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How can I detect potential fraud in a company before investing in them?
Given that such activities are criminal and the people committing them have to hide them from the law, it's very unlikely that an investor could detect them, let alone one from a different country. The only things that can realistically help is to keep in mind the adage "If something sounds too good to be true, it prob...
Option on an option possible? (Have a LEAP, put to me?)
There are options on options. Some derivative instruments assets ARE options (some ETFs), and you are able to buy shares of those ETFs OR options on those ETFs. Secondly, options are just a contract, so you just need to write one up and find someone to buy the contract. The only thing is that the exchange won't facil...
Should I take a student loan to pursue my undergraduate studies in France?
Stripping away the minutia, your question boils down to this: Should I take a loan for something that I may not be able to repay? The correct answer, is "No".
What is the big deal about the chinese remnibi trading hub that opened in toronto
Chinese suppliers can quote their price in CNY rather than USD (as has been typical), and thus avoid the exchange risk from US dollar volatility- the CNY has been generally appreciating so committing to receive payments in US dollars when their costs are in CNY means they are typically on the losing end of the equation...
I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?
Some financial planners would not advise one way or the other on a specific stock without knowing your investment strategy... if you didn't have one, their goal would be to help you develop one and introduce you to a portfolio management framework like Asset Allocation. Is a two of clubs a good card? Well, that all de...
How do I determine if sale proceeds from an asset are taxable?
Profit = Sale price - Basis Basis = Purchase price - any depreciation taken, including expensing it.
What economic growth rate is required to halve U.S. unemployment?
I believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics has published some numbers in this area... I cannot find them at the moment though. I think you need to take these numbers with a grain of salt, though, because they cannot account for productivity and automation improvements that are being aggressively implemented. Companies ar...
What is the difference between a check and a paycheck?
There is little difference. A paycheck is a type of check used to pay wages. These days many people opt for direct deposit. So, the term paycheck can also refer to the payment itself: 1: a check in payment of wages or salary 2: wages, salary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paycheck
Why pay for end-of-day historical prices?
There are several reasons to pay for data instead of using Yahoo Finance, although these reasons don't necessarily apply to you if you're only planning to use the data for personal use. Yahoo will throttle you if you attempt to download too much data in a short time period. You can opt to use the Yahoo Query Language ...
As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments?
+1 on all the answers above. You're in a great position and have the right attitude. A good book on the subject is A Random Walk Down Wall Street - well worth a read. Essentially, go for low tax paying in, low tax taking out approach (in the uk that's a SIPP or ISA), a low cost well diversified unit fund (like a Vangua...
I spend too much money. How can I get on the path to a frugal lifestyle?
For the most part, saving money usually depends upon having a budget and being able to stick to it. The toughest part of budgeting is usually setting it up (how much do I need for X) and sticking to it each month. In regards to sticking to it, there is software that you can use that helps figure out how much you are sp...
Saving up for an expensive car
If you can afford to put $1,333 towards saving for a new car each month, then there is nothing wrong with your logic You should be aware that your car will probably cost around $110,000 in 6.5 years, but other than that the logic is fine. However...
How long to wait after getting a mortgage to increase my credit limit?
8 hard inquiries spread over two years is not a negative factor, with a score of 750. Real question #1: How much of your credit limits are you currently using? Less than 30% of your credit limits is good. Less than 15% is even better, 10% is great You don't need to wait X amount of days after applying for a mortgage or...
What are some ways to mitigate the risks of covered calls?
If the position starts losing money as soon as it is put on, then I would close it out ,taking a small loss. However, if it starts making money,as in the stock inches higher, then you can use part of the premium collected to buy an out of money put, thereby limiting your downside. It is called a collar.
Why does quantitative easing negatively affect stocks?
Can you isolate the market impact to just the Fed's quantitative easing? Can you rule out the future economic predictions of low growth and that there are reasons why the Fed has kept rates low and is trying its best to stimulate the economy? Just something to consider here. The key is to understand what is the great...
