asset on the open market to somebody else a third party 3) pocket the proceeds of the...
Meaning of capital market
1) Are the definitions for capital market from the two sources the same? Yes. They are from two different perspectives. Investopedia is looking at it primarily from the perspective of a trader and they lead-off with the secondary market. This refers to the secondary market: A market in which individuals and instituti...
ETF's for early retirement strategy
If your intention is to purchase ETFs on a regular basis (like $x per month), then ETFs may not make sense. You may have to pay a fixed transaction cost like you were buying a stock for each purchase. In a similar no load mutual fund, there are more likely to be no transaction costs (depending on how it is bought). ...
Are there any risks from using mint.com?
Here's a very simple answer, ask your broker/bank. Mine uses ofx. When asked if they would reimburse me for any unauthorized activity, the answer was no. Simple enough, the banks that use it don't feel its secure enough.
How hard for US customers make payments to non-resident freelancer by wire transfer?
For most major banks, wire transfers are simple, if expensive, to arrange. For example, I can initiate an international wire transfer from my online banking portal.
Home Valuation in a Dodgy neighborhood
Bad areas are tough to value as a owner-occupied property, because the business model for being a slumlord is to rent apartments in absentia, usually to tenants receiving goverment subsidies such as Section 8 vouchers. The vouchers are based on a prevailing rent, which are often on par with nice suburban apartment comp...
Are there guidelines for whom you should trust for financial advice (online, peer, experts, only myself, etc)
You need to understand how various entities make their money. Once you know that, you can determine whether their interests are aligned with yours. For example, a full-service broker makes money when you buy and sell stocks. They therefore have in interest in you doing lots of buying, and selling, not in making you mon...
What is the difference between Protected-equity loan vs Equity loan?
In simple terms : Equity Loan is money borrowed from the bank to buy assets which can be houses , shares etc Protected equity loan is commonly used in shares where you have a portfolio of shares and you set the minimum value the portfolio can fall to . Anything less than there may result in a sell off of the share to p...
Bait-and-switch on new car lease
I strongly discourage leasing (or loans, but at least you own the car at the end of it) in any situation. it's just a bad deal, but that doesn't answer your question. Most new cars are "loss leaders" for dealerships. It's too easy to know what their costs are these days, so they make most of their money though financ...
How does stock dilution work in relation to share volume?
The reason a company creates more stock is to generate more capital so that this can be utilized and more returns can be generated. It is commonly done as a follow on public offer. Typically the funds are used to retire high cost debts and fund future expansion. What stops the company from doing it? Are Small investo...
What is a good investment vehicle for introducing kids to investing?
I'd also look into index funds (eg Vanguard) as they have low management fees. you can buy these as ETFs as well - so you can buy in at a very low starting amount. An index fund can also be a talking point for your kids about what an industry index is and how it relates to the companies that fall into it. Also about ho...
In Australia, how to battle credit card debt?
To confirm: you say you have credit card debt of $18,000 with min. repayment of $466.06, plus on top of this you are also paying off a car loan and another personal loan. From my calculations if your monthly interest on your credit card is $237, the interest on your credit card should be about 15.8% p.a. Is this correc...
Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud?
There are several areas of passive fraud by being unclear on what you are doing. When a citizen buys a house, the mortgage lender wants all the details as to how the buyer rounded up the money. That is so they can use their own formulas to assess the buyer's creditworthiness and the probability that the buyer will be...
United Kingdom: Where to save money for a property deposit
Another option is the new 'innovative finance isa' that allow you to put a wrapper round peer to peer lending platform investments. See Zopa, although I don't think they have come out with an ISA yet.
Can two companies own stock in each other?
Absolutely. In fact, all stock purchases of more than 5% of a company's stock must be reported to the SEC, so assuming A and B are publicly traded companies in the US, the purchase would likely be a matter of public record. There are probably special cases where this could cause problems, however; any case where A's p...
