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How can I compare the risk of different investing opportunities?
First of all, setting some basics: What is a sound way to measure the risk of each investment in order to compare them with each other ? There is no single way that can be used across all asset classes / risks. Generally speaking, you want to perform both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of risks that you iden...
Are credit cards not viewed as credit until you miss one payment?
Of course credit cards are viewed as credit. If you're using money on a credit card, you are not directly paying for your transactions on goods/services immediately: this is the act of borrowing credit to pay for them. Debit cards, on the other hand, work where the funds are taken from an account immediately (or subjec...
Could someone please provide an example of a portfolio similiar to the GFP or Couch potato, but for Australia?
The portfolio described in that post has a blend of small slices of Vanguard sector funds, such as Vanguard Pacific Stock Index (VPACX). And the theory is that rebalancing across them will give you a good risk-return tradeoff. (Caveat: I haven't read the book, only the post you link to.) Similar ETFs are available fr...
Why are there hidden bids and offers in the US stock market for the more illiquid stocks?
Certain brokers allow for hidden orders to be placed in the market. It is as simple as that. Refer to Interactive Brokers as one example. If you press on the " i " next to "Hidden" you will get the following description. Some brokers may represent the hidden orders by an * next to the price level. Sometimes large orde...
Account that is debited and account that is credited
The terms debit and credit come from double-entry book-keeping. In this system, every transaction is applied against two accounts: it debits one and credits the other by equal amounts. (Or more technically, it affects two or more accounts, and the total of the credits equals the total of the debits.) Whether a debit or...
What does it mean to be “offset against taxable gains”?
Offset against taxable gains means that the amount - $25 million in this case - can be used to reduce another sum that the company would otherwise have to pay tax on. Suppose the company had made a profit of $100 million on some other investments. At some point, they are likely to have to pay corporation tax on that am...
Can a US bank prevent you from making early payments to the principal on a home mortgage?
Some lenders want to discourage the borrower from making these additional payments because they want to sell this as a service. They might set this up for you, or they have a contract with a 3rd party to set it up. These services generally charge you to initiate the process, and may have a recurring fee. They take 1/2 ...
Does the sale of personal items need to be declared as income on my income taxes?
I doubt it. In the States you would only owe tax if you sold such an item at a profit. "garage sales" aren't taxable as they are nearly always common household items and sale is more about clearing out one's attic/garage than about profit. Keep in mind, if I pay for a book, and immediately sell it for the same price, ...
How can I calculate total return of stock with partial sale?
If you just want to know total return, either as dollars or a percentage, just add up the total amount spent on buys and compare this to current value plus money received on sales. In this case, you spent (310 x $3.15 + $19.95) + (277 x $3.54 + $19.95). So your total investment is ... calculator please ... $1996.98. Yo...
New vending route business, not sure how to determine taxes
You're not paying taxes three times but you are paying three different taxes (or more). Sales tax is a business expense, just like costs of goods sold or interest on a loan. Then, depending on how you structure the business, the net income of the business just hits you personally and you pay income taxes. You can wor...
Where to borrow money between college graduation and employment?
You have a few options, none of which are trade off free: Apply for a credit card, and live off of that. Here, of course, you will go into debt, and there are minimums to pay. But, it will tide you over. In any case, you are getting unsecured credit, so your rates will probably be very, very high. You don't want t...
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 depo...
How do auto-loan payments factor into taxes for cars that are solely used by dependent(s)?
It only matters for purposes of the dependent, so if you are clearly at 50%, then you don't need to calculate this cost. If it is close to not being 50%, then you will have to allocate between your sister and mother. To calculate support costs, you can of course include the costs incurred for transportation, per Pub ...
Ideas for patenting/selling a trading strategy
If you have a great technical trading system that gets you winning trading 80-85% of the time in backtesting, the question should be why are you not trading it? To get a better idea of how good your trading system is you should work out your expectancy per trade. This will tell you how much you should make on average f...
