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My tenant wants to pay rent through their company: Should this raise a red flag?
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Maybe you should consider setting up a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) for your business dealings as a landlord and consider providing that instead of your SSN for this type of thing. I am assuming (if this is legitimate) they want it so they can send you a 1099 as they might be obligated to do if they are claiming the rent as a business expense. Also, I'd suggest having the tenant tell their employer to contact you directly. There is no need for the tenant in this situation to also get your SSN/TIN.
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Possible Risks of Publicizing Personal Stock Portfolio
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I am considering making my investment history publicly available online What is the benefit you are looking for by doing this? Just to establish that you are a successful investor, so in long run can predict things ... have tons of followers? If so yes. Go ahead. Updates to the portfolio would have to be near real-time than post facto else no one will believe you and it would be useless. are there any reasons (legal, personal, etc.) not to publicize my personal investment history legal, depends on country; I can't think any [check the agreement with your broker / depository] on how much can be displayed. i.e. they may forbid from revealing contract ref / or some other details. On Personal front, it depends who takes a liking to your stuff. Relatives: They know you are making huge profits and may want to borrow stuff ... or queue up to you requesting to make similar huge profits for them; only to realize when there is loss they blame you ... this can strain relationships. Friends: Although close friends may have a general idea, if you are too successful and it shows; it can have its own set of issues to deal with. Colleagues / Manager: If you are too successful, it may mean you may notionally be earning more than them ... they would start unconsciously monitoring your behaviour ... this guy spends all day in office researching for stocks and doesn't work. That way he knows how to pick good stock ... he is wasting company time. The same happens if you are loosing stock ... a unrelated bad day you are having maybe equated to loss in stocks. Depending on the job / roles, they may move you to different role as the perceived risk of you swindling goes up. Generally important work doesn't get assigned, as it would be assumed that if you are successful in investing, you may quite soon and start full time into it. Identify Theft: As mentioned by keshlam, to much data one can easily risk identity theft. Realize phone banking to get some routine stuff just asks for basic details [that are available on face book] and few recent debits / credits to the account. This will be easy see the trades you have done. None of us here are expert identity theifs. But the real one have tons of way t
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Is it better to buy a computer on my credit card, or on credit from the computer store?
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In my experience dealing with credit cards and store cards, you may find that the store card is much more flexible than the credit card in terms of the enforcement of the card agreement. For instance, I've missed payments on credit cards and only been 1 day late and saw a rate increase, but on a store card when the same thing happened, it was like they didn't even notice. Granted, this was a 100% store card with no VISA/MC logo on it, and it was through their bank. This may not be true of all store cards and your experience may differ, but I felt like the store card was more of a tool for acquiring the merchandise and helping the store make a sale than it was for some big bank to make money off of my interest. With credit cards, you are the product, and the bank makes money purely from interest. The store, on the other hand, makes money from selling the product, and credit helps increase sales. My suggestion is to avoid credit altogether as all debt is risk, but if you must use credit, you may have a better experience with the store card. Of course, don't forget to consider the interest rates, payment plan, and other fees that may apply as they may affect your decision in terms of which to go with.
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Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use?
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My husband used this device at work in an organization/club that collects dues for fundraisers. The fundraisers are only for the club. So I think that is not business at all. They have no business tax id#, etc? and they use it for personal reasons when collecting money via Cc#'s if this helps you.
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Can you explain the mechanism of money inflation?
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Your question asks about the mechanism of money inflation - not price inflation. Money inflation occurs when new money is introduced into an economy. The value of money is subject to supply and demand like other items in the economy. The effects of new money can be difficult to predict. One of the results of additional money can be rising prices. These rising prices can be concentrated in one particular area - stocks, homes, food - or they can be spread out over many items. This is true regardless of the form of money being inflated - gold, silver, or paper money. There were times in history when large discoveries of gold and silver were found that caused prices to rise as a result. Of course, the large discoveries of gold and silver pale in comparison to the gigantic discoveries by central banks of new fiat currency.
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What could happen to Detroit Municipal bonds because of Detroit's filing for bankruptcy?
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What could happen to bonds such as these because of Detroit filing for bankruptcy? Depending on how the courts process Detroit's situation, there could be that some bonds become worthless since they are so low and the city can't pay anything on those low priority debts. Others may get pennies on the dollar. There could also be the case that some bailout comes along that makes the bonds good though I'd say that is a long shot at this point. Are these bonds done for, or will bondholders receive interest payments and eventual payment? I wouldn't suspect that they are done for in the sense of being completely worthless though at the same time, I'd be very careful about buying any of them given that they are likely to be changed a great deal. Could these bonds tend to rise over time after the bankruptcy? Yes, it is possible. If there was some kind of federal or state bailout that is done, the bonds could rise. However, that is one heck of an "if" as you'd need to have someone come to guarantee the bonds in a sense. What similar situations from the past might support this idea? Not that many as this is the biggest municipal bankruptcy ever, but here are a few links that may be useful as a starting point, though keep in mind Detroit's scale is part of the story as it is such a big amount being defaulted:
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Free service for automatic email stock alert when target price is met?
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http://finance.yahoo.com/stock-alerts/stock-watch/add/?.done=/stock-alerts/ You will have to have a yahoo account. If you want to provide an alternative delivery email address, visit the URL above. Click "Stocks Watch", enter ticker(s) and price(s) at which you want alerts, then at the bottom select the "email" radio button. If your preferred email address is not listed, click the "Add an email address" link and follow the instructions. I don't know what their limit is, but I currently have three addresses set up -- two to non-@yahoo addresses -- and it works fine.
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Beginning investment
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Your question is very broad. Whole books can and have been written on this topic. The right place to start is for you and your wife to sit down together and figure out your goals. Where do you want to be in 5 years, 25 years, 50 years? To quote Yogi Berra "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." Let's go backwards. 50 Years I'm guessing the answer is "retired, living comfortably and not having to worry about money". You say you work an unskilled government job. Does that job have a pension program? How about other retirement savings options? Will the pension be enough or do you need to start putting money into the other retirement savings options? Career wise, do you want to be working as in unskilled government jobs until you retire, or do you want to retire from something else? If so, how do you get there? Your goals here will affect both your 25 year plan and your 5 year plan. Finally, as you plan for death, which will happen eventually. What do you want to leave for your children? Likely the pension will not be transferred to your children, so if you want to leave them something, you need to start planning ahead. 25 Years At this stage in your life, you are likely talking, college for the children and possibly your wife back at work (could happen much earlier than this, e.g., when the kids are all in school). What do you want for your children in college? Do you want them to have the opportunity to go without having to take on debt? What savings options are there for your children's college? Also, likely with all your children out of the house at college, what do you and your wife want to do? Travel? Give to charity? Own your own home? 5 Years You mention having children and your wife staying at home with them. Can your family live on just your income? Can you do that and still achieve your 50 and 25 year goals? If not, further education or training on your part may be needed. Are you in debt? Would you like to be out of debt in the next 5-10 years? I know I've raised more questions than answers. This is due mostly to the nature of the question you've asked. It is very personal, and I don't know you. What I find most useful is to look at where I want to be in the near, mid and long term and then start to build a plan for how I get there. If you have older friends or family who are where you want to be when you reach their age, talk to them. Ask them how they got there. Also, there are tons of resources out there to help you. I won't suggest any specific books, but look around at the local library or look online. Read reviews of personal finance books. Read many and see how they can give you the advice you need to reach your specific goals. Good luck!
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What Happens to Bank Stocks If Country Defaults
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The prices seem very low even considering the risk? The prices are low because of the risk. Nothing happens to the banks if the sovereign defaults. However, the sovereign debt holders - lose some or all the money they lent to that sovereign. Incidentally, many banks invest in the treasury bonds of various countries, especially those they're located in. They also invest in other companies that rely on the government, or the currency. If that dependency is too high - the bank may fail. If the dependency is not high, or non-existent - the bank will survive. If the bank fails - yes, your shares will be wiped out, that's what happens with bankrupt companies. If you considering investing in banks in a country that you think may default - research them and see how much investments they have that will be affected by that default.
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Should I be claiming more than 1 exemption?
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It's not possible to determine whether you can "expect a refund" or whether you are claiming the right number of exemptions from the information given. If your wife were not working and you did not do independent contracting, then the answer would be much simpler. However, in this case, we must also factor in how much your contracting brings in (since you must pay income tax on that, as well as Medicare and, probably, Social Security), whether you are filing jointly or separately, and your wife's income from her business. There are also other factors such as whether you'll be claiming certain child care expenses, and certain tax credits which may phase out depending on your income. If you can accurately estimate your total household income for the year, and separate that into income from wages, contracting, and your wife's business, as well as your expenses for things like state and local income and property taxes, then you can make a very reasonable estimate about your total tax burden (including the self-employment taxes on your non-wage income) and then determine whether you are having enough tax withheld from your paycheck. Some people may find that they should have additional tax withheld to compensate for these expenses (see IRS W-4 Line #6).
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Is it common for a new car of about $16k to be worth only $4-6k after three years?
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It depends completely on the car. Some cars retain their value much better, and others drop in value like a rock (no pun intended). The mileage and condition on a car also has a huge impact on value. According to this site, cars on average lose 46% of their value in three years, so seeing one that drops 62% in roughly 3 years does not seem impossible. That value could also have been trade-in value, which is significantly lower than what you could get with a private party sale (or what you'd pay to get that same car from a dealer) One example: a new Ford Taurus (lowest model) has a Kelly Blue Book value of $28,000. A 2014 Taurus (lowest model) with average mileage and in fair condition has a private party value of about $12,000, for a 57% drop in value. Note: I picked Taurus because it's a car that should not have exceptional resale value (unlike BMW, trucks, SUVs), not to make any kind of judgement of the quality or resellability of the car)
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How to share income after marriage and kids?
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I started this off as a comment to Joe's answer, but it got rather messy in that form so I'll just post it as a separate answer instead. I suggest that you read Joe's answer first. I believe you are overthinking this. First, you really should be discussing the matter with your girlfriend. We can provide suggestions, but only the two of you can decide what feels right for the two of you. Strangers on the Internet can never have as complete a picture of your financial situations, your plans, and your personalities, as the two of you together. That said, here's a starting point that I would use as input to such a discussion: As you can see, a common theme to all of this is transparency and communication. There is a reason for this: a marriage without proper communication can never work out well in the long term. I don't know about Germany specifically, but disagreements about money tends to be a major reason in couples splitting up. By setting your lives up for transparency in money matters from the beginning, you significantly reduce the risk of this happening to you. Scott Hanselman discusses a very similar way of doing things, but phrases it differently, in Relationship Hacks: An Allowance System for Adults.
