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Should I pay my Education Loan or Put it in the Stock Market? | I'd recommend hitting the loan the hardest, but getting something invested as well. It's tempting to see these decisions as binary, so it's good to see you wondering if a "mix" is best. I admit to being a spreadsheet junky, but I think this is a good candidate for working up various scenarios to see where the pain/pleasure point is and once you've identified it, move forward with it (e.g., let's say it's a 10K lump sum you're dealing with, what does 5k on the loan and 5k invested look like over the next 6 months, 12 months, 24 months (requires assumptions on investment performance)? What about 6K loan, 4K invested? 7K loan, 3K invested? etc) |
How to start investing for an immigrant? | I am in a similar situation (sw developer, immigrant waiting for green card, no debt, healthy, not sure if I will stay here forever, only son of aging parents). I am contributing to my 401k to max my employer contribution (which is 3.5%, you should find that out from your HR). I don't have any specific financial goal in my mind, so beside an emergency fund (I was recommended to have at least 6 months worth of salary in cash) I am stashing away 10% of my income which I invest with a notorious robot-adviser. The rate is 80% stocks, 20% bonds, as I don't plan to use those funds anytime soon. Should I go back to my country, I will bring with me (or transfer) the cash, and leave my investments here. The 401K will keep growing and so the investments, and perhaps I will be able to retire earlier than expected. It's quite vague I know, but in the situation we are, it's hard to make definite plans. |
Minimizing loss during two-way currency transfers involving foreign entities | The solution was to get a foreign bank in each country we do business in. Get a credit card processor there, and simply make our money and keep our money in that country, and taking quarterly gains from those accounts and bringing them to the US account. |
How to search efficiently for financial institutions, credit cards, etc (At least in Canada)? | Searching for Banks or Credit Unions based on their high interest accounts is likely to be a giant waste of your time. The highest you might find is 1.5% not clearing inflation. For anything less than 100k youre better off putting it in a money market fund until you know what you want to do with it, which you can find anywhere. |
Can I buy put options on an ADR? | Some ADRs have standardized options that trade on US exchanges. If your stock/ADR is one of those, then you find the put option through most brokerages that deal with stock options and trade the option like you would on a regular stock. If your ADR does not have standardized options, then your options will depend on where the ADR trades. If it's OTC, you might not even be able to short it. If it trades on a major exchange, the shorting the ADR may be a viable choice. |
Creating a Limited company while still fully employed | Can I apply for limited company now, while fully time employed, and not take any business until I get a contract? Some employment contracts may include non-compete clauses or similar which expressly forbid you engaging in other employment or becoming self-employed while simultaneously working for your current employer. You may want to check this out before making any moves to register as a limited company. You may forfeit long-term benefits (such as a pension) you have built up at your present employer if they catch wind of a conflict of interest. As noted in an earlier answer, the setup process for a limited company is extremely simple in the UK, so there is no reason you need to take these steps in advance of leaving your current employment. During my resignation period scout for contracts... Should I wait weeks before actually deciding to search for contracts? Depending on the type of IT work you intend to be contracting for, you may find yourself shut out from major work if you are not VAT registered. It is a requirement to register for VAT when you breach certain earnings limits (see HMRC's website) but you can voluntarily register with HMRC before these limits if you wish. Being VAT registered increases your bookkeeping and oversight requirements, which makes you appear more attractive to larger enterprises / corporations than a non-VAT registered firm. It also suggests some degree of stability and a plan to stick around for the long haul. This might be a catch-22 situation - if you want to get noticed and land the sizable contracts, you will almost certainly require a VAT registration regardless of your overall yearly earnings. It would be advisable to engage the services of a professional advisor before becoming VAT registered, but this and the subsequent professional advice you may require for putting in VAT claims may not be a fee you wish to pay upfront if you are only attracting a small volume of work. |
CD interest rate US vs abroad, is there a catch? | Part 1 Quite a few [or rather most] countries allow USD account. So there is no conversion. Just to illustrare; In India its allowed to have a USD account. The funds can be transfered as USD and withdrawn as USD, the interest is in USD. There no conversion at any point in time. Typically the rates for CD on USD account was Central Bank regulated rate of 5%, recently this was deregulated, and some banks offer around 7% interest. Why is the rate high on USD in India? - There is a trade deficit which means India gets less USD and has to pay More USD to buy stuff [Oil and other essential items]. - The balance is typically borrowed say from IMF or other countries etc. - Allowing Banks to offer high interest rate is one way to attract more USD into the country in short term. [because somepoint in time they may take back the USD out of India] So why isn't everyone jumping and making USD investiments in India? - The Non-Residents who eventually plan to come back have invested in USD in India. - There is a risk of regulation changes, ie if the Central Bank / Country comes up pressure for Forex Reserves, they may make it difficut to take back the USD. IE they may impose charges / taxes or force conversion on such accounts. - The KYC norms make it difficult for Indian Bank to attract US citizens [except Non Resident Indians] - Certain countries would have explicit regulations to prevent Other Nationals from investing in such products as they may lead to volatility [ie all of them suddenly pull out the funds] - There would be no insurance to foreign nationals. Part 2 The FDIC insurance is not the reason for lower rates. Most countires have similar insurance for Bank deposits for account holdes. The reason for lower interst rate is all the Goverments [China etc] park the excess funds in US Treasuries because; 1. It is safe 2. It is required for any international purchase 3. It is very liquid. Now if the US Fed started giving higher interest rates to tresaury bonds say 5%, it essentially paying more to other countries ... so its keeping the interest rates low even at 1% there are enough people [institutions / governemnts] who would keep the money with US Treasury. So the US Treasury has to make some revenue from the funds kept at it ... it lends at lower interest rates to Bank ... who in turn lend it to borrowers [both corporate and retail]. Now if they can borrow cheaply from Fed, why would they pay more to Individual Retail on CD?, they will pay less; because the lending rates are low as well. Part 3 Check out the regulations |
What funds were closed during or after the recent recessions? | Yes, many hedge funds (for example) did not survive 2008-2009. But hedge funds were failing both before and after that period, and other hedge funds thrived. Those types of funds are particularly risky because they depend so much on leverage (i.e. on money that isn't actually theirs). More publically-visible funds (like those of the big-name index fund companies) tended not to close because they are not leveraged. You say that "a great many companies" failed during the recession, but that's not actually true. I can't think of more than a handful of publically-traded companies that went bankrupt. So, since the vast majority of publically-traded companies stayed in business, their stocks kept some/most of their value, and the funds that owned those stocks stayed afloat. I personally did not see a single index fund that went out of business due to the recession. |
Should I stockpile nickels? | At one point it was illegal to melt silver coins in the US, but it is legal now. I don't know that will happen with copper coins, but that's what happened with silver coins. Accumulating nickels and leaving them as-is (in their spendable state) is legal. It's also a way to take physical ownership of copper. I expect to see more sales of nickels based on weight. People are already selling high-copper-content cents on eBay, by weight. There are machines in production that sort the zinc ones from the copper ones. Gresham's Law has small business backing. ;) Copper cents are already worth twice their face value in the copper content. Nickels will get up there, too. They are awfully heavy and bulky relative to their value, though. Precious metals give you better bang for your ounce. |
Insider trading in another company? | This information is clearly "material" (large impact) and "non-public" according to the statement of the problem. Also, decisions like United States v. Carpenter make it clear that you do not need to be a member of the company to do illegal insider trading on its stock. Importantly though, stackexchange is not a place for legal advice and this answer should not be construed as such. Legal/compliance at Company A would be a good place to start asking questions. |
England: Alternative to Student Finance | Since you're also looking for alternative means of funding, have you considered doing part-time work -- during the holidays or on some of the weekends? With this kind of financing you have to watch out that the work does not interfere with your study. On the other hand it can be valuable work experience that can come in handy later in your life, such as when applying for your first "real" job. The kind of work you can do will depend a lot on the subject you are studying and what qualifications you have. For example, if you are studying computer science, there are a lot of freelance opportunities in programming. One of these could lead right to your first job after university. The two broad types of work you can do are: For freelance: Try searching for "[subject] student freelance" and look at sites like oDesk. Read up on tax concerns, research how to price your time, and start doing! For employment: Browse the job boards at your university. Contact businesses to ask for part-time opportunities. Hope this helps to open one of the alternative paths here. If you go down this road, remember to keep your priorities in mind. Especially the freelance work can easily interfere with your study and delay you unnecessarily. Good luck! |
Why do VAT-registered businesses in the EU charge VAT to each other? | But why can't two companies exchange goods directly without paying VAT? This would make the famous carousel fraud scam impossible and businesses won't have to deal with complicated refunds. Sales tax in the United States works as you describe. Sales tax is charged only to end customers, not to businesses that themselves charge sales tax. But this means that a criminal business can charge tax and just pocket it unless someone else reports it. They can also evade income tax the same way. Not to mention other issues like cross jurisdiction taxes (e.g. internet sales often evade sales tax). The whole point of a Value Added Tax (VAT) is that they charge at each level. This creates a system where each buyer reports the tax paid to the seller so as to be able to deduct it. So the seller has to pay the VAT that they charged. Or the tax authorities know and can revoke their VAT license. If only the end user is charged tax, then fraud is easier than under a VAT. So easy, I doubt they have a special name for it. The fraudulent business just collects tax from end users and disappears. Or simply fails to record those transactions. You could call it missing transaction record fraud, but why bother? It's just straight up tax fraud. The complexity of the carousel fraud arises from the difficulty of evading a VAT. |