Bi-weekly payment option
One point that I don't see covered in the other answers yet: How does this affect the months that have 5 weeks. Do we actually lose two weeks a year? I get paid every two weeks, and pay day is always a Friday. Some months, I get paid 3 times - which is always great. If you live within your means, it's like an extra p...
How much would it cost me to buy one gold futures contract on Comex?
When you buy a futures contract you are entering into an agreement to buy gold, in the future (usually a 3 month settlement date). this is not an OPTION, but a contract, so each party is taking risk, the seller that the price will rise, the buyer that the price will fall. Unlike an option which you can simply choose ...
How should I record invoices in foreign currency in GNUCash?
It depends upon in how many currencies your business is denominated. If your business is solely dependent upon this one payer, it's best to start up a new set of books in USD. All accounts should be translated from CAD from a date preceding the USD activity. The CAD books should be closed, and all should be done with...
Buying puts without owning underlying
In the money puts and calls are subject to automatic execution at expiration. Each broker has its own rules and process for this. For example, I am long a put. The strike is $100. The stock trades at the close, that final friday for $90. I am out to lunch that day. Figuratively, of course. I wake up Saturday and am sh...
Biggest stock price gain vs. biggest mkt cap gain
When you look at those results you'll see that it lists the actual market cap for the stocks. The ones on the biggest price move are usually close the the $1B capitalization cut-off that they use. (The don't report anything with less than $1B in capitalization on these lists.) The ones on the biggest market cap are m...
Merchant dispute with airline over changed itinerary
Are you on Twitter? If so, the first thing I'd do is tweet this question to @Orbitz and/or @AmericanAir (AA). I'll edit it to be a bit nicer english-wise. Tweeting (or Facebooking or Instgramming or ...) is one of the most effective ways to get customer service in 'edge' cases. Explain your case in a nice, tight narr...
How is my employer affected if I have expensive claims on my group health insurance?
Your employers insurance premiums will definitely go up if there are a lot of claims when it is time for them to renew their policy. It is also possible that if this happens the employer will pass along some of the additional cost to employees. The insurance company will not try to have you removed, it doesn't work tha...
What are the common income tax deductions used by “rich” salaried households?
One of the main tax loopholes more readily available to the wealthy in the U.S. is the fact that long-term capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate. Certainly, people making less than $250,000/year can take advantage of this as well, but the fact is that people making, say, $60,000/year likely have a much smaller p...
Advice on strategy for when to sell
Consider trailing stop losses maybe 5% below your profit target, if you want a simplistic answer.
Other ETFs of world bonds and stocks (Alternatives to VT and BND)?
Here is another choice I like, iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond (EMB) Here is the world ETFs
Where should I park my rainy-day / emergency fund?
I would suggest your local credit union or local bank for security and liquidity. Liquidity is probably the most important issue for a emergency fund.
How much does it cost to build a subdivision of houses on a large plot of land?
Let's think like a real estate developer. First you need to check with the zoning commission the restrictions for the area. Let's say that the plot is actually suitable for 10 homes. You buy the land. You also need to finance the build itself. If you don't have enough cash you need to acquire financing from banks and p...
Will an ETF increase in price if an underlying stock increases in price
The ETF supply management policy is arcane. ETFs are not allowed to directly arbitrage their holdings against the market. Other firms must handle redemptions & deposits. This makes ETFs slightly costlier than the assets held. For ETFs with liquid holdings, its price will rarely vary relative to the holdings, slippag...
Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate]
Remember that shares represent votes at the shareholders' meeting. If share price drops too far below the value of that percentage of the company, the company gets bought out and taken over. This tends to set a minimum share price derived from the company's current value. The share price may rise above that baseline if...
What is the best asset allocation for a retirement portfolio, and why?
You're right, the asset allocation is one fundamental thing you want to get right in your portfolio. I agree 110%. If you really want to understand asset allocation, I suggest any and all of the following three books, all by the same author, William J. Bernstein. They are excellent – and yes I've read each. From a t...
