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The Canadian dividend tax credit: Why is it that someone can earn a lot in dividends but pay no/little tax?
Basically, yes. That doesn't mean that it's easy to do. The government provides a dividend tax credit since an individual takes on more risk to invest in dividend-paying corporations rather than trading their human capital for an income. Thus, for the most part, $1 earned from dividends is taxed much less than $1 earne...
Is it possible as a non-Indian citizen to create an Indian bank account (denominated in rupees) that can exchange & repatriate its funds?
No, in your situation it is not possible. Mostly, only three types of accounts are available to individuals: So, a complete foreigner can open account in India, only if he is working in India, a type of Savings account, and that account too will be linked to his resident status. If he leaves work, he needs to close thi...
UK companies house - what can I glean from an abbreviated balance sheet?
What this abbreviated balance sheet tells you is that this company has negative equity. The liabilities are greater than the value of the assets. The obvious problem for the company who wants to do business with you is that they are going to have a real hard time accessing credit to pay off any debts that they incur ...
How can this be enough to fund a scholarship in perpetuity?
The Trinity study looked at 'safe' withdrawal rates from retirement portfolios. They found it was safe to withdraw 4% of a portfolio consisting of stocks and bonds. I cannot immediately find exactly what specific investment allocations they used, but note that they found a portfolio consisting largely of stocks would a...
Perform exercise-and-hold AND exercise-and-sell-to-cover?
Ask the folks administering your plan. They're the ones who define and implement the available choices for that specific plan.
Does the stock market create any sort of value?
Let's say that you bought a share of Apple for $10. When (if ever) their stock sold for $10, it was a very small company with a very small net worth; that is, the excess of assets over liabilities. Your $10 share was perhaps a 1/10,000,000th share of a tiny company. Over the years, Apple has developed both software and...
What would a stock be worth if dividends did not exist? [duplicate]
In the unlikely case that noone finds a way to extract resources from the company and distribute them to shareholders periodically in a way that's de facto equivalent to dividends, any company can be dissolved. The assets of the company would be sold for their market value, the liabilities would have to be settled, and...
Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car?
If you are going to finance a used car, it is frequently best to arrange financing before you even pick out the car. The easiest way I recommend is to talk to a local credit union or two. They'll be able to tell you your interest rate and terms without having to talk to the dealer at all. Most likely, they'll be ...
How do I handle taxes on a very large “gift” from my employers?
You should be aware that the IRS considers all gifts of cash or cash equivalents from an employer (the partnership in this case) to an employee (your husband in this case) to be wages, regardless of what the transfer is called by either party, or how it is transferred. I'd strongly recommend that you review IRS publica...
Is there any advantage to owning equity in a company compared to a royalty agreement?
Each way you go is a little bit of a gamble. Owning equity in the company is best in situations where you can trade and sell that equity, or where the dilution of your royalty product would affect your returns, or if you can maintain a certain equity stake without working at the company or if you can hold out on taki...
How to work around the Owner Occupancy Affidavit to buy another home in less than a year?
Look into the definition of "primary residence" for your jurisdiction(s). In some states, living in the home for 183 days qualifies it as your primary residence for the entire year.
How do you choose which mortgage structure is appropriate when buying a home?
Go for 15 years loan - Lower interest rate over 2-5 years period. If you can afford to pay 20% down then please do. Do not assume the average ROI will +(8-10%). It all depends on market and has variable factors like city, area and demand.
Is a stock's trade size history publicly available?
That is called a 'volume chart'. There are many interactive charts available for the purpose. Here is clear example. (just for demonstration but this is for India only) 1) Yahoo Finance 2) Google Finance 3) And many more Usually, the stock volume density is presented together (below it) with normal price vs time chart...
When should you use an actively managed mutual fund in a 401k?
By definition, actively managed funds will underperform passive index funds as a whole. Or more specifically: The aggregate performance of all actively managed portfolio of publicly-tradable assets will have equal performance to those of passively managed portfolios. Which taken with premise two: Actively managed funds...
