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At what point should I begin paying off student loans? | All great answers. The only thing I didn't see mentioned was that student loans are not dischargable in a bankruptcy. So for example if you took money that could have gone to student loans and poured it into other debt, then for some reason declared bankruptcy later, your student load debt would remain while other debt would be discharged; essentially that money would have been better spent on the student loan. This isn't to advocate that you should pay down student loans with the intent of declaring bankruptcy, or that this makes it a better decision necessarily, just a factor that is sometimes forgotten. |
How is unmarketable stock valued for tax purposes? | How you are taxed will depend on what kind of stock awards they are. The value will be determined by the company that issues it, and appropriate tax forms will be sent to you to include with your taxes. The way the value is determined is an accounting question that is off-topic here, but the value will be stated on your stock award paperwork. If you are awarded the stock directly then that value will be taxed as ordinary income. If you are awarded options, then you can purchase the stock to start the clock on long-term capital gains, but you will not incur any tax liability through the initial purchase. If the company is sold privately and you have held the stock for over 1 year, then yes, it will be taxed as a long-term capital gain. If you receive/exercise the stock less than 1 year before such an acquisition, then it will be considered a short-term capital gain and will be taxed as ordinary income. |
Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | @OP: It's all about risk. With a cash buyer the decision is left up to one person. With a financed buyer it adds another approval process (the lender). It's another opportunity for the deal to fall through. If the bank is the lender then there's even more risk. They've already taken back the property once and incurred cost and they're setting themselves up to do it all over again. The discount price can depend on a lot of factors. Maybe it's a bad area and they need to get rid of it. Maybe the appraisals for the area are low because of foreclosures and they know it will be hard for a Buyer to get a loan. Lots of reasons as to what price they'd take. @Shawn: Every deal has contingencies unless it's a foreclosure bought at auction. Even if you are getting a steal from the bank in terms of price you're always going to have an inspection period. If a Buyer doesn't need an inspection then he will just go to an auction and buy a property for an even cheaper price. |
Long(100%)-Short(-100%) investment explanation | When portfolio positions are reported in percentages, those percentages are relative to the portfolio's base equity. When you start out, that is equal to the cash you have in a portfolio. Later it's the net equity of the portfolio (i.e., how much money you could withdraw if you were to exit all your positions). If you put $5,000 into your account and are long and short 50%, then you are long $2,500 and short $2,500. If it's 100% and -100%, then long and short $5,000. "Leverage" is often computed gross (as if all positions were long). So if you have 100% and -100%, then your broker may say you are "levered 2 to 1." That is, your gross exposure is twice as large as your underlying base equity. |
Why don't more people run up their credit cards and skip the country? | Even if you could get it with no major hassle, $100,000 is just not that much money. In a cheap third world country, as an expat you're looking at spending about $800-$2000/month, plus unexpected expenses. Locals live on less, but very few of us would be happy with the lifestyle of a Honduran or Thai farmer. Your 100k will last 4-10 years. This is hardly a great deal considering you're cutting off ties back home and almost becoming a fugitive. With USD going down the drain (e.g. in Thailand it went down 25% in 3 years), this period would probably be even shorter. Of course, you could work in the new country, but if you do then you don't need 100k to start with. The initial amount may improve your security, but from that standpoint being able to go back and work in your home country is worth more. |
What is the added advantage of a broker being a member of NFA in addition to IIROC | This shows that in each market (US and Canada) the company is registered with the appropriate regulatory organization. OANDA is registered in the US with the National Futures Association which is a "self-regulatory organization for the U.S. derivatives industry". OANDA Canada is registered in Canada with IIROC which is the "Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada". The company does business in both the US and in Canada so the US arm is registered with the US regulatory organization and the Canadian arm is registered with the Canadian regulatory organization. |
What effect would sovereign default of a European country have on personal debt or a mortgage? | This is a hard question to answer. Government debt and mortgages are loosely related. Banks typically use yields on government bonds to determine mortgage interest rates. The banks must be able to get higher rates from the mortgage otherwise they would buy government bonds. Your question mentions default so I'm assuming a country has reneged on its promise to pay either the principal or interest on government bonds. The main thing to consider is "Who does not get their money?". In other words, who does the government decide not to pay. This is the important part. The government will have some money so they could pay some bond holders. They must decide who to shaft. For example, let's look at who holds Greek government debt. Around 70% of Greek government debt is held outside Greece. See table below. The Greek government could decide to default only on the debt to foreign holders. In that case the banks in France and Switzerland would take the loss on their bonds. This could cause severe problems in France and Switzerland depending on the percentage of Greek bonds that make up the banks' assets. Greek banks would still face losses, however, since the price of their Greek bond holdings would drop sharply when the government defaults. Interestingly, the losses for the Greek banks may be smaller than the losses faced by the French and Swiss banks. This is usually the favored option chosen by government since the French and Swiss don't vote in Greece. Yields on Greek government bonds would rise dramatically. If your Greek mortgage is an adjustable rate mortgage then you could see some big adjustments upward. If you live in France or Switzerland then the bank that owns your mortgage may go under if Greece defaults. During liquidation the bank will sell their assets which includes mortgages and you will probably not notice any difference in your mortgage. As I stated earlier: this is a hard question to answer since the two financial instruments involved (bonds and mortgages) are similar but may or may not be related. |
Why buy insurance? | The fundamental flaw here is conflating net worth with utility, at least failing to recognize that there's a nonlinear relationship between the two. In the extreme example imagine taking a bet that will either make you twice as rich or completely broke. Your expected return is zero, but it would be pretty dumb to take it since being flat broke could ruin your life while being twice as rich may only improve it marginally. In more realistic cases most of your income is tied up in fixed costs, which magnifies relatively small perturbations to your net worth. Losing something essential (like your house or car), even if it's only 20% of your net worth, renders you effectively broke until you scrape together enough cash to get another one. That situation robs you of much more utility than you'd gain from a 20% increase in net worth. In either case, avoiding the risk is completely rational as long as you believe in nonlinear utility as a function of net worth, it's not just an issue of humans being "risk averse". |
Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards? | I'm not sure if someone else answered already in the same manner I will. I can't guarantee for sure if it's the same in the U.S.A. (it might since major credit cards companies like Visa/MC/AMEX are American companies) but in Canada having/keeping unused CC is a disadvantage because of the following: Banks and financing companies look more at the total amount of credit available to you than at how much purchases you have on your cards. Ex: Let's say that you have the following: - Visa cc with $10,000 limit and $2000 worth of purchases (made more than 30 days ago) on it. - Mastercard cc with $10,000 limit as well and $1000 worth of purchases (less than 30 days old) - A major retail store cc with $2000 limit and $0 balance. Hypothetical situation: You want a bank loan to do some expensive house repairs and are looking for a lower interest rate than what your cc can offer. The bank will not care about the amount on the cards. They will add-up all the limits of your cc and treat your loan request as if ALL your cards were filled to their respective limit. So in this case: they will consider you as being right now in debt of $10K+$10K+$2K = $22,000 instead of only $3000 and they might: 1. refuse you the loan 2. grant it only if you transfer all purchases on a single card and cancel all the others. 3. Once the $3000 is transferred on one of the cards (and the others cancelled), they can require that you reduce the limit of that card. Hope this helps! |
What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate] | Most companies are taken over. One can reasonably guess that company X will be taken over for a price P, at some future point in time. Then the company has a value today, that is less than price P, by a large enough margin so that the investor will likely "make out" when the company finally is taken over at some unknown point in time. The exception is a company like Microsoft or Apple that basically grow too large to be taken over. But then they eventually start paying dividends when they become "mature." Again, the trick, during the non-dividend paying period (e.g. ten or fifteen years ago) is to guess what dividends will be paid in some future time, and price the stock low enough today so that it will be worthwhile for the buyer. |
How hard for US customers make payments to non-resident freelancer by wire transfer? | I would look for an alternative wire transfer service that will charge less. I use ofx, but note that they don't do transfers to roubles. The rate adjusts by amount being transferred and there is a $15 fee for under $5000. Upside is it is bank-to-bank. 2 days tops. |
What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time? | I've been using Tick at work now for several months and have really enjoyed it. It's got a nice, simple interface with good time-budgeting and multi-user/project features. It can be used on several platforms, too (website, desktop widgets, and phone apps). |
how does one see the CBOE VIX index on Google Finance? | For whatever reason, I don't believe they offer it. Yahoo does. A google for google finance VIX turns up people asking the question, but no quote on google. |
Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score? | No, don't open a credit card. Get used to paying cash for everything from the beginning. The best situation you can be in is not to have any credit. When it comes time to buy a house, put down %30 percent and your 0 credit score won't matter. This will keep you within your means, and, with governments gathering more and more data, help preserve your anonimity. |
What benefits are there to having a Pension (Retirement Account) In Ireland? | Here's an Irish government publication that should give you some background information to get you started. In a nutshell, you get tax benefits, but cannot withdraw money without penalty until you reach retirement age. |