No trading data other than close for a stock on a given date | The last column in the source data is volume (the number of stocks that was exchanged during the day), and it also has a value of zero for that day, meaning that nobody bought or sold the stocks on that day. And since the prices are prices of transactions (the first and the last one on a particular day, and the ones with the highest/lowest price), the prices cannot be established, and are irrelevant as there was not a single transaction on that day. Only the close price is assumed equal to its previous day counterpart because this is the most important value serving as a basis to determine the daily price change (and we assume no change in this case). Continuous-line charts also use this single value. Bar and candle charts usually display a blank space for a day where no trade occurred. |
How to select a bank based on availability in two areas? | Asking a bank for which ATM/branch network it belongs to and where those networks are would be your best bet. |
In USA, what circumstances (if any) make it illegal for a homeless person to “rent” an address? | You owe taxes to the state where you earned the income, and also to the state where you physically live. Most, maybe all, states have laws that let you claim credits for taxes paid to other states so that you're not paying double taxes by living in one state while working in another. Most states have deals with all their neighboring states so that you only have to file taxes in one. For example, I live in Michigan, and Michigan borders Ohio. Lots of people who live near the border live in one state but work in the other. So the two have a deal that anyone who lives in Michigan but works in Ohio just has to file a Michigan tax return and pay Michigan taxes, and anyone who lives in Ohio and works in Michigan just has to pay Ohio taxes. Oh, I should note that these adjacent state deals apply only to employment income, not business income. If you own a business in another state, you'll still have to file taxes in that state. You still should get tax credits in your residence state. In general the fact that you use a server in another state doesn't make you liable for taxes in that state. I understand that New York says that if you work from home and the company headquarters is in New York, you have to pay New York taxes. Maybe there are a few other states who do this. But just because a server is in their state? I've never heard of this. If I order business supplies that are shipped from a warehouse in Arizona, that doesn't make me liable for Arizona income taxes, etc. You are legally a "resident" of the state where you actually live. If you have a home and live in it most of the time, then you are a resident of the state where that home is. A "home" doesn't have to be a house. It could be an apartment, an RV that you live in in a trailer park, a tent, etc. If you don't own any sort of fixed home and you travel around a lot, this could be tricky. You mentioned Oklahoma. Oklahoma defines "resident" as follows: An Oklahoma resident is a person domiciled in this state for the entire tax year. “Domicile” is the place established as a person’s true, fixed, and permanent home. It is the place you intend to return whenever you are away (as on vacation abroad, business assignment, educational leave or military assignment). A domicile, once established, remains until a new one is adopted. (https://www.ok.gov/tax/documents/511NRPkt-14.pdf) I'm not sure that that clears things up for you. You can't just pick a state with low taxes and claim that as your residence. No way is the state where you actually live going to accept that. If you are in an ambiguous situation, like you spend 6 months per year in state A and 6 months in state B and you have no fixed home in either -- maybe you stay at motels or live in your minivan -- you might get away with picking the state with the most favorable tax laws as your residence. But if you spend 7 months in state A and 5 months in state B, state A will almost surely claim you are a resident and owe them taxes. If you regularly wander the country, never spend more than a few days in any one place, and rarely come back to the same place twice, then you have a complicated situation and you probably need to talk to a tax lawyer. |
How to find a reputable company to help sell a timeshare? | The one thing I would like to add to Ben's answer is that you will be lucky to get out of this with no proceeds. So that 30-40K paid for the timeshare maybe a total loss. If this purchase was financed with the timeshare used as collateral you may need to pay it off prior to being released. One tactic I heard used is to offer the sales team, that sold you the timeshare, a bonus for selling yours instead of one out of inventory. Assuming their commission is typically 25% of the sales price, you might consider offering them 40% or some higher figure. Doing it this way, you will have all the slick marketing on your side probably generating the highest amount of revenue possible. Timeshares are really bad deals. If you know this you can score some cheap vacations by attending their seminars and continuing to say no. The wife and I recently got back from a nice trip to Aruba mostly paid for with airline points, and a 2 hour timeshare tour. |
How can I deal with a spouse who compulsively spends? | Perhaps it seems harsh, but I would get separate accounts: credit cards, savings, retirement, all the way down the line. Your only joint account should be for paying mortgage/rent and other bills. And as another poster said, delete all your saved info from browsers &c. Perhaps you even need to set up separate user ids. If this really is a case of compulsive spending, curing it is likely to be a long, hard process, if it's even possible. You need to put yourself in a position where you won't be dragged down with him. |
Borrowing money and then investing it — smart or nart? | There are two fundamental flaws to your plan: Supposing that you can get a loan with an interest rate that is less than the profit you are likely to get from an investment. Historically, the U.S. stock market goes up by 6 to 7% per year. I just did a quick check and found rates for unsecured loans of 10 to 15%. Of course interest rates vary depending on your credit rating and all sorts of other factors, but that's probably a reasonable ball park. Borrowing money at 15% so you can invest it at 6% is not a good plan. Of course you could invest in things that promise higher returns, but such investments have higher risks. If there was a super safe investment that was virtually guaranteed to give 20% profit, the bank wouldn't loan you money at 10 or 15%: they'd put their money in this 20% investment. I don't know what your income is, but unless it's substantial, no one is going to give you an unsecured loan for $250,000. In your question you say you'll use $2,000 of your profits to make payments on the loan. That's less than 0.8% of the loan amount. If you really know a bank that will loan money at 0.8%, I'm sure we'd all like to hear about it. That would be an awesome rate for a fully secured loan, never mind for a signature loan. $250,000 for 10 years at 10% would mean payments of $3,300 per MONTH, and that's about the most optimistic terms I can imagine for a signature loan. You say you plan to lie to the bank. What are you going to tell them? A person doesn't get to be a bank loan officer with authority to make $250,000 loans if he's a complete idiot. They're going to want to know what you intend to do with the money and how you plan to pay it back. If you're making a million dollars a year, sure, they'll probably loan you that kind of money. But if you were making a million dollars a year I doubt you'd be considering this scheme. As TripeHound said in the comments, if it was really possible to get bigger returns on an investment than you would have to pay in interest on an unsecured loan, then everybody would be doing it all the time. Sorry, if you want to be rich, the realistic choices are, (a) arrange to be born to rich parents; (b) win the lottery; (c) get a good job and work hard. |
Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] | Can I pay $12,000 extra once a year or $1000 every month - which option is better? Depends when. If you mean 12K now vs 1K a month over the next 12 months, repeating this each year, now wins. If you mean saving 1K a month for 12 months then doing a lumpsum, the 1K a month wins. Basically, a sooner payment saves you more money than a later payment. The first option does sound better, but for a 30 year mortgage, is it that significant? Your number one issue is that you have a thirty year mortgage. The interest you pay on it is monstrous. For the 30 year term, you pay around 500K in interest. A 15-year mortgage is 300K cheaper (only 200K in interest will be paid). The monthly payment would be 1250 more. How much money and years on a mortgage can I save? When is the best time to pay? At the end of each year? You can knock off about a dozen years. Save I think ~250K. You can find mortgage calculators online or talk to your mortgage advisor to play around with the numbers. |
How to calculate my real earnings from hourly temp-to-hire moving to salaried employee? | Get some professional accounting help. You're going to have to pay for everything out of the fee you charge: taxes, retirement, health care, etc. You'll be required to pay quarterly. I don't think you should base your fee on what "this" company will pay as a full-time employee, but what you can expect in your area. They're saving a lot of money not going through an established employment firm and essentially, making you create your own. There are costs to setting up and maintaining a company. They have less risk hiring you because there are no unemployment consequences for letting you go. Once you're hired, they'll probably put you on salary, so you can forget about making more money if you work over 40 hrs. IMHO - there have to be better jobs in your area than this one. |
When to use geometric vs. arithmetic mean? Why is the former better for percentages? | JoeTaxpayer nailed it. Here's another way to look at it: Generally, we invest in something, then might leave it there for a few years, then take it out, but don't touch it in between. In that case, to get the final amount X(N), we need to take the initial amount, then multiply by growth in the first year, then multiply by growth in the second year, etc. So, for three years, we have: X(3) = X(0) * G(1) * G(2) * G(3) = X(0) * "average annual growth" ^ 3 So, here, we see that we want the average annual growth to the power three equal to the product of the annual growth rates, thus, geometric mean: geometric mean = (G(1) * G(2) * G(3)) ^ (1/3) On the other hand, consider a situation where I have three investments X,Y,Z over one year. Now I have, after one year: X(1)+Y(1)+Z(1) = X(0)*G(1,X) + Y(0)*G(1,Y) + Z(0)*G(1,Z) = ( X(0)+Y(0)+Z(0) ) * "average annual growth" Now, in this case, if we assume X(0) = Y(0) = Z(0) = 1, i.e. I put equal amounts in each, we see that the average annual growth rate we want in this case is the arithmetic mean: arithmetic mean = (G(1,X) + G(1,Y) + G(1,Z)) / 3 (if we had unequal amounts at the beginning, it would be a weighted average). TL;DR: |
Saving for retirement without employer sponsored plan | I'm looking for ways to geared to save for retirement, not general investment. Many mutual fund companies offer a range of target retirement funds for different retirement dates (usually in increments of 5 years). These are funds of funds, that is, a Target 2040 Fund, say, will be invested in five or six different stock and bond mutual funds offered by the same company. Over the years and as the target date approaches closer, the investment mix will change from extra weight given to stock mutual funds towards extra weight being given to bond mutual funds. The disadvantage to these funds is that the Target Fund charges its own expense ratio over and above the expense ratios charged by the mutual funds it invests in: you could do the same investments yourself (or pick your own mix and weighting of various funds) and save the extra expense ratio. However, over the years, as the Target Fund changes its mix, withdrawing money from the stock mutual funds and investing the proceeds into bond mutual funds, you do not have to pay taxes on the profits generated by these transactions except insofar as some part of the profits become distributions from the Target Fund itself. If you were doing the same transactions outside the Target Fund, you would be liable for taxes on the profits when you withdrew money from a stock fund and invested the proceeds into the bond fund. |
