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Why are some funds only recommended for investors starting out? | The simple answer is that whatever strategy is implemented with e-series, could be implemented at a lower cost with ETFs. |
Can I predict if it is better to save money in USD or local currency? | Typically, the higher interest rates in local currency cover about the potential gain from the currency exchange rate change - if not, people would make money out of it. However, you only know this after the fact, so either way you are taking a risk. Depending on where the local economy goes, it is more secure to go wi... |
In what state should I register my web-based LLC? | Register in Nevada. It's a no brainer. I understand that it's not a great deal of money, but if you can save several hundred dollars per year, why not? It's the same amount (actually probably less) of paperwork to register in Nevada. |
Where to find the 5 or 10 year returns for a mutual fund? | Yahoo's primary business isn't providing mutual fund performance data. They aim to be convenient, but often leave something to be desired in terms of completeness. Try Morningstar instead. Their mission is investment research. Here's a link to Morningstar's data for the fund you specified. If you scroll down, you'll... |
Is it safer to send credit card number via unsecured website form or by e-mail? What safer options are there? | Some (most) credit cards have a way to get a one-time use number. If that is an available option for one of your cards, that is probably the way to do the very risky transaction. These numbers can be good for only one purchase, or for multiple purchases with a single vendor. This will limit your exposure because they w... |
Advantage of Financial Times vs. free news sources for improving own knowledge of finance? | If you are interested in a career in algorithmic trading, I strongly encourage you to formally study math and computer science. Algorithmic trading firms have no need for employees with financial knowledge; if they did, they'd just be called "trading" firms. Rather, they need experts in machine learning, statistical ... |
Relation between inflation rates and interest rates | When the inflation rate increases, this tends to push up interest rates because of supply and demand: If the interest rate is less than the inflation rate, then putting your money in the bank means that you are losing value every day that it is there. So there's an incentive to withdraw your money and spend it now. If,... |
The Intelligent Investor: Northern Pacific Railway example | Without reading the source, from your description it seems that the author believes that this particular company was undervalued in the marketplace. It seems that investors were blinded by a small dividend, without considering the actual value of the company they were owners of. Remember that a shareholder has the righ... |
Put on a put option | If you look at it from the hedging perspective, if you're unsure you're going to need to hedge but want to lock in an option premium price if you do need to do so, I could see this making sense. |
What are the advantages of doing accounting on your personal finances? | I recently made the switch to keeping track of my finance (Because I found an app that does almost everything for me). Before, my situation was fairly simple: I was unable to come up with a clear picture of how much I was spending vs saving (altho I had a rough idea). Now I here is what it changes: What I can do now: I... |
Which type of investments to keep inside RRSP? | Milliondollarjourney.com has a couple of articles on this topic. How Investing Taxes Work part 1 and part 2. The following is a summary of that article. Capital gains and dividends are taxed at a preferred rate, while interest tax is taxed at your regular rate. Interest is taxed at your marginal rate, but capital gains... |
How credible is Stansberry's video “End of America”? | No. I glanced through the article you linked to. It's quite lengthy, but not compelling. I'd not lose any sleep over this. Others with far better credentials are making the opposite claim, that life is good and the Dow on its way to 20,000. Back to this guy - StansberryResearch.com Reviews – Legit or Scam? offers a... |
Can you have a positive return with a balance below cost basis? | Have you owned the stock for longer than 2015? The stock appears to have grown in value since December 2014 from 72.85 to 73.5 which is about 0.89% growth in the year to date (2015). |
How to invest a small guaranteed monthly income? | In my opinion, you can't save too much for retirement. An extra $3120/yr invested at 8% for 30 years would give you $353K more at retirement. If your "good amount in my 401k" is a hint that you don't want us to go in that direction, then how about saving for the child's college education? 15 years' savings, again at 8... |
My investment account is increasingly and significantly underperforming vs. the S&P 500. What should I do? | Around Oct 03 2010 the SPY closed at 113. Today it is trading at 130. After four months, that means that the S&P is up 15% over that particular 4 month period. You said you need something pretty low maintenance, and you are comparing your returns to the S&P 500 (which as @duffbeer703 points out is a good thing to com... |