How is it possible that a preauth sticks to a credit card for 30 days, even though the goods have already been delivered? | This is not a normal occurrence, and you have every right to be annoyed, but the technical way it usually happens goes like this: What can happen is when the merchant incorrectly completes the transaction without referencing the pre-authorization transaction. The bank effectively doesn't "know" this is the same transaction, so they process it the same way they process any other purchase, and it has no effect on the pre-authorization and related held/pending transaction. As far as the bank knows, you purchased a second set of blinds in the store for $200 and are still waiting on the first order to come in, they have no idea the store screwed up. The reason this is possible is the purpose of the pre-auth in the first place is that it is a contractual agreement between the bank (credit card) and the merchant that the funds are available, will be available except under rare special circumstances, and thus they can go ahead and process the order. This lets the merchant be secure in the knowledge that they can collect their payment, but you aren't paying interest or monthly payments on something you haven't even gotten yet! This system works reasonably well for everyone - right up until someone screws up and fails to properly release a hold, makes a second transaction instead of properly referencing the first one, or the bank screws up their system and fails to correctly match referenced pre-authorization codes to purchases. The problem is that this should not be a normal occurrence, and the people you are speaking with to try to sort out the issue often do not have the authority or knowledge necessary to properly fix the issue, or its such a hassle for them that they hope you just go away and time fixes the issue on its own. The only sure-fire solution to this is: make sure you have so much extra credit line that this doesn't effect you and you can safely let it time out on its own, or stop doing business with this combination of merchant/payment that creates the problem. Back when my credit limits were being pushed, I would never pay at gas pumps because their hold polices were so weird and unpredictable, and I would only pre-pay inside or with cash to avoid the holds. |
Will refinancing my auto loan hurt my mortgage approval or help it? | Generally it is not recommended that you do anything potentially short-term deleterious to your credit during the process of seeking a mortgage loan - such as opening a new account, closing old accounts, running up balances, or otherwise applying for any kind of loan (people often get carried away and apply for loans to cover furniture and appliances for the new home they haven't bought yet). You are usually OK to do things that have at least a short-term positive effect, like paying down debt. But refinancing - which would require applying for a non-home loan - is exactly the sort of hard-pull that can drop your credit rating. It is not generally advised. The exception to this is would be if you have an especially unusual situation with an existing loan (like your car), that is causing a deal-breaking situation with your home loan. This would for example be having a car payment so high that it violates maximum Debt-to-Income ratios (DTI). If your monthly debt payments are more than 43% of your monthly income, for instance, you will generally be unable to obtain a "qualified mortgage", and over 28-36% will disqualify you from some lenders and low-cost mortgage options. The reason this is unusual is that you would have to have a bizarrely terrible existing loan, which could somehow be refinanced without increasing your debt while simultaneously providing a monthly savings so dramatic that it would shift your DTI from "unacceptable" to "acceptable". It's possible, but most simple consumer loan refis just don't give that kind of savings. In most cases you should just "sit tight" and avoid any new loans or refinances while you seek a home purchase. If you want to be sure, you'll need to figure out your DTI ratio (which I recommend anyway) and see where you would be before and after a car refinance. If this would produce a big swing, maybe talk with some mortgage loan professionals who are familiar with lending criteria and ask for their opinion as to whether the change would be worth it. 9 times out of 10, you should wait until after your loan is closed and the home is yours before you try to refinance your car. However I would only warn you that if you think your house + car payment is too much for you to comfortably afford, I'd strongly recommend you seriously reconsider your budget, current car ownership, and house purchasing plans. You might find that after the house purchase the car refi isn't available either, or fine print means it wouldn't provide the savings you thought it would. Don't buy now hoping an uncertain cost-saving measure will work out later. |
Do I pay a zero % loan before another to clear both loans faster? | Your goal of wanting to eliminate your debts early is great. Generally, you can save more money by paying off loans with higher interest rates first. However, it sounds like you are excited about the idea of eliminating one of your car loans in two months. There is nothing wrong with that; it is good to be excited about eliminating debt. I like your plan. Pay off the $14.6k loan first, then apply the $635 monthly payment to the $19.4k loan. You'll have that loan paid off almost 3 years early. Perhaps you'll find some additional money to apply to it and get rid of it even earlier. After you've eliminated both car loans, save up that $1000/month for your next car. That will allow you to pay cash for it, which will allow you to negotiate the best price and save interest. 0% loans are not free money. Other answers will tell you to wait as long as possible to pay off your 0% loan, but I think there can be good reasons to eliminate smaller loans first, regardless of interest. |
If I own x% of company A, and A buys company B, do I own x% of B? | Ok, so imagine I own x% of Facebook and Facebook buys WhatsApp, does this mean I own x% of WhatsApp? Yea definitely , you own x% of Whatsapp assuming Facebook buys 100% of WhatApps which is in this case How much shares of FaceBook do I need to own to have access to WhatsApp's books? As WhatsApp is a privately held company by Facebook , Facebook is not obliged to reveal the books of WhatsApp , though some not all of the books of WhatsApp may appear in Facebook financial report , it really depends on Facebook Accounting policy. |
When will Canada convert to the U.S. Dollar as an official currency? | The conspiracy buffs think this is already in the works. If you are interested, Google this fictional currency called the "Amero." Or you could just look up the snopes article on Amero. |
Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money? | Day traders see a dip, buy stocks, then sell them 4 mins later when the value climbed to a small peak. What value is created? Is the company better off from that trade? The stocks were already outside of company hands, so the trade doesn't affect them at all. You've just received money from others for no contribution to society. A common scenario is a younger business having a great idea but not enough capital funds to actually get the business going. So, investors buy shares which they can sell later on at a higher value. The investor gets value from the shares increasing over time, but the business also gets value of receiving money to build the business. |
Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees | The same thing happened to me when I worked retail during my college years. I agree that it is unfair however, it is what it is. With that being said, there may be several factors that you should consider: the new employees might have more experience or qualifications then you, your work performance based on your manager's perspective, and like in my situation when I worked retail, I started out as a cashier which get paid less than sales associates but when I moved to a sales associate position I still got paid less and when I got my raise I got the same pay a new sales associate would get. I suggest you suck it up and ride it through until you get a real job because in retail, in my opinion, you are expendable, if you don't like their pay they will find someone else. |
Are parking spaces and garage boxes a good investment? | In Italy (even with taxes that are more than 50% on income) owning garages is generally a good business, as you said: "making money while you sleep", because of no maintainance. Moreover garages made by real concrete (and not wood like in US) are still new after 50 years, you just repaint them once every 20 years and you change the metal door gate once every 30 years. After 20 years you can be sure the price of the garage will be higher than what you paied it (at least for the effect of the inflation, after 20 years concrete and labour work will cost more than today). The only important thing before buying it is to make sure it is in an area where people are eager to rent it. This is very common in Italian cities' downtown because they were built in dark ages when cars did not exists, hence there are really few available parkings. |
Using a self-directed IRA to buy vacation condo, rent it out to an LLC for $1 | I don't quite understand your thought process here. First, in a tax-advantaged retirement account you are NOT allowed to engage in a transaction with yourself. If you just want to run a business and be able to write off expenses, how is using the self-directed IRA relevant? You can either buy the condo using your tax-advantaged account and rent it out to regular tenants. Or you buy the condo yourself using your own money and then operate your business so you can deduct business expenses from doing so. 401k's allow you to take a loan out of it, so you can look into that as well. |
How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent? | If credit scoring works in the UK like it does in the US, then I think the fact that you own+use a credit card and pay off your everyday expenses will give you perfectly good credit. Just keep doing what you're doing. I have seen people in the United States with very high credit scores based solely upon owning & occasionally using a credit card, paid in full and on time every month. |
When is the right time to buy a new/emerging technology? | The short answer is that it's never the right time to buy an emerging technology. As long as the technology is emerging, you should expect that newer revisions will be both better and less expensive. With solar, specifically, there are some tax credits to help the early adopters that may help you on the cost/benefit analysis, but in the end, you still have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs now, and if not, whether that will change in the near future. For me, part of the solar benefit is the ability to generate electricity when the power goes out. That option does require local battery storage, however. One of the benefits of using Musk's solar tiles instead of actual slate is the weight of the quartz tiles which is much lower than the weight of real slate. In many cases a slate roof is heavy enough to require major reinforcement of the roof trusses before installation. The lower weight also saves significantly on shipping costs. This is where Musk can lower costs enough to be competitive to some of the materials he hope to compete with. |
Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market? | Originally, stocks were ownership in a company just like any other business- you expected to make a profit from your investment, which is what we call dividends to stock holders. Since these dividends had real value, the stock price was based on what this return rate was, factoring in what it might be expected to be in the future, etc. Nowdays many companies never issue any dividends, so you have to consider the full value of the company and what benefit could be gained by another company if it were to acquire it. the market will likely adjust the share price to factor in what the value of the company might be to an acquirer. But otherwise, some companies today trading at an astronimical price, and which nevers pays a dividend- chalk it up to market stupidity. In this investor'd mind, there is no logical reason for these prices, except based on the idea that someone else might pay you more for it later... for what reason? I can't figure it out. Take it back to it's roots and imagine pitching a new business idea to you uncle to invest in- it will make almost nothing compared to it's share price, and even what it does make it won't pay anything to him for his investment. Why wouldn't he just laugh at you? |
