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Is Investments by Bodie just an expanded version of Essentials of Investments?
They are actually both undergraduate texts; however, Investments is FAR more complex. Essentials of Investments really waters down the statistical and mathematical notation while Investments does not. Investments also has an entire section (4-5 chapters) called options, futures, and other derivatives while Essential...
Why does Yahoo Finance's data for a Vanguard fund's dividend per share not match the info from Vanguard?
In the context of EDV, 4.46 is the indicated dividend rate. The indicated dividend rate is the rate that would be paid per share throughout the next year, assuming dividends stayed the same as prior payment. sources:
Do I have to pay tax on money I earn as a tutor?
There is a moral and legal obligation to file the earnings. Not doing so is tax fraud. You should keep a ledger or some record of your earnings, helpful guidelines here. Records are required by the CRA: According to the law, your responsibilities include: (source) You could get in trouble if one of your pupils report t...
How do taxes work with donations made to an individual, e.g. for free software I wrote?
Do I report it as income? Is it subject to just the same amount of taxes (~30%) as regular income? Are there any restrictions on how it can be used? It is income. You can deduct the costs of maintaining the web page and producing the software from it (have an accountant do that for you, there are strict rules on ho...
Is there a rule that a merchant must identify themself when making a charge
Obviously, the credit card's administators know who this charge was submitted by. Contact them, tell them that you don't recognize the charge, and ask them to tell you who it was from. If they can't or won't, tell them you suspect fraud and want it charged back, then wait to see who contacts you to complain that the pa...
Why should we expect stocks to go up in the long term?
Stock returns cannot be evaluated on its own. You need to take into account inflation and the return of other investment vehicles. Over the long run, you want to earn more than your peers (ie inflation), or lose less than them. Stock lets you buy into the profits of a company managed by others. So the fundamental quest...
Should I fund a move by borrowing or selling other property assets?
When you compare the costs of paying your current mortgage with the rental income from the flat, you're not really comparing like with like. Firstly, the mortgage payments are covering both interest and capital repayments, so some of the 8k is money that is adding to your net worth. Secondly, the value of the flat (130...
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion - Service vs. Product?
As the name says, its for income earned in a Foreign country. If you have been paying US income tax on this while living in the US, nothing is going to change here. You should be informing yourself on how to avoid double taxation in your new country of residence. Passive income earned abroad (dividends, interest) also ...
Investment time horizon: When is it acceptable to withdraw money from investments?
shouldn't withdraw stock investments for at least 5 years would be better re-phrased as: "don't invest money in stocks if you (really) need it within next few years". The underlying principle is: stocks are one of the higher-risk investment classes out there. While that's exactly what you want over a long time horizon...
A debt collector will not allow me to pay a debt, what steps should I take?
This may not apply in your particular situation, but I think it's important to mention: When a debt collector doesn't act like a debt collector, it may be because they aren't actually a debt collector. It's certainly strange that someone called you to collect money from you, and when you asked for a simple document, th...
Can saving/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire?
Other people have already demonstrated the effect of compound interest to the question. I'd like to add a totally different perspective. Note that the article says if you can follow this simple recipe throughout your working career, you will almost certainly beat out most professional investors [...] you'll likely acc...
tax deduction for 30k loan
The loan itself is not tax deductible; unless you took it as part of a mortgage, anyway, it's just a regular loan. Mortgage and Student Loan Interest deductions are special cases explicitly given tax-deductible status; other loans are not deductible (unless part of a business expense or other qualifying reason). If th...
Why does short selling require borrowing?
why can't I just use the same trick with my own shares to make money on the way down? Because if you sell shares out of your own portfolio, by definition, you are not selling short at all. If you sell something you own (and deliver it) - then there is no short involved. A short is defined as a net negative position ...
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card
Personally the main disadvantages are perpetuation of the credit referencing system, which is massively abused and woefully under regulated, and encouraging people to think that it's ok to buy things you don't have the money to buy (either save up or question price/necessity).