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At what point do index funds become unreliable?
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As more actively managed funds are driven out of the market, the pricing of individual stocks should become less rational. I.e. more stocks will become underpriced relative to their peers. As stock prices become less rational, the reward for active investing will increase, since it will become easier to "pick a winner". Eventually, the market will reach a new equilibrium where only active investors who are good enough to turn a profit will remain. Even then, passive investment will still do roughly as well as "the market" since it has low overhead and minimal investment lag. There is no reason to expect the system to collapse, since it is characterized primarily by negative feedback loops rather than positive feedback. The last few decades have seen a shift from active to passive investment because increased market transparency and efficiency have reduced the labor required to keep pricing rational. Basically, as people have gotten better at predicting stock performance, less active investment has been required to keep prices rational.
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Explanation on Warren Buffett's famous quote
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In the short term the market is a popularity contest In the short run which in value investing time can extend even to many years, an equity is subject to the vicissitudes of the whims by every scale of panic and elation. This can be seen by examining the daily chart of any large cap equity in the US. Even such large holdings can be affected by any set of fear and greed in the market and in the subset of traders trading the equity. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience high variance in the short rurn. in the long term [the stock market] is a weighing machine In the long run which in value investing time can extend to even multiple decades, an equity is more or less subject only to the variance of the underlying value. This can be seen by examining the annual chart of even the smallest cap equities over decades. An equity over such time periods is almost exclusively affected by its changes in value. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience low variance in the long run.
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Calculating Pre-Money Valuation for Startup
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Putting a dollar amount on the valuation of a start up business is an art form that often has very little at all to do with any real numbers and more to do with your "salesman" abilities when talking with the VC. That said, there are a few starting points: First is past sales, the cost of those sales and a (hopefully) realistic growth curve. However, you don't have that so this gets harder. Do you have any actual assets? Machinery, computers, desks, patents, etc. Things that you actually own. If so, then add those in. If this is a software start-up, "code" is an asset, but without sales it's incredibly hard to put a value on it. The best I've come up with is "How much would it cost for someone else to build it .. after they've seen yours". Yes, you may have spent 5,000 hours building something but could someone else duplicate it, or at least the major parts, in 200 hours after seeing a demo? Use the lower number. If I was you, I'd look hard at my business plan. Hopefully you were as honest as you can be when writing it (and that it is as researched as possible). What is it going to take to get that first sale? What do you actually need to get there? (hint: your logo on the side of a building is NOT a necessary expense. Nor is really nice office space.) Once you have that first sale, what is the second going to take? Can you extrapolate out to 3 years? How many key members are there? How much is their contribution worth? At what point will you be profitable? Next is to look at risks. You haven't done this before, that's huge - I'm assuming simply because you asked this question. Another is competitors - hopefully they already exist because opening a new market is incredibly hard and expensive; on the flip side, hopefully there aren't that many because entering a crowded market is equally hard and expensive. Note: each are possible, but take radically different approaches and sums of money - and $200k isn't going to cut it no matter what it is you are selling. That said, competition should be able to at least point you in the direction of a price point and estimate for how long sales take. If any are publicly traded then you have additional info to help you set a valuation. Are there any potential regulatory or legal issues? What happens if a key member leaves, dies or is otherwise no longer available? Insurance only helps so much if the one guy that knows everything literally gets run over. God help you if this person likes to go skydiving. I bring risks up because you will have to surmount them during this negotiation. For example, asking for $200k with zero hard assets, while trying to sell software to government agencies assuming a 3 week sales cycle will have you laughed at for naivety. Whereas asking for $10m in the same situation, with a team that has governmental sales experience would likely work. Another big question is exit strategy: do you intend to IPO or sell to a competitor or a business in a related category? If selling, do you have evidence that the target company actually buys others, and if so, how did those deals work out? What did they look for in order to buy? Exit strategy is HUGE to a VC and they will want to make several multiples of their money back in a relatively short amount of time. Can you realistically support that for how much you are asking for? If not then going through an Angel group would be better. They have similar questions, but very different expectations. The main thing is that no one knows what your business is worth because it is 100% unproven after 2 years and is therefore a huge financial risk. If the money you are asking for is to complete product development then that risk factor just went up radically as you aren't even talking about sales. If the money is purely for the sales channel, then it's likely not enough. However if you know what it's going to take to get that first sale and have at least an educated idea on how much it's going to cost to repeat that then you should have an idea for how much money you want. From there you need to decide how much of the business it is worth to you to give up in order to get that money and, voila, you have a "pre money valuation". The real trick will be to convince the VC that you are right (which takes research and a rock solid presentation) and negotiating from there. No matter what offer a small percentage of the business for the money you want and realize you'll likely give up much more than that. A few things you should know: usually by year 3 it's apparent if a start-up is going to work out or not. You're in year 2 with no sales. That doesn't look good unless you are building a physical product, have a competent team with hard experience doing this, have patents (at least filed), a proven test product, and (hopefully) have a few pre-orders and just need cash to deliver. Although in that situation, I'd probably tell you to ask your friends and family before talking to a VC. Even kickstarter.com would be better. $200k just isn't a lot of money and should be very easy to raise from Friends or Angels. If you can't then that speaks volumes to an institutional VC. A plus is having two or three people financially invested in the company; more than that is sometimes a problem while having only 1 is a red flag. If it's a web thing and you've been doing this for 2 years with zero sales and still need another $200k to complete it then I'd say you need to take a hard look at what you've built and take it to market right now. If you can't do that, then I'd say it might be time to abandon this idea and move on as you'll likely have to give up 80%+ to get that $200k and most VCs I've run into wouldn't bother at that level. Which begs the question: how did the conversation with the VC start? Did you approach them or did they approach you? If the latter, how did they even find out about you? Do they actually know anything about you or is this a fishing expedition? If the latter, then this is probably a complete waste of your time. The above is only a rough guide because at the end of the day something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay. $200k in cash is a tiny sum for most VCs, so without more information I have no clue why one would be interested in you. I put a number of hard questions and statements in here. I don't actually want you to answer me, those are for you to think about. Also, none of this shouldn't be taken as a discouragement, rather it should shock you into a realistic viewpoint and, hopefully, help you understand how others are going to see your baby. If the VC has done a bit of research and is actually interested in investing then they will bring up all the same things (and likely more) in order to convince you to give up a very large part of it. The question you have to ask yourself is: is it worth it? Sometimes it is, often it's not.
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Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car?
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When I was in that boat a few years ago, I went for the car first. My thoughts: If I get the car first, I'm guaranteed to have a car that runs well. That makes it more convenient to commute to any job, or for social functions. I ended up dropping about $20k into a car (paid cash, I don't like being in debt). I chose to buy a really nice car, knowing it will last for many years to come - I'm expecting to not replace it for about 10 years from the purchase. I would urge you to consider paying in full for the car; dumping $20k+ is a lot, and there are plenty of nice cars out there in the $10-20k range that will work just fine for years to come. One benefit of paying in full is that you don't have a portion of your income tied into the car loan. The main reason I chose not to go for the house first had more to do with the difference in commitment. A home mortgage is a 30-year commitment on a large chunk of your income. With the job market and housing markets both currently working against you, it's better to wait until you have a large safety net to fall into. For example, it's always recommended to have several months worth of living expenses in savings. Compared to renting, having 6 or more months of mortgage payments + utilities + insurance + property taxes + other mandatory expenses (see: food, gas) comes out to a significant amount more that you should have saved (for me, I'm looking at a minimum of about $20k in savings just to feel comfortable; YMMV). Also, owning a house always has more maintenance costs than you will predict. Even if it's just replacing a few light bulbs at first, eventually you'll need something major: an appliance will die, your roof will spring a leak, anything (I had both of those happen in the first year, though it could be bad luck). You should make sure that you can afford the increased monthly payments while still well under your income. Once you're locked in to the house, you can still set aside a smaller chunk of your income for a new car 5-10 years down the road. But if you're current car is getting down to it's last legs, you should get that fixed up before you lock yourself in to an uncomfortable situation. Don't be in too much of a hurry to buy a house. The housing market still has a ways to go before it recovers, and there's not a whole lot to help it along. Interest rates may go up, but that will only hurt the housing market, so I don't expect it to change too much for the next several months. With a little bit of sanity, we won't have another outrageous housing bubble for many years, so houses should remain somewhat affordable (interest rates may vary). Also keep in mind that if you pay less that 20% down on the house, you may end up with some form of mortgage interest, which is just extra interest you'll owe each month.
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How to invest in a currency increasing in value relative to another?
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What you're looking for are either FX Forwards or FX Futures. These products are traded differently but they are basically the same thing -- agreements to deliver currency at a defined exchange rate at a future time. Almost every large venue or bank will transact forwards, when the counterparty (you or your broker) has sufficient trust and credit for the settlement risk, but the typical duration is less than a year though some will do a single-digit multi-year forward on a custom basis. Then again, all forwards are considered custom contracts. You'll also need to know that forwards are done on currency pairs, so you'll need to pick the currency to pair your NOK against. Most likely you'll want EUR/NOK simply for the larger liquidity of that pair over other possible pairs. A quote on a forward will usually just be known by the standard currency pair ticker with a settlement date different from spot. E.g. "EUR/NOK 12M" for the 12 month settlement. Futures, on the other hand, are exchange traded and more standardized. The vast majority through the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange). Your broker will need access to one of these exchanges and you simply need to "qualify" for futures trading (process depends on your broker). Futures generally have highest liquidity for the next "IMM" expiration (quarterly expiration on well known standard dates), but I believe they're defined for more years out than forwards. At one FX desk I've knowledge of, they had 6 years worth of quarterly expirations in their system at any one time. Futures are generally known by a ticker composed of a "globex" or "cme" code for the currency concatenated with another code representing the expiration. For example, "NOKH6" is 'NOK' for Norwegian Krone, 'H' for March, and '6' for the nearest future date's year that ends in '6' (i.e. 2016). Note that you'll be legally liable to deliver the contracted size of Krone if you hold through expiration! So the common trade is to hold the future, and net out just before expiration when the price more accurately reflects the current spot market.
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Clarification on options jargon regarding spreads
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Yes. It seems to me you got it right. On my site, Stock Options Cafe, my last post was an illustration of a bullish call spread. In this case, I bought a 50 call, and sold the 60 call. This is a debit order as I was paying money, not collecting a new premium.