Slow destruction on co-signed property | First off learn from this: Never cosign again. There are plenty of other "tales of woe" outlined on this site that started and ended similarly. Secondly do what you can to get off of the loan. First I'd go back to her dad and offer him $1000 to take you off the loan and sign over the car. Maybe go up to $3000 if you have that much cash. If that doesn't work go to the bank and offer them half of the loan balance to take you off. You can sign a personal loan for that amount (maybe). Whatever it takes to get off the loan. If she has a new BF offer him the same deal as the dad. Why do you have to do this? Because you owned an asset that was once valued at 13K and is valued at (probably) less than 4K. Given that you have a loan on it the leverage works against you causing you to lose more money. The goal now is to cut your losses and learn from your mistakes. I feel like the goal of your post was to make your ex-gf look bad. It's more important to do some self examination. If she was such a bad person why did you date her? Why did you enter a business transaction with her? I'd recommend seeking counseling on why you make such poor choices and to help you avoid them in the future. Along these lines I'd also examine your goals in life. If your desire is to be a wealthy person, then why would you borrow money to buy a car? Seek to imitate rich people to become rich. Picking the right friends and mates is an important part of this. If you do not have a desire to be a wealthy person what does it matter? Losing 13K over seven months is a small step in the "right" direction. |
Pensions, why bother? | James, money saved over the long term will typically beat inflation. There are many articles that discuss the advantage of starting young, and offer: A 21 year old who puts away $1000/yr for 10 years and stops depositing will be ahead of the 31 yr old who starts the $1000/yr deposit and continues through retirement. If any of us can get a message to our younger selves (time travel, anyone?) we would deliver two messages: Start out by living beneath your means, never take on credit card debt, and save at least 10%/yr as soon as you start working. I'd add, put half your raises to savings until your rate is 15%. I can't comment on the pension companies. Here in the US, our accounts are somewhat guaranteed, not for value, but against theft. We invest in stocks and bonds, our funds are not mingled with the assets of the investment plan company. |
Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve? | Central Banks are essentially a cartel, designed to let banks in general borrow money from depositors at relatively low interest rates. They do this in two ways: By reassuring depositors that momentary cash flow problems at banks will not result in banks failing, they lower the interest rates that depositors demand. And by imposing strict regulations on banks that are borrowing from depositors at high interest rates. (People who move money to the banks offering the highest interest rates are especially likely to participate in bank runs.) Borrowing "too much" from the Central Bank is considered to be a sign of a bank that is too weak to attract deposits from depositors at "reasonable" interest rates. If a bank borrows "too much" (as a percentage of the bank's assets) from the Central Bank, the bank regulators will subject the bank to heavy scrutiny. If the bank fails to find ways to reduce its borrowing from the Central Bank, the bank regulators are likely to steal the bank from its shareholders, and sell the bank to a "stronger" bank that pays lower interest rates. |
What does it mean that stocks are “memoryless”? | I think that "memoryless" in this context of a given stock's performance is not a term of art. IMO, it's an anecdotal concept or cliche used to make a point about holding a stock. Sometimes people get stuck... they buy a stock or fund at 50, it goes down to 30, then hold onto it so they can "get back to even". By holding the loser stock for emotional reasons, the person potentially misses out on gains elsewhere. |
I have a horrible 401k plan, with high expenses. Should I stay with it or move my money elsewhere? | As to the rollover question. Only rollover to a ROTH if you have other funds you can use to pay the taxes you will be hit with if you do that. DO NOT pay the taxes out of the funds in the 401k. If you don't have a way to pay the taxes, then roll it to a traditional IRA. You never want to pay the government any taxes 'early' and you don't want to reduce the balance. beyond that, A lot depends on how long you figure you will be with that company. If it's only a few years, or if you and other employees can make enough of a fuss that they move the fund to someplace decent (any of the big no-load companies such as Vanguard would be a better custodian), then I'd go ahead and max it out. If you figure to be there for a long while, and it looks like someone is in bed with the custodian and there's no way it will be changed, then maybe look to max out a Roth IRA instead. |
How much (paper) cash should I keep on hand for an emergency? | Coming from an area that is hurricane prone, and seeing what happens to local businesses during evacuations/power outages/gas shortages, I think what you already have on hand should be sufficient. And it sounds like that's exactly what you're budgeting for. I'd say 2 weeks worth of fuel and food costs, with the budget for each in line with riding out a natural disaster. True "Preppers" would say keep your money in gold buried in the backyard surrounded by land mines, but that's not perhaps what you're looking for. It is not uncommon for gas stations and grocery stores to revert to cash only sales, especially if they're not big chain operations. If the internet is out, or power is spotty, they may not be able to process CCs. Again, think smaller or more rural businesses. I have seen gas stations switch to cash only during gas shortages as well to help limit how much fuel people were buying. $250 should get you through fine unless you drive a tank and need steak every night. You could probably go with less, but it's entirely dependent on your needs. As Joe rightly stated in his answer, if it's desperate enough times that you can't use a CC or debit card, cash may not even be useful to you. |
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 buy new stuff when they want it knowing they will not get a better deal if they wait a year or so. |
Tax considerations for outsourcing freelance work to foreign country | If a person is not a U.S. citizen and they live and work outside the U.S., then any income they make from a U.S. company or person for services provided does not qualify as "U.S. Source income" according to the IRS. Therefore you wouldn't need to worry about withholding or providing tax forms for them for U.S. taxes. See the IRS Publication 519 U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens. |
Can dues and subscriptions expenses be deducted 100% to calculate taxable income in an LLC company? | IRS Publication 529 is the go-to document. Without being a tax professional, I'd say if the dues and subscriptions help you in the running of your business, then they're deductible. You're on your own if you take my advice (or don't). ;) |
Can signing up at optoutprescreen.com improve my credit score? | Sounds like a case of false causality. If somebody is taking the time to sign up at opt out sites, then that same person is probably making other smart decisions with their credit, causing scores to rise. Optoutprescreen.com does not help your score, the other actions taken might. People seeing different results can probably be tied to the timeframe they signed up. People who signed up then took care of their credit vs. people whose credit was already good and then signed up. A 10 pt bounce one way or the other is not significant. |
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 is title insurance, and should I get title insurance for my home? | When we got our mortgage in the state of Washington, in the United States, we had to get title insurance before our lender would loan the money. This ensures that the person selling us the house actually owns the title, clean and clear. If there are any surprises, the insurance covers us (or the lender, really). |
Where can I find all public companies' information? | Edgar Online is the SEC's reporting repository where public companies post their forms, these forms contain financial data Stock screeners allow you to compare many companies based on many financial metrics. Many sites have them, Google Finance has one with a decent amount of utility |
Can you recommend some good websites/brokers for buying/selling stocks in India? | There are quite a few online brokers ... All of these have different pricing structure and the right one would depend on the amount of & type of trading you are doing, for example Reliance Money offer 1 paise brokrage, but with a higer anual fees, so it makes sense if you are doing delivery trades and not IPO or Day trades ... Others changes less of anual fees but more of brokrage. |
Is there a way to monitor when executives or leaders in a company sell off large holdings? | Exec Insiders have to file with the SEC and some sites like secform4.com track it. But many insiders have selling programs where the sell the same amount every month or quarter so you would have to do your homework to determine if there are real signals in the activity. |
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 the two situations listed earlier qualified you for the extension. The "regular" 6 months extension though is granted automatically, upon request, so if you cannot make it by June deadline you should file the form 4868 to request a further extension. Automatic 6-month extension. If you are not able to file your return by the due date, you generally can get an automatic 6-month extension of time to file (but not of time to pay). To get this automatic extension, you must file a paper Form 4868 or use IRS e-file (electronic filing). For more information about filing electronically, see E-file options , later. Keep in mind that the due date is still April 15th (18th this year), so the 6-month extension pushes it back to October. Previous 2-month extension. If you cannot file your return within the automatic 2-month extension period, you generally can get an additional 4 months to file your return, for a total of 6 months. The 2-month period and the 6-month period start at the same time. You have to request the additional 4 months by the new due date allowed by the 2-month extension. You can ask an additional 2 months extension (this is no longer automatic) to push it further to December. See the publication. These are extension to file, not to pay. With the form 4868 you're also expected to submit a payment that will cover your tax liability (at least in the ballpark). The interest is pretty low (less than 1% right now), but there's also a penalty which may be pretty substantial if you don't pay enough by the due date. See the IRS tax topic 301. There are "safe harbor" rules to avoid the penalty. |
How to know which companies enter the stock market? | NASDAQ provides a very good IPO calendar as well for US listings. |
Hiring freelancers and taxes | I am not a lawyer or a tax accountant, but from the description provided it sounds to me like you have created two partnerships: one in which you share 50% of Bob's revenue, and another in which you share 50% of the revenue from the first partnership. If this is the case, then each partnership would need to file form K-1 and issue a copy to the partners of that partnership. I think, but I'm not sure, that each partnership would need an Employer Identification Number (EIN; you can apply for and receive these online with the IRS). You would only pay tax on the portion of profits that are assigned to you on the K-1. (If you've accidentally created a partnership without thinking through all the ramifications, you probably want to straighten this out. You can be held liable for the actions of your partners.) On the other hand, if your contract with Bob explicitly makes you a contractor and not a partner, then Bob should probably be issuing a 1099 to you. Similarly for you and Joe -- if your contract with Joe makes him a subcontractor, then you may need to get an EIN and issue him a 1099 at the end of the year. The money you pay to Joe is a business expense, and would be deducted from the profits you show on your Schedule C. In my opinion, it would be worth the $200 fee paid to a good CPA to make sure you get this right. |