Given advice “buy term insurance and invest the rest”, how should one “invest the rest”?
Buy term and invest the rest is in fact the easiest plan. Just buy the term insurance based on your current and expected needs. Review those needs every few years, or after a life event (marriage, divorce, kids, buying a house...) For the invest the rest part: invest in your 401K, IRA or the equivalent. There are inde...
Should I set a stop loss for long term investments?
You should definately have a stop loss in place to manage your risk. For a time frame of 5 to 10 years I would be looking at a trailing stop loss of 20% to 25% off the recent high. Another type of stop you could use is a volatility stop. Here the more volatile the stock the larger the stop whilst the less volatile the...
Can't the account information on my checks be easily used for fraud?
The bottom line is to keep most of your money in accounts with no check privileges and to not give the account numbers for these accounts to anyone. Keep just enough in your checking account for the checks you are going to write.
Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” in the US?
For the person being hired this is a tricky situation. Specially with the new laws. There is no real magic number that can be applied as a lot will depend on what benefits you want, and what is actually available. This will really shift the spectrum quite a bit. Under the affordibal care act, everyone has to have insu...
How risky is it to keep my emergency fund in stocks?
I've read the answers and respect the thought behind them. I'd like to focus on (a) the magnitude of the emergency, and (b) the saving rate of the people affected. 3-6 months is interesting. It's enough not just to fix the car, repair the A/C, etc, but more than enough to lose one's job and recover. (Let's avoid the d...
Is buying a home a good idea?
Buying a house may save you money compared with renting, depending on the area and specifics of the transaction (including the purchase price, interest rates, comparable rent, etc.). In addition, buying a house may provide you with intangibles that fit your lifestyle goals (permanence in a community, ability to renovat...
Is insurance worth it if you can afford to replace the item? If not, when is it?
Generically, like farnsy noted in the other answer, you will only come ahead in dollar terms when you are significantly riskier than the average insuree. Otherwise the insurance company would have higher rates to make a profit. In the case of Apple Care there can arguably be other factors involved. If you did not insur...
1.4 million cash. What do I do?
At 1.4 Million, you can definately afford a professional advisor who would give you the best advice taking into account all your goals and risk appetite.
Account that is debited and account that is credited
The terms debit and credit come from double-entry book-keeping. In this system, every transaction is applied against two accounts: it debits one and credits the other by equal amounts. (Or more technically, it affects two or more accounts, and the total of the credits equals the total of the debits.) Whether a debit or...
What is a “retail revolving account,” and does it improve my credit score?
To add to what others have said, INSTALLMENT CREDIT is a stronger factor when building credit. An installment credit is essentially a loan with a fixed repay amount such as a student loan and a car loan. Banks (when it comes to buying your first home) want to see that you are financially able to repay a big debt (car l...
Buying from an aggressive salesperson
As described by the other answers, there are pretty harmless explanations for that behaviour. You could be slightly worried because he gave you exceptionally good deals for both instruments, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe he simply prices all items way up to be able to give a great discount on either sale. Yo...
What happens after a counterparty defaults on a derivative trade?
The answer is in your question: derivatives are contracts so are enforced in the same way as any other contract. If the counterparty refuses to pay immediately they will, in the first instance be billed by any intermediary (Prime Broker etc.) that facilitated the contract. If they still refuse to pay the contract may ...
IRS “convenience of the employer” test when employee lives far from the office
If your employer does not provide you with a place to work but nevertheless expects you to get work done, then having a place to work is a condition of employment.
What pension options are there for a 22 year old graduate in the UK?
I wouldn't go into a stock market related investment if you plan on buying a house in 4-5 years, you really need to tie money up in stocks for 10 years plus to be confident of a good return. Of course, you might do well in stocks over 4-5 years but historically it's unlikely. I'd look for a safe place to save some mon...
Are PINs always needed for paying with card?
For the first part of your question; Refer to related question Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card? The other case of Airport ticket machines, requires the physical presence of card. The assumption is that if you had the card before and after the transaction, it was you...