What is the future of 401(k) in terms of stability and reliability?
The same author wrote in that article “they have a trillion? Really?” But that’s what happens when ten million dollars compounds at 2% over 200 years. Really? 2% compounded over 200 years produces a return of 52.5X, multiply that by 10M and you have $525 million. The author is off by a factor of nearly 2000 fold. Let...
What to do with $50,000?
Here is some good advice, read your UCO prospectus. It seems to hold 20% of it's value ($600MM out of $3B) via 13800 of the Apr 21st 2015 contracts. (expiring in 30 days) Those will be rolled very quickly into the May contracts at a significant loss of NAV. (based on current oil futures chains) Meaning if crude o...
What is the options industry changing about option symbols in February, 2010?
Here is what I could find on the net: http://education.wallstreetsurvivor.com/options-symbol-changes-coming-february-12th-2010 So it sounds like it does not affect how you invest in options but only how you look them up. I remember using a Bloomberg terminal and it wasn't clear what the expiry date of the option you w...
Transfer from credit to debit
As other answers and comments suggest you are trying to do something... odd to say the least. No one wants to use a credit card to finance a checking/current account because you are creating a debt on that credit card (unless you are in the odd situation where the card is in credit) that will immediately start accruing...
Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when?
No, it can really not. Look at Detroit, which has lost a million residents over the past few decades. There is plenty of real estate which will not go for anything like it was sold. Other markets are very risky, like Florida, where speculators drive too much of the price for it to be stable. You have to be sure to buy ...
Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time?
When you buy a property the house or the building goes down in value every year (it gets depreciated) similar to when you drive a new car out of the lot. However, it is the land that increases in value over time. As land becomes scarcer the value of land in that area will increase in value, as does land in sought after...
Wash sale rules in India (NSE/BSE)
Looks like there are no specific rule in India to prevent Wash sales. See the link below. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/personal-finance-news/investors-can-rejig-portfolio-book-short-term-loss-to-save-tax/articleshow/7812788.cms?intenttarget=no
Pros and cons of investing in a cheaper vs expensive index funds that track the same index
Cheaper would refer to the fees of a fund rather than the share price, IMO. Are 2 quarters worth more or less than 10 nickels? This is another way to express your question though most open-end funds bought directly from the fund family or through fund supermarkets would do fractional shares that may be better than goin...
Why do stock prices change? [duplicate]
As I understand it, a company raises money by sharing parts of it ("ownership") to people who buy stocks from it. It's not "ownership" in quotes, it's ownership in a non-ironic way. You own part of the company. If the company has 100 million shares outstanding you own 1/100,000,000th of it per share, it's small but ...
Suitable Vanguard funds for a short-term goal (1-2 years)
If you are looking to invest for 1-2 years I would suggest you not invest in mutual funds at all. Your time horizon is too short for it to be smart to invest in the stock market. I'd suggest a high-yield savings account or CD. I know they both have crappy returns, but the stock market can swing wildly with no notice. ...
What are the disadvantages of using a small leverage?
The major drawback to borrowing to invest (i.e. using leverage) is that your return on investment must be high enough to overcome the cost of finance. The average return on the S&P 500 is about 9.8% (from CNBC) a typical unsecured personal loan will have an interest rate of around 18-36% APR (from NerdWallet). This mea...
Buy and sell stock at specific earnings
Enjoy the free trades as long as they last, and take advantage of it since this is no longer functionally a tax on your potential profits. On a side note, RobinHood and others in the past have roped customers in with low-to-zero fee trades before changing the business paradigm completely or ceasing operations. All bro...
Personal finance software for Mac that can track stocks and mutual funds? (Even manual updating of share prices will do.)
I'm using iBank on my Mac here and that definitely supports different currencies and is also supposed to be able to track investments (I haven't used it to track investments yet, hence the 'supposed to' caveat).
