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What prevents investors from buying high yield stocks and selling them as soon as their dividend is paid out?
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The rest of the market knows when the dividends are paid out, and that will be reflected naturally in the share price. That's why there is no way to consistently beat the market. Because the market is other human beings, who's sum of knowledge is greater than any individual. Everything in the stock market boils down to this in one way or another.
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Are there index tracking funds that avoid the “buy high - sell low” problem?
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In a cap-weighted fund, the fund itself isn't buying or selling at all (except to support redemptions or purchases of the fund). As the value of a stock in the index goes up, then its value in the fund goes up naturally. This is the advantage of a cap-weighted fund, that it doesn't have to trade (buy and sell), it just sits on the stocks. That makes a cap-weighted fund inexpensive (low trading costs) and tax-efficient (doesn't trigger capital gains due to sales). The buying high and selling low referred to by "fundamental indexation" advocates like Wisdom Tree is buying high and selling low on the part of the investor. That is, when you purchase the market-cap-weighted fund, at that time that you purchase, you will spend more on the higher-priced stocks, just because they account for more of the value of the fund, and less money goes to the cheaper stocks which account for less of the value of the fund. In the prospectus for a fund they should tell you which index they use, and if the prospectus doesn't describe the weighting of the index, you could do a web search for the index name and find out how that index is constructed. A market-cap-weighted fund is the standard kind of weighting which is what you get if you buy the stocks in the index and then hold them without buying or selling. Most of the famous indexes (e.g. S&P500) are cap-weighted, with the notable exception of the Dow Jones Industrial Average which is "price-weighted" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-weighted_index. Price-weighting is just an archaic tradition, not something one would use for a new index design today. A fund weighted by "fundamentals" or equal-weighted, rather than cap-weighted, is effectively doing a kind of rebalancing, selling what's gone up to buy more of what's gone down. Rather than buying an exotic fund, you could get a similar effect by buying a balanced fund (one that mixes stocks and bonds). Then when stocks go up, your fund would sell them and buy bonds, and the fund would sell the most of the highest-market-cap stocks that make up more of the index. And vice versa of course. But the fundamental-weighted funds are fine, the more important considerations include your stocks vs. bonds percentages (asset allocation) and whether you make irrational trades instead of sticking to a plan.
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Possible replacement for Quicken
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Given your needs, GNUcash will do swimmingly. I've used it for the past 3 years and while it's a gradual learning process, it's been able to resolve most stuff I've thrown at it. Schedule bills and deposits in the calendar view so I can keep an eye on cash flow. GNUcash has scheduled payments and receipts and reconcilation, should you need them. I prefer to keep enough float to cover monthly expenses in accounts rather than monitor potential shortfalls. Track all my stock and mutual fund investments across numerous accounts. It pulls stock, mutual and bond quotes from lots of places, domestic and foreign. It can also pull transaction data from your brokers, if they support that. I manually enter all my transactions so I can keep control of them. I just reconcile what I entered into Quicken based on the statements sent to me. I do not use Quicken's bill pay There's a reconciliation mode, but I don't use it personally. The purpose of reconcilation is less about catching bank errors and more about agreeing on the truth so that you don't incur bank fees. When I was doing this by hand I found I had a terrible data entry error rate, but on the other hand, the bayesian importer likes to mark gasoline purchases from the local grocery store as groceries rather than gas. I categorize all my expenditures for help come tax time. GNUcash has accounts, and you can mark expense accounts as tax related. It also generates certain tax forms for you if you need that. Not sure what all you're categorizing that's helpful at tax time though. I use numerous reports including. Net Worth tracking, Cash not is retirement funds and total retirement savings. Tons of reports, and the newest version supports SQL backends if you prefer that vs their reports.
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How long do you have to live somewhere to be a resident for tax purposes?
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It's not so much about time but about intent. If your intent is to move there permanently, it would be when you arrive in the state for the purposes of living there (i.e. not from a while before that when you went to check a place out or for an interview). I believe that most (if not all) states expect you to get a Driver's License from that state within 30-days of moving there. Something like a Driver's License or State ID would be proof of your residency. These things vary greatly from state to state, so you'd have to research particular states. Or find someone who's done that already. A bit of searching, specifically for Texas, brought me to this forum thread: If you / he wish to establish residency here -- here being Texas -- get a Texas Driver's License and Voter Registration here. Government issued ID with a Texas address is pretty much bulletproof defense against being found to be a resident of elsewhere. Your battle, if there is one, will not be with Texas, but with your present home of record state and/or local government if there are income taxes associated with having been a resident there during the tax year. Which brings up the other question: You would need to make sure that California does not have some provision that would cause you issues. (This isn't so much a case of income from a company in the state as it about capital gains, but it is still prudent to check.)
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Is there any truth to the saying '99% of the world's millionaires have become rich by doing real estate'?
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This quote has it almost backwards. Thomas J. Stanley's recent book (he's one of the duo who researched and wrote about The Millionaire Next Door) claims that the top occupation of millionaires is "business owner / self-employed" (28%). "Real estate investor" is lumped in with "other" (9%), and if the ordering is correct in the list, it's no more than 2% of the total. (source)
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Calculate time to reach investment goals given starting balance?
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Here's a formula; I had to go over to SEMath, use their MathJax to compose the answer and then paste this screen shot. As a result, I can't fix a typo: "ST" is the same as "St"
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Better approach to close loans?
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It is typically best to pay minimum payments to 2 of the loans and pay aggressively on the third loan. Some will tell you to pay the highest interest rate loan off first because "personal finance" is about "finance" and mathematically that saves you the most interest. Some will tell you to pay the smallest balance loan off first because "personal finance" is "personal" and the psychological "win" of paying off a loan is more valuable than the small amount of interest difference between this strategy and paying off the loan with the highest interest rate first.
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Options “Collar” strategy vs regular Profit/Loss stops
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consider capital requirements and risk timeframes. With options, the capital requirements are far smaller than owning the underlying securities with stops. Options also allow one to constrain risk to a timeframe of ones own choosing (the expiration date of the contract). If you own or are short the underlying security, there is no time horizon.
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Building financial independence
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It's important to have both long term goals and milestones along the way. In an article I wrote about saving 15% of one's income, I offered the following table: This table shows savings starting at age 20 (young, I know, so shift 2 years out) and ending at 60 with 18-1/2 year's of income saved due to investment returns. The 18-1/2 results in 74% of one's income replaced at retirement if we follow the 4% rule. One can adjust this number, assuming Social Security will replace 30%, and that spending will go down in retirement, you might need to save less than this shows. What's important is that as a starting point, it shows 2X income saved by age 30. Perhaps 1X is more reasonable. You are at just over .5X and proposing to spend nearly half of that on a single purchase. Financial independence means to somehow create an income you can live on without the need to work. There are many ways to do it, but it usually starts with a high saving rate. Your numbers suggest a good income now, but maybe this is only recently, else you'd have over $200K in the bank. I suggest you read all you can about investments and the types of retirement accounts, including 401(k) (if you have that available to you), IRA, and Roth IRA. The details you offer don't allow me to get much more specific than this.
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How can I diversify $7k across ETFs and stocks?
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You may want to look into robo-investors like Wealthfront and Betterment. There are many others, just search for "robo investor".
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Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing
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It isn't always clear cut that you should pay off a debt at all, particularly a mortgage. In simple terms, if you are making a better return than what the bank is charging you, and the investment meets your risk criteria, then you should not pay back the debt. In the UK for example, mortgage rates are currently quite low. Around 2.5 - 3% is typical at the moment. On the other hand, you might reasonably expect a long run average return of around 9 - 11% on property (3 - 5% rental yield, and the rest on capital gains). To make the decision properly you need take into account the following:
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What exactly can a financial advisor do for me, and is it worth the money?
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If you don't have the time or interest to manage investments, you need a financial advisor. Generally speaking, you're better served by an advisor who collects an annual fee based on a percentage of your account value. Advisors who are compensated based on transactions have a vested interest to churn your account, which is often not in your best interest. You also need to be wary of advisors who peddle expensive mutual funds with sales loads (aka kick-backs to the advisor) or annuities. Your advisor's compensation structure should be transparent as well.
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What does “check payable to” mean?
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It is your name, or the fictitious name under which you operate. For example, if your freelance front end is called "Zolani the 13th, LLC", then that's the name you want to appear on the check, and not "Mr. John Zolani Doe" that is written in your birth certificate.
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Which is the most liquid market for trading?
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I would rate index futures, in particular the US index futures (e.g. the S&P 500 future) as the most liquid markets after the forex markets.
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Is it safer to send credit card number via unsecured website form or by e-mail? What safer options are there?
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Here's one option: Telephone is a lower-tech yet relatively more secure means for transmitting your payment information when a secure web site isn't available. And yet another option: You could send them an encrypted email, but this would require tools (e.g. GPG), setup (public keys), and expertise on their end which they are unlikely to already have. However, ChrisInEdmonton raised a good point in his comment. How can you consider them to be a reputable seller when they don't take basic precautions to protect customers' payment information online? The seller may with good faith charge your card the correct amount and deliver the goods that you expect, but how will they protect your credit card information once in their hands? Would you trust their internal systems if they can't even set up an HTTPS web site?
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Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined?
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Mining/discovery of gold can be inflationary -- the Spanish looting of Central America for a few hundred years or the gold rush in the 19th century US are examples of that phenomenon. The difference between printing currency and mining is that you have to ability to print money on demand, while mining is limited to whatever is available to extract at a given time. The rising price of gold may be contributing to increased production, as low-grade ore that wasn't economically viable to work with in the 1980's are now affordable.
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What happens to the insider trade profits?
