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Can one use dollar cost averaging to make money with something highly volatile? | if you know when and by how much something will fluctuate, you can always make money. Buy it when it's cheaper and sell it when it's more expensive. If you just know that it fluctuated a lot recently, then you don't know what it will do next. Most securities that go to zero or go much higher bounce all over the place f... |
First home buyer, financing questions | I think we would be good with paying around $1200 monthly mortgage fees (with all other property fees included like tax etc.) You probably can't get a $250k house for $1,200 a month including taxes and insurance. Even at a 4% rate and 20% down, your mortgage payment alone will be $954, and with taxes and insurance on ... |
Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics? | The whole point of a credit report and, by extension, a credit score, is to demonstrate (and judge) your ability to repay borrowed funds. Everything stems from that goal; available credit, payment history, collections, etc all serve to demonstrate whether or not you personally are a good investment for lenders to purs... |
Magazine subscription leads to unauthorized recurring payment | You have a subscription that costs $25 They have the capabilities to get that $25 from the card on file if you had stopped paying for it, you re-upping the cost of the subscription was more of a courtesy. They would have considered pulling the $25 themselves or it may have gone to collections (or they could courteously... |
How do I get a Tax Exemption Certificate for export from the US if I am in another country? | Assuming you are being charged sales tax, it all depends on where you take possession of the shipment. Are your suppliers shipping to a US address, say your freight forwarder, from where you handle the ongoing shipment, or directly to you in South America? If the latter, per Michael Pryor's answer, you should not be ch... |
“International credit report” for French nationals? | I'm not aware that any US bank has any way to access your credit rating in France (especially as you basically don't have one!). In the US, banks are not the only way to get finance for a home. In many regions, there are plenty of "owner financed" or "Owner will carry" homes. For these, the previous owner will provid... |
In Canada, how much money can I gift a friend or family member without them being taxed on it? | Canada doesn't seem to have a gift tax. http://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/giftsandinheritances.htm |
How much can I withdraw from Betterment and be considered long-term investment? | This question and your other one indicate you're a bit unclear on how capital gains taxes work, so here's the deal: you buy an asset (like shares of stock or a mutual fund). You later sell it for more than you bought it for. You pay taxes on your profit: the difference between what you sold it for and what you bought... |
Ticker symbols differences between Yahoo Finance and BestInvest | BestInvest is a UK site looking at that URL, base on the "co.uk" ending. Yahoo! Finance that you use is a US-based site unless you add something else to the URL. UK & Ireland Yahoo! Finance is different from where you were as there is something to be said for where are you looking. If I was looking for a quarter dollar... |
I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more? | If you are happy, really honestly happy, there is no need to change because you read it somewhere. While I believe that budgeting in some fun is smart so you don't go crazy, I am really speaking for myself. I personally have to work at not spending more than I make, so I need to blow off some steam. I also think that ... |
Currently sole owner of a property. My girlfriend is looking to move in with me and is offering to pay 'rent'. Am I at risk here? | Disclaimer: I am a law student, not a lawyer, and don't claim to have a legal opinion one way or another. My answer is intended to provide a few potentially relevant examples from case law in order to make the point that you should be cautious (and seek proper advice if you think that caution is warranted). Nor am I cl... |
How do I set up my finances when first moving out? | The first thing you need to do is to set yourself a budget. Total all your money coming in (from jobs, allowances, etc.) and all your money going out (including rent, utilities, loan repayments, food, other essential and the luxuries). If your money coming in is more than your money going out, then you are onto a posi... |
Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? | There are a lot of good answers, but I will share my experience. First, a savings account needs to be for savings. If your in the US you have "Regulation D" to deal with and that will bite you on the rear if you go over those limits. Specially easy to do if your purchasing from a savings account. Next having an "Inco... |
In a buy order with a trigger, will I pay the current ask or the buy price in the order? | If you want to buy once the price goes up to $101 or above you can place a conditional order to be triggered at $101 or above and for a limit order to entered to buy at $102. This will mean that as soon as the price reaches $101 or above, your limit order will enter the market and you will buy at any price from $102 or... |
