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Capital Gains in an S Corp | A nondividend distribution is typically a return of capital; in other words, you're getting money back that you've contributed previously (and thus would have been taxed upon in previous years when those funds were first remunerated to you). Nondividend distributions are nontaxable, so they do not represent income from capital gains, but do effect your cost basis when determining the capital gain/loss once that capital gain/loss is realized. As an example, publicly-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) generally distribute a return of capital back to shareholders throughout the year as a nondividend distribution. This is a return of a portion of the shareholder's original capital investment, not a share of the REITs profits, so it is simply getting a portion of your original investment back, and thus, is not income being received (I like to refer to it as "new income" to differentiate). However, the return of capital does change the cost basis of the original investment, so if one were to then sell the shares of the REIT (in this example), the basis of the original investment has to be adjusted by the nondividend distributions received over the course of ownership (in other words, the cost basis will be reduced when the shares are sold). I'm wondering if the OP could give us some additional information about his/her S-Corp. What type of business is it? In the course of its business and trade activity, does it buy and sell securities (stocks, etc.)? Does it sell assets or business property? Does it own interests in other corporations or partnerships (sales of those interests are one form of capital gain). Long-term capital gains are taxed at rates lower than ordinary income, but the IRS has very specific rules as to what constitutes a capital gain (loss). I hate to answer a question with a question, but we need a little more information before we can weigh-in on whether you have actual capital gains or losses in the course of your S-Corporation trade. |
Can anyone else make an online payment for me? | Your relative in the US could buy a pre-paid Visa (aka Visa gift card) and give you the numbers on that to pay. They're available for purchase at many grocery/convenience stores. In most (all??) cases there'll be a fee of a several dollars charged in addition to the face value of the card. The biggest headache I can think of would be that pre-paid cards are generally only available in $25/50/100 increments; unless the current SAT price matches one of the standard increments they'll have to buy the next card size up and then get the remaining money off it in a separate transaction. A grocery store would be one of the easier places for your relative to do this because cashiers there are used to splitting transactions across multiple payment sources (something not true at most other types of business) due to regularly processing transactions partially paid for via welfare benefits. |
Taxation from variations in currency | According to the answers to this question, you generally aren't taxed on gains until you sell the asset in question. None of those answered specifically for the U.K., so perhaps someone else will be able to weigh in on that. To apply those ideas to your question, yes your gains and losses are taxable. If you originally traded something worth $100 for the bitcoins, then when you converted back to dollars you received $200, you would have a $100 gain, simply on the foreign exchange trade. That is, this $100 of income is in addition to any income you made from your business (selling goods). |
Is keeping track of your money and having a budget the same thing? | The two are closely related. A budget is a detailed plan for how to spend. Expense tracking is a tool to analyze your previous spending performance. Creating a plan for how to spend your money without any record of your previous spending--is an empty promise to yourself that you will never follow up on. Did I stay within my budget? Doesn't matter, I didn't track the spending anyway. Even if you do plan to track your performance, if you have not previously done so, you won't have a good basis for how much to expect in each category. Most people have a general idea of how much they have spent and many budgets are formed based on that general intuition, but they are often surprised when they track how every penny is spent and look at the totals from month to month and over years. By actually seeing how much has been spent it's easier to pick the big financial drains and target them for reduction, if your desire is more savings, for example. I know people who keep a close eye on what they spend each month, but they don't allocate money in categories for the next month. They don't perform as well on reducing spending, but they often don't care. They feel like they make enough and they save enough, so why worry? I also know people who create an unrealistic budget each month because they haven't done a good job tracking their previous spending. They know what the monthly bills are, but they don't account well for variable or cyclical expenses like repairs, Christmas, etc. Both tools are essential for maximizing your own personal finance. |
Can Professional Certifications be written off in taxes? | There are a number of federal tax deductions and credits available for education expenses. They are too numerous to describe here, but the place to get full details is IRS Pub 970. Note that many, but not all, of them require that you be enrolled in a degree program; since this does not seem to be the case for you, you would not be eligible for those programs. None of them is as simple / generous as "deduct the full amount of your tuition with no limits". Also note that there are restrictions on using more than one of these deductions or credits in any given tax year. You might pay special attention to Chapter 12, "Business Deduction for Work-Related Education". In particular, this program allows you to deduct transportation expenses under some conditions, which does not seem to be the case for the other programs. But also note carefully the restrictions. In particular, "Education that is part of a program of study that will qualify you for a new trade or business is not qualifying work-related education." So if you are not already working in the field of IT, you may not be eligible for this deduction. |
First home buyer, financing questions | When you say "apartment" I take it you mean "condo", as you're talking about buying. Right or no? A condo is generally cheaper to buy than a house of equal size and coondition, but they you have to pay condo fees forever. So you're paying less up front but you have an ongoing expense. With a condo, the condo association normally does exterior maintenance, so it's not your problem. Find out exactly what's your responsibility and what's theirs, but you typically don't have to worry about maintaining the parking areas, you have less if any grass to mow, you don't have to deal with roof or outside walls, etc. Of course you're paying for all this through your condo fees. There are two advantages to getting a shorter term loan: Because you owe the money for less time, each percentage point of interest is less total cash. 1% time 15 years versus 1% times 30 years or whatever. Also, you can usually get a lower rate on a shorter term loan because there's less risk to the bank: they only have to worry about where interest rates might go for 15 years instead of 30 years. So even if you know that you will sell the house and pay off the loan in 10 years, you'll usually pay less with a 15 year loan than a 30 year loan because of the lower rate. The catch to a shorter-term loan is that the monthly payments are higher. If you can't afford the monthly payment, then any advantages are just hypothetical. Typically if you have less than a 20% down payment, you have to pay mortgage insurance. So if you can manage 20% down, do it, it saves you a bundle. Every extra dollar of down payment is that much less that you're paying in interest. You want to keep an emergency fund so I wouldn't put every spare dime I had into a down payment if I could avoid it, but you want the biggest down payment you can manage. (Well, one can debate whether its better to use spare cash to invest in the stock market or some other investment rather than paying down the mortgage. Whole different question.) "I dont think its a good idea to make any principal payments as I would probably loose them when I would want to sell the house and pay off the mortgage" I'm not sure what you're thinking there. Any extra principle payments that you make, you'll get back when you sell the house. I mean, suppose you buy a house for $100,000, over the time you own it you pay $30,000 in principle (between regular payments and any extra payments), and then you sell it for $120,000. So out of that $120,000 you'll have to pay off the $70,000 balance remaining on the loan, leaving $50,000 to pay other expenses and whatever is left goes in your pocket. Scenario 2, you buy the house for $100,000, pay $40,000 in principle, and sell for $120,000. So now you subtract $60,000 from the $120,000 leaving $60,000. You put in an extra $10,000, but you get it back when you sell. Whether you make or lose money on the house, whatever extra principle you put in, you'll get back at sale time in terms of less money that will have to go to pay the remaining principle on the mortgage. |
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 ones is "The correct order of investing." We both offered answers there, and that helps address a big chunk of your issue. The book recommendations are fine, you'll quickly find that each author has his/her own slant or focus on a certain approach. For example, one financial celebrity (note - in the US, there are private advisors, usually with credentials of some sort, there are those who work for brokers and also offers help, there are financial bloggers (I am one), and there are those who are on the radio or TV who may or may not have any credentials) suggests that credit cards are to be avoided. The line in another answer here, "You're not going to get rich earning 1% on a credit card," is a direct quote of one such celebrity. I disputed that in my post "I got rich on credit card points!" The article is nearly 2 years old, the account accumulating the rewards has recently passed $34,000. This sum of money is more wealth than 81% of people in the world have. The article was a bit tongue in cheek (sarcastic) but it made a point. A young person should get a credit card, a good one, with no fee, and generous rewards. Use the card to buy only what you can pay back that month. At year end, I can download all my spending. The use of the card helps, not hinders, the budgeting process, and provides a bit of safety with its guarantees and theft protection. Your question really has multiple facets. If these answers aren't helpful enough, I suggest you ask a new question, but focus on one narrow issue. "Paying off debt" "Getting organized" "Saving" "Budgeting" all seem to be part of your one question here. |
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? | The responses here are excellent. I'd add just a couple points. Debt is not generic. It ranges from low (my HELOC is 2.5%) to insane (24% credit card, anyone?). When I read about the obsession to be completely debt free, I ask questions. Are you saving in your 401(k) at least up to the match? I disagree with the "debt is evil" people who advise to ignore retirement savings while paying off every last debt. My company offers a dollar for dollar match on the first 5% of income deposited. So a $60K earner will see a $3000 deposit doubled. 5 years of this, and he has 1/2 a year's income in his retirement account, more with positive returns. (note - for those so fearful of losses, all 401(k) accounts have to offer a fixed income, low risk choice. currently 1% or less, but the opposite of "I can lose it all".) After that, paying off the higher debt is great. When it's time to hack away at student debt and mortgage, I am concerned that if it's at the risk of having no savings, I'd hold off. Consider - Two people in homes worth $250K. One has a mortgage of $250K and $100K in the bank. The other has his mortgage paid down to $150K. When they lose their jobs, the guy with the $100K in the bank has the funds to float himself through a period of unemployment as well as a house the bank is less likely to foreclose on. The guy with no money is in deep trouble, and the bank can sell his house for $150K and run away (after proper foreclosure proceedings of course.) My mortgage is one bill, like any other, and only a bit more than my property tax. I don't lose sleep over it. It will be paid before I retire, and before my 11yr old is off to college. I don't think you stupid for paying your low interest debt at your own pace. |
