Question
stringlengths
14
166
Answer
stringlengths
3
17k
Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority?
If you can make enough ROI from the capital you retain by not paying off your mortgage, then why not? I do, I could pay off a significant chunk of mortgage if I wanted but whilst interest rates are low there's little incentive. As for another crash... Well, there's no reason to expect a crash would result in high inter...
Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage?
Sounds like a poorly written piece at best... The way you make money with a mortgage, if you're careful and/or lucky and/or patient, is to use that loan to make leveraged investments. If the return on the investments is higher than the interest on the loan, you win. Of course if the investments don't do well you can lo...
Do I have to pay taxes on income from my website or profits?
Not sure about the UK, but if it were in the US you need to realize the expenses can be claimed as much as the income. After having a mild heart attack when I did my business taxes the first time many years ago, a Small Business Administration adviser pointed it out. You are running the site from a computer? Deductibl...
What is the principle of forming an arbitrage strategy?
Well, arbitrage is a simple mean reversion strategy which states that any two similar commodity with some price difference (usually not much) will converge. So either you can bet on difference in prices in different exchanges or also you can bet on difference in futures value. For example if current price of stock is...
How do I get a Tax Exemption Certificate for export from the US if I am in another country?
Assuming you are being charged sales tax, it all depends on where you take possession of the shipment. Are your suppliers shipping to a US address, say your freight forwarder, from where you handle the ongoing shipment, or directly to you in South America? If the latter, per Michael Pryor's answer, you should not be ch...
How is someone tax exempt at Walmart in Canada?
Note that folks may also be shopping for supplies for a nonprofit tax-exempt organization. I made such a purchase a few weeks ago. Whatever the legal basis of the exception, you need to be able to prove to the store that you have it. If you can't, they must collect the tax.
How can I increase my hourly pay as a software developer?
You are paid hourly? I would have expected most IT people to be on salary Depends what your boss is like, he might be easy going and just give a raise if you ask for it. Failing that, do some self improvements, learn something new, take a course, maybe take some PHP certifications or even java certifications? Then at l...
United States Treasury Not Endorsing Checks
Welcome to the 21st century, the New Order. Forget all that legal mumbo jumbo you may have read back in law school in the 1960s about commercial code. Its all gone now. Now we have Check 21 and the Patriot Act !!! Basically what this means is that because some Arab fanatics burned down the World Trade Center, the US go...
How does the US Estate Tax affect an Australian with investments domiciled in the US?
I don't think the location of the funds is any of your concern. You're buying a CDI, which is: Australian financial instruments The US has no jurisdiction over you, being you an Australian, so unless you own a US-based asset (i.e.: a real-estate in the US, or a US brokerage account), US tax laws shouldn't matter to you...
Why gamma scalping is not advised for retail traders with reg T margin
My interpretation of that sentence is that you can't do the buying/selling of shares outright (sans margin) because of the massive quantity of shares he's talking about. So you have to use margin to buy the stocks. However, because in order to make significant money with this sort of strategy you probably need to be w...
Would I qualify for a USDA loan?
How realistic is it that I will be able to get a home within the 250,000 range in the next year or so? Very unlikely in the next year. The debt/income ratio isn't good enough, and your credit score needs to show at least a year of regular payments without late or default issues before you can start asking for mortgag...
How should I pay off my private student loans that have a lot of restrictions?
Are there any (monthly) administrative fees on those loans that are charged separately? If not, you should just pay as much as you can as quick as you can to get the loan amount down on those loans with the highest interest rate. If there are no separate fees on the loans, then it's just a lump of money with some inter...
Highest market cap for a company from historical data
Everything would depend on whether the calculation is being done using the company's all-time high intraday trading price or all-time high closing price. Further, I've seen calculations using non-public pricing data, such as bid-offer numbers from market makers, although this wouldn't be kosher. The likelihood is that ...
Research for Info
quid's link should give you a definitive answer, but just to set expectations, here's an article from the UPI: Essex Chemical Corp. has agreed to be acquired by Dow Chemical Co. in a $366 million, $36-a-share deal ... Any shares that remain outstanding after the merger will be converted into the right to receive $36 ea...
