Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
Most common types of financial scams an individual investor should beware of? | Affinity fraud. You see, Madoff really didn't have to sell himself, people recommended him to their friends. In a similar way, it's easy once a scammer reels in one sucker to keep him on the hook long enough to get 10 friends to invest as well. I've written about Mortgage Acceleration scams, and the common thread is ... |
Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard/Visa? | My view is from the Netherlands, a EU country. Con: Credit cards are more risky. If someone finds your card, they can use it for online purchases without knowing any PIN, just by entering the card number, expiration date, and security code on the back. Worse, sometimes that information is stored in databases, and those... |
How to find a public company's balance sheet and income statement? | The balance sheet and income statements are located in the 10-K and 10-Q filings for all publicly traded companies. It will be Item 8. |
Using Marine Traffic (AIS) to make stock picks? | Since you seem determined to consider this, I'd like to break down for you why I believe it is an incredibly risky proposition: 1) In general, picking individual stocks is risky. Individual stocks are by their nature not diversified assets, and a single company-wide calamity (a la Volkswagen emissions, etc.) can create... |
How much would it cost me to buy one gold futures contract on Comex? | The lot size is 100 troy ounce. See the contract specification at the same site; http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/precious/gold_contract_specifications.html So with the current price of around $1785, one lot would cost you around 178,500. There may be other sites that offer smaller lots you would need to check wi... |
Any reason to keep around my account with my old, 'big' bank? | From my experience, payments from banks and other financial entities, such as loyalty programs, generally aren't as large as payments that go the other direction from consumer to bank. Thus, keeping a bank account open simply for some reward/loyalty points may just be changing your behavior for the wrong reasons. The m... |
What is the difference between “good debt” vs. “bad debt”? | None of the previous answers (which are all good) mention margin accounts (loans from your broker). You may also have heard them described as "leverage". It may seem odd to mention this rather narrow form of debt here, but it's important because overuse of leverage has played a large part in pretty much every financi... |
Why small retail stores ask for ID with a credit card while big don't | Because large stores do not pay their cashiers enough that the companies can dock the employees' pay if they allow a bad credit card to go through. So most cashiers at large stores won't take the extra effort to check the card properly. As a result, large stores come up with other ways to handle potential credit card... |
Where do short-term traders look for the earliest stock related news? | I work for a fund management company and we get our news through two different service providers Bloomberg and Thomson One. They don't actually source the news though they just feed news from other providers Professional solutions (costs ranging from $300-1500+ USD/month/user) Bloomberg is available as a windows instal... |
What is “beta” for an investment or a portfolio, and how do I use it? | I don't think either of these answers are accurate. A beta of 0 means that your stock/portfolio does not change accordingly or with the market, rather it acts independent. A beta above 0 means the stock follows what the market does. Which means if the market goes up the stock goes up, if the market goes down, the stock... |
Are there any investment strategies which take advantage of an in-the-money option price that incorporates no “time value”? | It depends on the volatility of the underlying stock. But for "normal" levels of volatility, the real value of that option is probably $3.50! Rough estimates of the value of the option depending on volatility levels: Bottom line: unless this is a super volatile stock, it is trading at $3.50 for a reason. More generally... |
What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0? | What is the probability of a real occasion (meaning not just an example) being exactly zero? Even if you have 0.1 you can still do the math. Also, it is kind of depending on the occasion. For example, you want to calculate the ROI of an investment for which you had zero capital and you made that investment with leverag... |
What am I actually buying when trading in CFDs | CFDs (Contracts for Difference) are basically a contract between you and the broker on the difference in price of the underlying between the time you open a position and close a position. You are not actually buying the underlying. With share CFDs, the outcome is a bit like buying the underlying shares on margin. You p... |
Are Shiller real-estate futures and options catching on with investors? | In my experience, Shiller is always way before his time with his predictions and often it comes at too early a point for anyone actually making some money to care about. His view is very long term - and I trust his predictions, because he so accurately predicted so many of the homepocalypse, and the measures that would... |
