Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
Most common types of financial scams an individual investor should beware of? | Pretty much any financial transaction where they start by calling you on the phone is a scam. They aren't doing it for your benefit and the caller is on commission. |
How to deal with the credit card debt from family member that has passed away? | First, if it is in any way a joint account, the debt usually goes to the surviving person. Assets in joint accounts usually have their own instructions on how to disperse the assets; for example, full joint bank accounts usually immediately go to the other name on the account and never become part of the estate. Non-cash assets will likely need to be converted to cash and a fair market valuation shown to the probate court, unless the debts can be paid without using them and they can be transferred to next of kin. If, after that, the deceased has any assets at all, there is usually (varies by state) a legally defined order in which debtor types must be paid. This is handled by probating the estate. There is a period during which you publish a death notice and then wait for debt claims and bills to arrive. Then pay as many as possible based on the priority, and inform the others the holder is deceased and the estate is empty. This sometimes needs to be approved by a judge if the assets are less than the debts. Then disperse remaining assets to next of kin. If there are no assets held by just the deceased, as you get bills you just send a certified copy of the death certificate, tell them there is no estate, then forget about them. A lawyer can really help in determining which need to be paid and to work through probate, which is not simple or cheap. But also note that you can negotiate and sometimes get them to accept less, if there are assets. When my mother died, the doctors treating her zeroed her accounts; the hospitals accepted a much reduced total, but the credit cards wanted 100%. |
How can I find data on delisted stocks? | You need a source of delisted historical data. Such data is typically only available from paid sources. According to my records, AULT (Ault Inc) began as an OTC stock in the 1980s prior it having an official NASDAQ listing. It was delisted on 27 Jan 2006. Its final traded price was $2.94. It was taken over at a price of $2.90 per share by SL Industries. Source: Symbol AULT-200601 within Premium Data US delisted stocks historical price data set available from http://www.premiumdata.net/products/premiumdata/ushistorical.php Disclosure: I am a co-owner of Norgate / Premium Data. |
What options exist to make money in the US on a work-restricted visa? | Income generated from online sales is not considered "passive income", so you need to be authorized to work in the U.S. Those without work authorization can acquire passive income (through investments, lending, competition/contest earnings, etc.) In order to sell products on eBay (the description you've given leads me to believe that this is operated as a business), you need to be authorized to work in the U.S., and register a business. See: |
How are mortgage payments decided? [duplicate] | It's so that your total mortgage payment stays the same every month. Obviously, the interest due each month decreases over time, as part of the principal is paid off each month, and so if the proportion of interest and principal repayments were to stay the same then your first payment would be very large and your last payment would be almost nothing. |
How to protect a Stock you still want to own from a downturn? | Adding on to all the fine answers, you can consider selling a covered call. You will have to own a minimum of 100 shares. It will offer a bit of protection, but limit your upside. If your confident long term, but expect a broader market pull back then a covered call might give you that small protection your looking for. |
What's the average rate of return for some of the most mainstream index funds? | When asking about rate of return it is imperative to specify the time period. Average over all time? Average over the last 10 years? I've heard a good rule of thumb is 8-10% on average for all stocks over all time. That may be overstated now given the current economic climate. You can also look up fund sheets/fact sheets for major index funds. Just Google "SPY fund sheet" or "SPY fact sheet". It will tell you the annualized % return over a few different periods. |
In what order should I save? | This is a bit of an open-ended answer as certain assumptions must be covered. Hope it helps though. My concern is that you have 1 year of university left - is there a chance that this money will be needed to fund this year of uni? And might it be needed for the period between uni and starting your first job? If the answer is 'yes' to either of these, keep any money you have as liquid as possible - ie. cash in an instant access Cash ISA. If the answer is 'no', let's move on... Are you likely to touch this money in the next 5 years? I'm thinking house & flat deposits - whether you rent or buy, cars, etc, etc. If yes, again keep it liquid in a Cash ISA but this time, perhaps look to get a slightly better interest rate by fixing for a 1 year or 2 year at a time. Something like MoneySavingExpert will show you best buy Cash ISAs. If this money is not going to be touched for more than 5 years, then things like bonds and equities come into play. Ultimately your appetite for risk determines your options. If you are uncomfortable with swings in value, then fixed-income products with fixed-term (ie. buy a bond, hold the bond, when the bond finishes, you get your money back plus the yield [interest]) may suit you better than equity-based investments. Equity-based means alot of things - stocks in just one company, an index tracker of a well-known stock market (eg. FTSE100 tracker), actively managed growth funds, passive ETFs of high-dividend stocks... And each of these has different volatility (price swings) and long-term performance - as well as different charges and risks. The only way to understand this is to learn. So that's my ultimate advice. Learn about bonds. Learn about equities. Learn about gilts, corporate bonds, bond funds, index trackers, ETFs, dividends, active v passive management. In the meantime, keep the money in a Cash ISA - where £1 stays £1 plus interest. Once you want to lock the money away into a long-term investment, then you can look at Stocks ISAs to protect the investment against taxation. You may also put just enough into a pension get the company 'match' for contributions. It's not uncommon to split your long-term saving between the two routes. Then come back and ask where to go next... but chances are you'll know yourself by then - because you self-educated. If you want an alternative to the US-based generic advice, check out my Simple Steps concept here (sspf.co.uk/seven-simple-steps) and my free posts on this framework at sspf.co.uk/blog. I also host a free weekly podcast at sspf.co.uk/podcast (also on iTunes, Miro, Mixcloud, and others...) They were designed to offer exactly that kind of guidance to the UK for free. |
How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser) | It took me a very longtime to learn that I no longer need to live like a starving student... and even now I live like a well-off student. And that's OK -- my needs and tastes are mostly simple. There's no reason to spend just for the sake of spending... but if you want something, and really can afford it after setting aside savings for retirement and emergency funds and basic operating capital, go for it. It may help to pick out a specific thing you want, or want to replace. My "rules" used to say that i was always allowed to spend money on books, music, and needed tools. Then i convinced myself that shelves are tools for storing other things. And that furniture is shelving for people. And that art, if it really speaks to me, is akin to books. And that a decent instrument is a tool. And that my time has value, so sometimes it's less expensive in real term to throw money at a problem rather than scheduling my life around it. One step at a time, with all the steps making sense. I will still spend entirely too long agonizing over minor purchases, at times -- but that's about convincing myself that I like the choice I'm making, not about the price per se. Meanwhile, saving means you can buy things later without having to borrow. The semi-student routine , and waiting until i was ready to buy,is why i had the value of a house in my investments when i was ready to buy one. And is why I'm almost at my target number for retirement well before my planned retirement date. One other thought: if you're comfortable buying gifts for others but don't tend to spend on yourself, you aren't a miser -- just frugal. |
What exactly is a “derivative”? | A derivative is a financial instrument of a special kind, the kind “whose price depends on, or is derived from, another asset”. This definition is from John Hull, Options, Futures and Other Derivatives – a book definitely worth to own if you are curious about this, you can easily find old copies for a few dollars. The first point is that a derivative is a financial instrument, like credits, or insurances, the second point is that its price depends closely from the price of something else, the mentioned asset. In most cases derivatives can be understood as financial insurances against some risk bound to the asset. In the sequel I give a small list of derivatives and highlight the assets and the risk they can be bound to. And first, let me point out that the definition is (marginally) wrong because some derivatives depend on things which are not assets, nor do they have a price, like temperature, sunlight, or even your own life in the case of mortgages. But before going in this list, let me go through the remaining points of your question. What is the basic idea and concept behind a derivative? As already noted, in most cases, a derivative can be understood as a financial insurance compensating from a risk of some sort. In a classical insurance contract, one party of the contract is an insurance company, but in the broader case of a derivative, that counterparty can be pretty anything: an insurance, a bank, a government, a large company, and most probably market makers. How is it really used, and how does this deviate from the first point? Briefly, how does is it affecting people, and how is it causing problems? An important point with derivatives is that it can be arbitrarily complicated to compute their prices. Actually what is hidden in the attempt of giving a definition for derivatives, is that they are products whose price Y is a measurable function of one or several random variables X_1, X_2, … X_n on which we can use the theory of arbitrage pricing to get hints on the actual price Y of the asset – this is what the depends on means in technical terms. In the most favorable case, we obtain an easy formula linking Y to the X_is which tells us what is the price of our financial instrument. But in practice, it can be very difficult, if at all possible, to determine a price for derivatives. This has two implications: Persons possessing sophisticated techniques to compute the price of derivatives have a strategic advantage on derivatives market, in comparison to less advanced actors on the market. Organisation owning assets they cannot price cannot compute their bilan anymore, so that they cannot know for sure their financial situation. They are somehow playing roulette. But wait, if derivatives are insurances they should help to mitigate some financial risk, which precisely means that they should help their owners to more accurately see their financial situation! How is this not a contradiction? Some persons with sophisticated techniques to compute the price of derivatives are actually selling complicated derivatives to less knowledgeable persons. For instance, many communes in France and Germany have contracted credits whose reimbursements have a fixed interest part, like in a classical credit, and a variable interest part whose rate is computed against a complicated formula involving the value of the Swiss frank at each quarter starting from the inception of the credit. (So, for a 25 years running credit of theis type, the price Y of the credit at its inception depends on 100 Xs, which are the uncertain prices for the Swiss frank each quarter of the 25 next years.) Some of these communes can be quite small, with 5.000 inhabitants, and needless to say, do not have the required expertise to analyse the risks bound to such instruments, which in that special case led the court call the credit a swindling and to cancel the credit. But what chain of events leads a 5.000 inhabitants city in France to own a credit whose reimbursements depends on the Swiss frank? After the credit crunch in 2007 and the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008, it has begun to be very hard to organise funding, which basically means to conclude credits running long in time on large amounts of money. So, the municipality needs a 25 years credit of 10.000.000 EUROS and goes to its communal bank. The communal bank has hundreds or thousands of municipalities looking for credits and needs itself a financing. So the communal bank goes to one of the five largest financial institutions in the world, which insists on selling a huge credit whose reimbursements have a variable part depending on hundred of values the Swiss frank will have in the 25 next years. Since the the big bank has better computation techniques than the small bank it makes a big profit. Since the small bank has no idea, how to compute the