Online sites for real time bond prices
FINRA lets you view recent trades, but as stated in the other answer bonds are illiquid and often do not trade frequently. Therefore recent trades prices are only a rough estimate of the current price that would be accepted. http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter/Default.jsp
How useful is the PEG Ratio for large cap stocks?
It is not so useful because you are applying it to large capital. Think about Theory of Investment Value. It says that you must find undervalued stocks with whatever ratios and metrics. Now think about the reality of a company. For example, if you are waiting KO (The Coca-Cola Company) to be undervalued for buying it, ...
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 there any truth to the saying '99% of the world's millionaires have become rich by doing real estate'?
78.84% of statistics are made up on the spot.
What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund?
I suppose this could really depend on the part of the world you're in, but there are still many instances of "emergencies" that need "cash". You have to decide how much cash is the right amount, but I still recommend having $1,000 or so in liquid cash. It can really make a huge difference. Let me give a few examples. ...
When a stock price goes down, does the money just disappears into thin air?
Cash changes hands when you buy or sell the stock. While you own the stock, you own it, not cash, so there is no cash to go anywhere. You spent your money when you bought. The seller got that money. It's gone. You hope that when you sell the stock, someone will give you more money for it than you spent. But they may gi...
How to help a financially self destructive person?
I am no expert by any means in divorce situations, but it seems like you probably have more than enough evidence (if you can back up everything you outlined here) that the living conditions an her place are not suitable for kids. This ought to be enough for you to gain sole custody of the kids. Maybe you didn't want ...
Idea for getting rich using computers to track stocks
The main reason I'm aware of that very few individuals do this sort of trading is that you're not taking into account the transaction costs, which can and will be considerable for a small-time investor. Say your transaction costs you $12, that means in order to come out ahead you'll have to have a fairly large position...
Investing small amounts at regular intervals while minimizing fees?
It is difficult to find investment banks that offer both low fees and low minimum investments. If you google around for "no-fee low-minimum mutual funds" you can find various articles with recommendations, such as this one. One fund they mention that looks promising is the Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund, which a...
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...
What happens to your ability to borrow money based on our joint finances?
Several factors are considered in loans as significant as a home mortgage. I believe the most major factors are 1) Credit report, 2) Income, and 3) Employment status If you borrow jointly, all joint factors are included, not just the favorable ones. Some wrinkles this can cause may include: Credit Report - The second...
How can one identify institutional accumulation of a particular stock using price and volume data?
You can have a pretty good guess by looking at price pattern and order flow (size of the trades) a) price should be traded in a range b) relatively large size orders, speed.
How can the Samsung Upgrade Programme offer 0% APR?
Having just purchased an upcoming Samsung phone using their 0% interest I can tell you that the justification is to give you credit. I have the same with Best Buy which is 0% for a specific initial purchase. The bank (in the Samsung case is TD Bank) establishes a rotating credit line for you. The APR after is well esta...
What ways are there for us to earn a little extra side money?
I don't know what you program during the day, but you could always try your hand a programming for iPhone, Android or Blackberry. Just spend an hour or two a night on a simple but useful application. Find something that matches a hobby interest of yours and come up with an app that would be beneficial to people of th...
What is the best use of “spare” money?
Congratulations! You're making enough money to invest. There are two easy places to start: I recommend against savings accounts because they will quite safely lose your money: the inflation rate is usually higher than the interest rate on a savings account. You may have twice as much money after 50 years, but if everyt...
Does an employee have the right to pay the federal and state taxes themselves instead of having employer doing it?
You can file a revised W-4 with your employer claiming more allowances than you do now. More allowances means less Federal tax and (if applicable and likely with a separate form) less state tax. This doesn't affect social security and Medicare with holding, though. That being said, US taxes are on a pay-as-you-go syst...
Investing small amounts at regular intervals while minimizing fees?
I am not sure whether this hold in all countries, but at least in the Netherlands my bank allows for investment in funds without charging transaction costs. The downside is that these funds charge an annual fee of about 1%, but for the amounts you are talking about this definitely sounds more attractive than the altern...