Why is being “upside down” on a mortgage so bad? | Sample Numbers: Owe $100k on house. House (after 'crash') valued at: $50K. Reason for consternation: What rational person pays $100k for property that is only worth half that amount? True Story: My neighbor paid almost $250K (a quarter-of-a-million dollars - think about that..) for a house that when he walked (ran!) ... |
What is the different between 2 :1 split and 1:1 split | The 1 for 1 split could be the case where a company is being split into two parts. The new part may be spun off, or sold to another company. Any time a company splits into two parts, the ratio of the resulting companies needs to be determined. |
How can online trading platforms be trustworthly? | Most investors vote with their wallets. I expect ZERO glitches from a trading platform. If someone was actually causing trades to fail maliciously, their reputation would immediately suffer and their business would dry up over night. You can't just play dumb and not respond to a button click. I can watch and replay th... |
What are some simple techniques used for Timing the Stock Market over the long term? | I can think of a few simple and quick techniques for timing the market over the long term, and they can be used individually or in combination with each other. There are also some additional techniques to give early warning of possible turns in the market. The first is using a Moving Average (MA) as an indication of wh... |
What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? | Get an advanced degree. This should increase your earning power. Also learn how to use a computer, this should also tend to increase your earning power. |
Is an Income Mutual Fund a good alternative to a savings account? | Risk. Volatility. Liquidity. Etc. All exist on a spectrum, these are all comparative measures. To the general question, is a mutual fund a good alternative to a savings account? No, but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea for your to allocate some of your assets in to one right now. Mutual funds, even low volatility s... |
Is it common in the US not to pay medical bills? | In addition to the good answers already provided, I want to point out that many (most?) providers will handle filing your health insurance claim for you even though it's really your responsibility. So here's how medical bills "you don't have to pay" might come about: * It's possible that your balance is $4, or $20, or ... |
Will I have to pay taxes for Australia if I have an Australian bank account? | If you are a resident of New Zealand for tax purposes, you will be taxed in New Zealand on all of your "worldwide income". This is income derived from New Zealand as well as income derived from all other countries Source: http://www.ird.govt.nz/international/nzwithos/income/overseas-income-index.html Another link that ... |
Does investing more money into stocks increase chances of profit? | The investment return for a given strategy is directly proportional to the amount invested. Invest twice as much, profit (or lose) twice as much. It's a straight multiplier. However, there are some strategies which are less risky with a larger investment, and some investments which have a minimum unit of purchase that ... |
As a total beginner, how do I begin to understand finance & stocks? | I think you've got basics, but you may have the order / emphasis a bit wrong. I've changed the order of the things you've learned in to what I think is the most important to understand: Owning a stock is like owning a tiny chunk of the business Owning stock is owning a tiny chunk of the business, it's not just "like" i... |
For net worth, should I value physical property at my cost to replace it, or the amount I could get for selling it? | My opinion: including the value of depreciating property one owns in a net worth calculation is silly - but could be interesting You don't expect your TV or laptop to gain value. Instead, you expect them to decrease in value every year until you replace them. Anything you expect to hold or increase in value (art, a h... |
What happens to class action awards for a stock in an IRA? | In most cases, if you are a member of the class the law-firm will contact you via postal mail to notify you of the class action and give you an opportunity to opt-in or opt-out of participating in any settlement that happens. More often than not, they take the opt-out approach, meaning that if you don't say you want o... |
Is it a good idea to teach children that work is linearly related to income? | I think that is the wrong approach. You certainly need to teach the value of work, but you cannot tie it to income levels as a hard and fast rule. If you do, how do you then explain athletes making millions per year and only 'working' half a year, at most. And, then comparing that person to a person working hard in a f... |
When a stock price rises, does the company get more money? | No. Not directly. A company issues stock in order to raise capital for building its business. Once the initial shares are sold to the public, the company doesn't receive additional funds from future transactions of those shares of stock between the public. However, the company could issue more shares at the new higher... |
