Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
How does revenue shared with someone else go into my tax return in Canada? | Generally, report your $150,000. If/when the the tax collectors notice the anomaly, they'll attempt to contact you to remedy it. I can't speak for Canada, but in the US, it's pretty orderly. The IRS requests additional information or proof and only open it up into a full blown audit if the suspect wrongdoing. In your case, you could show a business agreement detailing the revenue split proving you correctly reported. This is only for your consideration. I strongly recommending finding and keeping a professional tax advisor. |
What is the farthest someone would likely be stopped out from their stop loss without setting a stop limit? | It depends on how you place your stop order and the type of stop orders available from your broker. If you place a stop market order and the following day the stock opens below your stop your stock will be stopped out at or around the opening price, meaning you can potentially end up with quite a large gap. If you place a stop limit order, say you place your stop at $10.00 with a limit price of $9.90, and if the price opens below $9.90, say at $9.50, your limit sell order of $9.90 will be placed onto the market but it will not be executed until the price goes back up to $9.90 or above. The third option is to place a Guaranteed Stop Loss, and as specified you are guaranteed your stop price even if the price gaps down below your stop price. You will be paying an extra fee for the Guaranteed Stop Loss Order, and they are usually mainly available with CFD Brokers (so if you are in the USA you might be out of luck). |
What U.S. banks offer two-factor authentication (such as password & token) for online banking? | USAA does - that's my bank. Wells Fargo tries to determine whether the online activity is a risk; if it is, they'll require an SMS code or phoned code be entered. You can get a fairly definitive list of online companies at twofactorauth.org. |
How are startup shares worth more than the total investment funding? | The net worth is based on an estimate of how much he would get if he relinquished his stake. The total funding is based on how much he has relinquished thus far. Suppose I have a candy jar with 100 candies. I'm not sure how much these candies are worth, so I start off by selling 10% of the jar for $10. Now I have 90 candies and $10, a total value of $100. Then someone comes along offering $100 for another 10% (of the original jar, or 10 candies), which I accept. Now I have 80 candies and $110. Since I value each candy at $10 now, I calculate my worth as $910. Then I do another deal selling 10% for $1000. Now I have $1110 in cash and 70 candies valued at $100 each. My total worth is now $8110 (cash + remaining candies), while the candy jar has only received $1110 in funding. Replace candies with equity in The Facebook, Inc. and you get the idea. |
Deduct Health Care Premiums for Family When Employer Only Pays for Me | You can deduct what you pay for your own and your family's health insurance regardless of whether it is subsidized by your employer or not, as well as all other medical and dental expenses for your family, as an itemized deduction on Schedule A of Form 1040, but only to the extent that the total exceeds 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) (10% on tax returns for year 2013 onwards). As pointed out in KeithB's comment, you cannot deduct any health insurance premium (or other medical expense) that was paid for out of pre-tax dollars, nor indeed can you deduct any medical expense to the extent that it was paid for by the insurance company directly to hospital or doctor (or reimbursed to you) for a covered expense; e.g. if the insurance company reimbursed you $72 for a claim for a doctor's visit for which you paid $100 to the doctor, only $28 goes on Schedule A to be added to the amount that you will be comparing to the 7.5% of AGI threshold, and the $72 is not income to you that needs to be reported on Form 1040. Depending on other items on Schedule A, your total itemized deductions might not exceed the standard deduction, in which case you will likely choose to use the standard deduction. In this case, you "lose" the deduction for medical expenses as well as all other expenses deductible on Schedule A. Summary of some of the discussions in the comments Health care insurance premiums cannot be paid for from HSA accounts (IRS Pub 969, page 8, column 2, near the bottom) though there are some exceptions. Nor can health care insurance premiums be paid from an FSA account (IRS Pub 969, page 17, column 1, near the top). If you have a business on the side and file a Schedule C as a self-employed person, you can buy medical insurance for that business's employees (and their families too, if you like) as an employment benefit, and pay for it out of the income of the Schedule C business, (thus saving on taxes). But be aware that if you have employees other than yourself in the side business, they would need to be covered by the same policy too. You can even decide to pay all medical expenses of your employees and their families too (no 7.5% limitation there!) as an employment benefit but again, you cannot discriminate against other employees (if any) of the Schedule C business in this matter. Of course, all this money that reduced your Schedule C income does not go on Schedule A at all. If your employer permits your family to be covered under its health insurance plan (for a cost, of course), check whether you are allowed to pay for the insurance with pre-tax dollars. The private (non-Schedule C) insurance would, of course, be paid for with post-tax dollars. I would doubt that you would be able to save enough money on taxes to make up the difference between $1330/month and $600/month, but it might also be that the private insurance policy covers a lot less than your employer's policy does. As a rule of thumb, group insurance through an employer can be expected to offer better coverage than privately purchased insurance. Whether the added coverage is worth the additional cost is a different matter. But while considering this matter, keep in mind that privately purchased insurance is not always guaranteed to be renewable, and a company might decline to renew a policy if there were a large number of claims. A replacement policy might not cover pre-existing conditions for some time (six months? a year?) or maybe even permanently. So, do consider these aspects as well. Of course, an employer can also change health insurance plans or drop them entirely as an employment benefit (or you might quit and go work for a different company), but as long as the employer's health plan is in existence, you (and continuing members of your family) cannot be discriminated against and denied coverage under the employer's plan. |
Inverse Relationship between Volatility and Beta | For any isolated equity market, its beta will less resemble the betas of all other interconnected equity markets. For interconnected markets, beta is not well-dispersed, especially during a world expansion because richer nations have more wealth thus a dominant influence over smaller nations' equity markets causing a convergence. If the world is in recession, or a country is in recession, all betas or the recessing country's beta will start to diverge, respectively. If the world's economies diverge, their equity markets' betas will too. If a country is having financial difficulty, its beta too will diverge. Beta is correlation against a ratio of variance, so variance or "volatiliy" is only half of that equation. Correlation or "direction" is the other half. The ratio of variance will give the magnitude of beta, and correlation will give the sign or "direction". Therefore, interconnected emerging equity markets should have higher beta magnitudes because they are more variant but should generally over time have signs that more closely resemble the rest. A disconnected emerging equity market will improbably have average betas both by magnitude and direction. |
What is the “Bernanke Twist” and “Operation Twist”? What exactly does it do? | To understand the Twist, you need to understand what the Yield Curve is. You must also understand that the price of debt is inverse to the interest rate. So when the price of bonds (or notes or bills) rises, that means the current price goes up, and the yield to maturity has gone down. Currently (Early 2012) the short term rate is low, close to zero. The tools the fed uses, setting short term rates for one, is exhausted, as their current target is basically zero for this debt. But, my mortgage is based on 10yr rates, not 1 yr, or 30 day money. The next step in the fed's effort is to try to pull longer term rates down. By buying back 10 year notes in this quantity, the fed impacts the yield at that point on the curve. Buying (remember supply/demand) pushes the price up, and for debt, a higher price equates to lower yield. To raise the money to do this, they will sell short term debt. These two transactions effectively try to "twist" the curve to pull long term rates lower and push the economy. |
Home sale: No right to terminate? | The most likely reason for this is that the relocation company wants to have a guaranteed sale so as to get a new mortgage in the new location. Understand that the relocation company generally works for a prospective employer. So they are trying to make the process as painless as possible for the homeowner (who is probably getting hired as a professional, either a manager or someone like an engineer or accountant). If the sale is guaranteed to go through regardless of any problems, then it is easy for them to arrange a new mortgage. In fact, they may bridge the gap by securing the initial financing and making the downpayment, then use the payout from the house you are buying to buy out their position. That puts them on the hook for a bunch of money (a downpayment on a house) while they're waiting on the house you're purchasing to close. This does not necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with the house. The relocation company would only know about something wrong if the owner had disclosed it. They don't really care about the house they're selling. Their job is to make the transition easy. With a relocation company, it is more likely that they are simply in a hurry and want to avoid a busted purchase. If this sale fails to go through for any reason, they have to start over. That could make the employment change fall through. This is a variation of a no contingencies sale. Sellers like no contingencies sales because they are easier. Buyers dislike them because their protections are weaker. But some buyers will offer them because they get better prices that way. In particular, house flippers will do this frequently so as to get the house for less money than they might otherwise pay. This is better than a pure no contingencies sale, as they are agreeing to the repairs. This is a reasonable excuse to not proceed with the transaction. If this makes you so uncomfortable that you'd rather continue looking, that's fine. However, it also gives you a bit of leverage, as it means that they are motivated to close this transaction quickly. You can consider any of the following: Or you can do some combination of those or something else entirely that makes you fell more secure. If you do decide to move forward with any version of this provision, get a real estate lawyer to draft the agreement. Also, insist on disclosure of any previous failed sales and the reason for the failure before signing the agreement. The lawyer can make that request in such a way as to get a truthful response. And again, in case you missed it when I said this earlier. You can say no and simply refuse to move forward with such a provision. You may not get the house, but you'll save a certain amount of worry. If you do move forward, you should be sure that you are getting a good deal. They're asking for special provisions; they should bear the cost of that. Either your current deal is already good (and it may be) or you should make them adjust until it is. |
What kind of symbol can be shorted? | Some platforms/brokers have HTB indication for a stock symbol, meaning Hard To Borrow. That usually means you can't sell it short at the moment. |
Are there any banks with a command-line style user interface? | You should definitively check boobank. It's not a bank !, but a framework that helps people to create quick interface modules to any bank so you don't have to use your web browser anymore with them. Actually, there is already an honest list of modules to access a few banks (I guess these banks are all french banks for now), but contributing a module seems easy and reading other contributed modules should constitute a good start. So boobank can work with any bank provided the interface with the bank is written. |
Credit card issued against my express refusal; What action can I take? | I believe it is so. It doesn't sound like they did anything outright illegal, just a pushy upsell. You can complain to the bank manager. If you want you can mention the employee by name (if you know who they are). Ultimately, you can change banks. From what you say it sounds like you are dissatisfied with this bank, so I think you should at least begin evaluating other banks and consider switching. You can also let your current bank know you are planning to take all your money away from them specifically because of their poor customer service. You could consider filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleging that the bank engaged in some kind of deceptive marketing of their financial products. Of course you can also file a complaint with something like the Better Business Bureau, or even just write a negative Yelp review. But these actions won't really result in any penalty for the bank as a result of what they did in your specific case; they just express your dissatisfaction in a way that will be recorded and possibly made public (e.g., in a list of complaints) to protect future consumers. If you're really gung-ho and have time and money to burn, you could hire a lawyer and get legal advice about whether it is possible to sue the bank for fraud or misuse of your personal information. Needless to say, I think this would be overkill for this situation. I would just cancel the credit card, tell the bank you're dissatisfied, switch banks, and move on. |
