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Is gold subject to inflation? [duplicate]
Gold isn't constant in value. If you look at the high price of $800 in January of 1980 and the low of $291 in 2001, you lost a lot of purchasing power, especially since money in 2001 was worth less than in 1980. People claim gold is a stable store of value but it isn't.
Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?
I've done this, both as one of the renters and (in a different house) as the landlord. I had roommates I had not lived with before though. It's definitely doable, but can get awkward. Some advice in no particular order Make sure you can afford the house on your own. This avoids the awkward situation of making you finan...
Should I continue to invest in an S&P 500 index fund?
Cycle analysis indicates that the current bear market, which began in May/June, should last until late 2016 / early 2017. So if you want to trade the short side, then it's a great time to be short for the next 15-18 months.
Buying a home - brokerage fee
I feel like you didn't actually read your agent's agreement, which should say where the money actually comes from. You sign it so that your agent can get paid by the listing agency from the net brokerage fees which the buyer pays. In the United States, "real estate agents are prohibited from being paid a commission dir...
Advantages/Disadvantages to refinancing online?
For what its worth, I recently closed on a 30 year refinance mortage with an agent I found through Zillow. The lender has a perfect 5/5 reputation score, whose office was located within 5 miles of my house, and as suggested by justkt on MrChrister's response, I checked out the business on the better business bureau an...
Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending?
Also keep in mind that with an all-cash offer, they get their money now and not spread over X-many years, which means they can reinvest it now rather than piece meal across the term of whatever the loan would be. (Presuming the bank would be financing the house themselves.) Additionally, with an all-cash offer, there e...
How do I log a Canadian NR4 form to my income taxes
Income code 09 is dividends, so yes - it is the same as line 1 of the US form 1099-DIV. 1a or 1b however depends on whether the requirements for qualified dividends are met. If they're met - its 1b, if not - 1a. These are treated and taxed differently. See here on what are the qualification requirements. Note that Cana...
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?
My take is that there are many factors to consider when deciding whether to accelerate payment of a debt beyond the require minimum. Ideally you would want to be debt-free with a home owned outright, a pension big enough to lead a nice life for the rest of your days and plenty of savings to cover any unexpected expense...
Do my kids need to file a tax return?
No they do not. From form 1040 instructions, a single, non-blind dependent under age 65 must file if the following are true: You must file a return if any of the following apply. There is no return required for receipt of a gift.
Stock valuation - Volkswagen
The prices dropped because the scandal could mean: This some people estimated that the company could lose money, or have smaller profit. Thus each share was worth less money going forward. The mechanism is that in order to sell their shares the current share owners had to settle for lower prices.
Is CFD a viable option for long-term trading?
CFDs should not be used as a buy and hold strategy (which is risky enough doing with shares directly). However, with proper money and risk management and the proper use of stop losses, a medium term strategy is very plausible. I was using CFDs in the past over a short time period of usually between a couple of days to...
At what point should I begin paying off student loans?
If you have sufficient money to support yourself until you have a career, then paying off your student loan principal on unsubsidized, federal loans, is probably your best bet. This is because interest accumulates before you're actually required to pay. If they are private, make the payment on the highest interest rate...
What is the valuation of a company based on?
It's safe to say that for mature companies, with profits that have been steady, and steadily growing, that a multiple of earnings can come into play. It's not identical between companies or even industries, but for consumer staples, for instance, you'll see a clustering around a certain P/E. On the other hand, there a...
Stocks: do Good Till Cancelled orders get executed during after hours?
You typically need to specify that you want the GTC order to be working during the Extended hours session. I trade on TD Ameritrade's Thinkorswim platform, and you can select DAY, GTC, EXT or GTC_EXT. So in your case, you would select GTC_EXT.
How to find a public company's balance sheet and income statement?
Filter by the filings when you look at the search results. The 10-K will include the annual report, which included fiscal year-end financial statements. Quarterly reports and statements are in the 10-Q filing. The filing will include a LOT of other information, but there should be a section called "Financial Statemen...