Is there a free, online stock screener for UK stocks?
I use and recommend barchart.com. Again you have to register but it's free. Although it's a US system it has a full listing of UK stocks and ETFs under International > London. The big advantage of barchart.com is that you can do advanced technical screening with Stochastics and RS, new highs and lows, moving averages e...
Problems with Enterprise Value and better valuation techniques
This is an example from another field, real estate. Suppose you buy a $100,000 house with a 20 percent down payment, or $20,000, and borrow the other $80,000. In this example, your "equity" or "market cap" is $20,000. But the total value, or "enterprise value" of the house, is actually $100,000, counting the $80,000 mo...
Are the “debt reduction” company useful?
No. Not in the Uk anyway, they are just an extra person/company that you have to pay.
How will Brexit affect house mortgages?
Nobody can predict the affects of Brexit but it is wise to consider them. We saw the pound weaken after the vote to leave and it is possible the pound will weaken further after Brexit and this devaluation could be quite dramatic. If that happens it is likely to increase inflation, UK inflation has gone from under 1% ar...
What debts are both partners liable for in a 'community property' state?
(Yes, I know this is a seven year old question.) Does this only apply to debts that were taken on during marriage Yes or to all debts of both partners? No. The important thing to remember is that it's both debts and assets acquired during the marriage which are shared. This comes from the reality that men in the olden...
Considering investing in CHN as a dividend stock
The yield on Div Data is showing 20% ((3.77/Current Price)*100)) because that only accounts for last years dividend. If you look at the left column, the 52 week dividend yield is the same as google(1.6%). This is calculated taking an average of n number of years. The data is slightly off as one of those sites would hav...
How to sell option with no volume
Volume @ 0 doesn't mean that there are no buyers and sellers, it just means that there hasn't been any trades done yet. What you need to look for are the bids and offers (for selling and buying, respectively). For further expiration and NTM or IT options there will almost always be a bid and an offer (but it may be ver...
How to avoid getting back into debt?
Spend less than you earn. If you have no job (source of income), then you can not possibly stay out of debt as you have to spend money to live and study.
Clothing Store Credit Card Account closed but not deleted
If it is closed, you should be able to trust that it is closed permanently. What you still have is the online account. Imagine this would be removed and then the account would be re-activated? That should not happen, but the way you see it, you must be afraid of that as well. What I mean to say: See these two things as...
Is there a Yahoo Finance ticker for NYMEX Crude Oil Front Month?
Yahoo Finance doesn't offer this functionality; I remember looking for this exact feature a couple of years ago for coffee futures. Your best option is to look at the futures chain. However, Yahoo Finance's future chains aren't always complete, since you'll notice that the futures chain for NYMEX crude oil omit the Jun...
Clear example of credit card balance 55 days interest-free “trick”?
I think this stuff was more valid when grace periods were longer. For example, back in the 90's, I had an MBNA card with a 35 day grace period. Many business travellers used Diner's Club charge cards because they featured a 60 day grace period. There are valid uses for this: As JoeTaxpayer stated, if you are benefiting...
As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments?
Current evidence is that, after you subtract their commission and the additional trading costs, actively managed funds average no better than index funds, maybe not as well. You can afford to take more risks at your age, assuming that it will be a long time before you need these funds -- but I would suggest that means ...
Is This Money Laundering?
or is this a form of money laundering? May not be, generally the amounts involved in money laundering are much higher. So if there are quite a few such transactions then yes it could be money laundering. It could also be for circumventing taxes, depending on country regulations one may try to do this to get around gift...
Is the financial advice my elderly relative received legal/ethical?
I can't speak about the UK, but here in the US, 1% is on the cheap side for professional management. For example Fidelity will watch your portfolio for that very amount. I doubt you could claim that they took advantage of her for charging that kind of fee. Given that this is grandma's money, no consultation with the ...
Can a trade happen “in between” the bid and ask price?