Nanny taxes and payroll service | Whether to employ a payroll service to handle the taxes (and possibly the payroll itself) is a matter that depends on how savvy you are with respect to your own taxes and with using computers in general. If you are comfortable using programs such as Excel, or Quicken, or TurboTax, or TaxAct etc, then taking care of pay... |
Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT | You can consider opening accounts either in Paypal or Google Wallet. In this way, you link your bank information to these accounts and the only information you need to provide your tenant is your e-mail id. Its safe and in this scenario -- just money transfer through bank account, there is no fee either for the sender ... |
can the government or debt collectors garnish money from any bank account to which the debtor has access? | There is a difference between an owner and a signer. An owner is the legal owner of the funds. A signer has access to withdraw the funds. In most cases, when a new personal account is opened the name is added as an owner&signer. However, that is not always the case. A person could be an owner, but not a signer, in a cu... |
How often do typical investors really lose money? | How often do investors really lose money? All the time. And it's almost always reason number 1. Let's start with the beginner investor, the person most likely to make some real losses and feel they've "learned" that investing is no better than Vegas. This person typically gets into it because they've been given a hot s... |
How good is Wall Street Survivor for learning about investing? | I find this site to be really poor for the virtual play portion, especially the options league. After you place a trade, you can't tell what you actually traded. The columns for Exp and type are blank. I have had better luck with OptionsXpress virtual trader. Although they have recently changed their criteria for a... |
Bank statements - should I retain hardcopies for tax or other official purposes (or keep digital scanned copies)? | I am in the United States. There is no need to keep the statements in any form forever. Once the bank gives you a 1099 stating how much interest you have earned, you don't need to keep them. If you only have them in electronic form, that is good enough for the IRS. When you do need to show a bank statement, such as whe... |
Should I use regular or adjusted close for backtesting? | If you want to monitor how well you did in choosing your investments you will want to use stock prices that account for the dividends and splits and other changes (not just the closing price). The adjusted close will include these changes where the straight close will not include them. Using the adjusted close you wi... |
Lost credit card replaced with new card and new numbers. Credit score affected? | The true answer is it depends because it is up to the credit card issuer to follow the right path when issuing a replacement credit card. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/will-replacement-card-hurt-my-score.aspx Typically, issuers will transfer the account history to the new trade line, says Barry Paperno,... |
Should I buy a house with a friend? | There are lots of good reasons not to do this. HOWEVER if you do decide to, there are four things you need to consider: |
Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority? | For some people, it should be a top priority. For others, there are higher priorities. What it should be for you depends on a number of things, including your overall financial situation (both your current finances and how stable you expect them to be over time), your level of financial "education", the costs of your... |
How to Explain “efficient frontier” to child? | I would let them get their hands dirty, learn by practicing. Below you can find a simple program to generate your own efficient frontier, just 29 lines' python. Depending on the age, adult could help in the activity but I would not make it too lecturing. With child-parent relationship, I would make it a challenge, no e... |
What is a good price to “Roll” a Covered Call? | An expiration 2 years out will have Sqr(2) (yes the square root of 2!) times the premium of the 1 year expiration. So if the option a year out sell for $1.00, two is only $1.41. And if the stock trades for $10, but the strike is $12, why aren't you just waiting for expiration to write the next one? |
Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings? | 0% furniture loans can hurt your credit rating. I was told by a bank mortgage officer (sorry I can't cite a document) that credit rating algorithms consider "consumer" loans like 0% appliance loans and certain store-specific credit cards as a negative factor, lowering your overall score. The rationalization given was t... |
Is it possible for me to keep my credit card APR at 0% permanently? | No. The intro rate is a gambit by the bank - they accept losing money in the short term but expect to gain money in the long term when your intro is over and you (hopefully) start paying interest. There's not much in it for them if you never get around to paying interest. Same can be said for people who close the card ... |
Is it better to pay an insurance deductible, or get an upgrade? | You asked for simple, and I promise you this is... it just looks a bit math-heavy to start with because we have to handle a couple of different scenarios. Bear with me :) I find the best way to deal with these kinds of questions is to put together a "Total cost" for each option, for a sensible amount of time, and see w... |
