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Online Foreign Exchange Brokerages: Which ones are good & reputable for smaller trades? | There are many good brokers available in the market and many spammers too. Personally I have been associated with FXCM since 2001 and have never faced any problem. But everyone has their own personal choice and I recommend you to make your own. But the question is how to find out which broker is a good broker and would... |
Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY? | The reason diversification in general is a benefit is easily seen in your first graph. While the purple line (Betterment 100% Stock) is always below the blue line (S&P), and the blue line is the superior return over the entire period, it's a bit different if you retired in 2009, isn't it? In that case the orange line... |
How do I know when I am financially stable/ready to move out on my own? | I’m going to suggest something your parents may be reluctant to say: “Grow up and get out.” A man living in a van down by the river, making minimum wage, with $0 in savings has achieved something you have still failed to achieve: adulthood. This, I believe, is more important than a man’s income or net worth. So please... |
Looking at Options Liquidity: what makes some stocks so attractive for options traders? | The penny pilot program has a dramatic effect on increasing options liquidity. Bids can be posted at .01 penny increments instead of .05 increments. A lot of money is lost dealing with .05 increments. Issues are added to the penny pilot program based on existing liquidity in both the stock and the options market, but t... |
Is there any reason to choose my bank's index fund over Vanguard? | That expense ratio on the bank fund is criminally high. Use the Vanguard one, they have really low expenses. |
What's the fuss about Credit Score / History? | I justed rented a new house, and they ran my credit to see if I am a reliable person. |
How should one structure a portfolio given the possibility that a Total Stock Market Index might decline and not recover for a long time? | John Bogle never said only buy the S&P 500 or any single index Q:Do you think the average person could safely invest for retirement and other goals without expert advice -- just by indexing? A: Yes, there is a rule of thumb I add to that. You should start out heavily invested in equities. Hold some bond index funds... |
Covered call and put options as separate trades | Yes, if the call expires worthless, leaving you with stock. Then you can exercise your put when the stock goes below put strike price. |
What happens if someone destroy money? | Depending on the country, nothing. For example, the US has about $1.3 trillion dollars of cash in circulation. Which means that if you were to burn a million dollars of it, that would be 0.000077% of the circulating cash. But cash is a small portion of the actual money in the US. Only about 8% of all money is in c... |
What will happen when a bid price is higher than an ask price? | It depends on the sequence in which the order [bid and ask] were placed. Please read the below question to understand how the order are matched. How do exchanges match limit orders? |
Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market? | If you want to spend all of your money in the next few years, then a CD protects you from the risk of a bear market. however, if your time horizon is longer than 10 years, then the stock market is a better bet, since it is less effected by inflation risk. also, as you point out average stock returns are much higher, ig... |
Is the average true range a better measure of volatility than historical volatility | ATR really looks at the volatility within the day -- So you would be able to see if the stock is becoming more or less volatile in daily trading. This is often useful for charting and finding entry and exit locations. Traditional historic volatility (as you cited) will give you a look at the long term volatility of ... |
What are the contents of fixed annuities? | For a variable annuity, you need to know the underlying investments and how your returns are credited to your account. For a fixed annuity, the issuer is responsible for the commitment to provide the promised rate to you. In a sense, how they invest isn't really your concern. You should be concerned about the overall h... |
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... |
Considering buying a house in town with few major employers (economic stability) | It seems pretty clear to me that one of two things will happen regarding your local housing market: Personally, I'd hold out until either 1 or 2 happens, and then buy. (Assuming you plan to stay in your town regardless.) If you wait you'll end up with either a stronger investment or a big discount. |
Treasury Bonds, and why has the NYSE 20+ Year Treasury Bond index (AXTWEN) gone up so much in the last year (2011)? | The NYSE 20 Year Plus Treasury Bond Index (AXTWEN) is a multiple-security fixed income index that aims to track the total returns of the long-term 20 year and greater maturity range of the U.S. Treasury bond market. The index constituent bonds are weighted by their relative amounts outstanding.One cannot directly inves... |
Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year? | Yes, because you cannot have an exponential growth rate that is faster than the rate at which the economy grows on the long term. 100% growth is much more than the few percent at which the economy grows, so your share in the World economy would approximately double every year. Today the value of all the assets in the W... |
Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? | If your refunds are subject to seizure because of certain debt arrears, it makes sense to let the IRS hold onto them until next year. |
What's the most conservative split of financial assets for my portfolio in today's market? | You don't say your level of consumer debt. You don't say how much of an emergency fund you have. If you have debt, pay it off before you invest. If you don't have an emergency fund (X months' expenses, pick your own X) get that before investing. If you have neither, get a small emergency fund, and then throw as much ... |
Quandl financial data : unexpected dividend | For MCD, the 47¢ is a regular dividend on preferred stock (see SEC filing here). Common stock holders are not eligible for this amount, so you need to exclude this amount. For KMB, there was a spin-off of Halyard Health. From their IR page on the spin-off: Kimberly-Clark will distribute one share of Halyard common stoc... |
Settlement of Shares Underlying a Covered Call Option | It's a covered call. When I want to create a covered call position, I don't need to wait before the stock transaction settles. I enter it as one trade, and they settle at different times. |
When to hire an investment professional? | Don't invest in regular mutual funds. They are a rip-off. And, most investment professionals will not do much to help your financial future. Here's the advice: |
If the put is more expensive than the call, what does it mean | There are many reasons. Here are just some possibilities: The stock has a lot of negative sentiment and puts are being "bid up". The stock fell at the close and the options reflect that. The puts closed on the offer and the calls closed on the bid. The traders with big positions marked the puts up and the calls down be... |
Can a Line of Credit be re-financed? Is it like a mortgage, with a term? | HELOCs typically have a 10 year draw and 5 year payback. During the draw time you can pay interest only if you wish. The rate can range from Prime minus 1.5 to Prime plus (quite a bit). Of course, you can always shop around for a better deal than you currently have so long as you have equity in your home. |
What are the advantages of a Swiss bank account? | For an American it nearly impossible to open a Swiss bank account. Even a Swiss person want to open a bank account, we have to fill out a document, which asks us if we have a greencard or other relationships with the united states. Some Swiss banks have transferred the money of Americans to Singapore to protect their c... |
Why are interest rates on saving accounts so low in USA and Europe? | Typically developing economics are marked by moderate to high inflation [as they are growing at a faster pace], higher in savings rate and higher lending rates. If you reduce the lending rate, more business / start-up will borrow at cheaper rate, this in turn means lowers savings rate and leads to higher inflation. To ... |
MasterCard won't disclose who leaked my credit card details | As indicated in comments, this is common practice in the US as well as EU. For example, in this Fox Business article, a user had basically the same experience: their card was replaced but without the specific merchant being disclosed. When the reporter contacted Visa, they were told: "We also believe that the public ... |
Do US mutual funds and ETFs pay taxes on dividends? | Mutual funds don't pay taxes themselves, they distribute any dividends or capital gains to the shareholders. Thus, if you hold a mutual fund in a tax-advantaged account like a 401k or IRA then the distribution isn't a taxable event while in a regular taxable account you would have to pay taxes on the distributions. Fro... |
How can a company charge a closed credit card? | If this is a pre-authorized automatic billing, and if you have signed any contract with the merchant, cancelling may not block any future charges from the merchant. Happens with gyms, magazines, memberships quite often. There is a time period after the cancellation this will occur, then it'll be completely dead. |
Historical stock prices: Where to find free / low cost data for offline analysis? | I also searched for some time before discovering Market Archive, which AFAIK is the most affordable option that basically gives you a massive multi-GB dump of data. I needed sufficient data to build a model and didn't want to work through an API or have to hand-pick the securities to train from. After trying to do th... |