Pay team mates out of revenues on my name
Note: This is not professional tax advice. If you think you need professional tax advice, find a licensed professional in your local area. What are the expected earnings/year? US$100? US$1,000? US$100,000? I would say if this is for US$1,000 or less that registering an EIN, and consulting a CPA to file a Partnershi...
what is difference between stock and dividend?
Stock basically implies your ownership in the company. If you own 1% ownership in a company, the value of your stake becomes equal to 1% of the valuation of the entire company. Dividends are basically disbursal of company's profits to its shareholders. By holding stocks of a company, you become eligible to receiving di...
Is there a formula to use to analyse whether an investment property is a good investment?
When you invest in a property, you pay money to purchase the property. You didn't have to spend the money on the property though - you could have invested it in the stock market instead, and expected to make a 4% annualized real rate of return or thereabouts. So if you want to know whether something's a "good investmen...
Is there any way to pay online in a country with no international banking system
If the vendor accepts cryptocurrencies, this may be your only option. It's not clear if exporting cryptocurrency violates Ethiopian law, but at least cryptocurrencies have not yet been banned. If you can find someone who can trade you cryptocurrency, you can send it anywhere. Because cryptocurrencies are still extremel...
How do euro hedged index funds work?
When you invest in an S&P500 index fund that is priced in USD, the only major risk you bear is the risk associated with the equity that comprises the index, since both the equities and the index fund are priced in USD. The fund in your question, however, is priced in EUR. For a fund like this to match the performance o...
Is this legal: going long on call options and artificially increasing the price of the underlying asset seconds before expiration?
Despite the fact that I think there is a litany of inaccuracies and misunderstandings related to quoted price and transaction price and the way prices move and assets transact; if you were able to, under these extremely narrow and very unlikely conditions, affect the prices of these assets that would be market manipula...
Choosing the “right” NAPFA advisor, and whether fees are fair, etc.?
The nature of this question (finding a financial adviser) can make it a conundrum. Those who have little financial experience are often in the greatest need of a financial adviser and at the same time are the least qualified to select one. I'm not putting you or anyone in particular in this category. And of course it's...
Will prices really be different for cash and cards?
I would say minimal price differences. Stores will need to remain competative, and the difference (if any) will likely be to cover the cost of the transaction that Visa and other card companies charge them.
I thought student loans didn't have interest, or at least very low interest? [UK]
From the description, you have a post-1998 income contingent loan. The interest rate on those is currently 1.5% but it has varied quite a bit in the last few years due to the formula used to calculate it, which is either the inflation rate (RPI), or 1% + the highest base rate across a group of banks - whichever is smal...
Are Australian mutual fund fees large compared to US?
This is a Vanguard-specific difference in the sense that in the US, Vanguard is a leader in lowering management fees for the mutual funds that they offer. Of course, several US mutual fund companies have also been lowering the expense ratio of their mutual funds in recent years because more and more investors have be...
How do day-traders or frequent traders handle their taxes?
Starting of 2011, your broker has to keep track of all the transactions and the cost basis, and it will be reported on your 1099-B. Also, some brokers allow downloading the data directly to your tax software or to excel charts (I use E*Trade, and last year TurboTax downloaded all the transaction directly from them).
Can two companies own stock in each other?
I was looking at NAT and NAO, NAT owns 20% of NAO. They trade opposite each other on the price of oil, low is good for NAT, bad for NAO. In bad times the other company's stock would probably rise, so they could trim excess shares to keep a stable monetary holding. This would create cash in bad times, in good times t...
Do rental car agencies sell their cars at a time when it is risky for the purchaser?
Every car model/type has a know interval when things need maintenance or replacement. This info comes mainly from the manufacturer and the rental companies use these info to determine how long and at what rate a car should be rented (I mean in total, not rented to an individual) This is easiest calculated with a long t...
How common are stock/scrip dividends (as opposed to cash dividends) in US equity markets?
There's not usually a point to issuing new stock as a dividend, because if you issue new stock, it dilutes the existing shareholders by the exact same amount as the dividend: so now they have a few more shares, great, but they're worth the exact same amount. (This assumes that all stockholders are equal. If there are m...