Is leveraging notoriety to raise stock prices illegal in the US? | If he didn't lie, I don't see the issue. He did not force anyone to buy anything. His opinion was stock X is good, he publicized it and it turned out to be true (at least temporary) - what's wrong with it? It is customary for people who have either fiduciary duty towards the clients or are perceived as independent analysts to disclose their interest and potential conflict of interest, lest they lose the respect of the public as independent and trustworthy sources of financial information. Jackson never had that, express or implied, and never had the duty to provide anybody with impartial financial analysis, so he can say anything he wants. He can invest into the company and promote it and make money from it - isn't it what was called "business" once? Why is it even being questioned? |
Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent? | ...instead of all of us draining our money into a landlord... Instead, you are suggesting that still everyone (except you) will drain their money into a landlord, just that now the landlord is you. I guess what that really means is that you will need to have landlord tenant agreements between you and your roommates. When things break or need replacing you'll have to foot the bill and as your tenants, your "roomies" might not be too forgiving when things need fixing. When the fridge breaks down, you'll have to buy a new one immediately. Yard work is your sole responsibility, unless you offer discounted rent or other perks. What about service bills: energy, water, sewage, internet, television, etc? |
Dry cleaners lost $160 pants, what should I do? | Dude, it's your lucky day! You just won the lottery!! Do like this guy and sue them for $67 million :-) Pearson v. Chung, better known as the "pants lawsuit",1 is a civil case filed in 2005 by Roy L. Pearson, Jr., an administrative law judge in the District of Columbia in the United States, following a dispute with a dry cleaning company over a lost pair of trousers. Pearson filed suit against Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung, the owners of Custom Cleaners in Washington, D.C., initially demanding $67 million for inconvenience, mental anguish and attorney's fees for representing himself, as a result of their failure, in Pearson's opinion, to live up to a "satisfaction guaranteed" sign that was displayed in the store. The case drew international attention[2][3] when it went to trial in 2007 and has been held up as an example of frivolous litigation and the need for tort reform in the United States. The entire story dragged on for years, with many appeals, and makes fascinating reading. |
Is CLM a stock or an ETF? | Cornerstone Strategic Value Fund, Inc. is a diversified, closed-end management investment company. It was incorporated in Maryland on May 1, 1987 and commenced investment operations on June 30, 1987. The Fund’s shares of Common Stock are traded on the NYSE MKT under the ticker symbol “CLM.”[1] That essentially means that CLM is a company all of whose assets are held as tradable financial instruments OR EQUIVALENTLY CLM is an ETF that was created as a company in its own right. That it was founded in the 80s, before the modern definition of ETFs really existed, it is probably more helpful to think of it by the first definition as the website mentions that it is traded as common stock so its stock holds more in common with stock than ETFs. [1] http://www.cornerstonestrategicvaluefund.com/ |
Buying and selling the same stock | If you buy for $1 and sell $1 when the price goes to $2, you would have sold only half of your initial investment. So your investment would now be worth $2 and you sell $1 leaving $1 still in the market. This means you would have sold half your initial investment, making a profit of $0.50 on this half of your initial investment, and having to pay CGT on this amount. |
What headaches will I have switching from Quicken to GnuCash? | I have not used Quicken; I've used GnuCash exclusively. It feels a bit rough with the UI: Balancing that, the data is stored in a gzip-compressed xml file. The compression is also optional, so you can save it as a plain xml file. This means that you have some hope of recovery if you wind up with a corrupted file. (And for programmer-types, you could keep it in source control for additional peace of mind.) My wife and I have been using it for several years now, and has worked well for us. LWN.net had a pair of Grumpy Editor reviews on personal finance software here and here which would be worth reading. |
Should I buy a house or am I making silly assumptions that I can afford it? | When I bought my own place, mortgage lenders worked on 3 x salary basis. Admittedly that was joint salary - eg you and spouse could sum your salaries. Relaxing this ratio is one of the reasons we are in the mess we are now. You are shrewd (my view) to realise that buying is better than renting. But you also should consider the short term likely movement in house prices. I think this could be down. If prices continue to fall, buying gets easier the longer you wait. When house prices do hit rock bottom, and you are sure they have, then you can afford to take a gamble. Lets face it, if prices are moving up, even if you lose your job and cannot pay, you can sell and you have potentially gained the increase in the period when it went up. Also remember that getting the mortgage is the easy bit. Paying in the longer term is the really hard part of the deal. |
What is a normal amount of money to spend per week on food/entertainment/clothing? | As THEAO suggested, tracking spending is a great start. But how about this - Figure out the payment needed to get to zero debt in a reasonable time, 24 months, perhaps. If that's more than 15% of your income, maybe stretch a tiny bit to 30 months. If it's much less, send 15% to debt until it's paid, then flip the money to savings. From what's left, first budget the "needs," rent, utilities, etc. Whatever you spend on food, try to cut back 10%. There is no budget for entertainment or clothes. The whole point is one must either live beneath their means, or increase their income. You've seen what can happen when the debt snowballs. In reality, with no debt to service and the savings growing, you'll find a way to prioritize spending. Some months you'll have to choose, dinner out, or a show. I agree with Keith's food bill, $300-$400/mo for 3 of us. Months with a holiday and large guest list throws that off, of course. |
Is it common in the US not to pay medical bills? | Personal story here: I ended up at the Santa Monica hospital without insurance and left with a bill of $30k-$35k. They really helped me, so I felt like I had a duty to pay them. However, close inspection revealed ridiculous markups on some items which I would have disputed, but I noticed that I had been billed for a few thousands of services not rendered. I got very mad at them for this, they apologized, told me they'd fix it. I never heard back from them and they never put it in collection either. I'm assuming they (rightfully) got scared that I'd go to court and this would be bad publicity. Sometimes I feel guilty I didn't pay them anything, sometimes I feel like they tried to screw me. |
How would I use Google Finance to find financial data about LinkedIn & its stock? | The most likely answer to your question regarding what the 'market expects' is perhaps that the market expects that currently Linked-In like a lot of other startups has been plunging almost eveything it makes into building the business and brand. So right now the net profits are pretty low percentage of income (roughly 1.5% of revenue) Given the size of the other numbers, it doesn't take a lot of movement in the right direction to get a big change in that tiny final number. The other factor is the gap between their Net and the Income Available.. I think (but I'm making a logical guess here) a large part of that gap was paying off the losses of the prior two years. If that's the case, and everything else is static, then next year's 'available' number ought to at least triple. In order to grow the net, all LI needs is to either continue current trends of growth in expenses relative to costs, keep expenses steady and experience a slight growth in income, or find a way to reduce expenses without having it impact income. Or something in between those three. If we take the first case as an example, income has been roughly doubling every year, but expenses growing less than that. if they were to continue that, but manage to get some economy of scale and have expenses grow at a slower rate, then the jump in net income ought to be substantial. most of the trends you could project end up with a big growth in the bottom line.. but yeah I gotta admit, none of that gets you 117X growth in a single year. So the conclusion I would draw is that the market is trending a few years out and being pretty optimistic given the current PE ratio. Of course you could also conclude that the market is 'social network happy' and LNKD represents one of the few opportunities for the average investor to get in on that given that facebook and myspace are not trading on the open market |
Student loan payments and opportunity costs | As Mr. Money Money Mustache once said: IF YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD DEBT, YOU SHOULD FEEL LIKE YOUR HAIR IS ON FIRE Student loan debt is different than credit card debt. Rather than having spent the money on just about anything, it was invested in improving yourself and probably your financial future. This was probably a good decision. However, unlike most credit card debt, if you ever have to file for bankruptcy, your student loans will not be erased. They will follow you forever. Pay your debts off as quickly as you can. While it may be true that "long-term return on the stock market is about 7%", you cannot assume that this will always be the case, especially in the short term. What if you had made this assumption in 2007? To assume that your stocks will beat a 6.4% guaranteed return over the next few years is not really investing. It's gambling. |
Why do some people say a house “not an investment”? | Your house is not an asset, it is a liability. Assets feed you. Liabilites eat you. Robert Kiyosaki From a cash flow perspective your primary residence (ie your house) is an investment but it is not an asset. If you add up all the income your primary residence generates and subtract all the expenses it incurs, you will see why investment gurus claim this. Perform the same calculations for a rental property and you're more likely to find it has a positive cash flow. If it has a negative cash flow, it's not an asset either; it's a liability. A rental property with a negative cash flow is still an investment, but cash flow gurus will tell you it's a bad investment. While it is possible that your house may increase in value and you may be able to sell it for more than you paid, will you be able to sell it for more than all of the expenses incurred while living there? If so, you have an asset. Some people will purchase a home in need of repair, live in it and upgrade it, sell it for profit exceeding all expenses, and repeat. These people are flipping houses and generating capital gains based on their own hard work. In this instance a person's primary residence can be an asset. How much of an asset is calculated when the renovated house is sold. |
That “write your own mortgage” thing; how to learn about it | You are asking about a common, simple practice of holding the mortgage when selling a house you own outright. Typically called seller financing. Say I am 70 and wish to downsize. The money I sell my house for will likely be in the bank at today's awful rates. Now, a buyer likes my house, and has 20% down, but due to some medical bills for his deceased wife, he and his new wife are struggling to get financing. I offer to let them pay me as if I were the bank. We agree on the rate, I have a lien on the house just as a bank would, and my mortgage with them requires the usual fire, theft, vandalism insurance. When I die, my heirs will get the income, or the buyer can pay in full after I'm gone. In response to comment "how do you do that? What's the paperwork?" Fellow member @littleadv has often posted "You need to hire a professional." Not because the top members here can't offer great, accurate advice. But because a small mistake on the part of the DIY attempt can be far more costly than the relative cost of a pro. In real estate (where I am an agent) you can skip the agent to hook up buyer/seller, but always use the pro for legal work, in this case a real estate attorney. I'd personally avoid the general family lawyer, going with the specialist here. |
Can you recommend some good websites/brokers for buying/selling stocks in India? | Most of the Indian Brokers started offering API's to retail client these days. And NSE Exchange also supports algo trading at retail level. Currently two levels of API are offered. 1)Semi-automatic or one touch trading (Retail Traders) 2)Fully Automatic ( Dealers) I had tested the API with a discount broker www.tradejini.com and it is good at retail level. But to make your trading systems fully automatic you need to pass NISM Series VIII certification (Dealer Certification) and have to take dealer terminals from the broker. You also have to register as a dealer and have to take permission from exchange to run your algos fully automated. Without Exchange permission it is illegal to involve in algo trading. |