Must ETF companies match an investor's amount invested in an ETF? | First, it's an exaggeration to say "every" dollar. Traditional mutual funds, including money-market funds, keep a small fraction of their assets in cash for day-to-day transactions, maybe 1%. If you invest $1, they put that in the cash bucket and issue you a share. If you and 999 other people invest $100 each, not offset by people redeeming, they take the aggregated $100,000 and buy a bond or two. Conversely, if you redeem one share it comes out of cash, but if lots of people redeem they sell some bond(s) to cover those redemptions -- which works as long as the bond(s) can in fact be sold for close enough to their recorded value. And this doesn't mean they "can't fail". Even though they are (almost totally) invested in securities that are thought to be among the safest and most liquid available, in sufficiently extreme circumstances those investments can fall in market value, or they can become illiquid and unavailable to cover "withdrawals" (redemptions). ETFs are also fully invested, but the process is less direct. You don't just send money to the fund company. Instead: Thus as long as the underlyings for your ETF hold their value, which for a money market they are designed to, and the markets are open and the market maker firms are operating, your ETF shares are well backed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund for more. |
Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve? | They don't need to accept deposits from normal persons, but that's how they make lots of money. Banks make money off the fees they charge retailers when those folks swipe their debit cards at the retailer. It's their bread and butter. In order to facilitate you accruing swipe fees for them, they need to allow you to make deposits, on which they can charge the retailers swipe fees. |
What effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock? | Your autograph analogy seems relevant to me. But it is not just speculation. In the long run, investing in stocks is like investing in the economy. In the long run, the economy is expected to grow , hence stock prices are expected to go up. Now in theory: the price of any financial instrument is equal to the net present value today of all the future cash flows from the instrument. So if company's earnings improve, shareholders hope that the earnings will trickle down to them either in form of dividends or in form of capital gain. So they buy the stock, creating demand for it. I can try to explain more if this did not make any sense. :) |
Paying Tax on Stocks Trading | The answer to your question doesn't depend on who you trade with but what country you live in. If you live outside of the US, you will have to pay tax on dividends... sometimes. This depends on the tax treaty that your country has with the US. Canada, Australia, UK and a few other countries have favorable tax treaties with the US that allow you to not be double taxed. You must look into the tax treaty that your home country has with the US to answer the question. Each country is different. |
Is Amazon's offer of a $50 gift card a scam? | Based on my personal experience with that particular offer, I can say that it's not really a scam. I signed up for an Amazon Credit Card to get $70 off a purchase, but then never used the card. In fact, I never even called to activate it! After a few months, I then called to cancel it. I did not see a significant hit to my credit. However if you do shop frequently at Amazon it may be in your best interest to use their card, because it has other discounts associated with it. |
What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund? | Having a highly liquid emergency fund can lubricate the wheels for disaster recovery. For example, several years ago I returned from a vacation to discover that, during my absence, a plumbing fixture had broken and my house was flooded. Since we had sufficient liquidity to cover the cost of the repairs in our emergency fund, the insurance company was much easier to deal with, and the relationships between the contractor, bank, and insurance company were much smoother. The bank was able to approve the insurance in minutes versus days. Ironically, we didn't actually have to touch our emergency fund precisely because we had it. Clarification - I make it a point to have no debt. |
Insurance for a house which is not homeowners insurance? | What you need will depend on a number of factors that aren't clear from the question. This coverage is simply called "Vacant home insurance", but not all companies are willing to offer this coverage. Unfortunately, in New York, insurers can also legally drop your standard homeowners' coverage if they become aware that your property has become vacant for 30 days or more. The Insurer's Concerns Typically, a "standard" homeowners policy will have an exclusion clause for vacant homes. The insurance company's concern is that without someone in the home, they will be at risk for break-ins, squatters and vandalism. If you've ever seen "Flip Men" on Spike, you'll know this is a serious concern (great show, by the way). They will use a risk model to calculate an estimated risk for the property (this is why a seasonal vacation home in a sparsely-populated area is often less of a concern than a family home in an urban area). If they estimate the risk to be low, some insurance companies will allow to you buy back that exclusion so that vacant properties are covered. In your case, they have probably decided that either: Your Options First, you need to find a company that is comfortable with taking on the extra risk of a vacant home. This will vary quite a bit by location, but the main ones are Farmer's (they use the Foremost brand name in New York) and Castle Rock. There are lots of insurance agencies that also advertise these products, but most of them are middlemen and use one of these two companies to actually write the coverage. Additionally, since this is a specialty policy, make sure you understand all of the details of the policy, and how they vary from a regular policy including: How to Reduce your Premium costs These are general tips from the Murray Group's website (an independent broker in NY) on how to lower the additional cost of vacant coverage: This may sound expensive, but these steps will all reduce the risk of something really bad happening when you're not there. Additionally, do you know anyone you completely trust (relative, unemployed friend) that might want to live in your old house rent-free for a while? This could work out for you if they are willing to keep the place 100% clean around the clock so that you can show the house at any time. If you have additional/specific questions, you should be able to find an independent insurance broker in your area that would be willing to advise you on your specific situation for a flat fee. Best of luck with getting the home covered and sold quickly! |
If I'm going to start doing my own taxes soon, do I need to start keeping receipts for everything? | The other reason you might want to keep receipts is if you do any freelancing or contract work, for your business expenses. You can take a picture of the receipts with your phone, or scan them - you don't have to keep the paper copies. |
Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings? | Read the terms and conditions very carefully. Many zero percent deals have a requirement that you pay back at a certain date, and if you don't, you'll have to pay some enormous percentage. Nobody will remind you of the date, because the lender has the secret hope that you will forget. |
Negative interest rates and search for yield | Can it be so that these low-interest rates cause investors to take greater risk to get a decent return? With interest rates being as low as they are, there is little to no risk in banking; especially after Dodd-Frank. "Risk" is just a fancy word for "Will I make money in the near/ long future." No one knows what the actual risk is (unless you can see into the future.) But there are ways to mitigate it. So, arguably, the best way to make money is the stock market, not in banking. There is a great misallocation of resources which at some point will show itself and cause tremendous losses, even maybe cause a new financial crisis? A financial crisis is backed on a believed-to-be strong investment that goes belly-up. "Tremendous Losses" is a rather grand term with no merit. Banks are not purposely keeping interest rates low to cause a financial crisis. As the central banks have kept interest rates extremely low for a decade, even negative, this affects how much we save and borrow. The biggest point here is to know one thing: bonds. Bonds affect all things from municipalities, construction, to pensions. If interest rates increased currently, the current rate of bonds would drop vastly and actually cause a financial crisis (in the U.S.) due to millions of older persons relying on bonds as sources of income. |
Does an individual share of a stock have some kind of unique identifier? | I agree with the answer by @Michael that this number doesn't exist. It's hard to see what use it would have and it would be difficult to track. I'm writing a separate answer because I also disagree with the premise of your question: Individual shares of stock have never to my knowledge had such a number. Your comment about numbers on stock certificates identifies the certificate document, which will generally represent multiple shares of stock. That number no more identifies a single share of stock than the serial number on a $10 bill identifies any one of the ten dollars it represents. Even at the "collective" unit of $10, when the bill is eventually replaced with a new one, the new bill has a new number. No continuity. |
static data for mutual funds/hedge funds | It's not really my field, but I believe it's all the information that doesn't change (i.e. isn't "real-time") about the business of hedge funds. For example, this site quotes: The product maintains comprehensive static data records including assets, depositories, accounts, settlement instructions and a wide range of supporting data... |
What headaches will I have switching from Quicken to GnuCash? | I have not used Quicken; I've used GnuCash exclusively. It feels a bit rough with the UI: Balancing that, the data is stored in a gzip-compressed xml file. The compression is also optional, so you can save it as a plain xml file. This means that you have some hope of recovery if you wind up with a corrupted file. (And for programmer-types, you could keep it in source control for additional peace of mind.) My wife and I have been using it for several years now, and has worked well for us. LWN.net had a pair of Grumpy Editor reviews on personal finance software here and here which would be worth reading. |
What typically happens to unvested stock during an acquisition? | I've been through two instances where I worked for a public company that was merged (for stock) into another company. In both cases the options I had were replaced with equivalent options in the merged company with the number of shares and strike price adjusted at the same rate as the actual stock was converted, and the vesting terms remained essentially the same. In other words, the options before and after were in essence equivalent. |
I am turning 18 and I am a Student, I need strategies on building great credit soon. Where should I start? | Based on the formula used by FICO which is pretty much what you want to focus on, the following is recommended for someone with no credit history: When you get all this, follow the following habits to make sure it does you some good: Follow these and you will do great, I started with a $500 Discover card and $500 Chase Visa at UCLA and a Union 76 gas card, I had 700+ credit in less than 2 years. Good luck and be vigilant. |
