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Tax me more: Can I pay extra to the government so I don't have to deal with all this paperwork?
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In a word, no. If your income is high enough to have to file a return, you have to file a return. My accountant has a nice mindset for making it more palatable. I'll paraphrase: "Our tax system is ludicrously complicated. As a result, it is your duty as an American to seek out and take advantage of every deduction and credit available to you. If our politicians and leaders put it into the tax code, use it to your advantage." A friend of mine got a free golf cart that way. It was a crazy combination of credits and loopholes for electric vehicles. That loophole has been closed, and some would say it's a great example of him exercising his patriotic duty.
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What does inflation mean to me?
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short answer: any long term financial planning (~10yrs+). e.g. mortgage and retirement planning. long answer: inflation doesn't really matter in short time frames. on any given day, you might get a rent hike, or a raise, or the grocery store might have a sale. inflation is really only relevant over the long term. annual inflation is tiny (2~4%) compared to large unexpected expenses(5-10%). however, over 10 years, even your "large unexpected expenses" will still average out to a small fraction of your spending (5~10%) compared to the impact of compounded inflation (30~40%). inflation is really critical when you are trying to plan for retirement, which you should start doing when you get your first job. when making long-term projections, you need to consider not only your expected nominal rate of investment return (e.g. 7%) but also subtract the expected rate of inflation (e.g. 3%). alternatively, you can add the inflation rate to your projected spending (being sure to compound year-over-year). when projecting your income 10+ years out, you can use inflation to estimate your annual raises. up to age 30, people tend to get raises that exceed inflation. thereafter, they tend to track inflation. if you ever decide to buy a house, you need to consider the impact of inflation when calculating the total cost over a 30-yr mortgage. generally, you can expect your house to appreciate over 30 years in line with inflation (possibly more in an urban area). so a simple mortgage projection needs to account for interest, inflation, maintenance, insurance and closing costs. you could also consider inflation for things like rent and income, but only over several years. generally, rent and income are such large amounts of money it is worth your time to research specific alternatives rather than just guessing what market rates are this year based on average inflation. while it is true that rent and wages go up in line with inflation in the long run, you can make a lot of money in the short run if you keep an eye on market rates every year. over 10-20 years your personal rate of inflation should be very close to the average rate when you consider all your spending (housing, food, energy, clothing, etc.).
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Should I invest in a Health Insurance +1 policy from my Employer?
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One thing to look into is if there is an extra fee for covering a spouse under you plan, if she is covered under her own employer's plan. I know that my wife's company charges around $100-$200 a year if I was to be covered under her plan, since I am eligible for the coverage where I work. As far as tax issues, there shouldn't be any. I think the choice comes down to the coverage offered by both plans.
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When to hire an investment professional?
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Don't invest in regular mutual funds. They are a rip-off. And, most investment professionals will not do much to help your financial future. Here's the advice:
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Evidence for timing market in the short run?
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The time horizon for your IRA is years or decades, therefore there is little evidence that there is a benefit to waiting for the "perfect time" to invest. Unless you plan on making only one or 2 years of investments now and then waiting till retirement; the other deposits you will make over the decades will have a greater influence on returns. If you are going to search for the perfect time to invest in your index fund, pick a deadline. "I will take the first sign better than X but will not wait beyond Y".
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Can I cover a short sale with the stock I already own?
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Yes you can. This is known as a short selling against the box. In the old days, this was used to delay a taxable event. You could lock in a gain without triggering a taxable event. Any loss on one side of the box would be offset by a loss on the other side, and vice versa. However, the IRS clamped down on this, and you will realize the gain on your long position as soon as you go short on the other side. See http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sellagainstthebox.asp. As to how to initiate the short cover, just transfer the long position to the same account as your short position and make sure your broker covers the short. Should be relatively easy.
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An online casino owes me money and wants to pay with a wire transfer. Is this safe?
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I have won a large amount of money on an online casino. How reputed is the company? Have you done any research around it? It has taken 2 months for me to see any payouts. Last week I received $2300 check from them. Did you win everything in the same period? If so there is no reason why they sent you a smaller check of $2300 instead of the full amount. This should raise a red flag. Why would someone write multiple checks. The only valid reason is you won in different months. The payout for first month was $2300 and they sent a check. The payout for next month is large amount ... the request for Bank Details. that they would rather wire me the money and they are asking for my banking account number and routing number. Although giving bank account number and routing has some risks. This is the fundamental information that is need to make a credit to your account directly. You would be giving this to quite a few entities / people. In most countries, this information is printed on every check that you write from your account. Is this safe? Or am I stupid for even considering this? Online world is full of traps and this could be a scam. So proceed with extreme caution. Insist of check. In worst case open a different savings account, that does not allow direct debits, does not have over draft, etc. Use this to receive money and move it into your regular account.
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What purchases, not counting real estate, will help me increase my cash flow?
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Mutual funds can be relatively low risk and a good starting point. Really it depends on you. What are your goals? This is a pretty open ended question. These can all be low risk and provide some return. Note "Less Knowledge" is never a good qualifier for an investment. Your money is your business and you are entitled to know what your business is up to.
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What are the differences among all these different versions of Vivendi?
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VIV.PA - is Vivendi listed on a stock exchange in Paris VIVEF - is Vivendi listed on the OTC Other Exchange. VIVHY - is Listed on the OTC:Pink Sheets. A company can be listed on multiple exchanges, they are known as a dual-listed company. It's a corporate structure in which two corporations function as a single operating business through a legal equalization agreement, but retain separate legal identities and stock exchange listings. Pretty much all DLCs are cross-border, and have tax advantages for the corporations and their stockholders. When a DLC is created, in essence two companies are created and have two separate bodies of shareholders, but they agree to share all the risks and rewards of the ownership of all their operating businesses in a fixed proportion, laid out in a contract called an "equalization agreement". The shares of a DLC parents have claim to the exact same underlying cash flows. So in theory the stock prices of these companies should move exactly the same. However in practice there can be differences between these prices. More info on OTC exchanges can be found here - keep in mind this info is from the company that runs these listings. Over the counter stocks are held to a FAR lesser regulation standard. I would recommend doing further interdependent research before pursuing any action.
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Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market?
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Fiduciary They are obligated by the rules of the exchanges they are listed with. Furthermore, there is a strong chance that people running the company also have stock, so it personally benefits them to create higher prices. Finally, maybe they don't care about the prices directly, but by being a good company with a good product or service, they are desirable and that is expressed as a higher stock price. Not every action is because it will raise the stock price, but because it is good for business which happens to make the stock more valuable.
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What does a well diversified self-managed investment portfolio look like?
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When you invest in a single index/security, you are completely exposed to the risk of that security. Diversification means spreading the investments so the losses on one side can be compensated by the gains on the other side. What you are talking about is one thing called "risk apettite", more formally known as Risk Tolerance: Risk tolerance is the degree of variability in investment returns that an investor is willing to withstand. (emphasis added) This means that you are willing to accept some losses in order to get a potential bigger return. Fidelity has this graph: As you can see in the table above, the higher the risk tolerance, the bigger the difference between the best and worst values. That is the variability. The right-most pie can be one example of an agressive diversified portfolio. But this does not mean you should go and buy exactly that security compostion. High-risk means playing with fire. Unless you are a professional stuntman, playing with fire usually leaves people burnt. In a financial context this usually means the money is gone. Recommended Reading: Investopedia; Risk and Diversification: The Risk-Reward Tradeoff Investopedia; How to construct a High Risk portfolio Fidelity: Guide to Diversification KPMG: Understanding and articulating Risk Appetite (pdf)
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Determining the minimum dividend that should be paid from my S corporation
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There are no dividends from S-Corp. There are distributions. Big difference. S-Corps fill form 1120S and schedule K-1 per shareholder. In the schedule all the income of your S-Corp will be assigned to various categories that you will later copy to your personal tax return as your personal income. It is not dividend income. The reason people prefer to take distributions from their S-Corps instead of salary is because you don't pay SE taxes on the distributions. That is also the reason why the IRS forces you to pay yourself a reasonable salary. But the tax rate on the income, all of it, is your regular income tax rate, unless the S-Corp income is categorized in a preferred category. The fact that its an S-Corp income doesn't, by itself, allow any preferential treatment. If you're learning the stuff as you go - you should probably get in touch with a tax professional to advise you. All the S-Corp income must be distributed. Its not a matter of "avoiding paying the tax", its the matter of "you must do it". Not a choice. My answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer (circ 230 disclaimer).
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Valuation, pricing, and analysis of securities
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Pricing would just be another way to describe valuation. I guess if you want to get technical, pricing - is the act of getting somethings valuation. While valuation - is the estimate of somethings worth. Security analysis - An examination and evaluation of the various factors affecting the value of a security. Side Note: While pricing is valuation, price is not. Price is how much the stock, or security costs most commonly determined by a market. Add On: The meaning of two words might matter depending on what context it is being used in. For example if we were talking about a market where an individual actually sets a price at random without doing any type of evaluation then this->answer that AlexR provides would better highlight the differences.
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Where can I see the detailed historical data for a specified stock?
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Yahoo Finance's Historical Prices section allows you to look up daily historical quotes for any given stock symbol, you don't have to hit a library for this information. Your can choose a desired time frame for your query, and the dataset will include High/Low/Close/Volume numbers. You can then download a CSV version of this report and perform additional analysis in a spreadsheet of your choice. Below is Twitter report from IPO through yesterday: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=TWTR&a=10&b=7&c=2013&d=08&e=23&f=2014&g=d
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What does an x% inflation rate actually mean?
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As pointe out by @quid, inflation figures are almost always quoted as a comparison of prices last month, and prices a year ago last month. So 10% inflation in August means that things cost 10% more than they did in August a year ago. This can lead to some perverse conclusions. Consider an imaginary economy where prices stay constant over years. Annualized inflation is zero. Then something happens on January 2nd, 2018. Some crop fails, a foreign cheap source of something becomes unavailable, whatever. Prices rise, permanently, as more expensive sources are used. This is the only disruption to prices. Nothing else goes wrong. So, in February, 2018, the authorities find that prices in January, 2018 rose by 1% over January 2017. Inflation! Politicians pontificate, economists wring their hands, etc. In March, again, prices for February, 2018 are found to be 1% higher than for February, 2017. More wailing... This goes on for months. Every month, inflation (year over year) is unchanged at 1%. Everyone has a theory as to how to stop it... Finally, in February, 2019, there's a change! Prices in January, 2019, were the same as in January 2018. Zero inflation! Everyone takes credit for bringing down inflation...