Why do some people go through contortions to avoid paying taxes, yet spend money on expensive financial advice, high-interest loans, etc?
The bank provides a service that the customer voluntarily agreed to - the bank will provide funds to the customer now and the customer will pay back those funds plus interest in the future. The arragement wasn't forced onto the customer. The government, on the other hand, takes money (the exchange is not volutary) fro...
Can I deduct interest and fees on a loan for qualified medical expenses?
IRS Publication 502: Medical expenses are the costs of diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, and the costs for treatments affecting any part or function of the body. Loan interest and fees do not meet this definition. Your loan interest and fees are a cost of the payment method you chose ...
How to value employee benefits?
Health insurance varies wildly per state and per plan and per provider - but check them out to have a baseline to know what it should cost if you did it yourself. Don't forget vacation time, too: many contract/comp-only jobs have no vacation time - how much is that 10 or 15 days a year worth to you? It effectively mean...
Is it possible to influence a company's actions by buying stock?
Yes and no. This really should be taught at junior school level in a capitalist country but that is a different argument. A company is influenced by its shareholders but not in the way you are hoping. This is the only area where a Company must behave democratically with one share one vote. If you own one share in a com...
What are dividends, when are they paid, and how do they affect my position?
Dividends are normally paid in cash, so don't generally affect your portfolio aside from a slight increase to 'cash'. You get a check for them, or your broker would deposit the funds into a money-market account for you. There is sometimes an option to re-invest dividends, See Westyfresh's answer regarding Dividend Re...
Demurrage vs inflation
Yes, there's a difference. If you've borrowed $100, then under inflation your salary will (presumably) increase, and tomorrow your debt will only be worth $99. But under demurrage, you'll still owe $100.
Stock trading models that use fundamental analysis, e.g. PEG ratios?
One idea: If you came up with a model to calculate a "fair price range" for a stock, then any time the market price were to go below the range it could be a buy signal, and above the range it could be a sell signal. There are many ways to do stock valuation using fundamental analysis tools and ratios: dividend discount...
First Job, should I save or invest?
Since you seem to be interested in investing in individual stocks, this answer will address that. As for the general question of investing, the answer that @johnfx gave is just about as good as it gets. Investing in individual stocks is extremely risky and takes a LOT of work to do right. On top of the fairly obvious...
Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed?
COBRA premiums are not deductible on 1040 line 29; to qualify, the IRS says the insurance plan must be in your name (COBRA is in your former employer's name). H&R Block confirms this.
Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?
You mentioned you have a bunch of credit cards with no balance, while others have fairly high balances I would not recommend you to close the 0 balance credit cards if they have lower APR. You can transfer the balance to those cards with lower APR. Now, if those 0 balance cards do not have lower APR, closing them will ...
Strategies for putting away money for a child's future (college, etc.)?
I know this is a little off the wall but I bought a rental property for my son's tuition. The tenants pay down the mortgage for the next 12 years and it (hopefully) also appreciates in value. Worst case scenario is I come out with a rental and a kid with no education. He doesn't go then there's no skin off my back.
Can the U.S. government retroactively tax gains made earlier in the fiscal year?
You're certainly referring to "Ex Post Facto" laws, and while the US is constitutionally prohibited from passing criminal laws that are retroactive, the US Supreme Court has upheld many tax laws that apply tax code changes retroactively. You might ask a similar question on Law.SE for a more thorough treatment of the le...
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?
Considering that we are in a low-interest rate period (the lowest in history), it's smart to loan money from the bank to reinvest in property or other investments as far as you get a better yield (ROI) than the interest.
Free/open source Unix software that pulls info from all my banks/brokers/credit cards?
Moneydance is a commercial application that is cross-platform. Written in Java, they run and are supported on Windows, Mac and Linux. They integrate with many financial institutions and for those that it cannot, you can import a locally downloaded file. I have used it for several years on my Mac, but have no company af...
I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?
