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Any experience with maxing out 401(k)? | To answer the first part of your question: yes, I've done that! I did even a bit more. I once had a job that I wasn't sure I'd keep and the economy wasn't great either. In case my next employer wouldn't let me contribute to a 401(k) from day one, and because I didn't want to underfund my retirement and be stuck with... |
How smart is it really to take out a loan right now? | Yes, it's a buyer's market. If one is looking to buy a house, comparing the cost to rent vs own is a start. Buying a property to rent to a stranger is a different issue altogether, it's a business like any other, it takes time and has risk. If today, one has a decent downpayment (20%) and plans to stay in the house fo... |
Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum? | One might hope for slightly more rationality in the platinum market. Rarely does one hear talk of "platinum bugs", rants about how every society on Earth has valued platinum as the One True Valuable Thing (tm), or seen presidential candidates call for the return to the platinum standard. |
Why do people buy stocks that pay no dividend? | Shares in a company represent a portion of a company. If that company takes in money and doesn't pay it out as a dividend (e.g. Apple), the company is still more valuable because it has cold hard cash as an asset. Theoretically, it's all the same whether your share of the money is inside the company or outside the comp... |
ACH debit blocks/filters on consumer account | The technical feature exists to (1)block all ACH activity, (2)block all ACH credits, or (3)block all ACH debits attempting to post to the deposit account. The large financial institutions will not deviate from their company policies and won't offer something like this for a personal account. The smaller institutions ... |
What to do when a job offer is made but with a salary less than what was asked for? | If you take less than you think you are worth, you will hate that job with a purple passion in short order. Either make peace with the amount you settle on or move on. |
Why is the buy price different from the sell price of a stock? [duplicate] | When there is a difference between the two ... no trading occurs. Let's look at an example: Investor A, B, C, and D all buy/sell shares of company X. Investor A wants to sell 10 shares at $20 a share (Ask price $20 x10). Investor B wants to buy 15 shares at $10 a share (Bid price $10 x15). Since the bid price and ask p... |
How do I explain why debt on debt is bad to my brother? | Talk about opportunity cost. Show a rope, and put a tag with him on the end of it. Explain that since he has max out his credit, he can no longer get more. Without more credit here are the things he can't have The key to illustrate is that all the money he makes, for the next several years is obligated to the people ... |
What is the rationale behind stock markets retreating due to S&P having a negative outlook on the USA? | When people (even people in the media) say: "The stock market is up because of X" or "The stock market is down because of Y", they are often engaging in what Nicolas Taleb calls the narrative falacy. They see the market has moved in one direction or another, they open their newspaper, pick a headline that provides a pl... |
Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | One other point to consider is that cash offers often include no contingencies. That is, the offer comes in and if the seller signs then the deal is done, without any chance that the buyer backs out. As you can imagine, this is an attractive option in some situations. |
One Share Stock Reverse Split | Any time there is a share adjustment from spin-off, merger, stock split, or reverse slit; there is zero chance for the stockholders to hang on to fractional shares. They are turned into cash. For the employees in the 401K program or investors via a mutual fund or ETF this isn't a problem. Because the fraction of a sh... |
How does one's personal credit history affect one's own company's credit rating? | For a newly registered business, you'll be using your "personal" credit score to get the credit. You will need to sign for the credit card personally so that if your business goes under, they still get paid. Your idea of opening a business card to increase your credit score is not a sound one. Business plastic might n... |
Why I cannot find a “Pure Cash” option in 401k investments? | Technically there could be a true cash fund, but the issue is it would need to have some sort of cost associated with it, which would mean it would have negative yield or would charge a fee. In some cases, this might be preferable to having it invested in "cash equivalents," which as you note are not cash. It is impo... |
Can a car company refuse to give me a copy of my contract or balance details? | The comments are getting too much, but to verify that you are not insane, you are being bullied. It sounds like this is a sub-prime loan, of which you are wisely trying to get out of. It also sounds like they are doing everything in their power to prevent you from doing so. For them you are a very profitable custome... |