I have $12k in a Chase checking account, but want to start earning interest/saving/investing/etc to make more money. What should I do? | First thing's first: migrate your savings to an interest-bearing savings account (such as from Ally Bank). While it still lags behind inflation, 0.84% is still better than 0.00%. Short-term CDs are also an option. I've personally thought about experimenting with peer-to-peer lending, but a few thousand in savings isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, and you don't want it tied up in a risky, speculative loan when you might need it the most. As the others have said, the general savings rules apply too: pay off high-interest debt, divert more money into your 401k (especially if you aren't hitting the match yet), then work on either whittling down other debts or saving more for a big purchase in the future. |
How much money should I put on a house? | Before doing anything else: you want a lawyer involved right from the beginning, to make sure that something reasonable happens with the house if one of you dies or leaves. Seriously, you'll both be safer and happier if it's all explicit. How much you should put on the house is not the right question. Houses don't sell instantly, and while you can access some of their stored value by borrowing against them that too can take some time to arrange. You need to have enough operating capital for normal finances, plus an emergency reserve to cover unexpectedly being out of work or sudden medical expenses. There are suggestions for how much that should be in answers to other questions. After that, the question is whether you should really be buying a house at all. It isn't always a better option than renting and (again as discussed in answers to other questions) there are ongoing costs in time and upkeep and taxes and insurance. If you're just thinking about the financials, it may be better to continue to rent and to invest the savings in the market. The time to buy a house is when you have the money and a reliable income, plan not to move for at least five years, really want the advantages of more elbow room and the freedom to alter the place to suit your needs (which will absorb more money)... As far as how much to put down vs. finance: you really want a down payment of at least 20%. Anything less than that, and the bank will insist you pay for mortgage insurance, which is a significant expense. Whether you want to pay more than that out of your savings depends on how low an interest rate you can get (this is a good time in that regard) versus how much return you are getting on your investments, combined with how long you want the mortgage to run and how large a mortgage payment you're comfortable committing to. If you've got a good investment plan in progress and can get a mortgage which charges a lower interest rate than your investments can reasonably be expected to pay you, putting less down and taking a larger mortgage is one of the safer forms of leveraged investing... IF you're comfortable with that. If the larger mortgage hanging over you is going to make you uncomfortable, this might not be a good answer for you. It's a judgement call. I waited until i'd been in out of school about 25 years before I was ready to buy a house. Since i'd been careful with my money over that time, I had enough in investments that I could have bought the house for cash. Or I could have gone the other way and financed 80% of it for maximum leverage. I decided that what I was comfortable with was financing 50%. You'll have to work thru the numbers and decide what you are comfortable with. But I say again, if buying shared property you need a lawyer involved. It may be absolutely the right thing to do ... but you want to make sure everything is fully spelled out... and you'll also want appropriate terms written into your wills. (Being married would carry some automatic assumptions about joint ownership and survivor rights... but even then it's safer to make it all explicit.) Edit: Yes, making a larger down payment may let you negotiate a lower interest rate on the loan. You'll have to find out what each bank is willing to offer you, or work with a mortgage broker who can explore those options for you. |
What is the opposite of a hedge? | There is no opposite of a hedge, except not having a hedge at all. A "hedge" isn't directional. If you are short, you hedge by having something that minimizes your losses if you are wrong. If you are long, you hedge by having something that minimizes your losses if it decreases in value. If you own a house, you hedge by having insurance. There are "hedged bets" and "unhedged bets" |
Is the need to issue bonds a telltale sign that the company would have a hard time paying coupons? | Apple is currently the most valuable company in the world by market capitalisation and it has issued bonds for instance. Amazon have also issued bonds in the past as have Google. One of many reasons companies may issue bonds is to reduce their tax bill. If a company is a multinational it may have foreign earnings that would incur a tax bill if they were transferred to the holding company's jurisdiction. The company can however issue bonds backed by the foreign cash pile. It can then use the bond cash to pay dividends to shareholders. Ratings Agencies such as Moody's, Fitch and Standard & Poor's exist to rate companies ability to make repayments on debt they issue. Investors can read their reports to help make a determination as to whether to invest in bond issues. Of course investors also need to determine whether they believe the Ratings Agencies assesments. |
How do I research, analyze, and choose the right mutual fund for a roth ira? | There is a lot of interesting information that can be found in a fund's prospectus. I have found it very helpful to read books on the issue, one I just finished was "The Boglehead's Guide to Investing" which speaks mostly on mutual and index funds. Actively managed funds mean that someone is choosing which stocks to buy and which to sell. If they think a stock will be "hot" then they buy it. Research has shown that people cannot predict the stock market, which is why many people suggest index based funds. An index fund generally tracks a group of companies. Example: an index fund of the S&P 500 will try to mimic the returns that the S&P 500 has. Overall, managed funds are more expensive than index funds because the fund manager must be paid to manage it. Also, there is generally more buying and selling so that also increases the tax amount you would owe. What I am planning on doing is opening a Roth IRA with Vanguard, as their funds have incredibly low fees (0.2% on many). One of the most important things you do before you buy is to figure out your target allocation (% of stocks vs % of bonds). Once you figure that out then you can start narrowing down the funds that you wish to invest in. |
Are founders of a company paid dividends? | Depends on if the stock pays a dividend or not. Some companies in their early years may choose to not pay dividends. Your calculations are off as the dividend stated is annual that you'd have to divide by 4 to get what the quarterly amount would be and there can be variances as Ellison's compensation package may well include options so that the number of shares he owns could fluctuate over the course of a year. |
Is it better to miss the dividend and buy the undervalued stock? | I guess the answer lies in your tax jurisdiction (different countries tax capital gains and income differently) and your particular tax situation. If the price of the stock goes up or down between when you buy and sell then this counts for tax purposes as a capital gain or loss. If you receive a dividend then this counts as income. So, for instance, if you pay tax on income but not on capital gains (or perhaps at a lower rate on capital gains) then it would pay you to sell immediately before the stock goes ex-dividend and buy back immediately after thereby making a capital gain instead of receiving income. |
Pay online: credit card or debit card? | One more thing to favor the card. Extended warranty, or damage coverage. An iPad, if dropped on a hard surface, stands a good chance of breaking. Apple isn't going to cover that, as it's not a defect. Many credit cards offer free coverage for breakage of this type as well as doubling the warranty up to a year. This second year of coverage is worth about 10% of the item cost. To be clear, I'm talking about running the expense through a card and paying in full, some call it credit no different than those who carry a balance month to month and pay 18% interest. I believe if I have the money to spend on an item, and use the card to get that coverage along with the benefits others posted, it's a convenience, nothing more. Some people who use certain budgeting methods like to set up a payment each week so the bill comes in close to zero. Whatever works. |
Is a car loan bad debt? | The risk besides the extra interest is that you might be upside down on the loan. Because the car loses value the moment you drive off the lot, the slower you pay it off the longer it takes to get the loan balance below the resale value. Of course if you have a significant down payment, the risk of being upside down is not as great. Even buying a used car doesn't help because if you try to sell it back to the dealer the next week they wont give you the full price you paid. Some people try and split the difference, get the longer term loan, but then pay it off as quickly as the shorter term loan. Yes the interest rate is higher but if you need to drop the payment back to the required level you can do so. |
Can I buy only 4 shares of a company? | The least expensive way to buy such small amounts is through ING's Sharebuilder service. You can perform a real-time trade for $9, or you can add a one-time trade to their investment schedule for $4 (transaction will be processed on the next upcoming Tuesday morning). They also allow you to purchase fractional shares. |
what are the downsides of rolling credit card debt in this fashion | Awesome, you are a math guy. Very good for you. In theory, what you are proposing, should work out great as the math works out great. However have you taken a economics or finance coursework? The math that they do in these class will leave a most math guys uncomfortable with the imprecision even when one is comfortable with chaos theory. Personal finance is worse. If it were about math things like reverse mortgages, payday lenders, and advances on one income tax returns would not exist. The risk derived from the situation you describe is one born out of behavior. Sometimes it is beyond control of the person attempting your scheme. Suppose one of these happen: In my opinion the market is risky enough without borrowing money in order to invest. Its one thing to not pay extra principle to a mortgage in order to put that money in play in the market, it is another thing to do what you are suggesting. While their may be late fees associated with a mortgage payment, a fixed rate mortgage will not change if you late on payment(s). On these balance transfer CC schemes they will jack your rate up for any excuse possible. I read an article that the most common way to end up with a 23%+ credit card was to start out with a 0% balance transfer. One thing that is often overlooked is that the transfer fee paid jacks up the stated rate of the card. In the end, get out of consumer debt, have an emergency fund, then start investing. Building a firm financial foundation is the best way to go about it. Without one it will be difficult to make headway. With one your net worth will increase faster then you imagined possible. |
How to save criteria in Google Finance Stock Screener? | There is probably a better way, but you can do the following: (1) Right click on the right pointing arrow next to the "1-20 of xx rows" message at the bottom right of the table, and select "Copy link location" (2) Paste that into the location (3) At the end of the pasted text there is a "&output=json", delete that and everything after it. (4) hit enter What you get is a page that displays the set of securities returned by and in a very similar display to the "stock screener" without the UI elements to change your selections. You can bookmark this page. |