Appropriate model for deferred costs as a line-of-credit
There's no standard formula. You can compare the going rates on the market for unsecured LOCs and take that as the starting anchor. Unsecured lines of credit run in the US at about 8-18%. Your risk should be reflected in the rate, and I see no reason why the rate would change throughout the loan. As to the amount of pr...
How do you measure the value of gold?
We measure the value of gold by comparing it to other things. Sorry, but there is no better answer than that. There is no gold standard (pun intended) by which objects can be measured in value because "value" is a subjective term. It would be comparable to asking how funny is an object. Different objects are funny to d...
Why will the bank only loan us 80% of the value of our fully paid for home?
I am going to add just one more item to what are some very well thought out answers. The element of "Cash Out" If you are taking out 80% of the value of the home that you already own free and clear the bank considers this a "Cash Out" transaction - meaning you would effectively walk away from closing with a check for 8...
What should I consider when I try to invest my money today for a larger immediate income stream that will secure my retirement?
I don't think you should mix the two notions. Not starting out with at least. It takes so much money, time and expertise to invest for income that, starting out at least, you should view it as a goal, not a starting point. Save your money in the lowest cost investments you can find. If you are like me, you can't pic...
What is a good open source Windows finance software
Have you tried others on Wikipedia's list?
Can an ETF perform differently than its holdings?
The Creation/Redemption mechanism is how shares of an ETF are created or redeemed as needed and thus is where there can be differences in what the value of the holdings can be versus the trading price. If the ETF is thinly traded, then the difference could be big as more volume would be where the mechanism could kick i...
Can I transfer my investment property into a SMSF?
Regarding transferring a residential investment property into your SMSF, no you cannot do it. You cannot transfer residential property into your SMSF from a related party. You can only transfer Business Real Property (that is commercial or industrial property) into a SMSF from a related party. You can buy new residenti...
401k compound interest vs other compound interest
Growth in a 401k dodges taxes, which means more of the gains get reinvested. Effectively, it's a boosted return rate. Like any investment, a 401k can lose value. During the period before retirement, lower stock and bond prices actually help you buy more shares than you could if prices were high, so the real question is...
Is there a good forum where I can discuss individual US stocks?
If it's an active stock, the Yahoo message boards are inhabited by some clueful people. But the signal-to-noise ratio is relatively low, and there are a lot of "interesting" characters who inhabit the boards as well.
In the UK what are citizens legally obliged to do (in order to not be fined)
Edited to add an important one that I forgot, because I don't have a TV myself. You need to: That's really about it, unless you're employing people or running a business turning over more than £81,000 per year (or doing one of a number of relatively unlikely things that require specific paperwork, such as owning a hors...
Due Diligence - Dilution?
You will have to check SEC forms to know this in full. A publicly-traded company will have an amount of publicly tradable shares which can be easily found on their financial reports. But. that is not the only type of equity-like financial instrument that such a company can issue. A previous reply mentions "follow-on" p...
Should my retirement portfolio imitate my saving portfolio?
One big pie chart. Traditional (pretax) 401(k) and IRA, Roth 401(k) and IRA, and non-tax favored accounts. All of these need to be viewed holistically, the non-favored money is where I'd keep cash/low return safe instruments, Roth IRA for highest growth.
Should I invest in the world's strongest currency instead of my home currency?
The best thing is to diversify across multiple currencies. USD and EUR seem reliable. But not 100% reliable to keep all your investments in this types of currencies. Invest part of your savings in USD, part - in EUR, and part in your home country's currency. Apart from investing I recommend you to have certain sum in c...
Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?
There are strategies based on yields. Dogs of the Dow being a specific example while Miller Howard has a few studies around dividends that may be of use if you additional material. Selling off a portion of the holding can run into problems as how could one hold 10 shares, selling a non-zero whole number every year for ...
How can the Samsung Upgrade Programme offer 0% APR?