If a mutual fund did really well last year, then statistically speaking, is it likely going to do bad this year? | Nearly all long-lived active funds underperform the market over the long run. The best they can hope for in almost all cases is to approximate the market return. Considering that the market return is ~9%, this fund should be expected to do less well. In terms of predicting future performance, if its average return is g... |
Why do banks finance shared construction as mortgages instead of financing it directly and selling the apartments in a building? | You seem to underestimate the risk of this deal for the inverstors. A person purchasing a residence is happy to pay $70K instead of $150K now, and the only risk they take is that the construction company fails to build the condo. Whatever happens on the estate market in two years, they still saved the price difference ... |
In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive? | While many answers correctly cite the effect of monopoly power.... there is a cost issue that no one has yet posted. I first recall seeing this cost effect in a managerial econ textbook, perhaps Ivan Png's. The theater must clean up the popcorn mess. The sales of popcorn elsewhere does not usually include the costs... |
What is a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) & how is it different from plain stock? | I own a few MLPs that operate oil/gas pipelines (TSE:IPL-UN, NYSE:BPT, NYSE:APL), and I'm very happy with their performance. Because they don't pay corporate tax MLPs tend to pay higher dividends than most regular stocks. I pay H&R Block to do my taxes, and they sort out all the arcane details. |
What if 40% of the remaining 60% Loan To Value (ratio) is not paid, or the borrower wants to take only 60% of the loan? | This is the meat of your potato question. The rephrasing of the question to a lending/real estate executive such as myself, I'd ask, what's the scenario? "I would say you're looking for an Owner Occupied, Super Jumbo Loan with 20% Down or $360K down on the purchase price, $1.8 mil purchase price, Loan Amount is ~$1.45 ... |
Higher auto insurance costs: keep car or switch to public transit? | I've lived this decision, and from my "anecdata": do #3 I have been car-free since 2011 in a large United States city. I was one month into a new job on a rail line out in the suburbs, and facing a $3000 bill to pass state inspection (the brakes plus the emissions system). I live downtown. I use a combination of tra... |
I earn $75K, have $30K in savings, no debt, rent from my parents who are losing their home. Should I buy a home now or save? | You earn $75,000 yearly and saved $30,000 while living at home, for two years, rent-free. I am assuming you have been making good money for at least 2 years. How is it possible you only put away $30,000 on $150,000 of income? Were you giving something to your parents each week as rent, so they don't lose their home? Se... |
Vanguard Mutual Funds — Diversification vs Share Class | In general, I'd try to keep things as simple as possible. If your plan is to have a three-fund portfolio (like Total Market, Total International, and Bond), and keep those three funds in general, then having it separated now and adding them all as you invest more is fine. (And upgrade to Admiral Shares once you hit the... |
Is there an online cost-basis calculator that automatically accounts for dividend re-investments and splits? | Calculating and adjusting cost basis accurately is a daunting task, but there is a (paid) online tool, NetBasis, which will automatically calculate and adjust your cost basis. It is used by brokerage firms and Fortune 500 companies and is available to the public. Go to netbasis.com. All you need are the purchase and ... |
At what point do index funds become unreliable? | The argument you are making here is similar to the problem I have with the stronger forms of the efficient market hypothesis. That is if the market already has incorporated all of the information about the correct prices, then there's no reason to question any prices and then the prices never change. However, the mec... |
Is it possible to eliminate PMI (Personal/Private Mortgage Insurance) on a mortgage before reaching 20% down on principal? | On a 5% mortgage, after 24 months of payments on a 30 yr amortization, you will have paid 3% of the principal, so all else being equal, you have 15% equity. If the value is up, even a bit, the first step is to call the bank. If you are pretty sure it's up enough, ask them to remove PMI in exchange for you paying the ap... |
Help required on estimating SSA benefit amounts | There has been an abundance of articles in recent years which make it fairly clear that many participants in the Social Security system-- especially those who have started contributing recently, and going forward from that-- will experience negative rates of return. In other words, they will put in more than they will ... |
How do you find an ethical, honest independent insurance broker in Canada? | How do you find an ethical, honest practitioner of any business? One: Make a small transaction with them and see how they treat you. If they cheat you on something small, don't give them a chance with something big. Two: Ask family and friends for recommendations. Three: Get information from public sources, like web si... |
Comparing the present value of total payment today and partial payments over 3 months | Its kind of a dumb question because no one believes that you can earn 8% in the short term in the market, but for arguments sake the math is painfully easy. Keep in mind I am an engineer not a finance guy. So the first payment will earn you one month at 8%, the second, two. In effect three months at 8% on 997. You c... |