Why are Rausch Coleman houses so cheap? Is it because they don't have gas?
In northwest Arkansas, most of the houses this company offers do cost about 90 - 110 dollars per square foot. The exceptions use the Whitney plan, which has the following design features (and/or problems) which happen to save the builder a lot of money: One very nice feature is the U-shaped stairway in the center of t...
401K or Indian CD
As mentioned in the comments, the problem stems with converting your U.S. Dollars to Indian Rupees so as to be able to purchase an Indian fixed deposit. At the time of writing this, 1 U.S. Dollar = 64 Indian Rupees. Consider the following economic factors: Both of the above factors are not definitive but are worth cons...
How do I establish the cost basis of shares bought in an employee stock purchase program?
A public company should have a link for investor relations, which should help provide a trail of basis if this is a matter of company buyout, takeover, etc. This gets you close, but if you don't have an exact date, it will just be close, not exact. One clean way out of this, assuming the goal is to get rid of the sto...
Tools for comparing costs between different healthcare providers?
When I had a high-deductible healthcare plan, I used http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ to do comparisons among the plans. As far as comparing the costs of specific procedures across providers, I'm not aware of any good ways either.
Social Trading Platforms Basically Front Running?
I don't think you can really classify it as front running. Technically, the only information, that the alleged front runner in this case has over the followers is the knowledge of the trade itself. Knowledge of the trade may indeed be share price sensitive information (for some high volume traders or those respected an...
On paper I have 1 share in my company. How can I sell a smaller percentage of my company to another party?
Simple: Do a stock split. Each 1 Ordinary share now = 100 Ordinary shares (or 100,000 or whatever you choose). Then sell 20 (or 20,000) of them to your third party. (Stock splits are fairly routine occurrence. Apple for example has done several, most recently in 2014 when 1 share = 7 shares). Alternatively you could go...
Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve?
Let's just focus on the "why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients part" and forget the central bank for a moment. I'm a guy. I have a wife and two kids. They have this pesky habit of wanting to buy stuff. When I get paid, I could just get a check, cash it, stuff it under a mattress, and pull it out...
In the USA, does the income tax rate on my wages increase with the amount of money in my bank account?
I know that if you make more, you pay more, but do those who have more, not make more, pay higher income tax? In general, no. In most locales, income tax is based on income, not on wealth. I am retired. I have little income but a fair amount of wealth. I play very little income tax. (But I do pay other kinds of taxes...
Why do dishonour fees exist?
In the United States, many banks aim to receive $ 100 per year per account in fees and interest markup. There are several ways that they can do this on a checking account. These examples assume that there is a 3 % difference between low-interest-rate deposit accounts and low-interest rate loans. Or some combination o...
How does the yield on my investments stack up against other investors?
It can be pretty hard to compute the right number. What you need to know for your actual return is called the dollar-weighted return. This is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rate_of_return computed for your actual cash flows. So if you add $100 per month or whatever, that has to ...
What are some ways to mitigate the risks of covered calls?
If the position starts losing money as soon as it is put on, then I would close it out ,taking a small loss. However, if it starts making money,as in the stock inches higher, then you can use part of the premium collected to buy an out of money put, thereby limiting your downside. It is called a collar.
Is dividend taxation priced in derivatives?
No. Black Scholes includes a number of variables to calculate the value of the derivative but taxation isn't one of them. Whether you are trading options or futures, the dividend itelf may be part of the equation, but not the tax on said dividend.
Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments by Selling Originally Bought Shares
The market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent -John Maynard Keynes The stocks could stagnate and trade in a thin range, or decline in value. You assume that your stocks will offer you ANY positive return for every month over 24 months. Just one month of negative returns puts you underwater. Thats wh...
Employer 401K thru Fidelity - Investment options
The target date investment will automatically reduce equity exposure and increase bond exposure as it approaches retirement date. If you are unlikely to make adjustments as you get older, you may be setting yourself up for more risk down the road. Only you can decide what level of risk you can tolerate as you chase h...