When are investments taxed?
Unless your investments are held within a special tax-free account, then every sale transaction is a taxable event, meaning a gain or loss (capital gain/loss or income gain/loss, depending on various circumstances) is calculated at that moment in time. Gains may also accrue on unrealized amounts at year-end, for specif...
Is it safer to send credit card number via unsecured website form or by e-mail? What safer options are there?
Some (most) credit cards have a way to get a one-time use number. If that is an available option for one of your cards, that is probably the way to do the very risky transaction. These numbers can be good for only one purchase, or for multiple purchases with a single vendor. This will limit your exposure because they w...
Why does FlagStar Bank harass you about payments within grace period?
A quick Google search for FlagStar Bank shows that this is their standard practice. Quite a few people are complaining about the robo-calls they start receiving on the 5th of every month and FlagStar's response is usually something along the lines of "we're required to do so". First and foremost, confirm the terms of y...
How can I have credit cards without having a credit history or credit score?
That is an opinion. I don't think so. Here are some differences: If you use credit responsibly and take the time to make sure the reporting agencies are being accurate, a good report can benefit you. So that isn't like a criminal record. What is also important to know is that in the United States, a credit report is...
When the Reserve Bank determines the interest rates, do they take the house prices into account?
I'm not intimately familiar with the situation in Australia, but in the US the powers that be have adopted an interventionist philosophy. The Federal Reserve (Central Bank) is "buying back" US Gov't debt to keep rates low, and the government is keeping mortgage rates low buy buying mortgages with the proceeds of the ch...
Would I qualify for a USDA loan?
Just general advice but you should pay off your credit cards and car loans before buying a house. Or you may be able to add some extra on to the mortgage to pay off your credit card and car debt right away. Credit card interest rates can be ten times the interest rates on mortgages and car loans are not far behind. The...
How to sell option with no volume
A few observations - A limit order can certainly work, as you've seen. I've put in such an order far beyond the true value, and gotten back a realistic bid/ask within 10 minutes or so. That at least gave me an idea where to set my limit. When this doesn't work, an exercise is always another way to go. You'll get the ...
Can I do periodic rollovers from my low-perfoming 401k to an IRA?
You need to check with your employer. It is called an in-service rollover and it is up to your employer on whether or not it is allowed. There are a lot of articles on it but I would still talk to a professional before making the decision. And there are some new laws in place that put at least some responsibility on yo...
Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund
The mathematically correct answer is to invest, because you'll get a higher rate of return. I think that answer is bunk -- owning your home free and clear is a huge burden lifted off of your shoulders. You're at an age where you may find a new job, business, personal or other opportunities will be easier to take advant...
What happens if a company I have stock in is bought out?
A buy out is agreed by shareholders. Plus most countries have regulation protecting minority interest. Depending on the terms of buy out, you may get equivalent shares of buyer company or cash or both.
How can home buying be considered a sound investment with all of that interest that needs to be paid?
Housing prices are inseparable from the job market of an area. The 40k you want to use as a down payment will buy an entire house outright in many places of the country that have no jobs. If your job is mobile why not follow cheap housing, even if it is just to rent?
How do banks lose money on foreclosures?
Someone has to hand out cash to the seller. Even if no physical money changes hands (and I've bought a house; I can tell you a LOT of money changes hands at closing in at least the form of a personal check), and regardless of exactly how the bank accounts for the actual disbursement of the loan, the net result is that ...
Will paying off my car early hinder my ability to build credit?
12% is ridiculously high and routine for loans with no credit history, esp. from the dealer. I don't think though paying off would hurt your credit - you've already got installment loan on your report, and you have history of payments, so it shouldn't matter how long the history is (warning: this is kind of guesswork c...
Optimal pricing of close to zero marginal cost content
It seems this will be very much driven by price discrimination. If there are some customers who will pay up to $100, sell at that; and if there are others who'll pay $1 sell at that price. For instance you see computer games, which have zero marginal cost of production, sold at "normal new release" prices, at premium ...