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) | You might consider a Green Dot card. You can personalize the name on the card. There is no risk of over-drafting. There are some fees when you fill the card in stores, but it is free to open and manage online. Check out their site and see if it will work for you. It could be a great pair with a joint bank account for y... |
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 ... |
Does an option trading below parity always indicate an arbitrage opportunity? | In the equity world, if a stock trades at 110 and is going to pay a dividend of 10 in a few days, an option expiring after the ex date would take the dividend into account and would trade as if the stock were trading at 100. (Negative) interest rates may also lead to a similar effect. In the commodity world the cost of... |
Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it? | If the government prints money recklessly and causes inflation, people will come to expect inflation, and the value of the currency will plummet, and you'll end up like Zimbabwe where a trillion dollars won't buy a loaf of bread. If the government actually pays people for the money they borrow, they don't have this pr... |
For young (lower-mid class) investors what percentage should be in individual stocks? | The short answer: zero. dg99's answer gives some good reasons why. You will basically never be able to achieve diversification with individual stocks that is anywhere close to what you can get with mutual funds. Owning individual stocks exposes you to much greater risk in that random one-off events that happen to aff... |
What can I take from learning that a company's directors are buying or selling shares? | This could be another reason. "Companies buy their own stock in the market place to reduce the number of shares outstanding, and thus boosts the earnings per share. It also boosts the stock price, which benefits management that has stock options. " Taken from this article. http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2014/01/... |
How can I stop wasting food? | The best way to stop wasting food is to create a weekly plan. Every weekend, before making your grocery shopping, take 30-60 mins and plan (with your spouse if your married) for the next week's meals. It doesn't need to be too detailed, but it'll help you to approximate what you need in terms of food for the whole week... |
Investing thought experiment | Yes, if your assumptions are correct then your conclusions are correct. But your assumptions are never correct, and so this thought experiment doesn't tell us anything useful. |
Can I profit from selling a PUT on BBY? | Yes, theoretically you can flip the shares you agreed to buy and make a profit, but you're banking on the market behaving in some very precise and potentially unlikely ways. In practice it's very tricky for you to successfully navigate paying arbitrarily more for a stock than it's currently listed for, and selling it ... |
How to find historical stock price for a de-listed or defunct company? | http://www.euroinvestor.com/exchanges/nasdaq/macromedia-inc/41408/history will work as DumbCoder states, but didn't contain LEHMQ (Lehman Brother's holding company). You can use Yahoo for companies that have declared bankruptcy, such as Lehman Brothers: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=LEHMQ&a=08&b=01&c=2008&d=08&e=30&f... |
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 ... |
File bankruptcy, consolidate, or other options? | I think you're asking yourself the wrong question. The real question you should be asking yourself is this: "Do I want to a) give my parents a $45,000 gift, b) make them $45,000 loan, or c) neither?" The way you are talking in your question is as if you have the responsibility and authority to manage their lives. Wh... |
How to save money for future expenses | how can I save money for the future The fact that you are worrying is good. This is the first step. Follow this up with a plan. One way is first get hold of your income [its fixed you know the salary]. Maintain expenses, then see which costs can be cut down. Create individual goals and start investing for these. The be... |
Is selling only shares you bought with margin on a margin/unsettled cash purchase free ride? | There is no free ride at most brokers. You will likely be charged a margin fee for that trade even though you only held the margin shares for part of one day. The margin fee would be the annual margin interest rate calculated down to a one day holding period,so it would be smaller. Check your broker's policies but most... |
First 401K portfolio with high expense ratios - which funds to pick? (24yo) | If you're willing to do a little more work and bookkeeping than just putting money into the 401(k) I would recommend the following. I note that you said you chose some funds based on performance since the expense ratios are all high. I would recommend against chasing performance because active funds will almost always ... |
How to choose a good 401(k) investment option? | I agree with the others that the ROTH is probably better. See this list of benefit/cost comparison (as opposed to rule differences)http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_401%28k%29_and_IRA_accounts&oldid=582368417 |