Learning investing and the stock market | It is great that you want to learn more about the Stock Market. I'm curious about the quantitative side of analyzing stocks and other financial instruments. Does anyone have a recommendation where should I start? Which books should I read, or which courses or videos should I watch? Do I need some basic prerequisites such as statistics or macro and microeconomics? Or should I be advanced in those areas? Although I do not have any books or videos to suggest to you at the moment, I will do some more research and edit this answer. In order to understand the quantitative side of analyzing the stock market to have people take you serious enough and trust you with their money for investments, you need to have strong math and analytical skills. You should consider getting a higher level of education in several of the following: Mathematics, Economics, Finance, Statistics, and Computer Science. In mathematics, you should at least understand the following concepts: In finance, you should at least understand the following concepts: In Computer Science, you should probably know the following: So to answer your question, about "do you need to be advanced in those areas", I strongly suggest you do. I've read that books on that topics are such as The Intelligent Investor and Reminiscences of A Stock Operator. Are these books really about the analytics of investing, or are they only about the philosophy of investing? I haven't read the Reminiscences of A Stock Operator, but the Intelligent Investor is based on a philosophy of investing that you should only consider but not depend on when you make investments. |
Why can't the government simply payoff everyone's mortgage to resolve the housing crisis? | I think Energy and Mike point out the some serious issues but the prospects for the futures also need to be considered. If the banks no longer have those loans then they need to rebuild their income base that is wiped out by the payoff of their loans. They would be incentivised to make a large number of loans so that they could quickly reestablish their base so they can maintain profitability. This is likely to lead to more poor lending practices that lead to this location in the first place. The high earning heavily leveraged would benefit far more from this than the poor. A function of income is that as it increases the ability to leverage increases in a non lineal fashion. So single person making 250k a year(the benchmark set by the current administration) with a 2 million dollar mortgage(probably underwater currently) on a home would benefit much more than a family of 4 making 50k a year with a 100k mortgage. Assuming that government does pay off all mortages now people can sell of their now fully paid homes for less than their value, as its basically free money, leverage that money to move into a better home, so home values actually crash, in some areas as people sell them off cheap, people try to gamble on cheap houses(like we just saw), etc. It takes a market that is on the verge of recovery and stabilization and shakes it up. How long before it stabilizes again would be a matter of debate but I would not expect to see it in less than a decade. Business and the Economy thrives on stability and retreats from instability. So while this would appear to be an injection to the economy the chaos it creates would likely actually severely retard future economic growth. |
What can my relatives do to minimize their out of pocket expenses on their fathers estate | Sure, it's irresponsible for an executor to take actions which endanger the estate. But what about passivity or inaction? Put it another way. Is it the obligation of the executor to avoid making revenue for the estate? Think about it - what a silly idea! Consider a 12-unit apartment building full of rent paying tenants. A tenant gives notice and leaves. So do 4 more. With only 7/12 tenants, the building stops being a revenue center and becomes a massive money pit. Is that acceptable? Heck no! Realistically this will be managed by a property management company, and of course they'll seek new tenants, not stopping merely because the owner died. This situation is not different; the same fiscal logic applies. The counter-argument is usually along the lines of "stuff might happen if you rent it out"... true. But the stuff that happens to abandoned houses is much worse, and much more likely: squatters, teen "urban explorers", pot growers, copper thieves, winter pipe freeze flooding and wrecking interiors, etc. Don't take my word on it -- ask your insurer for the cost of insuring an abandoned house vs. a rented one. Renting brings a chunk of cash that comes in from tenants - $12,000/year on a $1000/mo. rental. And that will barely pay the bills if you have a young mortgage on a freshly purchased house at recent market rates. But on an old mortgage, renting is like printing money. That money propagates first to the estate (presumably it is holding back a "fix the roof" emergency fund), and then to the beneficiaries. It means getting annual checks from the estate, instead of constantly being dunned for another repair. But I don't care about making revenue (outside of putting back a kitty to replace the roof). Even if it was net zero, it means the maintenance is being done. This being the point. It is keeping the house in good repair, occupied, insured, and professionally managed -- fit and ready for the bequest's purpose: occupancy of an aunt. What's the alternative? Move an aunt into a house that's been 10 years abandoned? Realistically the heirs are going to get tired/bored of maintaining the place at a total cash loss, maintenance will slip, and you'll be moving them into a neglected house with some serious issues. That betrays the bequest, and it's not fair to the aunts. Rental is a very responsible thing to do. The executor shouldn't fail to do it merely out of passivity. If you decide not to do it, there needs to be a viable alternative to funding the home's decent upkeep. (I don't think there is one). Excluding a revenue-producing asset from the economy is an expensive thing to do. |
Why do some people say a house “not an investment”? | I think the claim is that you shouldn't buy a house expecting it to increase in value as you would a stock portfolio. OTOH if you are looking at it from the stand point of "I need housing, mortgage payments and rent are comparable and I build equity if I buy a house rather then rent" that's potentiality a very different situation (that I'm not qualified to judge). |
How to incentivize a real-estate broker to find me a cheap house | Here in the U.S., a realtor can act as a "seller's agent" or a "buyer's agent". I think what you are calling a "broker" in the U.S. we call a "buyer's agent", and this may just be a difference in terminology, from your post it sounds like the concept is the same. I am answering from a U.S. perspective, please let me know if something doesn't make sense in the Israeli context. Here, each typically gets 3% to 3.5% of the sale price (at least in my part of the country). So yes, the buyer's agent has an incentive to get a higher price, even though this is contrary to the interests of the person he is supposed to represent. On the other hand, the buyer's agent has a strong incentive to find a house at a price that you consider acceptable. If the absolute most you are willing to pay is, say, ₪1,000,000, and he keeps showing you houses that cost ₪1,500,000, he's just wasting his time. (He's wasting your time too, of course, but let's assume he doesn't care about that.) (I don't know what housing prices are in Israel today, just making up numbers.) Suppose he has two houses that he can show you, one in your price range and one not. If he shows you the first you may buy it and we will very quickly get his commission. If he shows you the second, you probably won't buy it and he'll get zero. If he keeps showing you houses above your price range, he's doing a bunch of work for which he will never be paid. The worst case from your point of view is if you're thinking that you're expecting and prepared to pay, say, ₪1,000,000 to ₪1,300,000, and you tell the broker that, his incentive is to concentrate on the upper end, maybe even push it a little. But still, if he shows a house that's well within your range so you'll quickly buy, he can get ₪30,000 today, versus trying to push you to go higher so he can maybe get ₪39,000 in a few months. Is the extra ₪9,000 worth several months of extra work? Probably not. Personally, I've never had a problem with a realtor trying to push me to buy a house more expensive than I said I was prepared to pay. At least not that I noticed. Maybe they were very skillful at it and I didn't realize they were doing it, like showing me houses that were totally run-down dumps until I decided I was willing to pay more. As to your specific suggestion: I don't know if a realtor would be willing to negotiate an alternative deal from their standard contract. I've never tried to do such a thing. Yes, this would give him an incentive to find the lowest possible price. Arguably this would create a perverse incentive to show you houses of very low quality just because they're cheap. And there would be the problem that he'd have no incentive to show you houses at or just over your stated maximum, as his commission would be zero. (Negative if it goes over slightly?) What I did on my last house was tell the realtor, I want to start by looking at houses costing under \$X. If I can't find anything I like, I'll go a little higher. By not telling the realtor my maximum, I discouraged her from immediately going for the maximum. At least that was my theory. |
Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed? | When you take the self employed health care deduction on on Line 29 of form 1040 for 2010 it also will lower your self employment tax. See line 3 of Schedule SE. You report your net earnings from self employment less line 29 from 1040. |
I co-signed a car but i am listed as the primary account holder for the loan | The buyer can get another cosigner or you can sell the car to pay off the loan. These are your only options if financing cannot be obtained independently. |
How much money should I lock up in my savings account? | Lets imagine two scenarios: 1) You make 10.4k (40% of total income) yearly contributions to a savings account that earns 1% interest for 10 years. In this scenario, you put in 104k and earned 5.89k in interest, for a total of 109.9k. 2) You make the same 10.4k yearly contribution to an index fund that earns 7% on average for 10 years. In this scenario you put in the same 104k, but earned 49.7k in interest*, for a total of 153.7k. The main advantage is option 1) has more liquidity -- you can get the money out faster. Option 2) requires time to divest any stocks / bonds. So you need enough savings to get you through that divestment period. Imagine another two scenarios where you stop earning income: 1-b) You stop working and have only your 109.9k principal amount in a 1% savings account. If you withdraw 15.6k yearly for your current cost of living, you will run through your savings in 7 years. 2-b) You stop working and have only 20k (2 years of savings) in savings that earns 1% with 153.7k in stocks that earns 7%. If you withdraw your cost of living currently at 15.6k, you will run through your investments in 15 years and your savings in 2 years, for a total of 17 years. The two years of income in savings is extremely generous for how long it starts the divestment process. In summary, invest your money. It wasn't specified what currency we are talking about, but you can easily find access to an investment company no matter where you are in the world. Keep a small amount for a rainy day. |
Covered Call Writing - What affects the price of the options? | All else being equal, you should look for more volatile (riskier) stocks. Technically, it was all time value - the entire value of an "out of the money" option is time value. What's confusing is that time value is affected by numerous variables, only one of which is time. The reason volatility is the one to look at is that all the rest are likely already intuitive to you, or are too minor an influence to worry about: Current risk-free interest rates and a stock's dividend payout during the life of the option affect the value of the call, but are usually minor infulences. (Higher interest rates makes call values higher, and higher dividend yield makes call values lower.) Longer time to expiration will increase the value of the call, but you're pretty likely already focused on that. The strike price's proximity to the current price affects the call's value - agreeing to sell a stock 5% above current levels will pay more than agreeing to sell it 10% above current levels - but again, this is likely obvious to you. Volatility, or the percent by which the stock is likely to move up or down on a given day, is almost certainly the variable that's not already obvious. Stocks that jump all over the place have higher volatility than those that move more predictably. The reason that options (calls and puts) cost more on higher volatility names is that options' payout is asymmetrical. In the case of calls, the option holder gets all the upside, but none of the downside, other than what they paid for the opotion. If one stock goes up or down $5 every day, and another goes up or down $20 every day and you could pay some fixed amount to get that stock's upside, but not have any exposure to its downside, other than that fixed amount, you'd pay more for the one that pays you $20 or $0 than you would for the one that pays you $5 or $0. That's why higher volatility (meaning larger daily moves) makes optimum prices higher. |