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How does my broker (optionsXpress) calculate probabilities that the stock will hit a certain price?
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Their algorithm may be different (and proprietary), but how I would to it is to assume that daily changes in the stock are distributed normally (meaning the probability distribution is a "bell curve" - the green area in your chart). I would then calculate the average and standard deviation (volatility) of historical returns to determine the center and width of the bell curve (calibrating it to expected returns and implied volaility based on option prices), then use standard formulas for lognormal distributions to calculate the probability of the price exceeding the strike price. So there are many assumptions involved, and in the end it's just a probability, so there's no way to know if it's right or wrong - either the stock will cross the strike or it won't.
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How big of a mortgage can I realistically afford?
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$260k mortgage is pretty high for $80k salary alone -- if you have expensive tastes, be prepared to tune them down. The make or break for you will be taxes and other recurring fees. If property taxes are trending higher than inflation in your area, you'll have trouble down the line. Decisions like this are really market driven, and I don't know much about Salt Lake City. In general, condo values get punished relative to single-family homes during bad market conditions. So if this is a really nice condo in a good building in a desirable part of the city you're probably going to see the value of the property increase as the general economy improves. If the property is good, go for it.
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Pay off car or use money for down payment
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Absolutely do not pay off the car if you aren't planning to keep it. The amount of equity that you have from a trade in vehicle will always be a variable when negotiating a new car purchase. By applying cash (a hard asset) to increase your equity, you are trading a fixed amount for an unknown, variable amount. You are also moving from a position of more certainty for a position of less certainty. You gain nothing by paying off the car, whereas the dealer can negotiate away a larger piece of the equity in the vehicle.
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$200k in an IRA, unallocated. What's the safest investment?
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Define "risk-sensitive": The point is, define Your risk, and your choices will narrow. Some investors worry more about what next months statement will show & lose sleep over it; some investors do not want to miss the average historical rates of return for equities (stocks) and are willing to tolerate fluctuations in monthly statements.
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Tax on Stocks or ETF's
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If you receive dividends on an investment, those are taxed.
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Investment strategy for a 20 year old with about 30k in bank account
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Thank you for your service. My first suggestion since your car is a planned for the near future is keep that amount in savings and just pay cash. There are plenty of attractive offers to entice you to finance your vehicle but there really is no compelling reason to do it considering the savings you have. Second I would keep an additional portion of savings as a rainy day emergency fund. How much is based mostly on what you feel comfortable with. The number of possible emergencies that can come up is limited and your expenses are limited which is normal given your age. This fund might be for something such as emergency travel for a sick family member, cover a deductible for an auto accident, whatever unforseen event might occur (hence the name emergency fund). What investments you are comfortable with will be determined by risk tolerance. While in the military individual stocks that are aggressive risky investments may not be a good idea because of the extra attention they require and you can't really babysit a portfolio while deployed but there are many good low or no cost mutual funds or ETFs that you could get into. I would look into setting up a recurring purchase with a set dollar amount monthly so you will continue to accumulate whatever option you are investing in regularly even if you are deployed. Which fund or ETF you pick will depend on your goals and risk tolerance but you could very easily pick several for diversity. Good luck and thank you again for your service.
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Do I need to invest to become millionaire?
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I get the sense that this is a "the world is unfair; there's no way I can succeed" question, so let's back up a few steps. Income is the starting point to all of this. That could be a job (or jobs), or running your own business. From there, you can do four things with your income: Obviously Spend and Give do not provide a monetary return - they give a return in other ways, such as quality of life, helping others, etc. Save gives you reserves for future expenses, but it does not provide growth. So that just leaves Invest. You seem to be focused on stock market investments, which you are right, take a very long time to grow, although you can get returns of up to 12% depending on how much volatility you're willing to absorb. But there are other ways to invest. You can invest in yourself by getting a degree or other training to improve your income. You can invest by starting a business, which can dramatically increase your income (in fact, this is the most common path to "millionaire" in the US, and probably in other free markets). You can invest by growing your own existing business. You can invest in someone else's business. You can invest in real estate, that can provide both value appreciation and rental income. So yes, "investment" is a key aspect of wealth building, but it is not limited to just stock market investment. You can also look at reducing expenses in order to have more money to invest. Also keep in mind that investment with higher returns come with higher risk (both in terms of volatility and risk of complete loss), and that borrowing money to invest is almost always unwise, since the interest paid directly reduces the return without reducing the risk.
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What prevents interest rates from rising?
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Interest rates are market driven. They tend to be based on the prime rate set by the federal reserve bank because of the tremendous lending capacity of that institution and that other loan originators will often fund their own lending (at least in part) with fed loans. However, there is no mandatory link between the federal reserve rate and the market rate. No law stipulates that rates cannot rise or fall. They will rise and fall as lenders see necessary to use their capital. Though a lender asking 10% interest might make no loans when others are willing to lend for 9%. The only protection you have is that we are (mostly) economically free. As a borrower, you are protected by the fact that there are many lenders. Likewise, as a lender, because there are many borrowers. Stability is simply by virtue of the fact that one market participant with inordinate pricing will find fewer counterparties to transact.
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Getting (historical) Standard & Poor Stock Guides
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Log in to your Scottrade account, and goto Markets --> Analyst Views --> Click the PDF link for the company. Also, there is also the 'Views and News' part of the web page which has additional information beyond what exist in the reports.
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I have a million dollars of disposable income. What should I do to best benefit the economy?
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At first, I thought this might be too broad. There are of course thousands of things that you can do with your money to "help the economy". But I think that there is room to discuss some broad strokes without trying to list a thousand details. Regular investing (as you are now) helps the economy in that companies obtain money by selling their stock. They can then use that money to fund expansion, etc. These things can help the economy permanently. Of course, they can also use the money to pay executive bonuses, which don't help the economy so much. Similarly, just spending money does not normally help the economy. Unless we are in a recession, it is mildly harmful to spend wastefully. Money that could be going to support long term improvements in production instead is used to buy a luxury that doesn't terribly interest you. I.e. if you don't want a bigger house or a more luxurious car don't buy it to "stimulate" the economy. Many charitable donations have the same problem. They help short term consumption somewhere. And of course the charity starts asking you for more money. Many charities waste most of a donation trying to get another one from the same person or family. Sir John Maynard Keynes proposed that the best thing that people could do to help the economy is to invest in things that cause economic activity in turn. He was mostly talking about things like roads, bridges, and dams that are out of the investing range of most people, so he wanted governments to do it, particularly during a recession. So we are looking for ways to invest in durable improvements that will support economic activity in the future. A million dollars is a small amount for many things, but there are some activities that work. I'm going to list a few examples, but there are certainly others: Fund microfinance. Basically loan your million dollars to people who need a small amount of money. These programs often allow you to determine the initial recipient and then that person determines the next recipient. A million dollars can finance hundreds if not thousands of these loans. They may be in the United States or in a developing country. Set up a scholarship. My recommendation would be to find an existing scholarship with a few recipients and ask them to add one a year for the million dollars. A million dollars should typically produce about a scholarship a year in returns after inflation. Of course, that's just regular inflation. Education inflation is higher. Solar prize. Fund a program that gives out one solar installation every year or five to a family that owns a house, is struggling to pay utilities, and makes a compelling case. Basically, whenever the investment grows enough to support it, make a new prize. Buy something that will help other people make money. This is just six ideas off the top of my head. The goal here is to create something lasting that will promote economic activity. So a program that loans money forward. Or a scholarship or free textbook, particularly in a STEM field. A small piece of infrastructure that helps people move around to work or spend their money. Solar is a bit of a stretch here, but it can be justified if you believe that an investment now is an investment in moving towards the future. The key thing here is to make your money do double duty. By spending your money during a recession or investing during the rest of the business cycle, you can get some value for your money. But even better is if that spending has a societal return as well. Microfinance, scholarships, and infrastructure do that. There is the immediate spending, plus there is the effect of the spending. A business is established. A mind is trained and working at a high income job. People can move, work, and spend their own money.
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Exposure to Irish Housing Market
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I was in a similar situation, and used FX trading to hedge against currency fluctuations. I bought the "new" currency when the PPP implied valuation of my "old" currency was high, and was able to protect quite a bit of purchasing power that I would have lost without the hedge. Unfortunately you get taxed for the "gain" you made, but still helpful. In terms of housing market, you could look into a Ireland REIT index, but it may not correlate well with the actual house prices you are looking for.
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How do I invest in the S&P 500?
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Buy the ETF with ticker "SPY". This will give you exposure to exactly the S&P 500 stocks, This is similar to the mutual fund suggestion by Ben Miller, except that the ETF has several advantages over mutual funds, especially as regards taxes. You can find information on the difference between ETF and mutual fund in other questions on this site or by searching the web.
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What happened when the dot com bubble burst?
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Two big things: In many ways, the early internet people were correct -- in 2011 we are much more productive as a society than we were in 1991. (Which comes with downsides, such as high unemployment) The bubble was a result of over-estimating those improvements and under-estimating the time required to yield those productivity gains.
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Is there a formula to use to analyse whether an investment property is a good investment?
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There is no generic formula as such, but you can work it out using all known incomes and expenses and by making some educated assuption. You should generaly know your buying costs, which include the purchase price, legal fees, taxes (in Australia we have Stamp Duty, which is a large state based tax when you purchase a property). Other things to consider include estimates for any repairs and/or renovations. Also, you should look at the long term growth in your area and use this as an estimate of your potential growth over the period you wish to hold the property, and estimate the agent fees if you were to sell, and the depreciation on the building. These things, including the agent fees when selling and building depreciation, will all be added or deducted to your cost base to determine the amount of capital gain when and if you sell the property. You then need to multiply this gain by the capital gains tax rate to determine the capital gains tax you may have to pay. From all the items above you will be able to estimate the net capital gain (after all taxes) you could expect to make on the property over the period you are looking to hold it for. In regards to holding and renting the property, things you will need to consider include the rent, the long term growth of rent in your area, and all the expenses including, loan fees and interest, insurance, rates, land tax, and an estimate of the annual maintenance cost per year. Also, you would need to consider any depreciation deductions you can claim. Other things you will need to consider, is the change in these values as time goes by, and provide an estimate for these in your calculations. Any increase in the value of land will increase the amount of rates and the land tax you pay, and generally your insurance and maintenance costs will increase with time. However, your interest and mortgage repayments will reduce over time. Will your rent increases cover your increases in the expenses. From all the items above you should be able to work out an estimate of your net rental gain or loss for each year. Again do this for the number of years you are looking to hold the property for and then sum up the total to give a net profit or loss. If there is a net loss from the income, then you need to consider if the net capital gain will cover these losses and still give you a reasonable return over the period you will own the property. Below is a sample calculation showing most of the variables I have discussed.