Why is the stock market price for a share always higher than the earnings per share? | When you buy a stock, you're really paying for a STREAM of earnings, from now till whenever. The job of an investor is to figure out how large that stream will be in the future. But if the stock price were the same as "earnings" (for one year), it would mean that you would get all future earnings for "free." That's not... |
If I have a home loan preapproval letter for x, can the seller know this without me explicitely telling them? | I will preface saying that I only have personal experience to go on (purchased home in KS earlier this year, and have purchased/sold a home in AR). You do not give the seller the document stating the amount you have been approved for. Your real estate agent (I recommend having one if you don't) will want to see it to m... |
I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment? | Ignore sunk costs and look to future returns. Although it feels like a loss to exit an investment from a loss position, from a financial standpoint you should ignore the purchase price. If your money could be better invested somewhere else, then move it there. You shouldn't look at it as though you'll be more financi... |
HELOC vs. Parental Student Loans vs. Second Mortgage? | Debt is no fun. Getting out of debt to replace it with more debt is no fun. In both cases, you are making an investment in your child's future. That's laudable, but there might be other ways to economize on the education costs. I prefer HELOC debt because I can deduct the interest (as you pointed out) and it usually al... |
What's the appropriate way to signify an S-Corp? | Subchapter S Corporations are a special type of corporation; the difference is how they are taxed, not how they relate to their vendors or customers. As a result, they are named the same way as any other corporation. The rules on names of corporations vary by state. "Corporation" and "Incorporated" (and their abbrevi... |
What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago? | I was offered a student credit card and refused it. If I'd taken it and used it sparingly, paying off the balance on time in full every month, I'd have built up a better credit rating in the time period. |
What percentage of my company should I have if I only put money? | Question (which you need to ask yourself): How well are your friends paid for their work? What would happen if you just took your money and bought a garage, and hired two car mechanics? How would that be different from what you are doing? The money that you put into the company, is that paid in capital, or is it a loa... |
Why do financial institutions charge so much to convert currency? | Echoing that bank fees are mostly "because they can", although partly this is because simply holding onto the money doesn't really pay enough for the physical infrastructure of branches, ATMs and staff. So like a budget airline they make it up on additional fees. But that document doesn't actually say they charge 3% fo... |
Do dark pools have to declare the volume transacted at the end of the day? | Members of the Federal Reserve System keep track of what money a bank has (if it's not in the vault), who owns what shares of stock, who owns what bond, etc. The part of the Federal Reserve System that tracks stock ownership is the Depository Trust Company (DTC). They have a group of subsidiaries that settle various ty... |
How does refinancing work? | You owe $20,000 to a loanshark, 1% per week interest. I'm happy to get 1% per month, and trust you to pay it back, so I lend you the $20,000. The first lender got his money, and now you are paying less interest as you pay the loan back. This is how a refi works, only the first bank won't try to break the legs of the ... |
How to sell a stock in a crashing market? | Your question contains a faulty assumption: During crashes and corrections the amount of sellers is of course higher than the amount of buyers, making it difficult to sell stocks. This simply isn't true. Every trade has two sides; thus, by definition, for every seller there is buyer and vice versa. Even if we broaden... |
For net worth, should I value physical property at my cost to replace it, or the amount I could get for selling it? | Valuation by definition is what an item is worth, not what you paid for it. Net worth should be market value for fixed assets or "capital" goods. I would consider this cars, real property, furniture, jewelry, appliances, tools, etc. Everything else can be valued by liquidation value. You can use valuation guides for t... |
Why does my car loan interest go up despite making payments on-time? | Interest is calculated daily. Doing the math: Between 6-17 and 7-25 are 38 days, 200.29 / 38 = 5.27 interest per day. Between 7-25 and 8-17 are 23 days. 120.02 / 23 = 5.22 interest per day. The minimal difference is because the principal has already gone down a little bit. So you should expect ~5.20 x number of days fo... |
Planning to invest in stock, age 16 | Don't try individual stocks. If you have a job, any job, even one from mowing lawns, you can open a Roth IRA. If you are under 18 you will need your parents/guardian to setting up the account. You can put the an amount equal to your earned income into the Roth IRA, up to the annual maximum of $5500. There are advantage... |
