Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
Do Americans really use checks that often? | When you start at a new job here in the U.S., the default means of payment is usually a paper check. Most folks will quickly set up direct deposit so that their employer deposits their paycheck directly into their personal bank account - the incentive to do so is that you receive your funds faster than if you deposit a... |
Does earning as a non-resident remote worker on an American account make people liable for U.S taxes? | The United States taxes nonresident aliens on two types of income: First, a nonresident alien who is engaged in a trade or business in the United States is taxed on income that is effectively connected with that trade or business. Second, certain types of U.S.-source payments are subject to income tax withholding. The ... |
Is the I.T. function in banking considered to be on the expense side, as opposed to revenue side? | I must point that without the IT - no-one in the bank generates any revenue. Not to mention the fraud prevention and informational security. To the best of my knowledge - IT in banks and financial institutoins are paid very well for their services, and they earn every penny of it. IT is not just online banking or compu... |
Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year? | Yes. The definition of unreasonable shows as "not guided by or based on good sense." 100% years require a high risk. Can your one stock double, or even go up three fold? Sure, but that would likely be a small part of your portfolio. Overall, long term, you are not likely to beat the market by such high numbers. That s... |
How to calculate a mutual fund's yield | If the expense ratio of the fund is 0.00% then yes. However, if the fund has expenses of 1% then if the NAV of the fund is $10/share the expenses would cause you to see only $.002 a share and thus you'd have $.10 in total as the expenses first cut down the yield. |
Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income? | I am close to retirement and sell cash secured puts and covered calls on a regular basis. I make 15 % plus per year from the puts. Less risky than buying stocks, which I also do. Riskier than bonds, but several times the income. Example: I owned 4,000 shares of XYZ, which I bought last year at 6.50 and was at 7.70 ... |
What is the difference between a scrip dividend and a stock split? | Investopedia has a good definition. Stock dividends are similar to cash dividends; however, instead of cash, a company pays out stock. Stock splits occur when a company perceives that its stock price may be too high. Stock splits are usually done to increase the liquidity of the stock (more shares outstanding) and to m... |
How do I get into investing in stocks? | Start by paying down any high interest debt you may have, like credit cards. Reason being that they ultimately eat into any (positive) returns you may have from investing. Another good reason is to build up some discipline. You will need discipline to be a successful investor. Educate yourself about investing. The M... |
Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? | I can't immediately think of a reason to keep your paycheck and spending account separate, unless it be because you want to keep your savings in a money market or savings account and you deposit your paycheck into a checking account. However, I do have one reason from my experience to keep the bulk of your savings away... |
W2 vs 1099 Employee status | In general that's illegal. If you're a W2 employee, you don't miraculously become a 1099 contractor just because they pay you more. If your job doesn't change - then your status doesn't change just because they give you a raise. They can be sued (by you, and by the IRS) for that. Other issues have already been raised b... |
Using property to achieve financial independence | Be very careful about buying property because it has been going up quickly in recent years. There are some fundamental factors that limit the amount real-estate can appreciate over time. In a nutshell, the general real-estate market growth is supported by the entry-level property market. That is, when values are app... |
Does borrowing from my 401(k) make sense in my specific circumstance? | I see you've marked an answer as accepted but I MUST tell you that STOPPING your 401k contribution all together is a bad idea. Your company match is 100% rate of return(or 50% depending on structure). I don't care what market you look at, or how bad a loan you take out, you will not receive 100% rate of return, or be ... |
How can I avoid international wire fees or currency transfer fees? | I think the one single answer is that the answer depends on the two countries involved and their banks' practices. To find that answer, you need to ask other expats from your country living in France and ask them for their experience. Note that most expats do not know what fees they are paying. For example, in the Phi... |
Why is it possible to just take out a ton of credit cards, max them out and default in 7 years? | I should apply for everything I can on the same day, get approved for as many as I can First it may not sound as easy. You may hardly get 2-3 cards and not dozens. Even if you submit the applications the same day; If you still plan this and somehow get too many cards, and draw huge debt, then the Banks can take this se... |
