Question
stringlengths
14
166
Answer
stringlengths
3
13.1k
Is there any online personal finance software without online banking?
I don't think Xero Personal does. I have my bank account in there, but since there's no automatic feed for the bank I use I imported it manually. I entered the bank by hand, so I think you could use it without listing a bank account at all.
Is it safe to take a new mortgage loan in Greece?
While I would be very leery of making any Investments in Greece, and if I lived there might want to strongly consider a larger than average investment in 'international' funds (such as an index fund on the US, UK, or German exchanges) Having debt in Greece might not be such a bad thing... if only it was denominated in ...
Why is it rational to pay out a dividend?
First, you need to understand that not every investor's goals are the same. Some investors are investing for income. They want to invest in a profitable company and use the profit from the company as income. If that investor invests only in stocks that do not pay a dividend, the only way he can realize income is to se...
Query regarding international transaction between governments
For the US government, they've just credited Person B with a Million USD and haven't gained anything (afterall, those digits are intangible and don't really have a value, IMO). Two flaws in this reasoning: The US government didn't do anything. The receiving bank credited the recipient. If the digits are intangible, suc...
Buying and selling the same stock
If you buy for $1 and sell $1 when the price goes to $2, you would have sold only half of your initial investment. So your investment would now be worth $2 and you sell $1 leaving $1 still in the market. This means you would have sold half your initial investment, making a profit of $0.50 on this half of your initial ...
What differentiates index funds and ETFs?
Index Funds & ETFs, if they are tracking the same index, will be the same in an ideal world. The difference would be because of the following factors: Expense ratio: i.e. the expense the funds charge. This varies and hence it would lead to a difference in performance. Tracking error: this means that there is a small pe...
If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything?
You are missing the fact that the company can buy back its own shares. For simplicity, imagine the case that you own ALL of the shares of XYZ corporation. XYZ is very profitable, and it makes $1M per year. There are two ways to return $1M to you, the shareholder: 1) The company could buy back some fraction of your s...
What does inflation actually mean? [duplicate]
Inflation also provides incentives for consumers to purchase now rather than later (which helps drive sales) and it provides incentive for money to be invested and put back into businesses, rather than held as cash, because you need to earn at least a little interest on your money just to break even.
Will ADR holder be taxed twice
Surprisingly enough, this one isn't actually all that complicated. No, you will not be taxed twice. Dividends are paid by the company, which in this case is domiciled in Spain. As a Spanish company, the Spanish government will take dividend witholding tax from this payment before it is paid to a foreign (i.e. non-Spa...
Do credit ratings (by Moody's, S&P, and Fitch) have any relevance?
The problems with ratings and the interpretation of ratings is that they are retrospective, and most people read them as prospective. They basically tell you that debtor is solvent right now. What does that mean? It means that the ratings are based on the audited financial statements of a company, government or other o...
Questioning my Realtor
My realtor told me that even though they're only asking for 1/2 the money and have excellent credit that the mortgage company may not lend it to them if I'm over priced. Is this true? I've never heard of it before. It is a chance, but it is a red herring to the discussion. Having excellent credit has nothing to do...
Does the Black-Scholes Model apply to American Style options?
The difference between an American and European option is that the American option can be exercised at any time, whereas the European option can be liquidated only on the settlement date. The American option is "continuous time" instrument, while the European option is a "point in time" instrument. Black Scholes appli...
Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority?
Paying off your house quickly should be a #2-level priority, behind making sure you have some basic savings but definitely ahead of any investing concerns, because your house is not an investment; it's your home. (If you're brave/foolish enough to try buying houses-as-investments in the current climate, this obviously...
Scam or Real: A woman from Facebook apparently needs my bank account to send money
Absolute scam. Any time anyone asks you to open a bank account so they can send you money and then you have to send some portion of it back to them, it's a guarantee that it's a scam. What happens is that your dad will deposit the check and transfer it to this woman, then the check will bounce (or turn out to be fake ...