Should I get a personal loan to pay on my mortgage to go “above water” to qualify for a refinance? | Let's say you owe $200K (since you didn't mention balance. If you do, I'd edit my response), and can get 4.5%. You'd save 1.5% or about $3K/yr the first few years. If a $12K paydown is all that's between you and and refi I'd figure out a way. There are banks that are offering refi's under the HARP program if your curr... |
What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent? | Several, actually: Maintenance costs. As landlord, you are liable for maintaining the basic systems of the dwelling - structure, electrical, plumbing, HVAC. On top of that, you typically also have to maintain anything that comes with the space, so if you're including appliances like a W/D or fridge, if they crap out yo... |
Can saving/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire? | If by being a millionaire you mean dollar millionaire then I doubt that it is really that easy in Pakistani context. At present the exchange rate is 107 Pakistani rupees per US dollar so even with this exchange rate, to have a million US dollars means having 107 million rupees of wealth. Now with this maths in mind you... |
Credit Card Points from Refund | That transaction probably cost the merchant $0.50 + 3% or close to $5. They should have refunded your credit card so they could have recouped some of the fees. (I imagine that's why big-box retailers like Home Depot always prefer to put it back on your card than give you store credit) Consider yourself lucky you made ... |
car purchase loan versus car collateral loan | Generally speaking personal loans have higher rates than car loans. During fairly recent times, the market for car loans has become very competitive. A local credit union offers loans as low as 1.99% which is about half the prevailing mortgage rate. In comparison personal loans are typically in the 10-14% range. E... |
Can I use my long position stocks as margin for my short sold stocks? | 200% margin for a short sale is outrageous. You should only need to put up 150% margin, of which 50% is your money, and the 100% is the proceeds. With $100 of your money, you should be able to buy $100 of GOOG and short $100 of PNQI. |
Deducting Hobby Expenses on my Federal Income Taxes? | I suggest to start charging slightly more than needed to cover expenses. All you need is to show profit. It doesn't have to be significant - a couple of hundred of dollars of consistent yearly profit should suffice to show a profitable business. Then you can deduct on Schedule C all the related expenses. The caveat is ... |
How to determine how much to charge your business for rent (in your house)? | Your best approach is to assess rent levels in your local area for offices of a similar size. You need to take into account all the usuals - amenities, parking, etc, just as if your home-office was provided by a third-party. Get your $/sq ft and work out the monthly amount. With this figure, you need to then work out w... |
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) | In the UK, the Osper card would do the trick exactly. The closest thing I can find in the US is the USAA Youth accounts which appear to be what you need but have some restrictions on mobile access until the youth is 13. |
What are some tips for getting the upper hand in car price negotiations? | JohnFX and TTT provide excellent answers. Researching prices others have paid, being up front that you'll go buy a junker car to hold you over if they won't meet your price, and playing a few dealerships off of each other are all great tactics. In addition, I've got a few points about timing your purchase. If you're no... |
Could an ex-employee of a company find themself stranded with shares they cannot sell (and a tax bill)? | It would take an unusual situation. They exercise certain types of option, which come in as regular income rather than capital gains, and are holding the stock "long" (perhaps they are not allowed to sell because of an insider-trading freeze window; like right before earnings announcements). And then the stock tanks... |
Technical Analysis not working | You cannot just read one book and some articles on Technical Analysis and some indicators and expect to be an expert and everything to just start falling into place and give you signals that will tell you when to buy and sell with precision and massive profits all the time. It is like someone reading a book on how to ... |
Can I do periodic rollovers from my low-perfoming 401k to an IRA? | There are certain allowable reasons to withdraw money from a 401K. The desire to free your money from a "bad" plan is not one of them. A rollover is a special type of withdrawal that is only available after one leaves their current employer. So as long as you stay with your current company, you cannot rollover. [E... |
Are banks really making less profit when interest rates are low? | profit has nothing to do with the level of interest rates. Is this correct? In theory, yes. The difference that you're getting at is called net interest margin. As long as this stays constant, so does the bank's profit. According to this article: As long as the interest rate charged on loans doesn't decline faster than... |