Do I pay a zero % loan before another to clear both loans faster? | By paying the $11,000 into the 2.54% loan you will save $23.30 in interest every month. By paying the $11,000 into the 3.625% loan you will save $33.20 in interest every month. If your objective is to get rid of one loan quicker so repayments can go to the other loan to pay off sooner, I would put the $11,000 into the ... |
Are capitalization rate and net profit margin the same thing? | Both of these terms do refer to your profit; they're just different ways of evaluating it. First, your definition of capitalization rate is flipped. As explained here, it should be: On the other hand, as explained here: So cap rate is like a reverse unit cost approach to comparing two investments. If house A costs $1... |
Can I use same stock broker to buy stocks from different stock markets? | In the US there is only one stock market (ignoring penny stocks) and handfuls of different exchanges behind it. NYSE and NASDAQ are two different exchanges, but all the products you can buy on one can also be bought on the other; i.e. they are all the same market. So a US equities broker cannot possibly restrict acce... |
What choices should I consider for investing money that I will need in two years? | Books such as "The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Investing in Mutual Funds" claim that money market funds and CDs are the most prudent things to invest in if you need the money within 5 years. More specifically: |
Why not just invest in the market? | Perhaps someone has an investment objective different than following the market. If one is investing in stocks with an intent on getting dividend income then there may be other options that make more sense than owning the whole market. Secondly, there is Slice and Dice where one may try to find a more optimal investmen... |
Determining current value for real estate for inheritance purposes | how is this new value determined? According to Publication 551: Inherited Property The basis of property inherited from a decedent is generally one of the following. The FMV of the property at the date of the individual's death. The FMV on the alternate valuation date if the personal representative for the estate cho... |
In which country can I set up a small company so that I pay a lower rate of corporate tax? | Grass is always greener at the other side of the hill. Tax is only a small proportion of your costs. you could easily set up a small company in a so called tax haven. But are you willing to emigrate? If not, will the gain in less taxes cover the frequent travel costs? Even if you would like to emigrate less tax might ... |
How dividend payout happens | As the record date is 7th August, you need to hold stocks on the 7th August closing. You need not hold it till 2nd Sept. The list as taken on 7th August would be processed and instructions given to Bank and the dividends credited by 1st Sept. Edit: To Clarify Victor's comment Typically from the time one sells the stoc... |
Capital gains tax when I sell my home if I use a portion of it for an AirBnB | Getting the first year right for any rental property is key. It is even more complex when you rent a room, or rent via a service like AirBnB. Get professional tax advice. For you the IRS rules are covered in Tax Topic 415 Renting Residential and Vacation Property and IRS pub 527 Residential Rental Property There is a s... |
Health insurance deduction on schedule C if also full time employee with w2? | Do you satisfy the necessary criteria listed there? Then why not?... It sounds like you do. |
Optimal down payment amount | The optimal down payment is 0% IF your interest rate is also 0%. As the interest rate increases, so does the likelihood of the better option being to pay for the car outright. Note that this is probably a binary choice. In other words, depending on the rate you will pay, you should either put 0% down, or 100% down. The... |
Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing | Money is a tool. Here is an "oversimplified" order of investments: |
What are some good ways to control costs for groceries? | This may not help with the overall grocery issue, but I find that there are items that I can do without the name brand version of. A handy rule-of-thumb is to start with the least-expensive brand and work your way up, until you find one that your family likes. For instance, I've learned I can do without French's must... |
Where to find Vanguard Index Funds? | No, some of Vanguard's funds are index funds like their Total Stock Market Index and 500 Index. In contrast, there are funds like Vanguard PRIMECAP and Vanguard Wellington that are actively managed. There are index funds in both open-end and exchange-traded formats. VTI is the ticker for Vanguard's Total Stock Market E... |
Strategies for putting away money for a child's future (college, etc.)? | (Congratulations on the little one on the way.) I'd recommend saving outside of tax-advantaged accounts. Pay your taxes and be done with them. I'd recommend putting your old-age fund first before shelling out a lot of money for college. I'd recommend not shelling out a lot of money for college. Ideally, none. There ... |
