Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
Should I wait to save up 20% downpayment on a 500k condo? | As I've crunched numbers towards what my family could afford for a down payment (in an area with similar housing costs - don't you hate that high cost of living?), I've come up with the following numbers: We may be missing some area of expenses, but in general I think we are being fairly conservative. You should consi... |
Does renting a room on AirBnB make all interest taxable? | What theyre fishing for is whether the money was earned in the U.S. It's essentially an interest shelter, and/or avoiding double taxation. They're saying if you keep income you make outside the US in a bank inside the US, the US thanks you for storing your foreign money here and doesn't tax the interest (but the nat... |
What happens to bonds values when interest rates rise? [duplicate] | You can look at TIPS (which have some inflation protection built in). Generally short term bonds are better than long if you expect rates to rise soon. Other ways that you can protect yourself are to choose higher yield corporate bonds instead of government bonds, or to use foreign bonds. There are plenty of bond funds... |
FTB sent refund check for 2011 during audit; Does this really mean that whole audit is over for 2011? | Not it doesn't, and yes they can. If the audit is closed, you should have received invitation to attend the closing conference, and get the summary of decisions from that meeting in writing. I suggest you check with your tax representative about this refund check before cashing it. |
RSU taxation: when am I taxed, and how much? | Restricted Stock Units are different from stock options because instead of buying them at a particular strike price, you receive the actual shares of stock. They are taxed as ordinary income at the time that the restriction is lifted (you don't have to sell them to be taxed). Usually, you can choose to have a percentag... |
Questrade - What happens if I buy U.S. stock with Canadian money? | I don't believe from reading the responses above that Questrade is doing anything 'original' or 'different' much less 'bad'. In RRSPs you are not allowed to go into debt. So the costs of all trades must be covered. If there is not enough USD to pay the bill then enough CAD is converted to do so. What else would anyon... |
How to find cheaper alternatives to a traditional home telephone line? | Cheapest is one thing. You can absolutely shop in the market and find the lowest possible price. I can think of three places to shop, each with an up and downside. I would think that what you really mean is the best price for the service. Just like shopping for a car you have to decide what you need vs what is nice ... |
Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score? | Definitely not. Credit cards only exist to suck you into the soulless corporate system. What you want to remember here is that you can't trust banks, so you'll want to convert all your savings into some durable asset, say, bitcoins for example, and then hoard them like Smaug until after the Fall. |
What is a good rental yield? | The rule of thumb I have always heard and what we rent our rental house at is 1% per month at the minimum (in the US). The rent has to cover the mortgage, the property taxes, the homeowners insurance, your income taxes (on the rent), the maintenance of the property and the times when the property is vacant. Even at 1% ... |
Are there any issues with registering an LLC in a foreign state? | No, there are no issues. When you form the corp in DE, you pick a business there to serve as your "agent" (essentially someone who knows to get in contact with you). The "agent" will notify you about taxes and any mail you get, but besides the fee they charge you for being the agent, you should file all the taxes dir... |
Is this investment opportunity problematic? | It would have to be made as a "gift", and then the return would be a "gift" back to you, because you're not allowed to use a loan for a down payment. This is not to evade taxes. This is to evade a credit check. The problem is that banks don't like people to have too much debt. The bank could void the loan and go aft... |
What kind of life insurance is cheaper? I'm not sure about term vs. whole vs. universal, etc | All life insurance is pretty much the same when it comes to cost. You can run the numbers over certain time period and the actual cost of insurance is about the same. A simplified way to explain life insurance and the differences between them below: The 3 characteristics of life insurance: There are 5 popular types of ... |
Avoiding sin stock: does it make a difference? | This question drives at what value a shareholder actually provides to a corporation, and by extent, to the economy. If you subscribe for new shares (like in an Initial Public Offering), it is very straightforward to say "I have provided capital to the corporation, which it is using to advance its business." If you buy ... |
Does U.S. tax code call for small business owners to count business purchases as personal income? | I am going to keep things very simple and explain the common-sense reason why the accountant is right: Also, my sister in law owns a small restaurant, where they claim their accountant informed them of the same thing, where a portion of their business purchases had to be counted as taxable personal income. In this case... |
Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent? | There is a term for this. If you google "House Hacking" you will get lots of articles and advice. Some of it will pertain to multifamily properties but a good amount should be owner occupied and renting bedrooms. I would play with a mortgage calculator like Whats My Payment. Include Principle, interest, taxes and ins... |
How does investment into a private company work? | Each company has X shares valued at $Y/share. When deals like "Dragon's Den" in Canada and Britain or "Shark Tank" in the US are done, this is where the company is issuing shares valued at $z total to the investor so that the company has the funds to do whatever it was that they came to the show to get funding to do, t... |
Owned house for less than 2 years - 1031 exchange? | Yes, your realtor is a moron. (I am a realtor, and sorry you have such a bad one) Every industry has its good and bad. You really should find a new realtor, a good one. You know the 1031 exchange is for rental property only. And that saving $2000 isn't worth staying in the house to complete the two years required occu... |
How can a Canadian establish US credit score | Sorry. As far as I know, a person's SS is the only way to establish credit. This is the first thing they ask whenever you apply for any service in the US. |
US citizen transferring money to Indian fiance to buy property | A. Kindly avoid taking dollars in form of cash to india unless and until it is an emergency. Once the dollar value is in excess of $10,000, you need to declare the same with Indian customs at the destination. Even though it is not a cumbersome procedure, why unnecessarily undergo all sort of documentation and most impo... |
Most effective Fundamental Analysis indicators for market entry | The three places you want to focus on are the income statement, the balance sheet, and cash flow statement. The standard measure for multiple of income is the P/E or price earnings ratio For the balance sheet, the debt to equity or debt to capital (debt+equity) ratio. For cash generation, price to cash flow, or price ... |
Is it better to buy put options or buy an inverse leveraged ETF? | Depends on how far down the market is heading, how certain you are that it is going that way, when you think it will fall, and how risk-averse you are. By "better" I will assume you are trying to make the most money with this information that you can given your available capital. If you are very certain, the way that ... |
A merchant requests that checks be made out to “Cash”. Should I be suspicious? | They're hiding income. The IRS is a likely candidate for who they are hiding it from but not the only option. Another possibility that comes to mind is someone who had a judgment against them--a check made out to "cash" could be handled by someone else and thus not ever appear in their bank accounts. |
Is there a term for total money owed to you? | Is there a word for that $20k owed? Trade Receivables, Accounts Receivables, or just Receivables Is there a different word for that $30k "hypothetical" total? Current Assets (Includes Inventory and other short term assets) |
One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this? | I haven't seen anyone mention tax considerations and that's why I'm answering this. The rest of my answer is probably covered in the aggregate of other responses. Here's how I would look at this in a taxable (not an IRA) account: This could be an opportunity to harvest the tax losses to offset taxable gains this year o... |
Is Bitcoin a commodity or a currency [duplicate] | It has properties of both. Tax authorities will eventually give their opinion on this. Through its properties of finite quantity, fungibility, and resistance to forgery/duplication, it acts as a commodity. It can be sent directly between any two parties anywhere on Earth, without regard for the quantity transacted o... |
Why is auto insurance ridiculously overpriced for those who drive few miles? | First you have to understand that insurance is basically a social system, just with Shareholders. Insurance costs consist of 3 factors: Now, to encourage a low-risk behavior a separating factor is search in the vast amount of statistical data. Drivers experience, miles and type of car being the most common, but also ot... |
United States Treasury Not Endorsing Checks | Welcome to the 21st century, the New Order. Forget all that legal mumbo jumbo you may have read back in law school in the 1960s about commercial code. Its all gone now. Now we have Check 21 and the Patriot Act !!! Basically what this means is that because some Arab fanatics burned down the World Trade Center, the US go... |
How to get started with savings, paying off debt, and retirement? | Communicate. I would recommend taking a course together on effective communications, and I would also suggest taking a course on budgeting and family financial planning. You need to be able to effectively communicate your financial plans and goals, your financial actions, and learn to both be honest and open with your ... |
Can I account for start-up costs that occur before incorporation? | Yes you can. You should talk to your tax advisor re the specific expenditures that can be accounted as startup-costs (legal fees are a good candidate, for example). If they add up to significant amounts (>$5K), you'll have to capitalize them over a certain period of time, and deduct from your business' income. This is ... |