Can I write off time spent learning my trade - Two-Man S-Corp
I'm not sure what you mean by "writing off your time," but to answer your questions: Remember that, essentially, you are a salaried employee of a corporation. So if you are spending time at your job, even if you are not billing anything to a client, you are earning your salary. If there are costs involved with these a...
How are dividends for shareholders of banks paid?
A typical manufacturer buys raw materials, produces a product using labor and energy at a specific cost with some waste, and then sells the product to produce income. A bank buys raw materials (deposits) by paying interest, then uses labor and energy to turn a portion of the raw materials into their product (loans), th...
Buy securities at another stock exchange
Different exchanges sometimes offer different order types, and of course have different trading fees. But once a trade is finished, it should not matter where it was executed.
Can you explain “time value of money” and “compound interest” and provide examples of each?
The fundamental concept of the time value of money is that money now is worth more than the same amount of money later, because of what you can do with money between now and later. If I gave you a choice between $1000 right now and $1000 in six months, if you had any sense whatsoever you would ask for the money now. Th...
Where to park money while saving for a car
Bond aren't necessarily any safer than the stock market. Ultimately, there is no such thing as a low risk mutual fund. You want something that will allow you get at your money relatively quickly. In other words, CDs (since you you can pick a definite time period for your money to be tied up), money market account or j...
Historical share price at exact day and time
On 2012/05/18 at 15:34:00 UTC (11:34:00 EDT) FB was in chaos mode. The most recent public US trade at that moment was at $40.94, but in the next one second (i.e. before the clock hit 15:34:01) there were several dozen trades as low as $40.76 and as high as $41.00. On 2012/05/30 at 17:21:00 UTC (13:21:00 EDT) the most ...
What does it mean when my Money Market account lists both a dividend share and an APY?
In a money market fund, one share is worth $1. For your fund, you'll earn $0.0010 a year per share, or 0.10%. That is all that you will earn. The APY is just another number to represent this interest rate, not a separate income stream. If you were expecting extra money from a separately credited dividend, you were mis...
Is business the only way to become a millionaire?
That's actually a pretty good way to get bankrupt quick. You can get rich quick through lottery, gambling, mere saving or investing wisely, or marrying someone from the Kennedy or Bush clans. Starting a business is one of the ways to become a millionaire, but definitely not the only one.
Is short selling a good hedging strategy during overzealous market conditions?
Short selling can be a good strategy to hedge, but you have almost unlimited downside. If a stock price skyrockets, you may be forced to cover your short by the brokerage before you want to or put up more capital. A smarter strategy to hedge, that limits your potential downside is to buy puts if you think the market i...
Should I pay half a large balance this month before I get my CC statement?
Utilization is near real-time. What that means is that what is reported is what is taken in terms of debt-to-income (DTI) ratios. When a mortgage broker pulls your credit, they will pull the latest balances with the minimum payments. This is what is taken to determine DTI along with your gross monthly income. If you do...
Market Making vs Market Taking (Quotes vs Orders)
Quote driven markets are the predecessors to the modern securities market. Before electronic trading and HFTs specifically, trading was thin and onerous. Today, the average investor can open up a web page, type in a security, and buy at the narrowest spread permitted by regulators with anyone else who wants to take th...
At what point do index funds become unreliable?
The argument you are making here is similar to the problem I have with the stronger forms of the efficient market hypothesis. That is if the market already has incorporated all of the information about the correct prices, then there's no reason to question any prices and then the prices never change. However, the mec...
How can I compare the risk of different investing opportunities?
Let us consider the risks in the investment opportunities: Now, what are the returns in each of the investment: What are the alternatives to these investments, then?
I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?
Looks like you don't want to participate in the consumerist rush but feel that you just have to do that too. First of all, you don't have to do what you don't want. Then there're researches showing that joy from a compulsive purchase only lasts for a short period of time and then you are left with a relatively useless ...