How to acquire assets without buying them? | There are a number of ways someone acquires assets without buying it. People could have inherited assets. They could have been gifted assets. They might have won assets in a lawsuit (unlikely to be a mall, but not impossible). They could have married into the assets. So there's other ways of acquiring assets without pu... |
Where to deduct gambling losses? | 1: Gambling losses not in excess of gambling winnings can be deducted on Schedule A, line 28. See Pub 17 (p 201). Line 28 catches lots of deductions, and gambling losses are one of them. See Schedule A instructions. 2: If the Mississippi state tax withheld was an income tax (which I assume it was), then it goes on S... |
What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? | (more like 10 years ago, but that's beside the point) Save, save, save! Both in the notion of squeezing as much value as you can out of every purchase and the notion of putting money away in a savings account. |
In a house with shared ownership, if one person moves out and the other assumes mortgage, how do we determine who owns what share in the end? | Market value and assessments are two different things. No matter how amical the agreement seems on buying and selling, the future could result in damaged relationships without an absolute sale. I would strongly recommend getting into an agreement to split the purchase of a house as a means to save money. If it's too la... |
Would you withdraw your money from your bank if you thought it was going under? | I have two different thoughts on this subject. |
Selling stocks - capital gains | In the US you specify explicitly what stocks you're selling. Brokers now are required to keep track of cost basis and report it to the IRS on the 1099-B, so you have to tell the broker which position it is that you're closing. Usually, the default is FIFO (i.e.: when you sell, you're assumed to be closing the oldest po... |
Can a Company which is listed at OTC and TSX considered to be serious? | The assumption that companies listed OTC are not serious is far from the truth. Many companies on the OTC are just starting off there because they don't meet the requirements to be listed on the NASDAQ or NYSE. Major stock exchanges like the NASDAQ and the NYSE only want the best companies to trade on their exchanges.T... |
How can home buying be considered a sound investment with all of that interest that needs to be paid? | Since then I wanted to move out of this house because the property taxes are so high and the mortgage payment is a killer. As I understand this is a property jointly owned by your parents and you. As they are not living staying in the house, you have taken over the mortgage payments for this house along with any other ... |
Unmarried Couple Splitting up with Joint Ownership of Home | Because you're not married, its a partnership agreement, and unless there's a written contract, either the two of you agree on how to handle the home, or it's off to court you go. If you were both supposed to pay for the home, and he failed to for a a while, that would put him in breach of contract which I would think ... |
Alternative to Jumbo Mortgage | Yes, banks still offer combo loans, but it is going to depend on the appraised value of your home. Typically lenders will allow you to finance up to 80% loan to value on the first mortgage (conforming loan amount) and 95% combined loan to value on a HELOC. I would start by checking with your local credit union or ban... |
Are bonds really a recession proof investment? | You're mixing up two different concepts: low-risk and recession-proof. I'll assume I don't need to explain risk: there is always risk, regardless what form you keep your assets in. With bonds, the interest rate is supposed to reflect the risk. If a company offers bonds with too low an interest rate for the risk level, ... |
How does the yield on my investments stack up against other investors? | It can be pretty hard to compute the right number. What you need to know for your actual return is called the dollar-weighted return. This is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rate_of_return computed for your actual cash flows. So if you add $100 per month or whatever, that has to ... |
Should I invest in the pre-IPO company stock offered by my employer? | Should I invest money in the pre-IPO stocks soon to be offered by the company that I work for? Is it wise to do this? What should I be thinking about? What are the risks? The last time I was offered pre-IPO friends and family stock, I purchased half of my allotment, and had my parents purchase the other half. Since... |
How to read Google Finance data on dividends | However, you have to remember that not all dividends are paid quarterly. For example one stock I recently purchased has a price of $8.03 and the Div/yield = 0.08/11.9 . $.08 * 4 = $0.32 which is only 3.9% (But this stock pays monthly dividends). $.08 * 12 = $0.96 which is 11.9 %. So over the course of a year assum... |