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Can capital loss in traditional IRA and Roth IRA be used to offset taxable income?
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No, you cannot. If you withdraw everything from all your Roth IRA's and end up with less than the total basis - you can deduct the difference on your schedule A (at the time of the last withdrawal) as an itemized deduction (as misc. deductions with 2% AGI cap). Regular IRA's are pre-tax, you cannot deduct anything from them.
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Buy car vs lease vs long term rent for 10 years period
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If you plan to keep this asset for ten years then you can take the deprecation of its cost over that time period. For simplicity lets treat that as 120 monthly payments. So at a purchase price of $60,000 you are committing around $500 per month not including vehicle maintenance. I typically allocate around 20 percent of the purchase price of my vehicles for future maintenance costs. Since you have the cash to purchase this outright you have an option not afforded to most people. This adds for additional consideration. Here is an example. You purchase a $60,000 car and put $10,000 down. You finance $50,000 at 2.84% over 60 months. Your total finance cost is $53,693 if you do not miss any payments. The question here is can you make more than $3,693 on the $50,000 that you would retain in this situation over a five year period? I know that I most certainly can and is an excellent example of why I finance my vehicles. Obviously this all goes out the window if you do not have the credit for top rates. I have also negotiated a vehicle maintenance plan with the dealership at the time of my vehicle purchases. Most dealerships offer this service, the key here is negotiating. On my last truck I was able to get an all inclusive maintenance policy for 72 months for 8% of the purchase price. Your mileage will vary with manufacturer and dealership. As described in the comments above it is never beneficial for an individual to lease. You end up paying more for the newer models. I consider that to be a lifestyle choice as it is most certainly not a sound financial decision.
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What does a well diversified self-managed investment portfolio look like?
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When you invest in a single index/security, you are completely exposed to the risk of that security. Diversification means spreading the investments so the losses on one side can be compensated by the gains on the other side. What you are talking about is one thing called "risk apettite", more formally known as Risk Tolerance: Risk tolerance is the degree of variability in investment returns that an investor is willing to withstand. (emphasis added) This means that you are willing to accept some losses in order to get a potential bigger return. Fidelity has this graph: As you can see in the table above, the higher the risk tolerance, the bigger the difference between the best and worst values. That is the variability. The right-most pie can be one example of an agressive diversified portfolio. But this does not mean you should go and buy exactly that security compostion. High-risk means playing with fire. Unless you are a professional stuntman, playing with fire usually leaves people burnt. In a financial context this usually means the money is gone. Recommended Reading: Investopedia; Risk and Diversification: The Risk-Reward Tradeoff Investopedia; How to construct a High Risk portfolio Fidelity: Guide to Diversification KPMG: Understanding and articulating Risk Appetite (pdf)
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How to make a decision for used vs new car if I want to keep the car long term?
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In a perfect world scenario you would get a car 2-5 years old that has very little mileage. One of the long standing archaic rules of the car world is that age trumps mileage. This was a good rule when any idiot could roll back an odometer. Chances are now that if you rolled your odometer back the car was serviced somewhere, had inspection or whatever and it is on a report. If seller was found to do this they could face jail time and obviously now their car is almost worthless. Why do I mention this? Because you can take a look at 2011 cars. Those with 20K miles go for just a little more than those with 100K miles. As an owner you will start incurring heavy maintenance costs around 100K on most newer cars. By buying cars with lower mileage, keeping them for a year or two, and reselling them before they get up in miles, you can stay in that magic area where you can drive a pretty good car for $200-300 a month. Note that this takes work on both the buying and selling side and you often need cash to get these cars (dealers are good about siphoning really good used cars to employees/friends). This is a great strategy for keeping costs down and car value up but obviously a lot of people try to do this and it takes work and you have to be willing to settle sometimes on a car that is fine, but not exactly what you want. As for leasing this really gets into three main components: If you are going to do EVERYTHING at a dealership and you want something new or newish you might as well lease. At least then you can shop around for apples to apples. The problem with buying a new/used car from the dealers in perpetuity isn't the buying process. It is the fact that they will screw you on the trade-in. A car that books for 20K may trade-in for 17K. Even if the dealer says they are giving you 20K, then they make you pay list price for the car. I have many many times negotiated a price of a car and then wife brought in our car separately and I can count on ZERO fingers how many times that the dealership honored both sides of the negotiations. Not only did they not honor them but most refused to talk with us after they found out. With a lease you don't have to worry about losing this money in the negotiations. You might pay a little extra (or not since you can shop around) but after the lease you wash your hands of the car. The one caveat to this is the high-end market. When you are talking your Acura, Mercedes, Lexus... It is probably better to buy and trade in every couple years. You lose too much equity by leasing, where it won't cover the trade-in gap and cost of your money being elsewhere. I have a friend that does this and gets a slightly better car every 2-3 years with same monthly payment. Another factor to consider is the price of a car. If your car will be worth over $15K at time of sale you are going to have a hard time selling it by owner. When amounts get this high people often need financing. Yes they can get personal financing but most people are too lazy to do this. So the number of used car buyers on let's say craigslist are way way fewer as you start getting over $10-12K and I have found $15K to be kind of that magic amount. The pro-buy-used side is easy. Aim for those cars around $12-18K that are out there (and many still under warranty). These owners will have issues finding cash buyers. They will drop prices somewhere between book price and dealer trade-in. In lucky cases where they need cash maybe below dealer trade-in. And remember these sellers aren't dealing with 100s let alone 10 buyers. You drive the car for 3-4 years. Maybe it is $7-10K. But now you will get much much closer to book price because there will be far more buyers in this range.
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Strategy for accounting personal finance in multiple currency?
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How can I correctly account for having money in different currencies, without currency transfers or currency fluctuations ending up as gains or losses? In my view, your spreadsheet should be in multiple currencies. i.e. if you have gained some in specific currency, make a note of it in that specific currency. If you have spent something in a specific currency, then make a note accordingly. You can use an additional column for reporting this in a neutral currency say GBP. If you are transferring the money from account of one currency to account of another; change the balances as appropriate with the actual conversion rate. If you need this record keeping for tax purposes, then get a proper advise from accountant.
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What variety of hedges are there against index funds of U.S. based stocks?
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The only way to hedge a position is to take on a countervailing position with a higher multiplier as any counter position such as a 1:1 inverse ETF will merely cancel out the ETF it is meant to hedge yielding a negative return roughly in the amount of fees & slippage. For true risk-aversion, continually selling the shortest term available covered calls is the only free lunch. A suboptimal version, the CBOE BuyWrite Index, has outperformed its underlying with lower volatility. The second best way is to continually hedge positions with long puts, but this can become very tax-complicated since the hedged positions need to be rebalanced continually and expensive depending on option liquidity. The ideal, assuming no taxes and infinite liquidity, is to sell covered calls when implied volatility is high and buy puts when implied volatility is low.
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More money towards down payment versus long-term investments
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Every payment you make on your house will already be increasing your equity in it. For that reason alone, I'd recommend moving additional savings into other long-term funds.
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New car price was negotiated as a “cash deal”. Will the price change if I finance instead?
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So there are a few angles to this. The previous answers are correct in saying that cash is different than financing and, therefore, the dealer can rescind the offer. As for financing, the bank or finance company can give the dealership a "kickback" or charge a "fee" based on the customer's credit score. So everyone saying that the dealers want you to finance....well yes, so long as you have good credit. The dealership will make the most money off of someone with good credit. The bank charges a fee to the dealership for the loan to a customer with bad credit. Use that tactic with good credit...no problem. Use that tactic with bad credit.....problem.
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Is there any reason not to buy points when re-financing with intent not to sell for a while?
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In such a situation, is there any reason, financial or not, to NOT pay as many points as mortgage seller allows? I can think of a few reasons not to buy points, in the scenario you described: If interest rates decrease you could be better off refinancing to a lower rate than buying points now. If buying points reduced your down payment below 20% then the PMI would more than offset the benefit of having purchased points. Your situation changes and you aren't able to stay in the home as long as planned. That said, current interest rates are pretty low, so I'd probably gamble on them not getting too much lower anytime soon. I also assume that if you can afford as many points as they allow, that you wouldn't have to dip below 20% down payment even with points. Edit: Others have mentioned that it's important to note opportunity cost when calculating the benefit of purchasing points, I agree, you wouldn't want to buy points at a rate that saved you less than you could earn elsewhere. Personally, I've not seen a points scenario that didn't yield more benefit than market average returns, but that could be due to my market, or just coincidence, you should definitely calculate the benefit for your scenario and shop for a good lender. Don't forget that points are tax deductible in the year paid when calculating their benefit.
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What is the opposite of a hedge?
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The opposite of a hedge is leverage (aka gearing). A hedge is where you spend money to reduce your exposure. Leverage is where you spend money to increase your exposure. Spread bets are a form of leverage - that's what makes them such an effective way to lose all your money, quickly.
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Former public employer that we have options in just sold
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The deal is expected to close sometime in Q4. The fluctuation though the day is just noise. The price will reflect a discount to the full takeover value, reflecting the risk of the deal falling through. Cashless exercise is a good idea if you don't wish to own any QVC shares.
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How are startup shares worth more than the total investment funding?
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What littleadv said is correct. His worth is based on the presumed worth of the total company value (which is much greater than all investment dollars combined because of valuation growth)*. In other words, his "worth" is based on the potential return for his share of ownership at a rate based on the latest valuation of the company. He is worth $17.5 billion today, but the total funding for Facebook is only $2.4 billion? I don't understand this. In private companies, valuations typically come from either speculation/analysts or from investments. Investment valuations are the better gauge, because actual money traded hands for a percentage ownership. However, just as with public companies on the stock market, there are (at least) two caveats. Just because someone else sold their shares at a given rate, doesn't mean that rate... In both cases, it's possible the value may be much lower or much higher. Some high-value purchases surprise for how high they are, such as Microsoft's acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion. The formula for one owner's "worth" based on a given acquisition is: Valuation = Acquisition amount / Acquisition percent Worth = Owner's percent × Valuation According to Wikipedia Zuckerberg owns 24%. In January, Goldman Sach's invested $500 million at a $50 billion valuation. That is the latest investment and puts Zuckerberg's worth at $12 billion. However, some speculation places a Facebook IPO at a much higher valuation, such as as $100 billion. I don't know what your reference is for $17 billion, but it puts their valuation at $70.8 billion, between the January Goldman valuation and current IPO speculation. * For instance, Eduardo Saverin originally invested $10,000, which, at his estimated 5% ownership, would now be worth $3-5 billion.
