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What do I need as documentation in order to pay taxes in the Netherlands? | The Dutch tax office is pretty decent, although slightly overburdened. Don't expect a lot of help, but they're not generally known for making a lot of problems. Digital copies are fine, for instance. They will send you your first VAT notice. You probably would have known if your company would have been incorporated, so... |
If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down? | The real answer is to talk to the bank. In the case of the last car loan I got, the answer is "no". When I asked them about rates, they gave me a printed sheet that listed the loan rates they offered based on how old the car was, period. I forget the exact numbers but it was like: New car: 4%, 1 year old: 4.5%, 2-3 yea... |
Dollar-cost averaging: How often should one use it? What criteria to use when choosing stocks to apply it to? | How often should one use dollar-cost averaging? Trivially, a dollar cost averaging (DCA) strategy must be used at least twice! More seriously, DCA is a discipline that people (typically investors with relatively small amounts of money to invest each month or each quarter) use to avoid succumbing to the temptation to ... |
Facebook buying WhatsApp for 19 Billion. How are existing shareholders affected? | Of course it is a dilution of existing shareholders. When you buy milk in the supermarket - don't you feel your wallet diluted a little? You give some $$$ you get milk in return. You give some shares, you get Watsapp in return. That's why such purchases must go through certain process of approval - board of directors (... |
Do the nasdaq small cap stocks or penny stocks get promoted? | Promotion of any stock should be treated with extreme suspicion, since the purpose is generally to make money for the promoter, not to inform the public. |
Why would my job recruiter want me to form an LLC? | The "independent contractor" vs. "employee" distinction is a red herring to this discussion and not at all important just because someone suggested you use your LLC to do the job. Corp-2-Corp is a very common way to do contracting and having an LLC with business bank accounts provides you with more tax deductions (such... |
How to rescue my money from negative interest? | How about placing the money in a safety deposit box at the same bank? This will probably work out cheaper than the loss due to negative rates. Although, I'm quite sure the banks won't like this idea. |
Why call option price increases with higher volatility | I agree that high volatility just means the underlying stock price fluctuates more, and it does not imply if the stock is going up or down. But a high volatility in the price of an underlying also means that there is a higher chance that the underlying price could reach extreme prices (albeit in either direction). Howe... |
What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD? | Windfalls can disappear in a heartbeat if you're not used to managing large amounts of money. That said, if you can read a bank statement and can exercise a modicum of self control over spending, you do not need a money manager. (See: Leonard Cohen) First, spend $15 on J.L. Collins' book The Simple Path to Wealth. ht... |
For a mortgage down-payment, what percentage is sensible? | The typical down-payment was expected to be 20%. The idea being that if one could not save 1/5 of the cost of a house, they were not responsible enough to ensure repayment of the loan. It is hard to say whether this is truly a relevant measure. However, in the absence of other data points, it is pretty decent. It ty... |
Is a website/domain name an asset or a liability? | This depends on your definitions of assets and liabilities. The word "asset" has a fairly straight forward definition. Generally speaking, an asset in finance is something that you own/control that has economic value. The asset has value because it is generating income for you or because you expect that it will be wo... |
Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed? | There are 3 options (option 2 may not be available to you) When you invest 18,000 in a Traditional 401k, you don't pay taxes on the 18k the year you invest, but you pay taxes as you withdraw. There's a Required Minimum Distribution required after age 70. If your income is low enough, you won't pay taxes on your withd... |
How does a online only bank protect itself against fraud? | There are Cyber Security and Reporting Standards which Financial Service Provider (Banks and Financial services where customers deposit and/or transact fiat currency) You can find a comprehensive list on Wikipedia under Cyber security standards Depending on the geographic location there might be local Govt requirements... |
Pros and cons of investing in a cheaper vs expensive index funds that track the same index | As has been pointed out, one isn't cheaper than the other. One may have a lower price per share than the other, but that's not the same thing. Let's pretend that the total market valuation of all the stocks within the index was $10,000,000. (Look, I said let's pretend.) You want to invest $1,000. For the time being, le... |