correct price of the credit it bought, it cuts this in pieces and sell it in the same form to the various communes it works with. If we were to attribute this kind of intentions to the largest five banks, we could ask about the possibility that they designed the credit to take advantage of the primitive evaluation methods of the small bank. We could also ask if they organised a cartel to force communal banks to buy their bermudean snowballs. And we could also ask, if they are so influent that they eventually can manipulate the Swiss frank to secure an even higher profit. But I will not go into this. To the best of my understanding, the subprime crisis is a play along the same plot, with different actors, but I know this latter subject only by what I could read in French newspapers. So much for the “How is it causing problems?” part. What is some of the terminology in relation to derivatives (and there meanings of course)? Answering this question is basically the purpose of the 7 first chapters of the book by Hull, along with deriving some important mathematical principles. And I will not copy these seven chapters here! How would someone get started dealing in derivatives (I'm playing a realistic stock market simulation, so it doesn't matter if your answer to this costs me money)? If you ask the question, I understand that you are not a professional, so that your are actually trying to become the one that has money and zero knowledge in the play I outlined above. I would recommand not doing this. That said, if you have a good mathematical background and can program well, once you are confindent with the books of Hull and Joshi, you can have fun implementing various market models and implementing trading strategies. Once you are confident with this, you can also read the articles on quantitative finance on arXiv.org. And once you are done with this, you can decide for yourself if you want to play the same market as the guys writing these articles. (And yes, even for the simplest options, they have better models than you have and will systematically outperform you in the long run, even if some random successes will give you the feeling that you do well and could do better.) (indeed, I've made it a personal goal to somehow lose every last cent of my money) You know your weapons! :) Two parties agree today on a price for one to deliver a commodity to the other at some future instant. This is a classical future contract, it can be modified in every imaginable way, usually by embedding options. For instance one party could have the option to choose between different delivery points or delivery days. Two parties write today a contract allowing the one party to buy at some future time a commodity to the the second party. The price is written today, as part of the contract. (There is the corresponding option entitling the owner to sell something.) Unlike the future contract, only one party can be obliged to do something, the other jas a right but no obligation. If you buy and option, your are buying some sort of insurance against a change of price on some asset. This is the most familiar to anybody. Credits can come in many different flavours, especially the formula to compute interests, or also embed options. Common options are early settlement options or restructuration options. While this is not completely inutitive, the credit works like an insurance. This is most easily understood from the side of the organisation lending the money, that speculates that the ratio of creanciers going bankrupt will be low enough for her to make profit, just like a fire insurance company speculates that the ratio of fire accidents will be low enough for her to make a profit. This is like a mortgage on a financial institution. Two parties agree that one will recive an upfront today and give a compensation to the second one if some third party defaults. Here this is an explicit insurance against the unfortuante event, where a creancier goes bankrupt. One finds here more or less standard options on electricity. But electricity have delicious particularities as it can practically not be stored, and fallout is also (usually) avoided. As for classical options, these are insurances against price moves. A swap is like two complementary credits on the same amount of money, so that it ends up in the two parties not actually exchanging the credit nominal and only paying interest one to the other — which makes only sense if these interests are computed with different formulas. Typical example are fixed rate vs. EURIBOR on some given maturity, which we interpret as an insurance against fluctuations of the EURIBOR, or a fixed rate vs. the exchange ratio between two currencies, which we interpret as an insurance against the two currencies decorrelating. Swaps are the richest and the most generic category of financial derivatives. The off-the-counter market features very imaginative, very customised insurance products. The most basic form is the insurance against drought, but you can image different dangers, and once you have it you can put it in options, in a swap, etc. For instance, a restaurant with a terrasse could enter in a weather insurance, paying each year a fixed amount of money and becoming in return an amount of money based on the amount of rainy day in a year. Actually, this list is virtually without limits! |
How to know precisely when a SWIFT is issued by a bank? | I think technically the MIR includes the date of issuance but not the time, see the references here. What you have there looks like a timestamp followed by the MIR. If you look at this example from IBM they also show the input time as a separate field. |
Is refinancing my auto loan just to avoid dealing with the lender that issued it a crazy idea? | they apply it to my next payment That's what my bank did with my auto loan. I got so far ahead that once I was able to skip a payment and use the money I would have sent the bank that month for something else. Still, though, I kept on paying extra, and eventually it was paid off faster than "normal". EDIT: what does your loan agreement say is supposed to happen to extra payments? |
How to calculate my real earnings from hourly temp-to-hire moving to salaried employee? | If you are a temp-to-hire, or you are asked to setup a company then you are not an employee. They expect you to fund everything from your hourly rate. This includes pay, insurance, taxes, social security, sick, vacation, holidays... The rule of thumb for an established company is 1.75 to 2.25 times the salary rate is the rate they need to charge a customer. For example: employee get paid checks for $25/hour x 80 hours x 26 times a year.: 2080 hours or $52,000 per year. Company can only bill customers for 1800 to 1900 hours of labor. They need to bill at 2 times the salary rate or $50 per hour. They will collect $90,000 (1800*50). The numbers have to be run by the particular company based on their actual costs for benefits, overhead and profits. If they were giving you $25 an hour as a contractor. They expect you to be making $12.50 an hour as an employee. |
Optimal Asset Allocation | There are a couple of reasons to diversify your assets. First, since we cannot predict which of our investments will perform best, we want to "cast our net" broadly enough to have something invested in what's going to be performing well. Second, diversification isn't intended to provide the highest returns, but rather it is used to soften the effects of market volatility. By softening the downsides and lowering the overall volatility among our assets, returns are more consistent. If a model does not address future downside risk it is only telling you part of the story. (Past performance does not guarantee... you get the picture) |
Where do I find the exercise price and date for warrants? | I agree that a random page on the internet is not always a good source, but at the same time I will use Google or Yahoo Finance to look up US/EU equities, even though those sites are not authoritative and offer zero guarantees as to the accuracy of their data. In the same vein you could try a website devoted to warrants in your market. For example, I Googled toronto stock exchange warrants and the very first link took me to a site with all the information you mentioned. The authoritative source for the information would be the listing exchange, but I've spent five minutes on the TSX website and couldn't find even a fraction of the information about that warrant that I found on the non-authoritative site. |
If I put in a limit order for the same price and size as someone else, which order goes through? | The one whose order gets to the exchange first. The exchange receives the orders and arranges them in First-In-First-Out order, by which they're then executed. At some point it is synchronized and put into a list. Whoever gets to that point first - gets the deal. |
Are founders of a company paid dividends? | Depends on if the stock pays a dividend or not. Some companies in their early years may choose to not pay dividends. Your calculations are off as the dividend stated is annual that you'd have to divide by 4 to get what the quarterly amount would be and there can be variances as Ellison's compensation package may well include options so that the number of shares he owns could fluctuate over the course of a year. |
How smart is it to really be 100% debt free? | This is a "stress" period, much like the 1930s and 1970s. At a time like this, it is smart to be debt free, and to have money saved for the likely emergencies. There are growth periods like those of the 1980s and 1990s, probably returning in the 2020s and 2030s. At such times, it makes sense to play it a little "looser" and borrow money for investments. But the first order of business in answering this question is to look around you and figure out what is going on in the world (stress or growth). |
Should I get a auto loan to diversify my credit lines if I have the cash to pay upfront | You should not seek a kind of debt just for it's appearance on your credit report. If you don't need an auto loan don't get an auto loan. Getting a credit card for the purpose of building credit is a little bit of a different animal because you can use a credit card such that you never pay any interest or fees. With a loan, you will pay interest. Altering your score by paying interest doesn't provide you with a net benefit. With that said, depending on the auto loan rate you may want to accept the loan just to fee up your capital. Some promotional rates are so low you may even make money leaving the cash in a regular savings account. But don't let your credit score wag the dog. |
I'm 23 and was given $50k. What should I do? | nan |
Privacy preferences on creditworthiness data | See the first item in the list: For our everyday business purposes – such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureaus Note that there's no option for you to limit this sharing. Credit reporting is the business need of the bank, not of the bureaus. They rely on them and others reporting it in their main business: lending. While you can limit the sharing with other banks/insurance companies/service providers so that you won't get offers from them based on the data shared by the bank, you cannot limit the credit reports themselves. |
Valuation Spreadsheet | Yes, all of that is possible with google sheets... |
Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market? | Growth is how well the investment will grow on average. In the long term, this is a sure thing. Volatility is how much the value will jerk up and down in the short term. Do you want both... Or neither? When are you going to use the money? If it's IRA money you can't touch for 30 years, it really ought to be in the market, since growth is hugely important, and volatility is not a big concern. You're in it for the very long game, and volatility will average out, leaving pure growth. If the market drops 25% in 6 months, who cares? Stocks go up, stocks go down. It has 29 years to recover, and it will. If you are planning to buy a house in 6 months, you want that money in something like a CD, because volatility could be devastating: an untimely 25% drop in stock price could really, really suck. |
Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends? | Dividends telegraph that management has a longer term focus than just the end of quarter share price. There is a committment to at least maintain (if not periodically increase) the dividend payout year over year. Management understands that cutting or pausing dividends will cause dividend investors in market to dump shares driving down the stock price. Dividends can have preferential tax treatment in some jurisdictions, either for an individual compared to capital gains or compared to the corporation paying taxes themselves. For example, REITs (real estate investment trusts) are a type of corporation that in order to not pay corporate income tax are required to pay out 95% of income as dividends each year. These are not the only type, MLP (master limited partnerships) and other "Partnership" structures will always have high dividend rates by design. Dividends provide cash flow and trade market volatility for actual cash. Not every investor needs cash flow, but for certain investors, it reduces the risks of a liquidity crisis, such as in retirement. The alternative for an investor who seeks to use the sale of shares would be to maintain a sufficient cash reserve for typical market recessions. |