I would have asked for the intended recipient's account number and pursue sending the money there. If it's the same as yours (except for one digit) that would be a good sign. But even here, the crook could send money to dozens of different accounts, all off by one digit, just to make it look authentic. I'm going with s...
In the stock market, why is the “open” price value never the same as previous day's “close”?
What most of these answers here seem to be missing is that a stock "price" is not exactly what we typically expect a price to be--for example, when we go in to the supermarket and see that the price of a gallon of milk is $2.00, we know that when we go to the cash register that is exactly how much we will pay. This is...
IS it the wrong time to get into the equity market immediately after large gains?
If your gut told you to buy during the depths of '09, your gut might be well-calibrated. The problem is stock market declines during recessions are frequently not that large relative to the average long run return of 9%: A better strategy might be hold a percentage in equities based upon a probability distribution of ...
Would you withdraw your money from your bank if you thought it was going under?
I have two different thoughts on this subject.
How does the currency between countries relate
It's called correlation. I found this: http://www.forexrazor.com/en-us/school/tabid/426/ID/437424/currency-pair-correlations it looks a good place to start Similar types of political economies will correlate together, opposite types won't. Also there are geographic correlations (climate, language etc)
Should I pay off my credit card online immediately or wait for the bill?
It is COMPLETELY no use to pay earlier (during a billing cycle) to better your credit score! Your credit score gets affected ONLY once a month from each creditor, and that happens when they post your monthly statement. Thus, no matter what you do or pay and how many times a month or how many days earlier than your due ...
Obtaining Pound Sterling Cheque in US to pay for family history records from England?
Most US banks don't allow you the ability to draft a foreign currency check from USD. Though, I know Canadian banks are more workable. For instance, TD allows you to do this from CAD to many other currencies for a small fee. I believe even as a US Citizen you can quite easily open a TD Trust account and you'd be good t...
If I go to a seminar held overseas, may I claim my flights on my tax return?
Disclaimer: My answer is based on US tax law, but I assume Australian situation would be similar. The IRS would not be likely to believe your statement that "I wouldn't have gone to the country if it wasn't for the conference." A two-week vacation, with a two-day conference in there, certainly looks like you threw in ...
UK companies house - what can I glean from an abbreviated balance sheet?
What this abbreviated balance sheet tells you is that this company has negative equity. The liabilities are greater than the value of the assets. The obvious problem for the company who wants to do business with you is that they are going to have a real hard time accessing credit to pay off any debts that they incur ...
When paying estimated quarterly taxes, can I prorate the amount based on the irregular payment due dates?
You may want, or at least be thinking of, the annualized method described in Pub 505 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p505/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000194669 (also downloadable in PDF) and referred to in Why are estimated taxes due "early" for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only? . This doesn't prorate your payments as su...
I'm 23 and was given $50k. What should I do?
First of all, I am sorry for your loss. At this time, worrying about money is probably the least of your concerns. It might be tempting to try to pay off all your debts at once, and while that would be satisfying, it would be a poor investment of your inheritance. When you have debt, you have to think about how much th...
How can I find a company's P/E ratio based on its given EPS and the P/E ratios of other companies?
Here is how I would approach that problem: 1) Find the average ratios of the competitors: 2) Find the earnings and book value per share of Hawaiian 3) Multiply the EPB and BVPS by the average ratios. Note that you get two very different numbers. This illustrates why pricing from ratios is inexact. How you use those a...
In Canada, how much money can I gift a friend or family member without them being taxed on it?
Canada doesn't seem to have a gift tax. http://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/giftsandinheritances.htm
When should you use an actively managed mutual fund in a 401k?
For US stocks it's a bit of a gamble. Many actively managed funds underperform the market indexes, but some of them outperform in many years. With an index you will get average results. With an active manager you "might" do better than average. So you can view active management as a higher risk, potentially higher rewa...
When should you use an actively managed mutual fund in a 401k?
By definition, actively managed funds will underperform passive index funds as a whole. Or more specifically: The aggregate performance of all actively managed portfolio of publicly-tradable assets will have equal performance to those of passively managed portfolios. Which taken with premise two: Actively managed funds...