I can think of the following situations in which one could see a trade occur between the visible best bid & offer: 1) on a public exchange, people have posted hidden limit orders with either bid prices above the best visible bid or offers below the best visible offer, and incoming orders have executed against this hidd...
Why do people take out life insurance on their children? Should I take out a policy on my child?
As you say life insurance is about covering the loss of income, so unless your child is an actor or musical prodigy or similar and already earning money, there is no income to cover, and in fact you would have less of a financial commitment without a child to provide for. The other angle is that child life insurance is...
How does a 2 year treasury note work?
There is a large market where notes/bills/bonds are traded, so yes you can sell them later. However, if interest rates go up, the value of any bond that you want to sell goes down, because you now have to compete with what someone can get on a new issue, so you need to 'discount' the principal value of your bond in or...
Why do credit cards require a minimum annual household income?
It is much simpler than any of that. People who make money have a greater capacity to pay their bills. Credit card companies make money off of people who can afford to pay several hundred dollars a month in interest charges. If you only make 500 a month you can not afford to pay 200 in interest. So their cost of do...
When trading put options, is your total risk decreased if you are in a position to exercise the option?
The risk situation of the put option is the same whether you own the stock or not. You risk $5 and stand to gain 0 to $250 in the period before expiration (say $50 if the stock reaches $200 and you sell). Holding the stock or not changes nothing about that. What is different is the consideration as to whether or no...
Is it OK to use a credit card on zero-interest to pay some other credit cards with higher-interest?
Here's the issue as I see it. The fact that one has high interest debt says a lot about the potential borrower. Odds are very good that person will not pay the zero card off before the rate expires, and will likely charge more along the way. I'd love to be able to say "great idea, borrowing at a low rate to pay off a ...
What is title insurance, and should I get title insurance for my home?
When we got our mortgage in the state of Washington, in the United States, we had to get title insurance before our lender would loan the money. This ensures that the person selling us the house actually owns the title, clean and clear. If there are any surprises, the insurance covers us (or the lender, really).
Do banks give us interest even for the money that we only had briefly in our account?
Ditto @MichaelBorgwardt Just to get concrete: I just checked one bank in India and they say they are paying 4% on savings accounts. I don't know what you're getting or if 4% is typical in India, but it's at least an example. So if the bank pays interest based on average daily balance, and you left the money in the bank...
JCI headache part 2: How to calculate cost basis / tax consequences of JCI -> ADNT spinoff?
I am using the same logic as the two answers above. I got almost the same result ($46.60 instead of $46.59 per share) using the sold fractional share basis. However, the JCI Qualified Dividend (on the 1099-DIV, not the 1099-B) divided by the number of shares spun off yields a basis per share of only $40.97 That compare...
I want to invest in a U.S.-based company with unquoted stocks, but I am a foreigner. How to do this?
The recommendation is not to make the investment. In general, a company does not have to sell their shares to you or allow you to become an investor, because, as you have stated, it is a private company not quoted on the stock market. If everyone were trustworthy, you could buy the tools for $11000 -- so that you own...
For net worth, should I value physical property at my cost to replace it, or the amount I could get for selling it?
There is no objective "should". You need to be clear why you're tracking these numbers, and the right answer will come out of that. I think the main reason an individual would add up their assets and net worth is to get a sense of whether they are "making progress" or whether they are saving enough money, or perhaps w...
Which Benjamin Graham book should I read first: Security Analysis or Intelligent Investor?
Having thought about it, I decided to start with another book by the same author : "The Interpretation of Financial Statements". I do not have a sufficiently strong basis to know what either "The Intelligent Investor" or "Security Analysis" are even about. Yeah, I might understand things, but I wouldn't grasp the essen...
Unmarried Couple Splitting up with Joint Ownership of Home
Despite the unmarried status, you need to see a lawyer. Essentially you have a business with this person owning a home as the asset, and a mortgage for which you are responsible for. A lawyer needs to examine any paperwork you have and with knowledge of your particular jurisdiction's laws can advise you on the proper...