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Safe method of paying for a Gym Membership?
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New York state actually has laws protecting gym members from predatory gym membership pricing. Your state may also have laws like that as well.
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Trading with Settled / Unsettled Funds (T+3)
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The issues of trading with unsettled funds are usually restricted to cash accounts. With margin, I've never personally heard of a rule that will catch you in this scenario. You won't be able to withdraw funds that are tied up in unsettled positions until the positions settle. You should be able to trade those funds. I've never heard of a broker charging margin interest on unsettled funds, but that doesn't mean there isn't a broker somewhere that does. Brokers are allowed to impose their own restrictions, however, since margin is basically offering you a line of credit. You should check to see if your broker has more restrictive rules. I'd guess that you may have heard about restrictions that apply to cash accounts and think they may also apply to margin accounts. If that's the case and you want to learn more about the rules generally, try searching for these terms: You should be able to find a lot of clear resources on those terms. Here's one that's current and provides examples: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/avoiding-cash-trading-violations On a margin account you avoid these issue because the margin (essentially a loan from your broker) provides a cushion / additional funds that avoid the issues. It is possible that if you over-extend yourself that you'll get a "margin call," but that seems to be different than what you're asking and maybe worth a new question if you want to know about that.
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Can travel expenses be deducted from Form 1040A if they were used to gather material for a book?
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Hobby expenses are not tax deductible. Business expenses are, but only if it's a bona fide business. First they look at profitability: if you reported a net profit (i.e. paid taxes) in your first 3 years, they will believe you rant on Youtube for a living. Remember, by the time they get around to auditing you, you'll likely be well into, or through, your third year. There is an exception for farms. Other than that, if you lose money year after year, you better be able to show that you look, walk and quack like a business; and one with a reasonable business reason for delayed profitability. For instance Netflix's old business model of mailing DVDs had very high fixed infrastructure expense that took years to turn profitable, but was a very sensible model. They're fine with that. Pets.com swandived into oblivion but they earnestly tried. They're fine with that too. You can't mix all your activities. If you're an electrician specializing in IoT and smart homes, can you deduct a trip to the CES trade show, you bet. Blackhat conference, arguable. SES? No way. Now if you had a second business of a product-reco site which profited by ads and affiliate links, then SES would be fine to deduct from that business. But if this second business loses money every year, it's a hobby and not deductible at all. That person would want separate accounting books for the electrician and webmaster businesses. That's a basic "duck test" of a business vs. a hobby. You need to be able to show how each business gets income and pays expense separate from every other business and your personal life. It's a best-practice to give each business a separate checking account and checkbook. You don't need to risk tax penalties on a business-larva that may never pupate. You can amend your taxes up to 3 years after the proper filing date. I save my expense reciepts for each tax year, and if a business becomes justifiable, I go back and amend past years' tax forms, taking those deductions. IRS gives me a refund check, with interest!
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401k with paltry match or SPY ETF?
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Switching to only 401k or only SPY? Both bad ideas. Read on. You need multiple savings vehicles. 401k, Roth IRA, emergency fund. You can/should add others for long term savings goals and wealth building. Though you could combine the non-tax-advantaged accounts and keep track of your minimum (representing the emergency fund). SPY is ETF version of SPDR index mutual fund tracking the S&P 500 index. Index funds buy weighted amounts of members of their index by an algorithm to ensure that the total holdings of the fund model the index that they track. They use market capitalization and share prices and other factors to automatically rebalance. Individual investors do not directly affect the composition or makeup of the S&P500, at least not visibly. Technically, very large trades might have a visible effect on the index makeup, but I suspect the size of the trade would be in the billions. An Electronically Traded Fund is sold by the share and represents one equal share of the underlying fund, as divided equally amongst all the shareholders. You put dollars into a fund, you buy shares of an ETF. In the case of an index ETF, it allows you to "buy" a fractional share of the underlying index such as the S&P 500. For SPY, 10 SPY shares represent one S&P basket. Targeted retirement plan funds combine asset allocation into one fund. They are a one stop shop for a diversified allocation. Beware the fees though. Always beware the fees. Fidelity offers a huge assortment of plans. You should look into what is available for you after you decide how you will proceed. More later. SPY is a ETF, think of it as a share of stock. You can go to a bank, broker, or what have you and set up an account and buy shares of it. Then you have x shares of SPY which is the ETF version of SPDR which is an index mutual fund. If the company is matching the first 10% of your income on a 1:1 basis, that would be the best I've heard of in the past two decades, even with the 10 year vesting requirement. If this is them matching 1 dollar in 10 that you contribute to 401k, it may be the worst I've ever heard of, especially with 10 year vesting. Typical is 3-5% match, 3-5 year vesting. Bottom line, that match is free money. And the tax advantage should not be ignored, even if there is no match. Research: I applaud your interest. The investments you make now will have the greatest impact on your retirement. Here's a scenario: If you can figure out how to live on 50% of your take home pay (100k * 0.90 * 0.60 * 0.5 / 12) (salary with first 10% in 401k at roughly 60% after taxes, social security, medicare, etc. halved and divided by 12 for a monthly amount), you'll have 2250 a month to live on. Since you're 28 and single, it's far easier for you to do than someone who is 50 and married with kids. That leaves you with 2250 a month to max out 401k and Roth and invest the rest in wealth building. After four or five years the amount your investments are earning will begin to be noticeable. After ten years or so, they will eclipse your contributions. At that point you could theoretically live of the income. This works with any percentage rate, and the higher your savings rate is, the lower your cost of living amount is, and the faster you'll hit an investment income rate that matches your cost of living amount. At least that's the early retirement concept. The key, as far as I can tell, is living frugally, identifying and negating wasteful spending, and getting the savings rate high without forcing yourself into cheap behavior. Reading financial independence blog posts tells me that once they learn to live frugally, they enjoy it. It's a lot of work, and planning, but if you want to be financially independent, you are definitely in a good position to consider it. Other notes:
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How does UpWork allow US companies to make payments outside of the US?
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Permanent employees are the distinct opposite of contractors. Upwork can easily have business entities (limited liability company equivalents) in multiple countries, and it can make payments between them. Or they can merely use existing payment infrastructure (paypal, amazon) to accomplish the same thing. Their corporate structure is a red herring and most likely unrelated to what they've accomplished.
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Is dividend included in EPS
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Not quite. The EPS is noted as ttm, which means trailing twelve months --- so the earnings are taken from known values over the previous year. The number you quote as the dividend is actually the Forward Annual Dividend Rate, which is an estimate of the future year's dividends. This means that PFE is paying out more in the coming year (per share) than it made in the previous year (per share).
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How to find cheaper alternatives to a traditional home telephone line?
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Try to use VOIP service provider or web enabled conference calling services in your home phone. Now a days communication technologies have seen a boost as well as integration of different formats and platforms which easily reduces phone bills of a user. Service such as UberConference, Skype, Webinar etc enables audio/video as well as web conferencing feature for their user. Service tiers such as free plans, basic plans and business plans allow user to use these conference calling services per their need. Have a look at any such service and use it as an alternative of your home phone line.
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How to account for personal baby sitter?
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You should check several things: How your business can deduct your child care expenses is beyond me. If your mother-in-law starts a business as a neighborhood babysitter, she might get some deductions for her related expenses though.
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Where can publicly traded profits go but to shareholders via dividends?
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Apart from investing in their own infrastructure, profits can be spent purchasing other companies, (Mergers and Acquisitions) investing in other securities, and frankly whatever they please. The idea here is that publicly traded companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to make as much money as they can with the resources (including cash, but including so much more than that) available to the company. It happens that the majority of huge companies eventually stopped growing and figured out that they weren't good at making money outside their core discipline and started giving the money back through dividends, but that norm has been eroded by tech companies that have figured out how to keep growing and driving up share prices even after they become giants. Shareholders will pressure management to issue dividends if share prices don't keep going up, but until the growth slows down, most investors hang on and don't rock the boat.
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Making a big purchase over $2500. I have the money to cover it. Should I get a loan or just place it on credit?
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I would not be concerned about the impact to your credit rating. You already have an excellent credit score, and the temporary change to your utilization will have minimal impact to your score. If you really need to make this $2500 purchase and you have the money in the bank to pay for it, I would not recommend borrowing this money. Only put it on the credit card if you plan on paying it off in full without paying interest. Let me ask you this: Why do you want to keep this $2500 in the bank? It certainly isn't earning you anything significant. My guess is that you'd like to keep it there for an emergency. Well, is this $2500 purchase an emergency? If it is necessary, then spend the money. If not, then save up the money until you have enough to make the purchase. It doesn't make sense to keep money for an emergency in the bank, but then when one comes up, to leave the money in the bank and pay interest on your emergency purchase. If you make this emergency purchase and another emergency comes up, you can always (if necessary) borrow the money at that time. It doesn't make sense to borrow money before you need it. That having been said, I would encourage you to build up your emergency fund so that you have enough money in there to handle things like this without completely depleting your savings account. 3 to 6 months of expenses is the general recommendation for your emergency fund. Then if something unplanned comes up, you'll have the money in the bank without having to borrow and pay interest.
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Can a car company refuse to give me a copy of my contract or balance details?
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The advice above is generally good, but the one catch I haven't seen addressed is which specific laws apply. You said that you are in Arkansas, but the dealer is in Texas. This means that the laws of at least two different states are in play, possibly three if the contract contains a clause stating that disputes will be handled in a certain jurisdiction, and you are going to have to do some research to figure out what actually applies. One thing that may significantly impact this issue is whether you were in TX or AR when you signed the contracts. If you borrowed the money in TX, and the lender is in TX, then it is almost certain that the laws of Texas will govern. However, if you were living in AR at the time you acquired the loan, particularly if you were in AR when you signed the papers, you have a decent case for claiming that the laws of Arkansas govern. I don't know enough about either state to know if one is more favorable to the consumer than the other, but it is a question you really want to have answered. That said, I would be shocked if any state did not have provisions requiring the lender to provide a copy of the terms and a detailed statement of the account and transaction history upon request. Spend some time on the web site of the Texas attorney general and/or legislator (because that is where the lender is, they are more likely to respect Texas law) to see if you can track down any specific laws or codes that you can reference. You might also look into the federal consumer protection laws, though I can't think of one off hand that would apply in the scenario you have described. Then work on putting together a letter asking them to provide a copy of the contract and a full history of the account. As others noted, make sure you send it certified/return receipt, or better yet use a private carrier such as fedex, and check the box about requiring a signature. Above all you need to get the dialog transferred to a written form. I can not stress this point enough. Everything you tell them or ask for from here out needs to be done in a written format. If they call you about anything, tell them you want to see their issue/offer in writing before you will consider it. You do not necessarily need a lawyer to do any of this, but you do need to know the applicable laws. Do the research to know what your legal standing is. Involve a lawyer if you feel you need to, but I have successfully battled several large utility companies and collection agencies into behaving without needing one.