How should I invest my money as a young graduate in Europe?
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...
Why can't poor countries just print more money?
Printing money doesn't mean that their wealth increases. It just devalues the money they already have. So it will just take more money to buy goods from another country. Printing money will also lead to over inflation which has its own set of problems such as:
What economic, political and other factors influence mortgage rates (and how)?
Without commenting on whether or not it's needed I don't think we are going to see a QE3 and all the political pressure is for some reason to start raising rates. Regardless of how it plays out it's safe to say that the Fed Rate isn't going any lower. You should also watch closely what happens to Fannie and Freddie....
Can I invest in the housing market via the stock exchange?
Have you considered a self-directed IRA to invest, rather than the stock market or publicly traded assets? Your IRA can actually own direct title to real estate, loan money via secured or unsecured promissory notes much like a hard money loan or invest into shares of an entity that invests in real estate. The only nuan...
What are the advantages of paying off a mortgage quickly?
It depends on where you are in life, and where you want to be at some point in the future, and the taxes, expenses and income at those points in your life. You don't get a mortgage to save on taxes, or keep a mortgage to save on taxes. But if somebody said they want to have the house paid off before they retire, that s...
What could a malicious party potentially achieve by having *just* a name, account number, and sort code?
When you want to pay a bill on line there are several ways to do it. You can give them your credit card details: Name on Card, zip code, credit card number, and 3 or 4 digit security code on the back. Most of the information is available on the card or via an easy Google search. If the crook has your card they can use ...
Is my financial plan for buying a house logically sound
As a rental, this is not an ideal set of numbers. You manage to show a $255 'gain' but $275 is from payment to principal. So, from the start, you're out $20/wk. This ignores the $170K down payment, which has an opportunity cost, however you calculate it. You can assign the same rate as the mortgage, and it's nearly $1...
Confused about employee stock options: How do I afford these?
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Is there any downside to using temporary credit card numbers with subscription services?
You're knowingly providing a payment method which has insufficient funds to meet the terms of the contract, because you are too lazy to comply with the contract. That's unethical and fraudulent behavior. Will you get in trouble? I don't know. I'd suggest getting acquainted with an electronic calendar that can remind yo...
Getting correlation from regression slope (Completely stumped)
I just used the formula in below link and did some math. I have that book too but haven't looked at it yet really. Lots of maths to have fun with. Let me know if this is correct or needs fixing. Source: http://wiki.fool.com/How_to_Calculate_Beta_From_Volatility_%26_Correlation
Does it make sense to buy an index ETF (e.g. S&P 500) when the index is at an all-time high?
In other words, to a first-order approximation, the S&P 500 is always at an all-time high. I'm going to run with this observation a bit. The crash of '87 was remarkable. It was a drop of 1/3 in a short time, yet, when one looked at the year, the Dow was up nearly 5% with dividends included. A one-year Rip Van Winkler w...
Is Pension Benefit Information (aboutmyletter.com) legitimate?
I have no personal knowledge of this company; I've only looked over what I found on the web. Overall, my judgement is that Pension Benefit Information, Inc. of San Rafael, CA is likely legitimate and aboutmyletter.com is one of two sites run by them (the other being pbinfo.com). These two sites are registered to Pensi...
How do auto-loan payments factor into taxes for cars that are solely used by dependent(s)?
It only matters for purposes of the dependent, so if you are clearly at 50%, then you don't need to calculate this cost. If it is close to not being 50%, then you will have to allocate between your sister and mother. To calculate support costs, you can of course include the costs incurred for transportation, per Pub ...
Tax deductions on empty property
If the building has no income, it also probably has minimal expenses. The heat, water and electricity costs are nearly zero. They are letting the value depreciate, and taking it off the taxes. I also suspect the condition of the building is poor, so any effort to make the building productive would be very costly. Many ...
How Technical Analysts react to non-market hours effects
You can't. Even as a technical trader you should know what events are coming up and be prepared. You can't prepare for everything but you should know when the earnings dates are. You should also pay attention to the market in general. Stocks also have personalities and you should get to know that personality. Most imp...