A calculator that takes into account portfolio rebalancing?
Note that if 1) The stock prices are continuously differentiable (they aren't) 2) You rebalance continuously in the absence of trading fees and taxes then the return fraction (future price / original price) will be the geometric mean of the return fractions for each investment. If you don't rebalance then the return ...
Where should I invest my savings?
Basically the first thing you should do before you invest your money is to learn about investing and learn about what you want to invest in. Another thing to think about is that usually low risk can also mean low returns. As you are quite young and have some savings put aside you should generally aim for higher risk hi...
What assets does the term “security” encompass?
A good reference to what encompasses "securities" are detailed in the Securities Act of 1933, which was enacted by the United States federal government. One main exception, which I would still consider securities for your purposes, would be "commercial paper". These are exempt from the securities act because they matur...
Online service that computes implied volatility
My broker (thinkorswim) offers this from the platform's trade tab. I believe this feature isn't crippled in the PaperMoney version which is effectively a "free online service."
Will capital gains affect my tax bracket?
I think you're misunderstanding how tax brackets work. If you make $1 more and that bumps you into a higher bracket, only THAT particular dollar will be taxed at the higher tax bracket rate... Not your entire income. Short term capital gains are treated as income. Long term capital gains have a special tax rate curre...
Under what circumstance will the IRS charge you a late-payment penalty for taxes?
In practice the IRS seems to apply the late payment penalty when they issue a written paper notice. Those notices typically have a pay-by date where no additional penalty applies. The IRS will often waive penalties, but not interest or tax due, if the taxpayer presses the issue.
Is it irresponsible for me to lease a $300/month car for 18 months?
Presumably you need a car to get to work, so let's start with the assumption that you need to buy something to replace the car you just lost. The biggest difficulty to overcome in buying a car is the concept of the monthly payment. Dealers will play games with all of the numbers to massage a monthly payment that the bu...
Any extra fees charged by passive stock and bond ETFs on top of the standard fees?
Brokers will have transaction fees in addition to the find management fees, but they should be very transparent. Brokering is a very competitive business. Any broker that added hidden fees to their transactions would lose customers very quickly to other brokers than can offer the same services. Hedge funds are a very ...
What headaches will I have switching from Quicken to GnuCash?
It's been a long time since I've used MS Money and/or Quickbooks (never Quicken), but I've used GnuCash over the past year or so. It works, but it does suffer from some usability problems. Some of the UI is clunky. Data entry sequences are a little harder than they should be. Reports could be a little prettier. But ove...
Is there any data that shows how diversifying results in better returns than just sticking to an all-stock portfolio?
This paper by a Columbia business school professor says: The standard 60%/40% strategy outperforms a 100% bond or 100% stock strategy over the 1926-1940 period (Figure 5) and over the 1990-2011 period (Figure 6). This is based on actual market data from those periods. You can see the figures in the PDF. These are per...
Switch from DINK to SIWK: How do people afford kids?
If commuting is a big budget item, then can you: A side job is one way to make extra money, but I'd suggest a home business. If your wife substitute teaches, I bet she writes fairly well, and in any case you can. Write a personal finance blog or just a site with articles. Focus on surviving and thriving with child(r...
How should I allocate short-term assets in a rising-interest rate environment?
How should I allocate short-term assets in a rising-interest rate environment? Assuming that the last part is correct, there could be bear bond funds that short bonds that could work well as a way to invest. However, bear in that the the "rising-interest rate environment" is part of the basis that may or may not be t...
Is interest on a personal loan tax deductible?
Can you deduct interest paid to your father on your personal income taxes? Interest paid on passive investments can be deducted from the amount earned by that investment as an investment expense as long as the amount earned is greater than the total paid for the interest expense. Also beware if the amount of interest p...
Owning REIT vs owning real estate - which has a better hypothetical ROI?
REIT is to property as Mutual Fund is to stock. In others words, a REIT spreads your risk out over a greater number of properties, making the return safer, at the expense of both upside and downside risk. On average, both would average out to be the same. That said, you have a much wider range of outcomes when investi...
What ways are there for us to earn a little extra side money?