What is an exercise price in regards to restricted stock awards? | It's still the purchase price or the price at which the shares are purchased or granted. This Investopedia article describes how the price is used for tax purposes: The amount that must be declared [for tax purposes] is determined by subtracting the original purchase or exercise price of the stock (which may be zero) from the fair market value of the stock as of the date that the stock becomes fully vested. Restricted stock awards are similar to stock options. The employer promises to grant the employee a certain number of shares upon the completion of the vesting schedule. The price at which the shares are purchased (or granted, if the price is zero) is the exercise price. |
Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance? | An ideal investment for a highly risk tolerant college grad with a background in software and programming, is a software company. That's because it's the kind of investment that you will be able to judge better than most other people, including yours truly. Hopefully, one day the software company for a highly risk tolerant investor will be your own.(Ask Bill Gates or even Michael Dell, although the latter was more involved in hardware.) |
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) | I'm not certain if you can get a debit card with it, but if you have a PNC in your area, they have a special kind of account designed around teaching financial literacy to children: https://www1.pnc.com/sisforsavings/tour.html . I'm not sure if you can get a debit card for the child or not, but the custodian gets one I believe, and the child gets a special online login to manage the money, so if you don't mind the name issue, it might be worth looking into. If you don't have PNC, maybe one of the banks in your area have a similar program? |
Wash sales and year end tax implications | Yes, the net effect is zero. If you own zero shares by Nov 30, for example, and don't buy any more shares by 12/31, the year is done, and nothing left to account for. |
How should my brother and I structure our real estate purchase? | Because this question seems like it will stick around, I will flesh out my comments into an actual answer. I apologize if this does not answer your question as-asked, but I believe these are the real issues at stake. For the actual questions you have asked, I have paraphrased and bolded below: Firstly, don't do a real estate transaction without talking to a lawyer at some stage [note: a real estate broker is not a lawyer]. Secondly, as with all transactions with family, get everything in writing. Feelings get hurt when someone mis-remembers a deal and wants the terms to change in the future. Being cold and calculated now, by detailing all money in and out, will save you from losing a brother in the future. "Should my brother give me money as a down payment, and I finance the remainder with the bank?" If the bank is not aware that this is what is happening, this is fraud. Calling something a 'gift' when really it's a payment for part ownership of 'your' house is fraud. There does not seem to be any debate here (though I am not a lawyer). If the bank is aware that this is what is happening, then you might be able to do this. However, it is unlikely that the bank will allow you to take out a mortgage on a house which you will not fully own. By given your brother a share in the future value in the house, the bank might not be able to foreclose on the whole house without fighting the brother on it. Therefore they would want him on the mortgage. The fact that he can't get another mortgage means (a) The banks may be unwilling to allow him to be involved at all, and (b) it becomes even more critical to not commit fraud! You are effectively tricking the bank into thinking that you have the money for a down payment, and also that your brother is not involved! Now, to the actual question at hand - which I answer only for use on other transactions that do not meet the pitfalls listed above: This is an incredibly difficult question - What happens to your relationship with your brother when the value of the house goes down, and he wants to sell, but you want to stay living there? What about when the market changes and one of you feels that you're getting a raw deal? You don't know where the housing market will go. As an investment that's maybe acceptable (because risk forms some of the basis of returns). But with you getting to live there and with him taking only the risk, that risk is maybe unfairly on him. He may not think so today while he's optimistic, but what about tomorrow if the market crashes? Whatever the terms of the agreement are, get them in writing, and preferably get them looked at by a lawyer. Consider all scenarios, like what if one of you wants to sell, does the other have the right to delay, or buy you out. Or what if one if you wants to buy the other out? etc etc etc. There are too many clauses to enumerate here, which is why you need to get a lawyer. |
Company asking for card details to refund over email | Personally, I would just dispute this one with your CC. I had a situation where a subscription I had cancelled the prior year was billed to me. I called up to have a refund issued, they couldn't find me in their system under three phone numbers and two addresses. The solution they proposed was "send us your credit card statement with the charge circled," to which I responded "there's no way in hell I'm sending you my CC statement." Then I disputed the charge with the CC bank and it was gone about two days later. I partially expect to have the same charge appear next year when they try to renew my non-existent subscription again. Now, whether or not this is a normal practice for the company, or just a call center person making a good-faith but insecure attempt to solve your problem is irrelevant. Fact of the matter is, you tried to resolve this with the merchant and the merchant asked for something that's likely outside the bounds of your CC Terms and Conditions; sending your entire number via email. Dispute it and move on. The dispute process exists for a reason. |
How can foreign investor (residing outside US) invest in US company stocks? | Instead of SSN, foreign person should get a ITIN from the IRS. Instead of W9 a foreigner should fill W8-BEN. Foreigner might also be required to file 1040NR/NR-EZ tax report, and depending on tax treaties also be liable for US taxes. |
How to determine contractor hourly rate and employee salary equivalents? | Take $100,000 base salary, x 1.5 = $150,000 contractor salary, divide by 1,872 hours = $80/hr |
Are there extra fees for a PayPal Premier account? | Summary: the fees used to differ but no longer do. Fees are the same. If you have a personal account, feel free to upgrade it to premier to get access to more features. Longer answer: the two account types USED to differ but that changed a few years ago (maybe circa 2011?). PayPal wants person-to-person payments to be free (except where they must pass along credit card charges or else they would loose their shirt) but wants to charge merchants for receiving payments. Originally PayPal required merchants to have premier (or business) accounts, and charged fees for payments made to those account types. Personal accounts had significant limitations on receiving payments, but did not pay fees upon receiving payments. Eventually PayPal decoupled the question of "is this a person-to-person payment or a payment to a merchant for goods and services?" from the paypal account type. So now the same account can receive both a p2p payment (e.g. splitting lunch costs), on which it will NOT pay fees, and can receive a payment for goods or services e.g. from a web checkout, on which it WILL pay fees. Regardless of the account type. |
Are warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club worth it? | I'm guessing it depends on how much you'd be paying for membership. If you save more than the membership costs you and you actually use the products you buy and they don't get thrown away, then it's worth it. I'm not a member of a warehouse club but I do have a membership for another wholesale outlet, so I know a little bit about buying in bulk. You need to take the same approach to buying goods wholesale as you would in an ordinary outlet, and do a few more things besides. Things like writing a list and sticking to it, making that list logically, so that you minimise the amount of time you spend walking around the shop. The less you see, the less you are likely to buy. Don't be taken in by offers, it's only a bargain if it's something you would have bought anyway. Don't shop on an empty stomach or with you children. And with bulk buying, you have to stick to things with long dates, unless your family gets through something at a phenomenal rate. Things like pet food are good, sugar too if you do a lot of home baking, that kind of thing. Toilet paper and kitchen roll are great to buy in bulk if you have the storage space and toothbrushes are good too. You'll always need them, always need to replace them, they don't take up much space and don't have a use by. The rules differ from family to family. Look at what your family uses and how much time it takes to get through something. That's the best place to start. |
Why are Rausch Coleman houses so cheap? Is it because they don't have gas? | I am a realtor and work for Rausch Coleman and can answer this question for you. We are a production builder. We build in communities with typically 5-9 Floorplan options per community and a select set of option and finishes that we offer. Because of the set options, we buy the materials in bulk and are able to receive cost savings on that from our suppliers which we can pass on to you. We use the same trades consistently through out our division which means they have our plans and process down to a science. They know the product, which means less likely to make mistakes and less likely to miss things. Our heart is affordability in that we understand that not everyone can afford granite, gas, hardwood floors, etc. so we allow you to be able to customize your monthly payment, and that you are not financing something you may not want or need or to allow you to get in to a home you may not be able to afford otherwise. We work a lot with the first time buyer and we want to provide the best quality for the best value. We start our homes at a base model and allow you to customize the way you want (adding granite, gas, hardwoods, fireplace, etc.) and in doing that we allow you to choose whether you want to pay $90 or $101 per square foot or whatever that may be. I can tell you in Northwest Arkansas we are the best value and the quality shows. I pull comps consistently and in fact have another builder in the same community as I sell in. Our homes in this community for single stories is about $88-$95 and two story homes are on average $78-$86. Two stories are more cost efficient in that the square footage goes up and not out so there is less concrete, which is one of the most expensive parts of the homebuilding process. This other builder consistently sells their homes for $101-$105 per square foot, and uses the exact same materials we do. The difference? Yes granite and hardwoods and gas and custom cabinets come standard, you have no choice in that. Would you rather have the option for a lower priced home if you didn't want granite? Or if you'd rather have carpet? We build in 5 different markets over 4 states and are in our 61st year of business. I'd love to meet with you and can walk you through a community and show you our homes (at all stages of construction) where you can see the product and quality in our homes. I am in our Dixieland Crossing community here in Northwest Arkansas. You can check out our website for other information at www.rauschcoleman.com |
Are real estate prices memory-less? | I would argue no. It's easy to correlate home prices based on size, neighborhood, school district, condition and other factors, such as property taxes. In fact, real estate people and government assessors use those characteristics to assess property value. The demographics of a home will drive desirability/demand for the property. Combine that with the cost and availability of capital, and house prices are relatively predictable. |
How would I use Google Finance to find financial data about LinkedIn & its stock? | Remember that "earned" means "earned in profit." A company like LinkedIn may not be trying to earn any profit, because they believe that they are at the stage in their development where the best thing to do with excess cash is to reinvest it in growing the business. Therefore, profit may not be the best metric at this stage in the company's life cycle. |
In double entry book-keeping, how should I record writing of a check? | I'm no accounting expert, but I've never heard of anyone using a separate account to track outstanding checks. Instead, the software I use (GnuCash) uses a "reconciled" flag on each transaction. This has 3 states: n: new transaction (the bank doesn't know about it yet), c: cleared transaction (the bank deducted the money), and y: reconciled transaction (the transaction has appeared on a bank statement). The account status line includes a Cleared balance (which should be how much is in your bank account right now), a Reconciled balance (which is how much your last bank statement said you had), and a Present balance (which is how much you'll have after your outstanding checks clear). I believe most accounting packages have a similar feature. |
Should I make additional payments on a FHA loan, or save up for a refinance? | You would have to do the specific math with your specific situation to be certain, but - generally speaking it would be smarter to use extra money to pay down the principle faster on the original loan. Your ability to refinance in the future at a more favorable rate is an unknowable uncertainty, subject to a number of conditions (only some of which you can control). But what is almost always a complete certainty is that paying off a debt is, on net, better than putting the same money into a low-yield savings account. |