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Highstreet bank fund, custom ETF or Nutmeg?
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And it's only as cheap as 1.78% if you stay with them 10 years! They'd love that. You can kind of tell they really want to lock you in for over 4 years. I also think it's daylight robbery, but as a self execution investor I tend to have to talk myself out of that belief by default to be fair. One can wonder too, why are there even 2 fixed (percentage wise) fees? They are desperate not to have one number that is too big sounding, either the advisor fee is a rip off because they have to do all the same analysis regardless, or you could take the view that it's the only valid fee as you're paying for a slice of something, where as the other fee is what? A share of the fixed costs? Well, isn't advising as essential as anything else? I actually think Nutmeg is OK, I've not used them or dealt with them in any way but they are, to a greater or lesser degree, what I've wished for to recommend to friends who don't want to DIY, which is a cheaper next generation online investment facility, and their fees drop significantly over 100K. Going by their claimed past performance and fee structure, whilst I'd like them to be cheaper, I personally think they are not a bad choice in the market.
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Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?
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Do I have to explain the source of all income on my taxes? "Yes, you do", say the ghosts of Ermenegildo and Mary Cesarini. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/general/what-to-know-about-taxes-on-found-property/L9BfdKz7N The Cesarinis argued to the IRS that the money wasn’t income, and so it should not be taxed as such. The IRS wasn’t swayed by the couple’s argument. The case went to federal court, and the IRS won. “Found” property and money has been considered taxable income ever since. The IRS plainly states that taxpayers must report “all income from any source," even income earned in another country, unless it is explicitly exempt under the U.S. Tax Code. This covers a wide range of miscellaneous income, including gambling winnings. According to the Cesarini decision, money you find isn’t explicitly exempt. The tax impact won’t be significant if you find an item of property with a fair market value of only $500 and are in the 25% tax bracket. You’ll owe the IRS $125 ($500 x .25 = $125). However, if you are a finder and keeper of $10,000, your tax burden will be $2,500 ($10,000 x .25 = $2,500).
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Is it practical to take actual delivery on a futures contract, and what is the process?
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As mentioned in other answers, you find out by reading the Rulebook for that commodity and exchange. I'll quote a couple of random passages to show how they vary: For CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) Random Length Lumber Futures, the delivery is ornate: Seller shall give his Notice of Intent to Deliver to the Clearing House prior to 12:00 noon (on any Business Day after termination of trading in the contract month. 20103.D. Seller's Duties If the buyer's designated destination is east of the western boundaries of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, and the western boundary of Manitoba, Canada, the seller shall follow the buyer's shipping instructions within seven (7) Business Days after receipt of such instructions. In addition, the seller shall prepay the actual freight charges and bill the buyer, through the Clearing House, the lowest published freight rate for 73-foot railcars from Prince George, British Columbia to the buyer's destination. If the lowest published freight rate from Prince George, British Columbia to buyer's destination is a rate per one hundred pounds, the seller shall bill the buyer on the weight basis of 1,650 pounds per thousand board feet. The term "lowest published freight rate" refers only to the lowest published "general through rate" and not to rates published in any other rate class. If, however, the buyer’s destination is outside of the aforementioned area, the seller shall follow the same procedures except that the seller shall have the right to change the point of origin and/or originating carrier within 2 Business Days after receipt of buyer’s original shipping instructions. If a change of origin and/or originating carrier is made, the seller shall then follow the buyer's revised instructions within seven (7) Business Days after receipt of such instructions. If the freight rate to the buyer's destination is not published, the freight charge shall be negotiated between the buyer and seller in accordance with industry practice. Any additional freight charges resulting from diversion by the buyer in excess of the actual charges for shipment to the destination specified in the shipping instructions submitted to the Clearing House are the responsibility of the buyer. Any reduction in freight charges that may result from a diversion is not subject to billing adjustment through the Clearing House. Any applicable surcharges noted by the rail carrier shall be considered as part of the freight rate and can be billed to the buyer through the CME Clearing House. If within two (2) Business Days of the receipt of the Notice of Intent the buyer has not designated a destination, or if during that time the buyer and seller fail to agree on a negotiated freight charge, the seller shall treat the destination as Chicago, Illinois. If the buyer does not designate a carrier or routing, the seller shall select same according to normal trade practices. To complete delivery, the seller must deposit with the Clearing House a Delivery Notice, a uniform straight bill of lading (or a copy thereof) and written information specifying grade, a tally of pieces of each length, board feet by sizes and total board feet. The foregoing documents must be received by the Clearing House postmarked within fourteen (14) Business Days of the date of receipt of shipping instructions. In addition, within one (1) Business Day after acceptance by the railroad, the Clearing House must receive information (via a telephone call, facsimile or electronic transmission) from the seller giving the car number, piece count by length, unit size, total board footage and date of acceptance. The date of acceptance by the railroad is the date of the bill of lading, signed and/or stamped by the originating carrier, except when determined otherwise by the Clearing House. For some commodities you can't get physical delivery (for instance, Cheese futures won't deliver piles of cheese to your door, for reasons that may be obvious) 6003.A. Final Settlement There shall be no delivery of cheese in settlement of this contract. All contracts open as of the termination of trading shall be cash settled based upon the USDA monthly weighted average price in the U.S. for cheese. The reported USDA monthly weighted average price for cheese uses both 40 pound cheddar block and 500 pound barrel prices. CME gold futures will deliver to a licensed depository, so you would have to arrange for delivery from the depository (they'll issue you a warrant), assuming you really want a 100 troy oz. bar of gold: CONTRACT SPECIFICATIONS The contract for delivery on futures contracts shall be one hundred (100) troy ounces of gold with a weight tolerance of 5% either higher or lower. Gold delivered under this contract shall assay to a minimum of 995 fineness and must be a brand approved by the Exchange. Gold meeting all of the following specifications shall be deliverable in satisfaction of futures contract delivery obligations under this rule: Either one (1) 100 troy ounce bar, or three (3) one (1) kilo bars. Gold must consist of one or more of the Exchange’s Brand marks, as provided in Chapter 7, current at the date of the delivery of contract. Each bar of Eligible gold must have the weight, fineness, bar number, and brand mark clearly incised on the bar. The weight may be in troy ounces or grams. If the weight is in grams, it must be converted to troy ounces for documentation purposes by dividing the weight in grams by 31.1035 and rounding to the nearest one hundredth of a troy ounce. All documentation must illustrate the weight in troy ounces. Each Warrant issued by a Depository shall reference the serial number and name of the Producer of each bar. Each assay certificate issued by an Assayer shall certify that each bar of gold in the lot assays no less than 995 fineness and weight of each bar and the name of the Producer that produced each bar. Gold must be delivered to a Depository by a Carrier as follows: a. directly from a Producer; b. directly from an Assayer, provided that such gold is accompanied by an assay certificate of such Assayer; or c. directly from another Depository; provided, that such gold was placed in such other Depository pursuant to paragraphs (a) or (b) above.
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Are REIT worth it and is it a good option to generate passive income for a while?
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In financial markets, the gains you can expect to make (whether in the form of dividends or capital gains) correspond to the risks you are bearing. There are a variety of REITs but you can expect to make only as much money in them as you bear risk (meaning you can also lose a lot of money in the ones that earn a lot). In that sense they are just like other financial assets like stocks. If you are generically trying to increase your wealth by bearing risk, you can get a better risk/reward ratio in a fully diversified portfolio including stocks and bonds as well and REITs. "Passive income" means making money by bearing risk. REITs alone, without diversifying into other financial assets, do a poor job of generating income for the amount of risk you bear. So why are REITs not very comparable to buying a house and renting it out? Because in the latter case you are being paid not only for bearing the risk of the house depreciating but also you are being compensated for the work you do as a landlord. Moreover, because the house doesn't trade in a liquid market like REITs do, it is possible to actually get a good deal, as opposed to the fair deal you will get on a REIT. TL;DR: The "passive income" generated by REIT investment is more similar to generic equity/bond investment than it is to an investment in a physical home that you rent out. If what you want is to make money without doing anything besides bear risk, you should invest in a fully diversified portfolio of financial assets (equity and bonds being the primary constituents but REITs potentially being a part as well).
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Why are the banks and their customers in the United States still using checks? [duplicate]
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In a system where electronic payment is well developed you can consider the following 2 scenarios: Now let us zoom in. Regardless of what costs are actually charged, it should not be hard to see which system is most (real cost) efficient once electronical payments are well developed. And so, the conclusion is not hard to reach:
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What is a Student Loan and does it allow you to cover a wide range of expenses relating to school?
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Short answer: student loans are loans given to people that are currently enrolled in school and yes, you can use them for personal expenses. Long answer: be very careful because you can easily be financially ruined if you borrow too much and can't repay it quickly. Once the loans get beyond a certain size relative to your income, you can find it hard to stay ahead of the interest payments let alone actually pay off the principal. These are the facts you need to know:
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Should I invest in real estate to rent, real estate to live in, or just stocks and bonds to earn 10-15%?