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You seem to have a little confusion over terminology that should be cleared up: You are calling this "day-trading" Day-trading is the term for performing multiple trading actions in a single day. While it appears that the COO has performed a buy and a sell on the same day, most people would consider this a 'single trade'. In reality, it seems that the COO had 'stock options' [a contract providing the option for the holder to buy stock at a specific price, at some point in the future], provided as part of his compensation package. He decided or was required to 'exercise' those options today. This means he bought the shares using his special 'option price'. It is extremely common for employees who exercise stock options, to sell all of the resulting stock immediately. This is very different from usual day-trading, which implies that he would have bought stock in the morning at a low price, and then sold it later at a high price. You are calling this 'insider trading'. That term specifically often implies some level of unethical behavior. In general, stock options offered to executive employees are strictly limited in how they can be exercised. For example, most stock option plans require employees to wait x number of years before they can exercise them. This gives the employee incentive to stay longer, and for a high-level executive with the ability to strongly impact company performance, it gives incentive to do well. Technically you are correct, this is likely considered an 'insider trade', but given that it seems to have been a stock option exercise, it does not necessarily imply that there was any special reasoning for why he did the trade today. It could simply be that today was the first day the stock option rules allowed him to exercise. As to your final question - no, these profits are the COO's, to do with as he likes.
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How much money should I lock up in my savings account?
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Edited answer, given that I didn't address the emergency fund aspect originally: None. You've said you don't feel comfortable locking it away where you wouldn't be able to get to it in an emergency. If you don't like locking it away, the answer to "How much money should I lock up in my savings account?" is none. On a more personal note, the interest rates on bonds are just awful. Over five years, you can do better.
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RRP/list price/retail price and cars?
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The retailer can sell for whatever price they like, with the caveats that if they consistently sell at a loss they will go out of business and if they set the price too high they will not sell anything! As you mentioned, RRP is only a recommended price, the manufacturer cannot enfore it at all for legal reasons. Having said that I used to work in retail (not cars) and if we discounted a certain manufacturers products and they found out about it, we would find they had suddenly run out of stock when we tried to order more. So manufacturers do have some control over this type of thing depending on how "underhand" they want to be about it. My background is in retail management but not selling cars, but my understanding is the law regards RRP is the same.
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How to use proceeds of old house sale shortly after buying new house?
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Really this is no different from any kind of large lump sum and having a mortgage. There are probably many questions and answers on this subject. It really doesn't matter that the proceeds were the result of a sale, an inheritance would not change the answer. I think it is important to note that the proceeds will not eliminate the house 2 mortgage. A high level choice of investment one makes is between equity (such as stock) and debt investments (such as bonds and mortgages). You are in a unique case of being able to invest in your own mortgage with no investment fee. This may tip the scales in favor of paying down the mortgage. It is difficult to answer in your specific case as we don't know the rest of your finances. Do you have a sizable 401K that is heavily invested in stocks? Do you have the need for a college fund? Do you have an emergency fund? Do you have a desire to own several homes generating income property? If it was me I'd do the following in order, skipping steps I may have already completed: I've heard that the bank may agree to a "one time adjustment" to lower the payments on Mortgage #2 because of paying a very large payment. Is this something that really happens? I really kind of hate this attitude. Your goal is to get rid of the mortgage in a timely manner. Doing such makes paying for kids college a snap, reduces the income one might need in retirement, basically eliminates the need for life insurance, and gives one a whole lot of money to have fun with.
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Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money?
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Because I feel the answers given do not wholely represent the answer you are expecting, I'd like to re-iterate but include more information. When you own stock in a company, you OWN some of that company. When that company makes profit, you usually receive a dividend of those profits. If you owned 1% of the company stock, you (should) recieve 1% of the profits. If your company is doing well, someone might ask to buy your stock. The price of that stock is (supposed) to be worth a value representative of the expected yield or how much of a dividend you'd be getting. The "worth" of that, is what you're betting on when you buy the stock, if you buy $100 worth of coca cola stock and they paid $10 as dividend, you'd be pretty happy with a 10% growth in your wealth. Especially if the banks are only playing 3%. So maybe some other guy sees your 10% increase and thinks, heck.. 10% is better than 3%, if I buy your stocks, even as much as 6% more than they are worth ($106) I'm still going to be better off by that extra 1% than I would be if I left it in the bank.. so he offers you $106.. and you think.. awesome.. I can sell my $100 of cola shares now, make a $6 profit and buy $100 worth of some other share I think will pay a good dividend. Then cola publicises their profits, and they only made 2% profit, that guy that bought your shares for $106, only got a dividend of $2 (since their 'worth' is still $100, and effectively he lost $4 as a result. He bet on a better than 10% profit, and lost out when it didn't hit that. Now, (IMHO) while the stock market was supposed to be about buying shares, and getting dividends, people (brokers) discovered that you could make far more money buying and selling shares for 'perceived value' rather than waiting for dividends to show actual value, especially if you were not the one doing the buying and selling (and risk), but instead making a 0.4% cut off the difference between each purchase (broker fees). So, TL;DR, Many people have lost money in the market to those who made money from them. But only the traders and gamblers.
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Purpose of having good credit when you are well-off?
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A $250K earner might have $4M in retirement savings and $500K in available funds, but doesn't wish to spend all his liquidity on the house. In general, a house might cost 2-3 times one's annual income. It would take many years to get that saved up. They might want to have the house sooner. It all goes back to choice, priorities, personal preference.
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How are dividends for shareholders of banks paid?
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A typical manufacturer buys raw materials, produces a product using labor and energy at a specific cost with some waste, and then sells the product to produce income. A bank buys raw materials (deposits) by paying interest, then uses labor and energy to turn a portion of the raw materials into their product (loans), they then receive income (interest) on those loans. If the income exceeds the cost to buy and produce the loans taking into account losses due to delinquencies (waste) the bank company has made a profit. The growing profits can lead to an increase in stock prices or the paying of dividends. The search for more raw materials can lead to paying more for the raw materials, or by buying other factories (branches) or even other bank companies.
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Why are some long term investors so concerned about their entry price?
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If you think of it in terms of trying to get an annual return on your investment over the long haul, you can do a simple net present value analysis to decide your buy price. If you're playing conservative with the investments and taking safety over returns, you will still have some kind of expectation of that return will be. Paying slightly more will drag down your returns, perhaps less than what you want to get. If you really want to get your desired X%, then stick to your guns and don't go down the slippery slope of reaching. If 1% off isn't bad, then 2% off isn't all that bad, and maybe 3% is OK too for the right situation, etc. Gotta have rules and stick to them. You never know what opportunities will be around tomorrow. The possible drops in value should be built into your return expectations.
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How much do big firms and investors affect the stock market?
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The price of a company's stock at any given moment is established by a ratio of buyers to sellers. When the sellers outnumber the buyers at a given price, the stock price drops until there are enough people willing to buy the stock to balance the equation again. When there are more people wanting to purchase a stock at a given price than people willing to sell it, the stock price rises until there are enough sellers to balance things again. So given this, it's easy to see that a very large fund (or collection of very large funds) buying or selling could drive the price of a stock in one direction or another (because the sheer number of shares they trade can tip the balance one way or another). What's important to keep in mind though is that the ratio of buyers to sellers at any given moment is determined by "market sentiment" and speculation. People selling a stock think the price is going down, and people buying it think it's going up; and these beliefs are strongly influenced by news coverage and available information relating to the company. So in the case of your company in the example that would be expected to triple in value in the next year; if everyone agreed that this was correct then the stock would triple almost instantly. The only reason the stock doesn't reach this value instantly is that the market is split between people thinking this is going to happen and people who think it won't. Over time, news coverage and new information will cause one side to appear more correct than the other and the balance will shift to drive the price up or down. All this is to say that YES, large funds and their movements CAN influence a stock's trading value; BUT their movements are based upon the same news, information, analysis and sentiment as the rest of the market. Meaning that the price of a stock is much more closely tied to news and available information than day to day trading volumes. In short, buying good companies at good prices is just as "good" as it's ever been. Also keep in mind that the fact that YOU can buy and sell stocks without having a huge impact on price is an ADVANTAGE that you have. By slipping in or out at the right times in major market movements you can do things that a massive investment fund simply cannot.
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With respect to insider trading, what is considered “material information”?
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Some history: In the US, this is very tightly controlled and regulated. Although stock market securities insider trading is a relatively new crime around the world (20-30 year old), the United States is exceptional for offering the longest sentences for it, although it is still far more lucrative than and carries lower sentences than something like petty larceny. The perception of illegal insider trading has changed in the US over the years, although it is based on much older fraud statutes the regulators and the courts have only really developed modern case law against insider trading in the past 20-30 years. The US relies on its vast network of registered broker-dealers to detect and report abnormal trading activity and the regulator (SEC) can quickly obtain emergency court orders from rent-a-judges (Administrative Law Judges) to freeze trader's assets to prevent them from withdrawing, or quickly enacting sanctions. So this reality helps deter trading on material inside information. So for someone that needs to get an information advantage on the market, it is [simply] necessary for them to rationalize how this information could be inferred from public sources. Similarly there is a thin line between non-public information and public information, the "lab experiment" example would be material insider information, but the fact that there will be litigation over a company's key patents may be "public" as soon as the lawyer submits the complaint to the court system. It is also worth noting that there are A LOT of financial products trading in the capital markets, and illegal insider trading laws only applies to trading of shares of a company. So if a major holder in gold is about to liquidate all their holdings, being short gold futures is not subject to civil and criminal sanctions. Hope this helps. The above examples should help you understand what kind of information is material inside information and what kind is not, and how it is relevant to trading decisions.
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What is the best way for me to invest my money into my own startup?