How can I deal with a spouse who compulsively spends?
Based on the conversations in the comments, I believe a pragmatic solution would be the best immediate course of action, while still working on the long term addiction issues. The first step is to get your husband to agree to give you all of his credit cards and let you manage the money for a set period of time, say 3 ...
Can you buy gift cards at grocery store to receive a higher reward rate?
I actually just did that with my Chase Freedom card. They rotate categories every 3 months, and from April-June it was 5% back at grocery stores. So I bought a ton of gas cards and got my 5% back. Next I figured out I would be clever and buy a ton of store gift cards (grocery gift cards) right at the end of the quart...
Can i short securities in a normal(non-margin) account
The broker will charge borrowing fees and sometimes a charge called "hard-to-borrow fee". Other than that you will earn interest on the cash you get from selling the stocks, but you will have to pay dividends. This is because someone else (the party you sold the stocks off to) will now get the dividends and the party ...
If I have 10,000 stocks to sell with 23 B market cap
You will almost certainly be able to sell 10,000 shares at once. The question is a matter of price. If you sell "at market" then you may get a lower price for each "batch" of the stock sold (one person buys 50, another buys 200, another buys 1000 etc) at varying prices. Will you be able to execute a single order to sel...
First time investor and online brokerage accounts
Most mutual funds are designed to make the investment banks that sell them money, not to make investers money. They do this by taking significant fees out. Because they make lots of money on these funds, they advertise them a lot, and give them important-sounding names, like "Advanced technology global diversity long t...
Are there any other investing methods I should look into?
To expand on mhoran's answer - Once you mention the 401(k), we're compelled to ask (a) what is the match, if any, and (b) what are the expenses within the funds offered. Depositing to get the full match is going to get you the biggest return on your money. It's common to get a dollar for dollar match on the first 5 or...
Calculating theoretical Present Value
The example from the following website: Investopedia - Calculating The Present And Future Value Of Annuities specifically the section 'Calculating the Present Value of an Annuity Due' shows how the calculation is made. Using their figures, if five payments of $1000 are made over five years and depreciation (inflation...
Facebook buying WhatsApp for 19 Billion. How are existing shareholders affected?
It's a dilution of the ownership; the public used to own x% of Facebook and now they own less than x% of the bigger Facebook that incorporates Whatsapp (assuming that Whatsapp was completely private before). Logically, the $15 billion is allocated proportionately between the existing stockholders (x% of it for the gene...
What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments?
When you pay monthly, you're making 12 payments / year. Assuming you have a payment of $1000/mo, that's $12,000/year that you're paying for your mortgage. When you opt for bi-weekly, they're saying that you can pay half of your mortgage ($500) bi-weekly (can be configured to align with your paycheck). Since there are ~...
Working out if I should be registered as self-employed in the UK
As 'anonymous' already mentioned, I think the correct answer is to go see an accountant. That said, if you are already have to fill in a tax return anyway (ie, you're already a high rate taxpayer) then I don't see why it should be an issue if you just told HMRC of your additional profit via your tax return. I never was...
Calculating profits for a private fund
One way I heard of, from a friend who ran a similar fund as yours, is to calculate $days of investment and divide the investment as accordingly. For example, If I invested 10$ for 10 days and you have invested 20$ for 5 days. At the end of the 10th day my $day = 10*10=100, while your $day=20*5=100. If the investement ...
Why is it good to borrow money to buy a house?
First, who is saying that it is a better option? In general it is best to pay cash for things when you can. I think the reality is that for most people owning a house would be very difficult without some sort of financing. That said, one argument for financing a house these days even if you could afford to pay cash is ...
Buying a truck to write off on taxes
Assuming your country is the United States there is. See schedule C line 9 and the corresponding instructions. There are many rules associated with this, in some cases the entire purchase can be written off but typically if the truck is only used for business. Most people write off partial usage in the form of cred...
Negative Balance from Automatic Options Exercise. What to do?