If a mutual fund did really well last year, then statistically speaking, is it likely going to do bad this year? | This can be answered by looking at the fine print for any prospectus for any stock, bond or mutual fund. It says: "Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.". A mutual fund is a portfolio of common stocks, managed by somebody for a fee. There are many factors that can drive performance of a fund up or... |
Why should the P/E ratio of a growth stock match its percentage earnings growth rate? | This is only a rule of thumb. Peter Lynch popularized it; the ratio PE/growth is often called the Lynch Ratio. At best it's a very rough guideline. I could fill up this page with other caveats. I'm not saying that it's wrong, only that it's grossly incomplete. For a 10 second eyeball valuation of growth stocks, it's fi... |
Does a stock's price represent current liquidation of all shares? | What if everyone decided to sell all the shares at a given moment, let's say when the stock is trading at $40? It would fall to the lowest bid price, which could be $0.01 if someone had that bid in place. Here is an example which I happened to find online: Notice there are orders to buy at half the market price and lo... |
Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation? | Becoming a landlord is a pretty roundabout way to hedge against inflation. Why don't you research TIPs (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (?)) Over the very long term, a house will just about match inflation, but no more. I observe that it (median home price) has remarkably tight correlation to the mortgage one c... |
Increase or decrease amount to be withheld each pay period? | If you know that your tax situation is not easily handled by the standard withholding table then you can use that line to ask for additional funds be withheld. You could also ask for less money to be withheld. Why would somebody do this? They had a small side business that made them extra income, and wanted to withho... |
Any specific examples of company valuations according to Value Investing philosophy? | I highly recommend http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/ Professor Damodaran. He's written some of the best valuation books in existence (my favorite, simply "Investment Valuation"). On his website you'll find a big pile of spreadsheets, that are models for working the various approaches to valuing a company. Also, he... |
When are payroll taxes due in the US? | It depends on the size of the payroll, not on the number of employees. Probably you need to file Form 941 quarterly under this scenario. You may or may not need to deposit taxes more frequently. If you must deposit, then you need to do it electronically. I excerpted this from the instructions for Form 941: If your t... |
How to calculate ownership for property with a partner | I can't quite follow your question, so I'm proceeding under the following assumptions: - You paid £31,000 - Your partner paid £4,242 - You have at least one mortgage, which you both pay equally. If the relationship terminates, sell the property. You are reimbursed £31,000 and your partner is reimbursed £4,242. Any rema... |
Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year? | I can think of a few good reasons: A company, especially public, usually wants their fourth-quarter earnings to be the strongest of the year. That ends each fiscal year on a high note for the company and its investors, which helps public sentiment and boosts stock prices. So, travel agencies and airlines usually like e... |
Is it bad practice to invest in stocks that fluctuate by single points throughout the day? | Its hard to write much in those comment boxes, so I'll just make an answer, although its really not a formal answer. Regarding commissions, it costs me $5 per trade, so that's actually $10 per trade ($5 to buy, $5 to sell). An ETF like TNA ($58 per share currently) fluctuates $1 or $2 per day. IXC is $40 per share an... |
Is there any “Personal” Finance app that allows 2 administrators? | The best solution I've been able to find for this is MoneyWiz, where both are logged into the same sync account. |
Guide to save money in all-time life | You will find lots of rules of thumb but there is no universal truth to how much you should save. There are factors you DO need to consider though: you should start as early as possible to set money aside for retirement. You should then use a retirement calculator to at least get an understanding of the amount you need... |
How and Should I Invest (As a college 18 year old with minimal living expenses)? | While others have made a good case for how you may want to save and spend I just want to take a moment to comment on Acorn and Robinhood. Having never used either of them, I would stick to the seasoned professionals for my long term investment relationship. I'm sure they have the right licensing and proper SIPC covera... |
does interest payment on loan stay the same if I pay early | The typical case would be - as you expected - that the interest goes down equally dramatically, and you would pay much less interest. Note that that does not remove your obligation to pay the full 1000 every month - even though you could argue that you are 90 months ahead in paying, you still need to deliver 1000 a mon... |