For your girlfriend (congrats to you both on the coming new baby!), full-time mothers often become work-at-home moms using skills that they may have utilized in the outside-the-home workforce before they made the decision to stay home. Etsy can be a place where some do this, but there are many articles out there poin...
Can a company block a specific person from buying its stock?
In the UK, this is the very definition of a Public Limited Company. A Limited Company can restrict how its stock is trades and who can buy and sell and when, a Public Limited Company cannot. Most stock exchanges will only allow Public Limited Company stock to be traded. Therefore a company can control who its stock ...
Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks?
There are two primary reasons shares are sold short: (1) to speculate that a stock's price will decline and (2) to hedge some other related financial exposure. The first is acknowledged by the question. The second reason may be done for taxes (shorting "against the box" was once permitted for tax purposes), for arbit...
Should I buy out my brother on a property we will inherit before making improvements?
In the end you, your dad, and your brother should come to an agreement so there's no surprises or unfulfilled expectations, but here's my opinion: If you can afford to make the additions now: I would offer to pay fully for the addition, with the understanding that the additional value that it generates is yours. That ...
Equity market inflow meaning
Inflows to the US equity market can come from a variety of sources; for instance: You were paid a year-end bonus and decided to invest it in US equities instead of foreign equities, bonds, savings or debt reduction. You sold foreign equities, bonds, or other non-US equities and decided to invest in US equities. You dec...
Deductible expenses paid with credit card: In which tax year would they fall?
According to this discussion, there was a Tax Court ruling that likened deductibility for charitable giving by credit card to business expenses incurred by businesses operating under cash-basis accounting. (The point is made by Larry Hess on that site.) Short answer: According to this argument, you can claim the deduc...
F-1 Visa expired - Unable to repay private student loan. What to do?
As an international student, the tuition is sky high. Typically, most students take loans for Education and start paying it back once they get a job. If you have exhausted your OPT period and have not got H1B, your options are either to go for further education(Hint: Phd), you can hope to cover living expense by part-t...
Ways to invest my saved money in Germany in a halal way?
The UK has Islamic banks. I don't know whether Germany has the same or not (with a quick search I can find articles stating intentions to establish one, but not the results). Even if there's none in Germany, I assume that with some difficulty you could use banks elsewhere in the EU and even non-Euro-denominated. I can'...
What do I need to start trading in the NSE (National Stock Exchange)?
Yes Absolutely! You will need to provide Sharekhan with a cancelled cheque from OBC which has your account number and name on it. They will link that to your DMAT account, and any settlements/dividends paid will directly be deposited into your OBC bank account. Any time you need to deposit money into your DMAT account...
How some mutual funds pay such high dividends
Look at their dividend history. The chart there is simply reporting the most recent dividend (or a recent time period, in any event). GF for example: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/gf/dividend-history It's had basically two significant dividends and a bunch of small dividends. Past performance is not indicative of fut...
What are the taxes for trading debt/equity in India?
Are these all of the taxes or is there any additional taxes over these? Turn-over tax is not for retail investors. Other taxes are paid by the broker as part of transaction and one need not worry too much about it. Is there any "Income tax" to be paid for shares bought/holding shares? No for just buying and holding. Ho...
I earn $75K, have $30K in savings, no debt, rent from my parents who are losing their home. Should I buy a home now or save?
You earn $75,000 yearly and saved $30,000 while living at home, for two years, rent-free. I am assuming you have been making good money for at least 2 years. How is it possible you only put away $30,000 on $150,000 of income? Were you giving something to your parents each week as rent, so they don't lose their home? Se...
What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?
Others have given a lot of advice about how to invest, but as a former expat I wanted to throw this in: US citizens living and investing overseas can VERY easily run afoul of the IRS. Laws and regulations designed to prevent offshore tax havens can also make it very difficult for expats to do effective investing and ...
Consolidate my debt? Higher APR, but what does that actually mean?
No. It means each month the total amount you owe goes up by a factor of (1+0.298/12). So if you owed $23K at the beginning of the month, at the end you owe a total of 23K*1.0248=$23,571. Then subtract the $804 you are paying. If you want to think of it in terms of interest and principal, you are paying $571 a month...