Transfer from credit to debit | The new information helps a little, but you're still stuck as far as doing exactly what you asked. The question that you really should be asking is "How do I deposit money into my BofA checking account from Italy?" If you can figure that out, then the whole part about your father's AmEx card really becomes irrelevant... |
The Canadian dividend tax credit: Why is it that someone can earn a lot in dividends but pay no/little tax? | The profits that the corporation had to earn to be able to pay you "eligible" dividends for the dividend tax credit were already taxed, and at a somewhat high corporate rate, in the case of large public companies with big profits. The dividend tax credit, which permits an individual to earn a lot from dividends and not... |
Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area? | Some of this is demand management. The local BJ's wholesale club sells gas $0.10-0.15/gallon less than the prevailing rate. Typically there are lines of 3-5 cars waiting for a pump during busy periods. People are price-conscious when buying gas, which draws crowds and the retailer actually wants a line -- the whole po... |
Confirm Dividend Yield | There are lots of provisos, but in general you are correct. The provisos, off the top of my head: The only fees will be any brokerage fees when you purchase the stock. I haven't seen any handling fees when you get the dividend, but it may depend on how you hold the stock. |
Can I negotiate a 0% transaction fee with my credit card company? | There is nothing called free lunch. The 2% fee indirectly covers the cost of funds and in effect would be a personal loan. Further the repayment period would typically be 3 months and roughly would translate into 7-9% loan depending of repayment schedule etc. There is no harm in trying to get the fee waived, however on... |
Where can I lookup accurate current exchange rates for consumers? | I want to shop in the currency that will be cheapest in CAD at any given time. How do you plan to do this? If you are using a debit or credit card on a CAD account, then you will pay that bank's exchange rate to pay for goods and services that are billed in foreign currency. If you plan on buying goods and services f... |
When is it better to rent and when is better buy in a certain property market? | The first question is low long will you wish to stray there? It costs of lot in legal changes other changes plus taxes to buy and sell, so if you are not going to wish to live somewhere for at least 5 years, then I would say that renting was better. Do you wish to be able to make changes? When you rent, you can... |
What exactly is a “bad,” “standard,” or “good” annual raise? If I am told a hard percentage and don't get it, should I look elsewhere? | There are many variables to this answer. One is, how close are you to the average salary range in the industry you are working in. If you are making more than average it would make sense that you are not getting a big raise from the employer's perspective. You have to be a top performer if you are looking for the top s... |
How should we organize our finances to effectively plan and prepare for an retirement in next 10 years? | Wow! First, congratulations! You are both making great money. You should be able to reach your goals. Are we on the right track ? Are we doing any mistakes which we could have avoided ? Please advice if there is something that we should focus more into ! I would prioritize as follows: Get on the same page. My first re... |
What happens to my savings if my country defaults or restructures its debt? | I am going to add in an opinion here from the Wall Street Journal that I read this morning in What's at Stake in the Greek Vote, in light of current events and elections in Greece. The article claims that if the election results make it sound like a break from the Euro is imminent then ... we will see a full-fledged ba... |
What is best investment which is full recession proof? | I don't think there is a recession proof investment.Every investment is bound to their ups and downs. If you buy land, a change in law can change the whole situation it may become worthless, same applies for home as well. Gold - dependent on world economy. Stock - dependent on world economy Best way is to stay ever ... |
Withdraw funds with penalty or bear high management fees for 10 years? | Most financial "advisors" are actually financial-product salesmen. Their job is to sweet-talk you into parting with as much money as possible - either in management fees, or in commissions (kickbacks) on high-fee investment products** (which come from fees charged to you, inside the investment.) This is a scrappy, cu... |
How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score? | I wrote an article about FICO scoring which shows that 30% of your score is based on utilization or amount owed. I can't say exactly how much your score will rise, or how long it will take, but your score will improve dramatically from what you propose. This chart is from Credit Karma, and it shows how zero utilizat... |
Money market account for emergency savings | I'm not a fan of using cash for "emergency" savings. Put it in a stable investment that you can liquidate fairly quickly if you have to. I'd rather use credit cards for a while and then pay them off with investment funds if I must. Meanwhile those investments earn a lot more than the 0.1 percent savings or money market... |