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?
To expand on what @fishinear and some others are saying: The only way to look at it is that the parents have invested, because the parents get a % of the property in the end, rather than the original loan amount plus interest. It is investment; it is not a loan of any kind. One way to understand this is to imagine t...
I just “paid” online with a debit card with no funds. What now?
There are a few factors at play here. Depending on the bank that has offered you the card there are different types of overdraft protection that may have been set up. Typically, if they attempt to run the card with no money, if one of these is in play, you will be spared any overdraft fees by the transaction charging t...
Online tutorials for calculating DCF (Discounted Cash Flow)?
what do you mean exactly? Do you have a future target price and projected future dividend payments and you want the present value (time discounted price) of those? Edit: The DCF formula is difficult to use for stocks because the future price is unknown. It is more applicable to fixed-income instruments like coupon bo...
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?
Gambling is never a wise investment. Even assuming that the stated odds are correct, there can be multiple winners, and the jackpot is shared between the winners, so the individual payout can be significantly less than the total jackpot. If I were to take a dollar from you and a dollar from your buddy on the promise th...
Should you co-sign a personal loan for a friend/family member? Why/why not?
My personal rule is to not loan money (or co-sign) for any amount that I am not willing to give away. It can go wrong in so many ways, and having a family or friend involved means making a "business" decision is difficult. If a bank won't loan the person the money, why should I? Being a co-signer is the same as borro...
Multi-year profit/tax question
This is called "Net Operating Loss", and it is in fact applicable for individuals as well. You can, under certain circumstances, have NOL even as an individual. But it is far more common in the corporate world. What happens is that you can carry it back or forward, and get refund on taxes paid or adjust income for taxe...
Short or Long Term Capital Gains for Multiple Investments
The default is FIFO: first in - first out. Unless you specifically instruct the brokerage otherwise, they'll report that the lot you've sold is of Jan 5, 2011. Note, that before 2011, they didn't have to report the cost basis to the IRS, and it would be up to you to calculate the cost basis at tax time, but that has be...
What's the smartest way to invest money gifted to a child?
I was in a similar situation with my now 6 year old. So I'll share what I chose. Like you, I was already funding a 529. So I opened a custodial brokerage account with Fidelity and chose to invest in very low expense index fund ETFs which are sponsored by Fidelity, so there are no commissions. The index funds have a ...
What are the tax benefits of a LLC vs a sole proprietorship?
This is going to vary tremendously from country to country (and even from state to state, in some cases). In general, though: Sole proprietorship: LLC: There are a lot of permutations depending on local law. One thing that isn't actually much of an advantage is the "limited liability" component of the LLC. Simply pu...
If you want to trade an equity that reflects changes in VIX, what is a good proxy for it?
If you want to trade to gain from short-term volatility, you can use Derivative-based ETFs that try to track the inverse of a broad index like the S&P 500. Note that these ETFs only track the index over a 1 day period, so you shouldn't hold these. If you're looking for a longer-term investment strategy, look at low-bet...
How can a U.S. citizen open a bank account in Europe?
Each country will have different rules. I can only speak about the Netherlands. There, there are two options as a resident to open an account. You needed a BSN (Dutch ID number) or a strong reference from an international company sponsoring your residence there at a bank branch that dealt frequently with foreign cust...
I am moving to a new city. How do I plan and prepare - financially - for the move?
Utilities and cost of living vary from city to city but maybe not that much. For basic planning purposes you can probably figure to spend as much as you are now, maybe a little more. And adjust as needed when you get there. (And adjust if, for example, you're moving from a very low cost of living area or to a very h...
Is there a way to buy raw oil today and sell it in 1 year time?
You can buy the exchange traded fund ETFS WTI Crude Oil (CRUD), amongst other ETFS products. http://funds.ft.com/uk/Tearsheet/Summary?s=CRUD:LSE:USD Note these funds do not 'jump' when the crude oil futures contracts are in contango (e.g. June contract is priced higher than May) and the futures roll-over, as they do mo...