If throwing good money after bad is generally a bad idea, is throwing more money after good Ok? | I have heard that investing more money into an investment which has gone down is generally a bad idea*. "Throwing good money after bad" so to speak. This is over simplified statement to explain the concept. What is essentially says is; Say I hold stocks of XYZ; 100 units worth say USD 1000. This has lost me x% [say 50%... |
Started new job. Rollover previous employer 401k to new 401k, IRA or Roth IRA? | I agree with harmanjd – best to roll it over to an IRA. Not only does that afford you better control of your money as pointed out already, but: If you choose your IRA provider wisely, you can get an account that provides you with a much wider array of investing choices, including funds and ETFs that charge much lower ... |
Can I trust the Motley Fool? | The Motley Fool is generally regarded as relatively legit, at least in that they're not likely to do anything outright fraudulent and they definitely have reasonably in-depth content to provide you. The Motley Fool makes a fair amount of money off the subscriptions, though, and they do hawk them quite violently. If I ... |
I'm 23 and was given $50k. What should I do? | I would be realistic and recognize that however you invest this money, it is unlikely to be a life-changing sum. It is not going to provide an income which significantly affects your monthly budget, nor is it going to grow to some large amount which will allow you to live rent-free or similar. Therefore my advice is qu... |
In Canada, how bad must your credit be for a denial of a Secured Credit Card? | Although now there are "welcome" banking packages when I landed in 2008 I couldn't find any and Vancity gave me a secured visa nonetheless. Let me emphasize: I didn't have a credit history, score at all. I doubt this changed much. The bank has zero risk. |
How can I detect potential fraud in a company before investing in them? | Given that such activities are criminal and the people committing them have to hide them from the law, it's very unlikely that an investor could detect them, let alone one from a different country. The only things that can realistically help is to keep in mind the adage "If something sounds too good to be true, it prob... |
If I get a bill (e.g. for internet service), is that a debt I owe? If no, what are the practical difference between a bill and a debt? | From accounting perspective, an unpaid bill for internet services, according to the Accruals Concept, is recorded as a liability under 'Current Liabilities' section of the Balance Sheet. Also as an expense on the Income Statement. So to answer your question it is both: a debt and an expense, however this is only the c... |
Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card? | Given that the laws on consumer liability for unauthorized transactions mean no cost in most cases, the CVV is there to protect the merchant. Typically a merchant will receive a lower cost from their bank to process the transaction with the CVV code versus without. As far as the Netflix case goes, (or any other recurr... |
Why invest in becoming a landlord? | Let me add a few thoughts that have not been mentioned so far in the other answers. Note that for the decision of buying vs. renting a home i.e. for personal use, not for renting out there's a rule of thumb that if the price for buying is more than 20 year's (cold) rents it is considered rather expensive. I don't know... |
Is the Canadian Securities Course (CSC) enough to get started in the finance industry in Canada? | Wikipedia says "The Canadian Securities Course (CSC) offered by the Canadian Securities Institute (CSI) is the initial course required for becoming licensed to work within the Canadian securities industry (outside Quebec) as a securities dealer or securities agent." Src: Candian Securities Course EfficientMarket Canada... |
Working as a freelancer overseas, but US Citizen, what is my tax situation? | This person must pay taxes in both the overseas country and in the U.S. This is unusual; generally, only the U.S. demands this. Depending on the specific country, he would likely not be taxed twice as the U.S. generally recognises tax paid in a different country. Note there are some gotchas, though. For example, althou... |
Why is the breakdown of a loan repayment into principal and interest of any importance? | Yes, the distinction between how your funds are applied to principal vs interest is very important. The interest amount charged each period (probably monthly) is not just one fixed sum calculated at the origination, but rather is a dynamically calculated amount that changes each period relative to how much principal is... |
First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house | I would strongly try to influence circumstances so that buying is feasible. That means: Buy something where it is likely that you can resell it at the same price or even higher - or, at the least for significantly more than "total cost of ownership - rent payed elsewhere". For example, if it is in an area where you hav... |
Health insurance lapsed due to employer fraud. How to get medications while in transition? | Your doctor may also have free samples available. You could call, explain your situtation and ask to see if they have any free samples. |
How can I figure out how a stock's price would change after I buy shares? | It depends on many factors, but generally, the bid/ask spread will give you an idea. There are typically two ways to buy (or sell) a security: With a limit order, you would place a buy for 100 shares at $30-. Then it's easy, in the worst case you will get your 100 shares at $30 each exactly. You may get lucky and have ... |