Are there any banks with a command-line style user interface? | You should definitively check boobank. It's not a bank !, but a framework that helps people to create quick interface modules to any bank so you don't have to use your web browser anymore with them. Actually, there is already an honest list of modules to access a few banks (I guess these banks are all french banks for ... |
Is a robo-adviser worth the risk? | They've been around long enough now for there to be past performance figures you can google for. I think you'll find the results aren't very encouraging. I personally don't think there's a huge risk that the robots will lose all your money, but there's every reason to expect they aren't likely to perform better than tr... |
What are the advantages of paying off a mortgage quickly? | The main reason for paying your mortgage off quickly is to reduce risk should a crisis happen. If you don't have a house payment, you have much higher cash flow every month, and your day-to-day living expenses are much lower, so if an illness or job loss happens, you'll be in a much better position to handle it. You s... |
How many days does Bank of America need to clear a bill pay check | I just had this happen to me with Chase and speaking with my executive support contact, they will not return the funds unless you request them back. Which I find appalling and just one more reason that I don't like working with Chase! |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | I use MoneyStrands.com to manage my spending. It's a lot like Mint, but provides support for more banks, and works with most Canadian financial institutions. I can't really compare them fairly though, since I didn't bother with Mint after learning that they don't care about Canadians. If your bank isn't supported by Mo... |
Why are residential investment properties owned by non-professional investors and not large corporations? | Because the returns are not good. One of the big drivers in Australia is "negative gearing": if your investment loses money you can offset losses against your tax on other income. Institutional investors and corporations are in the business of making money: not losing it. Housing market investors are betting that these... |
What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | Myself I am in a similar position. I've had a few good conversations about this with people in the financial services industry. It all depends how much time you want to spend on yielding your profits and how much risk you would like to take. High time and high risk obviously means higher expected gain, but also has a ... |
Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill? | Aside from the fear that you or a loved one will spend it frivolously, I'm hard pressed to come up with another reason. If you'll owe money in the next tax year, you have the rest of the year to adjust your withholdings and/or make quarterly payments. As both my fellow PFers state, you're better off getting your money... |
What's the difference between Buy and Sell price on the stock exchange [duplicate] | The Bid price is simply the highest buy price currently being offered and the Ask price simply the lowest sell price being offered. The list of Bid and Ask prices is called the market depth. When the Bid and Ask prices match then a sale goes through. When looking to sell you would generally look at both the Bid and Ask... |
What is the PEG ratio? How is the PEG ratio calculated? How is the PEG ratio useful for stock investing? | PEG is Price to Earnings Growth. I've forgotten how it's calculated, I just remember that a PEG ratio of 1-2 is attractive by Graham & Dodd standards. |
Is it possible to see option prices from the past? | Yes, past option prices are available for many options, but as far as I know not for free. You can get them from, for example, OptionMetrics. Probably there are other providers as well, which may be cheaper for an individual or small institution. OptionMetrics data comes from the National Best Bid and Offer. Probabl... |
Who could afford a higher annual deductible who couldn't afford a higher monthly payment? | It's simple. Most people don't spend $6000 a year in medical care. As for myself, there's probably only $400 or less, mostly in annual checkups and the like. If you are the type to require more medical care, then you will pay more per month. I know a person with asthma, kidney stones, and inflammatory issues. This per... |
Dividend yield for multiple years? | Dividend yield is a tough thing to track because it's a moving target. Dividends are paid periodically the yield is calculated based on the stock price when the dividend is declared (usually, though some services may update this more frequently). I like to calculate my own dividend by annualizing the dividend paymen... |
Good way to record currency conversion transactions in personal accounting software? | I found an answer by Peter Selinger, in two articles, Tutorial on multiple currency accounting (June 2005, Jan 2011) and the accompanying Multiple currency accounting in GnuCash (June 2005, Feb 2007). Selinger embraces the currency neutrality I'm after. His method uses "[a]n account that is denominated as a difference ... |