When is it worth it to buy dividend-bearing stocks? | Yes, they are, and you've experienced why. Generally speaking, stocks that pay dividends will be better investments than stocks that don't. Here's why: 1) They're actually making money. They can finagle balance sheets and news releases, but cash is cash, it tells no lies. They can't fake it. 2) There's less good they can do with that money than they say. When a business you own is making money, they can do two things with it: reinvest it into the company, or hand it over to you. All companies must reinvest to some degree, but only a few companies worth owning can find profitable ways of reinvesting all of it. Having to hand you, the owner, some of the earnings helps keep that money from leaking away on such "necessities" like corporate jets, expensive printer paper, or ill-conceived corporate buyouts. 3) It helps you not freak out. Markets go up, and markets go down. If you own a good company that's giving you a nice check every three months, it's a lot easier to not panic sell in a downturn. After all, they're handing you a nice check every three months, and checks are cash, and cash tells no lies. You know they're still a good company, and you can ride it out. 4) It helps others not freak out. See #3. That applies to everyone. That, in turn means market downturns weigh less heavily on companies paying solid dividends than on those that do not. 5) It gives you some of the reward of investing in good companies, without having to sell those companies. If you've got a piece of a good, solid, profitable, growing company, why on earth would you want to sell it? But you'd like to see some rewards from making that wise investment, wouldn't you? 6) Dividends can grow. Solid, growing companies produce more and more earnings. Which means they can hand you more and more cash via the dividend. Which means that if, say, they reliably raise dividends 10%/year, that measly 3% dividend turns into a 6% dividend seven years later (on your initial investment). At year 14, it's 12%. Year 21, 24%. See where this is going? Companies like that do exist, google "Dividend Aristocrats". 7) Dividends make growth less important. If you owned a company that paid you a 10% dividend every year, but never grew an inch, would you care? How about 5%, and it grows only slowly? You invest in companies, not dividends. You invest in companies to make money. Dividends are a useful tool when you invest -- to gauge company value, to smooth your ride, and to give you some of the profit of the business you own. They are, however, only part of the total return from investing -- as you found out. |
Does an owner of a bond etf get an income even if he sells before the day of distribution? | Bond ETFs are traded like normal stock. It just so happens to be that the underlying fund (for which you own shares) is invested in bonds. Such funds will typically own many bonds and have them laddered so that they are constantly maturing. Such funds may also trade bonds on the OTC market. Note that with bond ETFs you're able to lose money as well as gain depending on the situation with the bond market. The issuer of the bond does not need to default in order for this to happen. The value of a bond (and thus the value of the bond fund which holds the bonds) is, much like a stock, determined based on factors like supply/demand, interest rates, credit ratings, news, etc. |
Unemployment Insurance Through Options | That's not unemployment insurance. Because it's perfectly possible, and even likely, that your industry will do badly but you'll keep your job, or that your industry will do well but you'll lose your job anyway. Any bet you make to insure yourself against unemployment has to be individually about you -- there are no suitable proxies. |
Do Affordable Care Act business requirements apply to “control groups?” | Yes, it applies to control groups. If I remember correctly common ownership rules are used to determine "Applicable Large Employer" status but if the time comes to owe a penalty, only the actual entity missing the mark will owe a penalty, not the entire control group. This is an excerpt from Section 4980H (the section that lays out employer requirements and penalties) (16) Employer. The term employer means the person that is the employer of an employee under the common-law standard. See § 31.3121(d)-1(c). For purposes of determining whether an employer is an applicable large employer, all persons treated as a single employer under section 414(b), (c), (m), or (o) are treated as a single employer. Thus, all employees of a controlled group of entities under section 414(b) or (c), an affiliated service group under section 414(m), or an entity in an arrangement described under section 414(o), are taken into account in determining whether the members of the controlled group or affiliated service group together are an applicable large employer. For purposes of determining applicable large employer status, the term employer also includes a predecessor employer (see paragraph (a)(36) of this section) and a successor employer. Link to the Federal Register |
How do I deduct payments to others out of a single payment to the group for contract work? | You send the proper form to the other person for the amount you gave him, and file it as your business expense on your Schedule C. |
Sales Tax: Rounded Then Totaled or Totaled Then Rounded? | Tax is often calculated per item. Especially in the days of the internet, some items are taxable and some aren't, depending on the item and your nexus. I would recommend calculating and storing tax with each item, to account for these subtle differences. EDIT: Not sure why this was downvoted, if you don't believe me, you can always check with Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_468512_calculated?nodeId=468512#calculated I think they know what they're talking about. FINAL UPDATE: Now, if someone goes to your site, and buys something from your business (in California) and the shipping address for the product is Nevada, then taxes do not have to be collected. If they have a billing address in California, and a shipping address in Nevada, and the goods are shipping to Nevada, you do not have to declare tax. If you have a mixture of tangible (computer, mouse, keyboard) and intangible assets (warranty) in a cart, and the shipping address is in California, you charge tax on the tangible assets, but NOT on the intangible assets. Yes, you can charge tax on the whole order. Yes for most businesses that's "Good enough", but I'm not trying to provide the "good enough" solution, I'm simply telling you how very large businesses run and operate. As I've mentioned, I've done several tax integrations using software called Sabrix (Google if you've not heard of it), and have done those integrations for companies like the BBC and Corbis (owned and operated by Bill Gates). Take it or leave it, but the correct way to charge taxes, especially given the complex tax laws of the US and internationally, is to charge per item. If you just need the "good enough" approach, feel free to calculate it by total. Some additional reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_of_Digital_Goods Another possible federal limitation on Internet taxation is the United States Supreme Court case, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992),[6] which held that under the dormant commerce clause, goods purchased through mail order cannot be subject to a state’s sales tax unless the vendor has a substantial nexus with the state levying the tax. In 1997, the federal government decided to limit taxation of Internet activity for a period of time. The Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) prohibits taxes on Internet access, which is defined as a service that allows users access to content, information, email or other services offered over the Internet and may include access to proprietary content, information, and other services as part of a package offered to customers. The Act has exceptions for taxes levied before the statute was written and for sales taxes on online purchases of physical goods. |
ETF S&P 500 with Reinvested Dividend | A DRIP plan with the ETF does just that. It provides cash (the dividends you are paid) back to the fund manager who will accumulate all such reinvested dividends and proportionally buy more shares of stock in the ETF. Most ETFs will not do this without your approval, as the dividends are taxed to you (you must include them as income for that year if this is in a taxable account) and therefore you should have the say on where the dividends go. |
If I have some old gold jewellery, is it worth it to sell it for its melt value? | I just came across an article from the CBC on this subject: Here's one tip from the article, which echoes what others have said: "The agency [Better Business Bureau in B.C.] suggests getting two or three appraisals from a jeweller or jewelry store before deciding to sell." See the full article for the rest of the tips. |
2 401k's and a SEP-IRA | Please note that if you are self employed, then the profit sharing limit for both the SEP and Solo 401(k) is 20% of compensation, not 25%. There is no need for a SEP-IRA in this case. In addition to the 401(k) at work, you have a solo-401(k) for your consulting business. You can contribute $18,000 on the employee side across the two 401(k) plans however you wish. You can also contribute profit sharing up to 20% of compensation in your solo 401(k) plan. However, the profit sharing limit aggregates across all plans for your consulting business. If you max that out in your solo 401(k), then you cannot contribute to the SEP IRA. In other words, the solo 401(k) dominates the SEP IRA in terms of contributions and shares a limit on the profit-sharing contribution. If you have a solo 401(k), there is never a reason to have a SEP for the same company. Example reference: Can I Contribute to a solo 401(k) and SEP for the same company? |
Equation to determine if a stock is oversold and by how much? | There are those who would suggest that due to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, stocks are always fairly valued. Consider, if non-professional posters on SE (here) had a method that worked beyond random chance, everyone seeking such a method would soon know it. If everyone used that method, it would lose its advantage. In theory, this is how stocks' values remain rational. That said, Williams %R is one such indicator. It can be seen in action on Yahoo finance - In the end, I find such indicators far less useful than the news itself. BP oil spill - Did anyone believe that such a huge oil company wouldn't recover from that disaster? It recovered by nearly doubling from its bottom after that news. A chart of NFLX (Netflix) offers a similar news disaster, and recovery. Both of these examples are not quantifiable, in my opinion, just gut reactions. A quick look at the company and answer to one question - Do I feel this company will recover? To be candid - in the 08/09 crash, I felt that way about Ford and GM. Ford returned 10X from the bottom, GM went through bankruptcy. That observation suggests another question, i.e. where is the line drawn between 'investing' and 'gambling'? My answer is that buying one stock hoping for its recovery is gambling. Being able to do this for 5-10 stocks, or one every few months, is investing. |
Why can't the government simply payoff everyone's mortgage to resolve the housing crisis? | Government purchases of mortgages simply transfers the debt burden from households to the sovereign. Taxes pay sovereign debt (65% of whom are homeowners anyway). No debt has been restructured -- it's now paid via taxes instead of monthly mortgage payments -- and those paying include persons who responsibly avoided housing speculation. The U.S. has a debt-to-GDP ratio just shy of the critical point of 90%. Purchasing $10 trillion in mortgage debt (about a year of GDP) would put the U.S. on an inexorable path towards insolvency and inflation. There are all sorts of other risks (loss of a risk-free asset, moral hazard, nationalization of the housing industry, etc.) but this should make the point clear that it's not a good idea. There are only three ways to reduce debt: 1) default, 2) restructure, or 3) lower the real debt burden by de-valuing currency in which the debt is denominated. |
I thought student loans didn't have interest, or at least very low interest? [UK] | nan |
What are my options to deal with Student Loan debt collectors? | @littleadv has said most of what I'd say if they had not gotten here first. I'd add this much, it's important to understand what debt collectors can and cannot do, because a lot of them will use intimidation and any other technique you can think of to get away with as much as you will let them. I'd start with this PDF file from the FTC and then start googling for info on your state's regulations. Also it would be a very very good idea to review the documents you signed (or get a copy) when you took out the loan to see what sort of additional penalties etc you may have already agreed to in the event you default. The fee's the collector is adding in could be of their own creation (making them highly negotiable), or it might be something you already agreed to in advance(leaving you little recourse but to pay them). Do keep in mind that in many cases debt collectors are ausually llowed at the very least to charge you simple interest of around 10%. On a debt of your size, paid off over several years, that might amount to more than the $4K they are adding. OTOH you can pretty much expect them to try both, tacking on 'fees' and then trying to add interest if the fees are not paid. Another source of assistance may be the Department of Education Ombudsman: If you need help with a defaulted student loan, contact the Department of Education's Ombudsman at 877-557-2575 or visit its website at www.fsahelp.ed.gov. But first you must take steps to resolve your loan problem on your own (there is a checklist of required steps on the website), or the Ombudsman will not assist you. |