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It will depend somewhat on the rules where the company is formed, and perhaps how much you're talking about investing. I don't know about Canada, but when I've formed businesses in the U.S., I've been advised to invest some of the money as an equity investment, and the bulk of the remainder as a loan. You say "more shares", so it sounds like you've already invested some money and need to inject another round. If you make a loan to the company, make sure everything is done at arm's length -- you'll need to wear the hat of the Company Management and sign a contract with yourself, use a market-based interest rate, and make sure the company is paying you back with interest. An alternative which may work if you expect cash flow soon is to pay for certain expenses personally and then submit an expense report to the company, which will pay you back. Overall, a quick consultation with your accountant should be a relatively inexpensive way to get the best answer for your specific circumstances.
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Why can't 401(k) statements be delivered electronically?
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Glad my question got bumped. I took it as a sign to get a solid answer out of Schwab. First the rep gave me the same line that it was impossible to provide paperless statements for a 401(k) plan because of "regulations". I pressed the issue and got this from the rep: I just spoke with our dedicated small business plan team. They told me that there are regulations that state that a Qualified Plan, such as this, require to have a statement sent. It is a Schwab policy that we have decided to only allow paper statements for this account type. So to clarify, it is a Schwab business decision to have the statements available only by mail. Hope someone from Schwab with some authority sees this post and is pushed toward helping change their policy. I can't imagine what a colossal waste of paper, postage, and hassle it is for everyone involved.
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Why do car rental companies prefer/require credit over debit cards?
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I have looked at the conditions of a car rental company, and I believe it provides the answers: Upon pick up of your vehicle, you must present a valid credit card (*) used to make the booking and which must be in the driver´s name. If you do not have a valid credit card we will accept your debit card when you pick up your vehicle. However, as we cannot reserve credit to cover the potential damage or refueling costs, you will need to take SuperCover and a fuel tank of fuel at the start of the rental. We will refund the value of the unused fuel at the end of the rental unless otherwise agreed with you. (*) VISA, MasterCard and American Express are accepted. Credit card or Third Party Insurance IMPORTANT: In case of damage, we will charge you the incurred amount up to the excess. You will then need to reclaim this amount from the provider of the credit card or third party insurer. We strongly recommend that you fully read and understand the terms and conditions of any cover provided by your chosen provider before you decline any of our optional services. Without our SuperCover, should you damage the vehicle during your rental period, we will charge you the corresponding amount up to the excess, regardless of whether you can subsequently reclaim this amount from the provider of the credit card or the third party insurer. In the event you would like to dispute any of the above mentioned charges you should send your request by mail or email to the Firefly location state on your rental agreement. https://global.fireflycarrental.com/qualifications-ES.html From that, we can conclude that : It's likely that disputes with customers in case of damage cost a lot to car rental companies, and for the 2 above reasons, demanding a credit card may alleviate it.
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My investment account is increasingly and significantly underperforming vs. the S&P 500. What should I do?
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Typically you diversify a portfolio to reduce risk. The S&P 500 is a collection of large-cap stocks; a diversified portfolio today probably contains a mix of large cap, small cap, bonds, international equity and cash. Right now, if you have a bond component, that part of your portfolio isn't performing as well. The idea of diversification is that you "smooth out" the ups and downs of the market and come out ahead in most situations. If you don't have a bond or cash component in your portfolio, you may have picked (or had someone pick for you) lousy funds. Without more detail, that's about all that can be said. EDIT: You provided more detail, so I want to add a little to my answer. Basically, you're in a fund that has high fees (1.58% annually) and performance that trails the mid-cap index. The S&P 500 is a large-cap index (large cap == large company), so a direct comparison is not necessarily meaningful. Since you seem to be new at this, I'd recommend starting out with the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) or ETF (VTI). This is a nice option because it represents the entire stock market and is cheap... it's a good way to get started without knowing alot. If your broker charges a transaction fee to purchase Vanguard funds and you don't want to change brokers or pay ETF commissions, look for or ask about transaction-fee free "broad market" indexes. The expense ratio should be below 0.50% per year and optimally under 0.20%. If you're not having luck finding investment options, swtich to a discount broker like TD Ameritrade, Schwab, ScottTrade or Fidelity (in no particular order)
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What does PMI mean?
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Private Mortgage Insurance. It's money that you pay to an insurance company to make the lender whole in the event that you go into default. It's a real waste of money for you. If you are trying to finance more than 80% of the value of a home, a standard mortage is likely to require that you get PMI. Nowadays there are other options which involve paying substantially more interest.
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Does dollar cost averaging apply when moving investments between fund families?
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As mentioned by others, dollar cost averaging is just a fancy term for how many shares your individual purchases get when you are initially adding money to your investment accounts. Once the money is invested, annual or quarterly rebalancing serves the purpose of taking advantage of higher rates of growth in particular market sectors. You define the asset allocation based on your risk profile, time to retirement, etc., then you periodically sell the shares of the investments that have grown faster than the rest and buy more shares of the investments that are relatively cheaper.
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Why does it matter if a Central Bank has a negative rather than 0% interest rate?
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That is kind of the point, one of the hopes is that it incentivizes banks to stop storing money and start injecting it into the economy themselves. Compared to the European Central Bank investing directly into the economy the way the US central bank has been doing. (The Federal Reserve buying mortgage backed securities) On a country level, individual European countries have tried this before in recent times with no noticeable effect.
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Can I do periodic rollovers from my low-perfoming 401k to an IRA?
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If the difference in performance is worth it, consider "borrowing" from your 401k to put into the Roth. You pay it back, but you can stretch it out over time, and the interest charged is actually yours, because you borrowed from yourself. But you can only borrow half of the account and you have to pay it back before you can do another loan.
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How to check the paypal's current exchange rate?
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FYI, just found this (https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full#8) "8.9 Currency Conversion Currency Conversion 2.5% added to the exchange rate The Currency Conversion spread applies whenever a currency conversion is required to complete your transaction. The exchange rate is determined by a financial institution and is adjusted regularly based on market conditions. Adjustments may be applied immediately and without notice to you. When your payment is funded by a debit or credit card and requires a currency conversion, you consent to and authorize PayPal to convert the currency in place of your debit or credit card issuer. You have the right to have your card issuer perform the currency conversion and can choose this option during checkout on your transaction review page before you complete the transaction." 2.5%!! Can this be true?
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Why are estimated taxes due “early” for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only?
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I suspect that the payments were originally due near the end of each quarter (March 15, June 15, September 15, and December 15) but then the December payment was extended to January 15 to allow for end-of-year totals to be calculated, and then the March payment was extended to April 15 to coincide with Income Tax Return filing.
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I am moving to a new city. How do I plan and prepare - financially - for the move?
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Utilities and cost of living vary from city to city but maybe not that much. For basic planning purposes you can probably figure to spend as much as you are now, maybe a little more. And adjust as needed when you get there. (And adjust if, for example, you're moving from a very low cost of living area or to a very high cost of living area.) The cost of housing varies quite a bit from city to city, but you can do this research using Zillow, Craigslist, other places. Now, on to moving itself. The cost of moving can vary hugely depending on how much stuff you have and how much work you want to do. On the cheap end, you can rent a U-Haul or one of those portable boxes that they plant outside your old house and move for you. You'll do all the packing/loading/unloading/unpacking yourself but it saves quite a bit of money. My family and I moved from Seattle to California last year using one of those portable box places and it ended up costing us ~$1400 including 30 days of storage at the destination while we looked for a place. We have a <1000 sq foot place with some furniture but not a huge amount and did all the packing/loading ourselves. If we had wanted full service where people come pack, load, unpack, etc, it could have been 2-3x that amount. (And if we had more stuff, it could have been a lot more expensive too. Try not to acquire too much stuff as you just end up having to move it around and take care of it all!) Your employer may cover moving expenses, ask about this when talking about job offers. Un-reimbursed moving expenses are tax-deductible in the US (even if you don't itemize). Since you're just starting out, your best bet is to overestimate how much you think things will cost, then adjust as you arrive and settle in for a few months. Try to save as much as you can, but remember to have fun too. Hope this helps!
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What is an ideal number of stock positions that I should have in my portfolio?
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I would just buy one ETF (index-fund) on the market you think will perform better. It will take care to buy the 5 most solid stock in this market and many other more to reduce the risk to the bear minimum. You will also spend only few bucks in comissions, definitely less than what you would spend buying multiple stocks (even just 5). It's hard enough to forecast which market will perform better, it's even harder to do stock picking unless you have the time and the knowledge to read into companies' balance sheets/economic incomes/budgets/market visions etc. And even if you are great in reading into companies balance sheets/economic incomes/budgets, the stock market usually behaves like a cows' drove, therefor even if you choosed the most valuable solid stocks, be prepared to see them run down even a 50% when all the market runs down a 50%. During the 2008 crisis the Europe market has lost a 70%, and even the most solid sectors/stocks like "Healthcare" and "Food & Beverage" lost a painful 40% to 50% (true that now these sectors recovered greatly compared to the rest of the market, but they still run down like cows during the crisis, and if you holded them you would have suffered a huge pain/stress). But obviously there's always some profet/wizard which will later tell you he was able to select the only 5 stocks among thousands that performed well.
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Pay off car or use money for down payment
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Break the transactions into parts. Go to your bank or credit union and get a loan commitment. When applying for loan get the maximum amount they will let you borrow assuming that you will no longer own the first car. Take the car to a dealer and get a written estimate for selling the car. Pick one that gives you an estimate that is good for a week or ten days. You now know a data point for the trade-in value. Finally go to the dealer where you will buy the replacement car. Negotiate the price, tell them you don't need financing and you will not be trading in the car. Get all you can regarding rebates and other special incentives. Once you have a solid in writing commitment, then ask about financing and trade in. If they beat the numbers you have regarding interest rate and trade-in value accept those parts of the deal. But don't let them change anything else. If you keep the bank financing the dealer will usually give you a couple of days to get a check. If you decide to ell the car to the first dealer do so as soon as you pick up the replacement car. If you try to start with the dealer you are buying the car from they will keep adjusting the rate, length of loan, trade-in value, and price until you have no idea if you are getting a good deal.