What factors you have do you count on to speculate effectively? | Strategy would be my top factor. While this may be implied, I do think it helps to have an idea of what is causing the buy and sell signals in speculating as I'd rather follow a strategy than try to figure things out completely from scratch that doesn't quite make sense to me. There are generally a couple of different... |
Using stock options to lower income tax in the USA? | You're talking about NQO - non-qualified stock options. Even assuming the whole scheme is going to work, the way NQO are taxed is that the difference between the fair market value and the strike price is considered income to you and is taxed as salary. You'll save nothing, and will add a huge headache and additional co... |
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card | never carry a balance on a credit card. there is almost always a cheaper way to borrow money. the exception to that rule is when you are offered a 0% promotion on a credit card, but even then watch out for cash advance fees and how payments are applied (typically to promotional balances first). paying interest on daily... |
Is there software to buy and sell stocks in real time on very small moves in price? | I'm answering in a perspective of an End-User within the United Kingdom. Most stockbrokers won't provide Real-time information without 'Level 2' access, however this comes free for most who trade over a certain threshold. If you're like me, who trade within their ISA Holding each year, you need to look elsewhere. I pe... |
For a major expensive home renovation (e.g. addition, finished basement, or new kitchen) should one pay cash or finance with a loan? Would such a loan be “good” debt? | Good debt is very close to an oxymoron. People say student loans are "good debt," but I beg to differ. The very same "good debt" that allowed me to get an education is the very same "bad debt" that doesn't allow me to take chances in my career - meaning, I would prefer to have a 'steady' job over starting a business.... |
Is there a generally accepted term for fractions of Currency Units? | I recently bought a stock - which was priced exactly as your question ponders, to the 1/100 cent. I happened to buy 2000 shares, but just a round lot of 100 would be enough to create no need for rounding. It's common for industry to price this way as well, where an electronic component purchased by the thousands, is ... |
“Correct” answer on Visa credit quiz doesn't make sense | I took the quiz that you linked too and answered with what I considered "ideal" answers with the exception of checking C for that particular question.... The first thing I saw was I needn't have bothered with giving the ideal answer as the result is self graded (paraphrased) as...all "A" great, mostly "A" good, mostly... |
Will getting a second credit card help my credit rating? | Besides your credit score, there are other smart reasons to have a second line of credit. (Your credit score doesn't affect you the majority of your life, but when it does whoooooo boy does it.) Should the first bank you have credit with create or find a clerical error, a second line of credit can provide a cushion wh... |
How to determine how much to charge your business for rent (in your house)? | Your best approach is to assess rent levels in your local area for offices of a similar size. You need to take into account all the usuals - amenities, parking, etc, just as if your home-office was provided by a third-party. Get your $/sq ft and work out the monthly amount. With this figure, you need to then work out w... |
What is network marketing? | Network Marketing (also called multi-level marketing) isn't necessarily a skill that you learn in a course. It's a type of business model that's used by companies like Avon, Southern Living, Mary Kay, etc. It's also used in many scams (called pyramid schemes, but the aforementioned companies are using the pyramid struc... |
Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud? | When you purchase a mortgage, you have to prove the source of your down payment. Primarily this is so that the mortgage lender knows that there are no other outstanding liens against the property. If you show that some or part of your down payment was a gift, there is no fraud, but it may affect your qualification fo... |
Online stock screener to find stocks that are negatively correlated to another stock/index? | SeekingAlpha has a section dedicated to Short ETFs as well as others. In there you will find SH, and SDS. Both of which are inverse to the S&P 500. Edit: I linked to charts that compare SH and SDS to SPY. |
What's the justification for the DJIA being share-price weighted? | The share-price weighting of the DJIA is a historical artifact. The DJIA remains share-price weighted today because that's the way it has always been done, and we're talking about an index with more than a hundred years' history. The DJIA was first calculated on May 26, 1896. Perhaps, back then, price-weighting was t... |
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... |
Can I make my savings keep in check with or beat inflation over a long time period via index funds? | If I invest in index funds or other long term stocks that pay dividend which I reinvest, they don't need to be worth more per share for me to make a profit, right? That is, if I sell part of the stocks, it's GOOD if they're worth more than I bought them at, but the real money comes from the QUANTITY of stocks that you ... |