Auto loan: must make X payments before payoff
Paperwork prevails. What you have is a dealer who get a kickback for sending financing to that institution. And the dealer pretty much said "We only get paid our kickback at two levels of loan life, 6 and 12 months." You just didn't quite read between the lines. This is very similar to the Variable Annuity salespeopl...
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.
Washington State tax filing extension?
Washington State doesn't have a state income tax for individuals, so unless you've got a business there's nothing to file. Find out more on their website.
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card
In the UK, using a credit card adds a layer of protection for consumers. If something goes wrong or you bought something that was actually a scam, if you inform the credit card company with the necessary documents they will typically clear the balance for that purchase (essentially the burden of 'debt' is passed to th...
Should I change 401k investment options to prepare for rising interest rates?
As others have pointed out your bond funds should have short durations, preferably not more than about 2 years. If you are in a bond fund for the long haul meaning you do not have to draw on your bond fund a short time after interest rates have gone up, it is not a big issue. The fund's holdings will eventually turn ov...
Will there always be somebody selling/buying in every stock?
Well Company is a small assets company for example it has 450,000,000 shares outstanding and is currently traded at .002. Almost never has a bid price. Compare it to PI a relative company with 350 million marker cap brokers will buy your shares. This is why blue chip stock is so much better than small company because...
Should I buy a home or rent in my situation?
Another reason, and to me the main reason not to buy a house if you're in your early 20s (regardless of your income), is mobility. If you rent, you can move pretty much whenever you want after the first year of your rental lease is up, even before then in some cases. If your fiancee finishes school and gets a great job...
Is a fixed-price natural gas or electricity contract likely to save money?
I would argue: Because the company only offers you this if it can make money from it. What you are basically doing is betting against the company.
Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer
Debt collectors are just doing their job as many people want to evade payment by not responding and skipping their debts, and they talk tough to force people found to make their obligated payments based on what they can afford and that’s all. I’m in the UK, but I assume the process is similar. Before I begin, I worke...
How to measure the cost/value of an Asset in the Financial Statement
Does the friend fix your electrical wiring and the engine of your car? If you need a professional advice - ask a professional. In this case - an accountant (not necessarily a CPA, but at least an experienced bookkeeper). Financial Statements (official documents, that is) must be signed by a public accountant (CPA in th...
Over contributing to workplace pension or private pension
Firstly (and this part is rather opinion-based) I would absolutely not think of making more pension contributions when you are currently totaling 6% of salary as "over contributing". There are some who argue that you should be putting a minimum of 20% away for retirement throughout your working life; you don't say how ...
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?
Yes, and the math that tells you when is called the Kelly Criterion. The Kelly Criterion is on its face about how much you should bet on a positive-sum game. Imagine you have a game where you flip a coin, and if heads you are given 3 times your bet, and if tails you lose your bet. Naively you'd think "great, I should ...
What is a good way to save money on car expenses?
The obvious answer for savings costs with a car is not to have a car. Of course that must be balanced against other expenses (bicycle, taxi, public transport) to do things. Generally speaking, if you need a car, ways to contain expense are to buy the least expensive vehicle with the most economical engine that meets ...
Where should I park my money if I'm pessimistic about the economy and I think there will be high inflation?
Typically in a developed / developing economy if there is high overall inflation, then it means everything will rise including property/real estate. The cost of funds is low [too much money chasing too few goods causes inflation] which means more companies borrow money cheaply and more business florish and hence the st...
US Stock Market - volume based real-time alert
This would be a nice Raspberry Pi project for Mathematica, which comes bundled free on the Raspbian OS. You can program it up and leave it running. It's not expensive and doesn't use much power. A program to monitor stock prices or volume could be written as simply as :- This checks the volume of trades of Oct 2014 U...
Pay off car or use money for down payment
Absolutely do not pay off the car if you aren't planning to keep it. The amount of equity that you have from a trade in vehicle will always be a variable when negotiating a new car purchase. By applying cash (a hard asset) to increase your equity, you are trading a fixed amount for an unknown, variable amount. You a...