Can my U.S. company do work for a foreign company and get wire transfers to my personal account?
It seems that you're complicating things quite a bit. Why would you not create a business entity, open one or more bank accounts for it, and then have the money wired into those accounts? If you plan on being a company then set up the appropriate structure for it. In the U.S., you can form an S-corporation or an LLC ...
Are bond ETF capital gains taxed similar to stock or stock funds if held for more than 1 year?
Yes, that's correct.
U.S. Mutual Fund Supermarkets: Where are some good places to buy mutual funds?
I personally like Schwab. Great service, low fees, wide variety of fund are available at no fee. TD Ameritrade is good too.
Query regarding international transaction between governments
For the US government, they've just credited Person B with a Million USD and haven't gained anything (afterall, those digits are intangible and don't really have a value, IMO). Two flaws in this reasoning: The US government didn't do anything. The receiving bank credited the recipient. If the digits are intangible, suc...
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it?
How complicated is your budget? We have a fairly in depth excel spreadsheet that does the trick for us. Lots of formulas and whatnot for calculating income, outgo, expected and actual expenses, expenses budgeted over time (i.e. planned expenses that are semi-annual or annual) as well as the necessary emergency funds ba...
What is an accounting term that factors growth as a function of time and discount rate?
Since you are trying to compare corporate bonds that have a defined coupon over the specified time of the bond. Why not use a simple Net Present Value (NPV) calculation. Refer: Net Present Value (NPV) You could use the discounting factor as the current repo rate of your central bank. As I said, this would be a simple f...
How to find a reputable company to help sell a timeshare?
The one thing I would like to add to Ben's answer is that you will be lucky to get out of this with no proceeds. So that 30-40K paid for the timeshare maybe a total loss. If this purchase was financed with the timeshare used as collateral you may need to pay it off prior to being released. One tactic I heard used is ...
What funds were closed during or after the recent recessions?
Yes, many hedge funds (for example) did not survive 2008-2009. But hedge funds were failing both before and after that period, and other hedge funds thrived. Those types of funds are particularly risky because they depend so much on leverage (i.e. on money that isn't actually theirs). More publically-visible funds (l...
What does this statement regarding put options mean?
fennec has a very good answer but i feel it provides too much information. So i'll just try to explain what that sentence says. Put option is the right to sell a stock. "16 puts on Cisco at 71 cents", means John comes to Jim and says, i'll give you 71 cent now, if you allow me to sell one share of Cisco to you at $16 a...
Starting with Stocks or Forex?
This is an old post I feel requires some more love for completeness. Though several responses have mentioned the inherent risks that currency speculation, leverage, and frequent trading of stocks or currencies bring about, more information, and possibly a combination of answers, is necessary to fully answer this quest...
US Stock Market - volume based real-time alert
This would be a nice Raspberry Pi project for Mathematica, which comes bundled free on the Raspbian OS. You can program it up and leave it running. It's not expensive and doesn't use much power. A program to monitor stock prices or volume could be written as simply as :- This checks the volume of trades of Oct 2014 U...
Why was my Credit Limit Increase Denied?
I think they gave you the answer: You haven't previously shown that you can run that particular card up to (near) its existing maximum and then pay it off, so they don't have a strong indication that you can handle that large an unsecured loan. Generally, requests to have the limits raised when there isn't evidence tha...
What are the tax implications if I do some work for a company for trade, rather than pay?
Yes, the business can count that as an expense but you will need to count that as income because a computer = money.
Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value?
I believe one of the main reasons cars -- luxury or otherwise -- depreciate so quickly is that many auto accidents can cause serious engine/frame damage but are easily cosmetically repaired. If you smash up the car but get the body fixed, and you don't go through insurance, it will be indistinguishable from the same c...
How does historical data get adjusted for dividends, exactly?