Small withdrawals from IRA | First - Welcome to Money.SE. You gave a lot of detail, and it's tough to parse out the single question. Actually, you have multiple issues. $1300 is what you need to pay the tax? In the 25% bracket plus 10% penalty, you have a 65% net amount. $1300/.65 = Exactly $2000. You withdraw $2000, have them (the IRA holder) withhold $700 in federal tax, and you're done. All that said, don't do it. Nathan's answer - payment plan with IRS - is the way to go. You've shared with us a important issue. Your budget is running too tight. We have a post here, "the correct order of investing" which provides a great guideline that applies to most visitors. You are missing the part that requires a decent sized emergency fund. In your case, calling it that, may be a misnomer, as the tax bill isn't an unexpected emergency, but something that should have been foreseeable. We have had a number of posts here that advocate the paid in full house. And I always respond that the emergency fund comes first. With $70K of income, you should have $35K or so of liquidity, money readily available. Tax due in April shouldn't be causing you this grief. Please read that post I linked and others here to help you with the budgeting issue. Last - You are in an enviable position, A half million dollars, no mortgage, mid 40s. Easily doing better than most. So, please forgive the soapbox tone of the above, it was just my "see, that's what I'm talking about" moment from my tenure here. |
How does spot-futures arbitrage work in the gold market? | As proposed: Buy 100 oz of gold at $1240 spot = -$124,000 Sell 1 Aug 2014 Future for $1256 = $125,600 Profit $1,600 Alternative Risk-Free Investment: 1 year CD @ 1% would earn $1240 on $124,000 investment. Rate from ads on www.bankrate.com "Real" Profit All you are really being paid for this trade is the difference between the profit $1,600 and the opportunity for $1240 in risk free earnings. That's only $360 or around 0.3%/year. Pitfalls of trying to do this: Many retail futures brokers are set up for speculative traders and do not want to deal with customers selling contracts against delivery, or buying for delivery. If you are a trader you have to keep margin money on deposit. This can be a T-note at some brokerages, but currently T-notes pay almost 0%. If the price of gold rises and you are short a future in gold, then you need to deposit more margin money. If gold went back up to $1500/oz, that could be $24,400. If you need to borrow this money, the interest will eat into a very slim profit margin over the risk free rate. Since you can't deliver, the trades have to be reversed. Although futures trades have cheap commissions ~$5/trade, the bid/ask spread, even at 1 grid, is not so minimal. Also there is often noisy jitter in the price. The spot market in physical gold may have a higher bid/ask spread. You might be able to eliminate some of these issues by trading as a hedger or for delivery. Good luck finding a broker to let you do this... but the issue here for gold is that you'd need to trade in depository receipts for gold that is acceptable for delivery, instead of trading physical gold. To deliver physical gold it would likely have to be tested and certified, which costs money. By the time you've researched this, you'll either discover some more costs associated with it or could have spent your time making more money elsewhere. |
Do Americans really use checks that often? | It is possible to not use checks in the US. I personally use a credit card for almost everything and often have no cash in my wallet at all. I never carry checks with me. If we wanted to, we could pay all of our monthly bills without checks as well, and many people do this. 30 years ago, grocery stores didn't generally accept credit cards, so it was cash or check, though most other kinds of stores and restaurants did. Now, the only stores that I have encountered in years that do not accept credit cards are a local chicken restaurant, and the warehouse-shopping store Costco. (Costco accepts its own credit card, but not Mastercard or Visa.) Still, we do pay the majority of our monthly bills via check, and it would not be shocking to see someone paying for groceries with a check. I can't name the last time I saw someone write a check at a store exactly, but I've never seen any cashier or other patrons wonder what a check-writer was trying to do. Large transactions, like buying a car or house, would still use checks -- probably cashier's or certified checks and not personal checks, though. |
How will the after market affect the open of the market tomorrow? | In general a stock can open at absolutely any price with no regard for the closing price or after hours price the previous day. The opening price will be determined by the best bid and offer made by people who decide to trade the next day. Some of the those people may have put orders in on a prior day that are still on the books and matter, but there's a lot of time overnight for people to cancel orders and enter new ones, which is especially likely to happen if there was substantive news overnight. As for what you can do in your case, you have the same options that you always had: Sell or hold. If you're selling, you can sell after hours, in the pre-open hours, or during the trading day. There's nothing we can say about this case that's really any different than we can say about any other stock on any other day. |
How to calculate new price for bond if yield increases | I am currently trying out some variations (moving terms around ...) of the formula for the present value of money The relationship between yield and price is much simpler than that. If you pay £1015 for a bond and its current yield is 4.69%, that means you will receive in income each year: 4.69% * £1015 = £47.60 The income from the bond is defined by its coupon rate and its face value, not the market value. So that bond will continue to pay £47.60 each year, regardless of the market price. The market price will go up or down according to the market as a whole, and the credit rating of the issuer. If the issuer is likely to default, the market price goes down and the yield goes up. If similar companies start offering bonds with higher yields, the market price goes down to make the bond competitive in the market, again raising yield. So if the yield goes up to 4.87%, what is the price such that 4.87% of that price is £47.60? £47.60 / 4.87% = £977.48 Another way to think of it: if the yield goes up from 4.69% to 4.87%, then yield has increased by a factor of: 4.87% / 4.69% = 1.0384 Consequently, market price must decrease by the same factor: £1015 / 1.0384 = £977.48 |
Home owners association for houses, pro/cons | I agree with the basic purpose of an HOA. Unlike the poster above Jay, I do believe that people painting their houses purple will definitely affect the value of my house or property. I for one would not want to live next to someone who has a wild purple house, even though it is his right to do so. In saying that I know that there are very few people who would want to buy my house were it situated next to the "purple house". So in the sense of limiting known eyesores I agree with the purpose of HOA's. That being said, I do not agree with the fact that HOA's are not regulated and that its rules are formed by community members who may be very strict on what or what isn't allowed. If it were simple rules like not painting the house disturbing colors (we all know what they are) or not having junk cars or loud music after a certain time (except on holidays or special calendar days like New Years etc. |
If a mutual fund did really well last year, then statistically speaking, is it likely going to do bad this year? | From a mathematical point of view the stats do not change depending on past performance. Just because a fund is lucky one year doesn't mean that it will be unlucky the next. Consider tossing a coin, the chance of heads is 50%. If you have just thrown 3 heads, the chance of heads is still 50%. It doesn't go down. If you throw 10 heads in a row the chance of a heads is still 50%, in fact you many suspect there is something odd about the coin, if it was an unfair coin then the chance of a heads would be higher than 50%. It could be the fund is better run, but there could be other reasons, including random chance. Some funds will randomly do better and some will randomly do worse What you do know is that if they did better than average other funds have done worse, at least for last year. |
What should I do with $4,000 cash and High Interest Debt? | I like the answers others gave, if it's some substantial debt you definitely could go the bankruptcy route but it damages your future, also it's morally unethical to borrow all that money and not intend to pay. Second, if you can pay off the entire balance and clear out the 23% interest than I'd do that first. One less bill to concern yourself with. Now let's say you've been making $100 payments monthly on each card (my assumption for this examples sale) now instead of paying $100 to the remaining cards balance each month and saving the other $100, pay $200 against the remaining credit cards balance. By not taking home any money this way you are tackling the liability that is costing you money every month. Unless you have a great investment opportunity on that remaining $1000 or haven't created much of an emergency fund yet, I'd consider putting more of that money towards the debt. Gaining 0.01% on savings interest still means you're eating 25.99% in debt monthly. If you're able to I'd venture out to open a zero interest card and do a balance transfer over to that new card, there will be a minimal transfer fee but you may get some cash back out of it and also that zero interest for a year would help hold off more interest accruing while you're tackling the balance. |
Are there any dangers in publicly sharing my personal finance data? | I think it's advisable to exercise a fair amount of caution when posting information about yourself online. With the advances in data aggregation efforts, information that would have been considered sufficiently anonymized in years past might no longer be sufficient to protect you from bad actors online. For example, depending on which state, and even which county you live in, the county recorder's office may allow anyone with Internet access to freely search property records by your name. If they know approximately where you live (geolocation from the IP address that you use to post to a blog--which could be divulged if criminals compromised the blogging site) and your surname, they might be able to find your exact address if you own your home. If you have considerable wealth it could open you to targeted ransom attacks from organized criminals. |
How to rescue my money from negative interest? | The problem is that every option comes with risk - as you note, if you put money in stocks, you could lose (and many stocks are overpriced). If you put money in bonds, you could lose (many bonds are overpriced). If you buy precious metals, they could fall further currently. If you hold cash, central banks might try to ban cash (we'll hear the typical "This will never happen" from financial advisers - and they'll be wrong). Cryptocurrencies are an option, but boy do they fluctuate, so there's risk here too. Those are options and all come with risks, and here's my preferred approach to handling negative interest rates: |
Gigantic point amount on rewards card - what are potential consequences? | What would be the consequences if they do realize their error some day in the far future? You've informed them of the error and they've informed you that nevertheless the points are yours and you should use them. So you have a couple of issues: have you made what your jurisdiction considers a reasonable effort to correct the mistake, and did the customer service rep actually have the authority to make such a large goodwill gesture as letting you keep all the points? The first is your legal responsibility (otherwise you're stealing), and you need to know specifically for your jurisdiction whether a phone call is sufficient. I can't tell you that. Maybe you should send them a letter, maybe you should wait until you've had written confirmation from them, maybe you're OK as you are. You might be able to get free advice from some body that helps with consumer issues (here in the UK you could ask Citizen's Advice). The second is beyond your ability to know for sure but it's not dishonest to work on the basis that what the company's proper representative tells you, is true. With the usual caveats that I'm not qualified to give legal advice: once told you've been clearly told that it's an intentional gift, I don't see any way you could be held to have done anything fraudulent if you then go about enjoying it. The worst case "far future" problem, I would expect, is that someone decides the gift was never legitimately made in the first place. In other words the company made two separate errors, first crediting the card and then telling you the erroneous points stand. In that case you might have to pay them back whatever you've spent on the card (beyond the points you're entitled to). To avoid this you'd need to establish what constitutes a binding gift in your jurisdiction, so that you can say "no, the point balance was not erroneous and here's the legal reason why", and pay them nothing. You might also need to consider any tax implications in receiving such a large gift, and of course before paying tax on it (if that's necessary) you'd probably want to bug them for confirmation in writing that it really is yours. If that written confirmation isn't forthcoming then so be it, they've rescinded the gift and I doubt you're inclined to take them to court demanding that they stand by the words of their rep. Use them and play stupid. It's not my duty to check their math, right? That's potentially fraud or theft if you lie. You did notice, and even worse they have proof you noticed since you made the call. So never say you didn't notice. If you hadn't called them (yet), then you've been given something in error, and your jurisdiction will have an opinion on what your responsibilities are. So if you hadn't already called them, I would strongly suggest that you should call them or write to them about it to give them the opportunity to correct the error, or at least seek assurance that in your jurisdiction all errors in the customer's favour are final. Otherwise you're in the position of them accidentally handing you their wallet without realising, and you deciding to keep it without telling them. My guess is, that's unlikely to be a legally binding gift, and might legally be theft or fraud on your part. |
