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Ways to establish credit history for international student | There's an excellent new service called SelfScore that offers US credit cards to international students. They work with students without a credit history and even without an SSN by using other qualifying factors such as major, financial resources in their home country, and employability upon graduation. Worth clarifyin... |
Dealing with Form 1099 | Am I required to send form 1099 to non-US citizens who are not even residing in the US? Since they're not required to file US taxes, do I still have to send the form to them? That's tricky. You need to get W8/W9 from them, and act accordingly. You may need to withhold 30% (or different percentage, depending on tax trea... |
Why can't 401(k) statements be delivered electronically? | There are a lot of unintended consequences of fairly arbitrary IRS guidelines when it comes to 401Ks, they both close and create tons of loopholes and many companies are left to implement their own policy around these laws. Ultimately what you are left with are a lot of random things, interpreted differently by every s... |
How can I lookup the business associated with a FEIN? | In most cases you cannot do "reverse lookup" on tax id in the US. You can verify, but for that you need to have more than just the FEIN/SSN. You should also have a name, and some times address. Non-profits, specifically, have to publish their EIN to donors, so it may be easier than others to identify those. Other busin... |
Should I take out a bigger mortgage, or pay a greater cash deposit? | At a minimum, I would save 20-30k, because you need to have both a safety net and some money for home repairs. Very few people move into a house and then do zero repairs - painting, usually, at a minimum, and there's almost always something that comes up pretty soon after. Even if you're buying a condo, you'll want t... |
Using a cash account can someone trade all day on it? | According to Regulation T, you can make as many day trade (round trip) stock purchases using a cash account as long as you have the funds to cover each and every round trip sale. However, the funds generated from the sales cannot be used again to purchase new stocks until the settlement period (T-2 or T-3) is over. For... |
What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | It's important to consider your Investor Profile when deciding the right kind of vehicle for your finances. You are a young guy, with a considerable earned income and no dependents (sorry, this was not clear from the question.) This means that you are able to take a lot of risks that people who also have a family to th... |
Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage? | NO Even worse, most BTL(buy to let) lenders will not lend if you are going to be living in the property. There are very few lenders that will touch something like this. It is likely you will also need to use bridging for the time the building work takes at something like 1.5% per month! Try posting the question t... |
What is the best way to short the San Francisco real estate market? | You could short home builders who do a lot of their business in Northern California. (Not just San Francisco, Silicon Valley, or even the Bay Area.) Home prices in Sacramento and the northern San Joaquin Valley are correlated with Bay Area home prices. Many of these builders went broke during the last bust, so you mi... |
What do I need to start trading in the NSE (National Stock Exchange)? | To start trading at a minimum you need 3 things; Bank Account: This again is not must, but most preferred to transact. Quite a few broker would insist on this. Demat Account: This is must as all shares on NSE are held electronically. The custodians are CSDL or NSDL both Government entities. These don't offer services d... |
What are some time tested passive income streams? | Renting a house out using a management company is mostly passive income. Earning affiliate income from companies that pay on a recurring basis is closer to passive income. |
How do I choose between buying a car or buying a plot of land in Pakistan? | “The plot of land definitely is going to give better results in long term.” Will it? Land is not guaranteed to go up in value. And a car can provide more employment opportunities for you. You need to look at your specific situation—with specific numbers—rather than using rules of thumb as hard guidelines. |
Changed from job that had a 401K, and the new one doesn't. How do I answer when filing? | If you had a retirement plan at any time in 2013 you are considered covered by an plan. Are You Covered by an Employer's Retirement Plan? You’re covered by an employer retirement plan for a tax year if your employer (or your spouse’s employer) has a: Defined contribution plan (profit-sharing, 401(k), stock bonus and ... |
taxes, ordinary income, and adjusted cost basis for RSUs | What happened is that they do not track (and report) your original cost basis for 1099-B purposes. That is because it is an RSU. Instead, they just reported gross proceeds ($5200) and $0 for everything else. On your Schedule D you adjust the basis to the correct one, and as a comment you add that it was reported on W2 ... |
Why naked call writing is risky compare to Covered call? | There is unlimited risk in taking a naked call option position. The only risk in taking a covered call position is that you will be required to sell your shares for less than the going market price. I don't entirely agree with the accepted answer given here. You would not lose the amount you paid to buy the shares. N... |
How does high frequency trading work if money isn't available for 2-3 days after selling? | High frequency trades are intra day. The would buy a stock for 100 and sell for 100.10 multiple times. So If you start with 100 in your broker account, you buy something [it takes 2-3 days to settle], you sell for 100.10 [it takes 2-3 days to settle]. You again buy something for 100. It is the net value of both buys an... |