It is worth using a discount stock broker? I heard they might not get the best price on a trade? | Always use limit orders never market orders. Period. Do that and you will always pay what you said you would when the transaction goes through. Whichever broker you use is not going to "negotiate" for the best price on your trade if you choose a market order. Their job is to fill that order so they will always buy it ... |
What should I be aware of as a young investor? | Consistently beating the market by picking stocks is hard. Professional fund managers can't really do it -- and they get paid big bucks to try! You can spend a lot of time researching and picking stocks, and you may find that you do a decent job. I found that, given the amount of money I had invested, even if I beat th... |
Compute average price even if I do not have the prices before | What I do have is this (sample only): Stock X: Average Price of all I purchased before = 80 Total Shares = 200 So if Stock X's price today is 100 how do I know how much my average price will be? Using your sample if you buy 100 new shares and the price is 85 for the purpose of this example your previous total cost is $... |
Money market account for emergency savings | I think it's only a choice of terminology. Typically with a money market account has check-writing privileges whereas a savings account does not. In terms of rates, this blog has a good list of high interest yield savings accounts. http://www.hustlermoneyblog.com/best-bank-rates/ Disclosure: I am not affiliated with t... |
Investment in mutual fund in India for long term goals | Buy only 'Direct' Plans, not regular. - Demat providers won't sell Direct plans, that you can do it through https://www.mfuindia.com Make sure expense ratio < 2.5% (With direct plans it will be much lesser) I hope these points will help you to take a better decision. |
Why is the price of my investment only updated once per day? | There is no fundamental, good reason, I think; "that's just how it's done" (which is what all the other answers seem to be saying, w/o coming out and admitting it). Just guessing, but I'll bet most of the reason is historical: Before up-to-the-moment quotes were readily available, that was a bit tedious to calculate/up... |
How to rescue my money from negative interest? | Withdraw your savings as cash and stuff them into your mattress? Less flippantly, would the fees for a safe deposit box at a bank big enough to hold CHF 250'000 be less than the negative interest rate that you'd be penalized with if you kept your money in a normal account? |
Will refinancing my auto loan hurt my mortgage approval or help it? | Generally it is not recommended that you do anything potentially short-term deleterious to your credit during the process of seeking a mortgage loan - such as opening a new account, closing old accounts, running up balances, or otherwise applying for any kind of loan (people often get carried away and apply for loans t... |
In US, is it a good idea to hire a tax consultant for doing taxes? | It's going to depend entirely on your tax situation, its complexity, and your willingness/interest in dealing with tax filings. Personally I find that not only do I not enjoy dealing with figuring out my taxes, but I don't know even a fraction of the possible deductions available and all the clever ways to leverage th... |
How to register LLC in the US from India? [duplicate] | Wyoming is a good state for this. It is inexpensive and annual compliance is minimal. Although Delaware has the best advertising campaign, so people know about it, the reality is that there are over 50 states/jurisdictions in the United States with their own competitive incorporation laws to attract investment (as wel... |
Should I switch to this high rate checking account for my emergency fund? | If you're relatively certain that you're going to meet the requirements, it sounds like a good move for you. The #1 priority with emergency funds should be easy access to the money when you need it. Before the current economic situation, money market funds were great for this since they preserved the value of the doll... |
Townhouse or stand-alone house for a first home? | I very much agree with what @Grade 'Eh' Bacon said about townhouses, but wanted to add a bit about HOA's, renting after moving on, and appreciation: HOA's HOA's can be restrictive, but they can also help protect property values, not all HOA's are created equal, some mean you have zero exterior maintenance, some don't. ... |
Can my rent to own equity be used as a downpayment? | The home owner will knock 20% off the price of the house. If the house is worth $297K, then 20% is just a discount your landlord is offering. So your actual purchase price is $237K, and therefore a bank would have to lend you $237K. Since the house is worth more than the loan, you have equity. 20% to be more accurate... |
Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve? | Borrowing money from the Federal Reserve (or other central banks) requires full collateral, generally in terms of treasury bonds. In that sense it is only a source of liquidity - getting short term money by pledging guaranteed future cash flows, not random commercial loans. To get a dollar from FR today requires freezi... |
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... |
Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out? | One piece of information you didn't mention is how much you paid for the original home. If you hold onto that home for too long you will have to pay capital gains on the difference between sale price and original price. This can be a TON of money, thousands of dollars easily. The rule is: If you lived in a home for 2 ... |
Do retailers ever stock goods just to make other goods sell better? | That happens all the time. The best situation for this to happen is when you have several products, each a bit better and a bit more expensive than the other, and you add a new product which is the cheapest. That gets people into the store to look at the cheapest product, and then you show the the next more expensive w... |
I have more than $250,000 in a US Bank account… mistake? | Yes. Although I imagine the risk is small, you can remove the risk by splitting your money amongst multiple accounts at different banks so that none of the account totals exceed the FDIC Insurance limit. There are several banks or financial institutions that deposit money in multiple banks to double or triple the effec... |
I've got $100K to invest over the next 2 to 7 years. What are some good options? | One of the things I would suggest looking into is peer-to-peer lending. I do lendingclub.com, but with a lot less money, and have only done it a short period of time. Still my return is about 13%. In your case you would probably have to commit to about 3.5 years to invest your money. Buy 3 year notes, and as they ar... |
Can you explain why these items are considered negatives on my credit report? | I'm going to give the succinct, plain language version of the answers: 1. Your oldest active credit agreement is not very old You don't have much experience or history for me to base my analysis on -- how do I know I can trust you to pay back the money? 2. You have no active credit card accounts Other people hav... |
How are long-term/short-term capital gains tax calculated on restricted stock? | Is the Grant Date or the Vest Date used when determining the 12-month cutoff for long-term and short-term capital gains? You don't actually acquire the stock until it's vested, so that is the date and price used to determine your cost basis and short-term/long-term gain/loss. The grant date really has no tax bearing. ... |
How can I find the historical stock price for a specific stock on a specific date? | A quick search showed me that UEP merged into Ameren on Dec 31, 1997, and Ameren still exists today. So I took a look at Ameren's Investor Relations website. Unfortunately, they don't provide historical stock prices prior to Ameren forming, so starting with 1998. However, I've had good luck in the past emailing a c... |
Retirement formula for annual compound interest with changing principal | The equation is the same one used for mortgage amortization. You first want to calculate the PV (present value) for a stream of $50K payments over 20 years at a10% rate. Then that value is the FV (future value) that you want to save for, and you are looking to solve the payment stream needed to create that future val... |
Why is everyone saying how desperately we need to save money “in this economy”? | This was called Financial repression by Edward S. Shaw and Ronald I. McKinnon from Stanford (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_repression). Financial repression is the situation, when government is stealing from people, who rely heavily on saving, rather then on spending. Meaning that your saving rates will be a ... |
How should my brother and I structure our real estate purchase? | While I agree with the existing bulk of comments and answers that you can't tell the lender the $7k is a gift, I do think you might have luck finding a mortgage broker who can help you get a loan as a group. (You might consider as an LLC or other form of corporation if no one will take you otherwise.) That is, each o... |
Newbie question - Brokerage and selling shares | Capital gains tax is an income tax upon your profit from selling investments. Long-term capital gains (investments you have held for more than a year) are taxed significantly less than short-term gains. It doesn't limit how many shares you can sell; it does discourage selling them too quickly after buying. You can bal... |
How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want | To me, your question emphasizes something I've heard many times before: personal finance is as much or more about behavior than it is about mathematics or "head knowledge". Sure, you know you shouldn't be wasting a lot of money on something you will use very infrequently, but how do you make this behavior stick? Here... |
How come the government can value a home more than was paid for the house? | The property tax valuation and the fair market price are NOT one and the same. They track each other, correlate to each other, but are almost NEVER the same number. In some parts of the USA, a municipality has to re-assess property tax values every ten years. In these places, the tax value of a property is on somethi... |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | Manage the fuel consumption price: check the pattern of fuel prices if you can for your area. Some areas have weekly changes which are somewhat predictable and some sites will even predict the minimum price for the next day. Some other areas will have a discount fuel day. Switch to diesel: fuel consumption by diesel... |