Implications of receiving small amounts of money on the side | HMRC may or may not find out about it; the risks and penalties involved if they do find out make it unwise not to just declare it and pay the tax on it. Based on the fact you asked the question, I am assuming that you currently pay all your tax through PAYE and don't do a tax return. You would need to register for Self Assessment and complete a return; this is not at all difficult if your tax situation is straightforward, which it sounds like yours is. Then you would owe the tax on the additional money, at whatever applicable rate (which depends on how much you earn in your main job, the rate tables are here: https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates/current-rates-and-allowances ). If it truly is a one off you could simply declare it on your return as other income, but if it is more than that then you would need to look at setting up as Self Employed - there is some good advice on the differences here: http://www.brighton-accountants.com/blog/tax-self-employment-still-employed/ : Broadly, you are likely to be running a business if you have a regular, organised activity with a profit motive, which continues for at least a few months. If the work is one-off, or very occasional (say, a few times per year), or not very organised, or of very low value (say, under £2,000 per year), then it might qualify as casual income. If you think it is beyond the definition of casual income then you would also need to pay National Insurance, as described in the previous link, but otherwise the tax treatment would be the same. |
Capital gains on no-dividend stocks - a theoretical question | Berkshire Hathaway would be a good example of a company that has yet to pay dividends, yet is a highly valued stock. A couple of key points here to note is how on the first hand you have that the dividend policy will never change, yet couldn't one argue that there will always be new investors wanting more shares and thus the price keeps going up until someone gains control and decides to issue dividends? I'm just pointing out how on the one hand you are claiming a never changing and yet on the other thinking there will be a termination when the reality is that unless there is a zombie apocalypse of some form, life will continue and there will be new people to want to buy the stock and some people be willing to sell at the new prices. |
Are cashiers required to check a credit card for a signature in the U.S.? | I'm not sure if they're required to do so, but I have been neglecting to sign my cards for some time now. If they do check, that triggers an ID check, where they'll find my signature. I know of at least one person that writes "see ID" instead of signing their cards. He began that practice over 10 years ago. |
Can we compare peer-to-peer loans to savings accounts? | I don't think you can compare savings accounts and peer-to-peer lending. The former is a liquid way of stashing some money away (IOW you can get at it pretty much any time you want) whereas the latter is extremely illiquid (you only get your money back if and when the loan has been repaid). Also, as mentioned by the other posters, there is a risk attached to p2p lending, even if the borrowers are vetted by the p2p lending platform. You're essentially taking the same risks that a bank would take when writing a couple of personal loans, and that's quite far removed from a safe haven for your cash. If you have enough money to invest (not save, invest) then it might be worth putting a small amount into p2p lending, but it's anything but an alternative to a savings account. |
If banks offer a fixed rate lower than the variable rate, is that an indication interest rates may head down? | Usually that is the case that when fixed rates are lower than the variable rates, it is an indication that the banks feel the next movement in rates could be down. You also need to look at the fixed rates for different periods, for example 1 year fixed compared to 3 year fixed and 5 year fixed rates. If you find the 3 and 5 year fixed rates are higher than the 1 year fixed rates this could be an indication that the banks feel rates will fall in the short term but the falls won't last long and will continue to rise after a year or so. If the 3 year fixed rates are also low in comparison, then the banks may feel that the economy is heading for a longer term down trend. The banks won't want to lose out, so will change their fixed rates on their perception of where they feel the economy is headed. Since your post in May 2011, the standard variable rate has since dropped twice (in November and December) to be at 7.30%. You will also find that fixed rates have also been dropped further by the banks, indicating additional future cuts in the variable rates. Regards, Victor |
What does “profits to the shareholders jumped to 15 cents a share” mean? | What does it mean in terms of share price? Should the share price increase by 15 cents? No, but you're on the right track. In theory, the price of a share reflects it's "share" of time discounted future earnings. To put it concretely, imagine a company consistently earning 15 cents a share every year and paying it all out as dividends. If you only paid 25 cents for it, you could earn five cents a share by just holding it for two years. If you imagine that stocks are priced assuming a holding period of 20 years or so, so we'd expect the stock to cost less than 3 dollars. More accurately, the share price reflects expected future earnings. If everyone is assuming this company is growing earnings every quarter, an announcement will only confirm information people have already been trading based on. So if this 15 cents announcement is a surprise, then we'd expect the stock price to rise as a function of both the "surprise" in earnings, and how long we expect them to stay at this new profitability level before competition claws their earnings away. Concretely, if 5 cents a share of that announcement were "earnings surprise," you'd expect it to rise somewhere around a dollar. |
Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time? | As some others have pointed out, it's key to remember the difference in market value and accounting value. To simplify things, book value is the only item that specifically depreciates... it happens in the world of accounting to try to time "when did I use a long term asset?" with "when did I obtain value from that asset?" For a house, governments usually allow owners to claim depreciation of the building over a set period of time. This does not affect your resale value of the house. Similarly, for a commercial property, governments set laws for how an individual or a company can time the "use" of that asset vs. their accounting. Some companies can have totally depreciated ("zero cost") assets that are still very productive. Market Property values are derived from 3 specific sources: Value in Trade is an estimate of the value that others would be willing to pay for a similar asset. That's why you can buy a house today, and in a "normal" market, the same house should be worth a similar amount of money in the future. Value in Use can be more interesting... this is where a farmer can extract $100,000 in value per year from 10 acres of land. But as a region develops, a manufacturing company can generate $300,000 per year from the same 10 acres of land. The company can buy out the farmer at a 'fair' price (>$100,000 per year) and still net positive from the investment. Income Approach tends to be focused on properties that have a cash flow, but can be adapted to other property estimates. It evaluates the current "business case" for any property with the cost of money down, the overall investment price, and the expected value from any returns. Remember, the market value is very simply, the price you could obtain if you sold the asset at a given time. It is rarely considered in terms of "how much will this go down?". Book value is an accounting exercise and declines by a set amount every year, because it means you can estimate the "cost" of owning an asset vs the value it generates in a particular time period. |
What is value investing? What are the key principles of value investing? | Value investing is an investment approach that relies on buying securities below their intrinsic values. There are two main concepts; one is the Intrinsic Value and the other is Margin of Safety. Intrinsic value is the value of the underlying business - if we are talking about stocks - that can be calculated through carefully analyzing the business looking at all aspects of it. If there is an intrinsic value exists for a company then there is a price tag we can put on its shares as well. Value investing is looking to buy shares well below its intrinsic value. It is important to know that there is no correct intrinsic value exists for a company and two people can come up with different figures, if they were presented the same data. Calculating the intrinsic value for a business is the hardest part of value investing. Margin of Safety is the difference between the buying price of a stock and its intrinsic value. Value investors are insisting on buying stocks well below their intrinsic value, where the margin of safety is 20%-30% or even more. This concepts is protecting them from poor decisions and market downturns. It is also providing a room for error, when calculating the intrinsic value. The approach was introduced by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in a book called Security Analysis in 1934. Other famous investor using this approach is Warren Buffet Books to read: I would start to read the first two book first. |
What does Chapter 11 Bankruptcy mean to an investor holding shares of a Chapter 11 Company? | If you've got shares in a company that's filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy, that sucks, it really does. I've been there before and you may lose your entire investment. If there's still a market for your shares and you can sell them, you may want to just accept the loss and get out with what you can. However, shares of bankrupt companies are often delisted once bankrupt, since the company no longer meets minimum exchange listing requirements. If you're stuck holding shares with no market, you could lose everything – but that's not always the case: Chapter 11 isn't total and final bankruptcy where the company ceases to exist after liquidation of its assets to pay off its debts. Rather, Chapter 11 is a section of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that permits a company to attempt to reorganize (or renegotiate) its debt obligations. During Chapter 11 reorganization, a company can negotiate with its creditors for a better arrangement. They typically need to demonstrate to creditors that without the burden of the heavy debt, they could achieve profitability. Such reorganization often involves creditors taking complete or majority ownership of the company when it emerges from Chapter 11 through a debt-for-equity swap. That's why you, as an investor before the bankruptcy, are very likely to get nothing or just pennies on the dollar. Any equity you may be left holding will be considerably diluted in value. It's rare that shareholders before a Chapter 11 bankruptcy still retain any equity after the company emerges from Chapter 11, but it is possible. But it varies from bankruptcy to bankruptcy and it can be complex as montyloree pointed out. Investopedia has a great article: An Overview of Corporate Bankruptcy. Here's an excerpt: If a company you've got a stake in files for bankruptcy, chances are you'll get back pennies to the dollar. Different bankruptcy proceedings or filings generally give some idea as to whether the average investor will get back all or a portion of his investment, but even that is determined on a case-by-case basis. There is also a pecking order of creditors and investors of who get paid back first, second and last. In this article, we'll explain what happens when a public company files for protection under U.S. bankruptcy laws and how it affects investors. [...] How It Affects Investors [...] When your company goes bankrupt, there is a very good chance you will not get back the full value of your investment. In fact, there is a chance you won't get anything back. [...] Wikipedia has a good article on Chapter 11 bankruptcy at Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code. |
Which is the better strategy for buying stocks monthly? | To optimize your return on investment, you need to buy low and sell high. If you knew that one stock had hit rock bottom, and the others had not, buying the low stock would be the best. However, unless you can predict the future, you don't know if any individual stock has hit the bottom, or if it will continue to drop. If you decide to spend the same amount of money each month on stock purchases, then when the price is low, you will automatically buy more shares, and when the price is high, you will buy fewer shares. This strategy is sometimes called dollar cost averaging. It eliminates the need to predict the future to optimize your buying. All that having been said, I agree with @Powers that at the investment amount that you are talking about and the per transaction fee you listed, a monthly investment in several stocks will cause you to lose quite a bit to transaction fees. It sounds like you need a different strategy. |
What should I reserve “emergency savings” for? | Emergency funds are good to keep yourself out of debt, for whatever reason. Job loss is a big place where an emergency fund can help you out. It buys you time to find another job before hauling out the credit cards for your groceries, falling behind on your mortgage and car payments, etc. But it can just as easily be used for major car repairs, serious medical issues, home repairs, etc. ... anything that needs to be done quickly, and isn't a discretionary item. The bigger your cash reserves, the better, especially now that the economy is bad. |
How do dividend reinvestment purchases work? | Many brokers administer their own dividend reinvestment plans. In this case, on dividend payment date, they automatically buy from the market on behalf of their reinvestment customers, and they administer all fractional shares across all customers. All of your shares are in the broker's street name anyway, the fractional share is simply in their account system. The process is well documented for several common online brokers; so any specific questions you may have about differences in policies or implementation should be directed to your broker: https://us.etrade.com/e/t/estation/help?id=1301060000 https://www.tdameritrade.com/retail-en_us/resources/pdf/TDA208.pdf |