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To be completely honest, I think that a target of 10-15% is very high and if there were an easy way to attain it, everyone would do it. If you want to have such a high return, you'll always have the risk of losing the same amount of money. Option 1 I personally think that you can make the highest return if you invest in real estate, and actively manage your property(s). If you do this well with short term rental and/or Airbnb I think you can make healthy returns BUT it will cost a lot of time and effort which may diminish its appeal. Think about talking to your estate agent to find renters, or always ensuring your AirBnB place is in good nick so you get a high rating and keep getting good customers. If you're looking for "passive" income, I don't think this is a good choice. Also make sure you take note of karancan's point of costs. No matter what you plan for, your costs will always be higher than you think. Think about water damage, a tenant that breaks things/doesn't take care of stuff etc. Option 2 I think taking a loan is unnecessarily risky if you're in good financial shape (as it seems), unless you're gonna buy a house with a mortgage and live in it. Option 3 I think your best option is to buy bonds and shares. You can follow karancan's 100 minus your age rule, which seems very reasonable (personally I invest all my money in shares because that's how my father brought me up, but it's really a matter of taste. Both can be risky though bonds are usually safer). I think I should note that you cannot expect a return of 10% or more because, as everyone always says, if there were a way to guarantee it, everyone would do it. You say you don't have any idea how this works so I'd go to my bank and ask them. You probably have access to private banking so that should mean someone will be able to sit you down and talk you through. Also look at other banks that have better rates and/or pretend you're leaving your bank to negotiate a better deal. If I were you I'd invest in blue chips (big international companies listed on the main indeces (DAX, FTSE 100, Dow Jones)), or (passively managed) mutual funds/ETFs that track these indeces. Just remember to diversify by country and industry a bit. Note: i would not buy the vehicles/plans that my bank (no matter what they promise, and they promise a lot) suggest because if you do that then the bank always takes a cut off your money. TlDr, dont expect to make 10-15% on a passive investment and do what a lot of others do: shares and bonds. Also make sure you get a lot of peoples opinions :)
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Reinvesting dividends and capital gains
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I'd like to add that many companies offer Divident Re-Investment Plans or DRIPs, which is basically a regular automatic stock purchase program. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_reinvestment_plan. While your stock broker may offer dividend reinvestment, this is not the same as a DRIP. DRIPs are offered directly by the company, rather than the stock broker. They have the added benefits that the stock purchases are almost always commission-free, and in some cases, the company even offers a discount on the stock price. It can take a little more effort to get enrolled in a DRIP, but if you are interested in holding the stock long-term, this is a good option to consider.
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If I plan to buy a car in cash, should I let the dealer know?
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In the UK at least, dealers definitely want you to take finance. They get benefits from the bank (which are not insubstantial) for doing this; these benefits translate directly to increased commission and internal rewards for the individual salesman. It's conceivable that the salesman will be less inclined to put himself out for you in any way by sweetening your deal as much as you'd like, if he's not going to get incentives out of it. Indeed, since he's taking a hit on his commission from you paying in cash, it's in his best interests to perhaps be firmer with you during price negotiation. So, will the salesman be frustrated with you if you choose to pay in cash? Yes, absolutely, though this may manifest in different ways. In some cases the dealer will offer to pay off the finance for you allowing you to pay directly in cash while the dealer still gets the bank referral reward, so that everyone wins. This is a behind-the-scenes secret in the industry which is not made public for obvious reasons (it's arguably verging on fraud). If the salesman likes you and trusts you then you may be able to get such an arrangement. If this does not seem likely to occur, I would not go out of my way to disclose that I am planning to pay with cash. That being said, you'll usually be asked very early on whether you are seeking to pay cash or credit (the salesman wants to know for the reasons outlined above) and there is little use lying about it when you're shortly going to have to come clean anyway.
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Why can't 401(k) statements be delivered electronically?
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There are a lot of unintended consequences of fairly arbitrary IRS guidelines when it comes to 401Ks, they both close and create tons of loopholes and many companies are left to implement their own policy around these laws. Ultimately what you are left with are a lot of random things, interpreted differently by every single company in the country, that aren't directly codified by the IRS or Congress. If you have a choice regarding what brokerage firm manages your 401(k), then just call around. Be sure to ask the pencil pusher on the phone to double check because they might say "OF COURSE you can get paperless statements it is 2015" but then when you sign up it becomes "ooohhh sorry due to recent guidelines this kind of account isn't eligible for paperless statements"
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Do stocks give you more control over your finances than mutual funds?
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Exchange-traded funds are bought and sold like stocks so you'd be able to place stop orders on them just like you could for individual stocks. For example, SPY would be the ticker for an S & P 500 ETF known as a SPDR. Open-end mutual funds don't have stop orders because of how the buying and selling is done which is on unknown prices and often in fractional shares. For example, the Vanguard 500 Index Investor shares(VFINX) would be an example of an S & P 500 tracker here.
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How will Brexit affect house mortgages?
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Only you can decide whether it's wise or not given your own personal circumstances. Brexit is certainly a big risk, and noone can really know what will happen yet. The specific worries you mention are certainly valid. Additionally you might find it hard to keep your job or get a new one if the economy turns bad, and in an extreme "no deal" scenario you might find yourself forced to leave - though I think that's very unlikely. House prices could also collapse leaving you in "negative equity". If you're planning on staying in the same location in the UK for a long time, a house tends to be a worthwhile investment, particularly as you always need somewhere to live, so owning it is a "hedge" against prices rising. Even if prices do fall, you do still have somewhere to live. If you're planning on going back to your home country at some point, that reduces the value of owning a house. If you want to reduce your risk, consider getting a mortgage with a long-term fixed rate. There are some available for 10 years, which I'd hope would be enough to get us over most of the Brexit volatility.
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What are some time tested passive income streams?
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Any kind of savings account is a passive income stream.
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Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation?
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Just echoing the other answers here. You're not ready yet. 3% down, or no money down loans are what got so many of us into trouble these last few years. It sounds like you make a pretty good living and are able to squirrel away money despite paying rent. Let me suggest something that I haven't seen here yet. Save up for a 20% down payment. You will get better rates, won't have to buy mortgage insurance and it will give you enough of a cushion on your payment that you could better weather a job loss or other loss of income. Your priority for saving are, in order: Home prices aren't going up any time soon, so you're not going to miss out on a great deal. Keep your expenses low, treat yourself and your kids once in a while and keep saving.
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Why do grocery stores in the U.S. offer cash back so eagerly?
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Cash-back also lets the store turn hard currency into an electronic transfer or check, which reduces the hassle/risk of hauling bagfulls of cash to the bank. (The smaller stores I've spoken to have called this out as a major advantage of plastic over either cash or checks. I'm assuming that the problem scales with number and size of transactions.)
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Basic mutual fund investment questions
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In summary, you are correct that the goal of investing is to maximize returns, while paying low management fees. Index investing has become very popular because of the low fees. There are many actively traded mutual funds out there with very high management fees of 2.5% and up that do not beat the market. This begs the question of why you are paying high management fees and not just investing in index funds. Consider maxing out your tax sheltered accounts (401(k) and ROTH IRA) to avoid even more fees on your returns. Also consider having a growth component of your portfolio which is generally filled with equity, along with a secure component for assets such as bonds. Bonds may not have the exciting returns of equity, but they help to smooth out the volatility of your portfolio, which may help to keep peace of mind when the market dips.
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Why is gold not a good investment?
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Gold since the ancient time ( at least when it was founded) has kept its value. for example the french franc currency was considered valuable in the years 1400~ but in 1641 lost its value. However who owned Gold back then still got value. The advantage of having gold is you can convert it to cash easily in the world. it hedges against inflation: it is value rise when inflation happend. Gold has no income,no earnings. its not like a stock or a bond. its an alternative way to store value the Disadvantages of investing in Gold Gold doesnt return income , needs physical storage and insurance, Capital gains tax rates are higher on most gold investments. the best way to invest gold when there is inflation is expected. source
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Mutual Fund with Dividends
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Funds built of dividend-paying stocks are normally called income funds.
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Does selling mixed-term stocks with a LIFO tax strategy make sense?
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Your question is missing too much to be answered directly. Instead - here are some points to consider. Short term gains taxed at your marginal rates, whereas long term gains have preferable capital gains rates (up to 20% tax rate, instead of your marginal rate). So if you're selling at gain, you might want to consider to sell FIFO and pay lower capital gains tax rate instead of the short term marginal rate. If you're selling at loss and have other short term gains, you would probably be better selling LIFO, so that the loss could offset other short term gains that you might have. If you're selling at loss and don't have short term gains to offset, you can still offset your long term gains with short term losses, but the tax benefit will be lower. In this case - FIFO might be a better choice again. If you're selling at loss, beware of the wash sale rules, as you might not be able to deduct the loss if you buy/sell within too short a window.
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Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market?
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For the specific example you gave, a CD with a 0.05% rate of return, I'd shop around some more, that's a VERY low rate of return. A more realistic one would be 0.5%, depending on the terms. As has been mentioned, CDs are good when you need to preserve your capital. What might be a situation for that? They are great for Emergency funds, which you should always have a reasonable amount of cash in. I have a set up 3 CDs with 12 month terms, each carrying about 30% of my emergency savings. The remaining 10% I keep in a standard savings account, for quick access dealing with a short term emergency. The 3 are spaced about 4 months apart, so that I'm always within 4 months of having one come to term. They have a 3 month penalty if I withdraw early, but based on the fact that I have never had to touch more than 10% of my emergency savings, I'm perfectly okay with that. What about more long term savings? Well, it depends on what your timeframe is for using the money. If it's more than 10 years, and you are willing to risk losing some of it, then by all means invest in a higher risk higher reward investment. If it's only a few years, maybe a bond fund is something that would be better. And if you really need to preserve the money, then a CD can be great too.
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Why do card processing companies discourage “cash advance” activities
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This is most likely protecting Square's relationship with Visa/Mastercard/AMEX/etc. Credit card companies typically charge their customers a much higher interest rate with no grace period on cash advances (withdrawals made from an ATM using a credit card). If you use Square to generate something that looks like a "merchandise transaction" but instead just hand over a wad of banknotes, you're forcing the credit card company to apply their cheaper "purchases" interest rate on the transaction, plus award any applicable cashback offers†, etc. Square would absolutely profit off of this, but since it would result in less revenue for the partner credit card companies, that would quickly sour the relationship and could even result in them terminating their agreements with Square altogether. † This is the kind of activity they are trying to prevent: 1. Bill yourself $5,000 for "merchandise", but instead give yourself cash. 2. Earn 1.5% cashback ($75). 3. Use $4,925 of the cash and a $75 statement credit to pay your credit card statement. 4. Pocket the difference. 5. Repeat. Note, the fees involved probably negate any potential gain shown in this example, but I'm sure with enough creative thinking someone would figure out a way to game the system if it wasn't expressly forbidden in the terms of service
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Resources to begin trading from home?
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Your plan won't work. Working 40 hours a week at federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 / hr) for 52 weeks is an annual income of just over $15,000. Even assuming you can reliably get a return of 15% (which you definitely can't), you'd need to start with $100,000 of assets to earn this poverty income. Assuming a more reasonable 7% bumps the required assets up to over $200,000, and even then you're dead the first time you need to make withdrawals after a mistake or after a major market downturn. As a fellow math Ph.D. student, I know your pain. I, too, struggled for a while with boredom in an earlier career, but it's possible to make it work. I think the secret is to find a job that's engaging enough that your mind can't wander too much at work, and set aside some hobby time to work on interesting projects. You likely have some marketable skills that can work for you outside of academia, if you look for them, to allow you to find an interesting job. I think there's not much you can do besides trying not to get fired from your next McJob until you can find something more interesting. There's no magic money-for-nothing in the stock market.