Should I pay more into company pension, or is there a better way to save? | In the UK you have an allowance of £40,000 per annum for tax relief into a pension. This amount includes both your and your employer's contributions. If you earn more than £150,000 per annum this allowance starts to reduce and if you earn less than the allowance, your allowance is limited to what you earn. You can also carry over unused allowance from up to 3 years previously. If you stick within this allowance you won't pay tax on your pension contributions, if you go over the excess will be subject to tax. Salary exchange normally lets you avoid the National Insurance value of your contribution being taxed. If you paid your own money into your pension (without going through salary exchange), your contributions would have the 20% basic rate of tax credited to them and if you're a higher rate taxpayer you could reclaim the difference between the basic rate of tax and the higher rate of tax you pay but the National Insurance you've paid on your own money would not be reclaimable. You can't get the money back you've paid into your pension till you are are 58 (given that you are 27 now), the minimum age has risen from its historic 55 for your age group. That's the pension trade off, you forgo tax now in the expectation that, once retired, you will be paying tax at a lower rate (because your income will be lower and you are much less likely to be subject to higher rate taxation) in return for locking in your money till you're older. Your pension income will be subject to tax when you eventually take it. There are other options such as ISAs which have lower annual limits (£20,000 currently) and on which your contributions do not attract tax relief, but which are not taxed as income when you eventually spend them. ISAs and pensions are not mutually exclusive so if you have the money, you can do both. It's up to you to determine what mix of savings will be appropriate to generate income for your eventual retirement. If you are living in some other country when you retire your pension will be paid net of UK tax. You might then be able to claim (or pay) any difference between that and your local tax rate depending on what agreement exists between the UK government and the other country's government. |
Loan for car buy “cash” (third party) or bank loan | The car dealership doesn't care where you get the cash; they care about it becoming their money immediately and with no risk or complications. Any loan or other arrangements you make to raise the cash is Your Problem, not theirs, unless you arrange the loan through them. |
If stock price drops by the amount of dividend paid, what is the use of a dividend | Their is no arbitrage opportunity with "buying dividends." You're buying a taxable event. This is a largely misunderstood topic. The stock always drops by the amount if the dividend on the ex date. The stock opens that day trading "ex" (excluding) the dividend. It then pays out later based in the shareholders on record. There is a lot of talk about price movement and value here. That can happen but it's from trading not from the dividend per se. Yes sometimes you do see a stock pop the day prior to ex date because people are buying the stock for the dividend but the trading aspect of a stock is determined by supply and demand from people trading the stock. The dividends are paid out from the owners equity section of the balance sheet. This is a return of equity to shareholders. The idea is to give owners of the company some of their investment back (from when they bought the stock) without having the owners sell the shares of the company. After all if it's a good company you want to keep holding it so it will appreciate. Another similar way to think of it is like a bonds interest payment. People sometimes forget when trading that these are actual companies meant to be invested in. Your buying an ownership in the company with your cash. It really makes no difference to buy the dividend or not, all other things constant. Though market activity can add or lose value from trading as normal. |
Howto choose a marketplace while submitting an order for a stock trade | It depends on your cost structure and knowledge of the exchanges. It could be optimal to make a manual exchange selection so long as it's cheaper to do so. For brokers with trade fees, this is a lost cause because the cost of the trade is already so high that auto routing will be no cheaper than manual routing. For brokers who charge extra to manually route, this could be a good policy if the exchange chosen has very high rebates. This does not apply to equities because they are so cheap, but there are still a few expensive option exchanges. This all presumes that one's broker shares exchange rebates which nearly all do not. If one has direct access to the exchanges, they are presumably doing this already. To do this effectively, one needs: For anyone trading with brokers without shared rebates or who does not have knowledge of the exchange prices and their liquidities, it's best to auto route. |
What is the big deal about the chinese remnibi trading hub that opened in toronto | Chinese suppliers can quote their price in CNY rather than USD (as has been typical), and thus avoid the exchange risk from US dollar volatility- the CNY has been generally appreciating so committing to receive payments in US dollars when their costs are in CNY means they are typically on the losing end of the equation and they have to pad their prices a bit. Canadian importers will have to buy RMB (typically with CAD) to pay for their orders and Canadian exporters can take payment in RMB if they wish, or set prices in CAD. By avoiding the US dollar middleman the transactions are made less risky and incur less costs. Japan did this many decades ago (they, too, used to price their products in USD). This is important in transactions of large amounts, not so much for the tiny amounts associated with tourism. Two-way annual trade between China and Canada is in excess of $70bn. Of course Forex trading may greatly exceed the actual amounts required for trade- the world Forex market is at least an order of magnitude greater than size of real international trade. All that trading in currency and financial instruments means more jobs on Bay Street and more money flowing into a very vital part of the Canadian economy. Recent article from the (liberal) Toronto Star here. |
How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent? | For those who are looking to improve credit for the sake of being able to obtain future credit on better terms, I think a rewards credit card is the best way to do that. I recommend that you only use as many cards as you need to gain the best rewards. I have one card that gives 6% back on grocery purchases, and I have another card that gives 4% back on [petrol] and 2% back on dining out. Both of those cards give only 1% back on all other purchases, so I use a third card that gives 1.5% back across the board for my other purchases. I pay all of the cards in full each month. If there was a card that didn't give me an advantage in making my purchases, I wouldn't own it. I'm generally frugal, so I know that there is no psychological disadvantage to paying with a card. You have to consider your own spending discipline when deciding whether paying with cards is an advantage for you. In the end, you should only use debt when you can pay low interest rates (or as in the case of the cards above, no interest at all). In the case of the low interest debt, it should be allowing you to make an investment that will pay you more by having it sooner than the cost of interest. You might need a car to get to work, but you probably don't need a new car. Borrow as little as you can and repay your loans as quickly as you can. Debt can be a tool for your advantage, but only if used wisely. Don't be lured in by the temptation of something new and shiny now that you can pay for later. |
Joining a company being acquired | Is there anything I need to ask or consider during my negotiation process based on the fact that they probably will soon be own by another company? Very tricky situation. You are being hired by one company, and one hiring manager. But you already know that there are big changes ahead. What you don't know is how all those changes will actually play out. You will at least end up working for a different company. I've worked for several companies in the past that were acquired, and some that acquired other companies. After each acquisition, the nature of the company changed significantly. Some teams were let go completely (often "overhead" departments like accounting, marketing, etc, that were handled at the corporate level), some teams were moved to a different location, others stayed the same. Sometimes management changed. In one case I was working for a new boss who worked out of the home office in another state. The time frame for these changes ranged from immediately, to several years after the acquisition. For me at least, some of the things that made the job appealing earlier typically were gone. Try as best you can to ask questions about the acquisition, and about the nature of the acquiring company. If they are allowed to tell you the name of the company that is acquiring them, do some searching. See if you can find out how the company typically deals with acquisitions - do they immediately let almost everyone go (keeping only the "essential" few), or do they run new acquisitions as separate divisions and leave them alone for at least a while? Try to find out from your hiring manager what their expectations are for your specific team post-acquisition. Try to find out if anything within your offer is subject to change, post-acquisition. Are you being hired under the old, pre-acquisition rules? Or under the new, post-acquisition rules? The fact that you even know the company is being acquired is good. Often, companies cannot even divulge that fact until very near the end. On the other hand your use of the phrase "probably will soon", makes me wonder how much is definite here. Here's something you might wish to read: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/20357/a-coworker-beat-me-to-resignation-how-can-i-resign-in-a-professional-manner |
How are shares used, and what are they, physically? | How to 'use' your shares: If you own common shares in a company (as opposed to a fund) then you have the right (but not the obligation) to excersize one vote per share on questions put before the shareholders. Usually, this occurs once a year. Usually these questions regard approval of auditors. Sometimes they involve officers such as directors on the board. You will be mailed a form to fill out and mail back in. Preferred shares usually are not voting shares,but common shares always are. By the way, I do not recommend owning shares in companies. I recommend funds instead,either ETFs or mutual funds. Owning shares in companies puts you at risk of a failure of that company. Owning funds spreads that risk around,thus reducing your exposure. There are, really, two purposes for owning shares 1) Owning shares gives you the right to declared dividends 2) Owning shares allows you to sell those shares at some time in the future. (Hopefully at a profit) One obscure thing you can do with owned shares is to 'write' (sell) covered put options. But options are not something that you need to concern yourself with at this point. You may find it useful to sign up for a free daily email from www.investorwords.com. |
Looking to buy a house in 1-2 years. Does starting a Roth IRA now make sense? | If you are going to be buying a house in 1-2 years, I would be putting my money into a short term holding area like a high interest (which isn't that high right now) or a CD (also low interest) because of your near-term need. I wouldn't use the Roth option for your down payment money. If you invest in something volatile (and stocks/mutual funds are very volatile in a 1-2 year term) I would consider it too risky for your need and time frame. |
Merits of buying apartment houses and renting them | Insurance - get estimate from an insurance agent who works with policies for commercial real estate. See comments below regarding incorporation. Taxes - if this was basic income for a simple LLC, estimating 25-40% and adjusting over time might work. Rental property is a whole different prospect. Financial experts who specialize in rental properties would be a good source of advice, and worth the cost. See below regarding incorporating. Real estate appreciation - not something you can count on for developed property. Appreciation used to be almost guaranteed to at least keep up with inflation. Now property values are not even guaranteed to go up. Never have been but the general rule was improved real estate in good repair appreciated in price. Even if property values increase over time, rental properties depreciate. In fact, for rental properties, you can claim a certain rate of depreciation over time as an expense on taxes. This depreciation could mean selling for less than you paid for the property after a number of years, and owing capital gains taxes, since you would owe the difference between the depreciated value and the sale price. Related to taxes are local codes. Some areas require you to have a property management license to handle buildings with more than a certain number of units. If you are going to own rental properties, you should protect your private financial life by incorporating. Form a company. The company will own the property and hire any maintenance people or property managers or security staff or any similar employment activities. The company takes out the insurance and pays taxes. The company can pay you a salary. So, bottom line, you can have the company pay all the expenses and take all the risks. Then, assuming there's any money left after expenses, the company can pay you a manager's salary. That way if the worst happens and a tenant breaks their hip in the shower and sues you for ONE MILLION DOLLARS and wins, the company folds and you walk away. You might even consider two companies. One to own the property and lease it to a property management company. The property management company can then go bankrupt in case of some sort of liability issue, in which case you still keep the property, form a new management company, repaint and rename the property and move on. TL;DR: Get insurance advice from insurance agent before you buy. Same for taxes from an accountant. Get trained as a property manager if your local codes require it (might be a good idea anyway). Incorporate and have the company take all the risks. |