What are the tax implications if I do some work for a company for trade, rather than pay? | Yes, the business can count that as an expense but you will need to count that as income because a computer = money. |
Protecting savings from exceptional taxes | Don't worry. The Cyprus situation could only occur because those banks were paying interest rates well above EU market rates, and the government did not tax them at all. Even the one-time 6.75% tax discussed is comparable to e.g. Germany and the Netherlands, if you average over the last 5 years. The simple solution is to just spread your money over multiple banks, with assets at each bank staying below EUR 100.000. There are more than 100 banks large enough that they'll come under ECB supervision this year; you'd be able to squirrel away over 10 million there. (Each branch of the Dutch Rabobank is insured individually, so you could even save 14 million there alone, and they're collectively AAA-rated.) Additionally, those savings will then be backed by more than 10 governments, many of which are still AAA-rated. Once you have to worry about those limits, you should really talk to an independent advisor. Investing in AAA government bonds is also pretty safe. The examples given by littleadv all involve known risky bonds. E.g. Argentina was on a credit watch, and paying 16% interest rates. |
I cosigned for a friend who is not paying the payment | Without all the details it's hard to tell what options you may have, but none of them are good. When you cosign you are saying that, you believe the primary signer will make good on the loan, but that if he doesn't you will. You are 100% responsible for this debt. As such, there are some actions you can take. First, really try to stress to your friend, that they need to get you outta this loan. Urge them to re-finance with out you if they can. Next look for "better" ways of defaulting on the loan and take them. Depending on what the loan is for you could deed-in-lue or short sale. You may just have to admit default. If you work with the bank, and try not to drag out the process, you will likely end up in a better place down the line. Also of importance is ownership. If you pay the loan, do you get ownership of the thing the loan was secured against? Usually not, but working with an attorney and the bank, maybe. For example, if it's a car, can the "friend" sign over the car to you, then you sell it, and reduce your debt. Basically as a cosigner, you have some rights, but you have all the responsibilities. You need to talk to an attorney and possibly the bank, and see what your options are. At this point, if you think the friend is not that much of a friend anymore, it's time to make sure that any conversation you have with them is recorded in email, or on paper. |
Why do stock prices of retailers not surge during the holidays? | That's a pretty good question for a six-year-old! In addition to the good answers which point out that expectations are priced in, let's deny the premises of the question: Sales do not increase the value of a company; a company could be, for example, losing money on every sale. Share prices are (at least in theory) correlated with profits. So let's suppose that company X is unprofitable 320 days a year and is relying upon sales in late November and December to be in the black for the year. (Hence "black Friday".) Carefully examine the supposition of this scenario: we have a company that is so unprofitable that it must gamble everything on successfully convincing bargain hunting consumers in a weak economy to buy stuff they don't actually need from them and not a competitor. Why would this inspire investor confidence? There are plenty of companies that fail to meet their sales targets at Christmas, for plenty of reasons. |
How can I get a mortgage I can't afford? | If you can't afford it don't buy it, the next perfect house is just around the corner. The more time you spend researching and looking at houses, the increased chance you will find the perfect house you can afford. Also, here in Australia, we (the banks as well) factor in an interest rate rise of 2% above current rates to see if repayments can still be afforded at this increased rate. |
Is there a correlation between self-employment and wealth? | Many studies show that the wealthiest households are self employed and small business owners. But there is significant risk associated, and so the wealth cannot really be enjoyed. |
Lowest Interest Options for Short-Term Loan | Also talk to your bank(s) or credit union(s); first one of mine I looked at offers an unsecured loan at 7% variable, and a signature loan at 7.5% fixed, no hidden costs on either. You might do better. Also check store credit. Sears used to offer 1-year-0% financing on appliances if you signed up for the store's card at the time of purchase, and if you have the discipline to reliably pay it off before interest hits that's a hard deal to best. Other stores have offered something similar for major purchases of this sort; do some homework to find out who. (I bought my fridge that way, paying it in month 10.) The "catch" is that many people get distracted and do wind up paying interest, and the store hopes that having an account with them will encourage you to shop there more often.) |
Can an unmarried couple buy a home together with only one person on the mortgage? | It is highly unlikely that this would be approved by a mortgage underwriter. When the bank gives a loan with a security interest in a property (a lien), they are protected - if the borrower does not repay the loan, the property can be foreclosed on and sold, and the lender is made whole for the amount of the loan that was not repaid. When two parties are listed on the deed, then each owns an UNDIVIDED 50% share in the property. If only one party has pledged the property as surety against the loan, then in effect only 50% of the property is forecloseable. This means that the bank is unable to recoup its loss. For a (fictional, highly simplified) concrete example, suppose that the house is worth $100,000 and Adam and Zoe are listed on the deed, but Adam is the borrower for a $100,000 mortgage. Adam owes $100,000 and has an asset worth $50,000 (which he has pledged as security for the loan), while Zoe owes nothing and has an asset worth $50,000 (which is entirely unencumbered). If Adam does not pay the mortgage, the bank would only be able to foreclose on his $50,000 half of the property, leaving them exposed to great risk. There are other legal and financial reasons, but overall I think you'll find it very difficult to locate a lender who is willing to take that kind of risk. It's very complicated and there is absolutely no up-side. Also - speaking from experience (from which I was protected because of the bank's underwriting rules) and echoing the advice offered by others on this site: don't bother trying. Commingling assets without a contract (either implicit by marriage or explicit by, well a contract) is going to get you in trouble. |
Using credit cards online: is it safe? | So, my questions: Are payment cards provide sufficient security now? Yes. If so, how is that achieved? Depending on your country's laws, of course. In most places (The US and EU, notably), there's a statutory limit on liability for fraudulent charges. For transactions when the card is not present, proving that the charge is not fraudulent is merchants' task. Why do online services ask for all those CVV codes and expiration date information, if, whenever you poke the card out of your wallet, all of its information becomes visible to everyone in the close area? What can I do to secure myself? Is it? Try to copy someones credit card info next time you're in the line at the local grocery store. BTW, some of my friends tend to rub off the CVV code from the cards they get immediately after receiving; nevertheless, it could have already been written down by some unfair bank employee. Rubbish. |
I'm 23 and was given $50k. What should I do? | If your employer is matching 50 cents on the dollar then your 401(k) is a better place to put your money than paying off credit cards This. Assuming you can also get the credit cards paid off reasonably soon too (say, by next year). Otherwise, you have to look at how long before you can withdraw that money, to see if the compounded credit card debt isn't growing faster than your retirement. But a guaranteed 50% gain, your first year is a pretty hard deal to beat. And if you currently have no savings, unless all of your surplus income has been reducing your debt, you're living beyond your means. You should be earning more than you're (going to be) spending, when you start paying rent/car bills. If you don't know what this is going to be, you need to be budgeting. Get this under control, by any means necessary. New job/career? Change priorities/expectations? Cut expenses? Live to your budget? Whatever it takes. I don't think you should be in any investment that includes bonds until you're 40, and maybe not even then - equities and cash-equivalents all the way (cash is for emergency funds, and for waiting for buying opportunities). Otherwise Michael has some good ideas. I would caveat that I think you should not buy any investments in one chunk, but dollar average it over some period of time, in case the market is unnaturally high right when you decide to invest. You should also gauge possible returns and potential tax liabilities. Debt is good to get rid of, unless it is good debt (very low interest rates - ie: lower than you could borrow the money for). Good debt should still get paid off - who knows how long your job could last for - but maybe not dump all of your $50K on it. Roth is amazing. You should be maxing that contribution out every year. |
Can a credit card company raise my rates for making a large payment? | Short answer: No, not normally. Long Answer: It depends on the contract. If the 14% is some sort of special offer, with conditions, then if you violate those conditions, they can jack you up to whatever the 'normal' rate is. But outside of that condition, I can't see any reason why they would wish to penalize you for making a payment. You will note that there is no "maximum" payment on the bill. Secondly, even if they do jack up the rate to 28%, you're still better off paying $70 on 3000, than you are paying ~120 on 10k. Then tell them where to stick their card and get a new one. |
Buying and selling the same stock | No, you can not cheat the IRS. This question is also based on the assumption that the stock will return to $1 which isn't always a safe assumption and that it will continue to cycle like that repeatedly which is also likely a false assumption. |
Are services provided to Google employees taxed as income or in any way? | (1). Is this right? Pretty much, though this is a really rudimentary way to think about it. (2). If it is, why is it that extensive services are provided by high margin companies competing for talent, rather then lower margin businesses looking to boost their profits by reducing their expenditures on employees (by cutting out the government)? It's the polar opposite of that. Google (and companies like that) do things like have a day care center on premises. The company staffs a day care center which has costs, then lets employees use it for free. This is a business expense for Google, and in relative terms, a considerably large business expense that a lower margin business could no afford. Employer healthcare is a tax protected expense for employees via section 125 of the tax code. The company portion of the healthcare costs are a deductible business expense to the company, as expected. Healthcare is different than most other expenses because the employee can forego income before it's effectively received which negates it from taxable income. This doesn't work for something like food purchased at a cafe on a Google complex. If employee money is being spent at a corporate cafe, it's taxable income being spent (though the cost of running the cafe is a tax deductible business expense to the company). There have been discussions in congress to assess a value as income to employees for services like on site child care and no cost employee cafeterias. To address your new example: For example, suppose John Doe makes $100,000 a year taxed at a rate of 20%, for a take home pay of $80,000. He spends $10,000 on food. His employer Corporation decides to give him all of his food and deduct it as a business expense - costing them $10,000. But now they can pay John Doe an amount so his take home pay will be reduced by $10,000 - $87,500 The company is now spending $97500 employing John Doe, for a savings of $2500$. This would be an audit prone administrative nightmare. Either You need John to submit receipts for reimbursement up to the $10,000 agreed upon amount which would require some kind of administrative staff, or After a very short period of time John forgets the abstract value of the food cost arrangement, that is only really benefiting the employer in the form of lower payroll expense, and is enticed away for more pay somewhere else anyway. The company may be saving $2,500, though again there will be an additional administrative expense of some sort, but John is only saving $500 ($97,500 * 0.20 - $100,000 * 0.20). |