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How are startup shares worth more than the total investment funding?
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What littleadv said is correct. His worth is based on the presumed worth of the total company value (which is much greater than all investment dollars combined because of valuation growth)*. In other words, his "worth" is based on the potential return for his share of ownership at a rate based on the latest valuation of the company. He is worth $17.5 billion today, but the total funding for Facebook is only $2.4 billion? I don't understand this. In private companies, valuations typically come from either speculation/analysts or from investments. Investment valuations are the better gauge, because actual money traded hands for a percentage ownership. However, just as with public companies on the stock market, there are (at least) two caveats. Just because someone else sold their shares at a given rate, doesn't mean that rate... In both cases, it's possible the value may be much lower or much higher. Some high-value purchases surprise for how high they are, such as Microsoft's acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion. The formula for one owner's "worth" based on a given acquisition is: Valuation = Acquisition amount / Acquisition percent Worth = Owner's percent × Valuation According to Wikipedia Zuckerberg owns 24%. In January, Goldman Sach's invested $500 million at a $50 billion valuation. That is the latest investment and puts Zuckerberg's worth at $12 billion. However, some speculation places a Facebook IPO at a much higher valuation, such as as $100 billion. I don't know what your reference is for $17 billion, but it puts their valuation at $70.8 billion, between the January Goldman valuation and current IPO speculation. * For instance, Eduardo Saverin originally invested $10,000, which, at his estimated 5% ownership, would now be worth $3-5 billion.
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Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house?
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IMO student loans are junk debt that should be dealt with as soon as possible. Buying a house comes with risks and expenses (repairs, maintenance, etc) and dealing with a student loan at the same time just makes it tougher. Personally, I would try to pay off at least a few of the loans first.
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Strategies for saving and investing in multiple foreign currencies
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If you want to use that money and maybe don't have the time to wait a few years if things should go bad, than you will definitely want to hold a good bunch of your money in the currency you buy most stuff with (so in most cases the currency of the country you live in) even if it is more volatile.
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Ways to save for child's college education where one need not commit to set contributions? [duplicate]
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Since this post was migrated from Parenting, my reply was in the context where it appeared to be misrepresenting facts to make a point. I've edited it to be more concise to my main point. In my opinion, the best way to save for your childs future is to get rid of as much of your own debt as possible. Starting today. For the average American, a car is 6-10%. Most people have at least a couple credit cards, ranging from 10-25% (no crap). College loans can be all over the map (5-15%) as can be signature (8-15%) or secured bank loans (4-8%). Try to stop living within your credit and live within your means. Yeah it will suck to not go to movies or shop for cute things at Kohl's, but only today. First, incur no more debt. Then, the easiest way I found to pay things off is to use your tax returns and reduce your cable service (both potentially $Ks per year) to pay off a big debt like a car or student loan. You just gave yourself an immediate raise of whatever your payment is. If you think long term (we're talking about long-term savings for a childs college) there are things you can do to pay off debt and save money without having to take up a 2nd job... but you have to think in terms of years, not months. Is this kind of thing pie in the sky? Yes and no, but it takes a plan and diligence. For example, we have no TV service (internet only service redirected an additional $100/mo to the wifes lone credit card) and we used '12 taxes to pay off the last 4k on the car. We did the same thing on our van last year. It takes willpower to not cheat, but that's only really necessary for the first year-ish... well before that point you'll be used to the Atkins Diet on your wallet and will have no desire to cheat. It doesn't really hurt your quality of life (do you really NEED 5 HBO channels?) and it sets everyone up for success down the line. The moral of the story is that by paying down your debt today, you're taking steps to reduce long haul expenditures. A stable household economy is a tremendous foundation for raising children and can set you up to be more able to deal with the costs of higher ed.
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What to sell when your financial needs change, stocks or bonds?
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You are right about the stock and index funds, with dollar cost averaging over several years, the daily price of the security (especially a dividend paying security) will not matter* because your position will have accumulated larger over several entry points, some entries with cheaper shares and some entries with more expensive shares. In the future your position will be so large that any uptick will net you large gains on your original equity. *not matter being a reference to even extreme forms of volatility. But if you had all your equity in a poor company and tanked, never to rise again, then you would still be in a losing position even with dollar cost averaging. If your only other holdings are bonds, then you MAY want to sell those to free up capital.
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US Self-Employment Tax: Do expenses stack with the 50% SE deduction?
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Business expenses reduce business income. The SE tax is paid on business income. The credit for 1/2 the SE tax is based on the amount of SE tax paid. So:
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Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation?
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I wouldn't buy a house at this time. Your credit card debt is the most expensive thing you have. Which is to say that you want to get rid of it as soon as possible. The lawyer isn't cheap, and your personal situation is not fully resolved. Congratulations on paying off the IRS, and getting up the 401k to 17.5k. Take care of the two things in paragraph 1, first,and then think about buying a house. You're doing too much good work to have it possibly be derailed by home payments.
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Is trading stocks easier than trading commodities?
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One reason why you may have gotten this advice is that stocks have an expected real return over time, while commodities do not. Therefore, when gambling on individual stocks, odds are in your favor that they will ultimately go up over time. You may do better or worse than the market as a whole, but they will likely go up as the whole market, on average, rises over time. Commodities, on the other hand, have no expected real return. It is more zero-sum. In fact, after costs, a real loss should be expected on average, making gambling in here more risky.
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Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year?
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In addition to the company-specific annual business cycle reasons and company-specific historical reasons mentioned in the other answers, there is another reason. Accounting firms tend to be very busy during January (and February and March) when most companies are closing and auditing their calendar-year books. If a company chooses its fiscal year to end at a different time of year, the accounting firms are more available, and the auditing costs might be lower.
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Tax implications of restricted stock units
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My friend Harry Sit wrote an excellent article No Tax Advantage In RSU. The punchline is this. The day the RSUs vested, it's pretty much you got $XXX in taxable income and then bought the stock at the price at that moment. The clock for long term gain starts the same as if I bought the stock that day. Historical side note - In the insane days of the Dotcom bubble, people found they got RSUs vested and worth, say, $1M. Crash. The shares are worth $100K. The $1M was ordinary income, the basis was $1M and the $900K loss could offset cap gains, not ordinary income above $3000/yr. Let me be clear - the tax bill was $250K+ but the poor taxpayer had $100K in stock to sell to pay that bill. Ooops. This is the origin of the 'sell the day it vests' advice. The shares you own will be long term for capital gain a year after vesting. After the year, be sure to sell those particular shares and you're all set. No different than anyone selling the LT shares of stock when owning multiple lots. But. Don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog. If you feel it's time to sell, you can easily lose the tax savings while watching the stock fall waiting for the clock to tick to one year.
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What are the benefits of investing to IRA/Roth IRA, 401(k) in comparison to investing in long term CDs?
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For the period 1950 to 2009, if you adjust the S&P 500 for inflation and account for dividends, the average annual return comes out to exactly 7.0%. Source. Currently inflation is around 2%. So your 2% APY is a 0% real return where the stock market return is 7%. I.e. on average, stocks have a return that is higher by 7. If you mix in bonds, 70% stocks to 30% bonds, your real returns will drop to around 5.5%, but you are safer in individual years (bonds often have good years when stocks have bad years). We're making a bit of a false dichotomy here. We're talking about returns on stocks in retirement accounts versus returns on CDs in regular accounts. You can buy stocks in regular accounts and it is legally possible to have a CD in a retirement account. So you can get bankruptcy protection and tax advantages with a CD.
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Good book-keeping software?
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Xero and WaveAccounting can make things easy, but they also have their limitations. I've used both for short periods of time but found both of them to be lacking. While the "ease" is appealing, the ability to drill into the details and get good reports is the downfall of both of these accounting systems. QuickBooks may seem like the easy answer here, but it really is the best for getting the power you want without getting too complicated.
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Why do some people say a house “not an investment”?
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A house is a funny kind of investment. Normally when you invest, you do it to make money. The return on a house, though, isn't principally real money, it's the imputed rent - money that you would have needed to pay to rent the house. The thing about this imputed rent is that you consume it right away. Getting a bigger house and putting more money into it doesn't save you any money, it's just a way to consume more "house" - so, unlike regular investing, it's not really responsible and doesn't contribute to your financial well-being.
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How do LLC losses affect personal income taxes in the US?
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The short answer is yes, losses get passed through to members. Limits/percentages do apply, primarily based on your share in the business. Check out the final post in this thread: http://community2.business.gov/t5/Other-Business-Issues/Paying-oneself-in-a-LLC/td-p/16060 It's not a bad little summary of the profit/loss pass-through. Regarding your 60K/60K example: the amount of money you earn in your day job will impact how much loss you can claim. Unfortunately I can't find anything more recent at the IRS or business.gov, but see this from 2004 - 40K was the limit before the amount you could claim against started to be mitigated: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Tax-Law-Questions-932/tax-loss-pass.htm HTH
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Next steps for (not me): a recently-divorced single mom, in California, with a 2yr-old
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She should call 211. This is exactly how they help. The 2-1-1 service is run by the United Way, a nonprofit organization. The 2-1-1 service strives to be a clearinghouse for services within a local area.
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If you own 1% of a company's stock, are you entitled to 1% of its assets?