Does a market maker sell (buy) at a bid or ask price? | The everyday investor buys at the ask and sells at the bid but the market maker does the opposite This is misleading; it has nothing to do with being either an investor or a market maker. It is dependent on the type of order that is submitted. When a market trades at the ask, this means that a buy market order has interacted with a sell limit order at the limit price. When a market trades at the bid, this means that a sell market order has interacted with a buy limit order at the limit price. An ordinary investor can do exactly the same as a market maker and submit limit orders. Furthermore, they can sit on both sides of the bid and ask exactly as a market maker does. In the days before high frequency trading this was quite common (an example being Daytek, whose traders were notorious for stepping in front of the designated market maker's bid/ask on the Island ECN). An order executes ONLY when both bid and ask meet. (bid = ask) This is completely incorrect. A transaction occurs when an active (marketable) order is matched with a passive (limit book) order. If the passive order is a sell limit then the trade has occurred at the ask, and if it is a buy limit the trade has occurred at the bid. The active orders are not bids and asks. The only exception to this would be if the bid and ask have become crossed. When a seller steps in, he does so with an ask that's lower than the stock's current ask Almost correct; he does so with an order that's lower than the stock's current ask. If it's a marketable order it will fill the front queued best bid, and if it's a limit order his becomes the new ask price. A trade does not need to occur at this price for it to become the ask. This is wrong, market makers are the opposite party to you so the prices are the other way around for them. This is wrong. There is no distinction between the market maker and yourself or any other member of the public (beside the fact that designated market makers on some exchanges are obliged to post both a bid and ask at all times). You can open an account with any broker and do exactly the same as a market maker does (although with nothing like the speed that a high frequency market-making firm can, hence likely making you uncompetitive in this arena). The prices a market maker sees and the types of orders that they are able to use to realize them are exactly the same as for any other trader. |
Ways to establish credit history for international student | I would like to establish credit history - have heard it's useful to gain employment and makes it easy to rent an apartment? Higher credit scores will make it easier with landlords, that's true. As to employment - they do background checks, which means that they usually won't like bad things, but won't care about the good things or no things (they'll know you're a foreigner anyway). Is it safe to assume that this implies I have no history whatsoever? Probably, but you can verify pulling through AnnualCreditReport, don't go around giving your personal information everywhere. Is taking out a secured loan the only way for me? No, but it's one of the easiest. Better would be getting a secured Credit Card, not loan. For loan you'll have to pay interest, for a credit card (assuming you pay off all your purchases immediately) you will only pay the credit card fees (for secured credit cards they charge ~$20-100 yearly fees, so do shop around, the prices vary a lot!). If you're using it wisely, after a year it will be converted to a regular credit card and the collateral will be returned to you with interest (which is actually very competitive, last I heard it was around 2%, twice as much as the online savings accounts). As to a secured loan - you'll be paying 4% to CU for your own money. Doesn't make any sense at all for me. For credit cards you'll at least get some value for your money - convenience, additional fraud protection, etc. The end result will be the same. Usually the credit starts to build up after ~6-12 months (that's why after a year your secured CC will be converted to a regular one). Make sure to have the statement balance in the range of 10-30% of your credit limit, to get the best results. Would it make much better sense to wait till I get a job (then I would have a fixed monthly salary and can apply for a regular CC directly) You can apply, but you'll probably be rejected. As I mentioned in another answer elsewhere, the system in the US is such that you're unable to get credit if you don't already have credit. Which is kindof a magic circle, which you can break with the secured credit card as the least costly solution. |
Why don't banks print their own paper money / bank notes? | In Scotland, each bank issues its own separate notes. It's not uncommon to see identical-valued £10 notes, for example, from three different banks in one's wallet. |
Is This Money Laundering? | or is this a form of money laundering? May not be, generally the amounts involved in money laundering are much higher. So if there are quite a few such transactions then yes it could be money laundering. It could also be for circumventing taxes, depending on country regulations one may try to do this to get around gift taxes etc. In this specific case it looks more of link harvesting / SEO optimization. Take a low cost item that is often searched and link to other product. if you see the company link on Amazon; Cougar takes you to shoes. So maybe on its own Cougar shoes does not rank high, so link it with similar name brand in different segment and try to boost the link. |
Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when? | Real estate is always an interesting dynamic. In most cases prices have always gone up. Price is mainly a function of demand. Sometimes demand is artificially inflated over a short term period and can come down quickly due to corrections. During recessions the housing market will usually slow down. There are some rare instances where certain areas never recover (see Subprime Mortgage Crisis Savings & Loans Crisis where scores of unwanted properties exist). Things to consider: |
Finding a good small business CPA? | The first place to look for an accountant is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants which has a directory of CPAs, accounting companies, and local accounting societies. I was also looking for one for my own small firm. It really helps. |
What funds were closed during or after the recent recessions? | Yes, many hedge funds (for example) did not survive 2008-2009. But hedge funds were failing both before and after that period, and other hedge funds thrived. Those types of funds are particularly risky because they depend so much on leverage (i.e. on money that isn't actually theirs). More publically-visible funds (like those of the big-name index fund companies) tended not to close because they are not leveraged. You say that "a great many companies" failed during the recession, but that's not actually true. I can't think of more than a handful of publically-traded companies that went bankrupt. So, since the vast majority of publically-traded companies stayed in business, their stocks kept some/most of their value, and the funds that owned those stocks stayed afloat. I personally did not see a single index fund that went out of business due to the recession. |
Stock Certificate In two names | The DOW is just an index, which is simply a group of stocks meeting the criteria for inclusion. In the case of the DOW, it's the 30 US stocks with the largest market capitalization, but other indices include many lesser stocks (such as the S&P500 or the Russell 2000). The fact that Holobeam is no longer a constituent of the DOW30 probably shouldn't be taken in and of itself as a signal to sell the stock. As far as I can tell, HOOB stock is still trading on the Nasdaq exchange. However, it is extremely ill-liquid, which means that there are very few people willing to buy or sell it. Whether or not this would work to your advantage is almost entirely down to luck - it depends whether there is a keen buyer out there at the time you try to sell. |
Please help me understand reasons for differences in Government Bond Yields | These are yields for the government bonds. EuroZone interest rates are much lower (10 times lower, in fact) than the UK (GBP zone) interest rates. The rates are set by the central banks. |
Recovering over-contribution to Social Security between two employers? | This is a common occurrence when somebody has multiple jobs in one year. The employer can't know if you have reached the annual limit. They know to stop when you have hit the maximum for their company, but don't have information on the other jobs. In fact the IRS doesn't let them factor in the other jobs. They have to keep making their payment until you hit the max for their company. When you fill out the 1040 there will be a line that checks that the total social security amount for each person was not over the annual limit. The extra will be refunded when you file your taxes. In the future if this happens again you can adjust your withholding to minimize the overage. For the example given in the question to get the 4K extra sooner, increase the number of allowances on the W-4. You can under withhold federal income tax because you will over withhold social security tax. |
Why would a company care about the price of its own shares in the stock market? | Investors are typically a part of the board of directors of the company. Because of their ownership in the company, they have a vested interest in its stock price. The same is true for management also in cases where they hold a certain percentage of equity in the company. Their incentives also get aligned to the stock price. |
Can I get a dividend “free lunch” by buying a stock just before the ex-dividend date and selling it immediately after? [duplicate] | Not minutes, but hours. The "ex-dividend" date is the deadline for acquiring a stock to receive a dividend. If you hold a stock at the beginning of this day, you will receive the dividend. So you could buy a stock right at the end of the day on the day before the ex-dividend date, and sell it the next day (on the ex-dividend date), and you would get your dividend. See this page from the SEC for more information. The problem with this strategy, however, is that the value of the stock typically drops by the same amount as the dividend on that day. If you take a look at the historical price of the stock you are interested in, you'll see this. Of course, it makes sense why: a seller knows that selling before the date results in a loss of the dividend, so they want a higher price to compensate. Likewise, a buyer on or after the date knows that the dividend is already gone, so they want to pay a lower price. |
Is there a good forum where I can discuss individual US stocks? | I've used Wikinvest before and think that's close to what you're looking for - but in Wiki-style rather than forums. Otherwise, I agree with CrimsonX that The Motley Fool is a good place to check out. |
Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? | What benefit vs. what cost? Benefit - none that I can think of. Cost - massive. Every system that handles money would need to re-value overnight, every store would need to re-price. In many ways it would be simpler and maybe even cheaper to introduce a new currency. |
How to increase my credit score | Get a credit card is NOT the answer. The reason people have a bad (or no) credit score is often because they're new to the country, have just turned 18, have previously fallen into arrears or are just bad with money. Getting a credit card is risky because, if you don't stay on top of your payments, it'll just damage your score even more. Now, it sounds like I hate credit cards - but I don't, and they do have their benefits. But avoid them if possible because they can be more hassle than they're worth (ie, paying the credit back on-time, cancelling accounts when the interest comes in, moving money in and out of accounts). It's risky borrowing money from anywhere whether it's a payday lender, a bank, a credit card, etc., so use them as a last resort. If you've got your own income then that's amazing!, try not to live outside of your means and your credit score will look after (and increase) itself. It takes time to build a good credit score, but always make sure you pay the people you owe on time and the full amount. I'd stick with paying your phone provider (and any other direct debits you have setup) and avoid getting a credit card. I'd recommend Noddle to keep track of your credit score and read their FAQ on how to help build it. Unlike Experian, it's free forever so not quite as detailed... but Noddle are owned by CallCredit - one of the biggest Credit Reference Agencies in the UK so they should have the latest information on yourself. In conclusion, if you already have financial commitments like a mobile phone bill, gym membership, store cards, anything that gets paid monthly by direct debit... your credit score will increase (provided you pay the full-amount on time). I hope this helps. PS. I don't work for any of the companies here, but I've been working in the finance sector (more specifically, short-term loans) for 3+ years now. |
Free service for automatic email stock alert when target price is met? | Yes, there are plenty of sites that will do this for you. Yahoo, and MarketWatch are a few that come to mind first. I'm sure you could find plenty of others. |