What is a good rental yield? | Our two rentals have yielded 8.5% over the past two years (averaged). That is net, after taxes, maintenance, management, vacancy, insurance, interest. I am only interested in cash flow - expenses / original investment. If you aren't achieving at least 4.5-5% net on your original investment you probably could invest elsewhere and earn a better return on a similar risk profile. |
Why do consultants or contractors make more money than employees? | Contractors earn less. Especially the people that are hired under them. They usually have no education, and base pay; long hours and hard work. |
What's the point of a chargeback when they just ask the merchant whether they owe money to the buyer? | When you initiate a chargeback, the merchant has the right to dispute the chargeback. If they can provide proof that the purchase actually took place, the chargeback will fail. We don't know all the details of your situation, of course, but it appears from what you have said that the tax chain probably has documents that you signed agreeing to the charges. They prepared your return (even if they did a poor job), and so from their perspective, they have decided that they deserve to be paid. Whether or not they did a good job is a matter of opinion, of course; their position might be that they did it correctly, and the second business did it poorly. The chargeback is a powerful tool, but it is not a magic button that makes a charge disappear. If the merchant can show that a sale did indeed take place and show that the proper amount was charged, the chargeback will fail. For a service, it isn't enough usually to simply state that you were unsatisfied; if you received the service at the agreed-upon price, the charge is valid. A chargeback is sort of a nuclear option when it comes to getting a refund. There are negative ramifications and expenses every time a merchant gets a chargeback (even if they ultimately win), and so often they will be willing to work something out to avoid a chargeback. You should go to the merchant first, if you can, and ask for a refund before considering the chargeback option. If you file a chargeback without even giving them the opportunity to work it out with you, the merchant will usually want to fight back. |
What is the best source of funding to pay off debt? | Thirty thousand in credit card debt is a "big elephant to eat" so to speak. But you do it by taking a bite at a time. One positive is that you do not want to borrow from your 401K. Doing so is a horrible idea. The first question you have to ask yourself and understand, is how you accumulated 30K in credit card debt in the first place? Most people get there by running up a relatively small amount, say 5K, and playing the zero transfer game a few times. Then add in a late payment, and a negative event or two (like the car breaking down or a trip to the emergency room) and poof a large amount of credit card debt. Obviously, I have no idea if this is how you got there, and providing some insight might help. Also, your age, approximate income, and other debts might also help provide more insight. I assume you are still working and under age 59.5 as you are talking about borrowing from your 401K. Where I come from is that my wife (then girlfriend) found ourselves under stifling debt a few years ago. When we married, we became very intentional and focused on ridding ourselves of debt and now sit completely debt free (including the house). During our debt payoff time, we lived off of less than 25% of our salary. We both took extra jobs when we were able. Intensity was our key. If I were you, I would not refi the house. There are costs associated with this and why would you put more debt on your home? I might cash out the annuity provided that there are no negative tax consequences and depending on how much you can get for it. Numbers are the key here. However, I feel like doing so will not retire this debt. The first thing you need to do is get on a written budget. A game plan for spending and stick to it. If you are married, your spouse has to be part of this process. The budget has to be fresh each month, and each month you and your wife should meet. To deviate from the budget, you will also need to have a meeting. My wife and I still do this despite being debt free and enjoying very healthy incomes. Secondly, it is about cutting expenses. Cable: off. No eating out or vacations. Cut back on cell phone plans, only basic clothing. Gift giving is of the $5 variety and only for those very close to you. Forget lattes, etc. Depending on your income I would cut 401K contributions to zero or only up to the company match (if your household income is above 150K/year). Third, it is about earning more. Ebay, deliver pizzas, cut grass, overtime, whatever. All extra dollars go to credit card balance reduction. At a minimum, you should find an extra $1000/month; however, I would shoot for 2K. If you can find 2K, you will be done with this in 13 months. I know the math doesn't work out for that, but once you get momentum, you find more. How good will it feel to be out from under this oppression next March? I know you can do this without cashing in the annuity or refinancing. Do you believe it? |
Condo Purchase - Tax Strategies [US] | If it's a rental, you will write off the losses via Schedule E. You should read this document and its instructions to understand this fully. You will also take depreciation on the value of the building, not the land, over 27.5 years. If you don't understand this, search here, there are discussions that cover this. If it's not a rental, but your home or second home, you take the interest and real estate tax off you tax via Schedule A, if you itemize. (I see the tag 'rental' but leave this line for sake of a complete answer.) |
Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics? | Going off hearsay here. I believe your question is. "Does not having a credit card lower your credit score" If that is the question then in the UK at least the answer appears to be yes. Having a credit card makes you less of a risk because you have proven that you can handle a little bit of debt and pay it back. I have a really tiny credit history. Never had a credit card and the only people who will lend to me are my own bank because they can actually see my income / expenditure. When I have queried my bank and at stores offering credit they have said that no credit history isn't far off a bad credit record. Simply having a credit card and doing the odd transactions show's lenders you are at least semi-responsible and is seen as a positive. Not having a credit card and not having much else for that matter makes you an unknown and an unknown is a risk in the eyes of lenders. |
How is the actual trade on exchanges processed for simple stock orders? | The simple answer is, there are many ways for trades to take place. Some systems use order-matching software that employs proprietary algorithms for deciding the order of processing, others use FIFO structures, and so on. Some brokerages may fill customer orders out of their own accounts (which happens more frequently than you might imagine), and others put their orders into the system for the market makers to handle. There's no easy all-encompassing answer to your question, but it's still a good one to ask. By the way, asking if the market is "fair" is a bit naive, because fairness depends on what side of the trade you came out on! (grin) If your limit order didn't get filled and you missed out on an opportunity, that's always going to seem unfair, right? |
How to share income after marriage and kids? | I started out thinking like you but I quickly realised this was a bad approach. You are a team, aren't you? Are you equals or is one of you an inferior of lower value? I think you'll generate more shared happiness by acting as a team of equals. I'd pool your resources and share them as equals. I'd open a joint account and pay both your incomes directly into it. I'd pay all household bills from this. If you feel the need, have separate personal savings accounts paid into (equally) from the joint account. Major assets should be in joint names. This usually means the house. In my experience, it is a good idea to each have a small amount of individual savings that you jointly agree each can spend without consulting the other, even if the other thinks it is a shocking waste of money. However, spending of joint savings should only be by mutual agreement. I would stop worrying about who is bringing in the most income. Are you planning to gestate your children? How much is that worth? - My advice is to put all this aside, stop trying to track who adds what value to the joint venture and make it a partnership of equals where each contributes whatever they can. Suppose you fell ill and were unable to earn. Should you wife then retain all her income and keep you in poverty? I really believe life is simpler and happier without adding complex and stressful financial issues to the relationship. Of course, everyone is different. The main thing is to agree this between the two of you and be open to change and compromise. |
Buying shares- Stocks & Shares ISA, or Fund & Share account? | The main difference is that the ISA account like a Cash ISA shelters you from TAX - you don't have to worry about Capital Gains TAX. The other account is normal taxable account. With only £500 to invest you will be paying a high % in charges so... To start out I would look at some of the Investment Trust savings schemes where you can save a small amount monthly very cost-effectively - save £50 a month for a year to see how you get on. Some Trusts to look at include Wittan, City Of London and Lowland |
How does the world - in aggregate - generate a non-zero return? | I think you'll find some sound answers here: Money Creation in the Modern Economy by the Bank of England Where does money come from? In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood. The principal way in which they are created is through commercial banks making loans: whenever a bank makes a loan, it creates a deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money. This description of how money is created differs from the story found in some economics textbooks. |
Are there any banks with a command-line style user interface? | There are API libraries available to various banks in various programming languages. For example, in Perl there are many libraries in the Finance::Bank:: namespace. Some of these use screen-scraping libraries and talk to the GUI underneath, so they are vulnerable to any changes the bank makes to their interface, but some of the better banks do seem to provide back-end interfaces, which can then be used directly. In either case, you should still be sure that the transactions are secure. Some bank sites have appallingly bad security. :( A good place to start is to call your bank and ask if they offer any programming APIs for accessing their back end. |
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? | Very smart. Let other people pay you interest. Don't pay other people interest. And, yes, I know it's possible to borrow money from one place and lend it to another place at a slightly higher rate, but why bother. |
Is This A Scam? Woman added me on LinkedIn first, then e-mailed offering me millions of dollars [duplicate] | This is totally a scam. I didn't read the whole thing. Didn't need to after I read "abandoned sum of 22.5 million" which implied part of it was yours to take after you do something for them.. Logically speaking.. No stranger would disclose this to you. |
How to decide on split between large/mid/small cap on 401(k) and how often rebalance | There many asset allocation strategies to chose from that beat lifestyle funds. For example: Relative Strength Asset Allocation keeps your money in Stocks when stocks perform well, bonds when they outperform stocks, and cash when both bonds and stocks are under-performing. The re-allocation happens on a monthly basis. |
How to find out if a company is legit? | It depends greatly from place to place, but nothing beats the Internet reviews' research. If you can't find anything digging slightly deeper than the impressive home page, then you probably should be worried. As it seems that you are. Specifically, I do these: @JohnFX mentions a valid point: check for physical presence. Check that the office address is a real office and not a PO box or residential; call the number and see who answers it (if you call several times during different hours and the same person answers - that's probably a one-man operation). But that doesn't always help because short-term renting an office is not all that hard and getting a call-centre outsourced to a third-world country doesn't cost all that much. It definitely helps if you're dealing with someone local, but if you're in Sweden and checking out a suspicious operation in Cyprus - this is definitely not enough. |