Are there “buy and hold” passively managed funds? | Passive implies following an index. Your question seems to ask about a hypothetical fund that starts, say, as an S&P fund, but as the index is adjusted, the old stocks stay in the fund. Sounds simple enough, but over time, the fund's performance will diverge from the index. The slight potential gain from lack of cap ga... |
Why are american call options more valuable than european options ONLY if the underlying asset pays cash flows? | Really all you need to know is that American style can be exercised at any point, European options cannot be exercised early. Read on if you want more detail. The American style Call is worth more because it can be exercised at any point. And when the company pays a dividend, and your option is in the money, if the ex... |
What's the minimum revenue an LLC must make in Florida or NY states? | Depends on the State. In California, for example, you pay a franchise tax of $800 every year just for having LLC, and in addition to that - income tax on gross revenue. But in other States (like Wyoming, for example) there's no taxes at all, only registration fees (which may still amount to ~$100-300 a year). IRS doesn... |
Do you avoid tax when taking a home equity loan? | Loans are not taxable events. The equity you took out is not income. It's a loan, and you pay it back with interest. You pay taxes on the capital gain of the home when you sell it. The tax does not take into account any mortgages, HELOCs, or other loans secured by the house. Instead the tax is calculated based on the p... |
Optimal number of credit cards for a given length of credit history | I have found that between the Discover card and a Visa/Master Card a person has everything covered. In my case the Discover card had the best deal (cash back) and the Visa/Master Card took care of those times a vendor didn't take Discover. One big Box store (Costco) did trip us up, so we did end up getting an American ... |
Stock sale cost basis calculations for 2013, now that rules changed, is FIFO or another method the smartest financially? | You have to calculate the total value of all shares and then ask yourself "Would I invest that amount of money in this stock?" If the answer is yes, then only sell what you need to sell. Take the $3k loss against your income, if you have no other gains. If you would not invest that amount of cash in that stock, then... |
First time home buyer. How to negotiate price? | Advice from a long-time flipper You negotiate price based on four factors and none of these are set in stone: How much you love the house. Is this house a 100 out of 100 for you or a 85 or a 75. How much have you compromised. What is the likelihood that you will find a house that will make you just as happy or at lea... |
Why deep in the money options have very low liquidity | One reason might be the 100% margin requirement on long options. Suppose I want to go long AAPL. I could get a deep ITM call or buy shares. $12,700 for 100 shares, with it's 25% margin requirement is like around $3200 locked up cash. Combine with a deep OTM Jan 2017 $70 strike put for $188, would give a $3400 margi... |
What are the common income tax deductions used by “rich” salaried households? | One of the main tax loopholes more readily available to the wealthy in the U.S. is the fact that long-term capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate. Certainly, people making less than $250,000/year can take advantage of this as well, but the fact is that people making, say, $60,000/year likely have a much smaller p... |
Figuring flood insurance into financing cost | We recently had a sump pump fail during a rainy weekend. Never had more than an inch or so of water on the floor. Total cost to remove the water, dry out the basement, and repair the damage to the paneling and wallboard: more than $7,000 plus the new sump pump. We are not in a flood zone. In a flood zone the cost of ... |
Making an offer on a property - go in at market price? | Both of my primary home purchases were either at, or close to asking price. My first house was during the local seller's market in 2001-2002. There were waiting lines for open houses. In hindsight we bought more home than we needed at the time but that had nothing to do with offering asking price. It was the market for... |
Accepting personal “donations” (not as a non-profit) | I see two ways you can handle this. Use the gifts for the purpose of creating more free software. This is fundraising, and your cause is writing free software. The language is a little tricky from the PayPal Donate button (emphasis mine): This button is intended for fundraising. If you are not raising money for a c... |
What happens to people without any retirement savings? | I'm afraid you have missed a few of the outcomes commonly faced by millions of Americans, so I would like to take a moment to discuss a wider range of outcomes that are common in the United States today. Most importantly, some of these happen before retirement is ever reached, and have grave consequences - yet are ofte... |