What is a normal amount of money to spend per week on food/entertainment/clothing? | I'll start with a question... Is the 63K before or after taxes? The short answer to your question on how much is reasonable is: "It depends." It depends on a lot more than where you live, it depends on what you want... do you want to pay down debt? Do you want to save? Are you trying to buy a house? Those will influence how much you "can" (should let yourselves) spend. It also depends on your actual salary... just because I spend 5% of my salary on something doesn't mean bonkers to you if you're making 63,000 and I'm only making 10,000. I also have a lot of respect for you trying to take this on. It's never easy. But I would also recommend you start by trying to see what you can do to track how much you are actually spending. That can be hard, especially if you mostly use cash. Once you're tracking what you spend, I still think you're coming at this a bit backwards though... rather than ask 'how much is reasonable' to spend on those other expenses, you basically need to rule out the bigger items first. This means things like taxes, your housing, food, transportation, and kid-related expenses. (I've got 2.5 kids of my own.) I would guess that you're listing your pre-tax salaries on here... so start first with whatever it costs you to pay taxes. I'm a US citizen living in Berlin, haven't filed UK taxes, but uktaxcalculators.co.uk says that on 63,000 a year with 3 deductions your net earnings will actually be 43,500. That's 3,625/month. Then what does it cost you each month for rent/utilities/etc. to put a house over your family's head? The rule of thumb they taught in my home-economics class was 35-40%, but that's not for Europe... you'll know what it costs. Let's say its 1,450 a month (40%) for rent and utilities and maybe insurance. That leaves 2,175. The next necessity after housing is food. My current food budget is about 5-6% of my after-tax salary. But that may not compare... the cost to feed a family of 3 is a fairly fixed number, and our salaries aren't the same. As I said, I am a US expat living in Berlin, so I looked at this cost of living calculator, and it looks like groceries are about 7-10% higher there around Cardiff than here in Germany. Still, I spend about 120 € per week on food. That has a fair margin in it for splurging on ice cream and a couple brewskies. It feeds me (I'm almost 2m and about 100 kilos) and my family of four. Let's say you spend 100£ a week on groceries. For budgeting, that's 433£ a month. (52 weeks / 12 months == 4.333 weeks/month) But let's call it 500£. That leaves 1,675. From here, you'll have to figure out the details of where your own money is going--that's why I said you should really start tracking your expenses somehow... even just for a short time. But for the purposes of completing the answers to your questions, the next step is to look at saving before you try spending anything else. A nice target is to aim for 10% of your after-tax pay going into a savings account... this is apart from any other investments. Let's say you do that, you'll be putting away 363£ per month. That leaves 1,300£. As far as other expenses... you need some money for transport. You haven't mentioned car(s) but let's say you're spending another 500£ there. That would be about enough to cover one with the petrol you need to get around town. That leaves 800£ As far as a clothing budget and entertainment, I usually match my grocery budget with what I call "mad money". That's basically money that goes towards other stuff that I would love to categorize, but that my wife gets annoyed with my efforts to drill into on a regular basis. That's another 500£, which leaves 300£. You mentioned debts... assuming that's a credit card at around 20% interest, you probably pay 133£ a month just in interest... (20% = 0.20 / 12 = 0.01667 x 8,000 = 133) plus some nominal payment towards principal. So let's call it 175£. That leaves you with 125£ of wiggle room, assuming I have even caught all of your expenses. And depending on how they're timed, you are probably feeling a serious squeeze in between paychecks. I recognize that you're asking specific questions, but I think that just based on the questions you need a bit more careful backing into the budget. And you REALLY need to track what you're spending for the time being, until you can say... right, we usually spend about this much on X... how can we cut it out? From there the basics of getting your financial house in order are splattered across the interwebs. Make a budget... stick to it... pay down debts... save. Develop goals and mini incentives/rewards as a way to make sure your change your psyche about following a budget. |
How do dividend reinvestment purchases work? | In order: A seller of the stock (duh!). You don't know who or why this stock was sold. It could be any reason, and is of no concern of yours. It doesn't matter. Investors (pension funds, hedge funds, individual investors, employees, management) sell stock for many reasons: need cash, litigation, differing objectives, sector rotation, etc. To you, this does not matter. Yes, it does affect stock market prices: If you were not willing to buy that amount of shares, and there were no other buyers at that price, the seller would likely choose to lower the price offered. By your purchase, you are supporting the price. |
What option-related strategies are better suited to increasing return potential? | I've traded covered calls now and then. This is a recent trade. Bought 1000 shares of RSH (Radio Shack) and sold 10 calls. So, I own the stock at a cost of $6.05, but have to let it go for $7.50. There's a 50c dividend in November, so the call buyer will call it away even if the stock trades below the strike. So, I'm expecting this is a 10 month trade for a 24% return. This is one strategy where options clearly take down the risk (of course, I did not say 'remove', just lessens). The stock can be 10% lower a year out, and I'm still ahead by 8% plus the dividend if it's not canceled. Note - it's a rare case for a one year trade to return 20% or more at a flat stock price. More common is 10-12%. (I hope this example is acceptable as an example of this type of trade. If not, I can edit to "XYZ corp" to remove the stock name. (So if anyone comments, please do not repeat name in case I need to remove) |
Is insurance worth it if you can afford to replace the item? If not, when is it? | The key point to answer the question is to consider risk aversion. Assume I suggest a game to you: Throw a coin and if you win, you get $5, if you lose nothing happens. Will you play the game? Of course, you will - you have nothing to lose! What if I suggest this: If you win, you get $10,000,005 and if you lose you must pay $10,000,000 (I also accept cars, houses, spouses, and kidneys as payment). While the expected value of the second game is the same as for the first, if you lose the second game you are more or less doomed to spend the rest of your life in poverty or not even have a rest of your life. Therefore, you will not wish to play the second game. Well, maybe you do - but probably only if you are very, very rich and can easily afford a loss (even if you had $11,000,000 you won't be as happy with a possible raise to $21,000,005 as you'd be unhappy with dropping to a mere $1,000,000, so you'd still not like to play). Some model this by taking logarithms: If your capital grows from $500 to $1000 or from $1000 to $2000, in both cases it doubles, hence is considered the same "personal gain", effectively. And, voíla, the logartithm of your capital grows by the same amount in both cases. This refelcts that a rich man will not be as happy about finding a $10 note as a poor man will be about finding a nickel. The effect of an insurance is that you replace an uncertain event of great damage with a certain event of little damage. Of course, the insurance company plays the same game, with roles swapped - so why do they play? One point is that they play the game very often, which tends to nivel the risks - unless you do something stupid and insure all inhabitants of San Francisco (and nobody else) against eqarthquakes. But also they have enough capital that they can afford to lose the game. In a fair situation, i.e. when the insurance costs just as much as damage cost multiplied with probability of damage, a rational you would eagerly buy the insurance because of risk aversion. Therefore, the insurance will in effect be able to charge more than the statistically fair price and many will still (gnawingly) buy it, and that's how they make a living. The decision how much more one is willing to accept as insurance cost is also a matter of whether you can afford a loss of the insured item easily, with regrets, barely, or not all. |
Covered Call Writing - What affects the price of the options? | There are some excellent responses to this question at the time of this post. I have had the greatest success writing 1-month options. The 2 main reasons are as follows: With little time to expiration as stated in the question the implied volatility of the option is dictating the premium. Looking for the highest premiums is a mistake because you are taking a conservative strategy and re-creating it into a high-risk strategy. My sweet spot is a 2-4% monthly return for my initial profit and then mastering management techniques to protect that return and even enhancing it. |
Is it adventageous to expedite my wedding before the new year for tax savings? | Yes on taxes. It depends on the other point. As you already see from Ben's comment, if you're both very Western in your culture, you may want to consider Ben's advice because while you will save money, it may not be considered a healthy way to start a relationship. Western culture tends to see marriage as more of a "do it for love" whereas other cultures may view marriage more pragmatically and take economics and finance as a major consideration. For instance, a friend of mine married his spouse and it was 100% pragmatic - considering taxes and laws, driving most of his family insane because "it doesn't sound very loving" (these were the exact words). Unfortunately, this created tension later on because family on both sides kept telling both of them that the other didn't love the partner and they used how their marriage started as proof. As surprising as it is to me (non-Western), many Americans are horrified at people marrying at the JOP or other pragmatic ways, even if it saves them thousands. Answering questions about relationships is very difficult because often the issue is less about money and more about culture. If you're both from pragmatic cultures where economics and finance weigh strongly and you don't see possible issues with family (and really be honest on this point), then consider the financial advantages. |
If gold's price implodes then what goes up? | Nothing necessarily has to "benefit." Right now, what primarily drives demand for gold is its perceived use as a hedge against the inflation of fiat currency. I.e. when inflation strikes, the price of gold goes up rapidly. Thus, for a given currency, gold decreasing in price is almost always a signal that the currency is increasing in value. However, it may be that at some point in time people everywhere just decide that gold is no longer worth using as an inflation hedge, and thus the price collapses simply because demand collapsed. No corresponding "benefit". |
How do banks lose money on foreclosures? | Someone has to hand out cash to the seller. Even if no physical money changes hands (and I've bought a house; I can tell you a LOT of money changes hands at closing in at least the form of a personal check), and regardless of exactly how the bank accounts for the actual disbursement of the loan, the net result is that the buyer has cash that they give the seller, and are now in debt to the bank for least that amount (but, they now have a house). Now, the bank probably didn't have that money just sitting in its vault. Money sitting in a vault is money that is not making more money for the bank; therefore most banks keep only fractionally more than the percentage of deposit balances that they are required to keep by the Feds. There are also restrictions on what depositors' money can be spent on, and loans are not one of them; the model of taking in money in savings accounts and then loaning it out is what caused the savings and loan collapse in the 80s. So, to get the money, it turns to investors; the bank sells bonds, putting itself in debt to bond holders, then takes that money and loans it out at a higher rate, covering the interest on the bond and making itself a tidy profit for its own shareholders. Banks lose money on defaults in two ways. First, they lose all future interest payments that would have been made on the loan. Technically, this isn't "revenue" until the interest is calculated for each month and "accrues" on the loan; therefore, it doesn't show on the balance sheet one way or the other. However, the holders of those bonds will expect a return, and the banks no longer have the mortgage payment to cover the coupon payments that they themselves have to pay bondholders, creating cash flow problems. The second, and far more real and damaging, way that banks lose money on a foreclosure is the loss of collateral value. A bank virtually never offers an unsecured "signature loan" for a house (certainly not at the advertised 3-4% interest rates). They want something to back up the loan, so if you disappear off the face of the earth they have a clear claim to something that can help them recover their money. Usually, that's the house itself; if you default, they get the house from you and sell it to recover their money. Now, a major cause of foreclosure is economic downturn, like the one we had in 2009 and are still recovering from. When the economy goes in the crapper, a lot of things we generally consider "stores of value" lose that value, because the value of the whatzit (any whatzit, really) is based on what someone else would pay to have it. When fewer people are looking to buy that whatzit, demand drops, bringing prices with it. Homes and real estate are one of the real big-ticket items subject to this loss of value; when the average Joe doesn't know whether he'll have a job tomorrow, he doesn't go house-hunting. This average Joe