This is more a question about economics than about personal finance. The answer, though, is straight-forward. Samsung makes enough profit on the phones that they are willing to eat the costs of a 0% loan, with the attendant risk of non-payment and the loss due to inflation. By offering financing, they expect to sell mo...
How to calculate the number of months until a loan is paid off (given principal, APR and payment amount)?
Here is the derivation of the formula, with The loan is equal to the sum of the repayments discounted to present value.
$200k in an IRA, unallocated. What's the safest investment?
The safest investment is probably a money market fund [originally I said a TIPS fund but they appear to be riskier than I had thought]. But you might not want to invest everything there because the returns are not going to be great. High returns come with high risk. The best portfolio has some percentage (which may b...
What are some sources of information on dividend schedules and amounts?
Yahoo Finance is definitely a good one, and its ultimately the source of the data that a lot of other places use (like the iOS Stocks app), because of their famous API. Another good dividend website is Dividata.com. It's a fairly simple website, free to use, which provides tons of dividend-specific info, including the...
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?
There is an economic, a social and a psychological side to the decision whether to buy insurance or not, and if yes, which one. Economically, as you say already in your question, an insurance is on average a net loss for the insured. The key word here is "average". If you know that there are many cancer cases in your...
Foolish to place orders before the market opens?
This would otherwise be a comment, but I wish to share an image. A stock I happened to own, gapped up on the open to $9.20 and slowly worked its way down to $8.19 where it closed up 6% but near its low for the day. This is an addendum to my comment above, warning about buying a stock on the open when news is coming ou...
Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now?
New tires will increase the resale value of the car; while not by the full cost of the tires, it will not be entirely a sunk cost. You'd need to factor that in and find out how much the new tires increase the resale value of the car to determine how much they would truly cost you. However, I suspect they would cost yo...
Historical company performance data
The S&P report (aka STARS report) for each company has 10 years of financial data. These reports are available free at several online brokers (like E-Trade) if you have an account with the brokerage.
Strategy for investing large amount of cash
Dollar Cost Averaging would be the likely balanced approach that I'd take. Depending on the size of the sum, I'd likely consider a minimum of 3 and at most 12 points to invest the funds to get them all working. While the sum may be large relative to my net worth, depending on overall scale and risk tolerance I could se...
How can I figure out how much to bid on a parking space?
Scenario 1: Assume that you plan to keep the parking space for the rest of your life and collect the income from the rental. You say these spaces rent for $250 per month and there are fees of $1400 per year. Are there any other costs? Like would you be responsible for the cost of repaving at some point? But assuming th...
Do people tend to spend less when using cash than credit cards?
I thought I'd see if the credit card companies had anything to say about this while trying to get merchants to sign up. I went to visa.com, clicked "Run Your Business" in the top nav, then "Accept Visa Payments". This page has a "More benefits of accepting Visa" link with an overlay (which I can't easily link directly ...
If I'm cash-flow negative, should I dollar-cost-average the money from my bonus over the entire year?
You will maximize your expected wealth by investing all the money you intend to invest, as soon as you have it available. Don't let the mythos of dollar cost averaging induce you to allocate more much money to a savings account than is optimal. If you want the positive expected return of the market, don't put your mon...
Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to “Buy Low, Sell High”?
One possibility is to lock in gains by selling, where a selling price can attempt to be optimized by initiating a trailing stop loss order. You'll have to look at the pros and cons of that kind of order to see if it is right for you. Another possibility is to begin hedging with options contracts, if that security is op...
Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment?
This question feels like an EL&U question to me, and so I will treat it as one. Investment, noun form of to invest, originally from the Latin investire, meaning to clothe, means: [T]o commit (money) in order to earn a financial return Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Invest, vb. tr., definition 1 As such, when a pers...
Why would a public company not initiate secondary stock offerings more often?
What prevents a company from doing secondary public stock offerings on regular basis? The primary goal of a company doing secondary public offering is to raise more funds, that can be utilized for funding the business. If no funding is needed [i.e. company has sufficient funds, or no expansion plans], this funding crea...
How can I invest in an index fund but screen out (remove) certain categories of socially irresponsible investments?