Does the IRS reprieve those who have to commute for work? | No. Regular W2 employees cannot deduct housing or transportation costs related to their employment. However, in the US, many employers offer Parking and/or Transit FSA programs which are usually collectively referred to a Commuter Benefits FSA programs, this is particularly common among larger employers with locatio... |
Comparison between buying a stock and selling a naked put | Yes, of course there have been studies on this. This is no more than a question about whether the options are properly priced. (If properly priced, then your strategy will not make money on average before transaction costs and will lose once transaction costs are included. If you could make money using your strategy,... |
I'm 23, living at home, and still can't afford my own property. What could I do? | I wouldn't be too concerned, yet. You're young. Many young people are living longer in the family home. See this Guardian article: Young adults delay leaving family home. You're in good company. Yet, there will come a time when you ought to get your own place, either for your own sanity or your parents' sanity. Y... |
question about short selling stocks | The original owner of the shares can pledge their shares to be short, and they earn interest from lending their shares. The conditions of this arrangement are detailed in standard agreements all market participants sign with their broker, or clearinghouse, or with the exchange, or with the self regulatory agency. Stock... |
Using financial news releases to trade stocks? | Yes, there are very lucrative opportunities available by using financial news releases. A lot of times other people just aren't looking in less popular markets, or you may observe the news source before other people realize it, or may interpret the news differently than the other market participants. There is also the ... |
Why don't some places require a credit card receipt signature, and some do? | My understanding it that the signature requirement is at the retailer's discretion. If the merchant decides to require a signature it protects them against fraudulent charge-back claims, but increases their administrative costs. In some situations it just isn't practical for a retailer to require a signature. Consider ... |
Recourse with Credit Card company after victimized by fraud? | If the business is being investigated by your state's Attorney General's office, then your first call should be to that office. They will be able to help you in a few ways, even if they can't explicitly resolve the situation, and they also would undoubtedly appreciate your information to add to their case as well. Fir... |
How do you determine “excess cash” for Enterprise Value calculations from a balance sheet? | 20% is almost certainly too high. I agree with 2%, as a very rough rule. It will vary significantly depending on the industry. I generally calculate an average of the previous 2-3 years working capital, and deduct that from cash. Working capital is Current Assets less Current Liabilities. Current Assets is comprised of... |
If I have 10,000 stocks to sell with 23 B market cap | First a quick terminology correction: I believe you're proposing selling 10,000 shares of the stock of a company, not "10,000 stocks". When you sell, you need to decide whether you're selling for a specific minimum price or just selling for whatever price you can get. If you set a specific lower limit on asking price, ... |
What type of returns Vanguard is quoting? | From the Vanguard page - This seemed the easiest one as S&P data is simple to find. I use MoneyChimp to get - which confirms that Vanguard's page is offering CAGR, not arithmetic Average. Note: Vanguard states "For U.S. stock market returns, we use the Standard & Poor's 90 from 1926 through March 3, 1957," while the ... |
Calculating profits for a private fund | Thanks for the answer/comments! The time-based method was something we mooted and something I almost went with. But just to wrap this up, the method we settled on was this: Every time there is an entry or exit into the fund, we divvy out any unrealised market profits/losses according to each person's profit share (base... |
Remote jobs and incidental wage costs: What do I have to consider? | In the US we have social security taxes, where for a full time employee the company pays half and the employee pays half. When you work as a business, what we call 1099 for the form that the wages are reported on, then the contractor pays the full amount of social security tax. There are times when a contractor can ne... |
Opening American credit cards while residing in the UK | To build a US credit record, you need a Social Security Number (SSN), which is now not available for most non-residents. An alternative is an ITIN number, which is now available to non-residents only if they have US income giving a reason to file a US tax return (do you really want to get into all that...). Assuming ... |
Which institutions in Canada offer true read-only guest accounts? | Converting fideli comment to answer I don't think any Canadian bank offers this capability for online banking. However, there seems to be a fierce push right now at most banks to improve their online banking platform so they may be open to the suggestion of guest accounts |
Buying a home without a Real Estate Agent - Who should I get to do the paperwork? | For a real estate transaction there are multiple stages: From the sellers viewpoint: From the buyers viewpoint: If both parties are comfortable skipping some of the steps the role of the agent can be minimized. How will a fair price be determined? Some realism might be needed, to make sure that the loan appraisal will ... |