Ask FBI permission to withdraw large sums from your checking or savings? | An international Outlook (in this case Sweden in European Union). According to laws and regulations large cash transactions are considered conspicuous. The law makers might have reasoned is that cash transactions can be used in as example: - financing terrorism - avoiding taxes - buying or selling illegal goods such as drugs or stolen items - general illegal transactions such as paying bribes Starting there, all banks (at least in Europe) are required to report all suspicious transactions to the relevant authorities (in Sweden it is Finanspolisen, roughly the Financial Police). This is regardless of how the transactions are performed, in cash or otherwise. In order to monitor this all banks in Sweden are required to "know the customers", as example where does money come from and go to in general. In addition special software monitors all transactions and flags suspicious patterns for further investigation and possibly notification of the police. So, at least in Sweden: there is no need to get permission from the FBI to withdraw cash. You will however be required to describe the usage of the Money and your description will be kept and possibly sent to the Financial police. The purpose is not to hinder legitimate transactions, but to Catch illegal activities. |
In the stock market, why is the “open” price value never the same as previous day's “close”? | Prices reflect all available information. (Efficient markets hypothesis) A lot can happen between the time a stock closes on one day and opens on another. Particularly in a heavily traded stock such as IBM. Basically, you have a different "information set" the following day, which implies a different price. The instances where you are most likely to have a stock where the price opens at the same price is at the previous close is a thinly traded stock on which you have little information, meaning that the "information set" changes less from day to day. |
Questrade - What happens if I buy U.S. stock with Canadian money? | I don't believe from reading the responses above that Questrade is doing anything 'original' or 'different' much less 'bad'. In RRSPs you are not allowed to go into debt. So the costs of all trades must be covered. If there is not enough USD to pay the bill then enough CAD is converted to do so. What else would anyone expect? How margin accounts work depends on whether the broker sets up different accounts for different currencies. Some do, some don't. The whole point of using 'margin' is to buy securities when you don't have the cash to cover the cost. The result is a 'short' position in the cash. Short positions accrue interest expense which is added to the balance once a month. Every broker does this. If you buy a US stock in a USD account without the cash to cover it, you will end up with USD margin debt. If you buy US stock in an account that co-mingles both USD and CAD assets and cash, then there will be options during the trade asking if you want to settle in USD or CAD. If you settle in CAD then obviously the broker will convert the necessary CAD funds to pay for it. If you settle in US funds, but there is no USD cash in the account, then again, you have created a short position in USD. |
What percent of a company are you buying when you purchase stock? | What percent of a company are you buying when you purchase stock? The percent of a company represented by a single share can be calculated by percent = 1/number_of_shares*100% Apple comprises 5,250,000,000 shares, so one share makes up about 1.9e-8% of a company, or 0.000000019% of Apple. |
1000 pound to invest | ChrisW's comment may appear flippant, but it illustrates (albeit too briefly) an important fact - there are aspects of investing that begin to look exactly like gambling. In fact, there are expressions which overlap - Game Theory, often used to describe investing behavior, Monte Carlo Simulation, a way of convincing ourselves we can produce a set of possible outcomes for future returns, etc. You should first invest time. 100 hours reading is a good start. 1000 pounds, Euros, or dollars is a small sum to invest in individual stocks. A round lot is considered 100 shares, so you'd either need to find a stock trading less than 10 pounds, or buy fewer shares. There are a number of reasons a new investor should be steered toward index funds, in the States, ETFs (exchange traded funds) reflect the value of an entire index of stocks. If you feel compelled to get into the market this is the way to go, whether a market near you of a foreign fund, US, or other. |
Mortgage refinancing fees | tl;dr: I agree with Pete B.'s assertion that you should continue shopping. That's not the whole story though; there are other factors that can raise your rate, and affect your closing costs. The published rate is typically the best rate you can get. Here are some other factors that can raise your rate: You should have received a loan estimate which will itemize the fees you will pay. On that document you will see if you are paying a price to "buy down" the rate, and all the other fees. How are you calculating the 2.5%? Note that some fees are fixed. An appraisal on a $40K home may cost the same as an appraisal for a $400K home. If you add up the total closing costs and view it as a percentage of the loan, the smaller loan may have a higher percentage than the larger loan, even though the total cost of the smaller loan is less. |
Does it make any sense to directly contribute to reducing the US national debt? | No. Unless you are ten Bill Gates rolled into one man, you can not possibly hope to make a dent in the 14 trillion debt. Even if you were and paid off whole debt in one payment, budget deficits would restore it to old glory in a short time. If you have some extra money, I'd advise to either choose a charity and donate to somebody who needs your help directly or if you are so inclined, support a campaign of a financially conservative politician (only if you are sure he is a financial conservative and doesn't just tell this to get elected - I have no idea how you could do it :). |
What market conditions favor small cap stocks over medium cap stocks? | In general, small cap stocks are exposed to more downside during recessions and when credit is tight, because it is more difficult for small companies to raise capital, and minor variations in cash flow have a bigger impact. Coming out of recessions or when credit is cheap, small companies generally perform better than larger companies. In the depths of recession, small companies with good cash flow are often great value investments, as analysts and institutional investors "punish" the entire class of smallcap companies. |
Are precious metals/collectibles a viable emergency fund? | People normally hold precious metals as a protection against the whole system going down: massive inflation, lawlessness, etc. If our whole government and financial system broke completely and we returned to a barter economy, then holding silver would likely turn out to be a good thing. However, precious metals are not very good hedges against individual calamity, like losing your job. They are costly and inconvenient to sell and the price of these metals fluctuates wildly, so you could end up wanting to sell just when the metal isn't worth much. I'd say having some precious metal isn't unreasonable, but it should not make up a major portion of one's total net worth. If you want protection against normal problems, especially as a person of limited means, start with an emergency savings account and paying down debt. That way fixed costs will be less likely to turn an unfortunate turn of events into a personal catastrophe. |
Lending to the bank | The easiest way would be to set up a common savings account. Most of them pay some meager interest rate, and over one night it would be especially meager. A Certificate of Deposit is another way, but you'd have to lock the funds in for an extended period of time. |
Cannot get a mortgage because I work through a recruiter | They are looking at your work history to see that you have maintained a similar level of income for a period of time, and that you have a reasonable expectation to continue that for the foreseeable future. They are looking to make a commitment for 15-30 years. They see the short term contract, and have no confidence in making a guess to your ability to pay. Before the real estate bubble burst, you would have had a chance with a no documentation loan. These were setup for people who earned fluctuating incomes, mostly due to being commissioned based. They were easily abused, and lenders have gotten away from them becasue they were burned too often. Just like building your credit rating over time, and your down payment over time, you might have to wait to build a work history. |
Wash sale rule impact on different scenarios between different types of accounts | The wash sale rule only applies when the sale in question is at a loss. So the rule does not apply at all to your cases 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, and 16, which all start with a gain. You get a capital gain at the first sale and then a separately computed gain / loss at the second sale, depending on the case, BUT any gain or loss in the IRA is not a taxable event due to the usual tax-advantaged rules for the IRA. The wash sale does not apply to "first" sales in your IRA because there is no taxable gain or loss in that case. That means that you wouldn't be seeking a deduction anyway, and there is nothing to get rolled into the repurchase. This means that the rule does not apply to 1-8. For 5-8, where the second sale is in your brokerage account, you have a "usual" capital gain / loss as if the sale in the IRA didn't happen. (For 1-4, again, the second sale is in the IRA, so that sale is not taxable.) What's left are 9-10 (Brokerage -> IRA) and 13-14 (Brokerage -> Brokerage). The easier two are 13-14. In this case, you cannot take a capital loss deduction for the first sale at a loss. The loss gets added to the basis of the repurchase instead. When you ultimately close the position with the second sale, then you compute your gain or loss based on the modified basis. Note that this means you need to be careful about what you mean by "gain" or "loss" at the second sale, because you need to be careful about when you account for the basis adjustment due to the wash sale. Example 1: All buys and sells are in your brokerage account. You buy initially at $10 and sell at $8, creating a $2 loss. But you buy again within the wash sale window at $9 and sell that at $12. You get no deduction after the first sale because it's wash. You have a $1 capital gain at the second sale because your basis is $11 = $9 + $2 due to the $2 basis adjustment from wash sale. Example 2: Same as Example 1, except that final sale is at $8 instead of at $12. In this case you appear to have taken a $2 loss on the first buy-sell and another $1 loss on the second buy-sell. For taxes however, you cannot claim the loss at the first sale due to the wash. At the second sale, your basis is still $11 (as in Example 1), so your overall capital loss is the $3 dollars that you might expect, computed as the $8 final sale price minus the $11 (wash-adjusted) basis. Now for 9-10 (Brokerage->IRA), things are a little more complicated. In the IRA, you don't worry about the basis of individual stocks that you hold because of the way that tax advantages of those accounts work. You do need to worry about the basis of the IRA account as a whole, however, in some cases. The most common case would be if you have non-deductable contributions to your traditional IRA. When you eventually withdraw, you don't pay tax on any distributions that are attributable to those nondeductible contributions (because you already paid tax on that part). There are other cases where basis of your account matters, but that's a whole question in itself - It's enough for now to understand 1. Basis in your IRA as a whole is a well-defined concept with tax implications, and 2. Basis in individual holdings within your account don't matter. So with the brokerage-IRA wash sale, there are two questions: 1. Can you take the capital loss on the brokerage side? 2. If no because of the wash sale, does this increase the basis of your IRA account (as a whole)? The answer to both is "no," although the reason is not obvious. The IRS actually put out a Special Bulletin to answer the question specifically because it was unclear in the law. Bottom line for 9-10 is that you apparently are losing your tax deduction completely in that case. In addition, if you were counting on an increase in the basis of your IRA to avoid early distribution penalties, you don't get that either, which will result in yet more tax if you actually take the early distribution. In addition to the Special Bulletin noted above, Publication 550, which talks about wash sale rules for individuals, may also help some. |