What is the opposite of a sunk cost? A “sunk gain”? | liquid asset A sunk cost may turn out to be a loss or it may make you a profit, but what makes it "sunk" is: you can't get it back. The opposite is a cost that you can later redeem, which makes it "liquid". |
Where to find Vanguard Index Funds? | You cannot actually buy an index in the true sense of the word. An index is created and maintained by a company like Standard and Poor's who licenses the use of the index to firms like Vanguard. The S&P 500 is an example of an index. The S&P 500 "index includes 500 leading companies", many finical companies sell pro... |
How secure is my 403(b)? Can its assets be “raided”? | I assume you get your information from somewhere where they don't report the truth. I'm sorry if mentioning Fox News offended you, it was not my intention. But the way the question is phrased suggests that you know nothing about what "pension" means. So let me explain. 403(b) is not a pension account. Pension account i... |
What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate] | A share of stock is a share of the underlying business. If one believes the underlying business will grow in value, then one would expect the stock price to increase commensurately. Participants in the stock market, in theory, assign value based on some combination of factors like capital assets, cash on hand, revenue,... |
Should I wait a few days to sell ESPP Stock? | Usually the amount of the ESPP stocks is very small compared to the overall volume of the trading, so it shouldn't matter. But check if for your company it not so (look at the stock history for the previous ESPP dates, and volumes). |
In the USA, does the income tax rate on my wages increase with the amount of money in my bank account? | besides accrued interest But that's important. one has $40,000 in their account and the other $9,000. Does one now pay higher income tax because he has more in his account or does he pay the same because he makes the same? If they are interest bearing accounts, then yes the guy with the $40K balance will pay a little m... |
How is it possible that a preauth sticks to a credit card for 30 days, even though the goods have already been delivered? | It is barely possible that this is Citi's fault, but it sounds more like it is on the Costco end. The way that this is supposed to work is that they preauthorize your card for the necessary amount. That reserves the payment, removing the money from your credit line. On delivery, they are supposed to capture the pre... |
Should I get a personal loan to pay on my mortgage to go “above water” to qualify for a refinance? | If you have a mortgage backed by FHA, Fannie, or Freddie I would hold off. There is talk of a new plan that would allow refi's on mortages that were underwater. I would expect rates to stay about the same for the forseeable future. Take that money you would spend each month on the personal loan and stick it into you... |
Tools for comparing costs between different healthcare providers? | When I had a high-deductible healthcare plan, I used http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ to do comparisons among the plans. As far as comparing the costs of specific procedures across providers, I'm not aware of any good ways either. |
Is it possible, anywhere in the US for a funding firm to not have a license number showing somewhere? | Well, these can range from loan broker to outright scams. It is pretty typical that loan broker just take some fee in the middle for their service of filling your applications for a bunch of real loan provider companies. Because making a web page costs nothing, a single loan broker could easily have many web pages with... |
How much money do I need to have saved up for retirement? | I wrote a spreadsheet (<< it may not be obvious - this is a link to pull down the spreadsheet) a while back that might help you. You can start by putting your current salary next to your age, adjust the percent of income saved (14% for you) and put in the current total. The sheet basically shows that if one saves 15% ... |
What to do with your savings in Japan | As an alternative to investing you'll find at least some banks eg. Rakuten that will give you preferential interest rates(still 0.1% though) just for opening a free brokering account. As this is still your individual savings account your money is as safe as it was before opening your account. I certainly wouldn't buy t... |
Why do credit cards require a minimum annual household income? | It is much simpler than any of that. People who make money have a greater capacity to pay their bills. Credit card companies make money off of people who can afford to pay several hundred dollars a month in interest charges. If you only make 500 a month you can not afford to pay 200 in interest. So their cost of do... |
While working overseas my retirement has not gone into a retirement account. Is it going to kill me on the FAFSA? | According to the FAFSA info here, they will count your nonretirement assets when figuring the EFC. The old Motley Fool forum question I mentioned in my comment suggests asking the school for a "special circumstances adjustment to your FAFSA". I don't know much about it, but googling finds many pages about it at differ... |