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Is it true that Income Tax was created to finance troops for World War I?
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The Income Tax was put into effect during the Civil War, but was later revoked because it was deemed "Unconstitutional". It was re-instated in 1913, just one year before World War 1. This is largely the reason why people think it was created "for the war", when it actually pre-dated World War 1. Edit: I don't have any sources, per-se. This is just what little information I remember from Grade 10 History class. I remember this because I had a real ethical problem with how the government instituted the Income Tax, since it is effectively a tax on Productivity. I find this absurd, since it motivates people to do less, in an effort to be taxed less. This in turn promotes workers doing "cash jobs" and other such things to get around it. I personally have refused a raise because it would put me into a higher tax bracket, and I wouldn't actaully see the new money. In exchange, I asked for other non-monetary perks instead. I personally think this situation should not exist. ...however, I don't have a better solution. So I suppose I can't really pass judgment. :)
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Can I place a stock limit order to buy above the current price? Can I place a stock limit order to sell below the current price?
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buy above the current price in the stock market You can do that, but what is the purpose to do so ? Brokers take the limit price of your order as the highest price you are going to pay. So if an order can be fulfilled below the limit they will do so. can I sell below the current price You can put in a order to do so. But what I have seen with my current broker is that the order never reached the market and wasn't executed at all. The broker might have some safeguards or process in place to stop me from doing so. Not sure how other brokers deal with it.
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Investing: P/E Ratio basic question
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Let's take a step back. My fictional company 'A' is a solid, old, established company. It's in consumer staples, so people buy the products in good times and bad. It has a dividend of $1/yr. Only knowing this, you have to decide how much you would be willing to pay for one share. You might decide that $20 is fair. Why? Because that's a 5% return on your money, 1/20 = 5%, and given the current rates, you're happy for a 5% dividend. But this company doesn't give out all its earnings as a dividend. It really earns $1.50, so the P/E you are willing to pay is 20/1.5 or 13.3. Many companies offer no dividend, but of course they still might have earnings, and the P/E is one metric that used to judge whether one wishes to buy a stock. A high P/E implies the buyers think the stock will have future growth, and they are wiling to pay more today to hold it. A low P/E might be a sign the company is solid, but not growing, if such a thing is possible.
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Find out the difference between two stocks of the same company (how to identify ADRs, etc)
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Generally, when I run across this kind of situation, I look for the Investor Relations section of the corporate website for a 'Stock Information' (or similar) tab or link. This usually contains information explaining the different shares classes, how they relate (if at all), voting and/or dividend rights, and taxation differences for the different classes. However, I have trouble finding such a page on a central BYD corporate investor relations page. I did find this page detailing the HK1211 shares: http://www.byd.com/investor/base_information.html. I don't know what or why, but something tells me this is an older page. Searching on, I also found this page which looks newer and clarifies that the difference you are seeing is between 'A' and 'H' shares. http://www.byd.cn/BYDEnglish/basic/article.jsp?articleId=1524676. (I'm guessing but I'd think somewhere in the announcements on this byd.cn site, you may find more details of any structural differences between share classes -- I just didn't want to page through them all.)
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What could cause a stock to trade below book value?
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all of these examples are great if you actually believe in fundamentals, but who believes in fundamentals alone any more? Stock prices are driven by earnings, news, and public perception. For instance, a pharma company named Eyetech has their new macular degeneration drug approved by the FDA, and yet their stock price plummeted. Typically when a small pharma company gets a drug approved, it's off to the races. But, Genetech came out said their macular degeneration drug was going to be far more effective, and that they were well on track for approval.
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What can make a stock price rise without good news or results?
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The simple answer could be that one or more "people" decided to buy. By "people," I don't mean individual buyers of 100 shares like you or me, but typically large institutional investors like Fidelity, who might buy millions of shares at a time. Or if you're talking about a human person, perhaps someone like Warren Buffett. In a "thinly" traded small cap stock that typically trades a few hundred shares in a day, an order for "thousands" could significantly move the price. This is one situation where more or less "average" people could move a single stock.
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Why do stores and manufacturers use mail in rebates? A scam, or is there a way to use them effectively?
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Rebates are a great way to give discounts to customers who are cost sensitive. A long time ago, I worked for a retailer that extensively used rebates as a marketing tool. From my point of view, about 90% of the complaints that I investigated were a result of people not following directions. Biggest single thing was not sending original documentation when it was called for.
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Do individual stocks have futures trading
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There is indeed a market for single stock futures, and they have been trading on the OneChicago exchange since 2002. Futures are available in 12,509 individual stocks, according to the exchange's current product listing. One advantage they offer over trading the underlying stock is the significantly higher leverage that is available, combined with the lack of pattern day trader rules that apply to stocks and similar securities. Single stock futures have proven to be something of a regulatory challenge as it has been unclear whether their oversight is the remit of the SEC/FINRA or the CFTC/NFA.
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How can I calculate how much an option would be worth after X days if the underlying stock changed by +/- $Y?
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You'd need to know the delta and the theta of the option. You can either calculate them yourself using a model like Black-Scholes (assuming you have a market price and can imply a volatility, and know the other factors that go into the model) or, you can see if your broker quotes "greeks" as well (mine does). The delta is the sensitivity (rate of change in value) to the underlying stock price, and the theta is the sensitivity to time passing (usually expressed in $/day). So if your option has a delta of .5 and a theta of -.04, when one day passes and the underlying stock goes up $3, the option will gain roughly $1.50 due to the underlying stock price and lose $0.04 due to time passing.
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Limiting Fees for Monthly Contributions
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First off, I think you are on the right path not paying 3% to a broker; that sort of fee reduces the money you earn significantly in the long term. For your fund investing approach, 10 funds seems like a lot; one of the point of funds is that they are diversified, so I would expect that the 10th fund would give relatively little diversification over the other 9. I would think about targeting only 5 funds. To invest in the funds, rather than trying to invest in all funds every month, put all of the money into a single fund, and rotate the fund month to month. That reduces your transaction costs significantly.
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What is this type of risk-free investment called?
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My Credit Union offers a market-linked CD where the investment has FDIC protection if it is held to maturity, but otherwise they are linked with the S&P 500. it comes with this warning: Market-Link CDs are not appropriate for all depositors including clients needing a guaranteed interest payment or seeking full participation in the stock market. If redeemed prior to maturity, the amount received will be subject to market risk including interest rate fluctuations an issuer credit quality. So they still do exist. Another credit union I belong to has a similar product. The risk is that if you need the money early, there may be losses. There would also not be a way to switch to a more conservative posture as the CD approached maturity, if you were interested in protecting your gains.
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Are variable rate loans ever a good idea?
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It all has to do with risk and reward. The risk is that interest rates will rise. To entice you to go with the variable, they make it so it is cheaper if interest rates never rise. Your job is to guess whether interest rates are likely to go up or not. In a first approximation, you should go fixed. The bank employs very smart people whose entire job is to know whether interest rates will go up or not. Those people chose the price difference between the two, and it's sure to favour the bank. That is, the risk of extra payments you'll make on the variable is probably more than the enticement. But, some people can't sleep at night if their payments (or more realistically, the interest part of their payments) might double. If that's you, go fixed. If that's not you, understand that the enticement actually has to be turned up a bit, to get more people to go variable, because of the sleeping-at-night feature. Think long and hard about your budget and what would happen if your payment jumped. If you could handle it, variable might be the better choice. Personally, I have been taking "variable" on my mortgage for decades (and now I don't have one) and never once regretted it. I also counselled my oldest child to take variable on her mortgage. Over this century so far, if rates ticked up, they didn't tick up to the level the fixed was offered at. Mostly they have sat flat. But if ever there was a world in which "past performance does not predict future results" it would be interest rate trends. Do your own research.
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Invest in (say, index funds) vs spending all money on home?
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Here in the UK, the rule of thumb is to keep a lot of equity in your home if you can. I assume here that you have a lot of savings you're considering using. If you only have say 10% of the house price you wouldn't actually have a lot of choice in the matter, the mortgage lender will penalise you heavily for low deposits. The practical minimum is 5%, but for most people a 95% mortgage is just silly (albeit not as silly as the 100% or greater mortgages you could get pre-2008), and you should take serious individual advice before considering it. According to Which, the average in the UK for first-time buyers is 20% (not the best source for that data I confess, but a convenient one). Above 20% is not at all unusual. You'll do an affordability calculation to figure out how much you can borrow, which isn't at all the same as how much you should borrow, but does get you started. Basically you, decide how much a month you can spend on mortgage payments. The calculation will let you put every penny into this if you choose to, but in practice you'll want some discretionary income so don't do that. decide the term of the mortgage. For a young first-time buyer in the UK I think you'd typically take a 25-year term and consider early repayment options rather than committing to a shorter term, but you don't have to. Mortgage lenders will offer shorter terms as long as you can afford the payments. decide how much you're putting into a deposit make subtractions for cost of moving (stamp duty if applicable, fees, removals aka "people to lug your stuff"). receive back a number which is the house price you can pay under these constraints (and of course a breakdown of what the mortgage principle would be, and the interest rate you'll pay). This step requires access to lender information, since their rates depend on personal details, deposit percentage, phase of the moon, etc. Our mortgage advisor did multiple runs of the calculation for us for different scenarios, since we hadn't made up our minds entirely. Since you have not yet decided how much deposit to make, you can use multiple calculations to see the effect of different deposits you might make, up to a limit of your total savings. Putting up more deposit both increases the amount you can borrow for a given monthly payment (since mortgage rates are lower when the loan is a lower proportion of house value), and of course increases the house price you can afford. So unless you're getting a very high return on your savings, £1 of deposit gets you somewhat more than £1 of house, and the calculation will tell you how much more. Once you've chosen the house you want, the matter is even simpler: do you prefer to put your savings in the house and borrow less and make lower payments, or prefer to put your savings elsewhere and borrow more and make higher payments but perhaps have some additional income from the savings. Assuming you maintain a contingency fund, a lower mortgage is generally considered a good investment in the UK, but you need to check what's right for you and compare it to other investments you could make. The issue is complicated by the fact that residential property prices are rising quite quickly in most areas of the UK, and have been for a long time, meaning that highly-leveraged property investment appears to be a really good idea. This leads to the imprudent, but tempting, conclusion that you should buy the biggest house you can possibly afford and watch its value rises. I do not endorse this advice personally, but it's certainly true that in a sharply rising house market it's easier to get away with buying a bigger house than you need, than it is to get away with it in a flat or falling market. As Stephen says, an offset mortgage is a no-brainer good idea if the rate is the same. Unfortunately in the UK, the rate isn't the same (or anyway, it wasn't a couple of years ago). Offset mortgages are especially good for those who make a lot of savings from income and for any reason don't want to commit all of those savings to a traditional mortgage payment. Good reasons for not wanting to do that include uncertainty about your future income and a desire to have the flexibility to actually spend some of it if you fancy :-)
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ESPP cost basis and taxes
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If the $882 is reported on W2 as your income then it is added to your taxable income on W2 and is taxed as salary. Your basis then becomes $5882. If it is not reported on your W2 - you need to add it yourself. Its salary income. If its not properly reported on W2 it may have some issues with FICA, so I suggest talking to your salary department to verify it is. In any case, this is not short term capital gain. Your broker may or may not be aware of the reporting on W2, and if they report the basis as $5000 on your 1099, when you fill your tax form you can add a statement that it is ESPP reported on W2 and change the basis to correct one. H&R Block and TurboTax both support that (you need to chose the correct type of investment there).