Asset protection: When should an individual seriously consider shielding their assets? | If your meaning of "asset protection" is buying gold and canned food in the name of a Nevada LLC because some radio guy said so, bad idea. For a person, if you have assets, buy appropriate liability limits with your homeowner/renter insurance policy or purchase an "umbrella" liability policy. This type of insurance is cheap. If you don't have assets, it may not be worth the cost of insuring yourself beyond the default limits on your renter's or homeowner's policy. If you have a business, you need to talk to your insurance agent about what coverage is appropriate for the business as a whole vs. you personally. You also need to talk to your attorney about how to conduct yourself so that your business interests are separated from your personal interests. |
What does “profits to the shareholders jumped to 15 cents a share” mean? | What does it mean in terms of share price? Should the share price increase by 15 cents? No, but you're on the right track. In theory, the price of a share reflects it's "share" of time discounted future earnings. To put it concretely, imagine a company consistently earning 15 cents a share every year and paying it all out as dividends. If you only paid 25 cents for it, you could earn five cents a share by just holding it for two years. If you imagine that stocks are priced assuming a holding period of 20 years or so, so we'd expect the stock to cost less than 3 dollars. More accurately, the share price reflects expected future earnings. If everyone is assuming this company is growing earnings every quarter, an announcement will only confirm information people have already been trading based on. So if this 15 cents announcement is a surprise, then we'd expect the stock price to rise as a function of both the "surprise" in earnings, and how long we expect them to stay at this new profitability level before competition claws their earnings away. Concretely, if 5 cents a share of that announcement were "earnings surprise," you'd expect it to rise somewhere around a dollar. |
How to get a credit card as a minor? | In general, minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts -- which is what credit accounts are -- so an individually held card is probably not an option for you right now. You will not be approved for a credit card because you are minor. The only option credit card wise for you is for your parents to add you on as an authorized user onto their accounts. The upside is that you and your parents can work out a monthly payment for the amount you spend on your equipment, the downside is that if your parents don't pay their credit card bill, your credit score/report can be negatively affected. (This also depends on the bank, however, all the banks I bank with report monthly payment activities on authorized users' credit reports as well. There might be a bank that doesn't.) In terms of credit cards, there is nothing you can do. What you could do as the comments have suggested is either save up money for the equipment you want, or buy something cheaper. |
Under what circumstance will the IRS charge you a late-payment penalty for taxes? | Years ago I mailed my personal tax return one day after the due date, and my check was deposited as normal, and I never heard anything about it. As an employer, I once sent in my employee's withheld federal taxes one day after the due date, and I later received a letter stating my penalty for being late worked out to be around $600. The letter stated that since this was my first time being late they would waive the fee. In both cases, they could have charged me a late fee if they wanted to. |
Purpose of having good credit when you are well-off? | A $250K earner might have $4M in retirement savings and $500K in available funds, but doesn't wish to spend all his liquidity on the house. In general, a house might cost 2-3 times one's annual income. It would take many years to get that saved up. They might want to have the house sooner. It all goes back to choice, priorities, personal preference. |
Do I even need credit cards? | You don't need credit cards but there are few benefits, if you pay them off right away I assume you do have a debit card, since sometimes (like unattended gas stations or shopping on the web) cash is not accepted. |
How do I protect myself from a scam if I want to help a relative? | What can I do to help him out, but at the same time protect myself from any potential scams? Find out why he can't do this himself. Whether your relative is being sincere or not, if he owns both accounts then he should be able to transfer money between them by himself. If you can find a way to solve that issue without involving your bank account, so much the better. Don't settle for "something about authorized payees and expired cards." Get details, write them down. If possible, get documents. Then go to a bank or financial adviser you can trust and run those details by them to see what they have to say. Even if there's no scam, if what he's trying to do is illegal (even if he doesn't realize it himself) then you want to know before you get involved. You say you're willing to deal with "other issues" separately, but keep in mind that, even if there's no external scam here, those "other issues" could include hefty fees, censures on your own account, or jail time. Ask yourself: Does it make sense that this relative has an account overseas? I don't have any overseas accounts, because I don't do business in other countries. Is your relative a dual-citizen? Does he travel a lot? What country is the overseas account in? How long has he had this account? What bank is it with? Where the money is going is just as important as how it gets there (ie: through your account.) Arguably more so. Keep in mind that many scammers tell their marks not to share what's going on with anyone else. (Because doing so increases the odds of someone telling them to snap out of it.) It's entirely possible he's being scammed himself and just not telling you the whole story because the 419er is telling him to keep it quiet. (Check out that link for more details on common scams that your relative may be unwittingly part of, btw.) Get as many details as possible about what he's doing and why. If he's communicating with anyone else regarding this transfer, find out who. If there are emails, ask his permission to read them and watch for anything suspicious (ie: people who can't spell their own name consistently, constant pressure to act quickly, etc.) |
To rebalance or not to rebalance | 'Buy and Hold' Is Still a Winner: An investor who used index funds and stayed the course could have earned satisfactory returns even during the first decade of the 21st century. by By Burton G. Malkiel in The Wall Street Journal on November 18, 2010: "The other useful technique is "rebalancing," keeping the portfolio asset allocation consistent with the investor's risk tolerance. For example, suppose an investor was most comfortable choosing an initial allocation of 60% equities, 40% bonds. As stock and bond prices change, these proportions will change as well. Rebalancing involves selling some of the asset class whose share is above the desired allocation and putting the money into the other asset class. From 1996 through 1999, annually rebalancing such a portfolio improved its return by 1 and 1/3 percentage points per year versus a strategy of making no changes." Mr. Malkiel is a professor of economics at Princeton University. This op-ed was adapted from the upcoming 10th edition of his book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," out in December by W.W. Norton. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703848204575608623469465624.html |
End-of-season car sales? | It completely varies by manufacturer, dealer, and time of year, but in general yes, you can get a (sometimes significant) discount on brand new last year models. In general though, it comes down to supply and demand. As an example, in April 2016 I was looking at a brand new 2016 in which the 2017 model had come out that week (I thought April was a little early for next year's model but sometimes that's a marketing tool). The sticker price of the 2017 was only $100 more than the 2016, but the 2016 was selling for $3K under MSRP, and the 2017 was selling at exactly MSRP since they only had 2 in stock. |
Is it legal for a landlord to report a large payment to a tenant using Form 1099? | I believe it's not only legal, but correct and required. A 1099 is how a business reports payments to others, and they're required by the IRS to send them for payments of $600 or more (for miscalleneous payments like this). The payment is an expense to the landlord and income to you, and the 1099 is how that's documented (although note that if they don't send you a 1099, it's still income to you and you still need to report it as such). It's similar to getting a 1099-INT for interest payments or a 1099-DIV for dividend payments. You'll get a 1099-MISC for a miscellaneous payment. If you were an employee they'd send you a W-2, not a 1099. |
Why don't people generally save more of their income? | This question is likely to be voted closed as opinion-based. That said - In general people have become accustomed to instant gratification. They also have the media showing them luxury and are enticed every day to buy things they don't need. In the US, the savings rate is awfully low, but it's not just the lower 50%, it's 75% of people who aren't saving what they should. see http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/working_papers/pfeffer-danziger-schoeni_wealth-levels.pdf for an interesting article on the topic of accumulated wealth. |
What is a “Junk Bond”? | A "junk bond" is one that pays a high yield UP FRONT because there is a good chance that it could default. So the higher interest rate is necessary to try to compensate for the default Junk bonds are used in leveraged buyouts (LBOs) because such deals are INHERENTLY risky. "Normal" companies may have 20%-30% debt and the rest equity, so that the company will have to lose 70%-80% of its value before the debtholders start losing money on "normal" bonds. But in an LBO, the company may have only 10%-20% equity and the rest debt. Meaning that if it loses that small equity cushion, the value of the "junk" bonds will be impaired. |