How can I cash out a check internationally? | This question was asked three years ago, but now that it's 2017 there is actually a relatively easy, cheap and fast solution to at least the first half of your question. To cash the check: I've done this a half dozen times while abroad (from the US) without any problems. |
Automatic investments for cheap | If you are not worried about timing the market and want to buy primarily "blue chip" stocks to hold for a while, consider using Loyal3. They don't charge any commission. The downside is that trades are executed at the end of the day and there's only about 60 companies currently available (but there are some really good... |
Advice on strategy for when to sell | It's impossibly difficult to time the market. Generally speaking, you should buy low and sell high. Picking 25% as an arbitrary ceiling on your gains seems incorrect to me because sometimes you'll want to hold a stock for longer or sell it sooner, and those decisions should be based on your research (or if you need the... |
Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job? | There are a few reasons: 1) Deductions and credits. We have a lot of them. While I suppose we could pass this information on to our employers for them to file, why would we want to? That just unnecessarily adds a middle-man as well as sharing potentially private information more than it needs to be shared. This is the ... |
As an employee, when is it inappropriate to request to see your young/startup company's financial statements? | This is several questions wrapped together: How can I diplomatically see the company's financial information? How strong a claim does a stockholder or warrantholder have to see the company's financials? What information do I need to know about the company financials before deciding to buy in? I'll start with the easier... |
How do amortization schedules work and when are they used? | Both Credit Card and Mortgage work on same principle. The interest is calculated on the remaining balance. As the balance reduces the interest reduces. The Mortgage schedule is calculated with the assumption that you would be paying a certain amount over a period of years. However if you pay more, then the balance bec... |
Buying a home without a Real Estate Agent - Who should I get to do the paperwork? | Generally, the paperwork realtors use is pre-written and pre-approved by the relevant State and real-estate organizations. The offers, contracts, etc etc a pretty straightforward and standard. You can ask a realtor for a small fee to arrange the documents for you (smaller than the usual 5% sellers' fee they charge, I w... |
Super-generic mutual fund type | Congrats on having such a nice emergency fund. That's pretty substantial. I don't want to be the one to suggest the One Investment To Rule Them All because I might be wrong. :) I'd investigate other avenues for investment. Here are a few (in no particular order): My two cents but I think you're wise to be wary of in... |
How do top investors pull out 20% ROI? | That is absolute rubbish. Warren Buffet follows simple value and GARP tenants that literally anyone could follow if they had the discipline to do so. I have never once heard of an investment made by Warren Buffet that wasn't rooted in fundamentals and easy to understand. The concept is fairly simple as is the math, ... |
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house | I would strongly try to influence circumstances so that buying is feasible. That means: Buy something where it is likely that you can resell it at the same price or even higher - or, at the least for significantly more than "total cost of ownership - rent payed elsewhere". For example, if it is in an area where you hav... |
Do I just let an options conversion/reversal trade go to expiration? | To Chris' comment, find out if the assignment commission is the same as the commission for an executed trade. If that does affect the profit, just let it expire. I've had spreads (buy a call, sell a higher strike call, same dates) so deep in the money, I just made sense to let both exercise at expiration. Don't panic ... |
Do you know of any online monetary systems? | Congratulations! You see the problem. You can't get away from unstable currencies. The other problem is that the US will shut down anything that appears to be providing a replacement for the US Dollar. Once a token or medallion or gift certificate or whatever starts being used outside the confines of one business or... |
Looking into investment bonds for the first time- what do I need to be aware of? | All bonds carry a risk of default, which means that it's possible that you can lose your principal investment in addition to potentially not getting the interest payments that you expect. Bonds (in the US anyway) are graded, so you can manage this risk somewhat by taking higher quality bonds, i.e. in companies or gove... |
Does the stock market create any sort of value? | In general, I think you're conflating a lot of ideas. The stock market is not like a supermarket. With the exception of a direct issue, you're not buying your shares from the company or from the New York Stock Exchange you're buying from an owner of stock, Joe, Sally, a pension fund, a hedge fund, etc; it's not sitt... |