Question about Tax Information from a Prospectus | At the end of each calendar year the mutual fund company will send you a 1099 form. It will tell you and the IRS what your account earned. You will see boxes for: You will end up paying taxes on these, unless the fund is part of a 401K or IRA. These taxes will be due even if you never sold any shares. They are due even... |
Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year? | Maybe it's just because of the foundation date. If I start a company on August 1st, I would like its FY starts on that date too, in order to track my first whole year. Would be quite useless to finish my year on December, after just five months. I want to have data of my first year after a twelve months activity. |
If I want to take cash from Portugal to the USA, should I exchange my money before leaving or after arriving? | You can find lots of answers to this question by googling. I found at least five pages about this in 30 seconds. Most of these pages seem to say that if you must convert cash, converting it in the destination country is probably better, because you are essentially buying a product (in this case, dollars), and it will ... |
Capital improvement and depreciation in restaurant LLC | First, you should probably have a proper consultation with a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). In fact you should have had it before you started, but that ship has sailed. You're talking about start-up expenses. You can generally deduct up to $5000 in the year your business starts, and the expenses ... |
Retirement Savings vs. Student Loan payments | Your plan sounds quite sound to me. I think that between the choices of [$800 for Loans, $300 for Retirement] and [$1100 for loans], both are good choices and you aren't going to go wrong either way. Some of the factors you might want to consider: I like your retirement savings choices - I myself use the admiral ver... |
Canceling credit cards - insurance rate increase? | You can't ask insurers to use a particular score -- they have a state-approved underwriting model that they must follow consistently. Insurance companies make money by not paying claims, and poor credit score (including limit access to credit) increases the probability that you will file a small claim. Why? If you get ... |
Possible Risks of Publicizing Personal Stock Portfolio | I am considering making my investment history publicly available online What is the benefit you are looking for by doing this? Just to establish that you are a successful investor, so in long run can predict things ... have tons of followers? If so yes. Go ahead. Updates to the portfolio would have to be near real-time... |
How far into the future is a stock future? How do stock futures work? | Futures are an agreement to buy or sell something in the future. The futures "price" is the price at which you agree to make the trade. This price does not indicate what will happen in the future so much as it indicates the cost of buying the item today and holding it until the future date. Hence, for very liquid pr... |
Why does the calculation for IRR use revenue, not profit? | The short answer is that you would want to use the net inflow or net outflow, aka profit or loss. In my experience, you've got a couple different uses for IRR and that may be driving the confusion. Pretty much the same formula, but just coming at it from different angles. Thinking about a stock or mutual fund inve... |
Tax me more: Can I pay extra to the government so I don't have to deal with all this paperwork? | Actually, if you don't care about paying a bit more, either hire an accountant and dump the paper on them, or (may be cheaper but a bit more work) spring for tax software. Modern tax programs can often download most of your data directly. If you don't care about claiming deductions you can skip a lot of the rest. I'm p... |
Is it adventageous to expedite my wedding before the new year for tax savings? | Yes on taxes. It depends on the other point. As you already see from Ben's comment, if you're both very Western in your culture, you may want to consider Ben's advice because while you will save money, it may not be considered a healthy way to start a relationship. Western culture tends to see marriage as more of a "d... |
Stock grant, taxes, and the IRS | If you have a one-time event, you are allowed to make a single estimated payment for that quarter on Form 1040-ES. People seem to fear that if they make one such payment they will need to do it forevermore, and that is not true. The IRS instructions do kind of read that way, but that's because most people who make es... |
Advice on strategy for when to sell | It was not 100% clear if you have held all of these stocks for over a year. Therefore, depending on your income tax bracket, it might make sense to hold on to the stock until you have held the individual stock for a year to only be taxed at long-term capital gains rates. Also, you need to take into account the Net In... |
Peer to peer lending business model (i.e. Lending Club) | The best description of P2P lending process I saw comes from the SEC proceedings. They are very careful about naming things that are happening in the process. Prosper got back to business after this order, but the paper describes succinctly how Prosper worked when its notes haven't yet been registered by the SEC. These... |