It would involve manual effort, but there is just a handful of exclusions, buy the fund you want, plug into a tool like Morningstar Instant X Ray, find out your $10k position includes $567.89 of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and sell short $567.89 of Lockheed Martin. Check you're in sync periodically (the fun...
What does a stock's quoted value represent?
Price for the latest transaction. If the stock is selling for $898.7 means that the stock is currently trading for $898.7, and it will be your ask price of stock if you purchase currently.
Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk?
Based on what you've said I think buying a rental is risky for you. It looks like you heard that renting a house is profitable and Zillow supported that idea. Vague advice + a website designed for selling + large amounts of money = risky at the very least. That doesn't mean that rental property is super risky it just m...
What prevents investors from buying high yield stocks and selling them as soon as their dividend is paid out?
The rest of the market knows when the dividends are paid out, and that will be reflected naturally in the share price. That's why there is no way to consistently beat the market. Because the market is other human beings, who's sum of knowledge is greater than any individual. Everything in the stock market boils down to...
Learn investing as a programmer
My master's thesis was on using genetic algorithms and candle stick method. If you are familiar, the AI was used to answer questions like "what is a long day", which is not formally defined in most candle stick texts. So in theory unlimited potential for learning including teaching machines to learn. Wall street pa...
Is there a reliable way to find, if a stock or company is heading bankruptcy?
Research the company. Obtain and read their current and past financial statements. Find and read news stories about them. Look for patterns and draw conclusions. Or diversify to the point where one company failing doesn't hurt you significantly. Or both.
Can i have NRE accounts without OCI card?
No, you do not need an OCI card to continue to have an NRE or NRO account. You are now classified as a PIO -- Person of Indian Origin -- (and you don't need to have a PIO card issued by the Government of India to prove it) and are entitled to use NRE and NRO accounts just as you were when you were a NRI (NonResident In...
What happens to my savings if my country defaults or restructures its debt?
The biggest risk you have when a country defaults on its currency is a major devaluation of the currency. Since the EURO is a fiat currency, like almost all developed nations, its "promise" comes from the expectation that its union and system will endure. The EURO is a basket of countries and as such could probably han...
(Almost) no credit unions in New York City, why?
I would have been tempted to dismiss your claim, but the data I found shows that you're correct. On the plus side, the growth rate in credit union market share is higher in New York than it is in California. While there is no question that bankers hate credit unions, I can't tell you why credit unions have a smaller ma...
As a young adult, what can I be doing with my excess income?
I also have approx. £6000 in debt Just a note: you're guaranteed to get a return on whatever debt you pay off quickly. Even if your debt is only 2%, you get a guaranteed return of 2% - which is higher than most of the savings here in the US (not sure about the UK). You mention saving for a house, which is also a good ...
What forces cause a company to write down goodwill?
To understand the answer we first have to understand what Goodwill is. Goodwill in a companies balance sheet is an intangible asset that represents the extra value because of a strong brand name, good customer relations, good employee relations and any patents or proprietary technology. An article from The Economist ex...
What to think of two at the money call options with different strike prices and premiums?
As other uses have pointed out, your example is unusual in that is does not include any time value or volatility value in the quoted premiums, the premiums you quote are only intrinsic values. For well in-the-money options, the intrinsic value will certainly be the vast majority of the premium, but not the sole compon...
Saving tax for long term stock investment capital gain by quiting my current job?
The capital gain is counted as part of your income. So with a million capital gain you will be in a high tax bracket, and have to pay the corresponding capital gains tax rate on the million.
Does bull/bear market actually make a difference?
If you know what you are doing, bear markets offer fantastic trading opportunities. I'm a futures and futures options trader, and am equally comfortable trading long or short, although I have a slight preference for the short side, in that moves are typically much quicker to the down side.
What are some good ways to control costs for groceries?
Also make a menu and make a shopping list from that. It will help you control how much you buy, and help to enforce only buying what you need. You don't need to limit your menu, but buying what you need in appropriate quantities will help. Don't forget to add snacking and desserts to your menu.
