Question stringlengths 14 166 | Answer stringlengths 3 17k |
|---|---|
Should I try to hedge my emergency savings against currency and political concerns? | First thing is that your English is pretty damn good. You should be proud. There are certainly adult native speakers, here in the US, that cannot write as well. I like your ambition, that you are looking to save money and improve yourself. I like that you want to move your funds into a more stable currency. What is really tough with your plan and situation is your salary. Here in the US banks will typically have minimum deposits that are high for you. I imagine the same is true in the EU. You may have to save up before you can deposit into an EU bank. To answer your question: Yes it is very wise to save money in different containers. My wife and I have one household savings account. Yet that is broken down by different categories (using a spreadsheet). A certain amount might be dedicated to vacation, emergency fund, or the purchase of a luxury item. We also have business and accounts and personal accounts. It goes even further. For spending we use the "envelope system". After our pay check is deposited, one of us goes to the bank and withdraws cash. Some goes into the grocery envelope, some in the entertainment envelope, and so on. So yes I think you have a good plan and I would really like to see a plan on how you can increase your income. |
Should I pay off a 0% car loan? | The question posted was, "Should I pay off a 0% car loan"? The poster provided a few details: I'm ahead on 0% interest car loan. I don't have to make a payment until October. I currently owe $3,000 and I could pay it all off. Should I do that or leave that money in my savings account that earns 2% interest? The question seems to seek a general rule of thumb for how to behave with smaller debts. And a general rule of thumb could be taken from one of two principles (which seem to be religious camps). The "free money" camp believes that you can invest (even small amounts) of money risk-free and receive high returns, tax free, for zero effort. The "reduce debt" camp believes that you should pay off debts so that you have the freedom to live your life unfettered. Which religion do you prefer? I tend to prefer paying off debts. The "free money" tent wants you to pay the car off over the next 6 months, earning interest. Suppose you can earn 2% interest (.02/12 per month), paying $500 per month for 6 months. So you earn interest on 3000 the first month, 2500, the second month, 2000 the third month, So, are you feeling rich, earning $13.13? How much time did you spending making the 5 additional payments? You could skip coffee once/month and make a bigger difference. The "reduce debt" tent would have you pay off the car. Suppose you change your deductible on the car (or drop collision) to save money, and you will also same time by avoid 5 bill payments, But do you still have enough money in your emergency fund, how do you feel about having less insurance coverage, and did you notice the time savings? We really need more information about the poster's situation. The answer should consider the relevant details of the situation to provide an informed response. Here are questions that would enable a response to address the whole situation. Why are these important? Here are a few reasons why the above might be important. |
What does it mean when the broker does not have enough shares to short? | For Canada No distinction is made in the regulation between “naked” or “covered” short sales. However, the practice of “naked” short selling, while not specifically enumerated or proscribed as such, may violate other provisions of securities legislation or self-regulatory organization rules where the transaction fails to settle. Specifically, section 126.1 of the Securities Act prohibits activities that result or contribute “to a misleading appearance of trading activity in, or an artificial price for, a security or derivative of a security” or that perpetrate a fraud on any person or company. Part 3 of National Instrument 23-101 Trading Rules contains similar prohibitions against manipulation and fraud, although a person or company that complies with similar requirements established by a recognized exchange, quotation and trade reporting system or regulation services provider is exempt from their application. Under section 127(1) of the Securities Act, the OSC also has a “public interest jurisdiction” to make a wide range of orders that, in its opinion, are in the public interest in light of the purposes of the Securities Act (notwithstanding that the subject activity is not specifically proscribed by legislation). The TSX Rule Book also imposes certain obligations on its “participating organizations” in connection with trades that fail to settle (see, for example, Rule 5-301 Buy-Ins). In other words, shares must be located by the broker before they can be sold short. A share may not be locatable because there are none available in the broker's inventory, that it cannot lend more than what it has on the books for trade. A share may not be available because the interest rate that brokers are charging to borrow the share is considered too high by that broker, usually if it doesn't pass on borrowing costs to the customer. There could be other reasons as well. If one broker doesn't have inventory, another might. I recommend checking in on IB's list. If they can't get it, my guess would be that no one can since IB passes on the cost to finance short sales. |
Is it better to ask for a raise before a spin-off / merger or after? | Corporate restructuring makes everything a flux, so you might as well revisit some core fundamental questions. Here's how to do this professionally: Start floating your CV now. Line up interviews in competing companies. Attend to them. Score a job offer, and have it put into writing, with exact salary, which should be at least 10%++ of your current one. Take a clear empty page, and write on top: "Business value provided". Put down your major contributions, and achievements. Wherever possible, put the company's expected dollar value near to it. For bonus points, sum it up on the bottom, and minus your current salary. Difference is "Profit provided directly to the company's bottom line". Float this to your manager's desk. At this position, you have only one fundamental question to your boss: "match or pass?" :) A corporate spin-off is a good time to do this: 1, to ensure, that your position will not be made redundant; 2, if it is, you have a backup plan. If the parent company's "getting rid of you", however, there are even more fundamental questions you might want to ask yourself: is this really a profitable division, or merely a loss leader? Does this company have a future, and the adequate growing options for you, personally? To answer these questions, you must have an opportunity cost estimation; and for that, you must have second (and preferably, third) options -hence, the strategy above. To conclude, the best time to do your job research is every other month; and the best time to ask for a raise is always now :) Good luck! |
