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Query regarding international transaction between governments | For the US government, they've just credited Person B with a Million USD and haven't gained anything (afterall, those digits are intangible and don't really have a value, IMO). Two flaws in this reasoning: The US government didn't do anything. The receiving bank credited the recipient. If the digits are intangible, suc... |
Are bonds really a recession proof investment? | Yes. Bonds perform very well in a recession. In fact the safer the bond, the better it would do in a recession. Think of markets having four seasons: High growth and low inflation - "growing economy" High growth and high inflation - "overheating economy" Low growth and high inflation - "stagflation" Low growth and low ... |
Does the IRS reprieve those who have to commute for work? | Short answer, yes. But this is not done through the deductions on Schedule A. This can happen if the employer creates a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for its employees. This can be created for certain approved uses like medical and transportation expenses (a separate account for each category). You can contribute amo... |
Do I have to pay taxes on income from my website or profits? | Income is income... it depends how it's structured.. personal or corporate.. but still you need to pay taxes... if you get audited, the tax man could look at your bank statements and ask, "where is this money coming from" |
I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget? | Give all your money as well as your budget requirements to someone you really trust. Tell them to give you ONLY what your budget allows. As long as both of you take this seriously, this method will be very effective. |
Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what? | Deposit check and send a personal check (resulting in tax and IRS reporting issues) That's a bad idea, unless maybe the check you're receiving is a certified bank draft. Suppose the insurance company are crooks and the check is fraudulent. It could take weeks or months for some investigation to catch up to that, long a... |
Why is retirement planning so commonly recommended? | 1) People aren't always going to be able to do their occupation, or their desired hobby. 2) Government assistance, or whatever you want to call it, is available at a certain age. Some people look forward to this and plan to rely on it, but it isn't really sufficient for living off of and keeping the standard of living ... |
Stopping Payment on a Check--How Long Does it Take? | Is this a USA bank to a USA bank transaction? If so, it will clear in one to two business days. Once cleared, the landlord cannot stop pay it. He can, however, dishonestly claim it was a fraudulent check and attempt a chargeback. If you want absolute certainty the money will not be recalled, go to the landlord's ban... |
I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget? | It's simple, really: Practice. Fiscal responsibility is not a trick you can learn look up on Google, or a service you can buy from your accountant. Being responsible with your money is a skill that is learned over a lifetime. The only way to get better at it is to practice, and not get discouraged when you make mista... |
When is an IPO considered failure? | Just skimming through the Wikipedia article on airberlin, I notice there is more to the story than simply "airberlin's IPO failed, so they postponed it and did it anyways." 3 points to keep in mind about IPOs: 1) An IPO is the mechanism for taking a private company and setting it up for shares to be owned by "the publ... |
I'm 23, living at home, and still can't afford my own property. What could I do? | You have made the most important first step by starting to think about your money, well done. Firstly pay of all credit cards as quickly as you can and start to live within your means. Until you have paid of your credits cards don’t spend any money of unnecessary items, e.g. Once your credit cards are paid off you can... |
Buying shares in a company after you quit | US law dictates that you cannot buy / sell shares in a company you work for except during open trading windows. I understand lockout periods when you're in a company but what about after you quit? There's no such law. Trading lockouts are imposed by companies themselves to avoid the complexities of identifying "ins... |
New company doesn't allow 401k deposits for 6 months, what to do with money I used to deposit? | I would open a taxable account with the same custodian that manages your Roth IRA (e.g., Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.). Then within the taxable account I would invest the extra money in low cost, broad market index funds that are tax efficient. Unlike in your 401(k) and Roth IRA, you will now have tax implications if your ... |
What things are important to consider when investing in one's company stock? | It appears your company is offering roughly a 25% discount on its shares. I start there as a basis to give you a perspective on what the 30% matching offer means to you in terms of value. Since you are asking for things to consider not whether to do it, below are a few considerations (there may be others) in general y... |