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How to account for money earned and spent prior to establishing business bank accounts?
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Funds earned and spent before opening a dedicated business account should be classified according to their origination. For example, if your business received income, where did that money go? If you took the money personally, it would be considered either a 'distribution' or a 'loan' to you. It is up to you which of the two options you choose. On the flip side, if your business had an expense that you paid personally, that would be considered either a 'contribution of capital' or a 'loan' from you. If you choose to record these transactions as loans, you can offset them together, so you don't need two separate accounts, loan to you and loan from you. When the bank account was opened, the initial deposit came from where? If it came from your personal funds, then it is either a 'contribution of capital' or a 'loan' from you. From the sound of your question, you deposited what remained after the preceding income/expenses. This would, in effect, return the 'loan' account back to zero, if choosing that route. The above would also be how to record any expenses you may pay personally for the business (if any) in the future. Because these transactions were not through a dedicated business bank account, you can't record them in Quickbooks as checks and deposits. Instead, you can use Journal Entries. For any income received, you would debit your capital/loan account and credit your income account. For any expenses, you would debit the appropriate expense account and credit your distribution/loan account. Also, if setting up a loan account, you should choose either Current Asset or Current Liability type. The capital contribution and distribution account should be Equity type. Hope this helps!
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Can you buy out a pink sheet listed company by purchasing all of the oustanding shares?
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Sure. No-one promises that all the outstanding stocks are ever for sale, but if you get them all - you get them all, what marketplace you used for that doesn't really matter.
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What taxes are involved for LLC in Georgia?
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Your best course of action is to gather your paperwork, ask around your personal network for a recommendation for a good CPA, and pay that person to do your taxes (business and personal). Read through the completed package and have them walk you through every item you do not understand. I would continue doing this until you feel confident that you can file for yourself. Even then, the first couple of times I did my own, I'd pay them to review my work. Assuming you find a CPA with reasonable fees, they will likely point out tax inefficiencies in the way you do your business which will more than pay for their fees. It can be like a point of honor for CPAs to ensure that their customers get their money's worth in this way. (Not saying all CPAs work this way, but to me, this would be a criteria for one that I would recommend.)
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How does the purchase of shares on the secondary market benefit the issuing company?
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First, the stock does represent a share of ownership and if you have a different interpretation I'd like to see proof of that. Secondly, when the IPO or secondary offering happened that put those shares into the market int he first place, the company did receive proceeds from selling those shares. While others may profit afterward, it is worth noting that more than a few companies will have secondary offerings, convertible debt, incentive stock options and restricted stock that may be used down the road that are all dependent upon the current trading share price in terms of how useful these can be used to fund operations, pay executives and so forth. Third, if someone buys up enough shares of the company then they gain control of the company which while you aren't mentioning this case, it is something to note as some individuals buy stock so that they can take over the company which happens. Usually this has more of an overall plan but the idea here is that getting that 50%+1 control of the company's voting shares are an important piece to things here.
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What's best investment option? Mutual fund or Property [duplicate]
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nan
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Should I pay off my 50K of student loans as quickly as possible, or steadily? Why?
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Here's my take on it (and quite a few people might disagree) - student loans aren't bankruptable, so they'll stay with you forever. So if you want to reduce your risk over time and have a funded emergency fund and some cash put aside for, say, a car or another major expense, then I'd try to throw money at the student loan to get rid of it quickly.
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What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago?
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Maybe not exactly 5 years ago, but the big thing I wish I understood starting out my career was retirement accounts and how they worked.
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How big of a mortgage can I realistically afford?
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For me there are two issues. So, what to do? You have the basics of a very strong position coming together. A good salary in a good city. I'd be patient and work on consolidating my position for another year to 18 months (including building a rainy day fund) and look to buy then.
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Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary?
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I probably wouldn't turn down a raise, but there are some circumstances in which you might hesitate. Having a disproportionately high salary for your type of role or the value you are providing to the company makes you an attractive layoff target in an economic downturn. I've heard anecdotally of lots of corporate lawyers getting laid off because they were getting raises every year, and ended up with such ridiculous salaries that when the economy went south, the company basically asked "why are we paying these people so much?" Same thing happens in lots of places - Circuit City lays off the experienced, highly-paid salespeople and brings in cheap-o high school students (that didn't work out well for them, but they did it anyway). Still, even knowing that, I'd accept the pay raise. You're making more money the whole time you're employed, and prior salary is the biggest predictor of the salary you can negotiate at a new position.
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How to avoid getting back into debt?
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With your windfall, you've been given a second chance. You've become debt free again, and get to start over. Here is what I would recommend from this point on: Decide that you want to remain debt free. It sounds like you've already done this, since you are asking this question. Commit to never borrowing money again. It sounds overly simplistic, but if you stop using your credit cards to spend money you don't have and you don't take out any loans, you won't be in debt. Learn to budget. Here is what is going to make being debt free possible. At the beginning of each month, you are going to write down your income for the month. Then write down your expenses for the month. Make sure you include everything. You'll have fixed monthly expenses, like rent, and variable monthly expenses, like electricity and phone. You'll also have ongoing expenses, like food, transportation, and entertainment. You'll have some expenses, like tuition, which doesn't come up every month, but is predictable and needs to be paid. (For these, you'll can set aside part of the money for the expense each month, and when the bill comes, you'll have the funds to pay it ready to go.) Using budgeting software, such as YNAB (which I recommend) will make this whole process much easier. You are allowed to change your plan if you need to at any time, but do not allow yourself to spend any money that is not in the plan. Take action to address any issues that become apparent from your budget. As you do your budget, you will probably struggle, at first. You will find that you don't have enough income to cover your expenses. Fortunately, you are now armed with data to be able to tackle this problem. There are two causes: either your expenses are too high, or your income is too low. Cut your expenses, if necessary. Before you had a written budget, it was hard to know where your money went each month. Now that you have a budget, it might be apparent that you are spending too much on food, or that you are spending too much on entertainment, or even that a roommate is stealing money. Do what you need to do to cut back the expenses that need cutting. Increase your income, if necessary. You might find from your budget that your expenses aren't out of line. You live in as cheap a place as possible, you eat inexpensively, you don't go out to eat, etc. In this case, the problem isn't your spending, it is your income. In order to stay out of debt, you'll need to increase your income (get a job). I know that you said that this will slow your studies, but because you are now budgeting, you have an advantage you didn't have before: you now know how short you are each month. You can take a part time job that will earn you just enough income to remain debt free while maximizing your study time. Build up a small emergency fund. Emergencies that you didn't plan for in your budget happen. To remain debt free, you should have some money set aside to cover something like this, so you don't have to borrow when it comes up. The general rule of thumb is 3 to 6 months of expenses, but as a college kid with low expenses and no family to take care of, you won't need a huge fund. $500 to $1000 extra in the bank to cover an unexpected emergency expense could be all it takes to keep you debt free.
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What can make a stock price rise without good news or results?
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It could be an endless number of reasons for it. It could simply just be a break through a long term resistance causing technical traders to jump in. It could be an analyst putting out a buy recommendation. If fundamentals have not changed then maybe the technicals have changed. Momentum could have reached an oversold position causing new buyers to enter the market. Without knowing the actual stock, its fundamentals and its technicals, no one will ever know exactly why.
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Why do people buy stocks that pay no dividend?
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Shares in a company represent a portion of a company. If that company takes in money and doesn't pay it out as a dividend (e.g. Apple), the company is still more valuable because it has cold hard cash as an asset. Theoretically, it's all the same whether your share of the money is inside the company or outside the company; the only immediate difference is tax treatment. Of course, for large bank accounts that means that an investment in the company is a mix of investment in the bank account and investment in the business-value of the company, which may stymie investors who aren't particularly interested in buying larve amounts of bank accounts (known for low returns) and would prefer to receive their share of the cash to invest elsewhere (or in the business portion of the company.) Companies like Apple have in fact taken criticism for this. Your company could also use that cash to invest in itself (growing the value of its profits) or buy other companies that are worth money, essentially doing the job for you. Of course, they can do the job well or they can do it poorly... A company could also be acquired by a larger company, or taken private, in exchange for cash or the stock of another company. This is another way that the company's value could be returned to its shareholders.
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Does investing in a company support it?
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Would you consider the owner of a company to be supporting the company? If you buy stock in the company you own a small part of that company. Your purchase also increases the share price, and thus the value of the company. Increased value allows the company to borrow more money to say expand operations. The affect that most individuals might have on share price is very very small. That doesn't mean it isn't the right thing for you to do if it is something you believe in. After all if enough people followed those same convictions it could have an impact on the company.
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Are there alternatives to double currency account to manage payments in different currencies?
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Banks in certain countries are offering such facility. However I am not aware of any Bank in Hungary offering this. So apart from maintaining a higher amount in HUF, there by reducing the costs [and taking the volatility risks]; there aren't many options.
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What to consider before buying (exercising) a family member's private company employee stock options, about to expire?
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The company may not permit a transfer of these options. If they do permit it, you simply give him the money and he has them issue the options in your name. As a non-public company, they may have a condition where an exiting employee has to buy the shares or let them expire. If non-employees are allowed to own shares, you give him the money to exercise the options and he takes possession of the stock and transfers it to you. Either way, it seems you really need a lawyer to handle this. Whenever this kind of money is in motion, get a lawyer. By the way, the options are his. You mean he must purchase the shares, correct?