Is it possible to trade CFD without leverage? | Generally not, however some brokers may allow it. My previous CFD Broker - CMC Markets, used to allow you to adjust the leverage from the maximum allowed for that stock (say 5%) to 100% of your own money before you place a trade. So obviously if you set it at 100% you pay no interest on holding open long positions overnight. If you can't find a broker that allows this (as I don't think there would be too many around), you can always trade within your account size. For example, if you have an account size of $20,000 then you only take out trades that have a face value up to the $20,000. When you become more experienced and confident you can increase this to 2 or 3 time your account size. Maybe, if you are just starting out, you should first open a virtual account to test your strategies out and get used to using leverage. You should put together a trading plan with position sizing and risk management before starting real trading, and you can test these in your virtual trading before putting real money on the table. Also, if you want to avoid leverage when first starting out, you could always start trading the underlying without any leverage, but you should still have a trading plan in place first. |
Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends? | Dividends indicate that a business is making more profit than it can effectively invest into expansion or needs to regulate cash-flow. This generally indicates that the business is well established and has stabilized in a dominant market position. This can be contrasted against businesses that: Dividends are also given preferential tax treatment. Specifically, if I buy a stock and sell it 30 days later, I will be taxed on the capital gains at the regular income rate (typically 25-33%), but the dividends would be taxed at the lower long-term capital gains rate (typically 15%). |
Can a Company which is listed at OTC and TSX considered to be serious? | The assumption that companies listed OTC are not serious is far from the truth. Many companies on the OTC are just starting off there because they don't meet the requirements to be listed on the NASDAQ or NYSE. Major stock exchanges like the NASDAQ and the NYSE only want the best companies to trade on their exchanges.The NASDAQ, for example, has three sets of listing requirements. A company must meet at least one of the three requirement sets, as well as the main rules for all companies. These include: Now don't assume that the OTC doesn't have rules either, as this is far from the truth as well. While there are no minimum level of revenue, profits or assets required to get listed on the OTC there are requirements for audited financial statements and ongoing filing and reporting to the SEC and NASD. Additionally there are several different levels of the OTC, including the OTCQX, the OTCCB and the OTC Pink, each with their own set of requirements. For more information about what it takes to be listed on OTC look here: http://www.otcmarkets.com/learn/otc-trading A company deciding to trade on the OTC is making the decision to take their company public, and they are investing to make it happen. Currently the fees to get listed on the OTC range from $30,000 to $150,000 depending on the firm you decide to go with and the services they offer as part as their package. Now, I know I wouldn't consider $30K (or more) to not be serious money! When I looked into the process of getting a company listed on the TSX the requirements seemed a lot more relaxed than those of the major U.S. markets as well, consisting of an application, records submission and then a decision made by a TSX committee about whether you get listed. More information about the TSX here: http://apps.tmx.com/en/listings/listing_with_us/process/index.html I think the way that the OTC markets have gotten such a bad reputation is from these "Get Rich on Penny Stock" companies that you see pumping up OTC company stocks and getting massive amounts of people to buy without doing their due diligence and investigating the company and reading its prospectus. Then when they loose a bunch of money on an ill-informed investment decision they blame it on the company being an OTC stock. Whether you decide to trade the OTC market or not, I wouldn't make a decision based on how many exchanges the company is listed on, but rather based on the research you do into the company. |
How could I find someone to find a room for me to live in? (For a fee, of course.) | There are services, usually associated with real estate agents, that provide apartment search services for relocating professionals. I was very underimpressed when I was offered the use of such a service and did better on my own, but I did have the company paying for a hotel room while I searched so I had time to investigate alternative channels -- and in fact found and took a place being offered by a co-worker's father. But if you're really looking for "a room" in a shared living situation, and you aren't already on campus talking to other students, I agree that the school's housing office, or the dorms and/or fraternity houses and/or independent living groups are your best bet. In a college town most roommate openings get snapped up pretty quickly and are more likely to go to someone who is a known or vouched-for quantity. |