How can IV give an indication of the markets opinion about a stock when there's no such thing as IV for a stock? | Since near-term at-the-money (ATM) options are generally the most liquid, the listed implied vol for a stock is usually pretty close to the nearest ATM volatility, but there's not a set convention that I'm aware of. Also note that for most stocks, vol skew (the difference in vol between away-from-the-money and at-the-... |
Is there a rule that a merchant must identify themself when making a charge | Obviously, the credit card's administators know who this charge was submitted by. Contact them, tell them that you don't recognize the charge, and ask them to tell you who it was from. If they can't or won't, tell them you suspect fraud and want it charged back, then wait to see who contacts you to complain that the pa... |
Can I pay off my credit card balance to free up available credit? | Banks only send your balance to credit bureaus once a month; usually a few days after your statement date. Thus, as long as your usage is below 10% in that date range, you're ok. Regarding paying it off early: sure. Every Sunday night, I pay our cards' charges from the previous week. (The internet makes this too eas... |
Options vs Stocks which is more profitable | Nearly 3 years ago, I wrote an article, Betting on Apple at 9 to 2 which described a bet in which a 35% move in the stock returned 354% on the option trade. Leverage works both ways, no move, or a slight move down, and the bet would have been lost. While I find this to be entertaining, I don't call it investing. With ... |
Option Theta: What conditions are needed for Theta > P/N, where P = option price, and N = days to expiration? | So, if an out-of-the-money option (all time value) has a price P (say $3.00), and there are N days... The extrinsic value isn't solely determined by time value as your quote suggests. It's also based on volatility and demand. Here is a quote from http://www.tradingmarkets.com/options/trading-lessons/the-mystery-of-opti... |
What laws/regulations are there regardings gifts in the form of large sums of money? | This forum is not intended to be a discussion group, but I would like to add a different perspective, especially for @MrChrister, on @littleadv's rhetorical question "... estates are after-tax money, i.e.: income tax has been paid on them, yet the government taxes them again. Why?" For the cash in an estate, yes, ... |
Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | Up to some degree, a higher or lower interest rate means a bit less or a bit more money in your pocket. If the interest rate gets too high, you may be in trouble. So you first look at the situation and ask yourself: At what interest rate would I be in trouble? If this is a $20,000 student loan, then even a very high r... |
Can my employer limit my maximum 401k contribution amount (below the IRS limit)? | Companies are required BY THE IRS to try to get everybody to contribute minimal amounts to the 401K's. In the past, there were abuses and only the execs could contribute and the low paid workers were starving while the execs contributed huge amounts. On a year-by-year basis, if the low-paid employees don't contribut... |
What is the most effective saving money method? | A technique that is working pretty well for me: Hide the money from myself: I have two bank accounts at different banks. Let's call them A and B. I asked my employer to send my salary into account A. Furthermore I have configured an automatic transfer of money from account A to account B on the first of each month. I ... |
How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser) | I agree with JoeTaxpayer's answer. The question you should be asking is not "how do I spend more" but "how do I become happier". From what you say, it may be that you could increase your happiness simply by cutting back on these aggressive attempts to save a few bucks here and there. At the same time, if you do this,... |
Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? | Day trading is an attempt to profit on high frequency signal changes. Long term investing profits on low frequency changes. What is the difference? High Frequency Signal = the news of the day. This includes things like an earnings report coming out, panic selling, Jim Cramer pushing his "buy buy buy" button, an oil rig... |
Do common stocks and preferred stocks have any differences in terms of percentage of the company per unit they represent? | Preferred stocks are, err... Preferred. The whole point of preferred stocks is that they have some preference over other classes of stocks (there may be more than 2, by the way). It can be more voting rights, more dividends or priority on dividends' distribution (common with VC investments), or priority on liquidations... |
Options strategy - When stocks go opposite of your purchase? | I cannot believe noone mentioned this so far: Every decision you make is independent from previous decisions (that is, if you only care about your expected gain). This means that your decision whether to buy the option should be the same whether you bought the same option before or not. |
Strategic countermeasures to overcome crisis in Russia | The ruble was, is and will be very unstable because of unstable political situation in Russia and the economy strongly dependent of the export of raw resources. What you can do? I assume, you want to minimize risk. The best way to achieve that is to make your savings in some stable currency. Euro and Swiss Franc are cu... |