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How and why does the exchange rate of a currency change almost everyday?
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The basic idea is that money's worth is dependent on what it can be used to buy. The principal driver of monetary exchange (using one type of currency to "buy" another) is that usually, transactions for goods or services in a particular country must be made using that country's official currency. So, if the U.S. has something very valuable (let's say iPhones) that people in other countries want to buy, they have to buy dollars and then use those dollars to buy the consumer electronics from sellers in the U.S. Each country has a "basket" of things they produce that another country will want, and a "shopping list" of things of value they want from that other country. The net difference in value between the basket and shopping list determines the relative demand for one currency over another; the dollar might gain value relative to the Euro (and thus a Euro will buy fewer dollars) because Europeans want iPhones more than Americans want BMWs, or conversely the Euro can gain strength against the dollar because Americans want BMWs more than Europeans want iPhones. The fact that iPhones are actually made in China kind of plays into it, kind of not; Apple pays the Chinese in Yuan to make them, then receives dollars from international buyers and ships the iPhones to them, making both the Yuan and the dollar more valuable than the Euro or other currencies. The total amount of a currency in circulation can also affect relative prices. Right now the American Fed is pumping billions of dollars a day into the U.S. economy. This means there's a lot of dollars floating around, so they're easy to get and thus demand for them decreases. It's more complex than that (for instance, the dollar is also used as the international standard for trade in oil; you want oil, you pay for it in dollars, increasing demand for dollars even when the United States doesn't actually put any oil on the market to sell), but basically think of different currencies as having value in and of themselves, and that value is affected by how much the market wants that currency.
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What is a good price to “Roll” a Covered Call?
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An expiration 2 years out will have Sqr(2) (yes the square root of 2!) times the premium of the 1 year expiration. So if the option a year out sell for $1.00, two is only $1.41. And if the stock trades for $10, but the strike is $12, why aren't you just waiting for expiration to write the next one?
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I have an extra 1000€ per month, what should I do with it?
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Congratulations on getting started in life! John Malloy's (American) research suggests that you should take some time to get used to living on your own, make some friends, and settle into your community. During this time, you can build up an emergency fund. If/when the stock markets do not seem to be in a bear market, you can follow user3771352's advice to buy stock ETFs. Do you hope to get married and have children in the next few years? If so, you should budget time and money for activities where you make new friends (both men and women). Malloy points out that many Americans meet their spouses through women's networks of friends.
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How do I choose between buying a car or buying a plot of land in Pakistan?
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“The plot of land definitely is going to give better results in long term.” Will it? Land is not guaranteed to go up in value. And a car can provide more employment opportunities for you. You need to look at your specific situation—with specific numbers—rather than using rules of thumb as hard guidelines.
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Calculating Future and Present value into mortgage comparisons
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Keep in mind the number of months or years before you break even. You pay money to lower the interest rate, and lower the monthly cost. But it takes a number of months, using your numbers $7,000 to save $160 a month will take ~43 months. That is before figuring in the future or present value. If you sell or refinance the mortgage, the initial points to lower the rate is gone.
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What is the best way to short the San Francisco real estate market?
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You could short home builders who do a lot of their business in Northern California. (Not just San Francisco, Silicon Valley, or even the Bay Area.) Home prices in Sacramento and the northern San Joaquin Valley are correlated with Bay Area home prices. Many of these builders went broke during the last bust, so you might have trouble finding a publicly traded home builder that is concentrated in just one market.
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Why would a company with a bad balance sheet be paying dividends?
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A simple response is that it's a good political/strategic move. Ford have effectively said, "We know we still have debt, but we think the long term future is so good we can go back to paying dividends." It builds investor confidence and attracts new money. It can also be seen as a way of Ford indicating that they believe the type of debt (regardless of the amount) is okay for them to carry.
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Profiting from the PWC Money Tree
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The hardest part seems to be knowing exactly when to sell the stock. Well yes, that's the problem with all stock investing. Reports come out all the time, sometimes even from very smart people with no motivation to lie, about expected earnings for this company, or for that industry. Whether those predictions come true is something you will only find out with time. What you are considering is using financial information available to you (and equally available to the public) to make investment choices. This is called 'fundamental analysis'; that is, the analysis of the fundamentals of a business and what it should be worth. It forms the basis of how many investment firms decide where to put their money. In a perfectly 'efficient' market, all information available to the public is immediately factored into the market price for that company's stock. ie: if a bank report states with absolute certainty (through leaked documents) that Coca-Cola is going to announce 10% revenue growth tomorrow, then everyone will immediately buy Coca-Cola stock today, and then tomorrow there would be no impact. Even if PwC is 100% accurate in its predictions, if the rest of the market agrees with them, then the price at the time of IPO would equal the future value of the cashflows, meaning there would be no gain unless results surpassed expectations. So what you are proposing is to take one sliver of the information available to the public (have you also read all publicly available reports on those businesses and their industries?), and using that to make a high risk investment. Are you going to do better than the investment firms that have teams of researchers and years of experience in the investment world? You can do quite well by picking individual stocks, but you can also lose a lot of money if you do it haphazardly. Be aware that there is risk in doing any type of investing. There is higher than average risk if you invest in equities ('the stock market'). There is higher risk still, if you pick individual stocks. There is yet even higher risk, if you pick small startup companies. There are some specific interesting side-elements with your proposal to purchase stock about to have an IPO - those are better dealt with in a separate question if you want more information; search this site for 'IPO' and you should find a good starting point. In short, the company about to go public will hire a firm of analysts who will try to calculate the best price the public will accept for an offering of shares. Stock often goes up after IPO, but not always. Sometimes the company doesn't even fill its full IPO order, adding a new type of risk to a potential investor, that the stock will drop on day 1. Consider an analogy outside the investing world: Let's say Auto Trader magazine prints an article that says "all 2015 Honda Civics are worth $15,000 if they have less than 50,000 Miles." Assume you have no particular knowledge about cars. If you read this article, and you see an ad in the paper the next day for a Honda Civic with 40k miles, should you buy it for $14k? The answer is not without more research. And even if you determine enough about cars to find one for $14k that you can reasonably sell for $15k, there's a whole world of mechanics out there who buy and sell cars for a living, and they have an edge both because they can repair the cars themselves to sell for more, and also because they have experience to spot low-offers faster than you. And if you pick a clunker (or a stock that doesn't perform even when everyone expected it would), then you could lose some serious money. As with buying and selling individual stocks, there is money to be made from car trading, but that money gets made by people who really know what they're doing. People who go in without full information are the ones who lose money in the long run.
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Investment strategy for a 20 year old with about 30k in bank account
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You don't state a long term goal for your finances in your message, but I'm going to assume you want to retire early, and retire well. :-) any other ideas I'm missing out on? A fairly common way to reach financial independence is to build one or more passive income streams. The money returned by stock investing (capital gains and dividends) is just one such type of stream. Some others include owning rental properties, being a passive owner of a business, and producing goods that earn long-term royalties instead of just an immediate exchange of time & effort for cash. Of these, rental property is probably one of the most well-known and easiest to learn about, so I'd suggest you start with that as a second type of investment if you feel you need to diversify from stock ownership. Especially given your association with the military, it is likely there is a nearby supply of private housing that isn't too expensive (so easier to get started with) and has a high rental demand (so less risk in many ways.) Also, with our continued current low rate environment, now is the time to lock-in long term mortgage rates. Doing so will reap huge benefits as rates and rents will presumably rise from here (though that isn't guaranteed.) Regarding the idea of being a passive business owner, keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily mean starting a business yourself. Instead, you might look to become a partner by investing money with an existing or startup business, or even buying an existing business or franchise. Sometimes, perfectly good business can be transferred for surprisingly little down with the right deal structure. If you're creative in any way, producing goods to earn long-term royalties might be a useful path to go down. Writing books, articles, etc. is just one example of this. There are other opportunities depending on your interests and skill, but remember, the focus ought to be on passive royalties rather than trading time and effort for immediate money. You only have so many hours in a year. Would you rather spend 100 hours to earn $100 every year for 20 years, or have to spend 100 hours per year for 20 years to earn that same $100 every year? .... All that being said, while you're way ahead of the game for the average person of your age ($30k cash, $20k stocks, unknown TSP balance, low expenses,) I'm not sure I'd recommend trying to diversify quite yet. For one thing, I think you need to keep some amount of your $30k as cash to cover emergency situations. Typically people would say 6 months living expenses for covering employment gaps, but as you are in the military I don't think it's as likely you'll lose your job! So instead, I'd approach it as "How much of this cash do I need over the next 5 years?" That is, sum up $X for the car, $Y for fun & travel, $Z for emergencies, etc. Keep that amount as cash for now. Beyond that, I'd put the balance in your brokerage and get it working hard for you now. (I don't think an average of a 3% div yield is too hard to achieve even when picking a safe, conservative portfolio. Though you do run the risk of capital losses if invested.) Once your total portfolio (TSP + brokerage) is $100k* or more, then consider pulling the trigger on a second passive income stream by splitting off some of your brokerage balance. Until then, keep learning what you can about stock investing and also start the learning process on additional streams. Always keep an eye out for any opportunistic ways to kick additional streams off early if you can find a low cost entry. (*) The $100k number is admittedly a rough guess pulled from the air. I just think splitting your efforts and money prior to this will limit your opportunities to get a good start on any additional streams. Yes, you could do it earlier, but probably only with increased risk (lower capital means less opportunities to pick from, lower knowledge levels -- both stock investing and property rental) also increase risk of making bad choices.
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Can individuals day-trade stocks using High-Frequency Trading (HFT)?
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Yes you can, but to do so successfully, you need lots of money. You also need to be able to meet the criteria for being classified as a "professional trader" by the IRS. (If not, you'll be buried in paperwork.) The fact that you're asking about it here probably means that you do not have enough money to succeed at HFT.