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No. If the share price drops to $0, it's likely that the company is in bankruptcy. Usually, debt holders (especially holders of senior debt) are paid first, and you're entitled to whatever the bankruptcy proceedings decide to give holders of equity after the debt holders are paid off. More often than not, equity holders probably won't get much. To give an example, corporate bankruptcy usually involves one of two options: liquidation or reorganization. In the US, these are called Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 bankruptcy, respectively. Canada and the United Kingdom also have similar procedures for corporations, although in the UK, reorganization is often referred to as administration. Many countries have similar procedures in place. I'll use the US as an example because it's what I'm most familiar with. In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company is liquidated to pay its debts. Investopedia's article about bankruptcy states: During Chapter 7 bankruptcy, investors are considered especially low on the ladder. Usually, the stock of a company undergoing Chapter 7 proceedings is usually worthless, and investors lose the money they invested. If you hold a bond, you might receive a fraction of its face value. What you receive depends on the amount of assets available for distribution and where your investment ranks on the priority list on the first page. In Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company is turned over to a trustee that guides it through a reorganization. The Investopedia article quotes the SEC to describe what happens to stockholders when this happens: "During Chapter 11 bankruptcy, bondholders stop receiving interest and principal payments, and stockholders stop receiving dividends. If you are a bondholder, you may receive new stock in exchange for your bonds, new bonds or a combination of stock and bonds. If you are a stockholder, the trustee may ask you to send back your stock in exchange for shares in the reorganized company. The new shares may be fewer in number and worth less. The reorganization plan spells out your rights as an investor and what you can expect to receive, if anything, from the company." The exact details will depend on the reorganization plan that's worked out, local laws, court agreements, etc.. For example, in the case of General Motor's bankruptcy, stockholders in the company before reorganization were left with worthless shares and were not granted shares in the new company.
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How do the wealthy pay for things?
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This is second hand information as I am not a millionaire, but I work with such people everyday and have an understanding of how they handle cash: The wealthy people don't. Simple. Definitely not if they don't have to. Cash is a tool to them that they use only if they get benefit of it being a cash transaction (one of my friends is a re-seller and he gets a 10% discount from suppliers for settling lines using cash). Everything else they place on a line of credit. For people who "dislike" credit cards and pay using ATM or debit cards might actually have a very poor understanding of leverage. I assure you, the wealthy people have a very good understanding of it! Frankly, wealthy people pay less for everything, but they deserve it because of the extreme amount of leverage they have built for themselves. Their APRs are low, their credit limits are insanely high, they have longer billing periods and they get spoiled by credit card vendors all the time. For example, when you buy your groceries at Walmart, you pay at least a 4% markup because that's the standardized cost of processing credit cards. Even if you paid in cash! A wealthy person uses his credit card to pay for the same but earns the same percentage amount in cash back, points and what not. I am sure littleadv placed the car purchase on his credit card for similar reasons! The even more wealthy have their groceries shipped to their houses and if they pay cash I won't be surprised if they actually end up paying much less for fresh (organic) vegetables than what equivalent produce at Walmart would get them! I apologize for not being able to provide citations for these points I make as they are personal observations.
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What kind of life insurance is cheaper? I'm not sure about term vs. whole vs. universal, etc
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All life insurance is pretty much the same when it comes to cost. You can run the numbers over certain time period and the actual cost of insurance is about the same. A simplified way to explain life insurance and the differences between them below: The 3 characteristics of life insurance: There are 5 popular types of life insurance and they are: Term Whole Life Universal Life Variable Universal Life Indexed Universal Life But first, one must understand the most basic life insurance which is called Annual Renewable Term: This is a policy that covers 1 year and is renewable every year after. The cost of insurance typically increases each year as the insured ages. So for every year of coverage, your premium increases like in the simplified illustration above. This is the building block of all life insurance, term or permanent. There is no cash value; all premium goes to the cost of insurance. This is an ART that spans over a longer time period than 1 year (say 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 years). All the cost is added together then divided by the number of years of coverage to give a level premium payment for the duration of the policy. The longest coverage offered these days is 30 years. There is no cash value; all premium goes to the cost of insurance. The premium is fixed (level) for the term specified. If the policy comes to an end and the owner wishes to renew it, it will be at higher premium. This can be seen in the simplified illustration above for a 15-year term policy. Because life insurance gets very expensive as you reach old age, life insurance companies came up with a way to make it affordable for the consumer wishing to have coverage for their entire lifespan. They allow you to have interest rate crediting on the cash value account inside the policy. To have cash value in the first place, you must pay premiums that are more than the cost of insurance. The idea is: your cash value grows over time to help pay for the cost of insurance in the later stages of the policy, where the cost of insurance is typically higher. This is illustrated above in an overly simplified way. This is a permanent life insurance policy that is designed to cover the lifespan of the insured. There is cash value that is credited on a fixed interest rate specified by the insurance company (typically 3-5%). The premium is fixed for the life of the policy. It was designed for insuring the entire lifespan of the insured. This is variation of Whole Life. There is cash value; it is credited on a fixed interest rate specified by the insurance company, but it does fluctuate year to year depending on the economy (typically 3-6%). The premium is flexible; you can increase/decrease the premium. This is basically a universal life policy, but the cash value sits in an account that is invested in the market, normally mutual funds. Your interest that is being credited (to your account with your cash value from investments) is subjected to risk in the market, rise/fall with the market depending on the portfolio of your choosing, hence the word "Variable". You take on the risk instead of the insurance company. It can be a very good product if the owner knows how to manage it (just like any other investment products). This is a hybrid of the UL and the VUL. The interest rate depends on the performance of a market index or a set of market indices. The insurance company states a maximum interest rate (or cap) you can earn up to and a guaranteed minimum floor on your cash value interest that will be credited (typically 0% floor and 12% cap). It is purely a method to credit you interest rate. It takes the market risk out of the equation but still retains some of the growth potential of the market. Term policy is designed for temporary coverage. There is no cash value accumulation. Permanent policies such as whole life, universal life, variable universal life and indexed universal life have a cash value accumulation component that was originally designed to help pay for the cost of insurance in the later stages of the policy when the insured is at an advanced age, so it can cover the entire lifespan of the insured. People do take advantage of that cash value component and its tax advantages for retirement income supplement and maximize the premium contribution. Always remember that life insurance is a life insurance product, and not an investment vehicle. There is a cost of insurance that you are paying for. But if you have life insurance needs, you might as well take advantage of the cash value accumulation, deferred tax growth, and tax-free access that these permanent policies offer.
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Historical P/E ratios of small-cap vs. large-cap stocks?
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There is most likely an error in the WSJ's data. Yahoo! Finance reports the P/E on the Russell 2000 to be 15 as of 8/31/11 and S&P 500 P/E to be 13 (about the same as WSJ). Good catch, though! E-mail WSJ, perhaps they will be grateful.
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Is it mandatory to report Capital Loss on line 21 of Schedule D?
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On line 21 of Schedule D, you write the smaller of So, in your case, since your Line 16 shows a loss of more than $3000 on Line 21, you write 3000 on Line 21 (the parentheses indicating that is it a negative number are already included on the form). Also, you write (3000) on Form 1040 Line 13. The rest of the loss is a carryover to next year (be sure to fill out the Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet where the carryover to next year is computed). Summary: you cannot write 0 on Line 21 of Schedule D and carry over the entire loss to next year. You must deduct $3000 this year and carry over the rest of the loss to next year.
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Is there a return-on-investment vs risk graph anywhere?
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There may well be several such graphs, I expect googling will turn them up; but the definition of risk is actually quite important here. My definition of risk might not be quite the same as yours, so the relative risk factors would be different. For example: in general, stocks are more risky than bonds. But owning common shares in a blue-chip company might well be less risky than owning bonds from a company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and no single risk number can really capture that. Another example: while I can put all my money in short-term deposits, and it is pretty "safe", if it grows at 1% so that my investment portfolio cannot fund my retirement, then I have a risk that I will run out of money before I shuffle off this mortal coil. How to capture that "risk" in a single number? So you will need to better define your parameters before you can prepare a visual aid. Good Luck
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Any experience with maxing out 401(k)?
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The biggest challenge as a young person maxing out a 401k in my opinion is the challenge of saving for a house, and (if necessary) paying off student loans. You have to consider - are you OK renting for the next 3, 5, 10 years? Or do you eventually want to buy a place? how much will that cost vs your current expenses? That being said, I didn't max out but had over 8-10% of 401k contribution in the same situation you're in right now and I don't regret it. Rereading your question, I see you are considering investing in a Roth IRA. Especially at your current age, assuming your wages will go UP, investing to the company match with the 401K and then maxing out a Roth IRA would be my recommendation. THEN continue maxing out the 401k (if you wish). P.S. I highly recommend doing two things if you go down this path:
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Why are people from UAE and Dubai so rich?
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They aren't all rich on average. And oil and gas is actually now only about 25% of the economy in the UAE (incredibly!). There are good reasons why it felt that way, though: The UAE and a number of other oil-rich nations all realize that they need to diversify away from oil revenues. International investment and tourism are the main ways in which they hope to attract capital (free trade/full foreign ownership/no-tax zones, World Cup, etc.). Business and government are often one and the same or working closely together, and they are extremely savvy about cultivating your experience in their company, and want to make sure they are doing everything in their power to get you to like and spend money in their country. Essentially, you are visiting their version of Las Vegas. Additionally, they have taken on massive debt to create those kinds of cities and experiences. According to the World Bank and the CIA (see here), the per capita GDP of the UAE on a Purchasing Price Parity basis is about 18% higher than in the US. Since much of the oil wealth is controlled by the state, it is not certain how evenly that income is distributed (World Bank and CIA statistics do not provide R/P or Gini data for UAE, while it is provided for most nations).
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Is Volvo a public company?
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There are two different companies named "Volvo." The publicly-traded company with ticker symbol VOLV-B is called Volvo Group, or AB Volvo. They primarily build trucks, buses, and construction equipment. The company that makes the Volvo branded cars is called Volvo Cars. It is a privately-held company currently owned by the Chinese Geely Holding Group. It was all one company until 1999, when AB Volvo sold off its car brand to Ford. Because of the history, the two companies share the same logo.