First time investing in real-estate, looks decent? | Congratulations, you are in great shape financially at a very young age. Great income, nice equity in a home, and mostly debt free. It seems like you are looking at taking out a loan of 400K, and to do so you will have to put your own home at risk as you do not have the 80K cash for a down payment. Correct? It als... |
Swap hedging a currency hedge | I decided to try this in order to get a feel of it. As far as the interest rates are concerned, it works. You can set it up and forget about holding time as long as the rates and positions stay within a range. The problem is that currency volatility turns the interest paid for shorting USD/JPY into noise at best. And i... |
When is the right time to buy a car and/or a house? | Buying a house is often more emotional than financial. Which makes that kind of advice tough to offer. Staying with the finance side - You wrote "2 bedrooms is enough for me." Is it enough for your girlfriend/fiancee? Is she on the same schedule for kids as you are? 2 bedrooms means that with just one child you are les... |
Is there any chance for a layperson to gain from stock exchange? [duplicate] | Currencies are a zero-sum game. If you make money, someone else will lose it. Because bank notes sitting in a pile don't create anything useful. But shares in companies are different, because companies actually do useful things and make money, so it's possible for all investors to make money. The best way to benefit is... |
Estimate probability distribution of profit on investment | There is no simple answer to that, because no one knows exactly what the probability distribution of S&P 500 returns is. Here is a sketch of one possible way to proceed. Don't forget step 4! The problem is that the stock market is full of surprises, so this kind of "backtesting" can only reliably tell you about what a... |
Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price | If the discount is only for financed car then their software application should have accepted the payment (electronic transfer ID) from financed bank. In this case the bank should have given the payment on behalf of your son. I believe the dealer know in advance about the paper work and deal they were doing with your s... |
Borrowing money to buy shares for cashflow? | Don't do it. I would sell one of my investment houses and use the equity to pay down your primary mortgage. Then I would refinance my primary mortgage in order to lower the payments. |
Who can I get to help me roll my 401(k) into an IRA when I live overseas? | This is more of a general answer about your situation than a specific answer to your question. You might consider getting a SIP telephone number based in the US, or an even easier to use IP based phone number. That way you can use it through your Internet connection and make eaiser calls to US companies that you still... |
What is quotational loss in stock market? | In this instance "quotational" is a reference to a market price quote, not a mathematical function. Staunch "value investors" like Graham, Dodd, Munger, Buffett et al. believe there is a material difference between what security is "worth" and what the current market mood quotes as its price. You, the investor, perf... |
About dividend percentage | Dividend prices are per share, so the amount that you get for a dividend is determined by the number of shares that you own and the amount of the dividend per share. That's all. People like to look at dividend yield because it lets them compare different investments; that's done by dividing the dividend by the value of... |
What is the best use of “spare” money? | With 40% of your take-home available, you have a golden opportunity here. Actually two, and the second builds out easily from the first. Golden Opportunity # 1: Layoff Immunity Ok, not really immunity. Most people don't think of themselves getting laid off, and don't prepare. Of course it may not happen to you, but it... |
Buying a house, how much should my down payment be? | I'm going to answer your questions out of order. Emergency fund: Depending on how conservative you are and how much insurance you have, you may want anywhere from 3-12 months of your expenses on hand. I like to keep 6 months worth liquid in a "high-yield" savings account. For your current expenses that would be $24k, b... |
Why is being “upside down” on a mortgage so bad? | I think part of why it is perceived is so bad is because the fluctuations in housing prices are relatively large, especially compared to the amount needed to put a down payment. This is not an uncommon scenario: And this is not even being underwater, just being even. Imagine how much worse it feels if your dream of h... |
Pros and cons of investing in a cheaper vs expensive index funds that track the same index | As has been pointed out, one isn't cheaper than the other. One may have a lower price per share than the other, but that's not the same thing. Let's pretend that the total market valuation of all the stocks within the index was $10,000,000. (Look, I said let's pretend.) You want to invest $1,000. For the time being, le... |
Should I sell when my stocks are growing? | I reread your question. You are not asking about the validity of selling a particular stock after a bit of an increase but a group of stocks. We don't know how many. This is the S&P for the past 12 months. Trading at 1025-1200 or so means that 80-100 points is an 8% move. I count 4 such moves during this time. The ph... |