What does it mean that stocks are “memoryless”? | I think that "memoryless" in this context of a given stock's performance is not a term of art. IMO, it's an anecdotal concept or cliche used to make a point about holding a stock. Sometimes people get stuck... they buy a stock or fund at 50, it goes down to 30, then hold onto it so they can "get back to even". By holdi... |
Why is financial data of some public companies not available on Yahoo Finance? | In general, the short answer is to use SEDAR, the Canadian database that compiles financial statements for Canadian companies. The financial statements for Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp can be found here. The long answer is that the data might be missing because in Canada, each province has their own agency to regulate... |
How can I get a home loan within 2 years of bankruptcy? | There are a few loan programs that grant exceptions to bankruptcy requirements in the event of extenuating circumstances that can be proven to be outside of your control (i.e. massive medical bills that you used bankruptcy to settle, etc.) however, in order to make the case for this exemption, you would need to make a ... |
How to value employee benefits? | It would depend on the health insurance that was being offered, and if it covers your family or just you. We pay around $500-600 for individual health insurance for our employees (families cost north of 1500 a month). It's extremely expensive. Provide more details on the stock purchase plan as well (it sounds to me li... |
Taxes paid in USA for sending money to parents in India | I'm not certain about international transfers, but that amount is large enough that it could be subject to gift tax. https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Frequently-Asked-Questions-on-Gift-Taxes Note that the threshold for this tax is "per person, per person". For example, if you gave your fa... |
How detailed do itemized deductions have to be? (source needed) | When you do your taxes, you have two choices for your deductions. You can take the standard deduction, or you can choose to itemize your deductions. If you itemize your deductions, you use Form 1040 Schedule A. By looking at Schedule A, you can see the list of deductions that are itemized: On Schedule A itself, you on... |
Facebook buying WhatsApp for 19 Billion. How are existing shareholders affected? | It's a dilution of the ownership; the public used to own x% of Facebook and now they own less than x% of the bigger Facebook that incorporates Whatsapp (assuming that Whatsapp was completely private before). Logically, the $15 billion is allocated proportionately between the existing stockholders (x% of it for the gene... |
Why does an option lose time value faster as it approaches expiry | If you think about it, the value of an option comes from the chance that the price at the expiration date can exceed the strike price. As it gets closer to the expiration date, the chance is getting smaller, because there is simply not enough time for an out-of-money option to hit that strike. Therefore, the value of a... |
Can extra mortgage payments be made to lower the monthly payment amount? | Some types of loans allow for reamortization (recasting) - which does exactly what you're talking about (making a big payment and then refiguring the monthly amount rather than the overall lifespan), without requiring any kind of a fee that refinancing does. Not every, or even most, mortgages, allow for recasting. And ... |
Are underlying assets supposed to be sold/bought immediately after being bought/sold in call/put option? | When you can exercie your option depends on your trading style. In the american options trading style (the most popular) you're allowed to exercice your options and make profit (if any) whenever you want before the expiration date. Thus, the decision of exercising your option and make a profit out of it does not rely ... |
Can anybody explain the terms “levered beta riders”, “equity long-short” and “the quant process driven discipline” for me, please? | Translation : Funds managers that use traditionnal methods to select stocks will have less success than those who use artificial intelligence and computer programs to select stocks. Meaning : The use of computer programs and artificial intelligence is THE way to go for hedge fund managers in the future because they gi... |
Are there statistics showing percentage of online brokerage customers that are actually making a profit trading forex/futures/options? | Finding statistics is exceedingly hard, because the majority of traders lose money. That is, not only they don't "beat the markets", not only they don't "beat the benchmark" (S&P 500 being used a lot as reference): they just lose money. Finding exact numbers, quality statistics and so on is very difficult. Finding rece... |
Does re-financing an FHA-insured mortgage incur the UFMIP again? | When you got your original HUD backed mortgage there were three options: monthly, annual and upfront payments. The plan is designed to insure the lender of the mortgage against your default. The plan is not expected to cover the mortgage for 30 years. If you are in the early years of the mortgage, you may be owed a re... |
Is it beneficial to convert non-investment real estate to rental if I need to make major repairs? (USA/Missouri) | I don't have a direct answer for you, but here are some other things you might consider to help you decide on a course of action in addition to Joe's note about consulting a CPA... Get a couple contractors out to look the place over and give you some quotes on the work needed, most will do so for free, or a nominal fe... |
How do I explain why debt on debt is bad to my brother? | How about doing some calculations and show him how much he is paying for things he is buying on credit.Mix in some big and small purchases to show how silly it is on both. Some examples: What really made the debt issue hit home for me (no pun intended) was when I bought my first house and read the truth in lending disc... |