Types of investments with built-in puts or similar safety features | Many mutual funds include such mechanisms. However, the higher fees for those funds (when compared to simple index funds) may cancel out any improvement the hedging strategy offers. |
VAT and German freelance working on international project | The VAT number should be equivalent from the point of view of your client. The fact that you are a sole trader and not a limited liability doesn't matter when it comes down to pay VAT. They should pay the VAT to you and you will pay it to the government. I'll guess that their issue is with tax breaks, it is a bit more ... |
Relocating and buying a house simultaneously - How to handle pre-approval on fluctuating yearly income? | Assuming the numbers you gave are forecasted 2013 annual income, you should really use an average and give the lender 1 number, as long as you can provide documentation to back it up. Lenders aren't as sophisticated as considering your monthly income fluctuations into their underwriting algorithm. If you're not tied d... |
Why liquidity implies tight spread and low slippage | Theoretically, it's a question of rate of return. If a desired or acceptable rate of return for market makers' capital is X, and X is determined by the product of margin & turnover then higher turnover means lower margin for a constant X. Margin, in the case of trading, is the bid/ask spread, and turnover, in the case... |
What could a malicious party potentially achieve by having *just* a name, account number, and sort code? | I disagree with Dumbcoder's response. Setting up a DD is not easily approved by the banks as you must prove a existing business cash flow. And secondly you cannot empty someone's account via DD as they are protected by the DD mandate. (Money goes out, complaint is made, money goes back in, the registered business with ... |
Putting borrowed money into an SIPP | You're creating more liabilities for yourself in the future, although yes this could definitely be a profitable move for you. However, some small mistakes you made, from what I can see using the tools at Hargreaves Lansdown. The first, is that the government relief would only be 20%, not 60%. The second is that the tax... |
Calculating a simply complicated return? | Since you have the balance at equal periods and the cash flows at the period ends, the best return calculation in this case is the true time-weighted return. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-weighted_return#Formulae So, notwithstanding some ambiguity about your figures, here is a calculation using the first three... |
Should I use put extra money toward paying off my student loans or investing in an index fund? | Not all debt is bad. If it carries a reasonable interest rate, you don't need to clear it immediately. As for investing in an index fund, they're an affordable, easy way to spread your money over various assets. However, asset allocation is just one of many investment strategies. Ideally, you want to invest according t... |
Why do passive ETFs require so much trading (and incur costs)? | Now, if I'm not mistaken, tracking a value-weighted index is extremely easy - just buy the shares in the exact amount they are in the index and wait. Yes in theory. In practise this is difficult. Most funds that track S&P do it on sample basis. This is to maintain the fund size. Although I don't have / know the exact n... |
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? | The time to have looked into this is before you bought the condo, not now. You are presumably an adult. Your parents have apparently made it possible for you to have a roof of your own over your head for what is probably below rental rates (but I don't know your area, so can't say). From their point of view, they may h... |
What is the true value, i.e. advantages or benefits, of building up equity in your home? | The equity you have is an asset. Locked away until you sell, and sometimes pledged as a loan if you wish. The idea that it's dead money is nonsense, it's a pretty illiquid asset that has the potential for growth (at the rate of inflation or slightly higher, long term) and provides you an annual dividend in the form of ... |
What forms (S-1, 8-K, etc) and keywords in news headlines signify dilution? | Possibles: stock offering, secondary placement, increase authorized number of shares, shelf registration. |
Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year? | My grandfather owned a small business, and I asked him that very question. His answer was that year-end closeout is very time-consuming, both before and after EOY (end of year), and that they didn't want to do all that around Christmas and New Year. |
Advantage of credit union or local community bank over larger nationwide banks such as BOA, Chase, etc.? | Banks, the big ones, have shareholders and the board to answer to. Credit Unions have members and the board to answer to. You become a member by joining a CU. Banks' prime objective is profit maximization, a credit union's prime objective is members' welfare. Personal experience: I didn't mind that the banks charge... |