Hiring a teenager as a household employee
Here is what I was able to find: Yes, but there are special instructions for minors: Working hours: New York State labor laws are slightly more strict than the federal: https://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/nyvsfed.shtm Minimum wage: The Dept of Labor's Youth & Labor page states: Occupa...
How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car?
I think the answer to how much you "should" spend depends on a few more questions: Once you answer these questions I think you'll have a better idea of what you should spend. If you have no financial goals then what kind of car you buy doesn't really matter. But if your goals are to build and accumulate wealth both in ...
Finding a good small business CPA?
Check your local better business bureau. They can tell you who is in business, who's bonded, and who has had a lot of complaints levied against them for shoddy practices.
Does the Black-Scholes Model apply to American Style options?
A minor tangent. One can claim the S&P has a mean return of say 10%, and standard deviation of say 14% or so, but when you run with that, you find that the actual returns aren't such a great fit to the standard bell curve. Market anomalies producing the "100-year flood" far more often than predicted over even a 20 year...
How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?
I think you are trying to figure out what will be a break-even rental rate for you, so that then you can decide whether renting at current market rates is worth it for you. This is tricky to determine because future valuations are uncertain. You can make rough estimates though. The most uncertain component is likely to...
Is building a corporation a good option?
Creating a corporation is not necessarily less taxes. In fact, you'll face the problem of double taxation, and since you must pay yourself a reasonable salary, if your corporation doesn't earn much to give you as dividend after the salary, and/or your tax bracket is low, you'll in fact may end up paying more taxes. Als...
How does investment into a private company work?
Each company has X shares valued at $Y/share. When deals like "Dragon's Den" in Canada and Britain or "Shark Tank" in the US are done, this is where the company is issuing shares valued at $z total to the investor so that the company has the funds to do whatever it was that they came to the show to get funding to do, t...
What traditionally happens to bonds when the stock market crashes?
It depends. Very generally when yields go up stocks go down and when yields go down stocks go up (as has been happening lately). If we look at the yield of the 10 year bond it reflects future expectations for interest rates. If the rate today is very low but expectations are that the short term rates will go up that ...
Sage Instant Accounts or Quickbooks?
Note: Specific to UK. I can't recommend anything higher than Crunch - they act as your accountant and have their own cloud accounting software, so it's more expensive than just using cloud accounting software, but if you use an accountant to do your year-end anyway, then they cost about the same as using cloud accounti...
Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit?
I would go even farther than Victor's answer. There is little evidence that candlestick patterns and technical analysis in general have any predictive power. Even if they did in the past, of which there is some evidence, in modern times they are so easy to do on computers that if they worked algorithmic traders woul...
What's the best way to make money from a market correction?
A lot of people here talk about shorting stocks, buying options, and messing around with leveraged ETFs. While these are excellent tools, that offer novel opportunities for the sophisticated investor, Don't mess around with these until you have been in the game for a few years. Even if you can make money consistently r...
How often do typical investors really lose money?
The earlier answers answered the question on how a more practical trader can lose money. Here I'd like to mention some obtuse ways Using debt to buy stocks. If one is borrowing at a higher rate than they are getting back, from an economics prospective their stocks are losing money even if the value of those stocks are...
Is there a generally accepted term for fractions of Currency Units?
The Coinage Act of 1792 of the Continental Congress established that the lowest money of account for the United States is one-thousandth (1/1000) of a dollar. This sub-unit is the mille (also written mil, mill). Other sub-units given by the act are the disme for one-tenth (1/10) of a dollar (for which, etymologically,...
Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary?
One "economic reason" to turn down a raise is if your company gives bonuses based on performance reviews. When you get a raise in salary, your boss usually expects a better performance from you. That being said, if you get the raise, and your performance review is worse, you might get a smaller annual income.
How to contribute to Roth IRA when income is at the maximum limit & you have employer-sponsored 401k plans?