Offered a job: Should I go as consultant / independent contractor, or employee?
Linkedlinked, You might want to seriously take another look at the links that Chris provided you. Specifically the ones on the IRS website: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.html From the IRS website: Businesses must weigh all these factors when determining whether a worker is an employee ...
Opening a Roth IRA account, what is the fee structure for Vanguard, Scottrade and TIAA-CREF
This answer is somewhat incomplete as I don't have definitive conclusions about some parts of your question. Your question includes some very specific subquestions that may best be answered by contacting the investment companies you're considering. I don't see any explicit statement of fees for TIAA-CREF either. I su...
Co-signer deceased
People act like lawsuits are the end of the world, her suing shouldn't be considered a threat, it should be considered the accurate course of action to resolve contractual obligations. Of course, it would be convenient if she did nothing at all! If you believe her real goal is to "get it off her credit", then have her...
Are spot market ,regular market and ready market same in stock trading if not then what is the difference?
So, the term "ready market" simply means that a market exists in which there are legitimate buy/sell offers, meaning there are investors willing to own or trade in the security. A "spot market" means that the security/commodity is being delivered immediately, rather at some predetermined date in the future (hence the t...
Square reported my credit card transactions as personal income?
Square is a company. They need to detail as part of their corporate taxes all of their expenses. The money they collected for you, and sent to you, is not income for themselves. Their tax form included the amount of money they sent you, along with either your Social Security Number of corporate tax id. The IRS computer...
Has anyone compared an in-person Tax Advisor to software like Turbo Tax?
so far the only thing that I can think of that would make me want to go with H&R Block is the guarantee that they offer ( for a fee ) that says they will help you if you are ever audited for a tax return that you filed through them, but I think that is given for both the software and the in person tax preparation. so...
Is it ever logical to not deposit to a matched 401(k) account?
Some have suggested you can put the money in the 401k then take a loan to pay off the student loan debt. Some things to consider before doing that: Check your 401k plan first. Some plans allow you to continue paying on a loan if you leave the company, some do not. If you have to change jobs before you pay back the 4...
Minor stakes bought at a premium & valuation for target company
Imagine that I own 10% of a company, and yesterday my portion was valued at $1 Million, therefore the company is valued at $10 Million. Today the company accepts an offer to sell 1% of the company for $500 Thousand: now my portion is worth $5 Million, and company is worth $50 Million. The latest stock price sets the v...
Are forward curves useful tools for trading decisions and which informations can be gathered from them?
The forward curve for gold says little, in my opinion, about the expected price of gold. The Jan 16 price is 7.9% (or so) higher than the Jan 12 price. This reflects the current cost of money, today's low interest rates. When the short rates were 5%, the price 4 years out would be about 20% higher. No magic there. (The...
Why can't I short a stock that sells for less than $5? Is there another way to “go short” on them?
Timothy Sykes specializes in this type of trade, according to his website. He has some recommendations for brokers that allow shorting low-priced stocks:
Purchasing ETFs when (pretty much) everything else is maxed out
Most ETFs are index funds, meaning you get built in diversification so that any one stock going down won't hurt the overall performance much. You can also get essentially the same index funds by directly purchasing them from the mutual fund company. To buy an ETF you need a brokerage account and have to pay a transacti...
How to find an optimum linear combination of various investments?
You're talking about modern portfolio theory. The wiki article goes into the math. Here's the gist: Modern portfolio theory (MPT) is a theory of finance that attempts to maximize portfolio expected return for a given amount of portfolio risk, or equivalently minimize risk for a given level of expected return, by carefu...
When are equal-weighted index funds / ETFs preferable to market-cap-weighted funds?
Equal-weight ETFs remove the large cap bias found in most popular indexes. What results behaves very much like a small-cap or mid-cap index. Observe RSP vs IJR over a 5 year period: IJR (iShares S&P SmallCap 600 ETF) vs RSP (Rydex S&P Equal Weight ETF) I'm not sure if equal-weighting is worth the reduced efficiency. M...