Can my federal adjusted gross income differ by $1 between my federal and state returns? | No, you don't. Rounding errors happen, and if there's no change in the actual tax there's no reason to amend. If all the income was properly reported and the tax was properly calculated - no-one cares if it was rounded up or down on one of the lines. Note for the next time though: Not sure about New York, but Federal taxes are generally rounded to the nearest dollar on each line of the form. So don't calculate cents, just round to the nearest dollar, and be consistent on all of your tax forms. Technically, it is perfectly legal to report cents as well (and people used to when the forms were still filled by hand with pen), but all the automatic tax filing software rounds, so just do that. |
How do I invest and buy/sell stocks? What does “use a broker” mean? | Some good answers already, but let me add a TL:DR version. Brokers work like a special type of bank account where you can deposit or withdraw money. The major difference is that they also give you the ability to buy/sell investments with the money in your account which you can do by either calling them or using their website. Important: Many investments you will make through a broker(e.g. stocks) are not insured against losing value like the money in your bank account. |
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance? | The point of insurance is to trade high variable costs for much lower fixed costs. The question isn't whether you can afford what would be a catastrophic event for anyone else, but whether it would be better to pay a small amount regularly vs. a possibly larger amount occasionally. One of the reasons to buy insurance is to avoid costly litigation (rich people are more frequently targeted for litigation). By purchasing liability insurance, the insurance company pays for the litigation and/or settlement. If you are wealthy enough to keep an experienced litigation firm on retainer, you may not need that benefit, but it might be worth giving that stress to a third party. Life insurance is also an important part of estate planning because of the tax treatment of insurance payouts compared to the tax treatment of a large estate. There are certainly classes of insurance that make less sense for those with great cash flow, but money doesn't obviate all the benefits of insurance. |
Which dividend bearing stock should be chosen by price? | In the scenario you describe, the first thing I would look at would be liquidity. In other words, how easy is it to buy and sell shares. If the average daily volume of one share is low compared to the average daily volume of the other, then the more actively traded share would be the more attractive. Low volume shares will have larger bid-offer spreads than high volume shares, so if you need to get out of position quickly you will be at risk of being forced to take a lowball offer. Having said that, it is important to understand that high yielding shares have high yields for a reason. Namely, the market does not think much of the company's prospects and that it is likely that a cut in the dividend is coming in the near future. In general, the nominal price of a share is not important. If two companies have equal prospect, then the percentage movement in their share price will be about the same, so the net profit or loss you realise will be about the same. |
I spend too much money. How can I get on the path to a frugal lifestyle? | I would highly recommend the Dave Ramsey book "The Total Money Makeover". I read it about 5 years ago and my financial situation has slowly but steadily been improving ever since. |
Effective Interest Rate from bifurcated interest rate | If the APR is an effective rate. If the APR is a nominal rate compounded monthly, first convert it to an effective rate. |
Why do grocery stores in the U.S. offer cash back so eagerly? | The reason is, stores want customers to use cash. By giving us cash, we are more likely to use cash next time. I feel a little guilty when using my bank card at the store because I know I'm giving about 2-3% of the sale to the bank. Unless I don't really like where I'm shopping (ie Walmart), I try to use cash if I have it. I doubt these large stores pay extra for supplying the cash portion. They just need to keep the cash onhand. In other countries, do they not mind paying banks a percentage of each transaction? That's a huge loss for retailers. (I also heard tipping isn't popular in some countries, maybe the lack of regard for vendors is related somehow??) Oh, plus, it's a value added service. A customer is more likely to return to a store if they provide this service. |
How do I build wealth? | As others have stated, CEO's often make more than 200K, and when they do, they're compensated with stock options and other lucrative bonuses and deals that allow them to build wealth above and beyond the face value of their salary. However, remember that having wealth makes it easier to build further wealth. As Victor pointed out, having wealth allows you to increase your wealth in different kinds of investments. Also, it gives you access to more human capital, e.g. wealth management services at firms like Northern Trust, a greater ability to diversify into investments like hedge funds, more abilities to invest abroad through foreign trusts, etc. Also, you have to realize that wealthier people often pay a lower percentage in taxes than people who earn a salary. In the US, long-term capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than income, so wealthy individuals who earn much of their money from long-term investments won't pay nearly as high a rate. In my case, my current salary places me at the top of the 25% tax bracket (in the US), but if I earned all of my income through long-term capital gains instead of salary, I would only pay around 15-20% in taxes. Plus, I could afford numerous tax accounting firms to help me find ways to pay fewer taxes. It's not altruism that causes CEOs like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to take a $1 salary. This isn't directly related to CEOs, and I'm not leveling accusations of corruption against high net worth individuals, but I remember spending a few months in a small town in a country known for its corruption. The mayor had recently purchased a home worth the equivalent of several million dollars, on his annual civil servant salary of approximately $20K. One of the students asked him how he managed to afford such a sizable property, and he replied "I live very frugally." This is probably a relatively rare case (I'm sure it depends on the country), but nevertheless, it illustrates another way that some people build wealth. |
Can a custodian refuse prior-year IRA/HSA deposit postmarked April 15? | I had a situation like this also. A client deposited an IRA check to his local P.O. prior to collection p/up, thinking this meant it would be postmarked April 15. It may have been picked up, but wasn't postmarked until the next day, and my firm refused to consider it as timely. I do remember discussing it w/my Retirement Services Dept. Maybe they made an exception for me and my client, but maybe not. I don't remember. Good luck. |
Invest all at once after maxing out Roth IRA - or each time I contribute? | This depends on the terms and conditions of your IRA account, and those of the investments you have chosen. In general, you are better off investing as quickly as is feasible given those terms. Money in your cash account doesn't earn much of a return, so the quicker you get money into something earning a return, the better. However, pay attention to the fees and costs associated with investing. If there is a per-transaction fee, you may want to consolidate, as it may be more efficient to do so - after all, if you contribute $500 at a shot, and it costs you $5 to make a trade, you're paying 1% off the top to make that trade if you make 11 of them, versus 0.1% to make 1, so the question is do you earn that 1% back over the course of the six months? That will depend on what you are investing in. More than likely you're going to earn more than 1% over the course of the six months, so it's probably worth investing it in pieces still in that situation, but if the transaction cost is higher, or the time differential lower, you may have a less clear-cut answer. I invest at Vanguard in their funds and have no transaction fees, so I have a more obvious answer (invest as soon as possible). You also need to consider whether you have minimums to pay attention to - maybe your investment is something you can only buy whole shares of, for example, or you might have a much higher fee if you make small transactions. In that case, you should wait until you have the minimum to make that transaction if the fee is more than the return you'll get. So the answer is - make the transactions as early as you can, subject to considering the fees you will pay for making them. |
How do I calculate ownership percentage for shared home ownership? | It may clarify your thinking if you look at this as two transactions: I am an Australian so I cannot comment on US tax laws but this is how the Australian Tax Office would view the transaction. By thinking this way you can allocate the risks correctly, Partnership Tenancy Two things should be clear - you will need a good accountant and a good lawyer - each. |
In the stock market, why is the “open” price value never the same as previous day's “close”? | It does sometimes open one day the same as it closed the previous day. Take a look at ESCA, it closed October 29th at 4.50, at opened November 1st at 4.50. It's more likely to change prices overnight than it is between two successive ticks during the day, because a lot more time passes, in which news can come out, and in which people can reevaluate the stock. |
Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich? | Given that a poor person probably has much less to invest, how can odds be in their favor? To add to Lan's great answer, if one is "poor" because they don't have enough income to build wealth (invest), then there are only two ways to change the situation - earn more or spend less. Neither are easy but both are usually possible. One can take on side jobs, look for a better-paying career, etc. Cutting spending can also be hard but is generally easier than adding income. In general, wealth building is more about what you do with your income than about how much you make. Obviously the more you make, the easier it is, but just about anyone can build wealth if they spend less than they make. Once your NET income is high enough that you have investible income, THEN you can start building wealth. Unfortunately many people have piles of debts to clean up before they are able to get to that point. What could a small guy with $100 do to make himself not poor anymore, right? Just having $100 is not going to make you "rich". There is a practical limit to how much return you can make short of high-risk activities like gambling, lottery tickets, etc. (I have actually seen this as a justification for playing the lottery, which I disagree with but is an interesting point). If you just invest $100 at 25% per year (for illustration - traditional investments typically only make 10-12% on average), in 10 years you'll have about $931. If instead you invest $100 per month at 12% annualized, in 10 years you'll have over $23,000. Not that $23,000 makes you rich - the point is that regularly saving money is much more powerful than having money to start with. |
What's the smartest way to invest money gifted to a child? | American Century has their Heritage Fund: https://www.americancentury.com/sd/mobile/fund_facts_jstl?fund=30 It has a good track record. Here are all the mutual funds from American Century: https://www.americancentury.com/content/americancentury/direct/en/fund-performance/performance.html A mutual fund is a good wayway to go as it is not subject to fluctuations throughout the day whereas an ETF is. |