How risky are penny stocks? | Most penny stocks go to zero because most businesses fail. You stated in your original post that you were wondering specifically about companies with no assets. These are exactly the kind that fail and go to zero. There are many holes within the regulatory structure that allow for many accounting tricks in penny stock land. And even in areas that are adequately regulated, there will be few to no remedies for the optimistic penny stock shareholder speculator. |
Can anybody explain “cut their exposure to equities” and “fat and flat range” for me, please? | Someone's (or, a bank's) "exposure to equities" refers to the amount of value which has a risk that fluctuates with the equities market (ie: the stock market). In very broad terms, I think it might make sense to say that exposure to equities could mean, for example, owning many rental properties, if the rental market was "highly correlated" with the equities market. That is - if house prices go down when the equities market goes down, and if that relationship is very strong, then owning a house means you are exposed to the equities market. However, in the sense it is used there, it seems to mean direct exposure to equities - ie: owning stocks and stock-based funds. |
I am a contractor with revenue below UK's VAT threshold. Should I register for VAT? | If I remember correctly, once you're about to exceed the threshold you really don't have a choice and have to register for VAT. As DumbCoder mentions, the quarterly VAT returns isn't that much of a hassle, plus if you fall under a certain threshold, you can sign up for the annual accounting scheme for VAT, which means you'll have to only put in a single return, but HMRC takes more payments out over the course of the year. This is what I did when I ran my own limited company in the UK. |
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card | Credit cards have three important advantages. None of them are for day-to-day borrowing of money. Safety - Credit cards have better fraud protection than checks or cash, and better than most debit/check cards. If you buy something with a credit card, you also get the issuer's (think Visa) assurances that your will get the product you paid for, or your money back. At almost any time, if a product you buy is not what you expect, you can work with the issuer, even if the store says "screw you". Security - Credit cards are almost universally accepted as a "security" against damages to the vendor. Hotels, car rentals, boat rentals etc. will accept a credit card as a means of securing their interests. Without that, you may have to make huge deposits, or not be able to rent at all. For example, in my area (touristy) you can not rent a car on debit or cash. You must use a credit card. Around here most hotel rooms require a credit card as well. This is different from area to area, but credit cards are nearly universally accepted. Emergencies - If you're using your credit card properly, then you have some extra padding when stuff goes wrong. For example, it may be cheaper to place a bill on a credit card for a couple months while you recover from a car accident, than to deplete your bank account and have to pay fees. Bonus - Some cards have perks, like miles, points, or cash back. Some can be very beneficial. You need to be careful about the rules with these bonuses. For example, some cards only give you points if you carry a balance. Some only give miles if you shop at certain stores. But if you have a good one, these can be pretty fantastic. A 3% cash back on purchases can make a large difference over time. |
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. |
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? | Real Estate has historically been the most sound investment of all times. Not only does property consistant increase in value (which is what you want every investment to do), it does so at the highest rate with the lowest risk. Most return on investment (like a stock in the market) the potential rate of gain is proportionat to the potential loss. The more secure an investment, the lower the potential gain. But, with Real Estate, property typically doubles in value every 10 years. Our overall R.E. economy is on an upward turn, recovering from a time where values tanked. to jump in now, is probably better than waiting for any amount of time, be it 1 month, or 1 year. You concern about being "tied in" to this investment is a valid concern, however, since the market is in an upward turn, you should be more and more able to turn around and sell it later on. The best thing that you could potentially do would be to invest in a rental property where your cost of investment (your mortgage note) is paid by the renters. However, being a landlord is always a risky business (hence, the higher rate of return, which considering your investment is ultimately zero, the return rate is huge :-) The trick would be to take the reters payments to you and keep it in an account that you use to pay for any repairs, upgrades, or marketing in between when the unit is vacant. But, with your parents losing their house, this may not be possible - unless you take their home and then keep the living arrangments the same as they are now. One possibility to help you get your foot in the door of being a property owner (not necessarily "investor") and help your parents keep their house (if that is what they would like to do) is re-finance with them... if you can't afford the entire mortgage, but they are capable of filling the gap between what you can afford and what their property costs, then you become partnered with them, and when/if their circumstances change, they can always buy you out. |
Buying insurance (extended warranty or guarantee) on everyday goods / appliances? | Generally, a polite decline. However, I have dealt with sales people who take first refusal as a "test" response, and decide to go into the details anyway. The longer they talk the more robust my responses. See this Telegraph article that discusses why their experts think it's a ripoff, and why you should check your credit cards and home insurance policies as they may already have you covered (possibly UK/Europe only). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/2820644/Extended-warranties-In-our-view-its-a-rip-off.html On a different note, see this list of questions to ask if you are considering going with the extended warranty. The source doesn't rule for or against the idea, leaving it at caveat emptor: http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/technology/home-entertainment/accessories/extended-warranties/page/questions%20to%20ask.aspx |
Can we compare peer-to-peer loans to savings accounts? | That argument is an argument for investing generally, not peer-to-peer lending per se, and the argument as phrased ("thus you should invest your money at a Peer-to-peer loan platform") is a false dichotomy. That said, as soon as one is investing as opposed to just getting a small but guaranteed return, then risk comes into play. In that sense, any savings account is fundamentally different from any investment, and, in that reading, the two shouldn't be compared as different approaches to "investing". Peer-to-peer lending as an investment could be aptly compared with stock market investing, for one. |
Should I stockpile nickels? | You would have to collect an awful lot to make it profitable. The melting process alone will cost an arm and a leg. Go silver hunting with rolls of Half dollars. You might strike it lucky with rolls of Kennedy's. Its good fun too :) 1964 Kennedy's 90% silver 1965-1970 Kennedy's 40% silver I go looking on ebay collecting for typo errors on pre 1920's British silver coinage. Picked up a George 3rd 1816 Shilling for £3....worth £30....but even if your doing it just for the silver content, you can pick up a real bargain. Just think of how your going to offload them. Here in the UK its easy because there is a huge market for Numismatic coins. |
Does it make any sense to have individual stocks, bonds, preferred shares | Sure, with some general rules of thumb: what is the minimum portfolio balance to avoid paying too much for transaction fees? Well, the fee doesn't change with portfolio balance or order size, so I don't know what you're trying to do here. The way to have less transaction fees is to have less transactions. That means no day-trading, no option rolling, etc. A Buy-and-hold strategy (with free dividend reinvestment if available) will minimize transaction fees. |
Home owners association for houses, pro/cons | I agree with the basic purpose of an HOA. Unlike the poster above Jay, I do believe that people painting their houses purple will definitely affect the value of my house or property. I for one would not want to live next to someone who has a wild purple house, even though it is his right to do so. In saying that I know that there are very few people who would want to buy my house were it situated next to the "purple house". So in the sense of limiting known eyesores I agree with the purpose of HOA's. That being said, I do not agree with the fact that HOA's are not regulated and that its rules are formed by community members who may be very strict on what or what isn't allowed. If it were simple rules like not painting the house disturbing colors (we all know what they are) or not having junk cars or loud music after a certain time (except on holidays or special calendar days like New Years etc. |
I'm in the U.S. What are vehicles to invest in international stocks? | Interactive Brokers offers many foreign markets (19 countries) for US based investors. You can trade all these local markets within one universal account which is very convenient in my view. IB offering |
Why does short selling require borrowing? | A simple way to ask the question might be to say "why can't I just use the same trick with my own shares to make money on the way down? Why is borrowing someone else's shares necessary to make the concept a viable one? Why isn't it just the inverse of 'going long'?" A simple way to think about it is this: to make money by trading something, you must buy it for less than you sell it for. This applies to stocks like anything else. If you believe the price will go up, then you can buy them first and sell them later for a higher price. But if you believe the price will go down, the only way to buy low and sell high is to sell first and buy later. If you buy the stock and it goes down, any sale you make will lose you money. I'm still not sure I fully understand the point of your example, but one thing to note is that in both cases (i.e., whether you buy the share back at the end or not), you lost money. You say that you "made $5 on the share price dropping", but that isn't true at all: you can see in your example that your final account balance is negative in both cases. You paid $20 for the shares but only got $15 back; you lost $5 (or, in the other version of your example, paid $20 and got back $5 plus the depreciated shares). If you had bought the shares for $20 and sold them for, say, $25, then your account would end up with a positive $5 balance; that is what a gain would look like. But you can't achieve that if you buy the shares for $20 and later sell them for less. At a guess, you seem to be confusing the concept of making a profit with the concept of cutting your losses. It is true that if you buy the shares for $20 and sell them for $15, you lose only $5, whereas if you buy them for $20 and sell for $10, you lose the larger amount of $10. But those are both losses. Selling "early" as the price goes down doesn't make you any money; it just stops you from losing more money than you would if you sold later. |