Roth vs. Whole Insurance vs. Cash
Advantage of cash: You can spend the money without having to pay any fees or taxes to get it out. Disadvantage: When inflation is greater than zero, which it has been for many decades, your cash is continually losing value. Advantages of an IRA (Roth or classic): Your money will usually grow as the investments return a...
What kind of trade is this?
The question mentions a trailing stop. A trailing stop is a type of stop loss order. It allows you to protect your profit on the stock, while "keeping you in the stock". A trailing stop is specified as a percentage of market price e.g. you might want to set a trailing stop at 5%, or 10% below the market price. A traili...
Should I buy stocks of my current employer because of its high dividend yield?
Dividend yields are a product of the dollar amount paid to shareholders and the stock price. Dividends yields rise when a company is shunned by investors. It may be shunned because the earnings and/or dividend are at risk. Recent examples are SDRL and KMI. Most investors would love an 8% yield so I would wonder why th...
Why are American Express cards are not as popular as Visa or MasterCard?
My experience is in the United States only. In the past, American Express marketed its products as more exclusive and prestigious than other cards. There was an attempt to give the impression that cardholders were more qualified financially. In return, fees were higher both to merchants and to cardholders. At the ti...
Are variable rate loans ever a good idea?
The earlier you are in your career, the more willing you should be to take a better opportunity even if it has a short-term financial cost. You go to college even if McDonald's has an opening. After college you may take an entry level job with better long-term prospects even if a higher paying job is available. You ...
Explanations on credit cards in Canada
I think it's worth pointing out explicitly that the biggest difference between a credit card (US/Canada) and a debit card (like your French carte de crédit) is that with a credit card, it's entirely possible to not pay the bill or to pay only the "minimum payment" when asked. This results in you owing significantly mor...
Advantage of credit union or local community bank over larger nationwide banks such as BOA, Chase, etc.?
Fees mostly. BOA, for example, just announced $5/month for for all debit cards. Chase has foreign transaction fees, mostly hidden. BOA once famously raised interest rates on credit card holders to 28%, legally. Also, some people do not like patronizing a bank with CEOs that bankrupt the company and then get multi-mi...
Where do I invest my Roth IRA besides stock market and mutual funds?
Nowhere. To back up a bit, mutual funds are the stock market (and the bond market). That is, when you invest in a mutual fund, your money is ultimately buying stocks on the open market. Some of it might be buying bonds. The exact mix of stocks and bonds depends on the mutual fund. But a mutual fund is just a basket of ...
Recourse with Credit Card company after victimized by fraud?
Concealing parts of a document in order to obtain a signature is illegal. The company committed signature forgery because they effectively modified the document after you signed it (i.e. unfolded the parts that were previously folded). I suggest that you go to your local police department to file a report, citing "sign...
What types of careers consistently make the most money entering with no background or social skills?
It sounds like you're massively under-selling yourself. You presumably have a degree to get into the PhD program, and you now have work experience as well. But you're applying for jobs in fast food restaurants. You may struggle to get a job because they will expect you to only be there a few weeks until you find a "p...
Can increasing my tax withholding from my full-time job cover FICA taxes for my freelance work?
Technically you owe 'self-employment' taxes not FICA taxes because they are imposed under a different law, SECA. However, since SE taxes are by design exactly the same rates as combining the two halves of FICA (employer and employee) it is quite reasonable to treat them as equivalent. SE taxes (and income tax also) are...
Pros and Cons of Interest Only Loans
Pros: Cons: Before the housing bubble the conventional wisdom was to buy as much home as you could afford, thereby borrowing as much you can afford. Because variable rates lead to lower mortgages, they were preferred by many as you could buy more house. This of course lead to many people losing their home and many t...
The U.S. National Debt: What is it, where did it come from, and how does it work?
nan
Loan holder wants a check from the insurance company that I already cashed and used to repair my car
There are at least three financial institutions involved here: your insurance company's bank, the money center, and your bank. Normally, they would keep records, but given that the money center didn't even ask for your signature, "normal" probably doesn't apply to them. Still, you can still ask them what records they h...