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Diversify my retirement investments with a Roth IRA
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Without making specific recommendations, it is worthwhile to point out the differing tax treatments for a Roth IRA: investments in a Roth IRA will not be taxed when you withdraw them during retirement (unless they change the law on that or something crazy). So if you are thinking about investing in some areas with high risk and high potential reward (e.g. emerging market stocks) then the Roth IRA might be the place to do it. That way, if the investment works out, you have more money in the account that won't ever be taxed. We can talk about the possible risks of certain kinds of investments, but this is not an appropriate forum to recommend for or against them specifically. Healthcare stocks are subject to political risk in the current regulatory climate. BRICs are subject to political risks regarding the political and business climate in the relevant nations, and the growth of their economies need not correspond with growth in the companies you hold in your portfolio. Energy stocks are subject to the world economic climate and demand for oil, unless you're talking alternative-energy stocks, which are subject to political risk regarding their subsidies and technological risk regarding whether or not their technologies pan out. It is worth pointing out that any ETF you invest in will have a prospectus, and that prospectus will contain a section discussing the risks which could affect your investment. Read it before investing! :)
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Investment options
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You are only 33, with plenty of time to generate long-term returns. A correction is an opportunity for you to buy more at a lower price. My advice: invest about half in an index fund (S&P 500, for example) and half in a target fund (pick your retirement age), keep saving regularly, and in 30 years you'll be very happy you did. 5-10K a month is fine until all of the money is invested. (You said this is a retirement account, so invest the entire amount. Keep a rainy day fund in your non-retirement savings.) You can fiddle around with how you invest the money and I'm sure you'll get variations on my answer. My above suggestions may not be the absolute best option, but they are certainly not the worst option. Given that you are very risk-averse, keep in mind that you are in this for the long term and should be investing in something where you can safely ignore short-term downswings.
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I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?
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The suggestions towards retirement and emergency savings outlined by the other posters are absolute must-dos. The donations towards charitable causes are also extremely valuable considerations. If you are concerned about your savings, consider making some goals. If you plan on staying in an area long term (at least five years), consider beginning to save for a down payment to own a home. A rent-versus-buy calculator can help you figure out how long you'd need to stay in an area to make owning a home cost effective, but five years is usually a minimum to cover closing costs and such compared to rending. Other goals that might be worthwhile are a fully funded new car fund for when you need new wheels, the ability to take a longer or nicer vacation, a future wedding if you'd like to get married some day, and so on. Think of your savings not as a slush fund of money sitting around doing nothing, but as the seed of something worthwhile. Yes, you will only be young once. However being young does not mean you have to be Carrie from Sex in the City buying extremely expensive designer shoes or live like a rapper on Cribs. Dave Ramsey is attributed as saying something like, "Live like no one else so that you can live like no one else." Many people in their 30s and 40s are struggling under mortgages, perhaps long-left-over student loan debt, credit card debt, auto loans, and not enough retirement savings because they had "fun" while they were young. Do you have any remaining debt? Pay it off early instead of saving so much. Perhaps you'll find that you prefer to hit that age with a fully paid off home and car, savings for your future goals (kids' college tuitions, early retirement, etc.). Maybe you want to be able to afford some land or a place in a very high cost of living city. In other words - now is the time to set your dreams and allocate your spare cash towards them. Life's only going to get more expensive if you choose to have a family, so save what you can as early as possible.
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Why do people use mortgages, when they could just pay for the house in full?
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Condensed to the essence: if you can reliably get more income from investing the cost of the house than the mortgage is costing you, this is the safest leveraged investment you'll ever make. There's some risk, of course, but there is risk in any financial decision. Taking the mortgage also leaves you with far greater flexibility than if you become "house- rich but cash-poor". (Note that you probably shouldn't be buying at all if you may need geographic flexibility in the next five years or so; that's another part of the liquidity issue.) Also, it doesn't have to be either/or. I borrowed half and paid the rest in cash, though I could have taken either extreme, because that was the balance of certainty vs.risk that I was comfortable with. I also took a shorter mortgage than I might have, again trading off risk and return; I decided I would rather have the house paid off at about the same time that I retire.
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Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?
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One key piece missing from your theory is the bid/ask spread. If you buy a stock for $10, you usually can't immediately turn around and sell it for $10. You can only sell it for whatever someone is willing to pay for it. So virtually any random investment (stocks, bonds, forex, whatever) immediately loses a small amount of value, and over the long run you will almost certainly lose money if you buy/sell at random.
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Losing Money with Norbert's Gambit
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When you hold units of the DLR/DLR.U (TSX) ETF, you are indirectly holding U.S. dollars cash or cash equivalents. The ETF can be thought of as a container. The container gives you the convenience of holding USD in, say, CAD-denominated accounts that don't normally provide for USD cash balances. The ETF price ($12.33 and $12.12, in your example) simply reflects the CAD price of those USD, and the change is because the currencies moved with respect to each other. And so, necessarily, given how the ETF is made up, when the value of the U.S. dollar declines vs. the Canadian dollar, it follows that the value of your units of DLR declines as quoted in Canadian dollar terms. Currencies move all the time. Similarly, if you held the same amount of value in U.S. dollars, directly, instead of using the ETF, you would still experience a loss when quoted in Canadian dollar terms. In other words, whether or not your U.S. dollars are tied up either in DLR/DLR.U or else sitting in a U.S. dollar cash balance in your brokerage account, there's not much of a difference: You "lose" Canadian dollar equivalent when the value of USD declines with respect to CAD. Selling, more quickly, your DLR.U units in a USD-denominated account to yield U.S. dollars that you then directly hold does not insulate you from the same currency risk. What it does is reduce your exposure to other cost/risk factors inherent with ETFs: liquidity, spreads, and fees. However, I doubt that any of those played a significant part in the change of value from $12.33 to $12.12 that you described.
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Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score?
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I want to recommend an exercise: Find all the people nearby who you can talk to in less than 24 hours about credit cards: Your family, whoever lives with you, and friends. Now, ask each of them "what's the worst situation you've gotten yourself into with a credit card?" Personally, the ratio of people who I asked who had credit cards to the ratio of people with horror stories about how credit cards screwed up their credit was nearly 1:1. Pretty much, only one of them had managed to avoid the trap that credit cards created (that sole exception had worked for the government at a high paying job and was now retired with adult children and a lucrative pension). Because it's trivially easy over-extend yourself, as a result of how credit cards work (if you had the cash at any second, you would have no need for the credit). But do your own straw poll, and then see what the experience of people around you has been. And if there's a lot more bad than good out there, then ask yourself "am I somehow more fiscally responsible than all of these people?".
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Dealing with event driven market volatility
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If you are worried about elections think about writing some calls against your long positions to help hedge. If you have MSFT (@ $51.38 right now) you could write a MSFT Call for lets say $55. You can bank $170 per 100 shares (let's say you write it at 1.70) (MSFT 01/20/2017 55.00 C 1.73 +0.01 Bid: 1.69 Ask: 1.77) If MSFT goes down a lot you will have lost $170 less per 100 shares than you would have because you wrote an option for $170. You will in fact be break even if the stock falls to 49.68 on the Jan Strike Date. If MSFT goes up $3.50 you will have made $170 and still have your MSFT stock for a net gain of $520. $170 in cash for the premium and your stock is now worth $350 more. If MSFT goes up $3.62 or more you will have made the max $530ish and have no MSFT left potentially losing additional profit if the stock goes up like gang busters. So is it worth it for you to get $170 in cash now and risk the stock going up more than $5 between now and Jan. That is the decision to make here.
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Do “Instant Approved” credit card inquires appear on credit report?
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Yes, they do. Generally though you'll only see it on one or two reports. With regards to the impact on your credit score. Hard inquiries only stay on your credit for 2 years, after that they fall off. For most credit scores (specifically FICO) they only have an impact for 1 year after their date. If you have a few in the same 30 day period FICO will lump these into 1 pull to allow you to shop around for credit/loans. They also have a low to medium impact on your score.
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Why does the Fed use PCE over CPI?
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Consumers aren't the only economic participants impacted by a change in the Fed rate.... Inflation has WIDE ranging implications from the future liabilities of pension funds to the ongoing cost of our national debt. It doesn't make sense to consider only consumer inflationary experience. PCE is considered because it relates to consumption, which includes things paid for by other entities, like employer healthcare spend.
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What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it?
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I use http://moneydance.com/ it has Mac, Windows and Linux versions and works well for my needs.
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How to change a large quantity of U.S. dollars into Euros?
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The right answer to this question really depends on the size of the transfer. For larger transfers ($10k and up) the exchange rate is the dominant factor, and you will get the best rates from Interactive Brokers (IB) as noted by Paul above, or OANDA (listed by user6714). Under $10k, CurrencyFair is probably your best bet; while the rates are not quite as good as IB or OANDA, they are much better than the banks, and the transaction fees are less. If you don't need to exchange the currency immediately, you can put in your own bids and potentially get better rates from other CurrencyFair users. Below $1000, XE Trade (also listed by user6714) has exchange rates that are almost as good, but also offers EFT transfers in and out, which will save you wire transfer fees from your bank to send or receive money to/from your currency broker. The bank wire transfer fees in the US can be $10-$30 (outgoing wires on the higher end) so for smaller transfers this is a significant consideration you need to look into; if you are receiving money in US, ING Direct and many brokerage accounts don't charge for incoming wires - but unless you have a commercial bank account with high balances, expect to spend $10-$20 minimum for outgoing. European wire transfer fees are minimal or zero in most cases, making CurrencyFair more appealing if the money stays in Europe. Below $100, it's rarely worth the effort to use any of the above services; use PayPal or MoneyBookers, whatever is easiest. Update: As of December 2013, CurrencyFair is temporarily suspending operations for US residents: Following our initial assessment of regulatory changes in the United States, including changes arising from the Dodd-Frank Act, CurrencyFair will temporarily withdraw services for US residents while we consider these requirements and how they impact our business model. This was a difficult and very regretful decision but we are confident we will be able to resume services in the future. The exact date of re-activation has not yet been determined and may take some time. We appreciate your patience and will continue communicating our status and expected return.
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Possible to purchase multiple securities on 1 transaction?
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No, this is not generally possible, as each security purchase is booked as a separate order => hence separate transaction. You can do this through purchasing of a fund, i.e.: purchasing one share of a ETF will get you a relative share of the ETF holdings, but the actual holdings are not up to you then.
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If I have all this stock just sitting there, how can I lend it out to people for short selling?
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You just disclosed that you are new investor to the stock market. I'd advise that you first understand investing a bit better, as most will advise that investors need to be above a certain level before picking individual stocks. That said, most stocks trade in high enough volume and have low enough short interest that they don't fall under the category you seek. You want to first ask your broker if they have such a process, not all do. If so, they would need to provide you with the stocks that fall into this odd situation, specifically, the shares that have traders seeking to short the stock, but the stock is unavailable. Even then, the broker may have requirements that you don't fall into, minimum history with broker, minimum size account, etc. Worse, they are not likely to offer this for 100 shares, but may have a 1000 or higher share requirement. Are you willing to buy some obscure $50/sh priced stock to lend out at 1%/mo? The guy trying to short it is far smarter than both you and I, at least regarding this particular stock. This strategy is more appropriate for the 7 figure net worth investor. If any reader has actual experience with this, I'm happy to hear it. This response is from my recollection of two articles I read about 3 years ago, coincidence they both were published within weeks of each other.