Why do consultants or contractors make more money than employees? | The benefits and taxes thing, in my opinion is the biggie. Most people don't realize that the cost to the company for a full-time employee with benefits can be 2x or even 3x the amount they see in their paycheck. Health plans are extremely expensive. Even if you are having money taken from your check for health insura... |
Are precious metals/collectibles a viable emergency fund? | People normally hold precious metals as a protection against the whole system going down: massive inflation, lawlessness, etc. If our whole government and financial system broke completely and we returned to a barter economy, then holding silver would likely turn out to be a good thing. However, precious metals are no... |
How can someone with a new job but no credit history get a loan to settle another debt? | The more I think about this the more I think you are actually better off letting it go to collections. At least then you would be able to agree an affordable repayment schedule based on your real budget, and having a big dent in your credit score because it's gone to collections doesn't actually put you in any worse po... |
Is it really possible to get rich in only a few years by investing? | Yes, it's possible. However, it's not likely, at least not for most people. Earning a million is not that difficult, but when you talk about billions that's an entirely different story. I think the key point that you're missing is leverage. It's common knowledge that Warren Buffett likes to have a huge cash warchest at... |
Is it safer to send credit card number via unsecured website form or by e-mail? What safer options are there? | Some (most) credit cards have a way to get a one-time use number. If that is an available option for one of your cards, that is probably the way to do the very risky transaction. These numbers can be good for only one purchase, or for multiple purchases with a single vendor. This will limit your exposure because they w... |
Do I still need to file taxes with the Canadian government if I am working in the U.S. on a TN visa for a few years? | The other answer has mentioned "factual resident", and you have raised the existence of a U.S./Canada tax treaty in your comment, and provided a link to a page about determining residency. I'd like to highlight part of the first link: You are a factual resident of Canada for tax purposes if you keep significant resid... |
What ETF or other security tracks closest to 30 year mortgage rates? | Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. The CBOE Interest Rate 10-Year T-Note, TNX, is a security directly related to this rate. Divide the CBOE price of TNX by 10 to get the yield. One can also track the 10Y T-Note yield at yahoo finance using ticker symbol (^TNX). One can also track t... |
What to do if my aging father is sustaining a hobby that is losing several thousand dollars every month? | If this was going on in the UK, I would try to get a mental capacity assessment done on the father. There are laws that stop you taking advantage of people that don’t understand what is going on; these laws could be used against the manager, but only if you can clearly prove that the father does not understand that the... |
Vanguard Target Retirement Fund vs. Similar ETF Distribution (w/ REIT) | It looks like an improvement to me, if for no other reason than lowering the expenses. But if you are around 35 years away from retirement you could consider eliminating all bond funds for now. They will pay better in a few years. And the stock market(s) will definitely go up more than bonds over the next 35 years. |
What is the difference between equity and assets? | Accounts track value: at any given time, a given account will have a given value. The type of account indicates what the value represents. Roughly: On a balance sheet (a listing of accounts and their values at a given point in time), there is typically only one equity account, representing net worth, I don't know much ... |
Can I invest in the London stock market when resident on a visa? | There are no legal restrictions on doing this. If you're living in the UK, just open an account like any other resident of the UK would. |
Visitor Shopping in the US: Would I get tax refund? Would I have to pay anything upon departure? | Sales tax and luxury tax is what you will have to pay tax wise, and they are non-refundable (in most cases but the rules vary area to area). This really tripped up some friends of mine I had come from England. The rules are complicated and regional. Sales tax is anywhere from 0% to 10.25% and are not usually applied... |
What's an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)? | ETFs offer the flexibility of stocks while retaining many of the benefits of mutual funds. Since an ETF is an actual fund, it has the diversification of its potentially many underlying securities. You can find ETFs with stocks at various market caps and style categories. You can have bond or mixed ETFs. You can even ge... |
Highstreet bank fund, custom ETF or Nutmeg? | And it's only as cheap as 1.78% if you stay with them 10 years! They'd love that. You can kind of tell they really want to lock you in for over 4 years. I also think it's daylight robbery, but as a self execution investor I tend to have to talk myself out of that belief by default to be fair. One can wonder too, why ar... |