If I have $1000 to invest in penny stocks online, should I diversify risk and invest in many of them or should I invest in just in one? | I am voting you up because this is a legitimate question with a correct possible answer. Yes, you shouldn't buy penny stocks, yes you shouldn't speculate, yes people will be jealous that you have money to burn. Your question: how to maximize expected return. There are several definitions of return and the correct one will determine the correct answer. For your situation, $1,000 sounds like disposable income and that you have the human capital to make more income in the future with your productive years. So we will not assume you want to take this money and reinvest the remains until you are dead. This rules out #2. It sounds like you are the sole beneficiary of this fund and that your value proposition is regardless of asset class and competition to other investment opportunities. In other words, you are committed to blowing this $1,000 and would not consider instead putting the money towards paying down credit card debt or other valuable uses. This rules out #3. You are left with #1, expected value. Now there is already evidence that penny stocks are a losing proposition. In fact, some people have been successful in setting up honeypot email accounts and waiting for penny stock spam... then shorting those stocks. So to maximize expected return, invest 0% of your bankroll. But that's boring, let's ignore it. As you have correctly identified, the transaction costs are significant, $14 in tolls on crossing the bridge both ways on a $1,000 investment already exceeds the 5-year US bond rate. Diversification will affect the correlation and overall risk (Kelly Criterion) of your portfolio -- but it has no effect on your expected return. In summary, diversification has zero effect on your expected return and is not justified by the cost. |
Is it true that more than 99% of active traders cannot beat the index? | That is such a vague statement, I highly recommend disregarding it entirely, as it is impossible to know what they meant. Their goal is to convince you that index funds are the way to go, but depending on what they consider an 'active trader', they may be supporting their claim with irrelevant data Their definition of 'active trader' could mean any one or more of the following: 1) retail investor 2) day trader 3) mutual fund 4) professional investor 5) fund continuously changing its position 6) hedge fund. I will go through all of these. 1) Most retail traders lose money. There are many reasons for this. Some rely on technical strategies that are largely unproven. Some buy rumors on penny stocks in hopes of making a quick buck. Some follow scammers on twitter who sell newsletters full of bogus stock tips. Some cant get around the psychology of trading, and thus close out losing positions late and winning positions early (or never at all) [I myself use to do this!!]. I am certain 99% of retail traders cant beat the market, because most of them, to be frank, put less effort into deciding what to trade than in deciding what to have for lunch. Even though your pension funds presentation is correct with respect to retail traders, it is largely irrelevant as professionals managing your money should not fall into any of these traps. 2) I call day traders active traders, but its likely not what your pension fund was referring to. Day trading is an entirely different animal to long or medium term investing, and thus I also think the typical performance is irrelevant, as they are not going to manage your money like a day trader anyway. 3,4,5) So the important question becomes, do active funds lose 99% of the time compared to index funds. NO! No no no. According to the WSJ, actively managed funds outperformed passive funds in 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015. 2010 was basically a tie. So 5 out of 9 years. I dont have a calculator on me but I believe that is less than 99%! Whats interesting is that this false belief that index funds are always better has become so pervasive that you can see active funds have huge outflows and passive have huge inflows. It is becoming a crowded trade. I will spare you the proverb about large crowds and small doors. Also, index funds are so heavily weighted towards a handful of stocks, that you end up becoming a stockpicker anyway. The S&P is almost indistinguishable from AAPL. Earlier this year, only 6 stocks were responsible for over 100% of gains in the NASDAQ index. Dont think FB has a good long term business model, or that Gilead and AMZN are a cheap buy? Well too bad if you bought QQQ, because those 3 stocks are your workhorses now. See here 6) That graphic is for mutual funds but your pension fund may have also been including hedge funds in their 99% figure. While many dont beat their own benchmark, its less than 99%. And there are reasons for it. Many have investors that are impatient. Fortress just had to close one of its funds, whose bets may actually pay off years from now, but too many people wanted their money out. Some hedge funds also have rules, eg long only, which can really limit your performance. While important to be aware of this, that placing your money with a hedge fund may not beat a benchmark, that does not automatically mean you should go with an index fund. So when are index funds useful? When you dont want to do any thinking. When you dont want to follow market news, at all. Then they are appropriate. |
Execute or trade an options contract? | Your math shows that you bought an 'at the money' option for .35 and when the stock is $1 above the strike, your $35 (options trade as a contract for 100 shares) is now worth $100. You knew this, just spelling it out for future readers. 1 - Yes 2 - An execute/sell may not be nesesary, the ooption will have time value right until expiration, and most ofter the bid/ask will favor selling the option. You should ask the broker what the margin requirement is for an execute/sell. Keep in mind this usually cannot be done on line, if I recall, when I wanted to execute, it was a (n expensive) manual order. 3 - I think I answered in (2), but in general they are not identical, the bid/ask on options can get crazy. Just look at some thinly traded strikes and you'll see what I mean. |
Are there any other considerations for bonus sacrifice into Pension (UK) | The pension is indeed the clear winner and you haven't missed anything. It's easiest to just compare everything in current numbers as you've done and ignore investment opportunities. Given you expect to pay off your student loan in full, you should consider the repayment as a benefit for you too, so the balance is between £580 after tax and £1138 in your pension. As you say under the current tax regime you'd probably end up with £968 in your pocket from the pension. Some harder to value considerations: You might consider there's political risk associated with the pension, as laws may change over the years - but the government has so far not shown any inclination to penalise people who have already saved under one set of assumptions, so hopefully it's reasonably safe (I'm certainly taking that view with my own money!) Paying more towards your student loan or your mortgage is equivalent to investing at that interest rate (guaranteed). If you do the typical thing of investing your pension in the stock market, the investment returns are likely higher but more risky. In today's interest rate environment, you'd struggle to get a "safe" return that's anywhere near the mortgage rate. So if you're very risk averse, that would tilt the balance against the pension, but I doubt it would be enough to change the decision. Your pension might eventually hit the lifetime allowance of £1mn, after contributions and investment growth. If that's a possibility, you should think carefully about the plan for your contributions. If you do go over, the penalties are calibrated to cancel out the difference between higher-rate and basic-rate tax - i.e. cancelling out the tax benefits you outlined, but not the national insurance benefits. But if you do go over, the amount of money you'd have mean that you might also find yourself paying higher-rate tax on some of your pension income, at which point you could lose out. The lifetime allowance is really complicated, there's a Q+A about it here if you want to understand more. |
Given a certain yearly savings, how much can I spend on a capital improvement? NPV of future cash flow | The question states :- Our insurance company is offering a 30% discount on an $8200/year commercial policy, if we install sprinklers. The insurance is paid in two installments. ... This appears to mean six-monthly payments, so I'll make some comparison calculations using six-monthly loan repayments to keep things simple. Without the loan or sprinklers the insurance costs $4100 every six months. Using this loan payment formula, the calculation below shows, with the 30% discounted insurance, sprinkler maintenance and loan repayment, you would be paying $4655.28 every six months. The discount required to break even is 43.5%. I.e. rearranging the equation :- Alternatively, with the discount of 30% you would break even if the six-monthly repayment amount was $1030. Solving the payment equation for s gives an equation for the loan :- So with the 30% discount you would break even if the loan required was $25989. Checking by back-calculating the periodic payment amount, a :- Likewise we can keep the loan at $40000 and solve for t to find the break-even loan term :- (Note, in this formula Log denotes the natural logarithm.) Now we can set some values :- So with break-even payments the $40000 loan is paid off in just under 65.5 years. I.e. checking :- This just beats the $4100 cost of proceeding without the sprinklers. Notes If your loan repayment was monthly it would reduce the cost of the loan slightly. The periodic interest rate is calculated from the APR according to the method used in the EU and in some cases in US. The calculations above were run using Mathematica. |
What does the Fed do with the extra money it is printing? | Usually the FED uses newly printed money to buy US treasuries from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc.. These banks then lend out the new cash which expands the money supply. During the height of the crisis the FED printed over $1.0 Trillion and bought....well...almost anything the banks couldn't offload elsewhere. Mortgage Backed Securities, Credit Default Swaps, you name it - they bought it. Must be nice to always have a customer to sell your junk investments to. They also bought these securities at face value - not at market value. Chart from here. The FED announced in early November, 2010 that they will print another $600 billion and buy US Treasuries. They will be buying ALL the debt that will be sold by the US government for the next 8 months. This was admitted by the Dallas FED chairman in this article: For the next eight months, the nation’s central bank will be monetizing the federal debt. "Monetizing" is a fancy word for printing money. I think this was done because the US government ran out of customers for its debt. China has reduced its purchases of US debt and the Social Security Trust Fund is no longer buying US debt since it is running a deficit. |
Dispute credit card transaction with merchant or credit card company? | It's very straightforward for an honest vendor to refund the charge, and the transaction only costs him a few pennies at most. If you initiate a chargeback, the merchant is immediately charged an irreversible fee of about $20 simply as an administrative fee. He'll also have to refund the charge if it's reversed. To an honest merchant who would've happily refunded you, it's unfair and hurtful. In any case, now that he's out-of-pocket on the administrative fee, his best bet is to fight the chargeback - since he's already paid for the privilege to fight. Also, a chargeback is a "strike" against the merchant. If his chargeback rate is higher than the norm in his industry, they may raise his fees, or ban him entirely from taking Visa/MC. For a small merchant doing a small volume, a single chargeback can have an impact on his overall chargeback rate. The "threshold of proof" for a chargeback varies by patterns of fraud and the merchant's ability to recover. If you bought something readily fungible to cash - like a gift card, casino chips, concert tickets etc., forget it. Likewise if you already extracted the value (last month's Netflix bill). Credit card chargeback only withdraws a payment method. Your bill is still due and payable. The merchant is within his rights to "dun" you for payment and send you to collections or court. Most merchants don't bother, because they know it'll be a fight, an unpleasant distraction and bad for business. But they'd be within their rights. Working with the merchant to settle the matter is a final resolution. |