Taking partial capital loss purely for tax purposes
Note that the rules around wash sales vary depending on where you live. For the U.S., the wash sale rules say that you cannot buy a substantially identical stock or security within 30 days (before or after) your sale. So, you could sell your stock today to lock in the capital losses. However, you would then have to wai...
Net Cash Flows from Selling the Bond and Investing
Borrow the overpriced bond promising to repay the lender $1000 in one year. Sell the bond immediately for $960. Put $952.38 in the bank where the it will gain enough to be worth $1000 in one year. You have +$7.62 immediate cash flow. In one year repay the bond lender with the $1000 from the bank.
In the UK, could low-income pensioners (or those near a low-income retirement) find a student loan useful for boosting their finances?
As noted in richardb's comment buried in the comments/debate on the other answer (and all credit for this answer should be due to him): a significant issue with the scheme as originally envisaged in the question (up to £11K pa) is that there is actually a cap on the maintenance part for over 60s: On page 28 of this "St...
Recommended finance & economy book/blog for a Software Engineer?
Another good economic comment blog is Naked Capitalism.
What is the best way to stay risk neutral when buying a house with a mortgage?
Note: I am making a USA-assumption here; keep in mind this answer doesn't necessarily apply to all countries (or even states in the USA). You asked two questions: I'm looking to buy a property. I do not want to take a risk on this property. Its sole purpose is to provide me with a place to live. How would I go abo...
Can a company block a specific person from buying its stock?
I assume you are talking about a publicly traded company listed on a major stock exchange and the buyer resides in the US. (Private companies and non-US locations can change the rules really a lot.) The short answer is no, because the company does not own the stock, various investors do. Each investor has to make an in...
Be a partner, CTO or just a freelancer?
Being a CTO is different than freelancing, obviously. You have to ask yourself what you would more prefer to do! My initial recommendation would be to receive your normal freelance compensation for the freelance work you do AND separately deal with the issue of being a CTO. At some point you will cease to be this pro...
Upward Spike in US Treasuries despite S&P Downgrade in August 2011
US government bonds are where money goes when the markets are turbulent and investors are fleeing from risk, and that applies even if the risk is a downgrade of the US credit rating, because there's simply nowhere else to put your money if you're in search of safety. Most AAA-rated governments have good credit ratings ...
Is a website/domain name an asset or a liability?
This depends on your definitions of assets and liabilities. The word "asset" has a fairly straight forward definition. Generally speaking, an asset in finance is something that you own/control that has economic value. The asset has value because it is generating income for you or because you expect that it will be wo...
What are futures and how are they different from options?
For futures, you are obligated to puchase the security at $x when the contract expires. For an option, you have the right or option to do so if it's favorable to you.
Why would a company like Apple be buying back its own shares?
I think JB King's answer is interesting from the point of view of "is this good for me" but the OP's question boils down to "why would a company do this?" The company buys back shares when it thinks it will better position the company financially. A Simple Scenario: If Company A wants to open a new store, for example, ...
I'm currently unemployed and have been offered a contract position. Do I need to incorporate myself? How do I do it?
In short - if you can't get the job without incorporating, then incorporate! Some clients will require you to be incorporated (which is why I did it 10 years ago). Essentially, for them, it's a way of distancing themselves from you to ensure they are not responsible for any monies if you don't pay your taxes. For you...
Hobby vs. Business
You can list it as other income reported on line 21 of form 1040. In TurboTax, enter at: - Federal Taxes tab (Personal in Home & Business) - Wages & Income -“I’ll choose what I work on” Button Scroll down to: -Less Common Income -Misc Income, 1099-A, 1099-C. -The next screen will give you several choices. Choose "Oth...
How do I factor dividends and yield into the performance of a security?
Usually I've seen people treat the dividend like a separate cash flow, which is discounted if the company doesn't have a well-established dividend history. I've never really seen dividends rolled into a total return chart (except in the context of an article), probably because dividend reinvestment is a nightmare of re...