What is a good way to keep track of your credit card transactions, to reduce likelihood of fraud? | One trick is to make all purchases end in a particular number of your choosing, say "3". From now on, all restaurant meals,gas purchases, and anything in your control, end them in 3. When you glance at the bill, you can skip these charges, and look carefully at the rest. It's not 100%, as you couldn't easily impact sup... |
If throwing good money after bad is generally a bad idea, is throwing more money after good Ok? | To expand a bit on what TripeHound said in the comment section, past performance is not indicative of future performance, which is why the best advice is to ignore if you already own the stock or not. If the stock goes down, but you've done your research and think it will come back, then investing more isn't a bad ide... |
Why are typical 401(k) plan fund choices so awful? | 401k choices are awful because: The best remedy I have found is to roll over to an IRA when changing jobs. |
Price graphs: why not percent change? | I am in complete agreement with you. The place i have found with the sort of charts you are looking for is stockcharts.com. To compare the percentage increase of several stocks over a period of 2 market-open days or more, which is quite useful to follow the changes in various stocks… etc., an example: Here the tick... |
Is there a White-list of Trusted Online Vendors? | I'm going to go with "ridiculous notion." :) The vast majority of businesses are legitimate, run by honest people trying to earn a living for themselves and their employees. These days, almost all of them accept credit cards. Crooked businesses are a very small minority. When a bad business over charges you, you dis... |
Currency exchange problem | For the purposes of report generation, I would recommend that you present the data in the currency of the user's home country. You could present another indicator, if needed, to indicate that a specific transaction was denominated in a foreign currency, where the amount represents the value of the foreign-denominated t... |
What can cause rent prices to fall? | In the US, the government effectively sets a price floor for rents with a concept called "prevailing rent" for government subsidy. Even the crappiest, minimally compliant hovel is ultimately worth whatever the government will issue housing vouchers for. Rent can and does fluctuate for the higher end of the market. Basi... |
What steps should be taken, if any, when you find out your home's market value is underwater, i.e. worth less than the mortgage owed? | Step back and take a deep breath. Pay your mortgage. repeat 1 and 2 monthly until equity > mortgage. |
What is the meaning of “short selling” or “going short” a stock? | Rich's answer captures the basic essence of short selling with example. I'd like to add these additional points: You typically need a specially-privileged brokerage account to perform short selling. If you didn't request short selling when you opened your account, odds are good you don't have it, and that's good becau... |
Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum? | One might hope for slightly more rationality in the platinum market. Rarely does one hear talk of "platinum bugs", rants about how every society on Earth has valued platinum as the One True Valuable Thing (tm), or seen presidential candidates call for the return to the platinum standard. |
Why not just invest in the market? | The market is efficient, but it is not perfectly efficient. There are entities out there that consistently, legitimately, and significantly outperform the market because of asymmetric information (not necessarily insider trading) and their competitive advantage (access to data and proprietary, highly sophisticated mode... |
What are my best options if I don't have a lot of credit lines for housing loans? | The short answer is, with limited credit, your best bet might be an FHA loan for first time buyers. They only require 3.5% down (if I recall the number right), and you can qualify for their loan programs with a credit score as low as 580. The problem is that even if you were to add new credit lines (such as signing up... |
Is there a good strategy to invest when two stock companies either merge or acquisition? | There's an old adage in the equities business - "buy on rumor, sell on fact". Sometimes the strategy is to buy as soon as the rumor is out about a potential merger and then sell off into the news when it is actually announced, since this is normally when the biggest bounce occurs as part of a merger. The other part of... |
Purpose of having good credit when you are well-off? | Credit in general having no significant change between an income level or net worth is due to the economic reciprocity principle inherent in many societies. Although some areas of credit may be more admirable to those who aren't as well-off, such as car loans, the overall understanding of credit is a trust agreement be... |