From the way you frame the question it sounds like you more or less know the answer already. Yes - you can make a non-deductable contribution to a traditional IRA and convert it to a Roth IRA. Here is Wikipedia's explanation: Regardless of income but subject to contribution limits, contributions can be made to a Tradit...
Buying a house, how much should my down payment be?
How much should my down payment be? Ideally 20% of the purchase price because with 20% of the purchase price, you don't have to pay a costly private mortgage insurance (PMI). If you don't have 20% down and come across a good property to purchase, it is still a good idea to go forward with purchasing with what you are ...
Higher auto insurance costs: keep car or switch to public transit?
I've lived this decision, and from my "anecdata": do #3 I have been car-free since 2011 in a large United States city. I was one month into a new job on a rail line out in the suburbs, and facing a $3000 bill to pass state inspection (the brakes plus the emissions system). I live downtown. I use a combination of tra...
Is A Company Abusing The Tax Code When It Does This, And How Does The IRS Prevent It?
A rather good IRS paper on the topic states that a donation of a business' in-kind inventory would be Under IRC 170(e)(1), however, the fair market value must be reduced by the amount of gain that would not be long-term capital gain if the property had been sold by the donor at the property's fair market value (de...
Has anyone heard of Peerstreet?
(Disclosure - PeerStreet was at FinCon, a financial blogger conference I attended last month. I had the chance to briefly meet a couple people from this company. Also, I recognize a number of the names of their financial backers. This doesn't guarantee anything, of course, except the people behind the scenes are no sla...
Will my Indian debit card work in the U.S.?
I recommend that you first try to use your card at a store in your home country, just to make sure that the point-of-sale features are enabled. After you've verified that, you need to contact your bank and ask them if the card will work in both ATMs and in stores in the U.S. They may need to enable it to work in anot...
Are variable rate loans ever a good idea?
Up to some degree, a higher or lower interest rate means a bit less or a bit more money in your pocket. If the interest rate gets too high, you may be in trouble. So you first look at the situation and ask yourself: At what interest rate would I be in trouble? If this is a $20,000 student loan, then even a very high r...
Convention for adding ishares (ETFs) into personal accounts
ETF is essentially a stock, from accounting perspective. Treat it as just another stock in the portfolio.
Invest in (say, index funds) vs spending all money on home?
Rules of thumb? Sure - Put down 20% to pay no PMI. The mortgage payment (including property tax) should be no more than 28% of your gross monthly income. These two rules will certainly put a cap on the home price. If you have more than the 20% to put down on the house you like, stop right here. Don't put more down an...
Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply?
Put options are contracts to sell. You pay me a fee for the right to put the stock (or other underlying security) in my hands if you want to. That happens on a specific date (the strike date) and a specified price (the strike price). You can decide not to exercise that right, but I must follow through and let you sell ...
I am a contractor with revenue below UK's VAT threshold. Should I register for VAT?
The most important thing to remember is that being VAT registered, you must add VAT to every bill, so every bill will be 20% higher. If the bill payer is a company, they don't care because they deduct the 20% VAT from their own VAT bill. If the bill payer is a private person, their cost of your services has just gone u...
Home owners association for houses, pro/cons
As I understand it the basic premiss of a HOA is to ease communication between neighbors and help work towards common community goals. As I understand it the reality is that the HOA works to keep the community homogenous so there are no "sore thumb" neighbors. As to why look for one or avoid one. If you would want ...
How can a person protect his savings against a country default?
The default of the country will affect the country obligations and what's tied to it. If you have treasury bonds, for example - they'll get hit. If you have cash currency - it will get hit. If you're invested in the stock market, however, it may plunge, but will recover, and in the long run you won't get hit. If you're...
As an investor or speculator, how might one respond to QE3 taper?
As I tell all my clients... remember WHY you are investing in the first. Make a plan and stick to it. Find a strategy and perfect it. A profit is not a profit until you take it. the same goes with a loss. You never loose till you sell for less than what you paid. Stop jumping for one market to the next, find one stra...
Does the sale of personal items need to be declared as income on my income taxes?