How much of each stock do index funds hold? | Note that an index fund may not be able to precisely mirror the index it's tracking. If enough many people invest enough money into funds based on that index, there may not always be sufficient shares available of every stock included in the index for the fund to both accept additional investment and track the index pr... |
What is a “retail revolving account,” and does it improve my credit score? | A retail revolving account is essentially a credit card offered by a store (or chain of stores) and usable only at that store. In my area, the Sears department store's "Sears card" would be a good example. Stores offer these to capture a bit more profit from the transaction. They don't have to pay someone else's proces... |
Could ignoring sunk costs be used to make an investment look more attractive when it's really not? | I'm not sure that you're considering all the options. So you may not subtract $X from B, but you do compare NPV(B) to $Y. Also, remember that we're not trying to figure out the return on B. We're trying to figure out what to do next. In terms of planning, the sunk cost is irrelevant. But in terms of calculating ... |
What industries soar when oil prices go up? | Generally speaking, you want to find goods and services that are inelastic and also require oil as a cost. Oil company stocks make record profits when oil is high, because direct demand for oil is relatively inelastic. Profit margins of oil competition should also go up, as this creates inflation in general, as people ... |
Why don't banks allow more control over credit/debit card charges? | Credit cards and debit cards make up the bulk of the transactions in the US. Visa and Mastercard take a percentage of each credit card transaction. For the most part, this fee it built into the price of what you buy. That is, you don't generally pay extra at the grocery store if you use a credit card (gasoline purch... |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | Well, you could replace it with.. itself! Microsoft Money Plus Sunset versions The Microsoft Money Plus Sunset versions are replacements for expired versions of Microsoft Money Essentials, Deluxe, Premium, and Home and Business. They allow existing customers to use MoneyPlus to continue accessing their data. Changes to... |
Why use accounting software like Quickbooks instead of Excel spreadsheets? | I think your reasons are good. Fundamentally accounting software is built to ensure you record your accounting data effectively with minimal mistakes and good auditing. But you still need to use the tool properly to get the benefit. One other advantage is that many accountants are familiar with, say QuickBooks, and can... |
Facebook buying WhatsApp for 19 Billion. How are existing shareholders affected? | It's a dilution of the ownership; the public used to own x% of Facebook and now they own less than x% of the bigger Facebook that incorporates Whatsapp (assuming that Whatsapp was completely private before). Logically, the $15 billion is allocated proportionately between the existing stockholders (x% of it for the gene... |
Organizing finances and assigning a number to each record type | What you are describing is a Chart of Accounts. It's a structure used by accountants to categorise accounts into sub-categories below the standard Asset/Liability/Income/Expense structure. The actual categories used will vary widely between different people and different companies. Every person and company is differe... |
College student lacking investment experience: How to begin investing money? | If you have wage income that is reported on a W2 form, you can contribute the maximum of your wages, what you can afford, or $5500 in a Roth IRA. One advantage of this is that the nominal amounts you contribute can always be removed without tax consequences, so a Roth IRA can be a deep emergency fund (i.e., if the ch... |
Why is Dell currently trading above the buyout price? | Dividends would be a possible factor you are ignoring. If Dell has another quarter or two to pay out dividends that could account for some of the difference there. I don't think there is a confirmed date of when the deal is done yet other than around the end of Dell's second quarter which was in the LA Times link you ... |
Is it worth it to buy TurboTax Premier over Deluxe if I sold investments in a taxable account? | I have used turbo tax for years. Apart from the snafu in 2014, I have had no problem using deluxe, and I have lots of asset sales to report. I prefer form mode anyway. I can import the data from my broker, and I can e-file with no problem. So the only thing I'm missing is the support. I can usually find answers to ... |
Why are daily rebalanced inverse/leveraged ETFs bad for long term investing? | In addition to the excellent answers here I might suggest a reason for investing in leveraged funds and the original purpose for their existence. Lets say you run a mutual fund that is supposed to track the performance of the S&P 500. If you have cash inflows and outflows from your fund due to people investing and s... |
RSU vested recently | ML is a brokerage firm. Tell them to sell. If you can't or don't know how to do it on-line - call them and do it over the phone. Your citizenship might come in effect when tax are withheld, you need to fill form W8-BEN if you haven't done so yet. If US taxes are withheld, you can file 1040NR to request refund, or get i... |