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Typical discount for cash purchase on $1+ million homes?
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First, I assume you understand that 'Cash Offer' doesn't mean you really show up with cash (in a duffel bag...), but is an expression that designates that you don't need a mortgage approval, but have the money in your accounts. The advantages for the seller are With both cases depending on the seller's situation, there can't be a generic answer, and the 'discount' will be all over the place between zero and several percent.
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Why does capital gains tax apply to long term stock holdings?
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Most well-off people have investments which they have held for long periods of time, often of very substantial value such as a large part of a company. They also have influence on legislators and officials through various social contacts, lobbyists, and contributions. They managed to convince these law makers to offer a lower tax on income derived from sales of such investments. The fig leaf covering this arrangement is that it "contributes to the growth of economy by encouraging long-term investment in new enterprises."
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How should I invest my money as a young graduate in Europe?
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Using a simple investment calculator to get a sense of scale here, to have 70k total, including the 500 a month invested, after ten years you just need returns of 2%. To earn 70k on top of the money invested you would need returns over 20%. To do that in five years you would need over 50% annual return. That is quite a big difference. Annualized returns of 20% would require high risk and a very large amount of time invested, skill and luck. 2% returns can be nearly guaranteed without much effort. I would encourage you to think about your money more holistically. If you get very unlucky with investments and don't make any money will you not go on the vacations even if your income allows? That doesn't make a lot of sense. As always, spend all your money with the current and future in mind. Investment return Euros are no different from any other Euros. At that point, the advice is the same for all investors try to get as much return as possible for the risk you are comfortable with. You seem to have a high tolerance for risk. Generally, for investors with a high risk tolerance a broadly diversified portfolio of stocks (with maybe a small amount of bonds, other investments) will give the most return over the long term for the risk taken. After that generally the next most useful way to boost your returns is to try to avoid taxes which is why we talk about 401(k)s so much around here. Each European country has different tax law, but please ask questions here about your own country as well as you mention money.se could use more ex-US questions.
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What is the difference between speculating and investing?
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Speculation is when someone else makes an investment you don't like. The above is tongue in cheek, but is a serious answer. There are several attempts at separating the two, but they turn into moral judgements on the value of a pure "buy and hold" versus any other investment strategy (which is itself doubtful: is shorting an oil stock more "speculation" than buying and holding an alternative energy stock?). Some economists take the other route and just argue that we should remove the moral judgement and celebrate speculation as we celebrate investment.
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What price can *I* buy IPO shares for?
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Some brokers have a number of shares they can offer their customers, but the small guy will get 100, not as many as they'd like. In the Tech bubble of the late 90's I was able to buy in to many IPOs, but the written deal from the broker is that you could not sell for 30 days or you'd be restricted from IPO purchases for the next 90. No matter what the stock opened at, there were a fair number of stocks thay were below IPO issue price after 30 days had passed. I haven't started looking at IPOs since the tech flameout, but had I gotten in to LinkedIn it would have been at that $45 price. Let's see if it stays at these levels after 30 days. Edit - This is the exact cut/paste from my broker's site : Selling IPO Shares: While XXX customers are always free to sell shares purchased in a public offering at any time, short holding periods of less than 31 calendar days will be a factor in determining whether XXX allocates you shares in future public offerings. Accordingly, if you sell IPO shares purchased in a public offering within 30 calendar days of such purchase, you will be restricted from participating in initial and secondary public offerings through XXX for a period of 3 months. (I deleted the broker name) I honestly don't know if I'd have gotten any LI shares. Next interesting one is Pandora.
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Are bonds really a recession proof investment?
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You're mixing up two different concepts: low-risk and recession-proof. I'll assume I don't need to explain risk: there is always risk, regardless what form you keep your assets in. With bonds, the interest rate is supposed to reflect the risk. If a company offers bonds with too low an interest rate for the risk level, few people will buy them. While if a company offers bonds with too high an interest rate for the level of risk, they are gypping themselves. So a bond is a slightly more transparent investment from a risk assessment perspective, but that doesn't mean the risk is necessarily low: if you buy a bond with a 20% effective annual yield, that means there is quite a high risk that the underlying company will fold (unless inflation is in the double-digit range as well, in which case a 20% yield is not that much). Whereas with a stock, no parameter directly tells you anything about the risk. Recession-proof is not the same thing as low-risk. Recession-proof refers to investing in (or holding debt for) industries that perform better in a recession. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/08/industries-thrive-on-recession.asp.
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How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want
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There are a lot of good answers above, all of them will probably work for you in some way or another. One point to note (from the procrastination theme) is that you could invest your free money that you have currently in some investment instrument which would require you to do some paperwork etc. to get out, this way the immediate cash flow is decreased and also invested. Now from each montly budget save a small amount for the things that you would like to buy. Give this small savings some months to accumulate so that you can afford only one of the items that you want to buy or target an item that you want to buy. After the money is accumulated, if you still want to buy the item, then you probably should. One point of note is that budgeting is also important on a monthly basis, Pete has provided excellent suggestion in this regard.
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I have $12k in a Chase checking account, but want to start earning interest/saving/investing/etc to make more money. What should I do?
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These are the basics in order: Max your employer contributions to your 401k if available Pay off any loans Contribute to an IRA Perhaps max out your 401k Look into other investment options (refinance your mortgage, buy stocks) Those are the typical rules, special situations may need specials actions...
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What does Dividend 165% mean in stock market?
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Do not confuse the DIV (%) value and the dividend yield. As you can see from this page, the DIV (%) is, as you say, 165%. However, the dividend yield is 3.73% at the time of writing. As the Investopedia page referenced above says: The payout ratio is calculated as follows: Annual Dividends per Share / Earnings per Share. which means that the dividends being paid out are more than the earnings of the company: In extreme cases, dividend payout ratios exceed 100%, meaning more dividends were paid out than there were profits that year. Significantly high ratios are unsustainable.
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Advice for a college student interested in investment opportunities.
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Over a period of time most mutual funds do not perform better that an index fund. Picking and buying individual stock can be a great learning experience.
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Am I still building a credit score if I use my credit card like a debit card?
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I strongly suggest you look at CreditKarma and see how each aspect of what you are doing impacts your score. Here's my take - There's an anti-credit approach that many have which, to me, is over the top. "Zero cards, zero credit" feels to me like one step shy of "off the grid." It's so far to the right that it actually is more of an effort than just playing the game a bit. You are depositing to the card frequently to do what you are doing. That takes time and effort. Why not just pay the bill in full each month, and just track purchases so you move the cash to the account in advance, whether that's physical or on paper? In your case, it's the same as charging one item every few months to keep the card active. If that's what you'd like to do, that's fine. I'd just avoid having the card take up too much of your time and thought. (Disclaimer - I've used and written about Credit Karma. I have no business relationship with them, my articles are to help readers, and not paid placement.) mhoran's response is in line with my thinking. His advice to use the card to build your score is what the zero-credit folk criticize as "a great debt score." Nonsense. If you use debt wisely, you'll never pay interest (except for a mortgage, perhaps) and you may gain rewards with no cost to you.
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Would you withdraw your money from your bank if you thought it was going under?
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There's obviously a lot of discussion surrounding your question, but if I thought a bank was going under, then yes, absolutely I would withdraw my money. Now, we can debate whether me thinking the bank was going under was foolish or not, but if I truly believed it, I can't see why I would sit around and do nothing.
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Who buys variable annuities?
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I wrote a detailed answer about variable annuities on another question, but I want to include one specific situation where a variable annuity may be the right course of action. (For the sake of simplicity, I'm quoting directly from that answer): Three-quarters of US states protect variable annuity assets from creditors. Regular IRA's don't benefit from protection under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and may therefore be more vulnerable to creditors. If you're a potential target for lawsuits, e.g. a doctor worried about medical malpractice suits, variable annuities may be an option for you. As always, you should consult a legal/tax professional to see if this might be a good option for you to consider. The SEC also has a fantastic publication on variable annuities that provides a great deal of information. It's not directly related to this question because it doesn't necessarily focus on the circumstances in which they might be a good fit for you, but it's educational nevertheless and should give you more than enough information to properly evaluate any policy you're looking to buy.
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Why naked call writing is risky compare to Covered call?
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A covered call risks the disparity between the purchase price and the potential forced or "called" sale price less the premium received. So buy a stock for $10.00 believing it will drop you or not rise above $14.00 for a given period of days. You sell a call for a $1.00 agreeing to sell your stock for $14.00 and your wrong...the stock rises and at 14.00 or above during the option period the person who paid you the $1.00 premium gets the stock for a net effective price of $15.00. You have a gain of 5$. Your hypothecated loss is unlimited in that the stock could go to $1mil a share. That loss is an opportunity loss you still had a modest profit in actual $. The naked call is a different beast. you get the 1.00 in commission to sell a stock you don't own but must pay for that right. so lets say you net .75 in commission per share after your sell the option. as long as the stock trades below $14.00 during the period of the option you sold your golden. It rises above the strike price you must now buy that stock at market to fill the order when the counter party choses to exercise the option which results in a REAL loss of 100% of the stocks market price less the .75 a share you made. in the scenarios a 1000 shares that for up $30.00 a share over the strike price make you $5,000 in a covered call and lose you $29,250 in a naked call.Naked calls are speculative. Covered calls are strategic.
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Should I pay off investment property mortgage
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I don't think it's all or none. First, 15 year mortgages are sub-3% right now, even for an investment property you'd get under 4%. shop around, do the math, a 1% drop is $1000 a year to start, nothing to sneeze at. Don't let the tax tail wag the decision dog. If you could invest the $100K at a taxable 5.5% in this economy, you would. In this case, that's your return on prepayments on this mortgage. Personally, I'd like to see a refinance and pay down of principal so the cash flow is at least positive. Beyond that, you need to decide how much cash you're comfortable having or not having in savings. I'd also consider when to start investing long term, in equities. (low cost ETFs is what I prefer).
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What is a typical investment portfolio made up of?