What are the implications of a corporate stock repurchase or share buyback program? | the implications are that the company's earnings per share may seem greater, (after the company buys them there will be less shares outstanding), giving wall street the impression that there is more growth potential than there really is. its an accounting gimmick that can work for a few quarters while the company evalu... |
What do these options trading terms mean? | With stocks, you can buy or sell. If you sell first, that's called 'shorting.' As in "I think linkedin is too high, I'm going to short it." With options, the terminology is different, the normal process is to buy to open/sell to close, but if you were shorting the option itself, you would first sell to open, i.e you ar... |
Why doesn't Graham consider gold as an investment? | During Graham's career, gold and currency were the same thing because of the gold standard. Graham did not advise investing in currencies, only in bonds and stocks, the latter only for intelligent speculation. Graham died a couple of years after Nixon closed the gold window, ending the gold standard. Gold may be thoug... |
How does a public company turn shares into cash? | how do they turn shares into cash that they can then use to grow their business? Once a Company issues an IPO or Follow-On Public Offer, the company gets the Money. Going over the list of question tagged IPO would help you with basics. Specifically the below questions; How does a company get money by going public in an... |
How can I find ISIN numbers for stock options? | Because an equity option can be constructed at essentially any price by two willing counterparties on an exchange, there are not enough ISINs to represent the entire (i.e. infinite) option chain for even a single stock on a single expiration date. As a result, ISINs are not generated for each individual possible optio... |
Can I borrow against my IRA to pay off debt or pay for a car? | No. Borrowing is not allowed, but if you take a withdrawal, you have 60 days to deposit into another IRA account. This effectively creates a 60 day loan. Not what you're really looking for. If you take this withdrawal and re-deposit to new account within 60 days, no problem. If not, you owe tax on the untaxed amount a... |
How do I calculate what percentage of my portfolio is large-, mid- or small- cap? | The portfolio manager at Value Research Online does this very nicely. It tracks the underlying holdings of each fund, yielding correct calculations for funds that invest across the board. Take a look at the screenshot from my account: If you have direct equity holdings (e.g., not through a mutual fund), that too gets ... |
Should I sell when my stocks are growing? | You should constantly look at your investment portfolio and sell based on future outlook. Don't get emotional. Selling a portfolio of stocks at once without a real reason is foolish. If you have a stock that's up, and circumstances make you think it's going to go up further, hold it. If prospects are not so good, sell... |
Repaying Debt and Saving - Difficult Situation | Just a thought, but have you considered approaching your sister about assuming the student loans or repaying your mother (even if it is a small amount/month) for financing her college education? If she is in her last year of college, in theory she should be earning at least some income within the next 2 years. Also, it... |
What is a good 5-year plan for a college student with $15k in the bank? | First thing to do right now, is to see if there's somewhere equally liquid, equally risk free you can park your cash for higher rate of return. You can do this now, and decide how much to move into less liquid investments on your own pace. When I was in grad school, I opened a Roth IRA. These are fantastic things for y... |
Stock stopped trading, what does this mean? | You have not lost value. It is just that the shares you owned, are now not tradable on US stock exchanges. You still have the value of your shares protected. In cases like de-listing of a stock, typically a trust (may be managed by a bank) is setup to help customers liquidate their stocks. You should try to search the ... |
How to invest in the Russian oil market? | The Russian ETFs may be broad, but a quick glance at ERUS and RBL's sector breakdown shows they're 45% and 47% energy sector, and their top holding is Gazprom comprising 9% and 14% of each ETF respectively, with plenty more oil and gas companies in their top 10 too. A harder question would be how to invest in Russia a... |
If my put option reaches expiration on etrade and I don't log in to the site will it automatically exercise if it's in the money or be a total loss? | There are a number of choices: I prefer Dilip's response "Have you tried asking etrade?" No offense, but questions about how a particular broker handles certain situations are best asked of the broker. Last - one should never enter into any trade (especially options trades) without understanding the process in advance... |
Where can I find a company's earnings history for free? | www.earnings.com is helpful thinkorswim's thinkDesktop platform has a lot of earnings information tied with flags on their charts they are free. |