What ways are there to invest in stocks, options, indexes, etc, and where should one start (what funds)? | Ryan's suggestion to index for your main strategy is dead on. Your risk is highest with one given stock, and decreases as you diversify. Yet, picking the stocks one at a time is an effort, when done right, it's time consuming. For what one can say about Jim "mad money" Cramer, his advice to spend an hour a month studying each stock you own, is pretty decent advice. Penny stocks are sub one dollar priced, typically small companies which in theory can grow to be large companies, but the available information tends to be tougher to get hold of. Options are a discussion for a different thread, I discussed the covered call strategy elsewhere and show that options are not necessarily high risk, it depends how they are used. |
Why not pay in full upfront for a car? | There many car loans at zero percent interest. Finance the car at zero percent, then take your money and invest it. If you want to be super safe buy a CD the same length as the car loan. 5 years you will get 2%. If you still want safety and a better return take up a asset allocation strategy that moves your cash to risky assets when the market is performing well, then to cash, bonds, or cds when the market under-performs. Now you have your car with a zero percent loan and you are making the return on the money instead of the car company. |
Can Form 1040a, Line 10 be left blank if the broker's 1099-Div shows 0? | Capital gain distribution is not capital gain on sale of stock. If you have stock sales (Schedule D) you should be filing 1040, not 1040A. Capital gain distributions are distributions from mutual funds/ETFs that are attributed to capital gains of the funds (you may not have actually received the distribution, but you still may have gain attributed to you). It is reported on 1099-DIV, and if it is 0 - then you don't have any. If you sold a stock, your broker should have given you 1099-B (which is not the same as 1099-DIV, but may be consolidated by your broker into one large PDF and not provided separately). On 1099-B the sales proceeds are recorded, and if you purchased the stock after 2011 - the cost basis is also recorded. The difference between the proceeds and the cost basis is your gain (or loss, if it is negative). Fees are added to cost basis. |
How to determine duration of a common stock whose dividends grow in perpetuity? | The fact that dividends grow in perpetuity does not prevent one from calculating duration. In fact, many academic papers look at exactly this problem, such as Lewin and Satchell. This Wilmott thread discusses some of the pros and cons of the concept in some detail. PS: Although I was already broadly familiar with the literature and I use the duration of equities in some of my every-day work as a professional working in finance, I found the links above doing a simple google search for "equity duration." |
Using credit cards online: is it safe? | The answer: don't use your actual card number. Some banks offer virtual credit card numbers (services like Apple Pay are functionally the same). Bank of America's virtual cards work like this: The virtual card number is different from your actual card number, so the merchant never sees your real card number. In fact, the merchant cannot even tell that you are using a virtual card. You can set the maximum amount to be charged. You can set the expiration date from 2 to 12 months. Once the merchant has made a charge on that virtual card, only THAT MERCHANT can make any further charges on that same virtual card. It is not possible to discover the real card number from the virtual card number. So the result is that your risk is reduced to the merchant not delivering the order, or charging too much (but not over the limit you set). There is nothing to be stolen since your real info never goes over the internet, and once a merchant has used the virtual card once, no other merchant can use it. Other banks may have virtual cards which have fewer features. The only DISadvantage of this is that you have to go to the bank's website whenever you want to make a purchase from a new merchant. But you don't have to worry about them stealing your real credit card information. |
Who creates money? Central banks or commercial banks? | Empirial evidence for the second scenario: Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The theories and the empirical evidence. Excerpt: It was examined whether in the process of making money available to the borrower the bank transfers these funds from other accounts (within or outside the bank). In the process of making loaned money available in the borrower's bank account, it was found that the bank did not transfer the money away from other internal or external accounts, resulting in a rejection of both the fractional reserve theory and the financial intermediation theory. Instead, it was found that the bank newly ‘invented’ the funds by crediting the borrower's account with a deposit, although no such deposit had taken place. This is in line with the claims of the credit creation theory. Thus it can now be said with confidence for the first time – possibly in the 5000 years' history of banking - that it has been empirically demonstrated that each individual bank creates credit and money out of nothing, when it extends what is called a ‘bank loan’. The bank does not loan any existing money, but instead creates new money. The money supply is created as ‘fairy dust’ produced by the banks out of thin air. |
How to convert coins into paper money or deposit coins into bank account, without your bank in local? | We have machines in several grocery store chains that will take your coins, sort them, and give you two ways to get your money back: I've seen these many places, but, of course, I cannot say for sure if there are any near you. |
What US taxes are due for US stock bought via ESPP when I was in USA and sold after I returned to India? | From an Indian Tax point of view, you can bring back all the assets acquired during the period you were NRI back to India tax free. Subject to a 7 years period. i.e. all the assets / funds / etc should be brought back to India within 7 years. It would still be treated as There are certain conditions / paperwork. Please consult a CA. |
Is this investment opportunity problematic? | It would have to be made as a "gift", and then the return would be a "gift" back to you, because you're not allowed to use a loan for a down payment. This is not to evade taxes. This is to evade a credit check. The problem is that banks don't like people to have too much debt. The bank could void the loan and go after your friends for damages under certain circumstances, as this is a fraud on the bank. Perhaps you might be guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud or similar. I'm willing to assume for the sake of argument that there is zero chance of your friend not paying you back intentionally. But even so, there are still potential problems. What if your friends end up without the money to pay? Worse, what if something happens to them? This is an off-books transaction. You couldn't make a claim against the estate, as there can't be a paper trail. You'd be left out the money in those circumstances. You'd both be safer if your friends saved up for the next opportunity rather than trying to grab this one. An alternative would be to buy a share of their current rental house. That would give them the necessary money and would give you paper showing your money. It's not a gift, it's a purchase. You'd have to pay capital gains tax on the 15% profit that they're promising you. But you'd both be above board and honest. |
How to calculate the rate of return on selling a stock? | If annualized rate of return is what you are looking for, using a tool would make it a lot easier. In the post I've also explained how to use the spreadsheet. Hope this helps. |
Can stock brokerage firms fail? | Yes, any company can go under. SIPC offers a level of protection. They don't guarantee against stocks dropping, but will replace stocks that you owned, but the broker stole from you. (overgeneralization). There's a $500K limit, with $250K max in cash. |
Personal taxes for Shopify / Paypal shop? | I'm assuming you're in the United States for this. I highly recommend getting a CPA to help you navigate the tax implications. Likely, you'll pay taxes as a sole proprietor, on top of any other income you made. Hopefully you kept good records because you'll be essentially paying for the profits, but you'll need to show the revenue and expenditures that you had. If you have any capital expenditures you may be able ton amortize them. But again, definitely hire a professional to help you, it will be well worth the cost. |
Understanding the phrase “afford to lose” better | The way I approach "afford to lose", is that you need to sit down and figure out the amount of money you need at different stages of your life. I can look at my current expenses and figure out what I will always roughly be paying - bills, groceries, rent/mortgage. I can figure out when I want to retire and how much I want to live on - I generally group 401k and other retirement separately to what I want to invest. With these numbers I can figure out how much I need to save to achieve this goal. Maybe you want to purchase a house in 5 years - figure out the rough down payment and include that in your savings plan. Continue for all capital purchases that you can think you would aim for. Subtract your income from this and you have the amount of money you have greater discretion over. Subtracting current liabilities (4th of July holiday... christmas presents) and you have the amount you could "afford to lose". As to the asset allocation you should look at, as others have mentioned that the younger you the greater your opportunity is to recoup losses. Personally I would disagree - you should have some plan for the investment and use that goal to drive your diversification. |
Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | There are two basic ways you can separate your investments from the dollar (or any other currency). |
Would it ever be a bad idea to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA with the following assumptions? | To answer your question point by point - I'd focus on the last point. The back of my business card - Let's focus on Single. The standard deduction and exemption add to over $10K. I look at this as "I can have $250K in my IRA, and my $10K (4%) annual withdrawal will be tax free. It takes another $36,900 to fill the 10 and 15% brackets. $922K saved pretax to have that withdrawn each year, or $1.17M total. That said, I think that depositing to Roth in any year that one is in the 15% bracket or lower can make sense. I also like the Roth Roulette concept, if only for the fact that I am Google's first search result for that phrase. Roth Roulette is systematically converting and recharacterizing each year the portion of the converted assets that have fallen or not risen as far in relative terms. A quick example. You own 3 volatile stocks, and convert them to 3 Roth accounts. A year later, they are (a) down 20%, (b) up 10%, (c) up 50%. You recharacterize the first two, but keep the 3rd in the Roth. You have a tax bill on say $10K, but have $15K in that Roth. |
Does this plan make any sense for early 20s investments? | The plan doesn't make sense. Don't invest your money. Just keep it in your bank account. $5000 is not a lot, especially since you don't have a steady income stream. You only have $1000 to your name, you can't afford to gamble $4000. You will need it for things like food, books, rent, student loans, traveling, etc. If you don't get a job right after you graduate, you will be very happy to have some money in the bank. Or what if you get a dream job, but you need a car? Or you get a job at a suit & tie business and need to get a new wardrobe? Or your computer dies and you need a new one? You find a great apartment but need $2500 first, last & security? That money can help you out much more NOW when you're starting out, then it will when you're ready to retire in your 60's. |
My university has tranfered me money by mistake, and wants me to transfer it back | Call in to the bank using a publicly available number to verify the request. |
What price can *I* buy IPO shares for? | Some brokers have a number of shares they can offer their customers, but the small guy will get 100, not as many as they'd like. In the Tech bubble of the late 90's I was able to buy in to many IPOs, but the written deal from the broker is that you could not sell for 30 days or you'd be restricted from IPO purchases for the next 90. No matter what the stock opened at, there were a fair number of stocks thay were below IPO issue price after 30 days had passed. I haven't started looking at IPOs since the tech flameout, but had I gotten in to LinkedIn it would have been at that $45 price. Let's see if it stays at these levels after 30 days. Edit - This is the exact cut/paste from my broker's site : Selling IPO Shares: While XXX customers are always free to sell shares purchased in a public offering at any time, short holding periods of less than 31 calendar days will be a factor in determining whether XXX allocates you shares in future public offerings. Accordingly, if you sell IPO shares purchased in a public offering within 30 calendar days of such purchase, you will be restricted from participating in initial and secondary public offerings through XXX for a period of 3 months. (I deleted the broker name) I honestly don't know if I'd have gotten any LI shares. Next interesting one is Pandora. |