How can I calculate total return of stock with partial sale?
You have only sold 200 shares for $4.75 from those bought for $3.15. So your profit on those 200 shares is $1.60 per share or $320 or 51%. From that you have 110 shares left that cost you $3.15 and 277 shares that cost you $3.54. So the total cost of your remaining shares is $1,327.08 (110 x $3.15 + 277 x $3.54). So yo...
Why should we expect stocks to go up in the long term?
Companies are expected to make a profit, otherwise there is no point to their existence and no motivation for investment. That profit comes back to shareholders as growth and/or dividend. If a company is doing well and has a healthy profit to turn back into investment to facilitate increased future earnings, it increas...
Good/Bad idea to have an ETF that encompasses another
Let's simplify things by assuming you only own 2 stocks. By owning VOO and VTI, you're overweight on large- and mid-cap stocks relative to the market composition. Likewise, by owning VTI and VT, you're overweight on U.S. stocks; conversely, by owning VXUS and VT, you're overweight on non-U.S. stocks. These are all perf...
Data source for historical intra-day bid/ask price data for stocks?
Check the answers to this Stackoverflow question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/754593/source-of-historical-stock-data a number of potential sources are listed
How does on-demand insurance company Trov prevent insurance fraud or high prices?
There is not necessarily a need to prevent what you describe - 'turning insurance on before high risk situations'. They just need to calculate the premiums accordingly. For example, if an insurance needs to take 50$/year for insuring your house against flood, and a flood happens in average every 10 years, if you just i...
Setting up a LLC for two partners in different states, what should we look into?
TL;DR: Get a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) for tax issues, and a lawyer for the Operating Agreement, labor law and contract related issues. Some things are not suitable for DIY unless you know exactly what you're doing. We both do freelance work currently just through our personal names. What kind of ta...
Iraqi Dinars. Bad Investment, or Worst Investment?
Currency, like gold and other commodities, isn't really much of an investment at all. It doesn't actually generate any return. Its value might fluctuate at a different rate than that of the US dollar or Euro, but that's about it. It might have a place as a very small slice of a basket of global currencies, but most US ...
Wisest option to pay for second career education
To me it sounds like you need to come up with 67K (30+37), part of the time you can work in the current job, part of the time you could work a lower paying part time job (for a year). Lets assume that you can earn 15K for that year, and you can save 5K from your current job. (I'd try and save more, but what ever you ...
Does Joel Greenblatt's “Magic Formula Investing” really beat the market?
Probably not. Once the formula is out there, and if it actually seems to work, more and more investors chase the same stocks, drive the price up, and poof! The advantage is gone. This is the very reason why Warren Buffett doesn't announce his intentions when he's buying. If people know that BRK is buying, lots of ot...
Should I finance a used car or pay cash?
One additional reason to pay with cash rather than financing is that you will be able to completely shut down the dealership from haggling over finance terms and get right to the point of haggling over the cost of the car (which you should always do).
Pattern Day Trade Rule
I would suggest following your quote and having a read of the web page supplied, that buys then sells or sells short then buys (the same security on the same day) four or more times in five business days, ... So it is a two way transaction that counts as 'one'.
What should I do with $4,000 cash and High Interest Debt?
Patti - I realize, of course, that you pose an either/or question. It seems the question closes the door on other potential solutions.
What to do with a 50K inheritance [duplicate]
**I would encourage you to clear all your debts and remain debt free, then you can consult a financial manager-for investing purposes that fits your needs and goals. There are so many investment vehicles out, but the best of all is in real estate which requires lots of money. For your case I would prefer money marke...
Why are residential investment properties owned by non-professional investors and not large corporations?
As other answers have pointed out, professional real estate investors do own residential investment properties. However, small residential units typically are not owned by professional real estate investors as your experience confirms. This has a fairly natural cause. The size of the investment opportunity is insuffici...