Automatic exercisions can be extremely risky, and the closer to the money the options are, the riskier their exercisions are. It is unlikely that the entire account has negative equity since a responsible broker would forcibly close all positions and pursue the holder for the balance of the debt to reduce solvency risk...
Is there a way I can get bid/ask price data on the NSE in real time?
Buy Data products from NSE. You will get historical order book. The Live order book may not be available. https://www.nseindia.com/supra_global/content/dotex/data_products.htm This link has all the data products that NSE can provide
How long do you have to live somewhere to be a resident for tax purposes?
If you are going to be trying clever stuff with taxes in different place, you probably need a professional. Different countries definitely have different laws on the subject. For example (several years ago) the UK considered you absent from the UK for tax purposes from the day you left, provided you were gone for a ye...
Buying under my bid price
It definitely depends on the exchange you are trading on. I'm not familiar with Scottrade, but a standard practice is to fulfill limit orders in the order they are placed. Most of the time, you wouldn't see stocks trade significantly under your bid price, but since penny stocks are very volatile, it's more likely the...
Currently sole owner of a property. My girlfriend is looking to move in with me and is offering to pay 'rent'. Am I at risk here?
With regard to worries about ownership: I'll point you towards this - The Cohabitants Rights Bill currently in First Reading at the House of Lords. Without a date for even the second reading yet. In short the Bill is attempting to redress is the lack of rights when a non-married relationship ends when compared to marr...
Is buying or selling goods for gold or silver considered taxable?
This isn't new. Even before silver hit $50 in 1980, silver coins were worth 3-4X face value for 'junk' silver. There were people writing articles on how one could sell their house and specify a lower price, but paid in silver coins. Since silver coins have a face value, it was suggested that this was a legitimate proc...
Investing Superannuation Australia
You can make a start to learn how to make better investing decisions by learning and understanding what your current super funds are invested in. Does the super fund give you choices of where you can invest your funds, and how often does it allow you to change your investment choices each year? If you are interested in...
Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest?
Remember, the card company gets a percentage at the time of purchase, as well as any interest you let them collect from you. Yes, they're still making a profit on our accounts, and they can always hope that at some point we'll run up a high enough bill to be willing to pay some interest. They may kill completely inacti...
Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement?
As a rule, one should have a retirement. HOWEVER, you also have over a half a million dollars of debt. Paying down debt is another way to prepare for retirement. I would say throwing your excess money at your debts is a fine strategy right now. Especially the student loan (the mortgage probably has a lower rate and ...
Pros/cons of borrowing money using a mortgage loan and investing it in a low-fee index fund?
Well for a start funds don't pay interest. If you pick an income-paying fund (as opposed to one that automatically reinvests any income for you) you will receive periodic income based on the dividends paid by the underlying stocks, but it won't be the steady predictable interest payment you might get from a savings ac...
Sale of house profit gifted to child
1) You parents will have to pay tax on the gain as it wasn't their primary home. You don’t pay Capital Gains Tax when you sell (or ‘dispose of’) your home if all of the following apply: As I look at it, it is your parents are the ones who own the property and they will have to pay on £60000. But as you say you pay par...
What exactly is BATS Chi-X Europe?
Yes, it would be incorrect to refer to BATS Chi-X Europe as a market maker. Market makers make markets on BATS Chi-X Europe, which is a stock exchange.
What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time?
Time Tracker I'm a software engineer and have been using this tool. It is free and has a good user interface. I believe it can very well be used by professional of other areas too. It does support the features that you're looking for regarding project and task tracking.
Are Forex traders forced to use leverage?
I recommended Currency Trading For Dummies, in my answer to Layman's guide to getting started with Forex (foreign exchange trading)? The nature of the contract size points toward only putting up a fraction of the value. The Euro FX contract size is 125,000 Euro. If you wish to send the broker US$125K+ to trade this co...
Is an open-sourced World Stock Index a pipe-dream?
An index is just a mathematical calculation based on stock prices. Anyone can create such a calculation and (given a little effort) publish it based on publicly available data. The question of "open source" is simply whether or not the calculator chooses to publish the calculation used. Given how easy an index is to cr...
Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees
This question is largely opinion based but I wanted to balance out the people jumping on you. There are lots of factors that go into salary/pay, such as what you contribute to the company and whather you go above or beyond whats expected of you. I would say seniority is one factor, or at least there is a case to be mad...
Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than “highest interest” first?
Very good Ben, in a more simplistic form: If debt was about math only, we would not have payday lenders, 21% + credit cards, or sub-prime car loans. Yet these things are prevalent. Debt reduction is often about behavior modification. As such small wins are necessary to keep going much like a 12 step program; or, gam...
Smartest Place to Put Tax Refund
Congratulations on your graduation and salary. You are in a great career field (I know from experience.) As a background, I would feel pretty confident in your salary as demand for SE is pretty high right now. During my career there were times that demand was pretty to very low. Somehow I survived 2001 & 2002, but ...
Do marketmakers always quote a bid and ask simultaneously
Yes, but also note each exchange have rules that states various conditions when the market maker can enlarge the bid-ask (e.g. for situations such as freely falling markets, etc.) and when the market makers need to give a normal bid-ask. In normal markets, the bid-asks are usually within exchange dictated bounds. MM's...
Clothing Store Credit Card Account closed but not deleted
You have little chance of getting it deleted. I have the same situation, I closed mine in 2006, and the login still works. Keep the paperwork that you closed it (or print a PDF of the site showing so), and forget about it. If someone is trying to cheat, re-opening it should be the same difficulty as making a new one in...
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house
As everyone is saying, this depends on a lot of variables. However... I had my dad help me with the downpayment on my house. In my case, the cost of mortgage payment and all maintenance expenses is still lower than paying rent. If I sell my house and walk away from the closing office with just $1 then I've still come o...
Borrowing money and then investing it — smart or nart?
The biggest concern is how you get $250,000 in unsecured credit. It's unlikely that you will be loaned that amount at a percentage lower than what you expect to earn. Unsecured credit lines are rarely lower than 10% and usually approach 20%. On top of that, for a bank to approve you for that credit line, you have to ha...
Should I buy stocks of my current employer because of its high dividend yield?
Dividend yields are a product of the dollar amount paid to shareholders and the stock price. Dividends yields rise when a company is shunned by investors. It may be shunned because the earnings and/or dividend are at risk. Recent examples are SDRL and KMI. Most investors would love an 8% yield so I would wonder why th...
How to get a credit card as a minor?
In general, minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts -- which is what credit accounts are -- so an individually held card is probably not an option for you right now. You will not be approved for a credit card because you are minor. The only option credit card wise for you is for your parents to add you o...
What is a “fiat” currency? Are there other types of currency?
fiat in Latin means "let it be" or "let it happen" - as in "fiat lux!" meaning "let there be light!". Thus, fiat money means money that are created by the government decree - they would be random worthless pieces of paper otherwise, so the government says "let this paper be worth $100" and it becomes $100. Non-fiat mon...
Assessing risk, and Identifying scams in Alternative Investments
I have personally invested $5,000 in a YieldStreet offering (a loan being used by a company looking to expand a ridesharing fleet), and would certainly recommend taking a closer look if they fit your investment goals and risk profile. (Here's a more detailed review I wrote on my website.) YieldStreet is among a growing...
What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments?
So the principle is true. Assuming that you get paid bi-weekly, you end up getting three paychecks two months during the year. Typically that is in January and July/August. So if things were different, and your mortgage was setup so you paid half a monthly payment each paycheck, then you would wind up making one ful...
Why do banks encourage me to use online bill payment?
Most transactions that the bank performs for you are electronic ACH transactions, so the costs to them are minimal in the long run. Most banks do it now to keep up with the competition. Almost every bank does it now, so they have to do it to attract new business and keep existing customers. Also, the more you rely on...
How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?
The rent will be determined by: the rent being charged on similar houses near you. Your mortgage and other costs (very unfortunately!) have no bearing, at all, on the price you will get.