How to calculate money needed for bills, by day | I think you might benefit from adopting a zero-sum budget, in which you plan where each dollar will be spent ahead of time, rather than simply track spending or worry about the next expense. Here's a pretty good article on the subject: How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget. This is the philosophy behind a popular budgeting tool You Need a Budget, I am not advocating the tool, but I am a fan of the idea that a budget is less about tracking spending and more about planning spending. That said, to answer your specific question, one method for tracking your min-needed for upcoming expenses would be to record the date, expense, amount due, and amount paid as shown here: Then the formula to calculate the min-needed (entered in E1 and copied down) would be: As you populate amounts paid, the MinNeeded is adjusted for all subsequent rows. You could get fancier and only populate the MinNeeded field on dates where an expense is due using IF(). |
I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work? | There are three possibilities. This is a scam, as others have pointed out, it works by you sending money, then them stopping the original transfer, meaning you sent them your money and not theirs. They make money cause a stop payment only costs $50 (or around there) but you sent $1,000. So they profit $950. You lose $1,000 and maybe some processing fees. This is money hiding, or money laundering. They send you $1,000 in drug money, you send them $1,000 in "clean" money. You don't lose any money. But they gain a clear paper trail. With large sums of money (in the U.S. anything over $5k) you have to prove a paper trail. They just did. You gifted it to them. On your end, it looks like you just profited from illegal activity, which in the worst case ends in confiscation of ALL your assets and jail time. It might not come to that, but it could. This was an honest mistake, by an idiot. It is possible to wire a complete stranger money. If you make a mistake on the wire transfer forms, and the account number exists, it will go through. Now what makes the sender an idiot is not the mistake. We all do that. It's the fact that banks have a built in system for handling these mistakes. Simply put, you can make a stop payment. It's around $50 (varies by bank and sometimes amount transferred), it's easy to do, and almost automatic. If you tell a bank rep that you made a mistake they will likely have you fill out a paper, and in many cases will "just take care of it". If "the idiot" didn't want to tell the bank of the mistake, or didn't ask for help, or didn't want to pay the fee. Then maybe they would contact the receiving party. But that's pretty dumb. Resolution The resolution in all cases is the same. Visit your local branch, or send in writing, an explanation: "I found $1,000 in my bank account that I didn't put there, and got this email (see attached print out). Please advise." They will "freeze" the $1,000 (or maybe the account but I have never seen that) while they investigate. You won't be able to spend it, they might even remove it pending the investigation. They will contact the bank that issued the transfer and attempt to sort things out. You shouldn't be charged anything. You also won't get to keep the money. Eventually the bank will send you a letter stating what happened with the investigation. And the money will vanish from your account. Specific questions I wanted to state the information above even though it doesn't address your concerns directly because it is important. To address your specific questions: Question 1) Surely bank account numbers have a checksum, which make it relatively difficult for a typo to result in a payment going to the wrong person? Nope, that's up to each bank. Usually the account numbers are not sequential, but there is no "checksum" either. Just like credit cards, there are rules, but once you know those rules you can generate fake ones all day long. In some cases, account numbers 5487-8954-7854 and 5487-8945-7854 are both valid. It happens. Question 2) What are likely sources of them being able to find my phone number to call me? Phone numbers are not private. Not even close. Phone books, Google, Websites, etc etc. if you think your phone number is in any way a secret then your totally misinformed. Account numbers are not a secret either. Especially bank account numbers. You could totally just call a bank, and say "What is the name on account 12345?" and they would tell you. Checks have your name and account number on them, as do MANY documents from a bank. So anything from asking the bank, to finding a copy of a check or document in the trash are valid ways to make the link. Question 3) How were they expecting to benefit? See options 1 and 2 above. If is is really option 3, then your bank should have directed the money back. But if the person was so messed up as you say, the account may have been closed and "written off". When that happens a lot of weird stuff can happen. Essentially the bank is "taking a loss" of money and doesn't want the money back even if the account was closed with a negative balance. Usually though contract with debt collectors, they may have already been "paid" for that debt, and are not allowed to take the money back. These things happen, but it seems like a pretty odd set of things that need to line up for #3 to be valid. About your Length of time Usually these things resolve in less then 90 days. Usually far less. At the 90 day mark, it gets really hard to reverse a transaction. It's possible that it was a scam and so many people fell for it that the scammers just let you keep the money instead of "highlighting" their scam. The fact that your using a "net bank" means that your can't go in person, but you should get details in writing. State the transaction number (it should be in your account records) and ask them for a "letter of resolution" or some form of official document stating the outcome of their investigation. I suspect that no one every really investigated the issue and the rep you spoke to never did anything then ask you to ask them to fill out a stop payment. You need a record of trying to sort this out. You don't want to up for some legal battle 10 years from now because someone found out that the money was part of a pool that was used to fund some terrorist group or some such. So get a paper trail, then go with what the bank says. |
New car: buy with cash or 0% financing | There is a 3rd option: take the cash back offer, but get the money from a auto loan from your bank or credit union. The loan will only be for. $22,500 which can still be a better deal than option B. Of course the monthly payment can make it harder to qualify for the mortgage. Using the MS Excel goal seek tool and the pmt() function: will make the total payment equal to 24K. Both numbers are well above the rates charged by my credit union so option C would be cheaper than option B. |
How to bet against the London housing market? | Well, Taking a short position directly in real estate is impossible because it's not a fungible asset, so the only way to do it is to trade in its derivatives - Investment Fund Stock, indexes and commodities correlated to the real estate market (for example, materials related to construction). It's hard to find those because real estate funds usually don't issue securities and rely on investment made directly with them. Another factor should be that those who actually do have issued securities aren't usually popular enough for dealers and Market Makers to invest in it, who make it possible to take a short position in exchange for some spread. So what you can do is, you can go through all the existing real estate funds and find out if any of them has a broker that let's you short it, in other words which one of them has securities in the financial market you can buy or sell. One other option is looking for real estate/property derivatives, like this particular example. Personally, I would try to computationally find other securities that may in some way correlate with the real estate market, even if they look a bit far fetched to be related like commodities and stock from companies in construction and real estate management, etc. and trade those because these have in most of the cases more liquidity. Hope this answers your question! |
Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud? | The issue here is that the transaction (your funds to her account) looks very similar to the rent payments which you plan to make in the future. Those rental payments (if deemed to be commercial) would normally be subject to tax. Consider the scenario where rather than an up front $5000, and $5000 over 2 years, you paid her $10000, and paid no rent. That might be an attempt to avoid paying tax. A commercial transaction can't be re-labeled as a gift just based on your election - the transaction needs to be considered as a whole. However, an interest free, unsecured loan connected with you paying rent at market rate would be (depending on local laws) simply foolish (to some extent). I don't think you are able to structure the transaction as a joint purchase (since the mortgage will prevent her from allocating a part of the property to you). Its also likely that you can live in her house and contribute an adequate amount to the household costs without creating a taxable income for her. For example in the UK, up to ~£4000 pa rental income generated from the property in which you reside does not need to be declared. You need to identify the scenarios where your particular arrangement could be imagined as resulting in a taxable or potentially taxable event - then make sure you are not avoiding those events just by choosing how you label the events. |
What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different'? | This refers to the faulty idea that the stock market will behave differently than it has in the past. For example, in the late 1990s, internet stocks rose to ridiculous heights in price, to be followed soon after with the Dot-Com Bubble crash. In the future, it's likely that there will be another such bubble with another hot stock - we just don't know what kind. Saying that "this time it will be different" could mean that you expect this bubble not to burst when, historically, that is never the case. |
Paypal website donations without being a charity | Yes, PayPal allows you to add a donate button to your website. You're responsible for any tax record-keeping related to income from the donate button. |
What happens if I intentionally throw out a paycheck? | In a nutshell, throwing your taxable income in the trash does not remove it from your taxable income; you still have to report in your tax filing, and pay taxes as needed. Especially as you could at any time request your employer to write you a replacement check. I would expect them to start charging a fee for reprinting if you really annoy them by doing it dozens of times. If you want to avoid taxes on it, donate it to a deductible 501(c)3 organization; then it becomes neutral to your taxes. |
Nasdaq vs Nasdaq Trade Reporting Facility | You can infer some of the answers to your questions from the BATS exchange's market data page and its associated help page. (I'm pretty sure a page like this exists on each stock exchange's website; BATS just happens to be the one I'm used to looking at.) The Matched Volume section refers to all trades on a given date that took place on "lit" exchanges; that is, where a public protected US stock exchange's matching engine helped a buyer and a seller find each other. Because there are exactly 11 such exchanges in existence, it's easy to show 100% of the matched volume broken down into 11 rows. The FINRA & TRF Volume section refers to all trades on a given date that took place on "non-lit" exchanges. These types of trades include dark pool volume and any other trade that is not required to take place in public but is required to be reported (the R in TRF) to FINRA. There are three venues via which these trades may be reported to FINRA -- NASDAQ's, NYSE's, and FINRA's own ADF. They're all operated under the purview of FINRA, so the fact that they're "located at" NASDAQ or NYSE is a red herring. (For example, from the volume data it's clear that the NASDAQ facility does not only handle NASDAQ-listed (Tape C) securities, nor does the NYSE facility only handle NYSE-listed (Tape A) securities or anything like that.) The number of institutions reporting to each of the TRFs is large -- many more than the 11 public exchanges -- so the TRF data is not broken down further. (Also I think the whole point of the TRFs is to report in secret.) I don't know enough details to say why the NASDTRF has always handled more reporting volume than the other two facilities. Of course, since we can't see inside the TRF reporting anyway, it's sort of a moot point. |