Borrowing money to buy shares for cashflow?
Buying individual/small basket of high dividend shares is exposing you to 50%+ and very fast potential downswings in capital/margin calls. There is no free lunch in returns in this respect: nothing that pays enough to help you pay your mortgage at a high rate won’t expose you to a lot of potential volatility. Main issu...
Can I pay taxes using bill pay from my on-line checking account?
I can't speak for the US, but I've completed direct tax payments via my online bank account (for business and personal) in two countries (South Africa and the UK). I find it easier and with a better record that the transaction took place than any of the other methods available (including going directly into a tax offi...
Is it wise to invest in a stock with a large Div yield?
BHP Billiton has room to answer doubters as commodities rout batters debt notes in part: There has been speculation that the company could cut its shareholder dividend, while Liberum Capital analyst Richard Knights has suggested BHP might look to raise as much as $US10 billion ($14.3 billion) in new equity capita...
How to measure a currencies valuation or devaluation in relevance to itself
It's very hard to measure the worth of an abstract concept like money, particularly over long periods of time. In the modern era we have things like the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the United States, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics literally sends "shoppers" out to find prices of things and surveys people to fin...
How can I investigate historical effect of Rebalancing on Return and Standard Deviation?
Do not reinvent the wheel! Historical data about stock market returns and standard deviations suffer from number of issues such as past-filling and mostly survivorship bias -- that the current answers do not consider at all. I suggest to read the paper "A Century of Global Stock Markets" by Philippe Jorion (UC Irvine) ...
How much does a landlord pay in taxes?
I use a spreadsheet for that. I provide house value, land value, closing/fix-up costs, mortgage rate and years, tax bracket, city tax rate, insurance cost, and rental income. Sections of the spreadsheet compute (in obvious ways) the values used for the following tables: First I look at monthly cash flow (earnings/c...
Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?
In my own case, my credit score went up drastically after I closed cards. It did go down a bit (like 10 points) in the short term. Within 6 months, however, I did see significant gains. This would include closing the American Express card that I had for like 10 years. According much of what I read, you should never...
How to rescue my money from negative interest?
You could buy Bitcoins. They are even more deflationary than Swiss Francs. But the exchange rate is currently high, and so is the risk in case of volatility. So maybe buy an AltCoin instead. See altcoin market capitalization for more information. Basically, all you'd be doing is changing SwissFrancs into Bitcoin/AltC...
Issuing bonds at discount - computing effective interest rate
Yes, the "effective" and "market" rates are interchangeable. The present value formula will help make it possible to determine the effective interest rate. Since the bond's par value, duration, and par interest rate is known, the coupon payment can be extracted. Now, knowing the price the bond sold in the market, the d...
Can I pay estimated taxes based on last year's taxes if I anticipate more income this year?
You're interpreting this correctly. Furthermore, if your total tax liability is less than $1000, you can not pay estimates at all, just pay at the tax day. See this safe harbor rule in the IRS publication 17: General rule. In most cases, you must pay estimated tax for 2016 if both of the following apply. You expec...
What happens if a purchase is $0.02 in Canada?
I think it should be free. Why? I had a coupon for 35, I bought something for 35.01 including taxes and total to pay was 0.01, rounded to 0.00. I think it's almost the same scenario.
Should I buy or lease a car given that its not a super luxury car and I only drive 15 miles/d on avg?
Leasing is not exactly a scam, but it doesn't seem to be the right product for you. The point of leasing over buying is that it turns the capital purchase of a car which needs to be depreciated for tax purposes into what is effectively a rental expense. Rent is an expense that can be deducted directly without depreci...
Why does the biotechnology industry have such a high PE ratio?
I want to elaborate on some of the general points made in the other answers, since there is a lot that is special or unique to the biotech industry. By definition, a high P/E ratio for an industry can stem from 1) high prices/demand for companies in the industry, and/or 2) low earnings in the industry. On average, the ...