Are buyouts always for higher than the market value of a stock?
1) Yes, buyouts are always higher than the trading price. 2) ANYTHING can be negotiated. There is no rule saying buyouts have to be higher.
Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?
Assuming that a person has good financial discipline and is generally responsible with spending, I think that having a few hundred or thousand dollars extra of available credit is usually worth more to that person for the choice/flexibility it provides in unforeseen circumstance, versus the relatively minor hit that co...
how does one see the CBOE VIX index on Google Finance?
For whatever reason, I don't believe they offer it. Yahoo does. A google for google finance VIX turns up people asking the question, but no quote on google.
Best way to invest money as a 22 year old?
Hopefully this $1000 is just a start, and not the last investment you will ever make. Assuming that, there are a couple of big questions to consider: One: What are you saving for? Are you thinking that this is for retirement 40 or 50 years from now, or something much sooner, like buying a car or a house? You didn't say...
Can capital expenses for volunteer purposes be deducted from income?
I would suggest to buy your own printer, and calculate the cost for a page including the wear to the printer. Then either deduce these printing expenses, or ask the charity to reimburse you. This is not much different than when you would go to a copyshop, those easily charge 10-30c per page, with your own printer you c...
Opening a Roth IRA account, what is the fee structure for Vanguard, Scottrade and TIAA-CREF
This answer is somewhat incomplete as I don't have definitive conclusions about some parts of your question. Your question includes some very specific subquestions that may best be answered by contacting the investment companies you're considering. I don't see any explicit statement of fees for TIAA-CREF either. I su...
Is it possible to trade US stock from Europe ?
Yes, it's possible and even common but it depends on your bank or broker. One of the main differences is that you might assume FX risk if your account is in EUR and you trade stock denominated in USD. You might also encounter lower liquidity or price differences if you don't trade on the primary exchange where stocks a...
What's a reliable way for a non-permanent resident alien in the USA to get an auto loan?
I took @littleadv 's recommendation that online apps only ask for citizenship due to post-9/11 legislation. I applied to 2 banks in person (one big, one small), and at the dealership. None of my in-person applications ever touched on the issue of citizenship. I even applied in person at the same bank that insta-rejec...
Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real?
The short answer is yes, it is possible to do what these classes claim, however, it is highly unlikely. For every person they can show you that got rich using whatever so called method they are teaching, there are hundreds of people that didn't that they aren't telling you about. What I would recommend is invest in a w...
Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car?
I generally agree with the sentiment in many other answers that $27K is more I would personally spend on a car if I were in your position. Having said that, the following assumes you are already intent on buying that car. Even if you change your mind, I think the general ideas still apply.
Why are banks providing credit scores for free?
Why are banks all of a sudden providing people their credit scores for free? Because it is a really good idea. On an ABC Bank website, it has: "Check your credit score for free" button. You click it. Not only will it come up with a credit score, but it could also trigger a marketing workflow. If it is direct mail...
Wash sales + restricted stock in USA: grant date or vesting date?
The vesting date. Look at publication 525, under stock options, where they talk about ESPP: Your basis is equal to the option price at the time you exercised your option and acquired the stock. The timing and amount of pay period deductions do not affect your basis.
Is there any reason not to buy points when re-financing with intent not to sell for a while?
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 reduce...
Who receives the money when one company buys another?
It's tempting to think of a corporation as a real thing, because in many respects it seems to be. But it isn't a corporeal thing (despite the root word of the name). It may own corporeal things, and employ corporeal people, but it is not itself a real thing. Borrowing heavily from Prof Joseph Heath: It might be better ...
Is This A Scam? Woman added me on LinkedIn first, then e-mailed offering me millions of dollars [duplicate]
In general, if you think something even MIGHT be a scam, the answer is"yes".
Withdrawing cash from investment: take money from underperforming fund?