Should I Use an Investment Professional? | Yes. The investment world is extremely fast-paced and competitive. There are loads of professional traders with supercomputers working day in and day out to make smarter, faster trade decisions than you. If you try to compete with them, there’s a better than fair chance you’ll lose precious time and money, which kind of defeats the purpose. A good wealth manager: In short, they can save you time and money and help you take the most advantage of your current savings. Or, you can think about it in terms of cost. Most wealth managers charge an annual fee (as a % of the amount invested) for their services. This fee can range anywhere from close to zero, to 0.75% depending upon how sophisticated the strategy is that the money will be invested in, and what kind of additional services they have to offer. Investing in the S&P500 on the behalf of the investor shouldn’t need a fee, but investing in a smart beta or an alpha strategy, that generates returns independent of the market’s movement and certainly commands a fee. But how does one figure if that fee is justified? It is really simple. What is the risk-adjusted performance of the strategy? What is the Sharpe ratio? Large successful funds like Renaissance Technologies and Citadel can charge 3% in addition to 30% of profits because even after that their returns are much better than the market. I have this rule of thumb for money-management fees that I am willing to pay: |
Why have candlestick charts overlaps? | The market is simply gapping at these times, some news may have come out that makes the market gap on the open from its previous close. Being FX, the market in one country might be trading and then at the start of the hour trading in a different country may commence, causing a small gap in price. Generally many things could cause the price to gap up or down, and these gaps sometime can occur at the start of a new hour or other timeframe you are using. They do tend to happen more often at the start of a new day's trading on a daily chart, especially with stocks. |
How to calculate cash loss over time? | It helps to put the numbers in terms of an asset. Say a bottle of wine costs 10 dollars, but the price rises to 20 dollars a year later. The price has risen 100%, and your dollars have lost value. Whereas your ten used to be worth 100% of the price of bottle of wine, they now are worth 50% of the risen price of a bottle of wine so they've lost around 50% of their value. Divide the old price by the new inflated price to measure proportionally how much the old price is of the new price. 10 divided by 20 is 1/2 or .50 or 50%. You can then subtract the old price from the new in proportional terms to find how much value you've lost. 1 minus 1/2 or 1.00 minus .50 or 100% minus 50%. |
Can a company charge you for services never requested or received? | No. A company cannot bill you for services you did not request nor receive. If they could, imagine how many people would just randomly get bills in their mail. Ignore them. They don't have a contract or agreement with you and can't do anything other than make noise. If they get aggressive or don't stop requesting money, hire an attorney and it will be taken care of. |
Do market shares exhaust? | As @ApplePie pointed out in their answer, at any given time there is a finite amount of stock available in a company. One subtlety you may be missing is that there is always a price associated with an offer to buy shares. That is, you don't put in an order simply to buy 1 share of ABC, you put in an order to buy 1 share of ABC for $10. If no one is willing to sell a share of ABC for $10, then your order will go unfilled. This happens millions of times a day as traders try to figure the cheapest price they can get for a stock. Practically speaking, there is always a price at which people are willing to sell their shares. You can put in a market order for 1 share of ABC, which says essentially "I want one share of ABC, and I will pay whatever the market deems to be the price". Your broker will find you 1 share, but you may be very unhappy about the price you have to pay! While it's very rare for a market to have nobody willing to sell at any price, it occasionally happens that no one is willing to buy at any price. This causes a market crash, as in the 2007-2008 financial crisis, when suddenly everyone became very suspicious of how much debt the major banks actually held, and for a few days, very few traders were willing to buy bank stocks at any price. |
I co-signed a car but i am listed as the primary account holder for the loan | The buyer can get another cosigner or you can sell the car to pay off the loan. These are your only options if financing cannot be obtained independently. |
Why does the calculation for percentage profit vary based on whether a position is short vs. long? | There are different perspectives from which to calculate the gain, but the way I think it should be done is with respect to the risk you've assumed in the original position, which the simplistic calculation doesn't factor in. There's a good explanation about calculating the return from a short sale at Investopedia. Here's the part that I consider most relevant: [...] When calculating the return of a short sale, you need to compare the amount the trader gets to keep to the initial amount of the liability. Had the trade in our example turned against you, you (as the short seller) would owe not only the initial proceeds amount but also the excess amount, and this would come out of your pocket. [...] Refer to the source link for the full explanation. Update: As you can see from the other answers and comments, it is a more complex a Q&A than it may first appear. I subsequently found this interesting paper which discusses the difficulty of rate of return with respect to short sales and other atypical trades: Excerpt: [...] The problem causing this almost uniform omission of a percentage return on short sales, options (especially writing), and futures, it may be speculated, is that the nigh-well universal and conventional definition of rate of return involving an initial cash outflow followed by a later cash inflow does not appear to fit these investment situations. None of the investment finance texts nor general finance texts, undergraduate or graduate, have formally or explicitly shown how to resolve this predicament or how to justify the calculations they actually use. [...] |
How can I determine if leaving a lower paying, tax advantaged, job for a higher paying one makes sense financially? | It looks like a coin toss. What you have isn't bad at all. If you have enough free time with your $50k job to do extra stuff on the side, you can use that time to build a business. You're obviously a go-getter type, so this might suit you. Which job is closer to your calling? All other things being equal, the more fulfilling job should win, no? |
Consolidating company pensions | Have you shopped around? I would agree that the fees seem high. The first question I would ask if if the .75% management fee is per year or per month? If it is per month, you will almost certainly lose money each year. A quick search shows that Fidelity will allow one to transfer their pensions into a self directed account. Here in the US, where we have 401Ks, it is almost always better to transfer them into something self directed once you leave an employer. Fidelity makes it really easy, and I always recommend them. (No affiliation.) Here in the US they actually pay you for you transferring money into your account. This can come in the form of free stock trades or money added to your account. I would encourage you to give them or their competitors a look in order to make an informed decision. Often times, a person with lowish balances, can't really afford to pay those high management fees. You might need in the 10s of millions before something like that makes sense. |
How to know if two ETFs are 'substantially identical' according to wash sale rules? | It sounds like this is an entirely unsettled question, unfortunately. In the examples you provide, I think it is safe to say that none of those are 'substantially identical'; a small overlap or no overlap certainly should not be considered such by a reasonable interpretation of the rule. This article on Kitces goes into some detail on the topic. A few specifics. First, Former publication 564 explains: Ordinarily, shares issued by one mutual fund are not considered to be substantially identical to shares issued by another mutual fund. Of course, what "ordinarily" means is unspecified (and this is no longer a current publication, so, who knows). The Kitces article goes on to explain that the IRS hasn't really gone after wash sales for mutual funds: Over the years, the IRS has not pursued wash sale abuses against mutual funds, perhaps because it just wasn’t very feasible to crack down on them, or perhaps because it just wasn’t perceived as that big of an abuse. After all, while the rules might allow you to loss-harvest a particular stock you couldn’t have otherwise, it also limits you from harvesting ANY losses if the overall fund is up in the aggregate, since losses on individual stocks can’t pass through to the mutual fund shareholders. But then goes to explain about ETFs being very different: sell SPY, buy IVV or VTI, and you're basically buying/selling the identical thing (99% or so correlation in stocks owned). The recommendation by the article is to look at the correlation in owned stocks, and stay away from things over 95%; that seems reasonable in my book as well. Ultimately, there will no doubt be a large number of “grey” and murky situations, but I suspect that until the IRS provides better guidance (or Congress rewrites/updates the wash sale rules altogether!), in the near term the easiest “red flag” warning is simply to look at the correlation between the original investment being loss-harvested, and the replacement security; at correlations above 0.95, and especially at 0.99+, it’s difficult to argue that the securities are not ”substantially identical” to each other in performance. Basically - use common sense, and don't do anything you think would be hard to defend in an audit, but otherwise you should be okay. |
Importance of dividend yield when evaluating a stock? | The dividend yield can be used to compare a stock to other forms of investments that generate income to the investor - such as bonds. I could purchase a stock that pays out a certain dividend yield or purchase a bond that pays out a certain interest. Of course, there are many other variables to consider in addition to yield when making this type of investment decision. The dividend yield can be an important consideration if you are looking to invest in stocks for an income stream in addition to investing in stocks for gain by a rising stock price. The reason to use Dividend/market price is that it changes the dividend from a flat number such as $1 to a percentage of the stock price, which thus allows it to be more directly compared with bonds and such which return a percentage yeild. |
Personal Loan issuer online service | It is pretty easy to setup a spreadsheet for calculating interest payments and remaining balance. Do a quick search online. You may want to put it in something like Google Docs, where brother can view the status, but only you can edit it. When you get a payment, a portion goes to interest and another to principle. The formulas will do the work for you. However, I feel that there is a bigger issue. The math may seem like a good deal for the both of you, but I would be very hesitant to loan a family member money. What if he does not pay? What if he is late with a payment and goes on a vacation himself? What if his significant other resents the payment that you collect which precludes her from buying a new TV, etc... People come to hate/resent big corporations that they have to make payments. How much more so one that has a face....that comes over and eats? While this loan is outstanding holidays may never be the same. Is the loan a real need? Are you in a position to give them the money? You may want to consider the latter. Is there a reason he can't just borrow the money from the bank? |