Non Resident Alien(Working full time on F1-OPT) new car sales tax deduction
No, if you are a nonresident alien, you cannot deduct sales tax. You can only deduct state income tax. 1040NR Schedule A (which is page 3 of 1040NR) does not contain an option for sales tax, like 1040 Schedule A does. If you are a resident alien, then you can deduct sales tax.
Any Tips on How to Get the Highest Returns Within 4 Months by Investing in Stocks?
Try using technical analysis, look at the charts and look for stocks that are uptrending. The dfinition of an uptrend being higher highs and higher lows. Use a stochastic indicator and buy on the dips down when the stochastic is in the oversold position (below 20) and and crossing over about to turn back upwards. Or yo...
How does a brokerage firm work?
The brokerage executes the transactions you tell them to make on your behalf. Other than acting as your agent for those, and maintaining your account, and charging a fee for the service, they have no involvement -- they do not attempt to predict optimal anything, or hold any assets themselves.
When a stock price goes down, does the money just disappears into thin air?
Cash changes hands when you buy or sell the stock. While you own the stock, you own it, not cash, so there is no cash to go anywhere. You spent your money when you bought. The seller got that money. It's gone. You hope that when you sell the stock, someone will give you more money for it than you spent. But they may gi...
US Expatriate, do I have to file for an extension, or do I automatically get it, as in without doing anything?
The 2 months extension is automatic, you just need to tell them that you're using it by attaching a statement to the return, as Pete Becker mentioned in the comments. From the IRS pub 54: How to get the extension. To use this automatic 2-month extension, you must attach a statement to your return explaining which of ...
Analyst estimates for an insurance company
Something to consider is how broad is Yahoo! Finance taking in their data for making some comparisons. For example, did you look at the other companies in the same industry? On the Industry page, the Top Life Insurance Companies by Market Cap are mostly British companies which could make things a bit different than y...
Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation?
If there's no inflation (or alternately there's deflation) people would tend to sit on money and wait for the prices to drop. This in pretty bad for pricier stuff like real estate/housing industry where a few percent can make a big difference. For a growing economy a small inflation is good as people would go out and ...
Legal documents required for managing an investment portfolio among friends?
Sounds like you are starting an investment club. What you need is an investment club partnership agreement. Have a look at this free document. EDIT Based on OP's comments, it appears that the OP will be acting as an adviser/manager of a private investment fund. If the fund is not open to the public, it may still be tre...
How do I adjust to a new social class?
Under what conditions did you move? My favourite method of judging prices objectively comes from concepts written in Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez. Essentially it normalizes money spent by making you figure out how much an item costs with respect to the number of hours you needed to work to afford it. I pref...
Company Payment Card
Most corporate policies strictly prohibit the card's use for personal use, even if the intent is to re-pay in full, on or before the due date. I'm certain it has something to do with limitation of liability, i.e. the monetary risk the company is willing to put itself at, in order to offer a corporate card program. In ...
Corporate Finance
If it's raising $25 million with a debt to equity ratio of 50% then it's raising $8.33 million of debt and $16.67 million of equity. You've priced it as if it were raising $25 million of debt and $25 million of equity, which would be raising $50 million with a debt to equity ratio of 100%.
At what interest rate should debt be used as a tool?
It's tough to borrow fixed and invest risk free. That said, there are still some interesting investment opportunities. A 4% loan will cost you 3% or less after tax, and the DVY (Dow high yielders) is at 3.36% but at a 15% favored rate, you net 2.76% if my math is right. So for .5%, you get the fruits of the potential r...
How do I get rid of worthless penny stocks if there is no volume (so market/limit orders don't work) and my broker won't buy them from me?
I dug up an old article on Motley Fool and one approach they mention is to get the stock certificates and then sell them to a friend: If the company was liquidated, you should receive a 1099-DIV form at year's end showing a liquidating distribution. Treat this as if you sold the stock for the amount of the distrib...