The root of the advice Bob is being given is from the premise that the market is temporarily down. If the market is temporarily down, then the stocks in "Fund #1" are on-sale and likely to go up soon (soon is very subjective). If the market is going to go up soon (again subjective) you are probably better in fic...
Transfer money from a real estate sale in India to the US
How would I go about doing this? Are there any tax laws I should be worried about? Just report it as a regular sale of asset on your form 8949 (or form 4797 if used for trade/business/rental). It will flow to your Schedule D for capital gains tax. Use form 1116 to calculate the foreign tax credit for the taxes on the g...
Best way to make most of savings with ISA and Offset mortgage
I am not a Financial Advisor, but I an tell you what I did in exactly this situation - which is pretty much what you are proposing. I put money into the offset savings account until I had only a small amount of mortgage "balance" left (less than a year's worth of mortgage payments), then I set it up so that each month...
Use of free and clear houses as Collateral
Any sensible lender will require a lean lien against your formerly-free-and-clear property, and will likely require an appraisal of the property. The lender is free to reject the deal if the house is in any way not fitting their underwriting requirements; examples of such situations would be if the house is in a flood/...
How to hedge a long stock position that does not have options
If there are no traded options in a company you can get your broker to write OTC options but this may not be possible given some restrictions on accounts. Going short on futures may also be an option. You can also open a downside CFD (contract for difference) on the stock but will have to have margin posted against it ...
Super-generic mutual fund type
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 sa...
Is this mortgage advice good, or is it hooey?
This doesn't say the whole story (like the length of the HELOC). if you have 15 years left on a mortgage and "refinance" into a 30 year HELOC then yes, your payments maybe 20% lower, but you add 15 years to pay it off. Just remember that interest occurs daily on what you owe. If you move 100K of debt from 5% mortgage ...
Can I sell a stock immediately?
Yes you can, provided if buyers are available. Normally high liquidty stocks can be sold at market prices a little higher or lower.
How can the Samsung Upgrade Programme offer 0% APR?
Having just purchased an upcoming Samsung phone using their 0% interest I can tell you that the justification is to give you credit. I have the same with Best Buy which is 0% for a specific initial purchase. The bank (in the Samsung case is TD Bank) establishes a rotating credit line for you. The APR after is well esta...
Cash flow implications of converting primary mortgaged residence to rental
The rental income is indeed taxable income, but you reduce the taxable portion of it by deducting expenses (including mortgage interest, maintenance, insurance, HOA, real estate tax, and of course depreciation). Due to the depreciation, you may end up breaking even, or having very little taxable income. Note that when ...
Mortgage company withholding insurance proceeds
Have you found a general contractor to rebuild your home? I would imagine that someone with a bit of expertise in the area is used to dealing with insurance companies, floating the money for a rebuild, and hitting the gates to receive payment for work accomplished. Business are used to not receiving payment when work...
How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser)
I agree with JoeTaxpayer's answer. The question you should be asking is not "how do I spend more" but "how do I become happier". From what you say, it may be that you could increase your happiness simply by cutting back on these aggressive attempts to save a few bucks here and there. At the same time, if you do this,...
How come we can find stocks with a Price-to-Book ratio less than 1?
Book value = sell all assets and liquidate company . Then it's the value of company on book. Price = the value at which it's share gets bought or sold between investors. If price to book value is less than one, it shows that an 100$ book value company is being traded at 99$ or below. At cheaper than actually theoretic...
What's the difference between TaxAct and TurboTax?
I typed my information into both last year, and while they were not exactly the same, they were within $10 of each other. For my simple 2009 taxes they were not different in any meaningful way.
Advice for opening an IRA as a newbie
As other people have indicated, traditional IRAs are tax deductable for a particular year. Please note, though, that traditional IRAs are tax deferred (not tax-free) accounts, meaning that you'll have to pay taxes on any money you take out later regardless of why you're making the withdrawal. (A lot of people mistakenl...
How do exchanges match limit orders?
The total limit book is a composite of all the orders on all of the exchanges. While it's uncommon for a limit order posted beyond the NBBO to fill outside of the NBBO, it does occur. For example, the best ask may be on exchange X, but for some reason the smart order routing algorithm may select exchange Y if it judges...