Why do consultants or contractors make more money than employees? | Contractors earn less. Especially the people that are hired under them. They usually have no education, and base pay; long hours and hard work. |
Teaching school kids about money - what are the real life examples of math, budgeting, finance? | My education on this topic at this age range was a little more free-form. We were given a weeklong project in the 6th grade, which I remember pretty clearly: Fast forward 6 years (we were 12). You are about to be kicked out of your parents' house with the clothes on your back, $1,000 cash in your pocket, your high... |
Renters Liability in Case of Liability Claims for Property Damage or Fire | According to US News, renter's insurance does cover liability as well as your own belongings. They list this as one of four "myths" often promulgated about renter's insurance. This is backed up by esurance.com, which explicitly mentions "Property damage to others" as covered. Nationwide Insurance says that renter's ... |
Asset allocation when retirement is already secure | As others are saying, you want to be a bit wary of completely counting on a defined benefit pension plan to be fulfilling exactly the same promises during your retirement that it's making right now. But, if in fact you've "won the game" (for lack of a better term) and are sure you have enough to live comfortably in ret... |
Alternatives to Intuit's PayTrust service for online bill viewing and bill payment? | Something you may want to consider if you are still choosing a bill-paying service is the contingency policies of the service. I just suffered an extended stay in a hospital and my officially (in writing) designated Power of Attorney was NOT granted access to my PAYTRUST account. Thus they could NOT take care of my ... |
At what point is it most advantageous to cease depositing into a 401k? | A fascinating view on this. The math of a 10% deposit and projected 10% return lead to an inevitable point when the account is worth 10X your income (nice) and the deposit, 10% of income only represents 1% of the account balance. The use of an IRA is neither here nor there, as your proposed deposit is still just 1% of... |
Do I have to pay a capital gains tax if I rebuy different stocks? | Yes- you do not realize gains or losses until you actually sell the stock. After you sell the initial stocks/bonds you have realized the gain. When you buy the new, different stocks you haven't realized anything until you then sell those. There is one exception to this, called the "Wash-Sale Rule". From Investopedia... |
When an insider discloses a stock trade are they required to execute? | No. And furthermore, canceling based on insider information is not considered insider trading. SEC Interpretation from October of 2000: (a) Does the act of terminating a plan while aware of material nonpublic information result in liability under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5? No. Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 apply "in... |
Is interest on a personal loan tax deductible? | Assuming USA: It is possible to make the interest deductible if you go to the trouble of structuring, and filing, the loan as an actual mortgage on a primary residence. Websearching "intra-family loan" will find several firms which specialize in this. It costs about $700 for all the paperwork and filing fees as of last... |
What to do with an old building to get money | There are a few ways to get money from property, but I'm not sure any would work for you: 1) Firstly you could sell it. Selling the building might require enough repairs that the building is habitable; if the repair costs are too high, you might not be able to recover costs from selling. For a particularly old and unke... |
Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? | My wife and I do this. We have one account for income and one for expenditures (and around 7 others for dedicated savings.) Doing this we are forcing ourselves to keep track of all expenditures as we have to manually transfer funds from one to the other, we try to do this periodically (every Wednesday) and then keep th... |
gift is taxable but is “loan” or “debt” taxable? | If you are looking to transfer money to another person in the US, you can do do with no tax consequence. The current annual gift limit is $14k per year per person, so for example, my wife and I can gift $56k to another couple with no tax and no forms. For larger amounts, there is a lifetime exclusion that taps into yo... |
Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate? | This seems like a risky setup. All it takes is one missed or delayed transfer for you to overdraw your "savings". There is a benefit to keeping your regular expenses and savings separate, and I can see some benefits in having multiple checking accounts depending on how you organize your finances, but I don't see a be... |
Why buy insurance? | People's value of money is not always linear. Consider an individual with $1000 in the bank. I'm going to look at amounts of debt by orders of magnitude: Now its pretty easy to see a order of magnitude increase in impact from $100 to $1000, and it becomes slightly worse for the $10,000 case due to debt. However, one... |