File bankruptcy, consolidate, or other options? | Tough spot. I'm guessing the credit cards are a personal line of credit in their name and not the company's (the fact that the business can be liquidated separately from your parents means they did at least set up an LLC or similar business entity). Using personal debt to save a company that could have just been dissol... |
Is investing exlusively in a small-cap index fund a wise investment? | If the OP is saving 33% if his/her current income, he/she doesn't want or need yet more income from investments right now. The advice on "diversifying" in the other answers is the standard "investment advisor" response to beginner's questions, and has two advantages for the advisor: (1) they won't get sued for giving b... |
A merchant requests that checks be made out to “Cash”. Should I be suspicious? | To put a positive spin on the whole thing, maybe it's a small family shop, and having the check made out to "cash" means that your barber can hand it to someone else without the need to countersign. Or maybe his last name is "Cash" - there was a pretty famous singer who fit that description. Either way, it's not your p... |
How do I protect myself from a scam if I want to help a relative? | For some reason can't transfer it directly to his account overseas (something to do with security codes, authorized payees and expired cards). Don't become someone's financial intermediary. Find out exactly why he can't transfer the money himself, and then if you want to help him, solve that problem for him. Helping hi... |
How should we organize our finances to effectively plan and prepare for an retirement in next 10 years? | The biggest issue is your lack of diversification. Your real estate investments have performed quite well so far, but you have also likely enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth that is not sustainable. In the long term, stocks have always outperformed real estate investments, which tend to track more closely to the... |
What kind of life insurance is cheaper? I'm not sure about term vs. whole vs. universal, etc | All life insurance is pretty much the same when it comes to cost. You can run the numbers over certain time period and the actual cost of insurance is about the same. A simplified way to explain life insurance and the differences between them below: The 3 characteristics of life insurance: There are 5 popular types of ... |
Can you explain this options calls & puts quote table to me? | (Note: I am omitting the currency units. While I strongly suspect it's US$ I don't know from the chart. The system works the same no matter what the currency.) A call or a put is the right to sell (put) or buy (call) shares at a certain price on a certain day. This is why you see a whole range of prices. Not all pos... |
Ethics and investment | Markets are amoral. If you don't buy stock in a company that has high growth/earnings, someone else will. By abstaining you will actually make it cheaper for someone else who is interested in making money. Investing in "socially responsible" funds will only ensure that you have less money to make a moral difference in... |
Do brokers execute every trade on the exchange? | There are two terms that are related, but separate here: Broker and Market Maker. The former is who goes and finds a buyer/seller to buy/sell shares from/to you. The latter (Market Maker) is a company which will agree to partner with you to complete the sale at a set price (typically the market price, often by defin... |
Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest? | I've got a card that I've had for about 25 years now. The only time they charged me interest I showed it was their goof (the automatic payment failed because of their mistake) and they haven't cancelled it. No annual fee, a bit of cash back. The only cards I've ever had an issuer close are ones I didn't use. |
Does it make sense to buy a house in my situation? | Just echoing the other answers here. You're not ready yet. 3% down, or no money down loans are what got so many of us into trouble these last few years. It sounds like you make a pretty good living and are able to squirrel away money despite paying rent. Let me suggest something that I haven't seen here yet. Save up f... |
How is stock price determined? | Yes, stock price is determined by the last trade price. There are always going to be people who have put in a price to buy a stock (called a bid price) and people who have put in a price to sell a stock (called an ask price). Based on your example, if the last trade price for the stock was $1.23, then you might have th... |
Is there an advantage to a traditional but non-deductable IRA over a taxable account? [duplicate] | This is ideal placement for your allocation to income investments or those with nonqualified dividends: bonds, REITS, MLPS, other partnerships, and so forth. These are all taxed at income rate, generally throw off more income than capital gains, so you get the deferment without losing the cap gains rate. |
Is a company allowed to give employees an option for a bonus to be paid out as a 401k match or cash? | This has to do with the type of plan offered: is it a 401(k) plan or a profit-sharing plan, or both? If it's 401(k) I believe the IRS will see this distribution as elective and count towards the employee's annual elective contribution limit. If it's profit sharing the distribution would be counted toward the employer's... |
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