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How do I know when I am financially stable/ready to move out on my own?
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I recently moved out from my parents place, after having built up sufficient funds, and gone through these questions myself. I live near Louisville, KY which has a significant effect on my income, cost of living, and cost of housing. Factor that into your decisions. To answer your questions in order: When do I know that I'm financially stable to move out? When you have enough money set aside for all projected expenses for 3-6 months and an emergency fund of 4-10K, depending on how large a safety net you want or need. Note that part of the reason for the emergency fund is as a buffer for the things you won't realize you need until you move out, such as pots or chairs. It also covers things being more expensive than anticipated. Should I wait until both my emergency fund is at least 6 months of pay and my loans in my parents' names is paid off (to free up money)? 6 months of pay is not a good measuring stick. Use months of expenses instead. In general, student loans are a small enough cost per month that you just need to factor them into your costs. When should I factor in the newer car investment? How much should I have set aside for the car? Do the car while you are living at home. This allows you to put more than the minimum payment down each month, and you can get ahead. That looks good on your credit, and allows refinancing later for a lower minimum payment when you move out. Finally, it gives you a "sense" of the monthly cost while you still have leeway to adjust things. Depending on new/used status of the car, set aside around 3-5K for a down payment. That gives you a decent rate, without too much haggling trouble. Should I get an apartment for a couple years before looking for my own house? Not unless you want the flexibility of an apartment. In general, living at home is cheaper. If you intend to eventually buy property in the same area, an apartment is throwing money away. If you want to move every few years, an apartment can, depending on the lease, give you that. How much should I set aside for either investment (apartment vs house)? 10-20K for a down payment, if you live around Louisville, KY. Be very choosy about the price of your house and this gives you the best of everything. The biggest mistake you can make is trying to get into a place too "early". Banks pay attention to the down payment for a good reason. It indicates commitment, care, and an ability to go the distance. In general, a mortgage is 30 years. You won't pay it off for a long time, so plan for that. Is there anything else I should be doing/taking advantage of with my money during this "living at home" period before I finally leave the nest? If there is something you want, now's the time to get it. You can make snap purchases on furniture/motorcycles/games and not hurt yourself. Take vacations, since there is room in the budget. If you've thought about moving to a different state for work, travel there for a weekend/week and see if you even like the place. Look for deals on things you'll need when you move out. Utensils, towels, brooms, furniture, and so forth can be bought cheaply, and you can get quality, but it takes time to find these deals. Pick up activities with monthly expenses. Boxing, dancing, gym memberships, hackerspaces and so forth become much more difficult to fit into the budget later. They also give you a better credit rating for a recurring expense, and allow you to get a "feel" for how things like a monthly utility bill will work. Finally, get involved in various investments. A 401k is only the start, so look at penny stocks, indexed funds, ETFs or other things to diversify with. Check out local businesses, or start something on the side. Experiment, and have fun.
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Do altcoin trades count as like-kind exchanges? (Deferred capital gains tax)
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In June 2016 the American Institute of CPAs sent a letter to the IRS requesting guidance on this question. Quoting from section 4 of this letter, which is available at https://www.aicpa.org/advocacy/tax/downloadabledocuments/aicpa-comment-letter-on-notice-2014-21-virtual-currency-6-10-16.pdf If the IRS believes any property transaction rules should apply differently to virtual currency than to other types of property, taxpayers will need additional guidance in order to properly distinguish the rules and regulations. Section 4, Q&A-1 of Notice 2014-21 states that “general tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency,” which is guidance that is generally helpful in determining the tax consequences of most virtual currency transactions. However, if there are particular factors that distinguish one virtual currency as like-kind to another virtual currency for section 1031 purposes, the IRS should clarify these details (e.g., allowing the treatment of virtual currency held for investment or business as like-kind to another virtual currency) in the form of published guidance. Similarly, taxpayers need specific guidance of special rules or statutory interpretations if the IRS determines that the installment method of section 453 is applied differently for virtual currency than for other types of property. So, at the very least, a peer-reviewed committee of CPAs finds like-kind treatment to have possible grounds for allowance. I would disagree with calling this a "loophole," however (edit: at least from the viewpoint of the taxpayer.) At a base technological level, a virtual currency-to-virtual currency exchange consists of exchanging knowledge of one sequence of binary digits (private key) for another. What could be more "like-kind" than this?
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Ideas on how to invest a relatively small amount of British pounds
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First I assume you are resident for tax purposes in the UK? 1 Put 2000 in a cash ISA as an emergency fund. 2 Buy shares in 2 or 3 of the big generalist Investment trusts as they have low charges and long track records – unless your a higher rate tax payer don’t buy the shares inside the ISA its not worth it You could use FTSE 100 tracker ETF's or iShares instead of Investment Trusts.
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How to choose a good 401(k) investment option?
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Great question and good for you for starting investments. Are you young, like in your 20s? I would do all that you can in the ROTH. You will not get a tax break now, but you will get one later. Keep in mind that any company match does not go into ROTH but the IRA. I try to look at two things when judging a mutual fund: the historic performance, and the expense fee. When comparing two funds, if one has a 10% average return for 10 years, and a 1% fee, I feel it is better than a fund that has a 12% return for the same time period and a 3% fee. If they are close, you can always put a little bit in each one. An important question to ask is if you have debt. You may want to scale back your contributions some to pay down that debt. For me, I don't like to go below a company match to do so, but anything over and above might be better utilized to move that student, car or credit card loan to zero. Others might disagree, so YMMV, but I have done this myself.
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If someone gives me cash legally, can my deposit trigger an audit for them?
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Am I right to worry about both of these? Of course. Who carries $75K in cash for no good reason? Your friend got the cash from somewhere, didn't he? If its legit - there's paper trail to show. Same for your parents. If you/they can show the legit paper trail - there's nothing to worry about, the hassle, at worse, is a couple of letters to the IRS. If the money is not legit (your friend is selling crack to the kids in the hood and your parents robbed a 7/11 to give you the money, for example) - there may be problems.
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Is it a good idea to put everything in the S&P500?
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What you choose to invest in depends largely on your own goals and time horizon. You state that your time horizon is a few decades. Most studies have shown that the equity market as a whole has outperformed most other asset types (except perhaps property in some cases) over the long term. The reason that time horizon is important is that equities are quite volatile. Who knows whether your value will halve in the next year? But we hope that over the longer term, things come out in the wash, and tomorrow's market crash will recover, etc. However, you must realize that if your goals change, and you suddenly need your money after 2 years, it might be worth less in two years than you expect.
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Is a fixed-price natural gas or electricity contract likely to save money?
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I can only speak to natural gas but I imagine the answer for electricity is the same. In general, yes, it is better to lock into a fixed price contract as in the long run, natural gas prices increase over time. However, if you locked (signed a fixed price contract) in prior to the economic downturn, most likely you were better off not doing so but the key is long-term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_prices However, do your research as fixed priced contracts vary considerably from company to company. http://www.energyshop.com/ I think it's a good time to sign a fixed-term contract right now as I don't see prices coming down much further with global economies are now recovering from the downturn. HTH
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Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?
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...instead of all of us draining our money into a landlord... Instead, you are suggesting that still everyone (except you) will drain their money into a landlord, just that now the landlord is you. I guess what that really means is that you will need to have landlord tenant agreements between you and your roommates. When things break or need replacing you'll have to foot the bill and as your tenants, your "roomies" might not be too forgiving when things need fixing. When the fridge breaks down, you'll have to buy a new one immediately. Yard work is your sole responsibility, unless you offer discounted rent or other perks. What about service bills: energy, water, sewage, internet, television, etc?
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For net worth, should I value physical property at my cost to replace it, or the amount I could get for selling it?
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Valuation by definition is what an item is worth, not what you paid for it. Net worth should be market value for fixed assets or "capital" goods. I would consider this cars, real property, furniture, jewelry, appliances, tools, etc. Everything else can be valued by liquidation value. You can use valuation guides for tax deductions as a way to guide your valuation. Insurance companies usually just pick a percentage of your home's value as a guesstimate for content value. I could see doing this as a way to guide purchase decisions for appliances, cars or the like. But if you are trying to figure out the market value of your socks and underwear, I would argue that you're doing something that's a little silly.
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Curious about Liverpool FC situation
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AFAIK gillet and hicks received massive loans to fund their purchase and they have not been keeping up the repayments so now the creditors own the club. Its like getting a car on the never never, or a mortgage, i fyou don't keep up repayments the credit company take back the car or the bank repossess your house. I am sure it is a bit more complicated than that in this case, but tbh I would be surprised if it was fundamentally different. thats why RBS and the mill fininance are involved, they provided the loans, and are probably desperately keen to sell before going into administation, which would dock liverpool 9 points and reduce the value even more.
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Paying off mortgage or invest in annuity
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There is no formula to answer the question. You have to balance return on investment with risk. There's also the question of whether you have any children or other heirs that you would like to leave money to. The mortgage is presumably a guaranteed thing: you know exactly how much the payments will be for the rest of the loan. I think most annuities have a fixed rate of return, but they terminate when you both die. There are annuities with a variable return, but usually with a guaranteed minimum. So if you got an annuity with a fixed 3.85% return, and you lived exactly 18 more years, then (ignoring tax implications), there'd be no practical difference between the two choices. If you lived longer than 18 years, the annuity would be better. If less, paying off the mortgage would be better. Another option to consider is doing neither, but keeping the money in the 401k or some other investment. This will usually give better than 3.85% return, and the principal will be available to leave to your heirs. The big drawback to this is risk: investments in the stock market and the like usually do better than 3 or 4%, but not always, and sometimes they lose money. Earlier I said "ignoring tax implications". Of course that can be a significant factor. Mortgages get special tax treatment, so the effective interest rate on a mortgage is less than the nominal rate. 401ks also get special tax treatment. So this complicates up calculations trying to compare. I can't give definitive numbers without knowing the returns you might get on an annuity and your tax situation.