Giving kids annual tax free gift of $28,000 | Why limit yourself to $28K per year? If you pay the tuition directly to the institution, it does not count against your annual or lifetime gift-giving totals. You could pay the entire tuition each year with no tax consequences. The only thing you can't do if you want to go this route is give the money to your childre... |
What are the benefits of investing to IRA/Roth IRA, 401(k) in comparison to investing in long term CDs? | For the period 1950 to 2009, if you adjust the S&P 500 for inflation and account for dividends, the average annual return comes out to exactly 7.0%. Source. Currently inflation is around 2%. So your 2% APY is a 0% real return where the stock market return is 7%. I.e. on average, stocks have a return that is higher by... |
How can I estimate business taxes / filing fees for a business that has $0 income? | Is the business an S-Corp, LLC or Sole Prop? I am going to guess based on the question that it is an LLC that you never closed with the state and you live in a state (NY) that charges a fee for having an LLC in the state in which case you owe those fees to the state. I am not aware of any taxes on the mere existence of... |
How to incentivize a real-estate broker to find me a cheap house | Here in the U.S., a realtor can act as a "seller's agent" or a "buyer's agent". I think what you are calling a "broker" in the U.S. we call a "buyer's agent", and this may just be a difference in terminology, from your post it sounds like the concept is the same. I am answering from a U.S. perspective, please let me kn... |
Earning salary from USA remotely from New Zealand? | Yes. You must register for GST as well, if you will be making over the threshold (currently $60,000). That's probably a bonus for you, as your home office expenses will mostly include GST, but your income will most likely be zero-rated. Check with an accountant or with the IRD directly. Just be certain to put aside eno... |
Prepaying a loan: Shouldn't the interest be recalculated like a shorter loan? | For the mortgage, you're confusing cause and effect. Loans like mortgages generally have a very simple principle behind them: at any given time, the interest charged at that time is the product of the amount still owing and the interest rate. So for example on a mortgage of $100,000, at an interest rate of 5%, the inte... |
Why does quantitative easing negatively affect stocks? | Can you isolate the market impact to just the Fed's quantitative easing? Can you rule out the future economic predictions of low growth and that there are reasons why the Fed has kept rates low and is trying its best to stimulate the economy? Just something to consider here. The key is to understand what is the great... |
How do you access an OFX server? | This page, under the "OFX" section, has pointers to an OFX 2.0 spec (pdf). You're looking for the info starting at page 18, section 1.2.1: Clients use the HTTP POST command to send a request to the previously acquired Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the desired financial institution. The URL presumably identifies a ... |
Is gold subject to inflation? [duplicate] | Gold is a risky and volatile investment. If you want an investment that's inflation-proof, you should buy index-linked government bonds in the currency that you plan to be spending the money in, assuming that government controls its own currency and has a good credit rating. |
What are some good ways to control costs for groceries? | Also make a menu and make a shopping list from that. It will help you control how much you buy, and help to enforce only buying what you need. You don't need to limit your menu, but buying what you need in appropriate quantities will help. Don't forget to add snacking and desserts to your menu. |
Taxable Website Ad Revenue | If the $5000 is income, then you need to pay income taxes on it. That's simply the way it works. Hourly rate has nothing to do with whether or not you pay taxes. If it helps, try to think of the $5000 as the first $5000 you make for the year. Now it's covered by your standard deduction and you're not paying taxes on... |
What happens if I just don't pay my student loans? | Let me give you some advice from someone who has experience at both ends - had student loan issues myself and parents ran financial aid department at local university. Quick story of my student loan. I graduated in debt and could not pay at first due to having kids way too early. I deferred. Schools will have rules ... |
Why have I never seen a stock split? | If you want to see one split, well, a reverse split anyway, keep an eye on TZA, FAZ, BGZ, and any Direxion fund. These funds decay continuously forever. Once they get close to $10-$15 or so, they reverse-split them back to the $30-$50 range and the process starts over. This happens about once a year. A few years ago... |
Double-entry accounting: how to keep track of mortgage installments as expenses? | If your mortgage is an interest only one then the full amount of the payment you make should be to an expense account perhaps called mortgage interest. If the mortgage is a repayment mortgage you need to split the amount of the payment between such an expense account called mortgage interest and between a liability acc... |