Why not just invest in the market?
Index funds do leech a "free ride" on the coattails of active traders. Consider what would happen if literally everyone bought index funds. For a company there would be no motivation to excel. Get listed; all the index funds are forced to buy your stock; now sit on your derriere playing Freecell, or otherwise scam/lo...
Can I pay taxes using bill pay from my on-line checking account?
And if you need to pay business taxes outside of the regular US 1040 form, you can use the IRS' Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). Basically, you enroll your bank accounts, and you can make estimated, penalty, etc. payments. The site can be found here.
What can I do with “stale” checks? Can I deposit/cash them?
Find smaller payments he can make. Maybe a % of each client he takes payment from. Consult with a lawyer or google buisness contract elements and find fill them out and see what he can do. If the checks are no good bouncing them isn't going to help anything. Nor is getting a judgment from a small claims court. He can ...
What is a good size distribution for buying gold?
If the "crash" you worry about is a dissolution of the euro, then the main thing you should concern yourself with is liquidity. For that, purchase the most highly liquid gold ETF or futures contract, whichever is more appropriate for the total amount of money involved. Any other way and you will lose a significant ch...
Possible replacement for Quicken
I would investigate mint.com further. Plenty of people have written off using them because Intuit purchased them, but that seems like cutting of your nose to spite your face. I think mint.com is worth it for its Trends functionality alone, not to mention its automatic categorization of your purchases, reminders when b...
How long do wire transfers take?
The experience I have with wire transfers is from Australia to the US. These transfers can take up to 5 business dates (i.e. a whole week including the non-business days of the weekend). I would have thought intra-European transfers would be quicker, given how behind most US (regional) banks are in their electronic tra...
Is it wise to invest in bond fund when interest rates are low?
This is just a pedestrian (my) opinion: Yes, It is wise to invest in bond funds even in a low interest environment. Check out the lazy man's portfolio on bogleheads. The reason is:
How does UpWork allow US companies to make payments outside of the US?
Permanent employees are the distinct opposite of contractors. Upwork can easily have business entities (limited liability company equivalents) in multiple countries, and it can make payments between them. Or they can merely use existing payment infrastructure (paypal, amazon) to accomplish the same thing. Their corpora...
To rebalance or not to rebalance
This answer will assume you know more math than most. An ideal case: For the point of argument, first consider the following admittedly incorrect assumptions: 1) The prices of all assets in your investment universe are continuously differentiable functions of time. 2) Investor R (for rebalance) continuously buys and ...
First Job, should I save or invest?
Since you seem to be interested in investing in individual stocks, this answer will address that. As for the general question of investing, the answer that @johnfx gave is just about as good as it gets. Investing in individual stocks is extremely risky and takes a LOT of work to do right. On top of the fairly obvious...
Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest?
When you buy something with your credit card, the store pays a fee to the credit card company, typically a base fee of 15 to 50 cents plus 2 to 3% of the purchase. At least, that's what it was a few years back when I had a tiny business and I wanted to accept credit cards. Big chain stores pay less because they are "bu...
Where should I park my money if I'm pessimistic about the economy and I think there will be high inflation?
Typically in a developed / developing economy if there is high overall inflation, then it means everything will rise including property/real estate. The cost of funds is low [too much money chasing too few goods causes inflation] which means more companies borrow money cheaply and more business florish and hence the st...
What are the top “market conditions” to follow?
The best advice I've heard regarding market conditions is: Buy into fear, and sell into greed. That is, get in when everyone is a bear and predicting economic collapse. Start selling when you hear stock picks at parties and family functions. That said. You are better off in the long term not letting emotion (of you or...
Will a credit card company close my account if I stop using it?
There is no universal answer here. Some card issuers will. Some that will close the account will warn you first. For my "sock drawer" cards I'll try to take each out semi-annually to make a single transaction, then put it back in the drawer. I've heard you should charge something quarterly, I've never had one closed...