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Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?
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One of many things to consider is that in the United States student loan interest is tax deductible. That fact could change the math enough to make it worth putting A's money elsewhere depending on his interest rate and income bracket.
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What ways are there for us to earn a little extra side money?
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Your problem is one that has challenged many people. As you said there are two aspects to balancing a budget, reducing expenses or increasing income. And you state that you have done all the cost-cutting that you can find. Looking at ways to increase your income is a good way to balance your budget. How big is your problem? Do you need to find another $100/month, or do you need $1000/month? There are many part-time jobs you could obtain (fast food, retail, grocery), you could obtain a sales-job (cars, real estate, even working for a recruiting firm) where you could connect buyers and sellers. If your need is $100/month, a part-time job on weekends would fill the gap. When I was trying to solve my budget problems a few years ago, I thought that I needed to increase my income. And I did increase my income. But then I realized that my expenses were too high. And I re-evaluated my priorities. I challenge you to revisit your expenses. Often we assume that we need things that we really cannot afford. Consider a few of your (possible) expenses, My problems included mortgage debt, auto loans, high utilities, high car insurance, too much spending on kids activities, and a few other problems.
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Is it normal that US Treasury bills(0.07%) yield smaller than interest rate(0.25%)?
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Im not sure if its normal/sensical/healthy, and that is kind of opinion based. But there is a reason for it. Certain rules and regulations passed recently are causing companies or institutions to shift to bonds from cash. Fidelity, for example, is completely converting its $100 billion dollar cash fund to short term bills. Its estimated that over $2 trillion that is now in cash may be converted to bills, and that will obviously put upward preasure on the price of them. The treasury is trying to issue more short term debt to balance out the demand. read more here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/money-funds-clamor-for-short-term-treasurys-1445300813
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What are the downsides that prevent more people from working in high-income countries, and then retiring in low-income (and cost of living) ones?
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Political instability and general inability of the government to control crime, economomy, or even remain in existence, would be my greatest worry. I wouldn't want my bank account to randomly disappear, criminals to come take my stuff and/or life by force because nobody is going to stop them, or a hoarde of revolutionaries appearing at my door telling me "get lost, the times they are a-changin". On a whim, I tried to compare instability to cost of living. I used lowest monthly disposable income as my correlation to cost of living and the Fragile State index to measure instability. I picked the 55 lowest to get the countries with $500.00 (usd) and lower in monthly income. Those countries average out to 83.42 on the Fragile State index, which would be in the "Very High Warning" range and includes 18 countries in the "Alert", "High Alert", or "Very High Alert" status. Obviously, there is some subjectivity in an attempt to measure something in as broad a term as "fragile state", but it illustrates it's point well enough. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-living/Average-monthly-disposable-salary/After-tax
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How to help a financially self destructive person?
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Wow. Just ... wow. We all must start where we are, I guess. The past is the past. There almost certainly isn't a cheap way to fix this. You're already on the hook for $4k per month. Your money is enabling her behavior. You'd rather not enable her behavior, but the money is part of the consequences of your divorce, so into her bank account it goes. Those who control how much alimony your ex-wife receives might reach the conclusion she needs more. That's not a hard conclusion for them to make. It's not their money. The living conditions are hurting your kids, and that's unfortunate, but that's also part of the consequences of your divorce. If it's deemed that your kids are better off not visiting her, then you might be relieved of paying child support (since you're supporting them at that point) but you might still be supporting her until some trigger is met, which might be never. (You know those details better than I do, of course.) If she's already lost her house, filed for bankruptcy, borrowed money from people that she hasn't paid back, and gets a check from you each month and still has utilities shut off, she'll continue to deteriorate financially until she hits rock bottom. Then, and only then, will she see the need to fix her behavior. Now, the (possibly) million dollar question for you is, "Where is rock bottom?" Do what you can to make that happen sooner rather than later, because you'll likely be subsidizing her all the way down, and part of the way back up. You've lost most of the leverage you once had to change her behavior, but try every way you can. You might hit the jackpot.
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Electric car lease or buy?
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I have coworker who reported that he leased a Nissan Leaf from 2013-2016 and was offered $4000 off the contracted purchase price at the end of the lease due to a glut of other lessees turning in for a lease on the newest model with greater range. It's not clear that this experience will be repeated by others three years from now, but there is enough uncertainty in the future electric car market that it's quite possible to have faster depreciation on a new vehicle than you might otherwise expect based on experience with conventional internal combustion powered vehicles. Leasing will remove that uncertainty. Purchasing a lease-return can also offer great value. I looked at the price for a lease return + a new battery with the extended range, and it was still significantly cheaper than buying a completely new vehicle.
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Why is gold not a good investment?
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Gold since the ancient time ( at least when it was founded) has kept its value. for example the french franc currency was considered valuable in the years 1400~ but in 1641 lost its value. However who owned Gold back then still got value. The advantage of having gold is you can convert it to cash easily in the world. it hedges against inflation: it is value rise when inflation happend. Gold has no income,no earnings. its not like a stock or a bond. its an alternative way to store value the Disadvantages of investing in Gold Gold doesnt return income , needs physical storage and insurance, Capital gains tax rates are higher on most gold investments. the best way to invest gold when there is inflation is expected. source
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Gauge the strength of the resistance level of a stock just using EMA
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Firstly, you mean resistance not support, as a support is below the current price and resistance is above the price. Secondly using a MA as support or resistance would mean that that support or resistance level would move up or down as the price moved up or down and would not be static at $25. Generally stocks will range trade more often than they will be trending (either up or down), so a stock can be range trading between a support and resistance levels for months and even years, and usually the longer it range trades for, the bigger the outbreak (either up or down) will be when it does happen. Using a MA (especially shorter dated ones) as support or resistance (or as a up or down trend line) works better when a stock is already trending up or down. When a stock is moving sideways it will tend to keep crossing above and below the MA, and you will be whipsawed if you try to use them as your trigger for entry in these situations. Compare the two charts below: In the first chart the stock is up-trending for over 6 months and the 50d EMA is being used as a support or up-trending line. As long as the price does not break through and close under the 50d EMA then the uptrend continues. You could use this EMA line as a means of entering the stock when prices move towards the EMA and bounce off it back up again. Or you could use it as your stop loss level, so if price closes below the EMA line you would sell your position. In the second chart, the stock has been range trading between the support line at about $21.80 and the resistance line at about $25.50 for 10 months. In this case the price has been moving above and below the 50d EMA during these 10 months and you may have been whipsawed many times if you were trading each break above or below the 50d EMA. A better strategy here would be to buy the stock as it approached the support line and bounces up off it and then close and reverse your position (go short) when the price approached the resistance line and bounces down off it. Edit: When range trading you would have your stops just below the support line when going long and just above the resistance line when going short, that way if it does break through support or resistance and starts trending you will be covered. So this shows that different strategies should be used when a stock is trending to when it is range trading. MAs are better used as entry signal during an established uptrend or downtrend than when a stock is range trading.
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Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.)
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GreenLight offers a paid service for $5 per month that requires an adult primary account holder, and then unlimited accounts, including minors, as part of that service. I saw no minimum age requirement (see section "Minors as Sub-Account Cardholders"). https://www.greenlightcard.com/index.html Disclaimer: I haven't tried this service
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Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill?
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If your refunds are subject to seizure because of certain debt arrears, it makes sense to let the IRS hold onto them until next year.
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Can I use a different HSA than PayFlex that came with aetna?
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You can ask your employer for anything that you want. However, most employers, if they are contributing their own money into your HSA, or you are contributing to your own HSA through payroll deduction, only work with one HSA, which is much easier for them to manage. You are free to decline their HSA if you want. However, if they are kicking in free money into your HSA, I don't recommend that you decline it. Just pick the best option you have for investing. As for the money that you are contributing, if you don't want to put your own money into your employer's Aetna HSA, you can open up an HSA with any institution you like. You can even do this and still keep Aetna HSA to take advantage of the employer's contributions. However, your annual limit is still the total of all contributions to all HSA's in your name, whether you make them or your employer makes them. When deciding whether or not to use payroll deduction into the Aetna HSA or to go your own way, keep in mind that payroll deduction skips some payroll taxes.
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Why would preferred shares have less potential for capital gain compared to common stock?
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I once bought both preferred and common shares in a bankrupt company. It is true that those preferred shares had less potential for appreciation than the common shares. The reason is because the preferred shares were trading around $50 and had a face value of $1000. This means that if the bankruptcy proceedings ended up finding enough assets to make the preferred shares whole, then the preferred shareholders would be paid $1000 per share and no more than that. So if you bought the preferred shares at $50 and received $1000 per share for them, then you made a 1900% gain. But if the bankruptcy proceedings found enough assets to pay not just the preferred shareholders but also the common shareholders, then the common shareholders had the potential for a greater gain than the preferred shareholders. The common stock was trading around 20 cents at the time, and if enough assets were found to pay $10 per share to the common shareholders, then that would have been a 4900% gain. The preferred shares were capped by their face value, but the common shares had no limit on how high they could go.
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What would be the signs of a bubble in silver?
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@fennec is right, no one knows. Here's a link that may help: http://pragcap.com/silver-prices-display-some-bubbly-characteristics I don't follow markets enough to comment, but I have read enough of Cullen's stuff to know he's not off his rocker.
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Offered a job: Should I go as consultant / independent contractor, or employee?