Does the “Free Ride” rule always apply to your entire collection of shares in a particular stock? | Your question is unanswerable as you haven't provided enough information. I.e. If those shares cost $1000 and you have $50000 ( or any number above $1000) of cash available in the account then you can't possibly free ride. I think your understanding of the free ride rule is incorrect. Basically what this rule is stating is that you have to have the cash when the trade is placed in order to settle the trade. Otherwise you are taking on margin (which you can't do in a cash account). So at order entry you have to have the cash to cover the purchase so it's able to be settled. If you do, no problem and you can sell that stock before trade settlement. There is no law that says you have to hold it past trade settlement. However, you cannot spend the same dollar more than once before it settles. This site does a good job explaining this more throughly with examples: http://www.invest-faq.com/articles/trade-day-free-ride.html |
When a company liquidates, are earlier investors paid back first? | This would be governed by bankruptcy law... there is no reason a healthy company would take such action. This would be a long drawn process generally amongst debtor the taxes have higher claim, then Sunday debtors (payable), then bank loans... This is followed by loan raised by company deposits then debentures... even among share holders there can be special shares... More often most shares are equal and the balance is distributed to all. |
Idea for getting rich using computers to track stocks | The main reason I'm aware of that very few individuals do this sort of trading is that you're not taking into account the transaction costs, which can and will be considerable for a small-time investor. Say your transaction costs you $12, that means in order to come out ahead you'll have to have a fairly large position in a given instrument to make that fee back and some money. Most smaller investors wouldn't really want to tie up 5-6 figures for a day on the chance that you'll get $100 back. The economics change for investment firms, especially market makers that get special low fees for being a market maker (ie, offering liquidity by quoting all the time). |
Should I negotiate a lower salary to be placed in a lower tax bracket? | I think Feral Oink said it well here when someone asked if they should negotiate for additional benefits in lieu of a portion of salary. "You never want to take a lower salary, especially not in exchange for something that is conditional e.g. benefits. Your salary is the only thing that is guaranteed as a condition of employment. Other things can be changed by the employer at a future point in time." Does it make sense to take a lower salary so I can still contribute to a Roth IRA? |
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance? | It depends. "High net worth individuals" is very subjective. Lets say a person is worth 1.5 million. High, but not super high. For one, they should have an umbrella policy. Until your net worth is above 300K, you really don't need an umbrella policy. They should insure their home and cars, but should probably have high deductibles. Health insurance is a must as a bad illness can wipe them out. They should have long term care insurance when they reach age 60. Now lets say a person is worth about 10 million. They might be able to self insure basic transportation and probably don't need long term care insurance. However, they may choose to carry the full coverage car insurance, or other lines, because it is a value. In conclusion insurance needs change based on a person's net worth and income. It is very hard to make a blanket statement without details of the makeup of one's net worth and how they earn their income. Having said all of that, a high net worth (HNW) individual may never be able to drop certain coverage. Lets say that a HNW owns a 50K condo, 1K square foot condo. Given that the outside structure is covered by the HOA the insurance on such a unit only covers the contents and liability. The contents could easily be floated by the HNW individual, but not the liability. It is probably a requirement, on their umbrella policy, that they carry the maximum liability protection on their vehicles and properties. In the case above they would carry a policy for the purposes of liability protection. This could also be true of their dependents. Say for example, their adult child receives some financial assistance from their parents (like college being paid for). The HNW individuals should have their child cover the maximum liability on the auto policy. According to this site: A person with a net worth of 1.5 million would be in the 90-95 percentile, a person with 10 million in the 99th. This article does a decent job of describing what constitutes a HNW person or household. Namely 1 million in investable assets, which is of course a bit different then net worth. |
At what point does it become worth it to file an insurance claim? | We learned the hard way on this one. First, our area was hit with what was called an "inland hurricane" where we forced to file a claim as our home received extensive damage. Within the same year, we also incurred an electrical surge which took out our older big screen tv (one of those big monstrosities that sits on the floor). We were granted full replacement with a more modern flat screen TV, TV stand, and DVD player. It seemed like a no brainer. We quickly found it as our premium went up that it wasn't that sweet. It wasn't a huge increase, but it definitely has us truly evaluate if it's really necessary filing a claim. |
What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund? | Having a highly liquid emergency fund can lubricate the wheels for disaster recovery. For example, several years ago I returned from a vacation to discover that, during my absence, a plumbing fixture had broken and my house was flooded. Since we had sufficient liquidity to cover the cost of the repairs in our emergency fund, the insurance company was much easier to deal with, and the relationships between the contractor, bank, and insurance company were much smoother. The bank was able to approve the insurance in minutes versus days. Ironically, we didn't actually have to touch our emergency fund precisely because we had it. Clarification - I make it a point to have no debt. |