Oil Price forcasting | In layman's terms, oil on the commodities market has a "spot price" and a "future price". The spot price is what the last guy paid to buy a barrel of oil right now (and thus a pretty good indicator of what you'll have to pay). The futures price is what the last guy paid for a "futures contract", where they agreed to bu... |
How to make money from a downward European market? | What you do is you create an infomercial where you sell a booklet about junk investments that you are absolutely certian may survive an end of the world scenerio. Then you sell that booklet to people who fear for their family. It is basically a tax on stupidity but works because it prays on the fears of the stupid. ... |
Mortgage or not? | I often say "don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog." I need to change that phrase a bit to "don't let the tax tail wag the mortgage dog." Getting a tax deduction on a 4% mortgage basically results (assuming you already itemize) in an effective 3% rate mortgage. The best way to avoid tax is save pretax in a 401(k... |
Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in? | No. One of the key ideas behind a corporation is that an investor's liability is limited to the amount he invests, i.e. the amount of stock he buys. This is the primary reason why small businesses become corporations, even though one person owns 100% of the stock. Then if the business goes broke, he won't lose his hous... |
Should I exchange my Scottish pounds for English ones? | Scottish banknotes are promissary notes of the banks issuing them. Their value will be paid in UK legal tender any time as long as the issuing bank is in business. So they are not going to lose value unless the issuing bank goes bakrupt. Scottish notes may be refused, outside of Scotland, at least, by merchants at thei... |
Possible Risks of Publicizing Personal Stock Portfolio | You would be facilitating identity theft. You would be risking people who disagree with your approach thinking you're foolish. Are you really going to gain enough from this decision to offset the risks? Can't you do the same thing with much less detail or a "fantasy" account? |
Is a credit card deposit a normal part of the vehicle purchase process | Unfortunately, it's not unusual enough. If you're looking for a popular car and the dealer wants to make sure they aren't holding onto inventory without a guarantee for sale, then it's a not completely unreasonable request. You'll want to make sure that the deposit is on credit card, not cash or check, so you can dis... |
What are some simple techniques used for Timing the Stock Market over the long term? | Buy low, sell high - the problem, of course, finding a crystal ball that will tell you when the highs and lows are going to happen :-) You could, for instance, save your money in cash and wait for the occasional sharp drop, but then you've lost profits & dividends from having that cash under the mattress all those year... |
What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? | 2 things: |
If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting? | When you operate outside of the law, you bear the risks of that decision. When you operate within the law, you have a number of avenues, such as the courts and police to mediate disputes or other problems. |
Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it? | Debt creates risk. The more debt you take on, the higher your risk. What happens if you lose your job, miss a payment, or forget to write the final payment check for the exact amount needed, and are left with a balance of $1 (meaning the back-dated interest would be applied)? There is too much risk for little reward... |
What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? | I wish I would have known macro-economics taught by the Austrian School types at The Mises Institute. Their teachings would have compelled me to do the following: |
Must a company have a specific number of employees to do an IPO? | No, there is no minimum employee limit in order for a company to initiate an initial public offering. |
How to help a financially self destructive person? | I learned this from a business book on managing people, but I think it applies equally well here. You can't put in what God left out of people. I know several people with this mentality about money and you simply have to make your sculpture out of the clay you have. In this case, however, it seems that ship has saile... |
Why do dishonour fees exist? | In the United States, many banks aim to receive $ 100 per year per account in fees and interest markup. There are several ways that they can do this on a checking account. These examples assume that there is a 3 % difference between low-interest-rate deposit accounts and low-interest rate loans. Or some combination o... |
Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard/Visa? | Need is a strong word. As far as merchants are concerned, if they accept, e.g., Visa credit, they will accept Visa Debit. The reverse is not necessarily true. Up until lately, Aldi would only accept debit cards (credit cards have higher merchant fees), and when I used to got to Sam's Club, they would accept Visa debit,... |