Why do some people say a house “not an investment”? | With an investment, you tend to buy it for a very specific purpose, namely to make you some money. Either via appreciation (ie, it hopefully increases value after you take all the fees and associated costs into account, you sell the investment, realise the gains) or via a steady cashflow that, after you subtracted your... |
Are my purchases of stock, mutual funds, ETF's, and commodities investing, or speculation? | I'd argue the two words ought to (in that I see this as a helpful distinction) describe different activities: "Investing": spending one's money in order to own something of value. This could be equipment (widgets, as you wrote), shares in a company, antiques, land, etc. It is fundamentally an act of buying. "Specu... |
US tax for a resident NRI | Please declare everything you earn in India as well as the total amount of assets (it's called FBAR). The penalties for not declaring is jail time no matter how small the amount (and lots of ordinary people every 2-3 years are regularly sent to jail for not declaring such income). It's taken very seriously by the IRS -... |
As a young adult, what can I be doing with my excess income? | I also have approx. £6000 in debt Just a note: you're guaranteed to get a return on whatever debt you pay off quickly. Even if your debt is only 2%, you get a guaranteed return of 2% - which is higher than most of the savings here in the US (not sure about the UK). You mention saving for a house, which is also a good ... |
Pay Yourself With Credit Card Make Money With Cash Back [duplicate] | This is basically a form of credit card kiting, it's not necessarily illegal but it can be. It is, however, against the TOS in pretty much every merchant agreement (including Paypal and Square), so you'd most likely have your account suspended, and the merchant could pursue legal action if they felt they could prove in... |
How big of a mortgage can I realistically afford? | $260k mortgage is pretty high for $80k salary alone -- if you have expensive tastes, be prepared to tune them down. The make or break for you will be taxes and other recurring fees. If property taxes are trending higher than inflation in your area, you'll have trouble down the line. Decisions like this are really marke... |
Why is being “upside down” on a mortgage so bad? | tl;dr: when everything is going great, it's not really a problem. It's when things change that it's a problem. Finally, home loans are extended over extremely long periods (i.e. 15 or 30 years), making any fluctuations in their value short-lived - even less reason to be obsessed over their current value relative to the... |
what are the downsides of rolling credit card debt in this fashion | Awesome, you are a math guy. Very good for you. In theory, what you are proposing, should work out great as the math works out great. However have you taken a economics or finance coursework? The math that they do in these class will leave a most math guys uncomfortable with the imprecision even when one is comfort... |
When to use geometric vs. arithmetic mean? Why is the former better for percentages? | JoeTaxpayer nailed it. Here's another way to look at it: Generally, we invest in something, then might leave it there for a few years, then take it out, but don't touch it in between. In that case, to get the final amount X(N), we need to take the initial amount, then multiply by growth in the first year, then multip... |
Paying myself a distribution caused a negative Owner's Equity account balance? Is this normal? | It's not abnormal for a company that is as young as yours seems to be. It seems (based on what little I know), that you have debts, or accounts payable that were formerly covered by the $200 cash, but now aren't, because you paid it to yourself. For now, you're "entitled" to pay yourself a draw or a salary. But if you ... |
How can we get a hold of our finances again, with much less time to spend on accounting and budgeting, due to the arrival of our child? | Good question, very well asked! The key here is that you need to find a solution that works for you two without an overt amount of effort. So in a sense it is somewhat behavior driven, but it is also technology driven. My wife and I use spreadsheets for both checking account management and budgeting. A key time sav... |
What would happen if I were to lose all equity in my condo when it's time to renew the mortgage? | It doesn't matter. You will just renew your mortgage at the prevailing rates. That's part of the mortgage contract. The problem that happens is if you want to move your mortgage to another bank for a better rate, they may not accept you. Your re-negotiating position is limited. Most mortgages have a portability op... |
Are traders 100% responsible for a stock's price changes? | Yes, the value of a stock is completely, 100% determined by what people are willing to pay for it in conjunction with what people who have it are willing to sell it for. If something really bad happened to a company, like their only factory burned to the ground, and the traders didn't care, then I guess, in that scenar... |