What prevents interest rates from rising? | To protect yourself from an increase in interest rates get a fixed rate loan. The loan terms: interest rate, number of payments, monthly payments will be fixed for the loan. Of course if rate for the rest of the market drops during the period of the loan, you may be able to refinance the loan. But if you can't refinanc... |
Why does an option lose time value faster as it approaches expiry | If you think about it, the value of an option comes from the chance that the price at the expiration date can exceed the strike price. As it gets closer to the expiration date, the chance is getting smaller, because there is simply not enough time for an out-of-money option to hit that strike. Therefore, the value of a... |
Deductions greater than Income : Traditional IRA to Roth Conversion? | Answering for just the US part, yes, you should be able to do this and it's a good strategy. The only additional gotcha I can think of is that if you've made after-tax contributions to your traditional IRA, you need to prorate the conversion, you can't just convert all the pre-tax or all the after-tax. I'm not familiar... |
Learning investment--books to read? Fundamental/Value/Motley Fool | You are smart to read books to better inform yourself of the investment process. I recommend reading some of the passive investment classics before focusing on active investment books: If you still feel like you can generate after-tax / after-expenses alpha (returns in excess of the market returns), take a shot at som... |
Ways to trade the Euro debt crisis | The way I am trading this is: I am long the USD / EUR in cash. I also hold USD / EUR futures, which are traded on the Globex exchange. I am long US equities which have a low exposure to Europe and China (as I expect China to growth significantly slower if the European weakens). I would not short US equities because E... |
My landlord is being foreclosed on. Should I confront him? | I wouldn't confront him. It's really none of your business what he has done or not done with your money as long as you've been a faithful tenant. Whoever gets the house after the foreclosure wants you to stay. I mean, a faithful tenant paying rent is a whole lot better than no one in the house at all. The new landlord ... |
How does one determine the width of a candlestick bar? | You could theoretically use any time period unit, but 1 minute and 30 minute seem to be the most common and useful. Especially for active traders. This also has the added advantage of giving you useful insight into the trade volumes throughout the day; assuming that is also included on the chart. I think most inclu... |
Will I always be able to get a zero-interest credit card? | After looking at the comments, and your replies it seems that your mind is made up: "You will always be able to obtain 0% credit, and nothing bad will ever happen". Credit cards that offer 0% on balance transfers are very rare. Most have a transfer fee of some kind, which acts like an interest rate. This is a change ... |
Income Tax form in India for freelancing | Since you are living in India and earning income not from salary, you must file your tax return under ITR4(Profits or Gains of Business or Profession). You can do it online on IncomeTax India eFiling website, step by step guide available here. |
OTC Markets, Time, and Trading | Something to consider is that in the case of the company you chose, on the OTC market, that stock is thinly traded and with such low volume, it can be easy for it to fluctuate greatly to have trades occur. This is why volume can matter for some people when it comes to buying shares. Some OTC stocks may have really low... |
CEO entitlement from share ownership? | If I own shares of a company, am I entitled to apply as position of CEO? Sure, but anybody else can apply too. Who decides? The corporate board of directors, who are nominally chosen by a vote of the stockholders. I say nominally, because in practice they are nominated by the current CEO and it's very rare for stockh... |
If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything? | The answer is Discounted Cash Flows. Companies that don't pay dividends are, ostensibly reinvesting their cash at returns higher than shareholders could obtain elsewhere. They are reinvesting in productive capacity with the aim of using this greater productive capacity to generate even more cash in the future. This is... |
How can I improve my auto insurance score? | Move to a small town in an insurance friendly state. - Certian states like Florida are considered high risk for doing business for insurance companies. Get a (relatively)new midsize sedan in white, tan, or brown. These colors are the least likely to get stolen and the modern midsized sedan is considered the safest v... |
Can't the account information on my checks be easily used for fraud? | Yes, and there are almost no checks (no pun intended) on people pulling money from your account using a routing number. It is an EXTREMELY insecure system. If you want a real Halloween scare, read this article: Easy Check Fraud Technique Draws Scrutiny. Unfortunately you just have to live with it. If you are curious wh... |
How long can a company keep the money raised from IPO of its stocks? | You realize that most of the money raised through the IPO process doesn't go into the company's bank account? Those shares were shares that were held by the investors and original owners and it's those prior pre-IPO shareholders that got their money back along with a tidy profit. The cash on its books was there before... |