How can people have such high credit card debts?
I had $70K in credit card at one point. Limited income, starting a business - it's the only credit available. (yes, all paid off now).
Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich?
What could a small guy with $100 do to make himself not poor? The first priority is an emergency fund. One of the largest expenses of poor people are short-term loans for emergencies. Being able to avoid those will likely be more lucrative than an S&P investment. Remember, just like a loan, if you use your emergency fu...
Is it worth it to re-finance my car loan?
If you're a bit into the loan, then they're probably hoping that you'll take longer to pay off the loan. Is there a fee for refinancing the loan? If so, be sure to take that into account. A smart way to approach it (assuming that the fees are low or zero) would be to continue making the same payment you had been befor...
How to get started with the stock market? [duplicate]
You can try paper trading to sharpen your investing skills(identifying stocks to invest, how much money to allocate and stuff) but nothing compares to getting beaten black and blue in the real world. When virtual money is involved you mayn't care, because you don't loose anything, but when your hard earned money disapp...
How does a defined contribution plan work
The end result is basically the same, it's just a choice of whether you want to base the final amount you receive on your salary, or on the stock market. You pay in a set proportion of your salary, and receive a set proportion of your salary in return. The pension (both contributions and benefit) are based on your care...
How to invest in a currency increasing in value relative to another?
The increase of currency value in relation to another is a critical determinant of the economic health. It plays an important part in the level of trade and affects the world’s free market economy. But, they also effect on smaller scale as they create an impact on the portfolio of investors. So, it is suggested that th...
“Top down” and “bottom-up approach”
Top down approach needed when bottom-up approach of markets leads to periods of high unemployment Imagine a chart that starts with one point at the top and breaks it down into the details by the time you get to the bottom. People can read this chart either from the top and go down or from the bottom and go up. Wikipe...
Why do people buy new cars they can not afford?
The car you dream of might not be available in your local used car market. Or if it is, there might be something wrong with it. Here are some reasons that a person might want to buy a new car. Basically, if you have a picture in your mind of what your next car should look like, it is easier to shop for a new car: New...
Automatic Extension online filing request gets denied w/ code R0000-052-01 - why?
There are penalties for failure to file and penalties for failure to pay tax. The penalties for both are based on the amount of tax due. So you would owe % penalties of zero, otherwise meaning no penalties at all. The IRS on late 1040 penalties: Here are eight important points about penalties for filing or paying lat...
Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire?
BEFORE you invest in a house, make sure you account for all the returns, risks and costs, and compare them to returns, risks and costs of other investments. If you invest 20% of a house's value in another investment, you would also expect a return. You also probably will not have the cost interest for the balance (80% ...
What is the process of getting your first share?
nan
Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees
Why do you think you are entitled to "fairness"? In this world you get what you get. I am pretty sure your employer is not paying you for how you "feel" either. And by-the-way turning up on time and not leaving early is not exceptional behaviour; it is expected behaviour. Bottom line: do you add more value to your empl...
Any tips for asset allocation across multiple retirement accounts?
I have a similar plan and a similar number of accounts. I think seeking a target asset allocation mix across all investment accounts is an excellent idea. I use excel to track where I am and then use it to adjust to get closer (but not exactly) to my target percentages. Until you have some larger balances, it may be ...
US Citizen Buying Rental Property in Canada
You've asked a number of questions. I can answer a few. I've quoted your question before each answer. What are the ins and outs of a foreigner like myself buying rental property in Canada? This is a pretty broad question which can address location, finances, basic suggestions etc. Here's some things to consider: P...
What pension options are there for a 22 year old graduate in the UK?
I wouldn't go into a stock market related investment if you plan on buying a house in 4-5 years, you really need to tie money up in stocks for 10 years plus to be confident of a good return. Of course, you might do well in stocks over 4-5 years but historically it's unlikely. I'd look for a safe place to save some mon...