Investment Options for 14-year old? | When I was about your age I had the same kind of situation. I asked my bank about possible options and one of them was a guaranteed reserve. You lock the money away for a certain amount of years and you get a guaranteed amount of interest on it. I don't know what the current rate is at the moment so you'll have to ask ... |
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? | Ripped off may be too strong as it implies intent - I'm hopeful it's just bad logic or terminology. I would say better agreements would be: Borrowing money from family/friends is always risky. If you and your parents are comfortable with the situation and can reliably keep records of how much is owed at any given ti... |
How expensive is it to keep minimal cash at a brokerage? | You're trying to mitigate the risk of having your investments wiped out by fraud committed by your broker by using margin loans to buy stock secured by other, non-cash assets in your account. The solution that you are proposing does not make any sense at all. You mitigate a very low probability/high impact risk by doin... |
Are the AARP benefits and discounts worth the yearly membership cost? | It depends on you. If you're not an aggressive shopper and travel , you'll recoup your membership fee in hotel savings with one or two stays. Hilton brands, for example, give you a 10% discount. AARP discounts can sometimes be combined with other offers as well. From an insurance point of view, you should always shop a... |
How do government bond yields work? | Why does the rising price of a bond pushes it's yield down? The bond price and its yield are linked; if one goes up, the other must go down. This is because the cash flows from the bond are fixed, predetermined. The market price of the bond fluctuates. Now what if people are suddenly willing to pay more for the same fi... |
Which dividend bearing stock should be chosen by price? | In the scenario you describe, the first thing I would look at would be liquidity. In other words, how easy is it to buy and sell shares. If the average daily volume of one share is low compared to the average daily volume of the other, then the more actively traded share would be the more attractive. Low volume shar... |
Why is the stock market price for a share always higher than the earnings per share? | Stock prices are set by supply and demand. If a particular stock has a high EPS, say, $100, then people will bid more for that stock, driving up its price over one with a $10 EPS. Your job as an investor is to find stocks with low share prices, but which will give you high earnings (either in dividends, our future shar... |
Take advantage of rock bottom oil prices | I'm really surprised more people didn't recommend UGA or USO specifically. These have been mentioned in the past on a myriad of sites as ways to hedge against rising prices. I'm sure they would work quite well as an investment opportunity. They are ETF's that invest in nearby futures and constantly roll the position... |
Where should I invest my savings? | Basically the first thing you should do before you invest your money is to learn about investing and learn about what you want to invest in. Another thing to think about is that usually low risk can also mean low returns. As you are quite young and have some savings put aside you should generally aim for higher risk hi... |
Self employed as IT consultant and as massage therapist: Do I need 2 HST numbers? | Given your clarifying points, it sounds like you are running both businesses as one combined business. As such, you should be able to get just a single HST number and use that. However, let me please urge you to contact a professional accountant and possibly a lawyer, as it is very unusual to be performing these servic... |
Why is being “upside down” on a mortgage so bad? | The problem comes when the borrower cannot afford his home. If a borrower buys more home than they can afford, as long as he can sell the house for more than he owes, he's not in a disastrous situation. He can sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and choose more affordable housing instead. If he is upside-down on hi... |
What is a Student Loan and does it allow you to cover a wide range of expenses relating to school? | Short answer: student loans are loans given to people that are currently enrolled in school and yes, you can use them for personal expenses. Long answer: be very careful because you can easily be financially ruined if you borrow too much and can't repay it quickly. Once the loans get beyond a certain size relative to ... |
Should I open a Roth IRA or invest in the S&P 500? | Your question indicates confusion regarding what an Individual Retirement Account (whether Roth or Traditional) is vs. the S&P 500, which is nothing but a list of stocks. IOW, it's perfectly reasonable to open a Roth IRA, put your $3000 in it, and then use that money to buy a mutual fund or ETF which tracks the S&P 500... |
Why doesn’t every company and individual use tax-havens to pay less taxes? | In a nutshell, there are significant entrance hurdles, legally and especially financially. The fixed cost and effort to get it set up is high (although later, the proportional cost and efforts are negligible). Therefore, this is only of interest for taxable amounts of seven digits or more - which most people don’t reac... |