How long can a company keep the money raised from IPO of its stocks?
Yes, that is correct. There is no limit. An initial public offering of common stock by a company means that these shares remain outstanding for as long as the company wishes. The exceptions are through corporate actions, most commonly either
Is it possible to make money off of a private company?
Yes, but only if they're looking for investors. You would need to contact them directly. Unless you're looking to invest a significant sum, they may not be interested in speaking with you. (Think at least 6 figures, maybe 7 depending on their size and needs). This is otherwise known as being a Venture Capitalist. Some ...
What happens to an ETF if one of the companies in the ETF gets aquired?
There are a number of ways this can result. In a broad ETF, such as SPY, the S&P 500 spider, the S&P index will have 500 stocks no matter what, so a buyout would simply result in a re-shuffling of the index makeup. No buyout will happen so quickly that there's no time to choose the next stock to join the index. In your...
PayPal wants me to “add a bank account”, another funding source. Credit card isn't working. Why?
Have you checked to make sure that your card isn't at the limit, or at risk of expiring soon? Maybe PayPal has a policy to reject credit cards with expiry dates that fall within their buyer/seller protection periods? But to answer your question, no, I've never had this happen to me before.
How do I refinance a car loan into someone else's name so it can be their car?
Your first step is to talk to the current lender and ask about refinancing in the other person's name. The lender is free to say no, and if they think the other person is unlikely to pay it back, they won't refinance. If you're in this situation because the other person didn't qualify for a loan in the first place, the...
How do third-party banks issue car loans?
I have had it two way now: I got pre-approval from my credit union which just so happened to be one of the bigger vehicle lenders in the metro area. What I found out was that the dealership (which was one of the bigger ones in the metro area) had a computer system that looked up my deal with the credit union. Basicall...
Can you explain why these items are considered negatives on my credit report?
1. Your oldest active credit agreement is not very old This is fairly straight forward. If you've not been exposed to borrowing for a reasonable length of time, people won't want to lend you money. They have no reason to have any confidence in your ability to repay them. As other said, it's pretty much a case of provin...
Should you always max out contributions to your 401k?
I think better advice would be always max out your 401K at least to the level that the company provides a match. For example, my company will match 50% up to 10% of your salary. Good luck finding another investment with a guaranteed immediate 50% return. Beyond the company match, it is probably good advice to put as mu...
What is the best and most optimal way to use margin
This essentially depends on how you prefer to measure your performance. I will just give a few simple examples to start. Let me know if you're looking for something more. If you just want to achieve maximum $ return, then you should always use maximum margin, so long as your expected return (%) is higher than your cost...
Tax rules for United States citizens living in the US but being paid from outside the US
You can and are supposed to report self-employment income on Schedule C (or C-EZ if eligible, which a programmer likely is) even when the payer isn't required to give you 1099-MISC (or 1099-K for a payment network now). From there, after deducting permitted expenses, it flows to 1040 (for income tax) and Schedule SE (f...
How can this be enough to fund a scholarship in perpetuity?
Some historical and mathematical insights as a complement to existing answers. History. I found it astonishing that already in Ancient Roman they investigated the issue of perpetuity of 30'000 (almost). Columella writes in De re rustica (3, 3, 7–11.) in 1-st century AD about a perpetuity of 32480 sesterces principal u...
Is there a widely recognized bond index?
Keep in mind that the bond market is dominated by US Treasury securities... if there were an S&P 500 for bonds, the US would take positions 1-400. Be careful that you understand what's in your bond funds -- you may not be as diversified as you think.
Does a stock really dip in price on the ex-dividend date? And why would it do this?
The stock should fall by approximately the amount of the dividend as that is what is paid out. If you have a stock trading at $10/share and it pays a $1/share dividend, the price should drop to $9 as what was trading before the dividend was paid would be both the dividend and the stock itself. If the person bought just...