Why are stocks having less institutional investors a “good thing”? | It's not necessarily bad but it can cause the stock price to become a lot more volatile. Depends on which side of the bet you're on ;) Suppose a hedge fund manager thinks a company is poorly run. He may buy a ton of shares so that he can get rid of the current CEO and replace it with his/her own. For the hedge fund and... |
What is the difference between “good debt” vs. “bad debt”? | First of all debt is a technology that allows borrower to bring forward their spending; it's a financial time machine. From borrowers point of view debt is good when it increases overall economic utility. A young person wants to bring up a family but cannot afford the house. Had they waited for 30 years they would hav... |
Is it better for a public company to increase its dividends, or institute a share buyback? | In some sense, the share repurchasing program is better if the company does not foresee the same profit levels down the road. Paying a dividend for several years and then suddenly not paying or reducing a dividend is viewed as a "slap in the face" by investors. Executing a share repurchase program one year and then n... |
Does longterm investment in index funds still make sense in a reality of massive algotrading? | There is a difference between trading which is short term focussed and investing which is longterm focussed. On the long term what drives stock prices is still the overall economy and the performance of the underlying business aspects. I do not think that any trading algorithms will change this. These are more concerne... |
Can I place a stock limit order to buy above the current price? Can I place a stock limit order to sell below the current price? | You are better off just placing a market order if you want to buy or sell straight away and avoid the queues. A market order will guarantee the purchase or sale of your shares, but it won't guarantee the price. |
What is the preferred way to set up personal finances? | You don't state where you are, so any answers to this will by necessity be very general in nature. How many bank accounts should I have and what kinds You should have one transaction account and one savings account. You can get by with just a single transaction account, but I really don't recommend that. These are refe... |
Is the contribution towards Employment Insurance (EI) wasted if I never get fired, or are my premiums refunded? | Sorry, even if you never file a claim for Employment Insurance (EI), you don't get your premiums back. So, yes, if you paid into EI and never filed a claim, your contributions are, as you put it, "wasted" – insofar that your premiums provided no direct benefit to you. However, your premiums may have provided a benefit ... |
Money Structuring | Structuring, as noted in another answer, involves breaking up cash transactions to avoid the required reporting limits. There are a couple of important things to note. And, the biggest caveat - there have been many cases of perfectly legitimate transactions that have fallen foul of the reporting requirements. One ... |
60% Downpayment on house? | If you decide you need the extra money, you can always go refinance and get more cash out. At the end of the day, though, if you pay off your house sooner you can invest more of your income sooner; that's just a matter of discipline. |
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... |
How to start personal finances? | A few practical thoughts: A practical thing that helps me immensely not to loose important paperwork (such as bank statements, bills, payroll statement, all those statements you need for filing tax return, ...) is: In addition to the folder (Aktenordner) where the statements ultimately need to go I use a Hängeregistrat... |
How does anyone make significant money on very low volume stocks? | First, I want to point out that your question contains an assumption. Does anyone make significant money trading low volume stocks? I'm not sure this is the case - I've never heard of a hedge fund trading in the pink sheets, for example. Second, if your assumption is valid, here are a few ideas how it might work: Accu... |
Can I transfer self-employed income into LLC? | An LLC is a very flexible company when it comes to taxation. You have three basic tax options: There are other good reasons to create an LLC (mainly to protect your personal assets) so even if you decide that you don't want to deal with the complications of an S-Corp LLC, you should still consider creating a sole prop... |
Why do some symbols not have an Options chain for specific expiration dates? | Short answer: Liquidity. Well, you have to see it from an exchange's point of view. Every contract they put up is a liability to them. You have to allocate resources for the order book, the matching engine, the clearing, etc. But only if the contract is actually trading they start earning (the big) money. Now for ev... |
Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative to pay off student loans? | I struggle to see the value to this risk from the standpoint of your mother-in-law. This is not a small amount of money for a single person to lend to a single person ignoring your personal relationship. Right now, using a blended rate of about 8% and a 5 year payment period, your cost on that $50,000 is somewhere i... |
Resources on Buying Rental Properties | I would also suggest finding the training resource within your state for real estate agent license exam prep... When I was getting started, I took the "101" level course and it was worth the few hundred bucks for the overview I gleaned. |
I have more than $250,000 in a US Bank account… mistake? | Yes. Although I imagine the risk is small, you can remove the risk by splitting your money amongst multiple accounts at different banks so that none of the account totals exceed the FDIC Insurance limit. There are several banks or financial institutions that deposit money in multiple banks to double or triple the effec... |
Why ever use a market order? | The purpose of a market order is to guarantee that your order gets filled. If you try to place a limit order at the bid or ask, by the time you enter your order the price might have moved and you might need to keep amending your limit order in order to buy or sell, and as such you start chasing the market. A market ord... |
Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends? | Why do people talk about stock that pay high dividends? Traditionally people who buy dividend stocks are looking for income from their investments. Most dividend stock companies pay out dividends every quarter ( every 90 days). If set up properly an investor can receive a dividend check every month, every week or as o... |
At what point is it most advantageous to cease depositing into a 401k? | It's probably advantageous to stop depositing into a 401(k) when one is no longer receiving payroll deductions into them. Other than that, why would you want to give up the benefits? Remember, 401(k) is just the kind of account. Most offer a variety of investment options within them, and let you move money between thos... |
I have an extra 1000€ per month, what should I do with it? | As many before me said but will say again for the sake of completeness of an answer: First off provision to have an emergency fund of 6 months living expenses to cover loss of employment, unforeseen medical issues etc. When that is done you re free to start investing. Do remember that putting all your eggs in one bas... |
When are payroll taxes due in the US? | It depends on the size of the payroll, not on the number of employees. Probably you need to file Form 941 quarterly under this scenario. You may or may not need to deposit taxes more frequently. If you must deposit, then you need to do it electronically. I excerpted this from the instructions for Form 941: If your t... |
How to start personal finances? | There are many paths to success, but they all begin with education. You made the first big step just by visiting here. We have 17,000 questions, arranged by tag so you can view those on a given topic. You can sort by votes to see the ones that have the best member acceptance. I'll agree with Ben that one of the best o... |
Is it really possible to get rich in only a few years by investing? | Yes, it's possible. However, it's not likely, at least not for most people. Earning a million is not that difficult, but when you talk about billions that's an entirely different story. I think the key point that you're missing is leverage. It's common knowledge that Warren Buffett likes to have a huge cash warchest at... |
How late is Roth (rather than pretax) still likely to help? | My simplest approach is to suggest that people go Roth when in the 15% bracket, and use pre-tax to avoid 25%. I outlined that strategy in my article The 15% solution. The monkey wrench that gets thrown in to this is the distortion of the other smooth marginal tax curve caused by the taxation of social security. For th... |
Filing taxes on stocks | You need to submit an updated return. The problem is that once three years have passed you can't update the return to get any kind of refund, but if they are going after you for the sale price of the stocks, not knowing the cost, your goal is to show them there was no gain, and in fact you'd have had the loss if you we... |
Why don't more people run up their credit cards and skip the country? | It's harder than you think. Once card companies start seeing your debt to credit line ratios climb, they will slash your credit lines quickly. Also, cash credit lines are always much smaller, so in reality, such a scheme would require you to buy goods that can be converted to cash, which dilutes your gains and makes i... |
Which is better when working as a contractor, 1099 or incorporating? | I'll just re-post my comment as an answer as i disagree with Michael Pryor. According to this article (and few others) you may save money by incorporating. These factors don’t change the general payroll tax advantage of an S corporation, however: A S corporation can often save business owners substantial amount... |
Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? | It's important to distinguish between speculation and investing. Buying something because you hope to make money on market fluctuations is speculation. Buying something and expecting to make money because your money is providing actual economic value is investing. If Person A buys 100 shares of a stock with the intent... |
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 /... |
Difference between GOOGL and GOOG | Source |
Is trading stocks easier than trading commodities? | One reason why you may have gotten this advice is that stocks have an expected real return over time, while commodities do not. Therefore, when gambling on individual stocks, odds are in your favor that they will ultimately go up over time. You may do better or worse than the market as a whole, but they will likely go ... |
Is there a more flexible stock chart service, e.g. permitting choice of colours when comparing multiple stocks? | I don't think there are any web based tools that would allow you to do this. The efforts required to build vs the perceived benefit to users is less. All the web providers want the data display as simple as possible; giving more features at times confuses the average user. |
Is it normal to think of money in different “contexts”? | Here's how I think about money. There are only 3 categories / contexts (buckets) that my earned money falls into. Savings is my emergency fund. I keep 6 months of total expenses (expenses are anything in the consumption bucket). You can be as detailed as you want with this area but I tend to leave a fudge factor. In ot... |
Stock market vs. baseball card trading analogy | The Bobs tend to show up at the top of bubbles, then disappear soon after. For example, your next door neighbor who talks about Oracle in 1999, even though he doesn't know what Oracle does for a living. I don't think the Bobs' assets represent a large chunk of the market's value. A better analogy would be a spectrum o... |
Pros/Cons of Buying Discounted Company Stock | The major pros tend to be: The major cons tend to be: Being in California, you've got state income tax to worry about as well. It might be worth using some of that extra cash to hire someone who knows what they're doing to handle your taxes the first year, at least. I've always maxed mine out, because it's always see... |
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? | This is a "stress" period, much like the 1930s and 1970s. At a time like this, it is smart to be debt free, and to have money saved for the likely emergencies. There are growth periods like those of the 1980s and 1990s, probably returning in the 2020s and 2030s. At such times, it makes sense to play it a little "looser... |
Is A Company Abusing The Tax Code When It Does This, And How Does The IRS Prevent It? | A rather good IRS paper on the topic states that a donation of a business' in-kind inventory would be Under IRC 170(e)(1), however, the fair market value must be reduced by the amount of gain that would not be long-term capital gain if the property had been sold by the donor at the property's fair market value (de... |
Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in? | No. One of the key ideas behind a corporation is that an investor's liability is limited to the amount he invests, i.e. the amount of stock he buys. This is the primary reason why small businesses become corporations, even though one person owns 100% of the stock. Then if the business goes broke, he won't lose his hous... |
What's the fuss about Credit Score / History? | If human beings were Homo Economicus, i.e. textbook rational and self-interested economic-minded beings, as opposed to simply human, then yes, simple advice like "just stay out of debt and your credit score will take care of itself" could work. Your simplification would be very persuasive to such a being. However, peo... |
Stock Option Value correlated to net worth of company | There could also be some degree of dilution at play here. If they are rapidly expanding and hiring, or if they took on another round of funding each share may have a lower amount of value though the company might be worth more than they were previously. The newly issued options may also be of a different class. |
Who can truly afford luxury cars? | I'll read between the lines: you're (justifiably) feeling smart about how you manage your money: debt-free, smart about your spending, saving for retirement, etc. But you're looking at all those fancy cars and feeling a little left out. And Americans especially have a love for automobiles -- it's not just transportatio... |
Professional investment planning for small net-worth individual in bearish market | There is no magic bullet here. If you want professional management, because you think they know more about entry and exit points for short positions, have more time to monitor a position, etc... (but they might not) try a mutual fund or exchange traded fund that specializes in shorts. Note: a lot of these may not ha... |