How much should a graduate student attempt to save? | While I haven't experienced being "grad student poor" myself (I went to grad school at night and worked full-time), I would shoot for 10-20% per month ($150-$300). This depends of course on how much you currently have in savings. If it isn't much, you might want to attempt a higher savings percentage (30-40%). If you... |
Do I need to file taxes jointly with my girlfriend if we live together? | In Ontario, common law marriage requires 3 years of cohabitation, and doesn't give rights to property (which remains separate). I'd say in your situation you can still file as single, but I'd suggest asking your tax accountant to be sure. |
How did I end up with a fraction of a share? | It's not that uncommon but it doesn't usually come from standard purchases. Investopedia explains: Definition of 'Fractional Share' A share of equity that is less than one full share. Fractional shares usually come about from stock splits, dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) and similar corporate actions. Normally, fr... |
Income in zero-interest environment | anything that produces steady income will produce a "real return" (return above inflation) in a zero-interest rate environment: Note, however, that all of these will decline in value if interest rates rise. |
How is your credit score related to credit utilization? | Curious, why are you interested in building/improving your credit score? Is it better to use your card and pay off the bill completely every month? Yes. How is credit utiltization calculated? Is it average utilization over the month, or total amount owed/credit_limit per month? It depends on how often your bank repo... |
My university has tranfered me money by mistake, and wants me to transfer it back | You have received some good answers, but since your concern is proper protocol, keep everything in writing (emails, not phone calls). Also, you'll get a quick response by contacting the University "Accounts Payable" department, confirm the situation with a summary as you posted here and ask for the ABA routing number ... |
Are junk bonds advisable to be inside a bond portfolio that has the objective of generating stable income for a retiree? | Junk Bonds (aka High Yield bonds) are typically those bonds from issues with credit ratings below BBB-. Not all such companies are big risks. They are just less financially sound than other, higher rated, companies. If you are not comfortable doing the analysis yourself, you should consider investing in a mutual fund, ... |
Should I use put extra money toward paying off my student loans or investing in an index fund? | First, I'd like to congratulate you on your financial discipline in paying off your loans and living well within your means. I have friends who make more than twice your salary with similar debt obligations, and they barely scrape by month to month. If we combine your student loan debt and unallocated income each mont... |
What is a Discount Called in the Context of a Negative Interest Rate? | Negative Yields on Bonds is opposite of Getting profit on your investment. This is some kind of new practice from world wide financial institute. the interest rate is -0.05% for ten years. So a $100,000 bond under those terms would be "discounted" to $100,501, give or take. No, actually what you are going to get out... |
What happens when a calendar spread is assigned in a non-margin account? | I would think that a lot of brokers would put the restriction suggested in @homer150mw in place or something more restrictive, so that's the first line of answer. If you did get assigned on your short option, then (I think) the T+3 settlement rules would matter for you. Basically you have 3 days to deliver. You'll ge... |
Do I even need credit cards? | Eventually you are going to need some sort of real credit history. It is possible that you will be able to evade this if you never buy a house, or if you pay cash for any house/condo/car/boat/etc that you buy. Even employers check credit history these days. I wouldn't be surprised if some medical professionals such ... |
How do disputed debts work on credit reports? | You're not missing anything. Consumer protection in the US is very basic and limited, if at all. So if someone claims you owe them something, it would be really hard for you to prove otherwise unless you actually drag them to court. Especially if there actually was a relationship, and there probably is some paperwork t... |
why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments? | Emergency funds have a very specific and obvious benefit; you'll have money sitting around in case you need it. A lot of people think a big car repair or some unexpected home repair is an emergency, and that's fine. Emergency also expands up to "I lost my job four months ago and we're a year in to a recession, the st... |
Does the stock market create any sort of value? | With regards to "the stock market," there are actually two markets involved here: PRIMARY MARKET Value is created in the primary market where capital is exchanged for a residual interest in an opportunity. As a theoretical example, if a person operating solo (or with a small team) were to discover or create a breakthr... |
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