Having a separate bank account for business/investing, but not a “business account?”
If it makes your finances easier, why not? My wife and I had his/hers/our since before we were married. I also have an account to handle transactions for my rental property, and one extra for PayPal use. I was paranoid to give out a checking account number with authorization for a third party to debit it, so that accou...
eurodollar future
If they short the contract, that means, in 5 months, they will owe if the price goes up (receive if the price goes down) the difference between the price they sold the future at, and the 3-month Eurodollar interbank rate, times the value of the contract, times 5. If they're long, they receive if the price goes up (owe ...
Is it better for a public company to increase its dividends, or institute a share buyback?
I feel dividends are better for shareholders. The idea behind buy backs is that future profits are split between fewer shares, thereby increasing the value (not necessarily price -- that's a market function) of the remaining shares. This presupposes that the company then retires the shares it repurchases. But quite oft...
How May Cash be Spent Approaching Bankruptcy?
Bankruptcy law is complex. You need a lawyer who can advise you both on the statute and relevant case law for the district where you file. Your lawyer can advise you whether actions you contemplate are allowed. You can obtain advice prior to filing as you seek to determine whether the law and the relief it offers are ...
Credit report - Not able to establish identity
The suggestion may be very delayed, have you personally gone to the Experian Office with all the documentation (in xerox copy and in original)? If not, please do so, there is always a difference between dealing with govt/semi-govt institutions over electronic channels and in person.
What to think of two at the money call options with different strike prices and premiums?
As other uses have pointed out, your example is unusual in that is does not include any time value or volatility value in the quoted premiums, the premiums you quote are only intrinsic values. For well in-the-money options, the intrinsic value will certainly be the vast majority of the premium, but not the sole compon...
Why is the number of issued shares less than the number of outstanding shares
The language in the starbucks accounts is highly ambiguous. But Starbucks has no treasury shares which helps work out what is going on. Where it says "respectively" it is referring to the years 2014 and 2013 rather than "issued and outstanding"...even though it doesn't read that way. Not easy to work out. The figures ...
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house
No one has considered the tax write off at the end of the year? Will the house be in the parent's name or his, and can one of them take a write off for taxes and interest at the end of each year? On a small salary this may mean he has no tax liability for the four years, and can possibly make up the extra buying costs....
Working on a tax free island to make money?
From http://www.taxrates.cc/html/cayman-islands-tax-rates.html: There is no income tax, corporate tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax, inheritance tax, property tax, gift tax or any other kind of direct taxation in Cayman Islands. Cayman Islands government receives the majority of its income from indirect...
Why did Apple instantly become the most volatile stock in the US?
I looked at data from Sept 2010 to present: Standard deviation is what shows the spread shape of returns over time, and it meanS that about 2/3 of the time, AAPL return was within +/- 1.65 higher/lower than the daily average return which was .21 %. Not sure where to go with this except to suggest that in fact, AAPL is ...
what is the point of the part b late enrollment penalty?
The point of the enrollment penalty is basically the same as the ACA penalty. Any sort of health insurance - or really, any insurance - is funded by creating a risk pool of high and low risk people and pricing it so that the overall payments cover the total risk. That means, however, that on average the low risk peo...
The U.S. National Debt: What is it, where did it come from, and how does it work?
nan
~$75k in savings - Pay off house before new home?
Congratulations on saving up $75,000. That requires discipline and tenacity. There are a lot of factors that would go into making your decision. First and foremost is the security of the income stream you have now. Being leveraged during times of hardship is not a pleasant experience. Unexpected job losses can an...
How are proceeds from writing covered calls taxed?
The tax comes when you close the position. If the option expires worthless it's as if you bought it back for $0. There's a short-term capital gain for the difference between your short-sale price and your buyback price on the option. I believe the capital gain is always short-term because short sales are treated as sho...