According to Active Equity Management by Zhou and Jain: When a stock pays dividend, the adjusted price in Yahoo makes the following adjustment: Let T be the ex-dividend date (the first date that the buyers of a stock will not receive the dividend) and T-1 be the last trading day before T. All prices before T are adjust...
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?
Question: Does a billion dollars make you 1,000 times more happy than a million dollars? Answer: It doesn't. What counts is not the amount of money, but the subjective improvement that it makes to your life. And that improvement isn't linear, which is way the expected value of the inrease in your happiness / welfare /...
Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year?
Not at all impossible. What you need is Fundamental Analysis and Relationship with your investment. If you are just buying shares - not sure you can have those. I will provide examples from my personal experience: My mother has barely high school education. When she saw house and land prices in Bulgaria, she thought i...
what is difference between stock and dividend?
Stock basically implies your ownership in the company. If you own 1% ownership in a company, the value of your stake becomes equal to 1% of the valuation of the entire company. Dividends are basically disbursal of company's profits to its shareholders. By holding stocks of a company, you become eligible to receiving di...
Is it possible as a non-Indian citizen to create an Indian bank account (denominated in rupees) that can exchange & repatriate its funds?
No, in your situation it is not possible. Mostly, only three types of accounts are available to individuals: So, a complete foreigner can open account in India, only if he is working in India, a type of Savings account, and that account too will be linked to his resident status. If he leaves work, he needs to close thi...
How much cash on hand should one have?
There are two or three issues here. One is, how quickly can you get cash out of your investments? If you had an unexpected expense, if you suddenly needed more cash than you have on hand, how long would it take to get money out of your Scott Trade account or wherever it is? I have a TD Ameritrade account which is prett...
Short term investing vs Leaving money alone?
There are three basic concepts finance (as far as I'm concerned). Liquidity is basically an asset's spendability. Assets range in liquidity from cash (very liquid) to real estate (not very liquid). You can spend cash immediately, while real estate must first be converted to cash. Another important concept is your t...
How to calculate how much house I can afford?
$100K of mortgage debt at 4%, 30 years will result in a $477/mo mortgage. It would take about $23K in income to have 25% of the monthly income cover the mortgage. This means, that with no other large debts, a bank will lend you about 4X your income. If, instead of 25%, we decided that having 20% of income go to the m...
What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate?
The reason is the same as with cell phones payment plans. As competition grows cell phone companies offer better payment plans for the same price or the same plans for lower price or both so that you stay with that cell operator. Banks also make better offers if the financial situation allows. Suppose several banks off...
I'm 20 and starting to build up for my mortgage downpayment, where should I put my money for optimal growth?
You should never take advice from someone else in relation to a question like this. Who would you blame if things go wrong and you lose money or make less than your savings account. For this reason I will give you the same answer I gave to one of your previous similar questions: If you want higher returns you may have ...
Safe method of paying for a Gym Membership?
New York state actually has laws protecting gym members from predatory gym membership pricing. Your state may also have laws like that as well.
Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money?
Going from personal experience, my parents let my brother and me borrow money from them all the time. However there was always some noteworthy things to take into account. As an example, I borrowed a large sum of money on my student loan (we will just say it was $50,000). I had saved nearly $30,000 on my own and my par...
Should I sell my rental property or keep it if it has mold growth problems?
I'm going to assume that you will spend the money to fix the mold problem correctly. Using your numbers, after that is done, the home is worth perhaps $280k. To evaluate whether or not to sell, the amount you have spent on the house is irrelevant. The only thing you need to ask yourself is this: Would I spend $280k to...
Tax considerations for outsourcing freelance work to foreign country
I took littleadv's advice and talked to an accountant today. Regardless of method of payment, my US LLC does not have to withhold taxes or report the payment as payments to contractors (1099/1042(S)) to the IRS; it is simply a business expense. He said this gets more complicated if the recipient is working in the US (...
How do I notify the IRS of a new member to an LLC?