How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want | I believe that your dilemma comes from not having clearly defined consequences of buying it. On one side you want it and you can afford it, but on the other side there is nothing solid. Just some vague dislike of spending money and guilt of buying something "useless". You're basically guilt tripping yourself into not b... |
When's the best time to sell the stock of a company that is being acquired/sold? | Here is one "other consideration": don't, don't, don't sell based on insider information. Insider trading can land you in jail. And it's not restricted to top executives. Even overhearing a discussion about the current status of the acquisition talks can mean that you have insider information that you legally cannot ac... |
Why Are Credit Card Rates Increasing / Credit Limits Falling? | Because people are going deeper into debt and filing for bankruptcy more often, there is more risk on behalf of the credit company. Therefore, they limit their risk by lower limits and increasing interest. For every person that goes bankrupt, there might be 10 that pay that new higher interest rate, thereby netting a ... |
Is this Employee Stock Purchase Plan worth it when adding my student loan into the equation? | The closer the contribution is to the December 31st date, the more profitable that specific contribution is, only taking into consideration the 5% discount. On your case, the first contribution that beats your student loans interest rate is the August one, where you get about 9% annual return, the remaining contributio... |
Taking out a loan to pay down a mortgage | You have the 2 properties, and even though the value of property B is less than the amount you owe on it hopefully you have some equity in propery A. So if you do have enough equity in property A, why don't you just go to the one lender and get both property A and B refinanced under the same mortgage. This way hopefull... |
Why does a ETN that is supposed to track Crude Oil like UWTI show constant decline every year? And am I an idiot for investing in it? | After looking at both S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return (INDEXSP:SPGSCLP) and CS VS 3x LC ETN NYSEARCA: UWTI they seem to track well (using Google Finance). I'm not seeing where your statement this ETN loses whether oil is gaining or not holds true. Both have posted a year-over-year loss. In the past year the ... |
How to determine how much to charge your business for rent (in your house)? | Your best approach is to assess rent levels in your local area for offices of a similar size. You need to take into account all the usuals - amenities, parking, etc, just as if your home-office was provided by a third-party. Get your $/sq ft and work out the monthly amount. With this figure, you need to then work out w... |
Who can truly afford luxury cars? | A used luxury car coming out of lease is usually very affordable. They are usually in good condition, still look relatively new, and are within the same price range as a newer Toyota or Honda. |
Married, 55, grown kids: Should I buy life insurance, or invest in stocks? The ultimate decision | The following is from Wikipedia - Term life insurance (with very minor editing) Because term life insurance is a pure death benefit, its primary use is to provide coverage of financial responsibilities, for the insured. Such responsibilities may include, but are not limited to, consumer debt, dependent care... |
Has the likelihood of getting a lower interest rate by calling & asking been reduced by recent credit card regulations? | I don't know that this can actually be answered objectively. Maybe it can with some serious research. (Read: data on what the issuers have been doing since the law went into affect.) Personally, I think the weak economy and general problems with easy credit are a bigger issue than the new rules. Supposedly, there is... |
What is an “International Equity”? | International means from all over the world. In the U.S. A Foreign Equity fund would be non-US stocks. There's an odd third choice I'm aware of, a fund of US companies that derive their sales from overseas, primarily. |
Choosing the limit when making a limit order? | There are a couple of things you could do, but it may depend partly on the type of orders your broker has available to you. Firstly, if you are putting your limit order the night before after close of market at the top of the bids, you may be risking missing out if bid & offer prices increase by the time the market ope... |
$200k in an IRA, unallocated. What's the safest investment? | if you don't intent to touch the money for 10 years or longer, then dumping 100% into a low-expense-ratio index fund seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. it is simple, low maintenance and fairly mindless. just remember to reinvest the dividends occasionally (e.g. every 6 months). however, if you are the kind... |
Can I prove having savings without giving out the account number? | If you're worried about the account number just take a statement and black out the account number with a Sharpie or the like. That is if the account number even appears on it, these days it often doesn't. |
Prepaying a loan: Shouldn't the interest be recalculated like a shorter loan? | If you take a loan, you make a contract with your lender, let's call them "bank" (even if it might not be a real bank). This loan contract contains an agreed-upon way of paying back the loan. Both sides agreed upon these conditions. Any change of it (like paying back early) needs the consent of both sides. So, in g... |