Why is a stock dividend considered a dividend? What makes it different from a stock split? | A stock dividend isn't exactly a split. Example: You have 100 shares of stock worth $5 a share (total value $500). The company wants to distribute a dividend worth 1%. You could expect a check for $5. But If they wanted to do a stock dividend they could send you 0.01 shares for every share you own, in your case you wil... |
Should I get an accountant for my taxes? | A reason to get an accountant is to avoid penalties for possible mistakes. That is, if you make a mistake, the IRS can impose penalties on you for negligence. If the professional makes the SAME mistake, the burden of proof for "negligence" shifts to the IRS, which probably means that you'll pay more taxes and interest,... |
What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? | Current Money users may want to take a look at this: http://sites.google.com/site/pocketsense/home/msmoneyfixp1 Pretty easy (and secure) way to continue getting online data into Money. |
On paper I have 1 share in my company. How can I sell a smaller percentage of my company to another party? | You actually have a few options. First, you can do a share split and then sell an equal number of shares from both you and your wife to maintain parity. Second, you can have the company issue additional shares/convert shares and then have the company sell the appropriate percentage to the third party while the rest is ... |
Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market? | Aside of the other (mostly valid) answers, share price is the most common method of valuating the company. Here is a bogus example that will help you understand the general point: Now, suppose that Company A wants to borrow $20 Million from a bank... Not a chance. Company B? Not a problem. Same situation when trying t... |
How to chose index funds, mutual funds from a plethora of options (TD Ameritrade) | I agree with others here that suggest that you should be taking higher risk since it is repaid with higher returns. You have 40 years or so to go before you might switch to safer but lower return funds. I suggest that you look at the Morningstar rating for the funds you are considering: http://www.morningstar.com/ A fu... |
Why charge gross receipts taxes to the customer? | the state of New Mexico provides guidance in this exact situation. On page 4: Gross receipts DOES NOT include: Example: When the seller passes tax to the buyer, the seller should separate, or “back out”, that tax from the total income to arrive at "Gross Receipts," the amount reported in Column D of the CRS-1 Form.... |
Comparing option data between yahoo finance and CBOE for SPY options | The CBOE site, as well as some other sites and trading platforms, will show the bid/ask and statistics for that option at each individual options exchange, in addition to statistics and the best bid/offer across all exchanges. cboe.com: Delayed Quote Help lists what the single-letter codes mean. A is for the AMEX optio... |
401K - shift from agressive investment to Money Market | If you look at history, it shows that the more people predict corrections the less was the chance they came. That doesn't prove it stays so, though. 2017 is not any different than other years in the future: Independent of this, with less than ten years remaining until you need to draw from your money, it is a good idea... |
How do used vehicle exchange programs at car dealerships work? | Yikes! Not always is this the case... For example, you purchased a new car with an interest rate of 5-6%or even higher... Why pay that much interest throughout the loan. Sometimes trading in the vehicle at a lower rate will get you a lower or sometimes the same payment even with an upgraded (newer/safer technology) des... |
Transferring money from 403B to 401K? | You can move money from a 403b to a 401k plan, but the question you should ask yourself is whether it is a wise decision. Unless there are specific reasons for wanting to invest in your new employer's 401k (e.g. you can buy your employer's stock at discounted rates within the 401k, and this is a good investment accordi... |
Filing taxes on stocks | Generally stock trades will require an additional Capital Gains and Losses form included with a 1040, known as Schedule D (summary) and Schedule D-1 (itemized). That year I believe the maximum declarable Capital loss was $3000--the rest could carry over to future years. The purchase date/year only matters insofar as t... |
Ongoing things to do and read to improve knowledge of finance? | The best learning technique for me is not to dredge through books in order to gain a better understanding of finance. This is tedious and causes me to lose interest. I'm not sure of your tolerance for this type of learning. I tend to learn in small pieces. Something piques my interest and I go off reading about tha... |
Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it? | Pay cash. You have the cash to pay for it now, but God forbid something happen to you or your wife that requires you to dip into that cash in the future. In such an event, you could end up paying a lot more for your home theater than you planned. The best way to keep your consumer credit card debt at zero (and protect... |
Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth? | You can perfectly well manage their wealth without transferring their money into your account first. Just make them open their own account on their name then ask them for credentials and then manage their money from within their own account. That way everyone will be taxed according to their wealth (which is probably a... |
How to calculate stock price (value) based on given values for equity and debt? | I'll give you my quick and dirty way to value a company: A quick and dirty valuation could be: equity + 10 times profit. This quick way protects you from investing in companies in debt, or losing money. To go more in-depth you need to assess future profit, etc. I recommend the book from Mary Buffett about Warren Buffet... |
Who determines, and how, the composition of the S&P 500 index? | S & P's site has a methodology link that contains the following which may be of use: Market Capitalization. Unadjusted market capitalization of US$ 4.6 billion or more for the S&P 500, US$ 1.2 billion to US$ 5.1 billion for the S&P MidCap 400, and US$ 350 million to US$ 1.6 billion for the S&P SmallCap 600. The... |
Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics? | Having no utilization makes you an outlier, it's an unusual circumstance for most people, and the scoring model cannot make any predictions based on it. If you think of it from the underwriter's perspective, zero utilization could mean all sorts of things... are you dead? indigent? unable to work? When you buying a pr... |
How can risk-reward relationship exist, since the losses due to the risk should offset the reward? | Risk in finance is defined as standard deviation of returns. This is a measure of size of your returns, both negative and positive. Since the mean return is positive (at least for the stock market and fixed income), if you double the standard deviation your mean return also doubles along with it. In this way you are co... |
Safe method of paying for a Gym Membership? | New York state actually has laws protecting gym members from predatory gym membership pricing. Your state may also have laws like that as well. |
Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich? | What could a small guy with $100 do to make himself not poor To answer the question directly, not much. Short of investing in something at the exact moment before it goes bananas, then reinvesting into a bigger stock and bigger etc, it's super high risk. A better way is to sacrifice some small things, less coffee, less... |
For a mortgage down-payment, what percentage is sensible? | A bigger down payment is good, because it insulates you from the swings in the real estate market. If you get FHA loan with 3% down and end up being forced to move during a down market, you'll be in a real bind, as you'll need to scrape up some cash or borrow funds to get out of your mortgage. |
How can a person with really bad credit history rent decent housing? | She can find a landlord that doesn't do credit checks. Maybe on Craigslist? She may end up paying more, have a bigger security deposit, etc. She can get someone else (not you) to sit her down and explain to her frankly that she's messing things up for herself and her children by being a poor manager of her finances. ... |
Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments with Monthly Income | I think we are mixing this up. If you invest using loan, and are paying the loan out of your pocket and leaving the loan in investment, then there is no way you are making more money. Had you directly invested the same money in market instead of EMI, you would end up gaining more. Take a Loan of 100000, Year Int say 5.... |
Are there any Social Responsibility Index funds or ETFs? | Try this site for the funds http://www.socialinvest.org/resources/mfpc/ I'm not aware of any etfs. I'm sure some exist though. |
Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority? | Highest priority compared to what? Obviously priorities should be repaying debt in the order of interest percentage. Which means among your debts, the mortgage likely comes last. Trying to get a better mortgage deal however has a huge priority. And if you have a choice between wasting money and paying off the mortgag... |
Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? | Yes, in 2 ways: As you mention, the price of a home generally grows with inflation - along with other factors (supply and demand in local markets, etc.). Through financing. If you finance 80% of your purchase today, in 2014 dollars, you will pay back in future dollars. Those future dollars are worth less, because of in... |
Tax whilst starting a business in full time employment | With a limited company, you'll have to pay yourself a salary through PAYE. With income from your other job taking you over the higher-rate threshold, you should inform HMRC of this and get a tax code of DO for the second job, meaning 40% tax (and also both employer's and employee's National Insurance) will be deducted ... |
Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation? | The $3K includes property tax, right? It looks like the mortgage alone will be about $2150 or so. If your (cal) state tax is enough to put you into itemized deductions, your mortgage and property tax are a write off, and the $3k will actually be closer to the $2K you are considering for rent. The wild card as I see it... |