Why don't forced buy-ins of short sold stock happen much more frequently?
Many investors don't invest for the short term and so a stock "nose-diving" in the short run will not affect their long term strategy so they will simply hold on to it until it recovers. Additionally funds that track an index have to hold on to the constituents of that index no matter what happens to its value over the...
What is a good way to save money on car expenses?
Can you tell I'm having fun with this question? Here's another great list, from Finally Frugal, which includes the above items, but also these gems: Avoid idling. Now, this just annoys me. Walking past a line of idling cars at the transit center waiting for their human 'pickup', makes me crazy! It makes me want to kno...
Good habits pertaining to personal finance for someone just getting started?
If you are not working, I believe you would be getting some money from your family to meet your expenses. In such a case, I would start with maintaining a Cash A/c which would list your monthly expenses and the money you received, which is what I used to do at your age. You can maintain it in a notebook with pen/pencil...
What does it mean when someone says “FTSE closed at xxx today”
It's sort of the sum of stock prices, but bigger companies are weighed more heavily.
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 am...
Does freedom to provide services allow me contracting in Germany without paying taxes there (but in my home EU country)?
You're free to provide services, but if you stay in one country for more than half a year - you're generally considered to be its resident for tax purposes. Germany is no exception to the rule, in fact - this is true to almost any country in the world. If you provide the services from Poland, and never set foot in Germ...
How do I research if my student loan company is doing something illegal?
The thing to recall here is that auto-pay is a convenience, not a guarantee. Auto-pay withdrawals, notices that a bill is due, all of these are niceties that the lender uses to try to make sure you consistently pay your bill on time, as all businesses enjoy steady cash flows. Now, what all of these "quality of life" fe...
Huge return on investment, I feel like im doing the math wrong
And now it is at about $3. Many times "skeletons" are bought and inflated for various reasons. Some are legitimate (for example a private business merging into a defunct but public corporation to avoid wasting resources on going public), some are not (mainly pump-and-dump scams that are using "skeletons"). I don't know...
Need a formula to determine monthly payments received at time t if I'm reinvesting my returns
With 10% return over three years, depositing $900 each month, in three years $34,039.30. Re. downvote. I guess this is too brief and without explanation, but I was rushing. If you want further explanation of how this is calculated check the link already posted by JoeTaxpayer, and have a look at the formula for contin...
Are there any issues with registering an LLC in a foreign state?
This is an older question but I thought I'd give the correct response for anyone else that might look. Yes there definitely could be issues. You can form in friendly states such as Delaware and Nevada without having a physical location in the state but you can't run a business from another state without having to 'qual...
How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup?
if you bought gold in late '79, it would have taken 30 years to break even. Of all this time it was two brief periods the returns were great, but long term, not so much. Look at the ETF GLD if you wish to buy gold, and avoid most of the buy/sell spread issues. Edit - I suggest looking at Compound Annual Growth Rate an...
How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?
In order to arrive at a decision you need the numbers: I suggest a spreadsheet. List the monthly and annual costs (see other responses). Then determine what the market rate for rental. Once you have the numbers it will be clear from a numbers standpoint. One has consider the hassle of owning property from a distanc...
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion - Service vs. Product?
As the name says, its for income earned in a Foreign country. If you have been paying US income tax on this while living in the US, nothing is going to change here. You should be informing yourself on how to avoid double taxation in your new country of residence. Passive income earned abroad (dividends, interest) also ...
Property Trust - who or what is the Owner?
I am not a lawyer, and I am assuming trusts in the UK work similar to the way they work in the US... A trust is a legally recognized entity that can act in business transactions much the same way as a person would (own real property, a business, insurance, investments, etc.). The short answer is the trust is the owner ...
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:
Is there a country that uses the term “dollar” for currency without also using “cents” as fractional monetary units?
Wikipedia has a nice list of currencies that use "cents" and currencies that use 1/100th division that is not called "cent". Cent means "100" in Latin (and French, and probably all the Roman family of languages), so if the currency is divided by 100 subunits - it will likely to be called "cent" or something similar in ...