How can I find if I can buy shares of a specific company? | A company whose stock is available for sale to the public is called a publicly-held or publicly-traded company. A public company's stock is sold on a stock exchange, and anyone with money can buy shares through a stock broker. This contrasts with a privately-held company, in which the shares are not traded on a stock ... |
What are the risks & rewards of being a self-employed independent contractor / consultant vs. being a permanent employee? | In the current economy there is no upside to working for yourself. Get in a salaried position as soon as you can, and sacrifice to whatever gods you worship that you don't get made redundant. If you're already working for yourself, and wouldn't give it up for anything, hire someone, and get them off the street. |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | Manage the fuel consumption price: check the pattern of fuel prices if you can for your area. Some areas have weekly changes which are somewhat predictable and some sites will even predict the minimum price for the next day. Some other areas will have a discount fuel day. Switch to diesel: fuel consumption by diesel... |
What is the best source of funding to pay off debt? | Please take a look a Dave Ramsey's Baby Step plan. It has all the details that you need to clean up your personal finance situation. None of your options are good. As some of the other answers mentioned, behavior modification is the key. Any idea will be worthless if you just wind up in debt again. Many, many peo... |
Strategies for saving and investing in multiple foreign currencies | If you want to use that money and maybe don't have the time to wait a few years if things should go bad, than you will definitely want to hold a good bunch of your money in the currency you buy most stuff with (so in most cases the currency of the country you live in) even if it is more volatile. |
How do I research if my student loan company is doing something illegal? | The thing to recall here is that auto-pay is a convenience, not a guarantee. Auto-pay withdrawals, notices that a bill is due, all of these are niceties that the lender uses to try to make sure you consistently pay your bill on time, as all businesses enjoy steady cash flows. Now, what all of these "quality of life" fe... |
Do I need to own all the funds my target-date funds owns to mimic it? | If you read Joel Greenblatt's The Little Book That Beats the Market, he says: Owning two stocks eliminates 46% of the non market risk of owning just one stock. This risk is reduced by 72% with 4 stocks, by 81% with 8 stocks, by 93% with 16 stocks, by 96% with 32 stocks, and by 99% with 500 stocks. Conclusion: After... |
Strategy for investing large amount of cash | I think a larger issue is that you're trying to do market timing. Whether you had a large or small amount of money to invest, no one wants to put the money in to watch it go down. You can't really predict if prices in a market or security will go up in six months (in which case you want to put all your cash in now), o... |
Retirement formula for annual compound interest with changing principal | The equation is the same one used for mortgage amortization. You first want to calculate the PV (present value) for a stream of $50K payments over 20 years at a10% rate. Then that value is the FV (future value) that you want to save for, and you are looking to solve the payment stream needed to create that future val... |
Motley fool says you can make $15,978 more per year with Social Security. Is this for real? | The purpose of this spammy Motley Fool video ad is to sell their paid newsletter products. Although the beginning of the video promises to tell you this secret trick for obtaining additional Social Security payments, it fails to do so. (Luckily, I found a transcript of the video, so I didn't have to watch it.) What t... |
what if a former employer contributes to my 401k in the year following my exit? | Publication 590a covers this in a fairly specific manner. Page 11, section "Are You Covered by an Employer Plan?", specifies: The Form W-2 you receive from your employer has a box used to indicate whether you were covered for the year. The “Retirement Plan” box should be checked if you were covered. So, by defaul... |
Can anybody explain the terms “levered beta riders”, “equity long-short” and “the quant process driven discipline” for me, please? | Leverage here is referring to "financial leverage". This is the practice of "levering" [ie increasing, like the use of a lever to increase the amount of weight you can lift] the value of your investment by taking on debt. For example: if you have 100k in cash, you can buy a 100k rental property. Assume the property ma... |
What sort of tax treatment does a charitable micro-lending loan incur? | When lending through Kiva you are not making a "charitable contribution" it's a loan so you cannot deduct the amount you loaned out. If you do lose money from your loan you can write off your entire loss same as you would with any other investment. However you should be careful because in the event of a tax audit you ... |
What is the best use of “spare” money? | nan |