Can my brother fix his credit? | Well, he could negotiate with the bank to pay off the loan before the foreclosure takes effect. That would obviously cost him a large pile of cash but might remove the foreclosure, and possibly the late payments, from his record. But the real answer is that, having signed the note, he should have been making sure payme... |
Why is the difference between adjusted close and close price slightly different between each day? | Prices are adjusted for return and not payout. So if you take the ratio of the close price and the adjusted close price, it should remain constant. The idea behind a total return (back-)adjustment is to give you a feeling how much money you would have needed back then to reach the price today under the premise that al... |
How do I figure out if I will owe taxes | Your employer pays the expected (but estimated) taxes for you. So the chances are you don't own more; but that might be different if you have other sources of income that he doesn't know about (interest on savings or a side-job or whatever). Also, you could have deductions that reduce the taxes you owe, which he again ... |
Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed? | Be sure to consider the difference between Roth 401K and standard 401K. The Roth 401K is taxed as income then put into your account. So the money you put into the Roth 401K is taxed as income for the current year, however, any interest you accumulate over the years is not taxed when you withdraw the money. So to break... |
Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority? | Paying off your mortgage early being good is a myth. It is great for the chronic overspenders to have their mortgage paid off so when they rack up credit card bills and get behind, well they still hae a place to stay. But for those who are more logical with their money paying off your mortgage early in current conditi... |
Does a market maker sell (buy) at a bid or ask price? | Market Makers are essentially just there to process the buys and sells of traders, so just like you and I buy and sell at the ask and bid prices they do to. They are just completing the process of making our orders a reality. Market makers are just representative of brokers, meaning that when you place your order at as... |
Has anyone created a documentary about folks who fail to save enough for retirement? | To answer your question, Retirement Revolution may fit the bill to some extent. I'd also like to address some of the indirect assumptions that were made in your bullet points. I'm convinced that the best way to overcome this is not simply to hold down a good job with COLAs every year, max out your IRA accounts and 401... |
How does a typical vesting timeline work with respect to employer contributions? | There are two dates that matter for vesting in this situation: If you left the company on 12/31/16, you would be entitled to none of the company contributions. If you left on 1/1/17, you would be entitled to all $20k. This is sometimes known as a cliff vesting schedule. Some companies do a stair step - 20% after year 1... |
Which is the better strategy for buying stocks monthly? | Powers makes a good point: trading costs may eat up a significant portion of your ROI. A fee as little as 2% can consume more than 50% of your long-term ROI! A rule of thumb is keep your fees to less than 1%. One way to do that is to buy stock in companies that have a DRIP with a Share Purchase Plan (SPP). Often the SP... |
Super-generic mutual fund type | Since you already have twice your target in that emergency fund, putting that overage to work is a good idea. The impression that I get is that you'd still like to stay on the safe side. What you're looking for is a Balanced Fund. In a balanced fund the managers invest in both stocks and bonds (and cash). Since you ha... |
Can I cover a short sale with the stock I already own? | Yes, you call the broker and tell him to use those shares to deliver to the short position. |
A guy scammed me, but he gave me a bank account number & routing number. Can I use that to take out what he owes me? | What legal way can I take what I am owed from this guy? The legal ways are for this guy to transfer you the money or give you instructions that will allow you to get the money. Alternatively you would need to file a civil suite to recover the funds. What illegal way do people use this info if they had it? I don't want... |
How should I calculate the opportunity cost of using a 401(k) loan? | Make sure that when you have the loan you still contribute enough to get the company match. For example: An inability to maximize the match might need to be figured into the opportunity cost of the loan. Some companies will suspend your contributions for a specific number of months for a hardship withdraw. Make sure ... |
Strategic countermeasures to overcome crisis in Russia | The ruble was, is and will be very unstable because of unstable political situation in Russia and the economy strongly dependent of the export of raw resources. What you can do? I assume, you want to minimize risk. The best way to achieve that is to make your savings in some stable currency. Euro and Swiss Franc are cu... |
Auto Insurance: Adding another car to the existing policy (GEICO) | tl;dr: Call them. I'd be very surprised if you have a problem. I used to have have a policy with Geico, and would pay for my car insurance 6 months at a time. About 2 months into my last period, I purchased a house. Unfortunately, Geico didn't offer homeowners insurance in my state, so I ended switching to another comp... |