Am I responsible for an annual fee on a credit card I never picked up?
In the end, I was not required to pay the fee. After some frustrating initial attempts, I ended up writing a letter and sending a copy to card services, customer support, complaints and the legal department. It basically said: 1 - I never signed anything. 2 - I spoke to a very aggressive person at the airport who told ...
How do you determine “excess cash” for Enterprise Value calculations from a balance sheet?
20% is almost certainly too high. I agree with 2%, as a very rough rule. It will vary significantly depending on the industry. I generally calculate an average of the previous 2-3 years working capital, and deduct that from cash. Working capital is Current Assets less Current Liabilities. Current Assets is comprised of...
Home (re)Finance and Providing Additional Information
I have never had a lender ask my budget, only my income, savings, credit rating and value of the collateral. That's considered adequate info to estimate risk for most ordinary loans. Yes, they may want the income proven by evidence from your employer or via a copy of your tax returns. They don't care what you buy as lo...
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?
Ripped off may be too strong as it implies intent - I'm hopeful it's just bad logic or terminology. I would say better agreements would be: Borrowing money from family/friends is always risky. If you and your parents are comfortable with the situation and can reliably keep records of how much is owed at any given ti...
What does “no adjustments” mean?
Typically that applies if the broker Form 1099-B reports an incorrect basis to the IRS. If the Form 1099-B shows incorrect basis relative to your records, then you can use 8949, column (g) to report the correct basis. The 8949 Instructions provide a brief example. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/i8949--2013.pdf Alth...
Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate?
Personally, I keep two regular checking accounts at different banks. One gets a direct deposit totaling the sum of my regular monthly bills and a prorated provision for longer term regular bills like semi-annual car insurance premiums. I leave a buffer in the account to account for the odd expensive electrical bill o...
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 important is disability insurance, e.g. long-term, LTD? Employer offers none
The reason to have disability insurance is to replace your income if you become disabled and are no longer able to work. For this purpose, it is kind of similar to life insurance where you want to replace your income to take care of people that depend on your income if you die, but now you are included in the people t...
Get interest on $100K by spending only $2K using FOREX rollovers?
I work at a FOREX broker, and can tell you that what you want to do is NOT possible. If someone is telling you it is, they're lying. You could (in theory) make money from the SWAP (the interest you speak of is called SWAP) if you go both short and long on the same currency, but there are various reasons why this never ...
Do I need to write the date on the back of a received check when depositing it?
Let me just add that while you don't need to write the date received on the back of the check, you could. Why? Let's say someone was late in paying you and you wanted to document the fact that they were late. I've had late-paying customers send me a check dated on the due date but really they just pre-dated the check a...
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 is a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) & how is it different from plain stock?
MLP stands for master limited partnership. Investors who buy into one are limited partners, rather than shareholders, and have their taxable income reported on K-1s, rather than 1099s. MLPs are engaged in businesses (e.g. real estate, natural resources) that generate a lot of cash that doesn't need to be "reinvested," ...
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...
Can a buy market order be matched with a sell market order in Forex trading?
Based on my research while asking How are unmarketable market orders (other side of the order book is empty) matched with incoming orders? and the one answer there, it seems like there are a few things for certain: All of this of course depends on the exact algorithm specified by the given exchange - I don't think ther...
Ways to invest my saved money in Germany in a halal way?
The UK has Islamic banks. I don't know whether Germany has the same or not (with a quick search I can find articles stating intentions to establish one, but not the results). Even if there's none in Germany, I assume that with some difficulty you could use banks elsewhere in the EU and even non-Euro-denominated. I can'...
Purchasing options between the bid and ask prices, or even at the bid price or below?
I understand the question, I think. The tough thing is that trades over the next brief time are random, or appear so. So, just as when a stock is $10.00 bid / $10.05 ask, if you place an order below the ask, a tick down in price may get you a fill, or if the next trades are flat to higher, you might see the close at $1...