Diversification reduces risk, but does this base on the assumption that expected return of each asset is always in proportion to its risk? | Diversifying your portfolio between asset A and asset B only reduces the portfolio risk if asset A and asset B are not correlated. If they have either a low correlation or a negative correlation to each other, then you benefit from combining them in a portfolio in terms of risk reduction. The standard deviation of retu... |
How hard for US customers make payments to non-resident freelancer by wire transfer? | You are right in insisting upon a proper B2B contract in any business relationship. You wish to reduce your risk and be compensated fairly. In addition to the cost and complexity of international wire transfers, the US companies may also be considering the fact that as an international contractor in a relatively hard-t... |
Determining the minimum dividend that should be paid from my S corporation | There are no dividends from S-Corp. There are distributions. Big difference. S-Corps fill form 1120S and schedule K-1 per shareholder. In the schedule all the income of your S-Corp will be assigned to various categories that you will later copy to your personal tax return as your personal income. It is not dividend inc... |
Do governments support their own bonds when their value goes down? | Without getting to hung-up on terminology here, the management of a company will often attempt to keep stock prices high because of a number of reasons: Ideally companies keep prices up through performance. In some cases, you'll see companies do other things spending cash and/or issuing bonds to continue to pay divide... |
How are the best way to make and save money at 22 years old | Get an education. A bachelor's degree preferably, but AA or even a certificate are fine too. It will increase your earning potential significantly and over your lifetime it will earn you a lot of money. You make around $30,000 a year now, median salary for someone with a bachelors in the humanities is around $45,000. ... |
What does a reorganization fee that a company charges get applied to? | Its a broker fee, not something charged by the reorganizing company. E*Trade charge $20, TD Ameritrade charge $38. As with any other bank fee - shop around. If you know the company is going to do a split, and this fee is of a significant amount for you - move your account to a different broker. It may be that some port... |
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough? | Question: Does a billion dollars make you 1,000 times more happy than a million dollars? Answer: It doesn't. What counts is not the amount of money, but the subjective improvement that it makes to your life. And that improvement isn't linear, which is way the expected value of the inrease in your happiness / welfare /... |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | Uh, Quicken is virtually identical to MS Money. If you liked money and don't want to change, use that. |
How to check the paypal's current exchange rate? | I cannot speak for Paypal specifically and I doubt anyone who doesn't actually work on their internal automated payment systems could. However, I can speak from experiencing in working on automated forex transaction systems and tell you what many institutions do and it is often NOT based on live rates. There is no law ... |
How should I value personal use television for donation? | The usual lazy recommendation: See what similar objects, in similar condition, of similar age, have sold for recently on eBay. That establishes a fair market value by directly polling the market. |
Investing in stocks with gross income (not yet taxed) cash from contract work? | In most jurisdictions, you want to split the transactions. Why? Because you want to report capital gains on your investment income, and this will almost always be taxed at a lower rate than employment income. See Wikipedia's article for more information about capital gains. In Canada, you pay tax on 50% of your realize... |
How does the U.S. wash sale replacement stock rule work? | From Pub 550: More or less stock bought than sold. If the number of shares of substantially identical stock or securities you buy within 30 days before or after the sale is either more or less than the number of shares you sold, you must determine the particular shares to which the wash sale rules apply. You ... |
Money Saved on finance charges | Avoiding a cost (interest) isn't quite the same as income. There is no entry, nothing for you to consider for this avoided interest. What you do have is an expense that's no longer there, and you can decide to use that money elsewhere each month. |
How to use stocks certificate as a gift to a teenager? | Yes, depending on what you're trying to achieve. If its just a symbolic gift - you can use a service like this. There are several companies providing this service, look them up, but the prices are fairly the same. You'll end up getting a real stock certificate, but it will cost a lot of overhead (around $40 to get the ... |
Explain the details and benefits of rebalancing a retirement portfolio? | Rebalancing a portfolio helps you reduce risk, sell high, and buy low. I'll use international stocks and large cap US stocks. They both have ups and downs, and they don't always track with each other (international might be up while large cap US stocks are down and vice-versa) If you started with 50% international and... |