In a house with shared ownership, if one person moves out and the other assumes mortgage, how do we determine who owns what share in the end? | I second (or fifth?) the answers of the other users in that this should have been foreseen and discussed prior to entering the partnership. But to offer a potential solution: If the mortgage company allows you to assume the whole mortgage (big if) you could buy the other partner out. To determine what a fair buyout would be, take the current value of the house less the remaining mortgage to get the current equity. Half that is each partner's current gain (or potentially loss), and could be considered a fair buyout. At this point the partner realizes any gains made in the last 5 years, and from now on the whole house (and any future gains or losses) will be yours. Alternatively your partner could remain a full partner (if s/he so desires) until the house sells. You would see the house as a separate business, split the cost as you have, and you would pay fair market rent each month (half of which would come back to you). A third option would be to refinance the house, with you as a sole mortgage holder. To factor in how much your partner should receive out of the transaction, you can take his/her current equity and subtract half of the costs associated with the refi. I would also recommend both of you seek out the help of a real estate lawyer at this point to help you draft an agreement. It sounds like you're still on good terms, so you could see a lawyer together; this would be helpful because they should know all the things you should look out for in a situation like this. Good luck! |
What is most time-efficient way to track portfolio asset allocation? | I want to mention I've found 2 options for more powerful tools that can be used to manage asset allocation: Advantages/Disadvantages: Vanguard Morningstar X-ray I hope this helps others struggling with asset allocation. |
American taxes if living outside the US and get paid by US company on a US bank account | Technically, if you earn in US (being paid there, which means you have a work visa) and live in other country, you must pay taxes in both countries. International treaties try to decrease the double-taxation, and in this case, you may pay in your country the difference of what you have paid in US. ie. your Country is 20% and USA is 15%, you will pay 5%, and vice-versa. This works only with certain areas. You must know the tax legislation of both countries, and I recommend you seek for advisory. This site have all the basic information you need: http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion Good luck. |
How to quickly track daily cash expenses that don't come with a receipt? | A pencil and a small notepad really work here, but if you have a smartphone then some way of using it makes sense as well. Try: Transcribe all of these onto a better record at the end of each day. Also record the amount of money in your wallet/purse/pocket every day, and check to see if the amounts you've recorded add up to the amount you've spent. It'll be easier to remember that newspaper you bought at the end of the day, rather than a week later. Or just record the difference as 'miscellaneous'. |
Is there a debit card that earns miles (1 mile per $1 spent) and doesn't have an annual fee? | I don't know of any that are comparable to credit cards. There's a reason for that. Debit cards, being newer, have a much lower interchange rate. Since collecting on debt is risky and less predictable, rewards / miles are paid from those interchange fees. This means with a debit card there's less money to pay you with. So what can you do? Assuming your credit isn't terrible, you can just open a credit card account and pay in full for purchases by the grace period. I don't know how all cards work, but my grace period allows me to pay in full by the billing date (roughly a month from purchase) and incur no finance charges. In effect, I get a small 30 day loan with no interest, and a cash back incentive (I dislike miles). You're also less liable for fraud via CC than debit. |
What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time? | The best one I've found is TimeSnapper, I have the worst memory but this basically allows me to visually play back the day. It has a bunch of reporting functionality too. |
Is it inadvisable to leave a Roth IRA to charity upon death? | You need to keep in mind that there's an exemption amount of more than $5M (five million) dollars for estate tax. Unless you used all of it for gifts during your life time, it will more than cover all of your $70K estate, so there's no need in any additional planning. As to Roth vs Traditional IRA - if you want to leave something to your siblings, leave them the Roth. Why would you give the taxable income to your siblings when you can give them the nontaxable one? Charities are tax exempt anyway. |
Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | Invest in other currencies and assets that have "real" value. And personally I don't count gold as something of real value. Of course its used in the industry but besides that its a pretty useless metal and only worth something because everybody else thinks that everybody thinks its worth something. So I would buy land, houses, stocks, ... |
If someone gives me cash legally, can my deposit trigger an audit for them? | Am I right to worry about both of these? Of course. Who carries $75K in cash for no good reason? Your friend got the cash from somewhere, didn't he? If its legit - there's paper trail to show. Same for your parents. If you/they can show the legit paper trail - there's nothing to worry about, the hassle, at worse, is a couple of letters to the IRS. If the money is not legit (your friend is selling crack to the kids in the hood and your parents robbed a 7/11 to give you the money, for example) - there may be problems. |
Should I buy or lease a car given that its not a super luxury car and I only drive 15 miles/d on avg? | I usually recommend along these lines. If you are going to drive the same car for many years, then buy. Your almost always better to buy, and then drive a car for 10 years than to lease and replace it every 2 years. If you want a new car every two years then lease. You're usually better off leasing if you're going to replace the car before the auto loan is paid off or shortly there after. Also you can get "more car" for the same monthly money via leasing. I honestly would advise you to either buy out your lease, or buy a barely used car. Then drive it for as long as you can. Take the extra money you would spend and spend it on an awesome vacation or something. Also, if you're only driving 15 miles a day, then get a cheap, but solid car. Again, just my advice. |
Relation between interest rates and currency for a nation | What you are asking about is called Interest Rate Parity. Or for a longer explanation the article Interest Rate Parity at Wikipedia. If the US has a rate of say zero, and the rate in Elbonia is 10%, one believes that in a year the exchange rate will be shifted by 10%, i.e. it will take 1.1 unit of their currency to get the dollars one unit did prior. Else, you'd always profit from such FOREX trades. (Disclaimer - I am not claiming this to be true or false, just offering one theory that explains the rate difference effect on future exchange rates. |
Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period? | Among the other fine answers, you might also consider that owning a vehicle outright will free you from the requirement to carry insurance on the vehicle (you must still carry insurance on yourself in most states). |
I have about 20 000 usd. How can invest them to do good in the world? | One of the best things you can do for this purpose, while getting a modest ROI on a passive investment, is invest in a company that profitably does whatever you want to see more of. For example, you could invest in a for-profit company that sells needed goods to low-income people at lower prices. Something like Wal-Mart, which is one of the most effective anti-poverty engines in the US. You might also say the same of something like Aldi (owner of Aldi stores and Trader Joe's), which is a discount store chain. This is true even though a company like Wal-Mart is seeking to make money first. Its customer base tends to skew heavily towards low-income consumers, and historically to rural and elderly consumers. When Wal-Mart is able to provide food, clothing, appliances and the like to poor people at a lower cost, it is making it marginally less painful to have a low income. Peter Suderman can explain why Wal-Mart is a humanitarian enterprise: Walmart’s customer base is heavily concentrated in the bottom income quintile, which spends heavily on food. The bottom income quintile spends about 25 percent of income on food compared to just 3.5 percent for the top quintile. So the benefits of Walmart’s substantially lower prices to the lowest earning cohort are huge, especially on food. As Suderman points out, this view of Wal-Mart dramatically lowering prices that low-income people pay for food was corroborated by an Obama adviser. That's just one company. You can pick the industry and company that best suits your personal preferences. Alternatively, you could invest in something like Whole Foods, a company with multiple missions to improve the planet and the community, in addition to the more typical mission of being a prosperous retail chain. Of course, as a general proposition, a less than entirely altruistic, charity-inclined investment doesn't need to be targeted at those with low incomes or at saving the planet. You could invest in almost anything you think is good (yachts, yo-yos, violins, energy production, industrial inputs, music performances) and the company will take care of making more of that good thing. You didn't say whether your goal was to help the poor, the planet, arts, sciences, knowledge, community, or whatever. What I understand you to be saying is you are willing to accept a lower ROI in exchange for some warm-fuzzies from your investment. That seems perfectly valid and reasonable to me, but it makes it much more subjective and particular to your tastes. So you'll need to pick something that's meaningful to you. If you're going to trade ROI for positive feelings, then you should pick whatever gives you your optimal blend of emotions and returns. Alternatively, you could invest in something stable and predictable to beat inflation (some sort of index or fund) and then annually use some portion of those profits to simply give to the charity of your choice. Your investment and your charity do not necessarily need to be the same vehicle. |
Stochastic Oscillator for Financial Analysis | While trading in stochastic I've understood, one needs reference (SMA/EMA/Bolinger Band and even RSI) to verify trade prior entering it. Stochastic is nothing to do with price or volume it is about speed. Adjusting K% has ability to turn you from Day trader to -> swing trader to -> long term investor. So you adjust your k% according to chart time-frame. Stochastic setup for 1 min, 5 min ,15, 30, 60 min, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, half yearly and yearly are all different. If you try hopping from one time-frame to another just because it is below oversold or above overbought region with same K%, you may get confused. Worst you may not square-off your loss making trade. And rather not use excel; charts gives better visual for oscillators. |
What are the top “market conditions” to follow? | The very term 'market conditions' is subjective and needs context. There are 'market conditions' that favor buying (such as post crash) or market conditions that favor selling (such as the peak of a bubble). Problem with mutual funds is you can't really pick these points yourself; because you're effectively outsourcing that to a firm. If you're tight on time and are looking for weekly update on the economy a good solution is to identify a reputable economist (with a solid track record) and simply follow their commentary via blog or newsletter. |