Using simple moving average in Equity | A shorter term MA would be used for short term changes in price whilst a long term MA would be used for longer term movements in price. A 200 day SMA is widely used to determine the trend of the stock, simply a cross above the 200 day SMA would mean the stock may be entering an uptrend and a cross below that the price... |
If I pay someone else's property taxes, can I use it as a deduction on my income tax return? | To make matters worse, if you pay the property tax your mother in law can't take the deduction either. You may be better off paying rent and having her handle the property correctly, as a rental. |
Buying a small amount (e.g. $50) of stock via eToro “Social Trading Network” using a “CFD”? | Concerning the Broker: eToro is authorized and registered in Cyprus by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC). Although they are regulated by Cyprus law, many malicious online brokers have opened shop there because they seem to get along with the law while they rip off customers. Maybe this has changed in th... |
Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments by Selling Originally Bought Shares | I will add one point missing from the answers by CQM and THEAO. When you take a loan and invest the proceeds, the interest that you pay on the loan is deductible on Schedule A, Line 14 of your Federal income tax return under the category of Investment Interest Expense. If the interest expense is larger than all your ... |
How do rich people guarantee the safety of their money, when savings exceed the FDIC limit? | I found out there is something called CDARS that allows a person to open a multi-million dollar certificate of deposit account with a single financial institution, who provides FDIC coverage for the entire account. This financial institution spreads the person's money across multiple banks, so that each bank holds les... |
How can a Canadian establish US credit score | 1) The easy way is to find a job and they will assign you an SSN. 2) Here's the hard way. If you're Canadian, open a TD Boarderless account in the U.S. Put a small investment into any investment that would generate some type of income, such as capital gain, dividends, interest and etc... Then you will need to file ... |
Should I exclude bonds from our retirement investment portfolio if our time horizon is still long enough? | Having cash and bonds in your portfolio isn't just about balancing out the risk and volatility inherent in equities. Consider: If you are 100% invested in equities and the market declines by 30%, you'll be hard pressed to come up with additional money to "buy low". You'll miss out on the rebalancing bonus. But, if you ... |
How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent? | One of the other things you could do to improve your score would be along the lines of what Pete said in his answer, but using the current financial climate to your advantage. I'm not sure what interest rates are available to you in the UK, but I currently have 4 lines of credit aside from my house. One is a credit car... |
Is it worth working at home to earn money? Can I earn more money working at home? | I don't mean to be rude, but if you have to ask if you can earn a living from home, the answer is 'probably not.' Most people are more financially productive at a traditional workplace, otherwise more people would quit the jobs they hate and work at home or develop their hobbies into businesses. Making a living from... |
Will my wife's business losses offset my income on a joint tax return? | First, filing status. If you and your wife are legally married, you should be filing your tax returns as married, either jointly or separately. In the US, "head of household" has a specific meaning and is for unmarried people who are supporting one or more relatives, per the IRS. If you are working full-time and your w... |
How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup? | I agree that there is no reliable way to buy gold for less than spot, no more than there is for any other commodity. However, you can buy many things below market from motivated sellers. That is why you see so many stores buying gold now. It will be hard to find such sellers now with the saturation of buyers, but if... |
Organizing finances and assigning a number to each record type | Mint.com does a pretty good job at this, for a free service, but it's mostly for personal finance. It looks at all of your transactions and tries to categorize them, and also allows you to create your own categories and filters. For example, when I started using it, it imported the last three months of my transactions ... |
Are credit cards not viewed as credit until you miss one payment? | This does not directly address the question, but how the Bank views your behaviour is not the same as a credit reporting bureau. If you do not "go deep" on your card at all, you may be deemed not to be exercising the facility, indeed they may ask you to reduce your credit limit. This is not the same as "missing a paym... |
Is per diem taxable? | Per-diem is not taxable, if all the conditions are met. Conditions include: You can find this and more in this IRS FAQ document re the per-diem. |
Switch from DINK to SIWK: How do people afford kids? | If commuting is a big budget item, then can you: A side job is one way to make extra money, but I'd suggest a home business. If your wife substitute teaches, I bet she writes fairly well, and in any case you can. Write a personal finance blog or just a site with articles. Focus on surviving and thriving with child(r... |
Why so much noise about USA's credit rating being lowered? | Because US bonds have had the prior impression of absolute invincibility and safety that has helped the dollar become the world's reserve currency and the United States borrow essentially at will. For the people that care what S&P says, the aura of invincibility is broken and it is conceivable, in SOME universe, for th... |
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