Is it prudent to sell a stock on a 40% rise in 2 months | Sell half. If it's as volatile as you say, sell it all and buy on another dip. No one can really offer targeted advice based on the amount of information you have provided. |
How to evaluate growth stocks | A classic text on growth stock picking is Common Stock and Uncommon Profits By Philip Fisher, with a 15 point checklist. Here is a summary of the list that you can check out. |
New 1099 employee with Cobra insurance | While COBRA premiums are not eligible to be a "business" expense they can be a medical expense for personal deduction purposes. If you're itemizing your deductions you may be able to deduct that way. However, you will only be able to deduct the portion of the premium that exceeds 10% of your AGI. Are you a full time ... |
When are equal-weighted index funds / ETFs preferable to market-cap-weighted funds? | As Dheer pointed out, the top ten mega-cap corporations account for a huge part (20%) of your "S&P 500" portfolio when weighted proportionally. This is one of the reasons why I have personally avoided the index-fund/etf craze -- I don't really need another mechanism to buy ExxonMobil, IBM and Wal-Mart on my behalf. I l... |
What is the most common and profitable investment for a good retirement in Australia? | I don't look to Super or Pension, I am working on self funding. My method is work in Sydney and buy a house in Sydney (I bought 6 years ago). Let my property rise on this stupidly insane Sydney growth (my place has risen by 76% in the last 6 years and thats in a "bad" economic climate). Each time the equity hits a cert... |
Can extra mortgage payments be made to lower the monthly payment amount? | Typically, this is not an option, as the monthly payments are fixed. It depends on the willingness of your financing bank for such a change. You probably will have to refinance (with them or another lender); which is not a bad thing, as you even can get a lower interest rate potentially (as of Jan 2017 - this will chan... |
LLC Partnership Earned Income vs. Partnership Share | Why would you file four K-1s for each partner? You file one K-1 per partner, on which you report the total of income attributed to that partner. It shouldn't and cannot "vary". There's no variables here, the income you report is the income already earned and attributed to that partner. What's there to vary? How you dec... |
Advice on preserving wealth in a volatile economic/political country | US Treasury securities are the safest investment. You can buy short term by buying T-Bills. You buy T-bills at a discount to face. For example, to buy a four week T-bill the treasury will take $99.98 out of your account. In four weeks the treasury will deposit $100 into your account. The $0.02 difference is your Intre... |
For a car, would you pay cash, finance for 0.9% or lease for 0.9%? | While this question is old and I generally agree with the answers given I think there's another angle that needs a little illuminating: insurance. If you go with an 84 month loan your car will likely be worth less than the amount owed for substantially all of the entire 84 month loan period; this will be exacerbated if... |
Can another tax loss be used to offset capital gains taxes? How does it work? | Capital losses do mirror capital gains within their holding periods. An asset or investment this is certainly held for a year into the day or less, and sold at a loss, will create a short-term capital loss. A sale of any asset held for over a year to your day, and sold at a loss, will create a loss that is long-term. W... |
Options liquidity and trading positions larger than the daily volume? | One broker told me that I have to simply read the ask size and the bid size, seeing what the market makers are offering. This implies that my order would have to match that price exactly, which is unfortunate because options contract spreads can be WIDE. Also, if my planned position size is larger than the best bid/bes... |
Ways to avoid being labeled a pattern day trader | Sorry but you already provided the answer to your own question. The simple answer is to 'not day trade' but hold things for a longer period and don't trade a large number of different stocks every week. Seriously, have a look at the rules and see what it implies.. an average of 20 buys and sells of longer term positio... |
Why would a company like Apple be buying back its own shares? | I think JB King's answer is interesting from the point of view of "is this good for me" but the OP's question boils down to "why would a company do this?" The company buys back shares when it thinks it will better position the company financially. A Simple Scenario: If Company A wants to open a new store, for example, ... |
How can it be possible that only ~10% of options expire worthless, and only ~10% are exercised? | You gave your own answer - the 80% is positions, not contracts. Most actors on the option market have no interest in the underlying asset. They want "just" exposure to its price movement. It makes more sense to close your position than to be handed over bushels of wheat or whatever. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.