What economic growth rate is required to halve U.S. unemployment? | I'm reminded of Say's Law (developed by Jean-Baptiste Say) which can best be reduced to: The market clears (i.e. there is always some price at which an item will sell in a market). Full employment can always be obtained in any free market economy. People may not be pleased, however, with their wage rate. There are, h... |
How can the ROE on a stock be more than 100%? | A company's Return on Equity (ROE) is its net income divided by its shareholder's equity. The shareholder's equity is the difference between total assets and total liabilities, and is not dependent on the stock price. What it takes to have a ROE over 100% is to have the income be greater than the equity. This might h... |
What tax software automatically determines the best filing status, etc? | Rob - I'm sorry your first visit here has been unpleasant. What you are asking for is beyond the capability of most software. If you look at Fairmark.com, you find the standard deduction for married filing joint is $12,200 in 2012, and $12,400 in 2013. I offer this anecdote to share a 'deduction' story - The first yea... |
5/1 ARM: Lifetime cap, First Adjustment Cap, Margin, and Annual Cap? | You quote a rate (2.75%) and then quote a margin (1.75%). The margin is usually an addition to some base rate. How is the margin expressed in the figures you have? Is it included in the rate, or in addition to it? As for the other stuff, it looks like the rate can go up at most 1% per year, up to a maximum of 5% inc... |
How to measure how the Australian dollar is faring independent of the US dollar | The best answer to your question would to be what the interest rates are like in Australia itself. The Reserve Bank sets the target ‘cash rate’, which is the market interest rate on overnight funds. It uses this as the instrument for monetary policy, and influences the cash rate through its financial market oper... |
First time investor and online brokerage accounts | Most mutual funds are designed to make the investment banks that sell them money, not to make investers money. They do this by taking significant fees out. Because they make lots of money on these funds, they advertise them a lot, and give them important-sounding names, like "Advanced technology global diversity long t... |
Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks? | Because they receive compensation (generally interest + dividends) for loaning out the shares. I own an asset X. Somebody else wants to borrow asset X for some time period. I agree to loan them asset X in return for some form of compensation (generally a rate of interest plus, in this specific case, any dividend pa... |
Should I Have Received a 1099-G? | When you itemize your deductions, you get to deduct all the state income tax that was taken out of your paycheck last year (not how much was owed, but how much was withheld). If you deducted this last year, then you need to add in any amount that you received in state income tax refunds last year to your taxes this yea... |
How does the person lending shares to the short selller protect themselves if the short sellers are correct? | Lending of shares happens in the background. Those who have lent them out are not aware that they have been lent out, nor when they are returned. The borrowers have to pay any dividends to the lenders and in the end the borrowers get their stock back. If you read the fine print on the account agreement for a margin acc... |
Wardrobe: To Update or Not? How-to without breaking the bank | New clothes isn't exactly an emergency expense :) so I would strongly suggest that you budget for it on a monthly basis. This doesn't mean you have to go spend the money every month, just put a reasonable amount of money into the clothes budget/savings every month and when you need a new shirt or two, take the money ou... |
Will I be liable for taxes if I work for my co. in India for 3 months while I am with my husband in UK | Generally all the countries have similar arrangement regarding Income Tax, if you live in the UK for more than you stay in India for a given year then the Indian authorities won't be able to tax you but you might come under the UK Tax Law. |
Next option(s) after house is not selling on market? | EDIT: new ideas based on the full story. I wouldn't worry about the price history. While it is certainly true that some buyers might try to leverage that information against you, the bottom line is the price is the price. Both the buyer and the seller have to agree. If the initial listing was too high, then lower t... |
Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him? | For one thing fund managers, even fund management companies, own less money than their clients put together. On the whole they simply cannot underwrite 50% of the potential losses of the funds they manage, and an offer to do so would be completely unsecured. Warren Buffet owns about 1/3 of Berkshire Hathaway, so I supp... |
Who could afford a higher annual deductible who couldn't afford a higher monthly payment? | It's simple. Most people don't spend $6000 a year in medical care. As for myself, there's probably only $400 or less, mostly in annual checkups and the like. If you are the type to require more medical care, then you will pay more per month. I know a person with asthma, kidney stones, and inflammatory issues. This per... |