How to determine how much to charge your business for rent (in your house)? | In the UK it all comes down to what HMRC will allow you to charge without taxing you on the "rent profit" and not hitting capital gain tax when you sell the house, it may not all count as your "main home" if some is rented out. (http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/ is a good place to ask this type of questions in the uk) |
What are the best software tools for personal finance? | I'm a big fan of buxfer.com |
Why don't banks allow more control over credit/debit card charges? | Credit cards and debit cards make up the bulk of the transactions in the US. Visa and Mastercard take a percentage of each credit card transaction. For the most part, this fee it built into the price of what you buy. That is, you don't generally pay extra at the grocery store if you use a credit card (gasoline purchases are a notable exception here.) If you were getting something like 2% of a third of all the retail transactions in the US, you'd probably not want to rock the boat too much either. Since there is little fraud relative to the amount of money they are taking in, and it can often be detected using statistical analysis, they don't really stand to gain that much by reducing it through these methods. Sure they can reduce the losses on the insurance they provide to the credit card consumer but they risk slowing down the money machine. These companies want avoid doing something like reducing fraud by 0.5% revenues but causing purchases with the cards drop by 1%. More security will be implemented as we can see with the (slow) introduction of chip cards in the US but only at a pace that will prevent disruption of the money machine. EMV will likely cause a large drop in CC fraud at brick-and-mortar stores but won't stop it online. You will likely see some sort of system like you describe rolled out for that eventually. |
Why are U.S. credit unions not open to everyone? | Credit unions are mutually-owned (i.e. customer owned) financial institutions that provide banking services. They take deposits from their members (customers) and loan them to other members. Members vote on a board of directors who manage operations. They are considered not-for-profit, but they pay interest on deposits. They get some preferential tax treatment and regulation and their deposits are insured by a separate organization if federally accredited. State-chartered credit unions don't have to maintain deposit insurance at all. Their charters specify who can join. They can be regionally based, employer based, or based on some other group with common interests. Regulators restrict them so that they don't interfere too much with banks. Otherwise their preferential tax and regulatory treatment would leave banks uncompetitive. Other organizations with similar limits have gone on to be competitive when the limits were released. For example, there used to be an insurance company just for government employees, the Government Employees Insurance Company. You may know it better as GEICO (yes, the one with the gecko advertisements). Now they offer life and auto insurance all over. Credit unions would like looser limitations (or no limitations at all), but not enough to give up their preferential tax treatment. Banks oppose looser limitations and have as much political clout as credit unions. |
What is this type of risk-free investment called? | My Credit Union offers a market-linked CD where the investment has FDIC protection if it is held to maturity, but otherwise they are linked with the S&P 500. it comes with this warning: Market-Link CDs are not appropriate for all depositors including clients needing a guaranteed interest payment or seeking full participation in the stock market. If redeemed prior to maturity, the amount received will be subject to market risk including interest rate fluctuations an issuer credit quality. So they still do exist. Another credit union I belong to has a similar product. The risk is that if you need the money early, there may be losses. There would also not be a way to switch to a more conservative posture as the CD approached maturity, if you were interested in protecting your gains. |
How to realize capital gains before going from non-resident alien to resident alien in USA | Is this possible and will it have the intended effect? From the US tax perspective, it most definitely is and will. Is my plan not very similar to Wash Sale? Yes, except that wash sale rules apply for losses, not gains. In any case, since you're not a US tax resident, the US wash sale rules won't apply to you. |
How can an Indian citizen get exposure to global markets? | You can invest upto $200K per year abroad, and yes, you can buy Google as a stock. Consider opening an international account with a broker like interactive brokers (www.interactivebrokers.co.in) which allows you to fund the account from your local Indian account, and then on, buy shares of companies listed abroad. |
On what dates do the U.S. and Canada release their respective federal budgets? | To the best of my knowledge, there's no firm date requirement. The fiscal year for the US Federal Government starts on October 01, but if my memory serves me right, last time a budget was approved before the fiscal year started was during the Clinton administration. |
What are my best options if I don't have a lot of credit lines for housing loans? | The short answer is, with limited credit, your best bet might be an FHA loan for first time buyers. They only require 3.5% down (if I recall the number right), and you can qualify for their loan programs with a credit score as low as 580. The problem is that even if you were to add new credit lines (such as signing up for new credit cards, etc.), they still take time to have a positive effect on your credit. First, your score takes a bit of a hit with each new hard inquiry by a prospective creditor, then your score will dip slightly when a new credit account is first added. While your credit score will improve somewhat within a few months of adding new credit and you begin to show payment history on those accounts, your average age of accounts needs to be two years or older for the best effect, assuming you're making all of the payments on time. A good happy medium is to have between 7 and 10 credit lines on your credit history, and to make sure it's a mix of account types, such as store cards, installment loans, and credit cards, to show that you can handle various types of credit. Be careful not to add TOO much credit, because it affects your debt-to-income ratio, and that will have a negative effect on your ability to obtain mortgage financing. I really suggest that you look at some of the sites which offer free credit scores, because some of them provide great advice and tips on how to achieve what you're trying to do. They also offer credit score simulators, which can help you understand how your score might change if, for instance, you add new credit cards, pay off existing cards, or take on installment loans. It's well worth checking out. I hope this helps. Good luck! |
Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price | Let me get this straight. I would stand my ground. Your son negotiated in good faith. Either they messed up, or they are dishonest. Either way your son wasn't the one supposed to know all the internal rules. I don't think it matters if they cashed the check or not. I would tell them if they have cashed it, that is even more evidence the deal was finalized. But even if they they didn't cash it, it only proves they are very disorganized. If for some reason your son feels forced to redo the deal, have him start the negotiations way below the price that was agreed to. If the deal for some strange reason gets voided don't let him agree to some sort of restocking fee. |
How quickly will the funds be available when depositing credit card checks? | For those who don't know, credit card checks are blank checks that your credit card company sends you. When you fill them out and spend them, you are taking a cash advance on your credit card account. You should be aware that taking a cash advance on your credit card normally has extra fees and finance charges above what you have with regular credit card transactions. That having been said, when you take one of these to your bank and try to deposit them, it is entirely up to bank policy how long they will make you wait to use these funds. They want to be sure that it is a legitimate check and that it will be honored. If your teller doesn't know the answer to that question, you'll need to find someone at the bank who does. If you don't like the answer they give you, you'll need to find another bank. I would think that if the credit card is from Chase, and you are trying to deposit a credit card check into a Chase checking account, they should be able to do that instantly. However, bank policy doesn't always make sense. |
Can value from labor provided to oneself be taxed? | I've heard of handyman type people making a living this way untaxed. They move into a fixer-upper, fix it up while living there, stay over two years and sell. They can pocket $125k/yr tax free this way assuming they produce that much value in their fixing-up. (Beware, though, that this will bite you in low social security payments in retirement!) |
Nanny taxes and payroll service | Whether to employ a payroll service to handle the taxes (and possibly the payroll itself) is a matter that depends on how savvy you are with respect to your own taxes and with using computers in general. If you are comfortable using programs such as Excel, or Quicken, or TurboTax, or TaxAct etc, then taking care of payroll taxes on a nanny's wages all by yourself is not too hard. If you take a shoebox full of receipts and paystubs to your accountant each April to prepare your personal income tax returns and sign whatever the accountant puts in front of you as your tax return, then you do need to hire a payroll service. It will also cost you a bundle since there are no economies of scale to help you; there is only one employee to be paid. |
What exactly is a wealth management platform? | It's a tech buzzword. OK I'm being a bit glib. A Wealth Management Platform is a software system designed to help people track their investment portfolios and research new investments. Sometimes, trusts and small investment firms will use these platforms as well but they will often have more specialized separate systems for portfolio tracking and research. There is a large variety of platforms out there all trying to be the best platform for you... or someone else. Some will have websites and be open to all with money and some will be applications and only target some types of investors. Some will have robo-advising (Wealthfront), a human adviser (Merrill) or have none at all. Some will have nice graphical tools to track your portfolio or great research tools or both (I try not to recommend products on this site). Some can be designed to nudge you into their ideology (Vanguard). All, though, have a technology team behind them to make investing easier for you (or their investment advisers) or to sell you their products. You get the picture. |
Clarification on 529 fund | Yes, maybe. The 529 is pretty cool in that you can open an account for yourself, and change the beneficiary as you wish, or not. In theory, one can start a 529 for children or grandchildren yet unborn. Back to you - a 529 is not deductible on your federal return. It grows tax deferred, and tax free if used for approved education. Some states offer deductions depending on the state. There is a list of states that offer such a deduction. |
Is the best ask price the ask at the “top” of the order book? What is the “top” of the book? | The best ask is the lowest ask, and the best bid is the highest bid. If the ask was lower than the bid then they crossed, and that would be a crossed market and quickly resolved. So the bid will almost always be cheaper than the ask. A heuristic is that a bid is the revenue of the stock at any given time while the ask is the cost, so the market will only ever offer a profit to itself not to the liquidity seeker. If examining the book vertically, all orders are usually sorted descending. Since the best ask is the lowest ask, it is on the bottom of the asks, and vice versa for the best bid. The best bid & best ask will be those closest since that's the narrowest spread and price-time priority will promise that a bid that crosses the asks will hit the lowest ask, the best possible price for the bidder and vice versa for an ask that crosses the best bid. |
How do I know when I am financially stable/ready to move out on my own? | I’m going to suggest something your parents may be reluctant to say: “Grow up and get out.” A man living in a van down by the river, making minimum wage, with $0 in savings has achieved something you have still failed to achieve: adulthood. This, I believe, is more important than a man’s income or net worth. So please join us adults Bryan. I think you’ll enjoy it. Yes, your savings may take a hit but you will gain the respect that comes with being an adult. I think it is worth it. |