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I think it really depends on what work/lifestyle you are looking for. I'm sure your more than capable of going down either route, but you should weigh up the pros and cons of each A consultant would be great, you'd be your own boss and you have overall say on how your business/career plans out, but be prepared to put in a hell of a lot of work to get it off the ground. Long hours, little time for social/family etc. But in the long run it'll pay off Employee, no worries about running your company, just turn up and perform your duties. You'll get the whole benefit package: healthcare/pension etc. You can probably go on expense paid training courses etc It depends, do you want to just be an employee working "for the man" or do you want to be "the man"? I wish you luck in whatever you do! :D
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Why would someone buy a way out-of-the-money call option that's expiring soon?
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I think the best answer that doesn't make the buyer look like a moron is this. Buyer had previously sold a covered call. They wanted to act on a different opportunity so they did a closing buy/write with a spread of a couple cents below asking for the stock, but it dipped a couple cents and the purchase of those options to close resolved at 4 cents due to lack of sellers.
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Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate]
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Supply and Demand, pure and simple! There are two basic forms of this - a change in the quantity demanded/supplied at any given price, and a true change in the amount of demand/supply itself. Please note that this can be distinct from the underlying change in the value of the company and/or its expected future cash flows, which are a function of both financial performance and future expectations. If more people want the stock that are willing to sell it at a given price at a given point in time, sellers will begin to offer the stocks at higher prices until the market is no longer willing to bear the new price, and vice versa. This will reduce the quantity of stocks demanded by buyers until the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied once again reach an equilibrium, at which point a transaction occurs. Because people are motivated to buy and sell for different reasons at different times, and because people have different opinions on a constant flow of new information, prices change frequently. This is one of the reasons why executives of a recent IPO don't typically sell all of their stock at once. In addition to legal restrictions and the message this would send to the market, if they flooded the market with additional quantities of stock supplied, all else being equal, since there is no corresponding increase in the quantity demanded, the price would drop significantly. Sometimes, the demand itself for a company's stock shifts. Unlike a simple change in price driven by quantity supplied versus quantity demanded, this is a more fundamental shift. For example, let's suppose that the current demand for rare earth metals is driven by their commercial applications in consumer electronics. Now if new devices are developed that no longer require these metals, the demand for them will fall, regardless of the actions of individual buyers and sellers in the market. Another example is when the "rules of the game" for an industry change dramatically. Markets are behavioral. In this sense prices are most directly driven by human behavior, which hopefully is based on well-informed opinions and facts. This is why sometimes the price keeps going up when financial performance decreases, and why sometimes it does not rise even while performance is improving. This is also why some companies' stock continues to rise even when they lose huge sums of money year after year. The key to understanding these scenarios is the opinions and expectations that buyers and sellers have of that information, which is expressed in their market behavior.
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Can I buy stocks directly from a public company?
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If the company has a direct reinvestment plan or DRIP that they operate in house or contract out to a financial company to administer, yes. There can still be transaction fees, and none of these I know of offer real time trading. Your trade price will typically be defined in the plan as the opening or closing price on the trade date. Sometimes these plans offer odd lot sales at a recent running average price which could provide a hundred dollar or so arbitrage opportunity.
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Should I give to charity by check or credit card?
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This might be blasphemy in the context of an audience that may be most focused on the gift itself, but you should be donating in a manner that helps advance the landscape, as well as your particular favourite charity. Almost 90% of businesses are in the process of trying to move away from issuing and receiving checks, and several countries in the world have already stopped using them. Checks are inefficient, costly and in a resource constrained environment like that facing most charities, create an opportunity cost that is even higher than the manual processing cost that flows directly. As donors, we need to think about scale in a manner that many individual charities don't. Send your donation via ACH!
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What determines the price of fixed income ETFs?
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The literal answer to your question 'what determines the price of an ETF' is 'the market'; it is whatever price a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept. But if the market price of an ETF share deviates significantly from its NAV, the per-share market value of the securities in its portfolio, then an Authorized Participant can make an arbitrage profit by a transaction (creation or redemption) that pushes the market price toward NAV. Thus as long as the markets are operating and the APs don't vanish in a puff of smoke we can expect price will track NAV. That reduces your question to: why does NAV = market value of the holdings underlying a bond ETF share decrease when the market interest rate rises? Let's consider an example. I'll use US Treasuries because they have very active markets, are treated as risk-free (although that can be debated), and excluding special cases like TIPS and strips are almost perfectly fungible. And I use round numbers for convenience. Let's assume the current market interest rate is 2% and 'Spindoctor 10-year Treasury Fund' opens for business with $100m invested (via APs) in 10-year T-notes with 2% coupon at par and 1m shares issued that are worth $100 each. Now assume the interest rate goes up to 3% (this is an example NOT A PREDICTION); no one wants to pay par for a 2% bond when they can get 3% elsewhere, so its value goes down to about 0.9 of par (not exactly due to the way the arithmetic works but close enough) and Spindoctor shares similarly slide to $90. At this price an investor gets slightly over 2% (coupon*face/basis) plus approximately 1% amortized capital gain (slightly less due to time value) per year so it's competitive with a 3% coupon at par. As you say new bonds are available that pay 3%. But our fund doesn't hold them; we hold old bonds with a face value of $100m but a market value of only $90m. If we sell those bonds now and buy 3% bonds to (try to) replace them, we only get $90m par value of 3% bonds, so now our fund is paying a competitive 3% but NAV is still only $90. At the other extreme, say we hold the 2% bonds to maturity, paying out only 2% interest but letting our NAV increase as the remaining term (duration) and thus discount of the bonds decreases -- assuming the market interest rate doesn't change again, which for 10 years is probably unrealistic (ignoring 2009-2016!). At the end of 10 years the 2% bonds are redeemed at par and our NAV is back to $100 -- but from the investor's point of view they've forgone $10 in interest they could have received from an alternative investment over those 10 years, which is effectively an additional investment, so the original share price of $90 was correct.
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What happens to people without any retirement savings?
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This is a good question and you seemed troubled by this and this person's choices in life. And that is the rub, they are choices. They know how to make them, they know the consequences, and they know how to work around them. Its a skill you probably don't have (and don't want to have). In the end they will survive. If you go to a fast food store in a popular retirement location you will see plenty of elderly people working. They might live in low income housing, receive some financial assistance, and utilize other charities such a food banks. They might depend on family and friends. There is also the ugly, it is not a fairy tale that some supplement their diets with pet food. There is of course social security. The amount is very low for most workers, but the amount is almost inconsequential. They would spend it all anyway and still be short despite the predictability of the income and a time frame with predictable expenses. Budgeting is a skill. So I have a friend that deals with this himself, and is helping an elder relation. He and his wife provide some help, but when it started there was a endless stream of requests. His policy now is: No more help unless he works out a budget with the person requesting help. I've used his ideas myself, and by using this it becomes clear on who is in actual need and who is just looking for the next handout. You can feel good about yourself for helping an actual needy person or guiltless say no.
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How can I find/compare custodians for my HSA in the United States?
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The account I have found that works best as a HSA is Alliant Credit Union. They have fee-free HSA (no fees for almost all types of transactions or monthly fees) and a fairly decent online banking website. I've been with them for about 5 years now without trouble. FYI - They are a credit union not a bank so you do have to make a small $10 donation to one of their charities to become "eligible" for opening the account.
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What is a mutual fund?
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The simple answer is: YES, the JP Morgan emerging markets equity fund is a mutual fund. A mutual fund is a pooling of money from investors to invest in stocks and bonds. Investors in mutual funds arrive there in different ways. Some get there via their company 401K, others by an IRA, still others as a taxable account. The fund can be sold by the company directly or through a broker. You can also have a fund of funds. So the investors are other funds. Some investors are only indirect investors. They are owed a pension by a past or current employer, and the pension fund has invested in a mutual fund.
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What is the effect of options expiration on equity pricing?
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Institutions and market makers tend to try and stay delta neutral, meaning that for every options contract they buy or write, they buy or sell the equivalent underlying asset. This, as a theory, is called max pain, which is more of an observation of this behavior by retail investors. This as a reality is called delta hedging done by market makers and institutional investors. The phenomenom is that many times a stock gets pinned to a very even number at a particular price on options expiration days (like 500.01 or 499.99 by closing bell). At options expiration dates, many options contracts are being closed (instutitions and market makers are typically on the other side of those trades, to keep liquidity), so for every one standard 100 share contract the market maker wrote, they bought 100 shares of the underlying asset, to remain delta neutral. When the contract closes (or get rid of the option) they sell that 100 shares of the underlying asset. At mass volume of options traded, this would cause noticeable downward pressure, similarly for other trades it would cause upward pressure as institutions close their short positions against options they had bought. The result is a pinned stock right above or below an expiration that previously had a lot of open interest. This tends to happen in more liquid stocks, than less liquid ones, to answer that question. As they have more options series and more strike prices. No, this would not be illegal, in the US attempting to "mark the close" is supposedly prohibited but this wouldn't count as it, the effect of derivatives on stock prices is far beyond the SEC's current enforcement regime :) although an active area of research
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What if 40% of the remaining 60% Loan To Value (ratio) is not paid, or the borrower wants to take only 60% of the loan?
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Let me summarize your question for you: "I do not have the down payment that the lender requires for a mortgage. How can I still acquire the mortgage?" Short answer: Find another lender or find more cash. Don't overly complicate the scenario. The correct answer is that the lender is free to do what they want. They deem it too risky to lend you $1.1M against this $1.8M property, unless they have $700k up front. You want their money, so you must accept their terms. If other lenders have the same outlook, consider that you cannot afford this house. Find a cheaper house.
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Am I still building a credit score if I use my credit card like a debit card?
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AIUI credit cards report three main things. The potential problem with your strategy is that by pre loading you never actually get a bill and so your provider may not report your payments. Better to wait until the bill comes and then pay it in full. That ensures that your use of the card is properly reported.
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Why do stock exchanges close at night?
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Here are some plausible reasons why markets might continue to close:
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