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An investment portfolio is typically divided into three components: All three of those can be accessed through mutual funds or ETFs. A 401(k) will probably have a small set of mutual funds for you to pick from. Mutual funds may charge you silly expenses if you pick a bad one. Look at the prospectus for the expense ratio. If it's over 1% you're definitely paying too much. If it's over 0.5% you're probably paying too much. If it's less than 0.1% you have a really good deal. US stocks are generally the core holding until you move into retirement (or get close to spending the money on something else if it's not invested for retirement). International stocks are riskier than US stocks, but provide opportunity for diversification and better returns than the US stocks. Bonds, or fixed-income investments, are generally very safe, but have limited opportunities for returns. They tend to do better when stocks are doing poorly. When you've got a while to invest, you should be looking at riskier investments; when you don't, you should be looking for safer investments. A quick (and rough) rule of thumb is that "your age should match the portion of your portfolio in bonds". So if you're 50 years old and approaching retirement in 15 years or so, you should have about 50% in bonds. Roughly. People whose employment and future income is particularly tied to one sector of the market would also do well to avoid investing there, because they already are at risk if it performs badly. For instance, if you work in the technology sector, loading up on tech stocks is extra risky: if there's a big bust, you're not just out of a job, your portfolio is dead as well. More exotic options are available to diversify a portfolio: While many portfolios could benefit from these sorts of holdings, they come with their own advantages and disadvantages and should be researched carefully before taking a significant stake in them.
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What does the -V indicate on MKC ticker
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MKC is non-voting stock, MKC/V is voting stock. Ofter times you'll see two or more stock symbols for a company. These usually reflect different classes of stocks. For example, voting vs. non-voting (as in this case) or preferred vs non-preferred stock.
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Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?
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Day trading is an attempt to profit on high frequency signal changes. Long term investing profits on low frequency changes. What is the difference? High Frequency Signal = the news of the day. This includes things like an earnings report coming out, panic selling, Jim Cramer pushing his "buy buy buy" button, an oil rig blowing up in the ocean, a terrorist attack in some remote region of the globe, a government mandated recall, the fed announcing an interest rate hike, a competitor announcing a new product, hurricanes, cold winters, a new health study on child obesity, some other company in the same sector missing their earnings, etc. Think daily red and green triangles on CNBC: up a buck, down a buck. Low Frequency Signal = The long term effectiveness of a company to produce and sell a product efficiently plus the sum of the high frequency signal over a long period of time. Think 200 day moving average chart of a stock. No fast changes, just, long term trends. Over time, the high frequency changes tend to negate each other. To me, long term investing is wiser because the low frequency signal is dominated by a companies ability to function well over time. That in turn is driven by the effectiveness of its leadership coupled with the skill and motivation of its employees. You are betting on the company and its people. Pseudo-random shorterm forces, which you can't control, play less of a role. The high frequency signal, on the other hand, is dominated by sporadic and unpredictable forces that typically can't be controlled by the company. It has some tinge of randomness about it. Trying to invest on that random component is not investing at all, it is gambling (akin to "investing" in that next coin flip coming up heads) I understand the allure of high frequency trading. Look at the daily chart of a popular stock and focus on the up and down ticks. Mathematically, you could make a killing if you could just stack all those upticks on top of each other. If only it was that easy.
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At what point is the contents of a trust considered to be the property of the beneficiary?
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Both a trust and an estate are separate, legal, taxpaying entities, just like any individual. Income earned by the trust or estate property (e.g., rents collected from real estate) is income earned by the trust or the estate. Who is liable for taxes on income earned by a trust depends on who receives or retains benefits from the trust. Who is liable for taxes on income received by an estate depends on how the income is classified (i.e., income earned by the decedent, income earned by the estate, income in respect of the decedent, or income distributed to beneficiaries). Generally, trusts and estates are taxed like individuals. General tax principles that apply to individuals therefore also apply to trusts and estates. A trust or estate may earn tax−exempt income and may deduct certain expenses. Each is allowed a small exemption ($300 for a simple trust, $100 for a complex trust, $600 for an estate). However, neither is allowed a standard deduction. The tax brackets for income taxable to a trust or estate are much more compressed and can result in higher taxes than for individuals. In short, the trust should have been paying taxes on its gains all along, when the money transfers to you it will be taxed as ordinary income.
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What is the difference between speculating and investing?
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Classic investing guru Benjamin Graham defines "An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return." He contrasts this with speculation which is anything else (no thorough analysis, no safety of principal, or no adequate return). The word "adequate" is important, since it contrasts adequate returns with those that are either lower than needed or higher than necessary to reach your goals.
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How to fix Finance::Quote to pull quotes in GnuCash
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The Yahoo Finance API is no longer available, so Finance::Quote needs to point at something else. Recent versions of Finance::Quote can use AlphaVantage as a replacement for the Yahoo Finance API, but individual users need to acquire and input an AlphaVantage API key. Pretty decent documentation for how to this is available at the GnuCash wiki. Once you've followed the directions on the wiki and set the API key, you still need to tell each individual security to use AlphaVantage rather than Yahoo Finance: As a warning, I've been having intermittent trouble with AlphaVantage. From the GnuCash wiki: Be patient. Alphavantage does not have the resources that Yahoo! did and it is common for quote requests to time out, which GnuCash will present as "unknown error". I've certainly been experiencing those errors, though not always.
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Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending?
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@OP: It's all about risk. With a cash buyer the decision is left up to one person. With a financed buyer it adds another approval process (the lender). It's another opportunity for the deal to fall through. If the bank is the lender then there's even more risk. They've already taken back the property once and incurred cost and they're setting themselves up to do it all over again. The discount price can depend on a lot of factors. Maybe it's a bad area and they need to get rid of it. Maybe the appraisals for the area are low because of foreclosures and they know it will be hard for a Buyer to get a loan. Lots of reasons as to what price they'd take. @Shawn: Every deal has contingencies unless it's a foreclosure bought at auction. Even if you are getting a steal from the bank in terms of price you're always going to have an inspection period. If a Buyer doesn't need an inspection then he will just go to an auction and buy a property for an even cheaper price.
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Is freelance income earned by a U.S. citizen while living abroad subject to state income tax?
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New York will want to you to pay taxes on income from "New York sources". I'm not sure what this means to a freelance web developer. If your wife is doing freelance web development under the same business entity as she did in New York (ie. a New York sole proprietor, corporation, etc), you probably do need to file. From nonresident tax form manual: http://tax.ny.gov/pdf/2011/inc/it203i_2011.pdf If you were a nonresident of New York State, you are subject to New York State tax on income you received from New York State sources in 2011. If you were a resident of New York State for only part of 2011, you are subject to New York State tax on all income you received while you were a resident of the state and on income you received from New York State sources while you were a nonresident. To compute the amount of tax due, use Form IT-203, Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return. You will compute a base tax as if you were a full-year resident, then determine the percentage of your income that is subject to New York State tax and the amount of tax apportioned to New York State.
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historical data for analysing pensions
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You could use any of various financial APIs (e.g., Yahoo finance) to get prices of some reference stock and bond index funds. That would be a reasonable approximation to market performance over a given time span. As for inflation data, just googling "monthly inflation data" gave me two pages with numbers that seem to agree and go back to 1914. If you want to double-check their numbers you could go to the source at the BLS. As for whether any existing analysis exists, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I don't think you need to do much analysis to show that stock returns are different over different time periods.
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Super-generic mutual fund type
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Since this is your emergency fund, you generally want to avoid volatility while keeping pace with inflation. You really shouldn't be looking for aggressive growth (which means taking on some risk). That comes from money outside of the emergency fund. The simplest thing to do would be to shop around for a different savings account. There are some deals out there that are better than ING. Here is a good list. The "traditional" places to keep an emergency fund are Money Market Mutual Funds (not to be confused with Money Market Accounts). They are considered extremely safe investments. However, the returns on such a fund is pretty low these days, often lower than a high-yield online savings account. The next step up would be a bond fund (more volatility, slightly better return). Pick something that relies on Government bonds, not "high-yield" (junk) bonds or anything crazy like that. Fidelity Four in One comes pretty close to your "index of indexes" request, but it isn't the most stable thing. You'd probably do better with a safer investment.
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How will a 1099 work with an existing W-2?
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You can do either a 1099 or a W-2. There is no limitations to the number of W-2s one can have in reporting taxes. Problems occur, with the IRS, when one "forgets" to report income. Even if one holds only one job at a time, people typically have more than one W-2 if they change jobs within the year. The W-2 is the simplest way to go and you may want to consider doing this if you do not intend to work this side business into significant income. However, a 1099 gig is preferred by many in some situations. For things like travel expenses, you will probably receive the income from these on a 1099, but you can deduct them from your income using a Schedule C. Along these lines you may be able to deduct a wide variety of other things like travel to and from the client's location, equipment such as computers and office supplies, and maybe a portion of your home internet bill. Also this opens up different retirement contributions schemes such as a simplified employee pension. This does come with some drawbacks, however. First your life is more complicated as things need to be documented to become actual business expenses. You are much more likely to be audited by the IRS. Your taxes become more complicated and it is probably necessary to employee a CPA to do them. If you do this for primary full time work you will have to buy your own benefits. Most telling you will have to pay both sides of social security taxes on most profits. (Keep in mind that a good account can help you transfer profits to dividends which will allow you to be taxed at 15% and avoid social security taxes.) So it really comes down to what you see this side gig expanding into and your goals. If you want to make this a real business, then go 1099, if you are just doing this for a fes months and a few thousand dollars, go W-2.
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Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017?
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No. The market cap has no relation to actual money that flowed anywhere, it is simple the number of shares multiplied by the current price, and the current price is what potential buyers are (were) willing to pay for the share. So any news that increases or decreases interest in shares changes potentially the share price, and with that the market cap. No money needs to flow.
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Super-generic mutual fund type
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You can also create a CD ladder (say 1/3 in a 6 month CD, 1/3 in a 1 year CD, 1/3 in a 2 year CD) with half of your emergency fund money. You always want to leave some of it in a liquid account so you can get at it immediately without any interest penalty. CD's provide higher interest than a savings account. By staggering the lengths of the CD's, you give yourself more options, and can roll them over into CD's with higher rates (since interest rates are soooo low right now) as the CD's mature.
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Why have I never seen a stock split?
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You haven't seen one because you haven't looked for one properly. You can set a google alert for stock split and get information about major issues splitting their stocks quite regularly, as well as a daily dose of recommendations from people without a say in the matter for big companies to split their stock. Stock splits are announced in advance by company management.
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How does selling rights issues work in practice?
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Do you simply get call options you can sell on an options exchange? No, you don't get call options that you can sell on an options exchange. Rather, you get rights that you can (generally) sell on the stock exchange. The right issue is in essence a call option – in that it behaves like one, but it is not considered a standardized option contract. is there a special exchange where such rights issues are traded? No. It will normally be done on the stock exchange.
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