Pros and Cons of Interest Only Loans
Given the current low interest rates - let's assume 4% - this might be a viable option for a lot of people. Let's also assume that your actual interest rate after figuring in tax considerations ends up at around 3%. I think I am being pretty fair with the numbers. Now every dollar that you save each month based on th...
Do you know of any online monetary systems?
This site lets people deposit gold into an account. Once you have an account setup you can pay others in gold online. I haven't used it or know of anyone who has so I cannot provide any feedback to how well it works.
Optimize return of dividends based on payout per share
The term you're looking for is yield (though it's defined the other way around from your "payout efficiency", as dividend / share price, which makes no substantive difference). You're simply saying that you want to buy high-yield shares, which is a common investment strategy. But you have to consider that often a high-...
Income Tax form in India for freelancing
ITR1 or ITR2 needs to be filed. Declare the income through freelancing in the section "income from other sources"
Is there a rule that a merchant must identify themself when making a charge
In some case the customer wants the name to be cryptic or misleading. They don't want to advertise the true nature of the business they visited. In other cases the transaction may be reported through another business. A few years ago the local PTA was having a silent auction as a fundraiser. A local business allowed th...
How can home buying be considered a sound investment with all of that interest that needs to be paid?
Since then I wanted to move out of this house because the property taxes are so high and the mortgage payment is a killer. As I understand this is a property jointly owned by your parents and you. As they are not living staying in the house, you have taken over the mortgage payments for this house along with any other ...
Should I stockpile nickels?
Probably a big fat NO. Update re this edit: NOTE: I'm not suggesting that I melt the coins. I'm just suggesting that I hold onto the nickels and sell them later when they are worth more than 5 cents. For example, you can sell coins with silver in them for far above their face value. This is silly as an investment. Rig...
How is gold shared in worldwide economies?
I think you are asking a few questions here. Why is gold chosen as money? In a free market there are five characteristics of a good money: Gold and silver meet all five characteristics. Diamonds are not easily divisible which is why they are not normally used as money. Copper, Iron, and lead are not scarce enough - y...
What intrinsic, non-monetary value does gold have as a commodity?
This was answered wonderfully in a recent Planet Money podcast: Why Gold?. Here are some higlights of gold: If listening to podcasts isn't your thing, read this summary.
What factors of a stock help determine its potential
Knowing the answer to this question is generally not as useful as it may seem. The stock's current price is the consensus of thousands of people who are looking at the many relevant factors (dividend rate, growth prospects, volatility, risk, industry, etc.) that determine its value. A stock's price is the market's va...
What are online payment options with no chargeback protection?
Generally there's no ultimate protection against charge backs. Some methods are easier to charge back and some harder, and there's always the resort of going to courts. The hardest to contest is, of course, a cash payment or wire transfer. You need to remember that imposing unnecessary/unreasonable difficulties on your...
Pros & cons in Hungary of investing retirement savings exclusively in silver? What better alternatives, given my concerns?
Because most of the posters have disparaged the pursuit of silver without a reflection upon what you wrote in the question - your concern about Hungary and its government, I'll weigh in it. In a stable and solid political and economic environment, this advice against silver would be generally correct. As you commente...
College student - I'm a 'dependent' and my parents won't apply for the Parent PLUS loan or cosign a private loan
Smart parents not wanting to get stuck with a student loan or co-signing on a loan. because rent is so high Are you able to live with your parents? Is there anyway to reduce the cost of rent like renting a room? Can you move somewhere where the rent is cheaper? working 25 hours per week Working 25 hours per week an...
How would one follow the “smart money” when people use that term?
To supplement Ben's answer: Following 'smart money' utilizes information available in a transparent marketplace to track the holdings of professionals. One way may be to learn as much as possible about fund directors and monitor the firms holdings closely via prospectus. I believe certain exchanges provide transaction...
An online casino owes me money and wants to pay with a wire transfer. Is this safe?
Someone online asking for your bank account info never has your best interests at heart. They can send you a check and while it may take a while to really clear, they can't use it to suck money out of your account. Be very cautious.