How risky is it to keep my emergency fund in stocks? | A major danger of keeping "emergency" funds in the form of stocks is that many of the scenarios where one would need quick access to the money will also momentarily depress the stock market. Someone whose emergency funds were in some other form could avoid selling stocks during a momentary downturn, but someone who has no other emergency funds would have no choice but to sell during the downturn (thus losing money as well as making the downturn more significant for everyone else). |
Conservative ways to save for retirement? | A 401(k) is just a container. Like real-world containers (those that are usually made out of metal), you can put (almost) anything you want in it. Signing up for your employer's match is a great thing to do. Getting into the habit of saving a significant portion of your take-home pay early in your career is even better; doing so will put you lightyears ahead of lots of people by the time you approach retirement age. Even if you love your job, that will give you options you otherwise wouldn't have. There is no real reason why you can't start out by putting your retirement money in a short-term money-market fund within that 401(k). By doing so you will only earn a pittance, probably not even enough to keep up with inflation in today's economic environment, but at this point in your (savings and investment) career, that doesn't really matter much. What really matters is getting into the habit of setting that money aside every single time you get paid and not thinking much of it. And that's a lot easier if you start out early, especially at a time when you likely have received a significant net pay increase (salaried job vs college student). I know, everyone says to get the best return you can. But if you are just starting out, and feel the need to be conservative, then don't be afraid to at least start out that way. You can always rebalance into investment classes that have the potential for higher return -- and correspondingly higher volatility -- in a few years. In the meantime, you will have built a pretty nice capital that you can move into the stock market eventually. The exact rate of return you get in the first decade matters a lot less than how much money you set aside regularly and that you keep contributing. See for example Your Investment Plan Means Nothing If You Don’t Do This by Matt Becker (no affiliation), which illustrates how it takes 14 years for saving 5% at a consistent 10% return to beat saving 10% at a consistent 0% return. So look through what's being offered in terms of low-risk investments within that 401(k). Go ahead and pick a money-market fund or a bond fund if you want to start out easy. If it gets you into the habit of saving and sticking with it, then the overall return will beat the daylights out of the return you would get from a good stock market fund if you stop contributing after a year or two. Especially (but not only) if you do pick an interest-bearing investment, do make sure to pick one that has as low fees as you can possibly find for what you want, because otherwise the fees are going to eat a lot into your potential returns, benefiting the bank or investment house rather than yourself. Just keep an open mind, and very strongly consider shifting at least some of your investments into the stock market as you grow more comfortable over the next several years. You can always keep a portion of your money in various interest-bearing investments to act as a cushion in case the market slumps. |
Ways to establish credit history for international student | I came to US as an international student several years ago, and I have also experienced the same situation like most of the international students in finding ways to build credit history. Below I list out some possible approaches you may want to consider: I. Get a student job at campus (recommended) I think the best way is to get a student job in university, say a teaching assistant or student helper. In this case, you can be provided with a social security number and start to build your own credit history. II. Get credit card You can also consider to apply for a credit card. There are indeed some financial institutions that can provide credit cards for international students with no or limited credit scores requirement, say Discover and Bank of America. However, it is relatively hard to get approved, simply because hey may put more restriction in other aspects. For example, you may be required to keep sufficient bank balance above several thousand dollars during a period of time, or you should prove that you have relatives with citizenship in US who can provide your financial aid if needed. III. Apply for a loan (recommended) Getting a loan product is another alternative to get out of this difficult situation, but most of people don’t realize that. There are some FinTech start-ups in United States that specifically focus on international students’ loan financing. One representative example is Westbon (Westbon ), an online lending company that specializes in providing car loan for international students with no SSN or credit history. I once used their loan product to finance a Honda Accord, and Westbon reported my loan transaction records to US credit bureau during my repayment process. Later when I officially got my SSN number, I found my credit history has been automatically synchronized and I don’t have to start from all over again. It never be an easy journey for international students to build credit history in United States. What approach you should make really depends on you own situation. I hope the information above can be useful and good luck for your credit journey! |
Received mysterious K-1 form, seeking answers | SXL is a Master Limited Partnership so all of the income is pass-through. Your equity purchase entitles you to a fraction of the 66% of the company that is not owned by Energy Transfer Partners. You should have been receiving the K-1s from SXL from the time that you bought the shares. Without knowing your specific situation, you will likely have to amend your returns for at most 6 years (if the omitted amount of gross income exceeds 25% of your gross income originally stated as littleadv has graciously pointed out in the comments) and include Schedule E to report the additional income (you'll also be able to deduct any depreciation, losses etc. that are passed through the entity on that form, so that will offset some of the gains). As littleadv has recommended, speak with a tax professional (CPA/EA or attorney) before you take any further steps, as everyone's situation is a bit different. This Forbes article has a nice overview of the MLP. There's a click-through to get to it, but it's not paywalled. |
How to fill the IRS Offer In Compromise with an underwater asset? | If you have both consumer debt and IRS debt, you can file Chapter 7 bankruptcy to get rid of all of it. The trick is your taxes have to be at least 3 years old from the due date in order to be considered for bankruptcy. So newer taxes, like 2010 and on, can't be discharged yet (and earlier ones may not be yet, there are rules which toll the time) You'll definitely want to talk to a bankruptcy attorney in your area who focusing on discharge in tax debts. You may be able to kill two birds with one stone. My other concern is are you current? Typically people routinely run up a new debt when trying to settle up on 9old debt. So the OIC route may be a waste of your time. Also, $6000 isn't a lot of money, so there's not a lot of room to negotiate down. It's all how you fill out the 656-OIC. I've seen way to many people not fill it out incorrectly. The IRS has a limited amount of time to collect on a debt, so if there are old taxes, you may be better off getting into CNC status, which it seems like you would qualify for and let the debt expire on your own. That may be another viable solution. Unfortunately, this is really complicated to get the best result. And good tax debt attorneys fees start at the amount of taxes you owe! So that's not really cost effective to hire one. |
If I deposit money as cash does it count as direct deposit? | Well, it's directly depositing money in your account, but Direct Deposit is something completely different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_deposit Direct deposits are most commonly made by businesses in the payment of salaries and wages and for the payment of suppliers' accounts, but the facility can be used for payments for any purpose, such as payment of bills, taxes, and other government charges. Direct deposits are most commonly made by means of electronic funds transfers effected using online, mobile, and telephone banking systems but can also be effected by the physical deposit of money into the payee's bank account. Thus, since the purpose of DD is to eliminate checks, I'd say, "no", depositing cash directly into your account does not count as the requirement for one Direct Deposit within 90 days. |
Where can I invest for the Short Term and protect against Inflation? | If you are concerned about inflation, here are a couple of "TIPS". You can buy a mutual fund or ETF which adjusts for inflation. Here is one link which you may find useful: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-smarter-mutual-fund-investor/2010/12/02/etf-basics-how-to-fight-inflation |
What are the key facts to research before buying shares of a company? | I have my "safe" money in index funds but like to dabble in individual stocks. My criteria and thought process are usually like this, let's use SBUX as an example: Understand what the company does. Also paraphrased as "buy what you know". A profitable/growing business doesn't need to be complicated. Open stores. Sell coffee. For SBUX, my decision process literally started inside a store: "Rocky, why are you standing in line to overpay for coffee? Wow, look at all these people! Hmmm. I wonder if this is a good stock to buy?" Check out their fundamentals. Are they profitable? P.E.ratio, book value, and PEG are helpful, and I tend to use them as a gauge for whether I think the stock is overpriced or not. I compare those values to others in the industry. SBUX right now has a PE of ~30, which looks about average for its peers (PEP, KKD, GMCR). So far so good. Does it pay a dividend? This isn't necessarily good or bad, just useful to know. I like dividend-paying stocks, even if it means the stock price might not grow as aggressively. Also, a company that pays a dividend is naturally confident in its ability to turn a profit and generate cash. So it's a safer pick, in my opinion. SBUX pays a dividend, a small one, but that's a plus for me. Am I willing to watch the stock? With my index funds, I buy and forget. With my stocks, I keep an eye on the situation, read the news, and have to make a buy/sell decision regularly. With SBUX, I don't watch all that closely, I just keep up with the news. IMO, it's still a buy based on all the above criteria. And I feel less silly now standing in line to overpay for coffee. |
Can I do periodic rollovers from my low-perfoming 401k to an IRA? | If the difference in performance is worth it, consider "borrowing" from your 401k to put into the Roth. You pay it back, but you can stretch it out over time, and the interest charged is actually yours, because you borrowed from yourself. But you can only borrow half of the account and you have to pay it back before you can do another loan. |
What is the rationale behind stock markets retreating due to S&P having a negative outlook on the USA? | If you spoke in front of a group of people in 2001 about the possibility of be lowered, you would be written off as a kook. Now S&P is talking about a negative credit outlook -- scary stuff. It's scary because a base assumption in any risk model is that US Treasury debt is utterly reliable and comes with zero default risk. So publicly banding about the notion that US Treasury debt may be less the AAA in two years is a shock to the system and changes the way many people assess risk. It's also scary because Treasury debt is auctioned... will a spooked market still accept a measely 2.9% return for a 7 year T-Bill? But while the prospect of a credit downgrade is truly a bad thing, you also need to take the S&P statements with a grain of salt -- since being a named a villain during the mortgage implosion (these were the guys who declared junk mortgage securities as AAA), they now err on the side of doom and gloom. So while things are bad, they've been bad since the Bush administration was forced to put Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac on the government balance sheet to stave off a bank panic. The scary stuff about default in July due to the debt ceiling debate is not very credible at all. Unless the Republican House plans on dramatically slashing spending on Medicare, Defense or Social Security and have the votes to stick to that strategy, the debt ceiling will be raised after much ado. Politicians talk tough, but have a proven track record of creating financial problems tomorrow to fix electoral problems today. |
Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth? | There are two issues. The first is that you can manage all of your family's money. The second issue arises if you now "own" all of your family's money. As far as entities go, it is best to keep money or assets in as many different hands as possible. Right now, if someone sued you and won, they could take away not only your money, but your parents' and brother's money, under your name. Also, there are gift, estate and inheritance tax consequences to your parents and brother handing all their money to you. You should have three or four separate "piles" of money, one for yourself, one for your brother and one for each of your parents, or at least both of them as a couple. If someone sued one parent, the other parent, your brother and you are protected. You can have all these piles of money under your management. That is, your parents and brother should each maintain separate brokerage accounts from yours, and then give you the authorization to trade (but not withdraw from) their accounts. This could all be at the same brokerage house, to make the reporting and other logistics relatively easy. |
Does it make sense to refinance a 30 year mortgage to 15 years? | You don't say what the time remaining on the current mortgage is, nor the expense of the refi. There are a number of traps when doing the math. Say you have 10 years left on a 6% mortgage, $200K balance. I offer you a 4% 30 year. No cost at all. A good-intentioned person would do some math as follows: Please look at this carefully. 6% vs 4%. But you're out of pocket far more on the 4% loan. ?? Which is better? The problem is that the comparison isn't apples to apples. What did I do? I took the remaining term and new rate. You see, so long as there are no prepayment penalties, this is the math to calculate the savings. Here, about $195/mo. That $195/mo is how you judge if the cost is worth it or the break-even time. $2000? Well, 10 months, then you are ahead. If you disclose the time remaining, I am happy to edit the answer to reflect your numbers, I'm just sharing the correct process for analysis. Disclosure - I recently did my last (?) refi to a 15yr fixed 3.5%. The bank let the HELOC stay. It's 2.5%, and rarely used. |
Job Offer - Explain Stock Options [US] | There are a few other items that you should be aware of when getting options: The strike price is usually determined by an independent valuation of the common shares (called a 409a valuation). This should give you a sense on what the options are worth. Obviously you are hoping that the value becomes many multiple of that. There are two kinds in the US: Non-quals (NQO) and Incentive Stock Options (ISOs). The big difference is that when you exercise Non-quals, you have to pay the tax on the difference between the "fair" market value on the shares and what you paid for them (the strike price). This is important because if the company is private, you likely can not sell any shares until it is public. With ISOs, you don't pay any tax (except AMT tax) on the gain until you actually sell the shares. You should know what kind your getting. Some plans allow for early exercise, essentially allowing you to buy the shares early (and given back if you leave before they vest) which helps you establish capital gains treatment earlier as well as avoid AMT if you have ISOs. This is really complicated direction and you would want to talk to a tax professional. And always a good idea to know how many total shares outstanding in the Company. Very few people ask this question but it is helpful for you to understand the overall value of the options. |
Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority? | It is one thing to take the advice of some numb-skulls on a web site, it is another thing to take the advice of someone who is really wealthy. For myself, I enjoy a very low interest rate (less than 3%) and am aggressively paying down my mortgage. One night I was contemplating slowing that down, and even the possibility of borrowing more to purchase another rental property. I went to bed and picked up Kevin O'Leary's book(Cold Hard Truth On Men, Women, and Money: 50 Common Money Mistakes and How to Fix Them), which I happened to be reading at the time. The first line I read, went something like: The best investment anyone can make is to pay off their mortgage early. He then did some math with the assumption that the person was making a 3% mortgage payment. Any conflicting advice has to be weighted against what Mr. O'Leary has accomplished in his life. Mark Cuban also has a similar view on debt. From what I heard, 70% of the Forbes richest list would claim that getting out of debt is a critical step to wealth building. My plan is to do that, pay off my home in about 33 (September '16) more weeks and see where I can go from there. |
If I helped my friend to file taxes; can I represent her on a phone call with FTB? | In order for you to be able to talk to the FTB on someone's behalf, that someone has to submit form 3520. Note that since you're not a professional, this form must be paper-filed (CRTP, EA, CPA or attorneys can have this filed on-line). Once the form is accepted by the FTB, you can contact the FTB on behalf of your friend. Pay attention: you're going to represent the partnership, not the individual. |
Should a high-school student invest their (relative meager) savings? | If you have no immediate need for the money you can apply the Rule of 72 to that money. Ask your parent's financial advisor to invest the money. Based on the rate of return your money will double like clockwork. At 8% interest your money will double every 9 years. 45 years from now that initial investment will have doubled 5 times. That adds up pretty fast. Time is your best friend when investing at your age. Odds are you'll want to be saving for a college education though. Graduating debt free is by far the best plan. |
Is it irresponsible for me to lease a $300/month car for 18 months? | With a gross income of $ 95,000 per year, and a net savings rate of over $ 18,000 per year, a budget of $ 3,600 per year for automobile interest and depreciation is not irresponsible. But poor car choices, poor car maintenance habits, and driving habits that risk totalling cars are irresponsible. Also, not fully understanding a lease deal is irresponsible. The "great lease deal" might be encouraging you to make a different "poor car choice" than you made last time. A "great deal" on a bad car is not really a great deal. Also, depending on the contract and your driving habits, you might have a surprising cost at the end of the lease. |
Potential phishing scam? | Call your bank and inquire if they send out the kinds of notices like the one you received. Don't call the number in the message, because if it is a scam, you're calling the scammers themselves, more than likely. Be very cautious about this situation, and if your bank is local then it might not hurt to pay a visit to a local branch to talk to someone in person. Print out the message(s) you receive to show them and let their fraud division look into it. |
Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value? | +1 They are over priced to begin with - More specifically they are expensive to create exclusivity, which raises their value to people who value that kind of thing. Perhaps folks who buy those cars aren't buying them for value or quality or performance, but are buying them for the badge and the intangible factors. I frequently hear about rich people who earned their millions driving around in cars Consumer Reports rank highly, so it isn't because they are so much better than a mid priced car. A car for $140,000 is either equipped for the A-Team or is a status symbol. The status symbol notion is very expensive, but fades very quickly, hence the mighty depreciation. |
Tax on insurance payment due to car deemed as total loss? | Generally you do not pay taxes on insurance payouts that occur because of some kind of loss, provided you paid the premiums yourself. "Generally, if you're paying premiums yourself, such as for homeowners insurance and auto insurance, then your insurance benefits are not a taxable event," says Adam Sherman, CEO of Firstrust Financial Resources in Philadelphia. "Your benefits are reimbursement for expenses, rather than income." It's not as straightforward for death benefits and life insurance. |
Multi-state K-1 earnings to S-Corp | I'm not sure why you think that it matters that the distribution goes to an S-Corp vs an individual tax payer. You seem to think it has any relevance to your question, but it doesn't. It only confuses your readers. The situation is like this: LLC X is deriving income in State #2. It has two members (I and S) residents of State #1. Members I and S pay all their taxes to State #1, and don't pay taxes to State #2. State #2 audited member I and that member now needs to pay back taxes and penalties to State #2 on income derived from that State. Your question: Does that mean that member S should be worried, since that member was essentially doing the exact same thing as member I? My answer: Yes. |
How profitable is selling your customer base? | There are business that exist by harvesting leads and selling them to other companies. These leads can be access to resumes they sell to business looking for employees; they can be eyeballs that view their adds; they can be list of people that meet a specific credit profile. All are legitimate business and many are growing businesses. But in all these cases they are upfront with the things they are doing. They all have escape mechanisms for you to either stop them from selling your info to other customers, or to restrict the ability of those customers to contact you. There are also companies that are less honest with their collecting and selling of information. They are not honest about what they are collecting, and they have no care about how others use it. There are also cases where when a company buys another company, and one main item in the transaction is the current and potential list of customers. Business with a legitimate product to sell, protect that customer list, that is the keys to the kingdom. They are the likely people who will buy the next version; they are also the ones that their competitors would love to target to convert them to another product. In some businesses, the company that develops the platform will sell to developers of add ons access to the marketplace. They may charge a flat fee for access, or charge a percentage of sales, or both. What you can do, and how you are allowed to do it, and what mechanisms are in place to protect people, are dependent on the country you operate in. |
I am Brasilian resident, how to buy shares on NYSE? | There are ETFs listed on the Brazilian stock market. Specifically there is one for S&P500 - SPXI11, which might fulfill your requirements, though as one commenter has observed, it doesn't answer your original question. |
I'm 23 and was given $50k. What should I do? | If your employer is matching 50 cents on the dollar then your 401(k) is a better place to put your money than paying off credit cards This. Assuming you can also get the credit cards paid off reasonably soon too (say, by next year). Otherwise, you have to look at how long before you can withdraw that money, to see if the compounded credit card debt isn't growing faster than your retirement. But a guaranteed 50% gain, your first year is a pretty hard deal to beat. And if you currently have no savings, unless all of your surplus income has been reducing your debt, you're living beyond your means. You should be earning more than you're (going to be) spending, when you start paying rent/car bills. If you don't know what this is going to be, you need to be budgeting. Get this under control, by any means necessary. New job/career? Change priorities/expectations? Cut expenses? Live to your budget? Whatever it takes. I don't think you should be in any investment that includes bonds until you're 40, and maybe not even then - equities and cash-equivalents all the way (cash is for emergency funds, and for waiting for buying opportunities). Otherwise Michael has some good ideas. I would caveat that I think you should not buy any investments in one chunk, but dollar average it over some period of time, in case the market is unnaturally high right when you decide to invest. You should also gauge possible returns and potential tax liabilities. Debt is good to get rid of, unless it is good debt (very low interest rates - ie: lower than you could borrow the money for). Good debt should still get paid off - who knows how long your job could last for - but maybe not dump all of your $50K on it. Roth is amazing. You should be maxing that contribution out every year. |
What can cause rent prices to fall? | The buy-to-rent investment bubble created (in some markets) a large number of new housing starts often exceeding the available demand. Since people were investing in the capital gain, they didn't mind whether a place was rented or not. Many places stood empty at the prices investors wished to charge. In the UK where building restrictions are so dire that few new houses can be built, new house production is less than market demand which keeps up rental prices. There just isn't any stock. In the US, where construction is more liberal, rental prices can fall as new stock enters the market. A driver will be where the sales market dries up and owners must rent to cover at least some of their mortgage losses. Or, as Joel points out, if a major employer which dominates a small town, leaves. Many old industrial towns feature both low rentals and plenty of empty, low-priced property. Liverpool, in the UK, features entire empty neighbourhoods all boarded up. If you're looking to track metrics on this simply look at migration patterns. Where large numbers of people are moving "towards" prices (and rentals) will rise. Where people are moving "away" all prices fall. |
Is IRS Form 8938 asking me to double-count foreign assets? | The requirement is to report the highest balance on the account, it has nothing to do with your income. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.