Fund or ETF that simulates the investment goals of an options “straddle” strategy? | *Volatility and the VIX can be very tricky to trade. In particular, going out longer than a month can result in highly surprising outcomes because the VIX is basically always a one month snapshot, even when the month is out in the future. |
Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? | Something that is missing from the discussion is the actual market for the lottery ticket -- if a market existed for the tickets themselves, that would make this far more obvious, but since there isn't one; buying a single ticket gives different Expected Values, but since the ticket has a defined 'game' instance, a sin... |
Should I Use an Investment Professional? | Let me start with something you might dismiss as trite - Correlation does not mean Causation. A money manager charging say, 1%, isn't likely to take on clients below a minimum level. On the other hand, there's a long debate regarding how, on average, managed funds don't beat the averages. I think that you should loo... |
What happens if my order exceeds the bid or ask sizes? | You should check with your broker. I asked my broker a similar question just 2 weeks ago. With their market orders they will be filled within 3 points from the current market bid/ask. If there is any remaining it will be placed as a limit order at 3 points away from the bid/ask price. For example, if the current ask is... |
Why is gold not a good investment? | If you buy a gold brick and put it in a pillow, after one year you still have one gold brick. People may value it more than before or less then before, but it's still the one gold brick you had. If you buy a cow and put it on a pasture, after one year you have a fatter cow and plenty of milk. You now have more of the c... |
What's the best way to make money from a market correction? | The best way to make money during a market correction is to be a financial services company handling transactions for people who think they can beat the market, and charging a percentage commission on each transaction, while keeping your own money somewhere nice and safe, stable and low-fee. |
Once stock prices are down, where to look for good stock market deals? | Something you might want to consider, instead of going out bargain hunting in hopes of picking something up on the cheap is to start doing you research now for a stock you would like to have in your portfolio and watch it for news that might cause it to go down before picking it up when it is down for a bit. As you poi... |
When's 0% financing the least costly (best) option? | A Lease is an entirely different way of getting a car. In two situations it makes sense, in all other scenarios it generally doesn't make sense to lease. In the case of always wanting a new car every 2 or 3 years it can make sense to lease. Of course if you drive more the allowed miles you will pay extra at the end of ... |
Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate] | The value of a stock ultimately is related to the valuation of a corporation. As part of the valuation, you can estimate the cash flows (discounted to present time) of the expected cash flows from owning a share. This stock value is the so-called "fundamental" value of a stock. What you are really asking is, how is ... |
Where can I find historical P/E ratios for companies? | The mathematics site, WolframAlpha, provides such data. Here is a link to historic p/e data for Apple. You can chart other companies simply by typing "p/e code" into the search box. For example, "p/e XOM" will give you historic p/e data for Exxon. A drop-down list box allows you to select a reporting period : 2 years,... |
How do you quantify investment risk? | The question is: how do you quantify investment risk? As Michael S says, one approach is to treat investment returns as a random variable. Bill Goetzmann (Yale finance professor) told me that if you accept that markets are efficient or that the price of an asset reflects it's underlying value, then changes in price rep... |
How to choose a company for an IRA? | I assume that with both companies you can buy stock mutual funds, bonds mutual funds, ETFs and money market accounts. They should both offer all of these as IRAs, Roth IRAs, and non-retirement accounts. You need to make sure they offer the types of investments you want. Most 401K or 403b plans only offer a handful of... |
What is the meaning of the net worth of a person? | An individual's net worth is the value of the person's assets minus his debt. To find your net worth, add up the value of everything that you own: your house, your cars, your bank accounts, your retirement investments, etc. Then subtract all of your debt: mortgage, student loans, credit card debt, car loans, etc. If ... |
What's the difference between Term and Whole Life insurance? | Just to add to @duffbeer703 comment, additionally, the cash value is NOT part of the death benefit. The policy is intended to grow the cash value to the point where it matches the death benefit and then it 'matures' and you get the cash. My point being, is that since they don't give you both, you are really transferrin... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.