Do post-IPO 'insider' stock lockup periods still apply if you separate from the company | There are quite a few regulations on "Insider Trading". Blackouts are one of the means companies adopt to comply with "Insider Trading" regulations, mandating employees to refrain from selling/buying during the notified period. Once you leave the employment: So unless there is an urgent need for you to sell/buy the opt... |
Buying from an aggressive salesperson | My advice is to quit worrying about the salesman's tactics. They are a distraction. What do you want? How much are you willing to pay for it. If you want the instrument, decide how much you want to pay for it. Round down to the next even hundred. Take that much in $100 bills. Put the money in his hand and say, "... |
How to rescue my money from negative interest? | The problem is that every option comes with risk - as you note, if you put money in stocks, you could lose (and many stocks are overpriced). If you put money in bonds, you could lose (many bonds are overpriced). If you buy precious metals, they could fall further currently. If you hold cash, central banks might try ... |
Can I apply prior years' capital losses against my employee stock option exercise? | As I recall, the gain for ISOs is considered ordinary income, and capital losses can only negate up to $3000 of this each year. If you exercised and held the stock, you have ordinary income to the exercise price, and cap gain above that, if you hold the stock for two years. EDIT - as noted below, this answer works fo... |
Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career? | When you start to buy stock, don't buy too little of it! Stocks come at a cost (you pay a commission), and you need to maintain a deposit, you have to take these costs into account when buying to calculate your break even point for selling. Don't buy stock for less than 1.500€ Also, diversify. Buy stock from different ... |
How can foreign investor (residing outside US) invest in US company stocks? | (Note: out of my depth here, but in case this helps...) While not a direct answer to your question, I'll point out that in the inverse situation - a U.S. investor who wants to buy individual stocks of companies headquartered outside US - you would buy ADRs, which are $-denominated "wrapper" stocks. They can be listed ... |
Deceived by car salesman | At this point there is not much you can do. The documentation probably points to you being the sole owner and signer on the loan. Then, any civil suit will degenerate into a "he said, she said" scenario. Luckily, no one was truly harmed in the scenario. Obtaining financing through a car dealer is almost always not... |
Received mysterious K-1 form, seeking answers | You should contact the company and the broker about the ownership. Do you remember ever selling your position? When you look back at your tax returns/1099-B forms - can you identify the sale? It should have been reported to you, and you should have reported it to the IRS. If not - then you're probably still the owner. ... |
Creating a Limited company while still fully employed | I was just thinking ahead, can I apply for Limited company now, while fully time employed, and not take any business until I get a contract. Yes. You can open as many companies you want(assuming you are sane). There is no legal provisions regarding who can open a company. What happens if I create a company and it has... |
What is high trading volume in a stock indicative of? Is high liquidity a good thing or a bad thing? | In general, liquidity is a good thing, because it means it is easy for you to buy or sell a stock. Since high liquidity stocks have a lot of trading, the bid-ask spreads tend to be pretty low. That means you can go into the market and trade easily and cheaply at just about any time. For low liquidity stocks, the bi... |
how late can i put money into an IRA and still have it count for 2015? | The IRA contribution for the year are allowed until the tax day of that year. I.e.: you can contribute for 2015 until April 15th, 2016 (or whatever the first business day is after that, if the 15th is a holiday). You'll have to explicitly designate your contribution for 2015, since some of the IRA providers may automat... |
New car cash vs finance | Yes, maybe. Sometimes the mother company (that makes the car) covers a bit of the loss that comes from the super-offer loan, so the dealer loses a bit less. But generally, you are right. you should be able to talk them into some rebate that gets you around the given number, depending on how good you are a negotiator (a... |
Should I buy a home or rent in my situation? | My experience with owning a home is that its like putting down roots and can be like an anchor holding you to an area. Before considering whether you can financially own a home consider some of the other implications. Once you own it you are stuck for awhile and cannot quickly move away like you can with renting. So ... |
Simple income and expense report in gnucash | The official guide can be found here, but that can be a little in depth as well. To make good use of you need at least a little knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping. Double-entry bookkeeping, in accounting, is a system of bookkeeping so named because every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite e... |