What does investment bank risk during IPO? | There are two kinds of engagements in an IPO. The traditional kind where the Banks assume the risks of unsold shares. Money coming out of their pockets to hold shares no one wants. That is the main risk. No one buying the stock that the bank is holding. Secondly, there is a "best efforts" engagement. This means that bank will put forth its best effort to sell the shares, but will not be on the hook if any don't sell. This is used for small cap / risky companies. Source: Author/investment banker |
Making $100,000 USD per month, no idea what to do with it | If you already have 500k in a Schwab brokerage account, go see your Schwab financial consultant. They will assign you one, no charge, and in my experience they're sharp people. Sure, you can get a second opinion (or even report back here, maybe in chat?), but they will get you started in the right direction. I'd expect them to recommend a lot of index funds, just a bit of bonds or blended funds, all weighted heavily toward equities. If you're young and expect the income stream to continue, you can be fairly aggressive. Ask about the fees the entire way and you'll be fine. |
When paying estimated quarterly taxes, can I prorate the amount based on the irregular payment due dates? | You may want, or at least be thinking of, the annualized method described in Pub 505 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p505/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000194669 (also downloadable in PDF) and referred to in Why are estimated taxes due "early" for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only? . This doesn't prorate your payments as such; instead you use your income and deductions etc for each of the 3,2,3,4-month "quarters" to compute a prorated tax for the partial year, and pay the excess over the amount already paid. If your income etc amounts are (nearly) the same each month, then this computation will result in payments that are 3,2,3,4/12ths of 90% of your whole-year tax, but not if your amounts vary over the year. If you do use this method (and benefit from it) you MUST file form 2210 schedule AI with your return next filing season to demonstrate that your quarterly computations, and payments, met the requirements. You need to keep good per-period (or per-month) records of all tax-relevant amounts, and don't even try to do this form by hand, it'll drive you nuts; use software or a professional preparer (who also uses software), but I'd expect someone in your situation probably needs to do one of those anyway. But partnership puts a wrinkle on this. As a partner, your taxable income and expense is not necessarily the cash you receive or pay; it is your allocated share of the partnership's income and expenses, whether or not they are distributed to you. A partnership to operate a business (like lawyers, as opposed to an investment partnership) probably distributes the allocated amounts, at least approximately, rather than holding them in the partnership; I expect this is your year-end draw (technically a draw can be any allowed amount, not necessarily the allocated amount). In other words, your husband does earn this money during the year, he just receives it at the end. If the year-end distribution (or allocation if different) is significant (say more than 5% of your total income) and the partnership is not tracking and reporting these amounts (promptly!) for the IRS quarters -- and I suspect that's what they were telling you "affects other partners" -- you won't have the data to correctly compute your "quarterly" taxes, and may thus subject yourself to penalty for not timely paying enough. If the amount is reasonably predictable you can probably get away with using a conservative (high-side) guess to compute your payments, and then divide the actual full-year amounts on your K-1 over 12 months for 2210-AI; this won't be exactly correct, but unless the partnership business is highly seasonal or volatile it will be close enough the IRS won't waste its time on you. PS- the "quarters" are much closer to 13,9,13,17 weeks. But it's months that matter. |
How to understand a volatility based ETF like VXX | To understand the VXX ETF, you need to understand VIX futures, to understand VIX futures you need to understand VIX, to understand VIX you need to understand options pricing formulas such as the "Black Scholes" formula Those are your prerequisites. Learn at your own pace. Short Answer: When you buy VXX you are buying the underlying are front month VIX futures. Limited by the supply of the ETF's NAV (Net Asset Value) units. It is assumed that the ETF manager is actually buying and selling more VIX front month futures to back the underlying ETF. Long Answer: Assume nobody knows what an options contract should be worth. Therefore formulas have been devised to standardize how to price an options contract. The Black-Scholes formula is widely used, one of the variables in this formula is "Implied Volatility", which basically accounts for the mispricing of options when the other variables (Intrinsic Value, delta, gamma, theta...) don't completely explain how much the option is worth. People are willing to pay more for options when the perception is that they will be more profitable, "implied volatility" tracks these changes in an option's demand, where the rest of the black-scholes formula creates a price for an option that will always be the same. Each stock in the market that also trades standardized options will have implied volatility which can be computed from the price of those options. The "Volatility Index" (VIX), looks at the implied volatility of MANY STOCK's options contracts. Specifically the "implied volatility of out the money puts on the S&P 500". If you don't know what that quoted part of the sentence means, then you have at least five other individual questions to ask before you re-read this answer and understand the relevance of these followup questions: Why would people buy out-the-money puts on the S&P 500? Why would people pay more for out-the-money puts on the S&P 500 on some days and pay less for them on other days? This is really the key to the whole puzzle. Anyway, now that we have this data, people wanted to speculate on the future value of the VIX. So VIX futures contracts began trading and with it there came a liquid market. There doesn't need to be anything physical to back a financial product anymore. A lot of people don't trade futures, retail investors have practically only heard of "the stock market". So one investment bank decided to make a fund that only holds VIX futures that expire within a month. (front month futures). They split that fund up into shares and listed it on the stock market, like alchemy the VXX was formed. Volatility studies are fascinating, and get way more complex than this now that the VXX ETF also has liquid options contracts trading on it too, and there are leveraged VIX ETF funds that also trade options |
Where can I find announcements of official GDP figures for the US and other countries? | For press releases about economic data, the Bureau of Economic Analysis press release page is helpful. Depending on the series, you could also look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release page. For time series of both historical and present data, the St. Louis Federal Reserve maintains a database such data, including numerous measures of GDP, called FRED. They list nearly 15,000 series related to GDP alone. FRED is extremely useful because it allows you to make graphs that indicate areas of recession, like this: On the series' homepage, there's a bold link on the left side to download the data. If you simply need the most recent data, it's listed below the graph on that page. If you're interested in a more in-depth analysis, you can use the Bureau of Economic Analysis as well, specifically the National Income and Product Accounts, which are most of the numbers that feed into the calculation of GDP. FRED also archives some of these data. Both FRED and the BEA compile data on numerous other economic benchmarks as well. Other general sources for a wide range of announcements are the Yahoo, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal economic calendars. These provide the dates of many economic announcements, e.g. existing home sales, durable orders, crude inventories, etc. Yahoo provides links to the raw data where available; Bloomberg and the WSJ provide links to their article where appropriate. This is a great way to learn about various announcements and how they affect the markets; for example, the somewhat disappointing durable orders announcement recently pushed markets down a few points. For Europe, look at Eurostat. On the left side of the page, they list links to common data, including GDP. They list the latest releases on the home page that I previously linked to. For the sake of keeping this question short, I'm lumping the rest of the world into this paragraph. Data for many other countries is maintained by their governments or central banks in a similar fashion. The World Bank's databank also has relevant data like Gross National Income (GNI), which isn't identical to GDP, but it's another (less common) macroeconomic indicator. You can also look at the economic calendar on livecharts.co.uk or xe.com, which list events for the US, Europe, Australasia, and some Latin American countries. If you're only interested in the US, the Bloomberg or Yahoo calendars may have a higher signal-to-noise ratio, but if you're interested in following how global markets like currency markets respond to new information, a global economic calendar is a must. Dailyfx.com also has a global economic calendar that, according to them, is specifically geared towards events that affect the forex market. As I said, governments and central banks compile a lot of this data, so to make searching easier, here are a few links to statistical agencies and central banks for major countries. I compiled this list a while ago on my personal machine, so although I think all the links are accurate, leave a comment if something isn't quite right. Statistics Australia / Brazil / Canada / Canada / China / Eurostat / France / Germany / IMF / Japan / Mexico / OECD / Thailand / UK / US Central banks Australia / Brazil / Canada / Chile / China / ECB / Hungary / India / Indonesia / Israel / Japan / Mexico / Norway / Russia / Sweden / Switzerland / Thailand / UK / US |
Accounting equation: does income really decrease equity? | If your income stream goes up, it would usually increase both your "income" term and your "assets" term since that money sits in your bank account as an asset. (Even more likely a combination of assets and expenses go up if you have cost associated with the increase in income.) In this case, they balance in the equation and your equity doesn't change. The question as you posed it is true mathematically, but the "paradox" happens because you're not taking into account where the money form the increased income falls in other terms of the equation. |
Why does 'further borrowing' always mean permanent extra mortgage accounts? | It is possible to consolidate mortgages with Nationwide, in some circumstances. Quote from their website: It is possible to consolidate different mortgages and other debts such as personal loans and credit cards. However it does depend on your individual circumstances, including the exact type of loans you want to consolidate and whether you are still in a special deal period I, personally, would be amazed if you couldn't get them all in one mortgage without changing provider. But... I wouldn't be at all surprised if they forced you to have this one mortgage as a new mortgage, rather than adding balances to an existing one. My reasoning is as follows: Coming at it from a different angle: whatever there was that required your further borrowing to be in new mortgages, rather than added to your existing mortgage, will also preclude your multiple mortgages being added to one of your existing mortgages. |
Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees | Why do you think you are entitled to "fairness"? In this world you get what you get. I am pretty sure your employer is not paying you for how you "feel" either. And by-the-way turning up on time and not leaving early is not exceptional behaviour; it is expected behaviour. Bottom line: do you add more value to your employer's business then the new hires? If so, ask for a raise, if not find a way to add more value and then ask for a raise or keep doing what you're doing and accept what you get. |