Car dealer saying that they cannot see any credit information for my co-applicant. Could this be a scam?
I actually had a similar situation when I tried to buy my house. I paid off all my loans and was proud of my "debt free" status. I had no car note, no student loans... absolutely no debt, but I did have a bank-issued credit card. (USAA, not Chase, but I assume the same may apply). When I tried to get a home loan they...
How are mortgage interest rates determined?
Mortgage or other interest rates are determined by the banks on cost of funds, risk and operating cost. The Fed raises money from the markets by issuing Tresury Bonds at a specified rate. This rate at which it raises money varies depening on the economy. Thus there are 2 rates: the rate at which banks can borrow mone...
Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year?
One thing I like to do every once in a while is look at the day's market movers. It's a list of symbols that had huge movement. There tend to be a couple of 50+% movers every time I look. In fact today I see ATV moved up 414.48%: So there it is—doubling your investment in one day and then some is technically possible....
High Leverage Inflation Hedges for Personal Investors
$10k isn't really enough to make enough money to offset the extremely high risks in investing in options in this area. Taking risks is great, but a sure losing proposition isn't a risk -- it's a gamble. You're likely to get wiped out with leveraged options, since you don't have enough money to hedge your bets. Timing i...
privacy concerns when receiving money from paypal from strangers?
You'll need to check PayPal's terms of service for that first question. I would imagine you could, as my wife and I both have personal PayPal accounts listed at the same address. When you receive money, the senders will only see the (full) name on your account, the amount, and the transaction ID. If you set up a busine...
Should retirement fund be equal to amount of money needed for financial independence?
I want to know ideally how much should a person save for retirement funds? A person should save enough such that your total retirement resources will equal the amount you personally need for a comfortable retirement at the point in time when the person desires to retire. If you want to retire at 40, you may need to s...
Advice on what to do with my equity?
How will 45K-60K "end up in your pocket"? Are you selling your home? Where are you going to live? You talk about moving to Arizona, what is so magical about that place? Congratulations on making a wise purchase. Some people with new found money use it to correct past mistakes. However, if they do not change their ...
Deducting last years (undocumented) side business loss
You should speak to a good tax adviser. The less documentation you have the more problems IRS are going to cause you. Generally you can deduct business losses (in the year they occurred, which is 2011), but you have to show that that was a valid business, not just a way to reduce your tax bill with personal expenses. T...
Can a F-1 student visa holder loan a car from bmw?
Most states do have a cooling-off period where the buyer can rescind the purchase as well as a legally allowed limit to how long the dealer has to secure financing when they buyer has opted for dealer-financing. If the dealer did inform you during the allowed window, they will refund your down payment minus mileage fee...
Purchase same stock twice
how does the trading company know which one I want to sell? It doesn't need to know. You just sell one. From taxation point of view depending on the country / tax jurisdiction, it can be only be FIFO or specific stock.
How can I buy these ETFs?
ETFs trade on specific exchanges. If your broker deals with those exchanges, you should have access to the ETF. If your broker does not deal with that exchange, then you will not have access through that broker. This is different than, say, mutual funds, which don't trade on the exchanges are proprietary to certain bro...
If the U.S. defaults on its debt, what will happen to my bank money?
If you are actually referring to all the political rhetoric and posturing over the debt ceiling issue. That's a long ways from the US actually defaulting on paying debts. A lot of government offices might shut down, but I expect anyone holding US debt to be paid off. (they have the printing presses after all) If tha...
Insider trading in another company?
This information is clearly "material" (large impact) and "non-public" according to the statement of the problem. Also, decisions like United States v. Carpenter make it clear that you do not need to be a member of the company to do illegal insider trading on its stock. Importantly though, stackexchange is not a place...
Should I “hedge” my IRA portfolio with a life cycle / target date mutual fund?