What's the difference between Term and Whole Life insurance? | Term life insurance is just that - life insurance that pays out if you die, just like car insurance pays out if you have an accident. Like car insurance, it's easy to compare amongst term life insurance policies - you can even compare quotes online. Whole life insurance is life insurance plus an investment component. ... |
What is Fibonacci values? | Usually when a stock is up-trending or down-trending the price does not go up or down in a straight line. In an uptrend the price may go up over a couple of days then it could go down the next day or two, but the general direction would be up over the medium term. The opposite for a downtrend. So if the stock has been ... |
What does it mean that stocks are “memoryless”? | With my current, limited knowledge (see end), I understand it the following way: Are share prices really described as "memoryless"? Yes. Is there a technical meaning of the term? What does it really mean? The meaning comes from Markov Models: Think of the behavior of the stock market over time as a Markov Chain, i.... |
Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in? | No, assuming by "public company" you mean a corporation. The shareholder's individual liability is limited to their investment. Your shares can go to zero value, but that's the limit. EDIT In regard to the follow-up question in the comments: "Are all companies in the stock market corporations?" the answer is definite... |
Does it make sense to refinance a 30 year mortgage to 15 years? | There's several different trade-offs wrapped up in your question. In general, refinancing a mortgage to a lower interest rate makes sense if you are certain you'll be living in the house for N years. N depends on your closing costs and points. Basically you need to calculate the break-even point for when the savings ... |
Is there any instance where less leverage will get you a better return on a rental property? | leverage amplifies gains and losses, when returns are positive leverage makes them more positive, but when returns are negative leverage makes them more negative. since most investments have a positive return in "the long run", leverage is generally considered a good idea for long term illiquid investments like real es... |
Why do more floating shares mean less volatility for the stock? | More shares mean less volatility because it takes a larger number of trades, a larger number of shares per trade, or a combination of both to raise or lower the stock price. Institutional investors (mutual funds, pensions, hedge funds, other investment firms, etc) are the sorts of organizations with the large amounts o... |
Does the CRA reprieve those who have to commute for work? | The answer on the Canadian Government's website is pretty clear: Most employees cannot claim employment expenses. You cannot deduct the cost of travel to and from work, or other expenses, such as most tools and clothing. However, that is most likely related to a personal vehicle. There is a deduction related to Pu... |
Should I buy out my brother on a property we will inherit before making improvements? | If your father is still able to make financial decisions and sign contracts, I see a better option. Have your father borrow against his equity to finance the renovation. Example: the house is worth 400 now. He can borrow 100 against that. He spends it on the addition, making the house worth 500, with the same 400 of e... |
Are BIC and SWIFT code the same things? | BIC and IBANN are used in EU (and some other OECD countries) for inter bank transfers. SWIFT is used everywhere for interbank transfers. In the US - IBAN system is not (yet, hopefully) available, so you have to use SWIFT. The codes may look the same, but these are different systems. More details here. |
Why do people buy insurance even if they have the means to overcome the loss? | Insurance is a funny product. As you said, it is a little like gambling. When I buy term life insurance, I'm essentially betting that I'm going to die within the next 20 years, and the insurance company is betting that I'm not. I'm hoping to lose that bet! Besides all of the reasons that other answers mentioned, I t... |
Why are interest rates on saving accounts so low in USA and Europe? | Some comments above are inaccurate. Advertised interest rates for deposits and savings in Russia (from Russian banks) are generally for Ruble (RUB) denominated accounts; however, USD and EUR denominated accounts still offer favorable interest rates when compared to Western counterparts. For example, Sberbank advertises... |
Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what? | Option 4: Go talk with someone in person at an office of the Insurance company. They have helped me several times with things like this. They can get everyone involved on a conference call and make something happen. But you have to go in. Calling is a good way to waste time and get nowhere, they will throw the issue ba... |
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