As a beginner investor, should I start investing with mutual funds through my bank, or with an online broker? | What is the best option to start with? and I am not sure about my goals right now but I do want to have a major retirement account without changing it for a long time That is a loaded question. Your goals should be set up first, else what is stopping you from playing the mega millions lottery to earn the retirement amount instantly. If you have the time and resources, you should try doing it yourself. It helps you learn and at a latter stage if you don't have the time to manage it yourself, you can find an adviser who does it for you. To find a good adviser or find a fund who/which can help you achieve your monetary goals you will need to understand the details, how it works and other stuff, behind it. When you are thrown terms at your face by somebody, you should be able to join the dots and get a picture for yourself. Many a rich men have lost their money to unscrupulous people i.e. Bernie Madoff. So knowing helps a lot and then you can ask questions or find for yourself to calm yourself i.e. ditch the fund or adviser, when you see red flags. It also makes you not to be too greedy, when somebody paints you a picture of great returns, because then your well oiled mind would start questioning the rationale behind such investments. Have a look at Warren Buffet. He is an investor and you can follow how he does his investing. It is simple but very difficult to follow. Investing through my bank I would prefer to stay away from them, because their main service is banking and not allowing people to trade. I would first compare the services provided by a bank to TD Ameritrade, or any firm providing trading services. The thing is, as you mentioned in the question, you have to go through a specific process of calling him to change your portfolio, which shouldn't be a condition. What might happen is, if he is getting some benefits out of the arrangement(get it clarified in the first place if you intend to go through them), from the side of the fund, he might try to dissuade you from doing so to protect his stream of income. And what if he is on a holiday or you cannot get hold of him. Secondly from your question, it seems you aren't that investing literate. So it is very easy to get you confused by jargon and making you do what he gets the maximum benefit out of it, rather than which benefits you more. I ain't saying he is doing so but that could be a possibility too, so you have consider that angle too. The pro is that setting up an account through them might be much easier than directly going to a provider. But the best point doing it yourself is, you will learn and there is nothing which tops that. You don't want somebody else managing your money, however knowledgeable they maybe i.e. Anthony Bolton. |
My employer is switching 401k plan providers. How might this work in practice? | A few years ago our company switched from Fidelity to a different 401k provider. During the blackout transition, nearly every employee lost a considerable amount of money. The "Trustee" advised us that during the blackout he had a right to invest the funds and that the investments lost money. |
What traditionally happens to bonds when the stock market crashes? | It depends on why the stocks crashed. If this happened because interest rates shot up, bonds will suffer also. On the other hand, stocks could be crashing because economic growth (and hence earnings) are disappointing. This pulls down interest rates and lifts bonds. |
What prevents interest rates from rising? | Interest rates are market driven. They tend to be based on the prime rate set by the federal reserve bank because of the tremendous lending capacity of that institution and that other loan originators will often fund their own lending (at least in part) with fed loans. However, there is no mandatory link between the federal reserve rate and the market rate. No law stipulates that rates cannot rise or fall. They will rise and fall as lenders see necessary to use their capital. Though a lender asking 10% interest might make no loans when others are willing to lend for 9%. The only protection you have is that we are (mostly) economically free. As a borrower, you are protected by the fact that there are many lenders. Likewise, as a lender, because there are many borrowers. Stability is simply by virtue of the fact that one market participant with inordinate pricing will find fewer counterparties to transact. |
What to do when paying for an empty office space? | Generally speaking, yes, you're obliged to pay rent for the remainder of the lease term. But the landlord is obliged to mitigate damages, so if you can find a suitable tenant the landlord has to let you out of the lease. |
Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score? | The length of time you have established credit does improve your credit score in the long run. As long as you can avoid paying interest, you might see if you can get a card with cash back rewards. I have one from Citi that sends me a $50 check every so often when I have enough rewards built up. |
Why liquidity implies tight spread and low slippage | Theoretically, it's a question of rate of return. If a desired or acceptable rate of return for market makers' capital is X, and X is determined by the product of margin & turnover then higher turnover means lower margin for a constant X. Margin, in the case of trading, is the bid/ask spread, and turnover, in the case of trading, is volume. Empirically, it has been noted in the last markets still offering such wide-varying evidence, equity options: http://faculty.baruch.cuny.edu/lwu/890/mayhew_jf2002.pdf |
Which banks have cash-deposit machines in Germany? | HypoVereinsbank (member of UniCredit group), a few savings banks ("Sparkasse") and VR Banks offer cash (bill) deposit machines. However, it can take a few business days until the deposit is credited to your checking account, which has to be with the same bank. Google for "Bargeldeinzahlungsautomat" (=cash deposit machine). As Duffbeer stated correctly, HSBC Trinkaus which is the German arm of the HSBC group does not operate any ATMs in Germany. In addition they do not share the same bank accounts. So I would recommend going with the classic banks mentioned above. |
Shared groceries expenses between roommates to be divided as per specific consumption ratio and attendance | For a personal finance forum, this is too complicated for sustained use and you should find a simpler solution. For a mathematical exercise, you are missing information required to do the split fairly. You have to know who overlaps and when to know how to do the splits. For an extreme example, take your dates given: Considering 100 days of calculation period, If Roommate D was the only person present for the last 10 days, they should pay 100% of the grocery bill as they are the only one eating. From your initial data set, you can't know who should be splitting the tab for any given day. To do this mathematically, you'd need: But don't forget "In Theory, Theory works. In Practice, Practice works." Good theory would say make a large, complicated spreadsheet as described above. Good practice would be to split up the costs in a much, much simpler way. |
Are there any countries where citizens are free to use any currency? | Sounds like you have a goldbug whispering in your ear. The Coinage Act doesn't restrict you from using foreign currency or lawful commodity or service to fulfill a debt. You are free to do that whenever you enter into an explicit or implicit contract with another party. If that wasn't the case, your kid trading his bag of chips for a bag of cookies at lunch would be a criminal act. It does mean that you ultimately must accept US currency to settle a debt. Following the previous example, if your kid gives his friend the bag of chips, but the cookies get destroyed somehow before being transferred, the friend can offer a couple of dollars to complete the transaction. The whole point of the Coinage Acts is to set a level playing field. If you don't pick one dominant store of value, you have a situation where it is impossible to evaluate the cost of goods and services. It has nothing to do with some competition with foreign currency. A robust, modern economy requires an adequate supply of capital and a common reference point for value within the economy. Think about it further with respect to Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution. Would you want a fiscally profligate state like California or New York to be able to print money and compel you as a contractor, employee or creditor to accept their scrip as payment? (Or worse, require payment in Gold or Vermont-issued dollars, but pay you in their money.) Of course not. That's why the Federal government controls the currency, and a dollar in Alaska is the same as a dollar in Georgia. |
What resources can I use to try and find out the name of the manager for a given fund? | The fund prospectus is a good place to start. |
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) | In the UK, the Osper card would do the trick exactly. The closest thing I can find in the US is the USAA Youth accounts which appear to be what you need but have some restrictions on mobile access until the youth is 13. |
What are the common moving averages used in a “Golden Cross” stock evaluation? | The 'standard' in such moving average crossover systems is 50/200. The numbers are essentially arbitrary as long as the long term average is greater than the short term and there is some different between the averages in terms of the smoothing they provide (i.e. comparing a 74 day MA to a 75 day MA isn't what the system is intended for) There are plenty of software programs that will let you run through many possible values for the system over historical data. I concur with the other answers in that this system/indicator alone isn't very good. However, I disagree with their blanket brushing off of technical analysis. There are many successful traders out there. The moving average cross over system is perhaps the second most primitive example of technical strategies categorized as trend following systems (buying new recent highs and selling new recent lows being the most simple). This particular system isn't very powerful because of its poor use of simple moving averages. A simple moving average is intended to smooth out data, but smoothing comes at the cost of lagging from the present. A simple moving average essentially gives you an idealized smoothing of price action for the day at that is one half of their period ago. So your 200 day simple moving average shows you an idealized smoothing of price action 100 days ago. A lot can happen in 100 days and that is why this system is far from ideal. |
How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want | I believe that your dilemma comes from not having clearly defined consequences of buying it. On one side you want it and you can afford it, but on the other side there is nothing solid. Just some vague dislike of spending money and guilt of buying something "useless". You're basically guilt tripping yourself into not buying it, and guilt tripping is always bad. What you need is clear-cut consequence. Something like "I can buy X but then I won't get Y and Z". And for that you need a clearly laid out budget, just to know how much you can spend. Money that go into things that are absolutely required, money that go into various saving plans, etc - and after that you're left with some clear amount that should be spent on making yourself happier. Making yourself happier is not something you should feel guilty about, it's actually one of purposes of life. Making yourself happy is only bad if it's hurting other areas of your life (and even that is relative, because there is always some extent of degradation you're willing to accept or you have already accepted). There is absolutely no point in saving every single penny you can, because that will make you live long and unhappy life and die without enjoying your riches. |
Who can truly afford luxury cars? | In addition to those who are wealthy (not the same as high income), there are also a certain number of people whose professional livelihood is enhanced by projecting wealth/income they may or may not have. For example, some consultants, lawyers, financial advisors or other salespeople. The same is true of luxury homes for industries where entertaining clients and associates is expected. These people are essentially making an educated bet that the additional sales they expect to make will outweigh the additional expense of the luxury items, similar to purchasing advertising. But in many cases, people are either living beyond their current income, or living beyond their long-term income by failing to save for when they are too old/sick to work. Additionally, many car brands that we traditionally associate with luxury have created mid-priced lines in the $30-40K range recently, so it is possible that some of the cars you are seeing are not as expensive as you might expect. |
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) | It seems the age restriction for the Capital One MONEY account has been removed; I just read the entire terms and conditions and there's no minimum age requirement. I just finished opening Capital One MONEY accounts for a child who is <5 and a child <8. Both now have activated debit cards and online access. Their accounts are accessible via their card, but also appear under my online banking login, as they are joint accounts. It is possible to deposit cheques, but no cheques are issued for writing. Debit card access is provided for ATM withdrawals and purchases. And the design on the card is really nice; my son said it looks like the $100 bill. |
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