I choose lifecycle funds because I am placing faith (perhaps foolishly) that a full time fund manager knows better what to pick than I. The same reason I go with mutual funds in general apply to to why I also have the lifecycle funds. Presently my diversification strategy is really just index funds and lifecycle fund...
How do insurance funds work?
What is a 403b? A 403(b) plan is a tax-advantaged retirement savings plan available for public education organizations, some non-profit employers (only US Tax Code 501(c)(3) organizations), cooperative hospital service organizations and self-employed ministers in the United States. Kind of a rare thing. A bit more here...
Is it better to use DRIP or invest when stock drops before ex-date?
Yes you can do that and it it wise to do so. However, you should make sure that the general trend of the stock is upwards and you buy during a trought in the uptrend. So basically if the stock is making higher highs and higher lows on the daily or weekly charts, then you would want to buy around one of the higher lows ...
At what point does it become worth it to file an insurance claim?
At what point can you not afford the repair, and how will that repair affect your home? In your scenario, you would be claiming $1, which I could agree is universally bad. A good tip is to raise the deductible to the point you feel you can cover on your own so you aren't tempted. (It would lower your premium too) This...
Where can I find the dividend history for a stock?
I second @DumbCoder, every company seems to have its own way of displaying the next dividend date and the actual dividend. I keep track of this information and try my best to make it available for free through my little iphone web app here http://divies.nazabe.com
How can I lookup the business associated with a FEIN?
In most cases you cannot do "reverse lookup" on tax id in the US. You can verify, but for that you need to have more than just the FEIN/SSN. You should also have a name, and some times address. Non-profits, specifically, have to publish their EIN to donors, so it may be easier than others to identify those. Other busin...
Pensions, annuities, and “retirement”
An annuity is a product. In simple terms, you hand over a lump sum of cash and receive an agreed annual income until you die. The underlying investment required to reach that income level is not your concern, it's the provider's worry. So there is a huge mount of security to the retiree in having an annuity. It is wort...
Main source of the shares/stocks data on the web
The main source is a direct feed from the stock market itself. The faster the feed, the more expensive. 15-minute delay is essentially free... and for those of us who do long-term investment is more than adequate. If you want data sooner, sign up with a brokerage that provides that service as part of what you're payin...
How to get into real estate with a limited budget
One way to "get into the real estate market" is to invest your money in a fund which has its value tied to real estate. For example, a Real Estate Investment Trust. This fund would fluctuate largely inline with the property values in the area(s) where the fund puts its money. This would have a few (significant) changes...
Is avoiding fees commonly found with CFD trading possible?
The fees with trading CFDs are usually lower than standard share trading. There is usually no joining fee to join a broker and start trading with them, you must be talking about the minimum required to fund your account to trade with. What country are you in? Because if you are in the USA I believe CFD trading is not ...
Why do dishonour fees exist?
In the United States, many banks aim to receive $ 100 per year per account in fees and interest markup. There are several ways that they can do this on a checking account. These examples assume that there is a 3 % difference between low-interest-rate deposit accounts and low-interest rate loans. Or some combination o...
How does Value Averaging work in practice?
Value averaging has you shift the balance of your portfolio over time, not the amount of contributions. So you can only do it if you have a portfolio holding both risky assets (shares etc) and some cash. You start out by making a plan about how much you will contribute every month and at what rate you expect the share...
Is it possible to split taxation of funds earned from a crowdfunding campaign over multiple years?
I think you should really start a limited company for this. It'll be a lot simpler to spread the income over multiple years if your business and you have completely separate identities. You should also consult an accountant, if only once to understand the basics of how to approach this. Having a limited company would a...
Do altcoin trades count as like-kind exchanges? (Deferred capital gains tax)
Like-kind of exchanges have a list of requirements. The IRS has not issued formal guidance in the matter. I recommend to be aggressive and claim the exchange, while justifying it with a good analogy to prove good faith (and persuade the IRS official reading it the risk of losing in tax court would be to high). Worst ca...