may even be looking to sell an extra parcel of land or an income property for cash, increasing supply, further decreasing prices. Economic downturn can often increase crime and decrease local government spending on upkeep of public lands (as well as homeowners' upkeep of their own property). By the "broken window" effect, this makes the neighborhood even less desirable in a vicious cycle. What made this current recession a double-whammy for mortgage lenders is that it was caused, in large part, by a housing bubble; cheap money for houses made housing prices balloon rapidly, and then when the money became more expensive (such as in sub-prime ARMs), a lot of those loans, which should never have been signed off on by either side, went belly-up. Between the loss of home value (a lot of which will likely turn out to be permanent; that's the problem with a bubble, things never recover to their peak) and the adjustment of interest rates on mortgages to terms that will actually pay off the loan, many homeowners found themselves so far underwater (and sinking fast) that the best financial move for them was to walk away from the whole thing and try again in seven years. Now the bank's in a quandary. They have this loan they'll never see repaid in cash, and they have this home that's worth maybe 75% of the mortgage's outstanding balance (if they're lucky; some homes in extremely "distressed" areas like Detroit are currently trading for 30-40% of what they sold for just before the bubble burst). Multiply that by, say, 100,000 distressed homes with similar declines in value, and you're talking about tens of billions of dollars in losses. On top of that, the guarantor (basically the bank's insurance company against these types of losses) is now in financial trouble themselves, because they took on so many contracts for debt that turned out to be bad (AIG, Fannie/Freddie); they may very well declare bankruptcy and leave the bank holding the bag. Even if the guarantor remains solvent (as they did thanks to generous taxpayer bailouts), the bank's swap contract with the guarantor usually requires them to sell the house, thus realizing the loss between what they paid and what they finally got back, before the guarantor will pay out. But nobody's buying houses anymore, because prices are on their way down; the only people who'd buy a house now versus a year from now (or two or three years) are the people who have no choice, and if you have no choice you're probably in a financial situation that would mean you'd never be approved for the loan anyway. In order to get rid of them, the bank has to sell them at auction for pennies on the dollar. That further increases the supply of cheap homes and further drives down prices, making even the nicer homes the bank's willing to keep on the books worth less (there's a reason these distresed homes were called "toxic assets"; they're poisonous to the banks whether they keep or sell them). Meanwhile, all this price depression is now affecting the people who did everything right; even people who bought their homes years before the bubble even formed are watching years of equity-building go down the crapper. That's to say nothing of the people with prime credit who bought at just the wrong time, when the bubble was at its peak. Even without an adjusting ARM to contend with, these guys are still facing the fact that they paid top dollar for a house that likely will not be worth its purchase price again in their lifetime. Even with a fixed mortgage rate, they'll be underwater, effectively losing their entire payment to the bank as if it were rent, for much longer than it would take to have this entire mess completely behind them if they just walked away from the whole thing, moved back into an apartment and waited it out. So, these guys decide on a "strategic default"; give the bank the house (which doesn't cover the outstanding balance of course) and if they sue, file bankruptcy. That really makes the banks nervous; if people who did everything right are considering the hell of foreclosure and bankruptcy to be preferable to their current state of affairs, the bank's main threat keeping people in their homes is hollow. That makes them very reluctant to sign new mortgages, because the risk of default is now much less certain. Now people who do want houses in this market can't buy them, further reducing demand, further decreasing prices... You get the idea. That's the housing collapse in a nutshell, and what banks and our free market have been working through for the past five years, with only the glimmer of a turnaround picking up home sales. |
Why sometimes payable date is BEFORE the ex-dividend date? | Do you realise that the examples you have given are for stock splits not for dividends, that is why the date payable is before the ex-date for the split. The payments for the split occur on 30th June and the first day the stock trades with the new split is on the next trading day, being the ex-date, 1st July. |
Stock stopped trading, what does this mean? | You have not lost value. It is just that the shares you owned, are now not tradable on US stock exchanges. You still have the value of your shares protected. In cases like de-listing of a stock, typically a trust (may be managed by a bank) is setup to help customers liquidate their stocks. You should try to search the relevant SEC filings for de-listing of this stock to get more details on whom to contact. |
Double-entry bookkeeping: How to account for non-monetary taxable benefits received from employer? | I can say that I got X dollars from an account like "Income:Benefits"... but where do I credit that money to? "Expenses:Groceries" Yes doesn't feel right, since I never actually spent that money on food, You did, didn't you? You got food. I'm guessing there's an established convention for this already? Doubt it. Established conventions in accounting are for businesses, and more specifically - public companies. So you can find a GAAP, or IFRS guidelines on how to book benefits (hint: salary expense), but it is not something you may find useful in your own household accounting. Do what is most convenient for you. Since it is a double-booking system - you need to have an account on the other side. Expenses:Groceries doesn't feel right? Add Expenses:Groceries:Benefits or Expenses:Benefits or whatever. When you do your expense and cash-flow reports - you can exclude both the income and the expense benefits accounts if you track them separately, so that they don't affect your tracking of the "real" expenses. |
Other than being able to borrow to invest, how is a margin trading account different from a cash account? | With margin accounts you will be able to use the proceeds from a closed trade INSTANTLY. Without margin accounts this is the time you close the trade + 3 business days for clearing. In practice this means 4-5 days if there is a weekend or holiday involved between those 3 business days. This ties up your capital for an unfavorable amount of time, where as a margin account lets you continue to use the capital over and over again for more opportunities. You CANNOT sell to open a position in cash accounts. This means no short selling. This means no covered calls or spreads and MANY other strategies. These are the real differences you'll notice in a margin account vs a cash account. Then there are the myriad of regulations that dictate how much cash you should keep in your account for any margin position. |
what are the downsides of rolling credit card debt in this fashion | Assuming you can get keep getting credit cards like this forever, you open yourself up to risk in short term losses. Stock/bond prices fluctuate. If you need to pay the money back for some reason (at the end of the 15 months) your investment may be less than the 5,000 you started with. |
When are investments taxed? | This answer is about the USA. Each time you sell a security (a stock or a bond) or some other asset, you are expected to pay tax on the net gain. It doesn't matter whether you use a broker or mutual fund to make the sale. You still owe the tax. Net capital gain is defined this way: Gross sale prices less (broker fees for selling + cost of buying the asset) The cost of buying the asset is called the "basis price." You, or your broker, needs to keep track of the basis price for each share. This is easy when you're just getting started investing. It stays easy if you're careful about your record keeping. You owe the capital gains tax whenever you sell an asset, whether or not you reinvest the proceeds in something else. If your capital gains are modest, you can pay all the taxes at the end of the year. If they are larger -- for example if they exceed your wage earnings -- you should pay quarterly estimated tax. The tax authorities ding you for a penalty if you wait to pay five- or six-figure tax bills without paying quarterly estimates. You pay NET capital gains tax. If one asset loses money and another makes money, you pay on your gains minus your losses. If you have more losses than gains in a particular year, you can carry forward up to $3,000 (I think). You can't carry forward tens of thousands in capital losses. Long term and short term gains are treated separately. IRS Schedule B has places to plug in all those numbers, and the tax programs (Turbo etc) do too. Dividend payments are also taxable when they are paid. Those aren't capital gains. They go on Schedule D along with interest payments. The same is true for a mutual fund. If the fund has Ford shares in it, and Ford pays $0.70 per share in March, that's a dividend payment. If the fund managers decide to sell Ford and buy Tesla in June, the selling of Ford shares will be a cap-gains taxable event for you. The good news: the mutual fund managers send you a statement sometime in February or March of each year telling what you should put on your tax forms. This is great. They add it all up for you. They give you a nice consolidated tax statement covering everything: dividends, their buying and selling activity on your behalf, and any selling they did when you withdrew money from the fund for any purpose. Some investment accounts like 401(k) accounts are tax free. You don't pay any tax on those accounts -- capital gains, dividends, interest -- until you withdraw the money to live on after you retire. Then that money is taxed as if it were wage income. If you want an easy and fairly reliable way to invest, and don't want to do a lot of tax-form scrambling, choose a couple of different mutual funds, put money into them, and leave it there. They'll send you consolidated tax statements once a year. Download them into your tax program and you're done. You mentioned "riding out bad times in cash." No, no, NOT a good idea. That investment strategy almost guarantees you will sell when the market is going down and buy when it's going up. That's "sell low, buy high." It's a loser. Not even Warren Buffett can call the top of the market and the bottom. Ned Johnson (Fidelity's founder) DEFINITELY can't. |
What is market order's relation to bid ask spread? | Because in the case for 100/101, if you wanted to placed a limit buy order at top of the bid list you would place it at 101 and get filled straight away. If placing a limit buy order at the top of 91 (for 90/98) you would not get filled but just be placed at the top of the list. You might get filled at a lower price if an ask comes in matching your bid, however you might never get filled. In regards to market orders, with the 100/101 being more liquid, if your market order is larger than the orders at 101, then the remainder of your order should still get filled at only a slightly higher price. In regards to market orders with the 90/98, being less liquid, it is likely that only part of your order gets filled, and any remained either doesn't get filled or gets filled at a much higher price. |
How to invest with a low net worth | I have an opposite view from all the other contributions here. Why not consider starting your own business. With the little money you have the return will most times be much higher than stocks return. The business is yours; you keep the business and the profit streams in the long term. Simply find businesses you can even start with a 100 or 200 euros and keep the rest with your bank. this is a sure way to become millionaire my friends. |
What determines price fluctuation of groceries | No. Some grocery stores may discount specific products based on inventory to drive sales using "loss leaders" where the product is intentionally priced as a loss for the business. While commodity futures may impact some prices, I'm not sure one can easily extract the changes solely due to futures shifts. |
Which is better when working as a contractor, 1099 or incorporating? | Unless the amounts involved are very small, it is MUCH better to incorporate. First, incorporation gives you limited liability for your acts as an employee. As an individual, you have unlimited liability. Second, incorporating allows you to deduct (for tax purposes) the costs of doing business, including all of your health insurance, most transportation, and some meals. The exception to the rule is if the amounts you are earning are so small that they don't cover the cost of incorporating, accounting fees, etc. (a few hundred, or at most a few thousand dollars). |