New to investing — I have $20,000 cash saved, what should I do with it?
As @mbhunter says, make sure you pay off any debt you have first. Then, it's a good idea to keep some or all of your savings as an emergency fund. If you use every last dime to pay for a house, you'll have no cushion available when something breaks down. The most common recommendation I've seen is to have 3-6 months...
How do I research if my student loan company is doing something illegal?
The thing to recall here is that auto-pay is a convenience, not a guarantee. Auto-pay withdrawals, notices that a bill is due, all of these are niceties that the lender uses to try to make sure you consistently pay your bill on time, as all businesses enjoy steady cash flows. Now, what all of these "quality of life" fe...
What type of investments should be in a TFSA, given its tax-free growth and withdrawal benefits?
I think "optimal" is a term that needs to be better qualified - what's optimal investment for one person is not necessary optimal for another, as it depends on the investor's time horizon, risk tolerance, and investment knowledge. I would personally put fix-income (or products that generates incomes that CRA considers ...
Using P/E Ratio of an ETF to decide on asset mix
P/E is a useful tool for evaluating the price of a company, but only in comparison to companies in similar industries, especially for industries with well-defined cash flows. For example, if you compared Consolidated Edison (NYSE:ED) to Hawaiian Electric (NYSE:HE), you'll notice that HE has a significantly higher PE. ...
Should I learn to do my own tax?
If you've been using TurboTax, let me suggest a compromise: Let TTax fill out the forms, but then print them out and go through it again by hand. If you don't get the same numbers, investigate why. If you do, you can probably conclude that you could do it by hand if you really want to, especially if you have the previo...
Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career?
I started my career over 10 years ago and I work in the financial sector. As a young person from a working class family with no rich uncles, I would prioritize my investments like this: It seems to be pretty popular on here to recommend trading individual stocks, granted you've read a book on it. I would thoroughly rec...
How come I can't sell short certain stocks? My broker says “no shares are available”
You can't short a stock unless there is someone willing and able to "lend" shares to you. And there are several reasons why that might not be the case. First, BSFT is a "new" stock, which means that NO ONE has held it very long. It's much easier to short IBM or Exxon Mobil, where there are some long-term holders who wo...
Is there a good rule of thumb for how much I should have set aside as emergency cash?
We aim to keep 6 months of expenses. The rationale is that its enough time to recover from most serious illnesses (that you can recover from) or a redundancy or pay for a large unexpected problem not covered by the insurance (e.g. the boiler dying). It also gives us enough time to reorganise finances if needed. For exa...
How to send money from europe to usa EUR - USD?
The website http://currencyfair.com/ provides a service which gives you both a decent exchange rate (about 1% off from mid-market rate) and a moderately low fee for the transfer: 4 USD for outgoing ACH in the US, 10 USD for same-day US wire. For the reverse (sending money from the US to EU) the fees are: 3 EUR for an A...
Is there a good forum where I can discuss individual US stocks?
I use the forum seeking alpha. http://seekingalpha.com/
Gap in domestic Health Insurance coverage, expect higher premiums?
The insurance company is must assume you do have a preexisting condition you are unaware of. The reason for that is that Affordable Care Act precludes the Insurance company from denying coverage of them if you do. Insurance companies are businesses. They are in business to make money(unless you have a nonprofit insu...
How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan?
Other answers didn't seem to cover it, but most "0%" bank loans (often offered to credit card holders in the form of balance transfer checks), aside from less-obvious fees like already-mentioned late fees, also charge an actual loan fee, typically 2-3% (or a minimum floor amount) - that was the deal with every single t...
How do I factor dividends and yield into the performance of a security?
Good observation. In fact, the S&P index itself is guilty of not including dividends. So when you look at the index alone, the delta between any two points in time diverges, and the 20 return observed if one fails to include dividends is meaningless, in my my humble opinion. Yahoo finance will let you look at a stock t...