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What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate?
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What are you missing? Volume. Bank of America is more than willing to refinance a loan from Wells Fargo as long as the loan is still profitable. There are some caveats with that, though. For one, many land have penalties if they are paid off within two or three years. Additionally, the fact that banks are offering to refinance at great rates doesn't mean that you'll be approved, or that you'll get those rates. If you could post some actual numbers, we could help you see if it's a good deal to refi, and explain exactly where the bank expects it's profit.
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At what interest rate should debt be used as a tool?
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This is a very interesting question. I'm going to attempt to answer it. Use debt to leverage investment. Historically, stock markets have returned 10% p.a., so today when interest rates are very low, and depending on which country you live in, you could theoretically borrow money at a very low interest rate and earn 10% p.a., pocketing the difference. This can be done through an ETF, mutual funds and other investment instruments. Make sure you have enough cash flow to cover the interest payments! Similar to the concept of acid ratio for companies, you should have slightly more than enough liquid funds to meet the monthly payments. Naturally, this strategy only works when interest rates are low. After that, you'll have to think of other ideas. However, IMO the Fed seems to be heading towards QE3 so we might be seeing a prolonged period of low interest rates, so borrowing seems like a sensible option now. Since the movements of interest rates are political in nature, monitoring this should be quite simple. It depends on you. Since interest rates are the opportunity cost of spending money, the lower the interest rates, the lower the opportunity costs of using money now and repaying it later. Interest rates are a market mechanism so that people who prefer to spend later can lend to people who prefer to spend now for the price of interest. *Disclaimer: Historically stocks have returned 10% p.a., but that doesn't mean this trend will continue indefinitely as we have seen fixed income outperform stocks in the recent past.
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Who can I get to help me roll my 401(k) into an IRA when I live overseas?
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It is typically very easy to roll a 401(k) into an IRA. Companies that provide IRA's are very experienced with it, and I would expect that they will take your calls from overseas. You will likely be able to do it over the internet without using a phone at all. Just open an IRA with any brokerage company (Scottrade, Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, Ameritrade, etc.) and follow instructions to roll your 401(k) into it. Most likely they will need your signature, but usually a scan of a form you have filled out will do. Be sure to have information on your 401(k) provider, including your account number there, on hand. These companies are all very reputable and this is not a difficult transaction. There's really no downside to rolling into an IRA. 401(k) plans usually have more limited options and/or worse fee structures and are frequently harder to work with, as you have observed.
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Why is retirement planning so commonly recommended?
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I like many of the answers, but here is a summary of reasons: Almost everyone will retire, and it is almost certain that government or company pensions schemes will not alone give you a lifestyle you would like in retirement. Money invested early is worth much more in retirement than money invested late, thanks to the miracle of compound interest. In some countries there are tax advantages to investing a little bit of money every year, compared with nothing for a few years and then a lump sum later. Much investment advice is given by investment consultants, who profit when you make investments. It's always in their interests to have you invest as early and as often as possible (that doesn't invalidate the first three reasons). Having said that, it isn't always in your best interests to invest in retirement funds very heavily at the start of your career. You might want to consider paying off any debts, or saving for a house, or even having a bit of fun while you are young enough to enjoy it. That back-packing trip to Nepal is going to be a lot easier when you are 23 than when you are 40 with kids.
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Definition of “secular” in the context of markets?
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According to Wikipedia: In the finance industry, something done on a secular basis is done on a long-term basis, not a temporary or cyclical one, with a time frame of "10–50 years or more" Source
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Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich?
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A cautionary tale: About 25 years ago I decided that I should try my hand at investing in some technology companies. I was in the computer biz but decided that I might suffer from myopia there, so I researched some medical startups. And I did some reasonably good research, given the available resources (the Internet was quite primitive). I narrowed things down to 4-5 companies, studying their technology plans, then researched their business plans and their personnel. In the end I picked a drug company. Not only did it have a promising business plan, but it had as it's CEO a hotshot from some other company, and the BOD was populated buy big names from tech companies and the like. AND the company had like $2 of cash for every $1 of outstanding share value, following their recent IPO. So I sold a bit of stock I had in my employer and bought like $3000 worth of this company. Then, taking the advice I'd seen several places, I forgot about it for about 6 months. When I went back to look their stock value had dropped a little, and the cash reserves were down about 20%. I wasn't too worried. 6 months later the cash was down 50%. Worrying a little. After I'd had the stock for about 2 years the stock price was about 10% of what I'd paid. Hardly worth selling, so I hung on for awhile longer. The company was eventually sold to some other company and I got maybe $50 in stock in the new company.
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401K - shift from agressive investment to Money Market
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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 to move away from high risk (and high gain); you will not have enough time to recover if it goes awry. There are different approaches, but you should slowly and continuously migrate your capital to less risky investments. Pick some good days and move 10% or 20% each time to low-risk, so that towards the end of the remaining time 90 or 100% are low or zero risk investments. Many investment banks and retirement funds offer dedicated funds for that, they are called 'Retirement 2020' or 'Retirement 2030'; they do exactly this 'slow and continuous moving over' for you; just pick the right one.
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mortgage vs car loan vs invest extra cash?
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Without knowing actual numbers it's tough to say. Personally, I would pay off the car then, going forward, use the money that would have been paid on your car note toward your mortgage. I always think of things in the worst possible scenario. It's easier, and faster, to repossess a car than to foreclose on real estate. Also, in an emergency situation, depleting your fund for your car loan and your mortgage would be significantly more detrimental than only paying a mortgage with a car owned outright. Fewer obligations means fewer things to draw down your funds in an emergency. Whether the tax deductability of the mortgage interest outweighs the lower rate on your car loan will depend on a lot of factors that haven't been shared. I think it's safe to assume with only 1% of separation the real difference isn't significant. I think when determining which credit cards to pay off, choosing the one with the highest rate is smart. But that's not the situation you're in. If you don't have foreclosure concerns I'd still pay off the car then start investing.
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What intrinsic, non-monetary value does gold have as a commodity?
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Extrinsic value is not a factor with respect to gold. Intrinsic value by definition is the natural value of a commodity set by the market -- extrinsic value is externally set. The "extrinsic" value of gold in the United States is $50/oz. If the market value of gold fell below $50/oz, a US American Eagle coin would be worth $50 in the US. If you take away the attributes that make a commodity valuable, the value drops. Substitutes of equal or better quality for most industrial or other uses of gold exist, so if if the popularity of gold declines, or if the hoarders of gold have to liquidate, it's value will diminish. I have no idea what that value would be, but it would set by the market demand for gold jewelry and other valuable industrial uses.
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Why buy insurance?
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The fundamental flaw here is conflating net worth with utility, at least failing to recognize that there's a nonlinear relationship between the two. In the extreme example imagine taking a bet that will either make you twice as rich or completely broke. Your expected return is zero, but it would be pretty dumb to take it since being flat broke could ruin your life while being twice as rich may only improve it marginally. In more realistic cases most of your income is tied up in fixed costs, which magnifies relatively small perturbations to your net worth. Losing something essential (like your house or car), even if it's only 20% of your net worth, renders you effectively broke until you scrape together enough cash to get another one. That situation robs you of much more utility than you'd gain from a 20% increase in net worth. In either case, avoiding the risk is completely rational as long as you believe in nonlinear utility as a function of net worth, it's not just an issue of humans being "risk averse".
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Why do people take out life insurance on their children? Should I take out a policy on my child?
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Why do people take out life insurance on their children? They do so largely because it's being sold to them. The insurance companies generally push them on the basis that if you have to pay for a funeral and burial, the cost would devastate a family's finances. In some rare instances that might actually be true, but not generally. Should I take out a policy on my child? Generally no. When they sell you a policy they have to dance around a catch-22 - if you have enough money to afford the 'cheap' life insurance, then you have enough money to pay for a funeral and burial that's probably not going to happen. If you don't have enough money to pay those expenses in the rare case that a child does die, then you really can't afford the insurance, even if it's only 'pennies a day for peace of mind.' And why would schools send these home to parents, year-after-year? The schools are paid a commission. It is not much more than a fundraiser for them, just like school pictures. Am I missing something? Yes, in fact, you could be making money hand over fist if you were willing to prey on parental insecurities. Just set up a stand outside the hospital and get parents who are just about to deliver to sign up for your amazing insurance plan in case the tragic occurs.
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Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?
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Playing the markets is simple...always look for the sucker in the room and outsmart him. Of course if you can't tell who that sucker is it's probably you. If the strategy you described could make you rich, cnbc staff would all be billionaires. There are no shortcuts, do your research and decide on a strategy then stick to it in all weather or until you find a better one.
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Is it a good strategy to +cash out refi every six months?
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When you refinance, there is cost (guess: around $2000-$3000) to cover lawyers, paperwork, surveys, deed insurance, etc. etc. etc. Someone has to pay that cost, and in the end it will be you. Even if you get a "no points no cost" loan, the cost is going to be hidden in the interest rate. That's the way transactions with knowledgeable companies works: they do business because they benefit (profit) from it. The expectation is that what they need is different from what you need, so that each of you benefits. But, when it's a primarily cash transaction, you can't both end up with more money. So, unless value will be created somewhere else from the process (and don't include the +cash, because that ends up tacked onto the principle), this seems like paying for financial entertainment, and there are better ways to do that.
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Are there any Social Responsibility Index funds or ETFs?
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TIAA-Cref has their Social Choice Equity Fund, which is a Large Blend primarily equity fund that invests given the following consideration: The Fund primarily invests in companies that are screened by MSCI Inc. (“MSCI”) to favor companies that meet or exceed certain environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) criteria. The Fund does this by investing in U.S. companies included in one or more MSCI ESG Indices that meet or exceed the screening criteria described below. Prior to being eligible for inclusion in the MSCI ESG Indices, companies are subject to an ESG performance evaluation conducted by MSCI, consisting of numerous factors. The ESG evaluation process favors companies that are: (i) strong stewards of the environment; (ii) devoted to serving local communities where they operate and to human rights and philanthropy; (iii) committed to higher labor standards for their own employees and those in the supply chain; (iv) dedicated to producing high-quality and safe products; and (v) managed in an exemplary and ethical manner. https://www.tiaa.org/public/offer/products/mutual-funds/responsible-investing
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How to shop for mortgage rates ?