Why is the breakdown of a loan repayment into principal and interest of any importance? | It's important because it shows that the amount you owe does not decrease linearly with each payment, and you gain equity as a correspondingly slower rate at the beginning of the loan and faster at the end. This has to be figured in when considering refinancing, or when you sell the place and pay off the mortgage. It a... |
When following a buy and hold investment strategy, on what conditions should one sell? | Buy and hold doesn't have an exact definition, as far as I know. In my opinion, it's offered as a contrast to those who trade too frequently, or panic every time the market drops 2%. For the general market, e.g. your S&P index holdings. You sell to rebalance to your desired asset allocation. As a personal example, at... |
In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house? | Which is generally the better option (financially)? Invest. If you can return 7-8% (less than the historical return of the S&P 500) on your money over the course of 25 years this will outperform purchasing personal property. If you WANT to own a house for other reason apart from the financial benefits then buy a house.... |
What risks are there acting as a broker between PayPal and electronic bank transfers? | This is definitely a scam. My husband was inquiring with a "company" that was offering him to be. Representative for them. He got the same job details but the company was called Ceneo. I did due diligence and found that the real Ceneo has no problems receiving money directly from buyers around the world. The fake compa... |
Are online mortgage lenders as good as local brick-and-mortar ones? | At least five of my co-workers are currently re-financing through Amerisave. Four have had a wonderful experience. The fifth has been dealing with a representative who constantly misunderstands him, asks for duplicate paperwork, and is in general fairly annoying to deal with. He is willing to go through the hassle b... |
Do I just let an options conversion/reversal trade go to expiration? | This depends on a combination of factors: What are you charged (call it margin interest) to hold the position? How does this reduce your buying power and what are the opportunity costs? What are the transaction costs alternative ways to close the position? What are your risks (exposure while legging out) for alternativ... |
Super-generic mutual fund type | Congrats on having such a nice emergency fund. That's pretty substantial. I don't want to be the one to suggest the One Investment To Rule Them All because I might be wrong. :) I'd investigate other avenues for investment. Here are a few (in no particular order): My two cents but I think you're wise to be wary of in... |
Probablity of touching In the money vs expiring in the money for an american option | Conceptually, yes, you need to worry about it. As a practical matter, it's less likely to be exercised until expiry or shortly prior. The way to think about paying a European option is: [Odds of paying out] = [odds that strike is in the money at expiry] Whereas the American option can be thought of as: [Odds of paying... |
Investment property information resources | I personally found the "For Dummies" books, on property investment, very helpful and a great primer. I found them unbiased and very informative, laying out the basic principles. Depending on your knowledge it can provide you with enough of a foundation to have an informed conversation with banks/real estates etc. Watc... |
From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well? | @Joe.E, I disagree with your logic. The IPO clearly didn't go well--not relative to other IPOs. Were it not for the stocks underwriters stepping in late in the trading day, Facebook would likely have closed below their opening price. This story and others indicate that institution investors were given negative informa... |
How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup? | if you bought gold in late '79, it would have taken 30 years to break even. Of all this time it was two brief periods the returns were great, but long term, not so much. Look at the ETF GLD if you wish to buy gold, and avoid most of the buy/sell spread issues. Edit - I suggest looking at Compound Annual Growth Rate an... |
static data for mutual funds/hedge funds | It's not really my field, but I believe it's all the information that doesn't change (i.e. isn't "real-time") about the business of hedge funds. For example, this site quotes: The product maintains comprehensive static data records including assets, depositories, accounts, settlement instructions and a wide rang... |
Real estate agent best practice | This question is a bit off-topic, might be better moved to another SE site. But I'll answer anyway: Sounds like the problem is that your wife is potentially being taken advantage of by people who may not really be prospects. Keep in mind no one can take advantage of you without your permission. There are also some thin... |
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