Online tools for monitoring my portfolio gains/losses in real time? | I use Google Finance too. The only thing I have problem with is dividend info which it wouldn't automatically add to my portfolio. At the same time, I think that's a lot to ask for a free web site tool. So when dividend comes, I manually "deposit" the dividend payment by updating the cash amount. If the dividend comes ... |
Pros, cons, and taxation of Per Diem compensation? | Beware if injured on the job they will not add per diem to your wages meaning you make less and your wc benefits will be less !! |
How to calculate car insurance quote | On top of the given answers, the type of referral will also factor in. When you're up for renewal and go to a comparison site (in the UK: CompareTheMarket, MoneySupermarket, Confused, GoCompare, ... ) and struggle accurately through all their lists of questions, you see that some of the data differs (e.g., not all the ... |
Over how much time should I dollar-cost-average my bonus from cash into mutual funds? | There have been studies which show that Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) underperforms Lump Sum Investing (LSI). Vanguard, in particular, has published one such study. Of course, reading about advice in a study is one thing; acting on that advice can be something else entirely. We rolled over my wife's 401(k) to an IRA back... |
Starting a new job. Help me with retirement/debt planning please! | I would go with your alternative idea: get rid of the debt as fast as possible. You have $32k of debt. It's a lot, but with your new $90k salary, do you think you could get rid of it all in 12 months? See if you can make that happen. Once the debt is gone, you'll be in a position to invest as much as you want and ke... |
What is the smartest thing to do in case of a stock market crash | If the market has not crashed but you know it will, sell short or buy puts. If the market has crashed, buy equities while they are cheap. If you don't know if or when it will crash hold a diversified portfolio including stocks, bonds, real estate, and alternatives (gold, etc). |
Where to start with personal finance? | First of all, make sure you have all your credit cards paid in full -the compounding interests on those can zero out returns on any of your private investments. Fundamentally, there are 2 major parts of personal finance: optimizing the savings output (see frugal blogs for getting costs down, and entrepreneur sites for ... |
value of guaranteeing a business loan | You should ask the bank supplying the SBA loan about the % of ownership that is required to personally guarantee the loan. Different banks give different figures, but I believe the last time I heard about this it was 20% or more owners must personally guarantee the loan. Before you spend a lot of money on legal fees dr... |
Can a retail trader do bid-ask spread scalping through algo-trading? | In US public stock markets there is no difference between the actions individual retail traders are "permitted" to take and the actions institutional/corporate traders are "permitted" to take. The only difference is the cost of those actions. For example, if you become a Registered Market Maker on, say, the BATS stoc... |
Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out? | It sounds like you plan to sell sooner or later. If your opinion is that there is still room for the housing market to grow, make your bet and sell later. The real estate market is much less liquid than other markets you might be invested in, so if you do end up seeing trouble (another housing crash) you may be stuck w... |
Virtual Terminal WITHOUT merchant account? | You would need to setup a company (even if it's just a sole proprietorship, in the US) to be able to apply for a true merchant account. And thus have a terminal; either real or virtual in your home or business. However, many services such as paypal allow you to accept credit cards (both online and with a card reader) ... |
What would I miss out on by self insuring my car? | If you can afford to replace your car, it is more cost effective, on average and over time, not to carry comprehensive and collision insurance. The insurance companies do make a profit, after all. However, you may be able to worry less ("What if someone steals my car if I park here?") with the insurance, and you have t... |
Buying a more expensive house as a tax shelter (larger interest deduction)? | Two points You don't really get the full 10,000 annual interest as tax free income. Well you do, but you would have gotten a substantial amount of that anyway as the standard deduction. ...From the IRS.... Standard deduction The standard deduction for married couples filing a joint return is at $11,900 for 2012. The s... |
What happens to a call option in a cash/stock acquisition? | I believe that your option contracts will become "non-standard" and will be for a combination of ACE stock and cash. The allocation between stock and cash should follow that of the acquisition parameters of the underlying - probably with fractional shares converted to cash. Hence 1 call contract for 100 shares of CB w... |
Why do 10 year Treasury bond yields affect mortgage interest rates? | You’ve really got three or four questions going here… and it’s clear that a gap in understanding one component of how bonds work (pricing) is having a ripple effect across the other facets of your question. The reality is that everybody’s answers so far touch on various pieces of your general question, but maybe I can ... |