Supply & Demand - How Price Changes, Buy Orders vs Sell Orders [duplicate] | For every buyer there is a seller. That rule refers to actual (historical) trades. It doesn't apply to "wannabees." Suppose there are buyers for 2,000 shares and sellers for only 1,000 at a given price, P. Some of those buyers will raise their "bid" (the indication of the price they are willing to pay) above P so that ... |
Should a high-school student invest their (relative meager) savings? | You should invest in that with the best possible outcome. Right now that is in yourself. Your greatest wealth building tool, at this point, is your future income. As such anything you can do to increase your earnings potential. For some that might mean getting an engineering degree, for others it might mean startin... |
Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market? | Aside of the other (mostly valid) answers, share price is the most common method of valuating the company. Here is a bogus example that will help you understand the general point: Now, suppose that Company A wants to borrow $20 Million from a bank... Not a chance. Company B? Not a problem. Same situation when trying t... |
Connection between gambling and trading on stock/options/Forex markets | For stocks, I would not see these as profiting at the expense of another individual. When you purchase/trade stocks, you are exchanging items of equal market value at the time of the trade. Both parties are getting a fair exchange when the transaction happens. If you buy a house, the seller has not profited at your ex... |
Stock Option Value correlated to net worth of company | I'm guessing you're talking about options given to employees. The company can issue stock options at whatever strike price it wants. The difference between the strike price and the actual market value is considered income to the employee. You can get the options at $0 strike just as well (although companies generally j... |
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... |
Is it bad practice to invest in stocks that fluctuate by single points throughout the day? | Its hard to write much in those comment boxes, so I'll just make an answer, although its really not a formal answer. Regarding commissions, it costs me $5 per trade, so that's actually $10 per trade ($5 to buy, $5 to sell). An ETF like TNA ($58 per share currently) fluctuates $1 or $2 per day. IXC is $40 per share an... |
What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different'? | This refers to the faulty idea that the stock market will behave differently than it has in the past. For example, in the late 1990s, internet stocks rose to ridiculous heights in price, to be followed soon after with the Dot-Com Bubble crash. In the future, it's likely that there will be another such bubble with anot... |
How to change stock quantity in KMyMoney investment editor? | I can't give you a detailed answer because I'm away from the computer where I use kMyMoney, but IIRC to add investments you have to create new transactions on the 'brokerage account' linked to your investment account. |
Why credit cards are sold through banks and not from Visa or MasterCard directly | Visa and Mastercard are not consumer-oriented companies. They do not consider individual consumers as their direct clients, and do not sell directly to them. Instead, their clients are financial institutions who participate in their networks (which is what they're selling). The institutions target the individual consum... |
Should I pay off my 50K of student loans as quickly as possible, or steadily? Why? | The definitive answer is: It Depends. What are your goals? First and foremost, you need to have at least 3 months expenses in cash or equivalent. (i.e. an investment that you can withdraw from quickly, and without penalty). The good news is that you don't have to come up with it instantly. Set a time frame - one year... |
Do there exist any wikipedia type sites for evaluating financial service providers? | It is always a good idea if you are worried about customer service and hidden gotchas to visit http://getsatisfaction.com - they operate as an independent complaint board for many companies. http://getsatisfaction.com/bankofamerica for example alerts you to many problems with using BofA. In addition, googling for commo... |
When an in-the-money stock option expires does the broker always execute it or does its value become worthless if the owner doesn't execute it? | It depends on the broker, each one's rules may vary. Your broker should be able to answer this question for how they handle such a situation. The broker I used would execute and immediately sell the stock if the option was 25 cents in the money at expiration. If they simply executed and news broke over the weekend (opt... |
Is it common in the US not to pay medical bills? | My answer might be out of date due to the Affordable Health Care law. I will answer for the way things were prior to that law taking effect. In my experience, hospitals have a financial assistance program you can apply for. If you can show a financial need, the hospital will only charge you a certain percentage of yo... |
Pros/Cons of Buying Discounted Company Stock | Some other answers mention the ability to sell at grant. This is very important. If you have that ability, think about your guaranteed return. In my case, I get a 15% discount on the lowest 6 month window price from the last two years. If you do the math, the worst case return can be calculated: 1) Money that from the... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.