Good way to record currency conversion transactions in personal accounting software? | Here's what the GnuCash documentation, 10.5 Tracking Currency Investments (How-To) has to say about bookkeeping for currency exchanges. Essentially, treat all currency conversions in a similar way to investment transactions. In addition to asset accounts to represent holdings in Currency A and Currency B, have an fore... |
Leasing a car I intend to buy | You are still paying a heavy price for the 'instant gratification' of driving (renting) a brand-new car that you will not own at the end of the terms. It is not a good idea in your case, since this luxury expense sounds like a large amount of money for you. Edited to better answer question The most cost effective solu... |
Should I wait a few days to sell ESPP Stock? | It depends on how the program is run. If the company runs the program out of treasury stock (shares that are authorized, but not issued), then there aren't any shares being purchased on the open market. Because of that, the share price wouldn't be affected. If you look in your employer's annual report, you will pr... |
How do exchanges match limit orders? | The total limit book is a composite of all the orders on all of the exchanges. While it's uncommon for a limit order posted beyond the NBBO to fill outside of the NBBO, it does occur. For example, the best ask may be on exchange X, but for some reason the smart order routing algorithm may select exchange Y if it judges... |
If I pay someone else's property taxes, can I use it as a deduction on my income tax return? | You cannot deduct. Even if you could, unless you also hold the mortgage, it's unlikely that you would have sufficient deductions to exceed the standard deduction for a married couple. |
Can rent be added to your salary when applying for a mortgage? | The decision as to what counts as income is up to the bank. You'll need to ask them whether or not rental income can be included in the total. I can offer some anecdotal evidence: when I applied for a mortgage to buy my home, I already had a rental property with a buy-to-let mortgage on it. Initially the bank regarded ... |
What is a bond fund? | I used the term "bond fund" to mean a mutual fund which invests in bonds. Vanguard has a list. If you live in PA, OH, MA, FL, CA, NJ, or NY there are tax free funds you can invest in on that list. |
What does it mean for issuing corporations to “crank out expensive shares when markets are frothy … and issue debt when markets are cheap”? | crank out expensive shares when markets are frothy Corporations go public (sell their shares for the first time) in market conditions that have a lot of liquidity (a lot of people buying shares) and when they have to make the fewest concessions to appease an investing public. When people are greedy and looking to make ... |
Do Online Currency Exchanges' registration with the government guarantee safety and reliability? | Government registering of financial institutions usually is to make the government safe (eg FINTRAC is watching for money laundering and financing terrorism) rather than to make it's customers safe. Most governments have many levels of registrations and regulatory bodies. The most stringent requirements are usually ob... |
Why are residential investment properties owned by non-professional investors and not large corporations? | Because the returns are not good. One of the big drivers in Australia is "negative gearing": if your investment loses money you can offset losses against your tax on other income. Institutional investors and corporations are in the business of making money: not losing it. Housing market investors are betting that these... |
American taxes if living outside the US and get paid by US company on a US bank account | Technically, if you earn in US (being paid there, which means you have a work visa) and live in other country, you must pay taxes in both countries. International treaties try to decrease the double-taxation, and in this case, you may pay in your country the difference of what you have paid in US. ie. your Country is 2... |
Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real? | The short answer is yes, it is possible to do what these classes claim, however, it is highly unlikely. For every person they can show you that got rich using whatever so called method they are teaching, there are hundreds of people that didn't that they aren't telling you about. What I would recommend is invest in a w... |
Is it wise to have plenty of current accounts in different banks? | Another thing to factor in are deals provided by banks. In general, banks care about new customers more than their existing customers. Hence they explicitly restrict the best deals on credit cards, savings accounts, etc, to new customers only. (Of course, there are occasionally good deals for existing customers, and so... |
I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget? | Try a tool like mint.com that will send you text messages regarding how you budget is going. If you use mint, set up your budget to send you reminders before you hit your budget. Example: if my budget for dining out is $100, I tell mint.com it is $50 and I get nagging text messages after $50 to remind me to keep a l... |
I just made $50K from selling my house. How should I invest the proceeds? | It sounds like you want to lock-up your money in something relatively safe, and relatively hard to touch. You may want to consider a GIC (TD has one I found in a quick search) - from what I see it's the closest thing to a US CD. You won't get much back, but if you pick a 5-year term, you can't spend it* easily. Other o... |
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