How should my brother and I structure our real estate purchase? | While I agree with the existing bulk of comments and answers that you can't tell the lender the $7k is a gift, I do think you might have luck finding a mortgage broker who can help you get a loan as a group. (You might consider as an LLC or other form of corporation if no one will take you otherwise.) That is, each of you will be an owner of the house and appear on the mortgage. IIRC, as long as the downpayment only comes from the collective group, and the income-to-debt ratio of the group as a whole is acceptable, and the strongest credit rating of the group is good, you should be able to find a loan. (You may need a formal ownership agreement to get this accepted by the lender.) That said, I don't know if your income will trump your brother's situation (presumably high debt ratio or lower than 100% multiplier on his income dues to its source), but it will certainly help. As to how to structure the deal for fairness, I think whatever the two of you agree to and put down in writing is fine. If you each think you're helping the other, than a 50/50 split on profits at the sale of the property seems reasonable to me. I'd recommend that you actually include in your write up a defined maximum period for ownership (e.g. 5yr, or 10yr, etc,) and explain how things will be resolved if one side doesn't want to sell at that point but the other side does. Just remember that whatever percentages you agree to as ownership won't effect the lender's view of payment requirements. The lender will consider each member of the group fully and independently responsible for the loan. That is, if something happens to your brother, or he just flakes out on you, you will be on the hook for 100% of the loan. And vice-versa. Your write up ought to document what happens if one of you flakes out on paying agreed upon amounts, but still expects there ownership share at the time of sale. That said, if you're trying to be mathematically fair about apportioning ownership, you could do something like the below to try and factor in the various issues into the money flow: The above has the benefit that you can start with a different ownership split (34/66, 25/75, etc.) if one of you wants to own more of the property. |
Should I Use an Investment Professional? | People ... are nearly twice as likely to ... feel confident Great, confidence is amazing. That and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee. 44% [who hired a pro] have $100K or more [vs.] 9% of DIYers There's no way to examine these numbers without a link to the source, but it stands to reason that if you have a plan that you're sticking to you'll save more money than if you are just investing haphazardly. It's too bad that we can't see what the returns are for those using a pro vs. DIYers. That would be much more valuable than an arbitrary dollar level. Unfortunately $100K isn't really that much money if you live in the US, so it's an irrelevant talking point. The real question is whether investment knowledge is readily available to the masses or if having a person who specializes in finance is required to make good decisions about investment. I think the fact that the conventional wisdom prefers index funds to actively managed funds demonstrates that investment professionals are less useful than they might have been even a decade or two ago. If money should be spent on professional advice, it's probably better spent on CPAs or other tax professionals who can help optimize your investments for tax efficiency, though even that is now available as more common knowledge. |
The Asset Allocation Paradox | I recommend you take a look at this lecture (really, the whole series is enlightening), from Swenson. He identifies 3 sources of returns: diversification, timing and selection. He appears to discard timing and selection as impossible. A student kinda calls him out on this. Diversification reduces risk, not increase returns. It turns out they did time the market, by shorting .com's before the bubble, and real estate just before the downturn. In 1990, Yale started a "Absolute Return" unit and allocated like 15 percent to it, mostly by selling US equities, that specializes in these sorts of hedging moves. As for why you might employ managers for specific areas, consider that the expense ratio Wall Street charges you or me still represent a very nice salary when applied to the billions in Yale's portfolio. So they hire internally to reduce expenses, and I'm sure they're kept busy. They also need people to sell off assets to maintain ratios, and figuring out which ones to sell might take specialized knowledge. Finally, in some areas, you functionally cannot invest without management. For example, Yale has a substantial allocation in private equity, and by definition that doesn't trade on the open market. The other thing you should consider is that for all its diversification, Yale lost 25 percent of their portfolio in 2009. For a technique that's supposed to reduce volatility, they seem to have a large range of returns over the past five years. |
What's the least risky investment for people in Europe? | First of all, congratulations on saving some money. So many people these days do not even get that far. As far as investments, what is best for you depends heavily on your: Here is a quick summary of types of assets that are likely available to you, and my thoughts on why they may or may not be a good fit for your situation. Cash Equivalents Cash Equivalents are highly liquid, meaning you can get cash for them on fairly short notice. In particular, Money Markets and Certificates of Deposit (CDs) are also considered very safe when issued by a bank, as they are often insured against loss by the government up to a certain amount (this varies quite a lot by country within Europe, see the Wikipedia article here for additional detail. Please note that in the case of a CD, you are usually unable to get access to your money for the length of the investment period, which is usually a short period of time such as 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year. This is a good choice if you may need your money back on short notice, and your main goal is to preserve your principal. However, the returns tend to be very low and often do not keep pace with inflation, meaning that over several years, you may lose "real" purchasing power, even if you don't lose nominal value in your account. Special Note on Cash Equivalents If the money you want to invest is also your Emergency Fund, or you do not have an Emergency Fund, I would highly recommend Cash Equivalents. They will provide the highest level of Liquidity along with a short Time Horizon so that you can get your money as needed in the case of unforeseen expenses such as if your car breaks down. Debt Debt investments include government and corporate bonds. They are still considered relatively safe, as the issuer would need to default (usually this means they are in bankruptcy) in order for you not to be paid back. For example, German bonds have been considered safer than Greek bonds recently based on the underlying strength of the government. Unlike Cash Equivalents, these are not guaranteed against loss, which means that if the issuer defaults, you could lose up to 100% of your investment. Bonds have several new features you will need to consider. One is interest rate risk. One reason bonds perform better than cash equivalents is that you are taking on the risk that if interest rates rise, the fixed payments the bond promises will be worth less, and the face value of your bond will fall. While most bonds are still very Liquid, this means that if you need to sell the bond before it matures, you could lose money. As mentioned earlier, some bonds are riskier than others. Given that you are looking for a low-risk investment, you would want to select a bond that is considered "invesment grade" rather than a riskier "junk" bond. Debt investments are a good choice if you can afford to do without this money for a few years, and you want to balance safety with somewhat better returns than Cash Equivalents. Again though, I would not recommend investing in Debt until you have also built up a separate Emergency Fund. If you do choose to invest in bonds, I recommend that you diversify your risks by investing in a bond fund, rather than in just one company's or government's debt. This will reduce the likelihood that you will experience a catastrophic loss. Ownership Ownership assets includes stocks and other assets such as real estate and precious metals such as gold. While these investments can have high returns, in your situation I would strongly recommend that you not invest in these types of investments, for the following reasons: For these reasons, debt is considered a safer investment than equity for any particular company, government, or the market as a whole. Ownership assets are a good choice for people who have a high Risk Tolerance, long Time Horizon, low Liquidity needs, and will not be bothered by larger potential changes in the value of the investment at any given time. Special Note on Gold I would consider Gold a very risky investment and not a good fit for you at the moment based on what you've shared in your question. Gold is considered "safe" in the sense that people believe that if the economy goes into recession, depression, or collapses entirely, gold will continue to be valuable. In a post-apocalyptic world where paper money became worthless, it is still a good bet that gold will always be considered valuable within human society as a store of value. That being said, the price of gold fluctuates almost entirely based on how bad people think things are going to get. Think about the difference between gold and a company like Coca-Cola. Would you like to own 100% of Coca-Cola? Of course, because you know there is a very good chance that people will continue to spend money all over the world on their products. On the other hand, gold itself produces no products, no sales, no profits, and no cash flow. As such, if you buy gold, you are really making a speculative bet that gold will be in higher demand tomorrow than it is today. You are buying an asset (the gold) rather than part of a company's equity or debt that is designed to throw off payments to its investors in the form of bond payments or dividends. So, if people decide next year that things are improving, it is possible that gold could lose value, given that gold prices are at historically high levels. Gold could be a good choice for someone who has a large, well-diversified investment portfolio, and who is looking for a hedge to protect against inflation and other risks that they have taken on via their other investments. I hope that is helpful - best of luck in your choices. Let us know what you decide! |
Personal Tax Deduction for written work to a recognized 501c3 | If it's work you'd be producing specifically for this organization, that would not be deductable. Per Publication 526, Charitable Deductions, "You can't deduct the value of your time or services, including: … The value of income lost while you work as an unpaid volunteer for a qualified organization." On the other hand, if you were say an author of a published book or something (not specifically written for this organization), you could donate a copy of the book and probably deduct its fair market value (or perhaps only your basis, if it's your business's inventory). |
Is there a benefit, long term, to life insurance for a youngish, debt, and dependent free person? | There is no benefit in life insurance as such (ie, death insurance.) There is a great deal of value in other types though: total and permanent disability insurance, trauma insurance (a lump sum for a major medical event), and income protection insurance (cover against a temporary but disabling medical condition). If you don't have that, you should get it right now. This is about the most important insurance you can carry. Being unable to work for the rest of your life has a far larger impact than having, say, your car stolen. ... If, later on, you acquire dependents, and you feel you ought to have life insurance, then you will have a relationship with a life insurance company, and maybe they will let you upgrade from income/TPD to income/TPD/life without too much fuss or requalification. Some do; whether yours would I don't know. But at least you have a toe in the door with them, in a way that is infinitely more immediately useful than getting life insurance that you don't actually need. |
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