Higher auto insurance costs: keep car or switch to public transit? | So you will be saving $450 + price of commuting gas - cost of transportation + cost of commuting maintenance - the cost of recreational car rentals if decide to go without a car. For some people that cost is not enough to forego the convenience of owning a car. One factor you have not alluded too is your current finan... |
How are mortgage interest rates determined? | One will find that the fixed 30 year mortgage rate is tightly correlated to the 10 year treasury. An adder of 2-2.5% or so, changing slightly with the rest of the economy, as money can get tight or loose independent of the rate itself. In 2011 we are witnessing low rates yet tough loan standards, this is the phenomenon... |
Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time? | Properties do in fact devaluate every year for several reasons. One of the reasons is that an old property is not the state of the art and cannot therefore compete with the newest properties, e.g. energy efficiency may be outdated. Second reason is that the property becomes older and thus it is more likely that it requ... |
Does the expense ratio of a fund-of-funds include the expense ratios of its holdings? | I just looked at a fund for my client, the fund is T Rowe Price Retirement 2015 (TRRGX). As stated in the prospectus, it has an annual expense ratio of 0.63%. In the fine print below the funds expenses, it says "While the fund itself charges no management fee, it will indirectly bear its pro-rata share of the expens... |
Who determines, and how, the composition of the S&P 500 index? | The S&P 500 index is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices, a division of McGraw Hill Financial. Changes to the index are made periodically, as needed. For Facebook, you'll find it mentioned in this December 11, 2013 press release (PDF). Quote: New York, NY, December 11 , 2013 – S&P Dow Jones Indices will make the foll... |
How can my friend send $3K to me without using Paypal? | Not to overkill the theres a few more I can think of right now |
One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this? | Like @chirs, I'm of the opinion that you might want to buy more. I've done this a couple of times, price dropped a bunch, and I said, heck, I bought some last week, and this week I can get twice as much stock for about the same price. Brought down my average cost per share, and when the company was taken private, I act... |
Tax deductions on empty property | This doesn't sound very legal to me. Real estate losses cannot generally be deducted unless you have other real estate income. So the only case when this would work is when that person has bunch of other buildings that do produce income, and he reduces that income, for tax purposes, by deducting the expenses/depreciati... |
Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord? | With a healthy income its quite possible to contribute too much into 401Ks/IRAs. For example, if your retired today and had 3 million or so, how much more would you need? Would an extra million materially change your life? Would it make you happier if you invested that extra in some rental properties or perhaps a bu... |
How do I set up Quickbooks for a small property rental company that holds its properties in separate LLC's? | You need one "company file" for each company that you want to track through QuickBooks. Looks like, in your case, that is at least the PM and the PH (as you labeled them in your question). The companies that just hold property and pay utilities might be simple enough that you don't need the full power of QB, in which... |
How to approach building credit without a credit card | Keep in mind that credit takes time to build. Your best short-term solution is to save enough cash to put enough of a down-payment that the lower loan-to-value ratio outweighs the lack of credit history. If there's enough equity to ensure that the bank will get their money back if they have to foreclose, you will ha... |
Digital envelope system: a modern take | Envudu (envudu.com) looks very promising, and I think what they are planning to put out will do essentially everything you want. It's a single prepaid card, but with a connected app. On the app you choose which budget category you're going to spend on next, and then swipe your card. Your purchase gets deducted from tha... |
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? | Let me summarize your question for you: "I do not have the down payment that the lender requires for a mortgage. How can I still acquire the mortgage?" Short answer: Find another lender or find more cash. Don't overly complicate the scenario. The correct answer is that the lender is free to do what they want. They deem... |
How to withdraw money from currency account without having to lose so much to currency conversion? | If I understand your question, you're misunderstanding the buy/sell spread, and at least in this instance seem to be in an unfortunate situation where the spread is quite large. The Polish Zloty - GBP ideal exchange rate is around 5.612:1. Thus, when actually exchanging currency, you should expect to pay a bit more th... |
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