Steps to buying a home | At this stage, I would think about education. You can attend open houses, and often times real estate agents and bankers put on seminars for first time home buyers. Borrow books from the library and I would watch some HGTV. Many of the shows are entertaining and quite educational. Secondly you may want to get your finances in order. Make and stick to a budget. Start building a down payment and emergency fund. Pay down consumer debt/student loans. Picking up side work or overtime will help. You will look far more attractive to a lender if you go in with a large down payment and an emergency fund then someone with better credit scores and 100% financing. That is if the lender does manual underwriting. If not, then use a different lender. Once you get a budget figured out, how much of a down payment and emergency fund you need, and how much consumer debt to pay off, you can then predict when you will hit your goals. Then you will know when you are ready to buy. If it seems too far off, cut spending and work more if it is that important to you! You can make a prioritized list about what is most important features to you and your wife. I would wait on doing this until after you view some homes. Open houses are a great way to do this, but be careful not to get "house fever" and rush into a decision. You will get some encouragement to do so by the selling agents. After viewing some homes, and developing your list you can get an idea as of what the home will cost. This will further refine your budget, goals, and timeline. I think that is a lot of work to start. |
Why would a restaurant offer a very large cash discount? | This could be a case of the new chip card technology and dealing with slow reimbursement turnaround time. I recently visited a restaurant who was not using the chip technology, and it refused my card after several attempts. I found out from my bank it was because the restaurant was not set up for chip and I had not eaten there before....I know at the other end it takes far longer for the funds to get to the merchant; banks don't want to part with other people's money. |
When people say 'Interest rates are at all time low!" … Which interest rate are they actually referring to? | I would say people are generally talking about the prime lending rate. I have heard the prime lending rate defined as "The rate that banks charge each other when they borrow money overnight." But it often defined as the rate at which banks lend their most creditworthy customers. That definition comes with the caveat that it is not always held to strictly. Either definition has the same idea: it's the lowest rate at which anyone could currently borrow money. The rate for many types of lending is based upon the prime rate. A variable rate loan might have an interest rate of (Prime + x). The prime rate is in turn based upon the Federal Funds Rate, which is the rate that the Fed sets manually. When the news breaks that "the Fed is raising interest rates by a quarter of a point" (or similar) it is the Federal Funds Rate that they control. Lending institutions then "fall in line" and adjust the rates at which they lend money. So to summarize: When people refer to "high" or "low" or "rising" interest rates they are conceptually referring to the prime lending rate. When people talk about the Fed raising/lowering interest rates (In the U.S.) they are referring specifically to the Federal Funds Rate (which ultimately sets other lending rates). |
Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price | If the discount is only for financed car then their software application should have accepted the payment (electronic transfer ID) from financed bank. In this case the bank should have given the payment on behalf of your son. I believe the dealer know in advance about the paper work and deal they were doing with your son. Financing a car is a big process between dealer and bank. |
VAT in UK, case of cultural industry and overseas invoices | Your answer will need loads of information and clarification, so I will ask you to visit the VAT and have a peruse. 1) Obligation is for you to find out the correct rate of VAT, charge and pay tax accordingly. You can call up the HMRC VAT helpline for help, which they will be happy to oblige. Normally everybody pays VAT every 3 months or you can pay once in a year. 2) Depends on your annual turnover, including VAT. Less than £150000 you join the Flat rate scheme. There are schemes for cultural activities. Might be good to check here on GOV.UK. 3) If you pay VAT in EU countries, you can reclaim VAT in UK. You need to reclaim VAT while filing in your VAT returns. But be careful about your receipts, which can be checked to verify you are not defrauding HMRC. The basic rule is that B2B services are, as the name suggests, supplies from one business to another. And, subject to some exceptions, are treated as made where the customer belongs. No VAT is chargeable on B2B supplies to an overseas customer. But where you make a B2C supply, VAT depends on where your customer is located: 1) if they are outside the EU, you don’t need to charge VAT 2) if they are located in an EU country, then you must charge VAT. Source All in all keep all records of VAT charged and paid to satisfy the taxman. If the rules get complicated, get an accountant to help you out. Don' take chances of interpreting the law yourself, the fines you might pay for wrong interpretation might be a deal breaker. |
Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” in the US? | There is some magic involved in that calculation, because what health insurance is worth to you is not necessarily the same it is worth for the employer. Two examples that illustrate the extreme ends of the spectrum: let's say you or a family member have a chronic or a serious illness, especially if it is a preexisting condition - for instance, cancer. In that case, health insurance can be worth literally millions of dollars to you. Even if you are a diabetic, the value of health insurance can be substantial. Sometimes, it could even make financial sense in that case to accept a very low-paying job. On the other extreme of the scale, if you are very young and healthy, many people decide to forego insurance. In that case, the value of health insurance can be as little as the penalty (usually, 2% of your taxable income, I believe). |
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. You received 200 x $4.75 on the sale minus the $19.95 = $930.05. The present value of your remaining shares is 387 x $6.06 = $2345.22. So you have realized plus unrealized value of $2345.22 + $930.05 = $3275.27. Assuming I didn't mix up numbers or make an arithmetic mistake, your dollar gain is $3275.27 - $1996.98 = $1278.29, which comes to 1278.29 / 1996.98 = 64%. If you want to know percentage gain as an annual rate, we'd have to know buy and sell dates, and with multiple buys and sells the calculation gets messier. |
How do I make a small investment in the stock market? What is the minimum investment required? | Many brokers offer a selection of ETFs with no transaction costs. TD Ameritrade and Schwab both have good offerings. Going this route will maximize diversification while minimizing friction. |
Efficient International money transfer | Wiring is the best way to move large amounts of money from one country to another. I am sure Japanese banks will allow you to exchange your Japanese Yen into USD and wire it to Canada. I am not sure if they will be able to convert directly from JPY to CND and wire funds in CND. If you can open a USD bank account in Canada, that might make things easier. |
Why index funds have different prices? | Price, whether related to a stock or ETF, has little to do with anything. The fund or company has a total value and the value is distributed among the number of units or shares. Vanguard's S&P ETF has a unit price of $196 and Schwab's S&P mutual fund has a unit price of $35, it's essentially just a matter of the fund's total assets divided by number of units outstanding. Vanguard's VOO has assets of about $250 billion and Schwab's SWPPX has assets of about $25 billion. Additionally, Apple has a share price of $100, Google has a share price of $800, that doesn't mean Google is more valuable than Apple. Apple's market capitalization is about $630 billion while Google's is about $560 billion. Or on the extreme a single share of Berkshire's Class A stock is $216,000, and Berkshire's market cap is just $360 billion. It's all just a matter of value divided by shares/units. |
Why does it matter if a Central Bank has a negative rather than 0% interest rate? | That is kind of the point, one of the hopes is that it incentivizes banks to stop storing money and start injecting it into the economy themselves. Compared to the European Central Bank investing directly into the economy the way the US central bank has been doing. (The Federal Reserve buying mortgage backed securities) On a country level, individual European countries have tried this before in recent times with no noticeable effect. |
Do I need to invest to become millionaire? | If your take-home salary after taxes etc is 35K / year, and you say you will be able to save at most 40% of that, you will need to find something that pays 2.75% to reach one million in 40 years*. However, these numbers can chance dramatically depending on your specific circumstances. If you're just starting your career, 40 years of saving is not impossible. If you're in the middle or nearing the end, you will have dramatically less time to achieve your goals. *40% of 35000 is 14000 saved per year, at an interest of 2.75% compounded annually, you will reach 1000000 after roughly 40 years. |
Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | No, 90% of investors do not lose money. 90% or even larger percentage of "traders" lose money. Staying invested in stock market over the long term will almost always be profitable if you spread your investments across different companies or even the index but the key here is long term which is 10+ years in any emerging market and even longer in developed economies where yields will be a lot lower but their currencies will compensate over time if you are an international investor. |
Are there any countries where citizens are free to use any currency? | If I understand correctly, you're actually asking why there isn't a society whose members generally accept/use any currency for transactions, and just like, Google the exchange rate or something. The answer is because it's exceptionally inconvenient. Can you imagine having a wallet with 200 pouches for all the different currencies? Why would you want to deal with exchange rates all the time? What if the value of a currency changes? (A single currency at least has the illusion of being stable). Et cetera. |
Naked calls and buying the stock later | Has anyone done this before? I'm sure someone has, but it doesn't completely remove any price risk. Suppose you buy it at 10 and it drops to 5? Then you've lost 5 on the stock and have no realized gain on the option (although you could buy back the option cheaply and exist the position). To completely remove price risk you have to delta hedge. At ATM option generally has a delta of 50%, meaning that the value of the option changes 0.50 for every $1 change in the stock. The downside to delta hedging is you can spend a lot on transaction fees and employ a lot of "buy high, sell low" transactions with a highly volatile stock. |
Does VSMAX invest in smaller companies than FSEVX? | You are comparing apples and oranges: the charts show the capital appreciation excluding dividends. If you include dividends and calculate a total return over that period you see VSMAX up 132% vs. FSEVX up 129%, i.e. quite close. That residual difference is possibly due to a performance difference between the two benchmarks. |
Can paying down a mortgage be considered an “investment”? | Paying down your mortgage saves lots of interest. With a long term mortgage you end up paying twice us much to the bank than the sales price of the house. Even low mortgage interests are higher than short term bonds. The saving of those interest are as much an investment as the interest you get from a bond. However, before paying off a mortgage other higher interest loans should be paid off. Also it should be considered if the mortgage interest create a tax reduction in the comparison with any other options. |
Does a US LLC need to file taxes if owned by a foreign citizen? | There is no such thing as double taxation. If you pay tax in the US, you CAN claim tax credits from India tax authority. For example, if you pay 100 tax in USA and your tax liability in India is 200, then you will only pay 100 (200 India tax liability minus 100 tax credits on foreign tax paid in the USA). This is always true and not depending on any treaty. If there is a treaty, the tax rate in the United States is set on the treaty and you CAN claim that final tax rate based upon that treaty. If you operate an LLC, and the income is NOT derived from United States and you have no ties with the US and that LLC is register to a foreign person (not company but a real human) then you will not have to submit tax return in the US... I advice you to read this: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98277,00.html |
Splitting Hackathon Prize Money to minimize tax debt | I would deduct all the other payments out as subcontractors, but I typically have all the paperwork and entities set up to make that applicable. In Turbotax I do this with as subcontracting expense under my business entity, but for the IRS the categories of the deductions do not matter This isn't tax advice, it is what I would do, and how I would defend it under an audit. Everyone else that was paid also needs to report it. The lack of reciprocal filing (you deducted income paid to someone else, the person did not report that income, or reported it in a different way) is a number one thing to trigger IRS scrutiny. Although accurate, you need to be aware that you are shifting the tax burden away from yourself, by deducting it. |
Need a loan to buy property in India. What are my options? | Getting the line of credit would likely be a bit easier than the loan but realistically the best option is getting a mortgage through an Indian bank. With a long term mortgage your monthly payments would be a small portion of your income (maybe as low as $500) so currency fluctuations are likely to be minor blips that you can avoid by sending a few thousand to hold as a cushion for when exchange is unfavorable. Edit: Please be advised that mortgages work differently throughout the world. While 10% down may be standard in the US, in India 40-50% down seems to be the norm. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.