I doubt it. In the States you would only owe tax if you sold such an item at a profit. "garage sales" aren't taxable as they are nearly always common household items and sale is more about clearing out one's attic/garage than about profit. Keep in mind, if I pay for a book, and immediately sell it for the same price, ...
My wife and I are selling a house worth $230k-$260k. Its a rental. Should we use an agent, limited service listing agent, or FSBO?
The answers you'll receive are going to be largely subjective. I can't tell you which option would be best for you, but there are plenty of things to consider. Do you know how to sell a home? If your market is hot enough, FSBO may make sense as you won't need the marketing power and expertise of an agent. In very hot ...
What does an x% inflation rate actually mean?
Individual product prices do not necessarily rise at inflation rates. What inflation means is that the purchasing power of one unit of currency decreases by x% in a year, which is typically measured by looking at a broad spectrum of products in an economy and extrapolating to "all products". So for all products acros...
Selling on eBay without PayPal?
Dwolla looks to be a great option. But it requires users to have an account there (Free to sign up). And there rates are absolutely amazing. Free for transactions under $10 $0.25 to receive money on transactions over $10
What is the purpose of endorsing a check?
In my experience, you don't need to endorse a check with a signature to deposit it into your account. You do if you are exchanging the check for cash. Businesses usually have a stamp with their account number on them. Once stamped, those checks are only able to be deposited into that account. Individuals can do the...
How can I get a home loan within 2 years of bankruptcy?
Your only option might be finding a seller-financed property with a motivated seller who is willing to take the risk of loaning you money. However, be prepared to pay a hefty rate on that loan if you can even pull it off.
Should I sell my individual stocks and buy a mutual fund
I would normally take a cautious, "it depends" approach to answering a question like this, but instead I'm going to give you a blunt opinionated answer based solely on what I would do: Even the crap. Get rid of them and get into the boring low fee mutual funds. I was in a similar situation a few years ago, almost. My ...
Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve?
borrow money from the Central Bank Wrong premise. They cannot borrow as much as they want and they cannot borrow without collateral i.e. government debt instruments they hold or any other instrument with value. And banks don’t have unlimited collateral to borrow against. Secondly central banks aren’t in the business ...
Who buys variable annuities?
An annuity makes sense in a few different scenarios: In general, they are not the best deal around (and are often ripoffs), and will almost certainly be a bad deal if pitched by a tax preparer, insurance salesman, etc. Keep in mind that any "guarantees" offered are guarantees made by an insurance company. The only bac...
Recourse with Credit Card company after victimized by fraud?
I agree that you shouldn't give up trying to get your money back, but I strongly feel that this is not sufficient. If they are trying to victimize you, they are trying to victimize others. Taking care of getting your own money back should be your top concern, but contacting any Attorneys General and District Attorneys...
how does one see the CBOE VIX index on Google Finance?
For whatever reason, I don't believe they offer it. Yahoo does. A google for google finance VIX turns up people asking the question, but no quote on google.
What happens if I just don't pay my student loans?
employed under the table and doesn't have a bank account If I could make that size 10,000,000 font I would. Your friend likely also isn't paying taxes. The student loan penalties will be nothing compared to what the IRS does to you. Avoid taking financial advice from that person.
Is it possible to influence a company's actions by buying stock?
Another form of 'shareholder' activism. You might be able to buy a single share, which it seems would cost around $35, attend the AGM, and ask questions and/or shout or sing and delay proceedings. There would certainly be security guards or police ready to remove protesters at an AGM.
Should I sell my stocks to reduce my debt?
Depends from your general overall situation, but for what we know i would say: Definetely get rid of the high interest loan (10%) since average stocks return is not as high. Not sell shares for the car loan, the market is not so high (the s&p500 is just above the 200dd moing average). But if you have extra savings you ...
How should I invest my money as a young graduate in Europe?
Before starting with investing, you should make sure you are saving enough. Living in a welfare country (France) does not exempt you from potentially needing to save large amounts of money. You state that you do not need much of an emergency day fund, but this is not true. Being dismissed unjustly from your job is no...
How long should I keep my bills?
Consumerist posted a list of how long to keep bills.