You don't need to notify the IRS of new members, the IRS doesn't care (at this stage). What you do need, if you have a EIN for a single-member LLC, is to request a new EIN since your LLC is now a partnership (a different entity, from IRS perspective). From now on, you'll need to file form 1065 with the IRS in case of b...
Buying a home without a Real Estate Agent - Who should I get to do the paperwork?
Save yourself a lot of trouble you both agree on a Real Estate Attorney to prepare all the paperwork (ie. contract) and conduct the closing for or with the Title Company. Then you both split the normal costs of the transaction. (Real simple professionally handled and you both save the 6%)
US Stock Market - volume based real-time alert
TdAmeritrade offers this service for free using 3rd party company markit. From markit's site, below is their guarantee. http://www.markit.com/product/markit-on-demand Markit On Demand delivers an average of two million alerts per day through various technology platforms and via multiple channels, including email, ...
Should I negotiate a lower salary to be placed in a lower tax bracket?
No. In a marginal tax system, only additional dollars that push you into a higher bracket are taxed at that higher rate. If you would pay 15% on $73800, then when you earn over $73800, you will still only pay 15% of the $73800, plus 25% of the extra amount over $73800. As far as a marginal income tax affects things,...
Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?
As a gift, the responsibility lays with the giver to file a 709 with their taxes for gifting to a single entity (barring certain exclusions) an amount over $14,000 within the (2017) tax year. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i709.pdf If this person is a foreign entity from outside the country, you might need to provide ...
Where can one find intraday prices for mutual funds?
Like others have said, mutual funds don't have an intraday NAV, but their ETF equivalents do. Use something like Yahoo Finance and search for the ETF.IV. For example VOO.IV. This will give you not the ETF price (which may be at a premium or discount), but the value of the underlying securities updated every 15 seconds.
Is there any US bank that does not charge for incoming wire transfers?
Schwab High Yield Investor Checking does not charge for incoming wires.
Does technical analysis work on small stock exchanges?
Assuming that you accept the premise that technical analysis is legitimate and useful, it makes sense that it might not work for a small market, or at the very least that it wouldn't be the same for a small market as it is for a large market. The reason for this is that a large stock market like the U.S. stock market ...
What is a “margin-call” and how are they enforced?
If you don't have a margin account, then you will not have margin calls. You need a margin account if you wish to "buy on margin", to sell stocks "short", or to sell options, or maybe some other esoteric things I have not thought of. If you don't do those things, then you do not need a margin account and will not get ...
Where can I find all public companies' information?
MattMcA definitely gave you excellent advice and said a lot of what I would say to you. Most databases that are going to give you the most comprehensive information, but in a well formatted way, are going to require subscriptions or a fee. You should try to visit a library, especially one at a university, because they ...
Why can't the government simply payoff everyone's mortgage to resolve the housing crisis?
Could it be done? Yes, it could, subject to local law. A variant of such an approach has been suggested for those countries experiencing collapse of demand. One might consider whether whether it applied to secured loans (such as mortgages), unsecured loans, or both; whether it would be capped at a certain absolute (say...
Due Diligence - Dilution?
You will have to check SEC forms to know this in full. A publicly-traded company will have an amount of publicly tradable shares which can be easily found on their financial reports. But. that is not the only type of equity-like financial instrument that such a company can issue. A previous reply mentions "follow-on" p...
Capital gains on no-dividend stocks - a theoretical question
Stock prices are set by the market - supply and demand. See Apple for example, which is exactly the company you described: tons of earnings, zero dividends. The stock price goes up and down depending on what happens with the company and how investors feel about it, and it can happen that the total value of the outstand...
Does a market maker sell (buy) at a bid or ask price?
EVERYONE buys at the ask price and sells at the bid price (no matter who you are). There are a few important things you need to understand. Example: EVE bid: 16.00 EVE ask: 16.25 So if your selling EVE at "market price" you are entering an ask equal to the highest bid ($16.00). If you buy EVE at "market price" you are ...