Do I have to pay tax on money I earn as a tutor?
There is a moral and legal obligation to file the earnings. Not doing so is tax fraud. You should keep a ledger or some record of your earnings, helpful guidelines here. Records are required by the CRA: According to the law, your responsibilities include: (source) You could get in trouble if one of your pupils report t...
Can expense ratios on investment options in a 401(k) plan contain part of the overall 401(k) plan fees?
I question the reliability of the information you received. Of course, it's possible the former 401(k) provider happened to charge lower expense ratios on its index funds than other available funds and lower the new provider's fees. There are many many many financial institutions and fees are not fixed between them. ...
How to plan in a budget for those less frequent but mid-range expensive buys?
Personally I solve this by saving enough liquid capital (aka checking and savings) to cover pretty much everything for six months. But this is a bad habit. A better approach is to use budget tracking software to make virtual savings accounts and place payments every paycheck into them, in step with your budget. The big...
Sell your home and invest in growth stock mutual fund
It wouldn't surprise me to see a country's return to show Inflation + 2-4%, on average. The members of this board are from all over the world, but those in a low inflation country, as the US,Canada, and Australia are right now, would be used to a long term return of 8-10%, with sub 2% inflation. In your case, the 20% ...
Why do people buy new cars they can not afford?
Two reasons: Many people make lots of financial decisions (and other kinds of decisions) without actually running any numbers to see what is best (or even possible). They just go with their gut and buy things they feel like buying, without making a thoroughgoing attempt to assess the impact on their finances. I share...
Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest
Think carefully about the added expenses. It may still make sense, but it probably won't be as cheap as you are thinking. In addition to the mortgage and property taxes, there is also insurance and building maintenance and repairs. Appliances, carpets, and roofs need to be replaced periodically. Depending on the are...
What types of careers consistently make the most money entering with no background or social skills?
It sounds like you're massively under-selling yourself. You presumably have a degree to get into the PhD program, and you now have work experience as well. But you're applying for jobs in fast food restaurants. You may struggle to get a job because they will expect you to only be there a few weeks until you find a "p...
What to do with an expensive, upside-down car loan?
You could do a voluntary repossession. While a repossession never looks good on your credit a voluntary repossession is slightly better. A good friend of mine had a situation like this about 11 years ago. She was in an accident didn't have replacement coverage insurance and was left with a large chunk of debt on a wre...
Losing Money with Norbert's Gambit
There's a possibility to lose money in exchange rate shifts, but just as much chance to gain money (Efficient Market Hypothesis and all that). If you're worried about it, you should buy a stock in Canada and short sell the US version at the same time. Then journal the Canadian stock over to the US stock exchange and us...
Discount Rate vs. IRR
The IRR is the Discount Rate r* that makes Net Present Value NPV(r*)==0. What this boils down to is two ways of making the same kind of profitability calculation. You can choose a project with NPV(10%)>0, or you can choose based on IRR>10%, and the idea is you get to the same set of projects. That's if everything is ...
Why don't banks print their own paper money / bank notes?
Are you talking about printing up more of the same kind of bill, or printing up a different kind of bill? You'll have different answers based on which one you mean. If it's a different kind of bill: Governments don't like competition in this matter. In US history there are examples of the government shutting alternati...
What ETF best tracks the price of gasoline, or else crude oil?
Do not buy any commodity tracking ETF without reading and understanding the prospectus. Some of these things get exposure to the underlying commodity via swaps or other hocus-pocus derivatives, so you're really buying credit obligations from some bank. Others are futures based, and you need to understand your potential...
Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in?
I am a tax lawyer and ALL the RESPONSES ABOVE are 1/2 Correct but also 1/2 Wrong and in tax law this means 100% WRONG (BECAUSE ANY PART INCORRECT UNDER TAX LAW will get YOU A HUGE PENALY and/or PRISON TIME by way of the IRS! So in ESSENCE ALL the above answers are WRONG! Let me enlighten you to the correct answer in 5...