Options for the intelligent but inexperienced | Some thoughts on your questions in order, Duration: You might want to look at the longest-dated option (often a "LEAP"), for a couple reasons. One is that transaction costs (spread plus commission, especially spread) are killer on options, so a longer option means fewer transactions, since you don't have to keep rolling the option. Two is that any fundamentals-based views on stocks might tend to require 3-5 years to (relatively) reliably work out, so if you're a fundamental investor, a 3-6 month option isn't great. Over 3-6 months, momentum, short-term news, short squeezes, etc. can often dominate fundamentals in determining the price. One exception is if you just want to hedge a short-term event, such as a pending announcement on drug approval or something, and then you would buy the shortest option that still expires after the event; but options are usually super-expensive when they span an event like this. Strike: Strike price on a long option can be thought of as a tradeoff between the max loss and minimizing "insurance costs." That is, if you buy a deeply in-the-money put or call, the time value will be minimal and thus you aren't paying so much for "insurance," but you may have 1/3 or 1/2 of the value of the underlying tied up in the option and subject to loss. If you buy a put or call "at the money," then you might have only say 10% of the value of the underlying tied up in the option and subject to loss, but almost the whole 10% may be time value (insurance cost), so you are losing 10% if the underlying stock price stays flat. I think of the deep in-the-money options as similar to buying stocks on margin (but the "implied" interest costs may be less than consumer margin borrowing rates, and for long options you can't get a margin call). The at-the-money options are more like buying insurance, and it's expensive. The commissions and spreads add significant cost, on top of the natural time value cost of the option. The annual costs would generally exceed the long-run average return on a diversified stock fund, which is daunting. Undervalued/overvalued options, pt. 1: First thing is to be sure the options prices on a given underlying make sense at all; there are things that "should" hold, for example a synthetic long or short should match up to an actual long or short. These kinds of rules can break, for example on LinkedIn (LNKD) after its IPO, when shorting was not permitted, the synthetic long was quite a bit cheaper than a real long. Usually though this happens because the arbitrage is not practical. For example on LNKD, the shares to short weren't really available, so people doing synthetic shorts with options were driving up the price of the synthetic short and down the price of the synthetic long. If you did actually want to be long the stock, then the synthetic long was a great deal. However, a riskless arbitrage (buy synthetic long, short the stock) was not possible, and that's why the prices were messed up. Another basic relationship that should hold is put-call parity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Put%E2%80%93call_parity Undervalued/overvalued options, pt. 2: Assuming the relationship to the underlying is sane (synthetic positions equivalent to actual positions) then the valuation of the option could focus on volatility. That is, the time value of the option implies the stock will move a certain amount. If the time value is high and you think the stock won't move much, you might short the option, while if the time value is low and you think the stock will move a lot, you might buy the option. You can get implied volatility from your broker perhaps, or Morningstar.com for example has a bunch of data on option prices and the implied components of the price model. I don't know how useful this really is though. The spreads on options are so wide that making money on predicting volatility better than the market is pretty darn hard. That is, the spread probably exceeds the amount of the mispricing. The price of the underlying is more important to the value of an option than the assumed volatility. How many contracts: Each contract is 100 shares, so you just match that up. If you want to hedge 100 shares, buy one contract. To get the notional value of the underlying multiply by 100. So say you buy a call for $30, and the stock is trading at $100, then you have a call on 100 shares which are currently priced at $10,000 and the option will cost $30*100=3,000. You are leveraged about 3 to 1. (This points to an issue with options for individual investors, which is that one contract is a pretty large notional value relative to most portfolios.) |
Should I set a stop loss for long term investments? | The emphasis of "stop loss" is "stop", not "loss". Stop and long term are contradictory. After you stop, what are you going to do with your cash? Since it's long term, you still have 5+ years to before you use the money, do you simply park everything in 0.5% savings account? On the other hand, if your investment holds N stocks and one has dropped a lot, you are free to switch to another one. This is just an investment strategy and you are still in the market. |
Should I lease, buy new, or buy used? | I think you're dancing with the line here, this question is hard to back up without opinions and could really be three different questions. I'm going to push aside the part about quality and reliability, that could be an emotional subject. So from a price standpoint, there's virtually no disagrement that it makes financial sense to buy a used car instead of a new car. The majority of new cars lose the majority of their resale value within the first year or two. If you purchase said car after someone else has used it for the first two years, you just avoided all of that depreciation yourself, and you're still going to be purchasing a perfectly reliable car as long as you are diligent in the buying process. |
Selling an app, sharing income, how does it work tax-wise? | There are a few different ways to organize this, but mostly I think you need to talk to a lawyer. The 50/50 split thing should be in writing along with a bunch of other issues. You could have one of you doing a sole proprietorship where the other person is a contractor that receives half of all revenues/profits. The person that owns the sole proprietorship may be entitled to deduct certain costs of running the entity. The other person would then be 1099'd his share of revenues. You could set up a partnership, again legal paperwork is necessary. You could also setup an S-Corp, where each of you is a 50% owner. You could also setup an LLC that is organized as any of the above. I would only do this if you can self fund some additional tax preparation costs. Figure about $600/year at a minimum. There are a lot of options with a sole proprietorship being the easiest. Your first step on the new venture would be to apply for an EIN (free), and then opening a business bank account. Good luck. |
Advice on strategy for when to sell | It was not 100% clear if you have held all of these stocks for over a year. Therefore, depending on your income tax bracket, it might make sense to hold on to the stock until you have held the individual stock for a year to only be taxed at long-term capital gains rates. Also, you need to take into account the Net Investment Income Tax(NIIT), if your current modified adjusted income is above the current threshold. Beyond these, I would think that you would want to apply the same methodology that caused you to buy these in the first place, as it seems to be working well for you. 2 & 3. No. You trigger a taxable event and therefore have to pay capital gains tax on any gains. If you have a loss in the stock and repurchase the stock within 30 days, you don't get to recognize the loss and have to add the loss to your basis in the stock (Wash Sales Rules). |
Received an unexpected cashiers check for over $2K from another state - is this some scam? | Some of these answers are actually wrong. Basically if you were to cash this cheque, you are committing bank fraud. The cheque is usually fake and ends up with them cashing it off your account--this is how cheques work, when you cash a cheque, you are the one ultimately responsible for the validity of what you're cashing. This is why large cheques are balanced against your active account--so what happens is they essentially just take money from you and leave you red handed. |
How do I cash in physical stock certificates? (GM 1989) | I'm afraid you're not going to get any good news here. The US government infused billions of dollars in capital as part of the bankruptcy deal. The old shares have all been cancelled and the only value they might have to you are as losses to offset other gains. I would definitely contact a tax professional to look at your current and previous returns to create a plan that best takes advantage of an awful situation. It breaks my heart to even think about it. |
How long to wait after getting a mortgage to increase my credit limit? | I'm not sure what raising your credit limit would do to your score in the short term. I don't think it's a clear win, though. Your percent utilization will go down (more available credit for the same amount of debt) but your available credit will also go up, which may be a negative, since potentially you can default on more debt. If you're interested in monitoring your score, Credit Karma will let you do that for free. |
Can rent be added to your salary when applying for a mortgage? | The decision as to what counts as income is up to the bank. You'll need to ask them whether or not rental income can be included in the total. I can offer some anecdotal evidence: when I applied for a mortgage to buy my home, I already had a rental property with a buy-to-let mortgage on it. Initially the bank regarded that property as a liability, not an asset, because it was mortgaged! However, once I was able to show that there was a good history of receiving enough rent, they chose to ignore the property altogether -- i.e. it wasn't regarded as a liability, but it wasn't regarded as a source of income either. More generally, as AakashM says, residential mortgages are computed based on affordability, which is more than just a multiple of your salary. To answer your specific questions: Covered above; it's up to the bank. If you're married, and you don't have a written tenancy agreement, and you're not declaring the "rent" on your tax return, then it seems unlikely that this would be regarded as income at all. Conversely, if your partner is earning, why not put their name on the mortgage application too? Buy-to-let mortgages are treated differently. While it used to be the case that they were assessed on rental income only, nowadays lenders may ask for proof of the landlord's income from other sources. Note that a BTL cannot be used for a property you intend to live in, and a residential mortgage cannot be used for a property you intend to let to tenants -- at least, not without the bank's permission. |
How to interpret a 1,372.55% dividend payout ratio (GSK)? | I don't think it makes sense to allow accounting numbers that you are not sure how to interpret as being a sell sign. If you know why the numbers are weird and you feel that the reason for it bodes ill about the future, and if you think there's a reason this has not been accounted for by the market, then you might think about selling. The stock's performance will depend on what happens in the future. Financials just document the past, and are subject to all kinds of lumpiness, seasonality, and manipulation. You might benefit from posting a link to where you got your financials. Whenever one computes something like a dividend payout ratio, one must select a time period over which to measure. If the company had a rough quarter in terms of earnings but chose not to reduce dividends because they don't expect the future to be rough, that would explain a crazy high dividend ratio. Or if they were changing their capital structure. Or one of many other potentially benign things. Accounting numbers summarize a ton of complex workings of the company and many ratios we look at could be defined in several different ways. I'm afraid that the answer to your question about how to interpret things is in the details, and we are not looking at the same details you are. |
Where can I find accurate historical distribution data for mutual funds? | If you want to go far upstream, you can get mutual fund NAV and dividend data from the Nasdaq Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS). This isn't for end-users but rather is offered as a part of the regulatory framework. Not surprisingly, there is a fee for data access. From Nasdaq's MFQS specifications page: To promote market transparency, Nasdaq operates the Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS). MFQS is designed to facilitate the collection and dissemination of daily price, dividends and capital distributions data for mutual funds, money market funds, unit investment trusts (UITs), annuities and structured products. |
How can I find out the credit rating of a company | You can view Standard & Poor's credit ratings here: http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/en/us/ You have to register with S&P to access the ratings. |
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