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Pre-qualification is only a step above what you can do with a rate/payment calculator. They don't check your credit history and credit score; they don't ask for verification of your income; or verify that you have reported your debts correctly. They also don't guarantee the interest rate. But if you answer truthfully, and completely, and nothing else changes you have an idea of how much you can afford factoring in the down payment, and estimates of other fees, taxes and insurance. You can get pre-quaified by multiple lenders; then base your decision on rates and fees. You want to get pre-approved. They do everything to approve you. You can even lock in a rate. You want to finalize on one lender at that point because you will incur some fees getting to that point. Then knowing the maximum amount you can borrow including all the payments, taxes, insurance and fees; you can make an offer on a house. Once the contract is accepted you have a few days to get the appraisal and the final approval documents from the lender. They will only loan you the minimum of what you are pre-approved for and the appraisal minus down-payment. Also don't go with the lender recommended by the real estate agent or builder; they are probably getting a kick-back based on the amount of business they funnel to that company.
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What is the best strategy for after hours trading?
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First you will need a plan stating three main points: You will have to decide what criteria you will use to answer these points. You might use Fundamental Analysis to find what to buy and Technical Analysis to decide when to buy and when to sell (your buy and sell triggers). Once you have a Trading Plan in place you would need to find a broker with conditional orders. You can place conditional buy orders to get in a trade (for example if the price moves above or below a target price). You can place conditional stop loss orders if your trade goes against you, and you can also place conditional profit target stops to automatically get out if rises to your desired profit target. You can place one, two or many conditional orders after hours which will enable you to trade without being in front of your screen all day long.
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Basic Algorithmic Trading Strategy
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This strategy is called trading the 'Golden Cross' if the 50 day SMA moves above the 200 day, or the 'Death Cross' when the 50 day SMA moves below the 200 day SMA. Long-term indicators carry more weight than shorter-term indicators, and this cross, in a positive direction signals a change in momentum of the stock. You will not catch the very bottom using this method, but there is a better chance that you will catch a move near the beginning of a longer-term trend. Golden Cross Information - Zacks
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How much life insurance do I need?
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One simple calculation to determine your life insurance need: D.I.M.E. method D: Debt All your car loan balances, credit card balances, student loans, business loans, etc. I: Income Your annual income times 10 (for 10 years of income replacement). M: Mortgage Your home mortgage balance. E: Education Your children's education expenses. You add up all these items, and you'll come up with a proper amount of life insurance coverage. This should be sufficient model for a majority of people. Yes, your life insurance needs will change as you move through life. Therefore you should sit down with your life insurance agent to review your policy every year and adjust it accordingly.
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Advantage of credit union or local community bank over larger nationwide banks such as BOA, Chase, etc.?
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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 fees, what was frustrating was keeping up with the policy changes. Have X amount to avoid Y fees. Once you fulfill that, do something else to avoid some other fees. You miss one notice and you'll pay dearly! This constant jumping of hoops was enough to switch. Not saying CUs don't change rules, but in my opinion, not as frequently as big banks. On fee, for instance, my overdraft with my CU is $5. With BofA it was something like $35 before regulations put a cap on such ridiculous fees.
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Is it better to use DRIP or invest when stock drops before ex-date?
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Yes you can do that and it it wise to do so. However, you should make sure that the general trend of the stock is upwards and you buy during a trought in the uptrend. So basically if the stock is making higher highs and higher lows on the daily or weekly charts, then you would want to buy around one of the higher lows before the ex-dividend date. If the stock is making lower lows and lower highs, then it is in a downtrend, so never buy in this instance. It is better to miss out on a dividend of $1 rather than to buy just for this $1 dividend and lose $5 or more when the price continues to drop further.
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Does a 1045 exchange require any filing prior to that years tax return?
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When you get into reading Revenue Rulings and Treasury Regulations - I'd suggest hiring a professional to do that for you. Especially since you also need to assure that the new stock does indeed qualify as QSBS. However, from the revenue ruling you quoted it doesn't sound like there's any other requirement other than reporting the subsequent purchase as a loss on your schedule D. I wouldn't know, however, if there are subsequent/superseding revenue rulings on the matter since 1998. Professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) would have the means and the ability to research this and give you a proper advice.
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Can I negotiate a 0% transaction fee with my credit card company?
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TL;DR summary: 0% balance transfer offers and "free checks usable anywhere" rarely are a good deal for the customer. 0% rate balance transfer offers (and the checks usable anywhere including payment of taxes) come with a transaction fee because the credit card company is paying off the balance on the other card (or the tax or the electric bill) in the full amount of $X as stated on the other card statement or on the tax/electric bill). This is in contrast to a purchase transaction where if you buy something for $X, you pay the card company $X but the card company pays the merchant something less than $X$. (Of course, the merchant has jacked up the sale price of the item to pass on the charge to you.) Can you get the credit card company to waive the transaction fee? You can try asking them but it is unlikely that you will succeed if your credit score is good! I have seen balance transfer offers with no transaction fees made to people who have don't have good credit scores and are used to carrying a balance on their credit cards. I assume that the company making the offer knows that it will make up the transaction fee from future interest payments. A few other points to keep in mind with respect to using a 0% balance transfer offer to pay off a student loan (or anything else for that matter):
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Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud?
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With the standard "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer, consider this question: If you and your girlfriend split up sometime after purchasing the house but before getting married, would you expect her to repay you for the closing costs and downpayment? That is, if you write her a check for $5k, and 6 months after she signs the papers for the house one of you decides to break up with the other, would you expect her to write you a check for $5k in return? That is the difference between "a gift" and "a loan disguised as a gift". If the answer is no, you don't expect it back, then everything is fine and you're in the clear - it's perfectly legal to give someone money. If the answer is yes, you would want to be "paid back", then it's not a gift and you run the risk of running afoul of the regulations. With respect to a previous answer about "gifting money that is not taxed", in the US one person can give another up to $14,000 without worrying about gift taxes, and even in the event that you exceed that amount, the excess would simply eat into the lifetime exemption of $5,250,000. (Individual states may have different rules and exempt amounts that would apply to state taxes.) Please also consider the income issue for your "rental agreement". Your GF would be expected to declare that amount and pay income tax on it as a business. She might also declare part of that amount as expected income for purposes of securing the loan, but that may run into its own issues (you're not a roommate, and presumably the home is not a duplex or set up as apartments, and presumably she would not offer a similar deal to someone other than you).
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What are the real risks in “bio-technology” companies?
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Note: My sister works for one of the largest clinical development, testing, and commercialization companies so I know some of the key issues but not all. This answer does not constitute advice on any particular stock or other instrument. This is mostly well researched opinion. The problem with biotech companies (and a few other areas of technology) is that a lot of money is spent, and debt incurred, on ensuring that products are effective and safe to go to market. At any stage these tests can fail and the product is essentially worthless. At this stage the developers will have learnt a lot about the drug and how it is as efficacious as it is and so the next iteration of the potential drug will be better and hopefully less likely to cause complications and harmful side effects. The process of gaining approval for this second iteration is just as expensive, if not more so, than the last. This means that they are spending a lot of money on the drug and, for small biotech companies concentrating on one or few drugs, will have little to no income generation to offset this. If the money runs out before they get the product out they are bankrupt even if the drug is perfect. A second issue is that they are not the only firm looking for a cure. They might have a very good drug that works very well but another company may have a better one in the pipeline that will either take their monopoly position or take all of their business based on the relative cost and efficacy. The longer it takes them to get through testing, the more likely it is that this will happen and the more likely it is that the competing drug will be first to market and receive all of the free publicity that goes with that. In this case the risk is that they have a product (eventually) but no market for it and so will again run out of money. Another consideration is what the cure is actually worth. Prevention and awareness is already reducing the number of (wealthy) western people who have HIV and so the market size is falling where the most profit can be made. In order to get any return on your investment a profit will be required. Where HIV rates are rising is in poor countries in Africa, Asia, and south America where the price at which people could afford to buy a cure is likely to be lower than even the break even price for the firm. In this case you have a monopoly and a drug that works but no one can afford to buy it for a price that you can accept and still make a profit. Biotech is a very risky, but potentially lucrative, area because there are just so many risks at every stage. Price volatility occurs on rumour and questionable statements from the company (who are always trying to be positive so that their funding doesn't dry up) and even relatively small trades can move the market a large amount as few people want to sell an investment with so much potential. There are also some charged political positions with regard to HIV and AIDS, so a shift in political power could also derail a biotech firm that is researching this kind of drug.
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Is house swapping possible?
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You would have to find someone in the other state who wanted to swap. This is conceivable but difficult if you want the houses to be the same value. How do you find the one person who lives in the right place now and wants to move to the right area? The normal way this situation is handled is to simply put your house on the market. At the same time, you find a new house in the new location. You arrange for a new mortgage for the new house and make purchase contingent on selling the old house. Your buyer pays off your mortgage and gives you a bit left over that you use as a downpayment on the new house. Note that you take a loss on closing costs when you do this. This is why if you are in the position where you move frequently, you may be better off renting. Sometimes an employer will help with this, paying for a long term hotel or short term rental. This can give you more room to sell and buy the houses. If you have to move right now, immediately, not in a few months when your housing situation is fixed, consider double renting. You rent out your mortgaged house to someone and pay rent on a new place. You may put some of your stuff in storage until you get into your permanent place. The downside is that it can be harder to sell a house with a tenant until you are close to the end of the lease. And of course, you are probably not in the best position to get or pay good rent. Your situation restricts your options. You might get stuck in this situation for a year so as to get the time that you need to line up a buyer. Of course, you may get lucky and find someone who wants your old house as an investment property. Such a person won't be bothered by a tenant. But they usually want a good price. After all, they want to make money off it. There are those operations that advertise that they buy ugly houses. They want a good deal. You'll probably take a bath. But they can buy quickly, so you can move on quickly. No waiting until they find a buyer. And I'm not saying that you can't do a swap like you want. I'm just saying that you may find it difficult to find a swapping partner. Perhaps an investment person would be up for it. They take your house in trade for their house, letting you stay in their house until they can fix up your old house and either rent it or sell it. The problem is that it may be hard to find such an investor who can handle a house where you are and has a house where you need to be. I don't have a good suggestion for finding a swapping partner other than calling a lot of realtors and asking for suggestions. Maybe a bit of online checking for properties where the owner's business is managing the sale.
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