How to interpret these explanatory graphs (about option strategies)? | The blue line is illustrating the net profit or loss the investor will realise according to how the price of the underlying asset settles at expiry. The x-axis represents the underlying asset price. The y-axis represents the profit or loss. In the first case, the investor has a "naked put write" position, having sold a put option. The strike price of the put is marked as "A" on the x-axis. The maximum profit possible is equal to the total premium received when the option contract was sold. This is represented by that portion of the blue line that is horizontal and extending from the point above that point marked "A" on the x-axis. This corresponds to the case that the price of the underlying asset settles at or above the strike price on the day of expiry. If the underlying asset settles at a price less than the strike price on the day of expiry, then the option with be "in the money". Therefore the net settlement value will move from a profit to a loss, depending on how far in the money the option is upon expiry. This is represented by the diagonal line moving from above the "A" point on the x-axis and moving from a profit to a loss on the y-axis. The diagonal line crosses the x-axis at the point where the underlying asset price is equal to "A" minus the original premium rate at which the option was written - i.e., net profit = zero. In the second case, the investor has sold a put option with a strike price of "B" and purchase a put option with a strike price "A", where A is less than B. Here, the reasoning is similar to the first example, however since a put option has been purchase this will limit the potential losses should the underlying asset move down strongly in value. The horizontal line above the x-axis marks the maximum profit while the horizontal line below the x-axis marks the maximum loss. Note that the horizontal line above the x-axis is closer to the x-axis that is the horizontal line below the x-axis. This is because the maximum profit is equal to the premium received for selling the put option minus the premium payed for buying the put option at a lower strike price. Losses are limited since any loss in excess of the strike price "A" plus the premium payed for the put purchased at a strike price of "A" is covered by the profit made on the purchased put option at a strike price of "A". |
Employer reported ESPP ordinary income on wrong year's W-2 | You mentioned that the 1099B that reports this sale is for 2014, which means that you got the proceeds in 2014. What I suspect happened was that the employer reported this on the next available paycheck, thus reporting it in the 2015 period. If this ends up being a significant difference for you, I'd argue the employer needs to correct both W2s, since you've actually received the money in 2014. However, if the difference for you is not substantial I'd leave it as is and remember that the employer will not know of your ESPP sales until at least several days later when the report from the broker arrives. If you sell on 12/31, you make it very difficult for the employer to account correctly since the report from the broker arrives in the next year. |
What are the tax liabilities for an international transaction? | After a bit of rooting around the HMRC sites, I found this page which says this: One key difference is that digitised products are classed as electronically-supplied services for VAT and customs duties. These services are: For VAT purposes, the place of supply of these services is the country in which the customer lives. If you supply electronic services to a business customer in another European Union (EU) country, the customer accounts for any VAT due in that country. You should not charge UK VAT. If you supply electronic services to a consumer, charity or government body in another EU country, you have to account for UK VAT. If you supply electronic services to anyone in a country outside the EU, you don't pay any VAT. If, as a UK business, you buy electronic services from a company outside the UK, you have to account for VAT. If I read this correctly, I as the supplier of the website need to account for VAT only if the sponsor is a consumer, charity or government body in another EU country. It is not covered in this site, but I assume I must also account for VAT for a customer based in the UK. So in answer to the original question, a customer from Canada (which is currently outside the EU) would account for the VAT themselves, and I would simply charge the gross amount. |
Which countries allow eChecks? | eChecks (and ACH) are a (desperate?) try of the US banking system to get into the 21st century. All EU countries (and some others) have direct deposits and transfers as the standard way of transferring money since about 20 years, and since about 5 years it is cost-free and one-day across all the EU. The rest of the world runs mostly country specific system, as there is not that large a demand for cross country shifting, and exchange rates are also an issue in any such transaction. Because they have different ways that work fine since decades, other countries will consider the eCheck idea as a step backwards and will probably ignore it, so your answer is 'none'. International companies work with banks in a different relationship than retail customers, so they can do things you and me cannot do - depending on size and volume. Some large companies get a banking license and then handle their own stuff; medium sized companies make favorable contracts with banks (they are golden goose customers - never an issue, no brick and mortar presence needed, banks love them), or they simply suck up the transfer cost (if you move millions, who cares about a 40 $ fee). Small businesses whine and live with what they get... |
Can an unmarried couple buy a home together with only one person on the mortgage? | It's not typically possible for someone to jointly own the house, who is not also jointly liable for the mortgage. This doesn't matter however, because it is possible for two people to get a mortgage together, where only one person's income is assessed by the lender. If that person could get a mortgage of that amount on their own, then the couple should also be able to get the same mortgage. Source: My wife and I got a mortgage like this. She is self-employed, rather than meet the very high requirements for proving her self-employment income, we simply said that we only wanted my income to be taken into consideration. |
What to sell when your financial needs change, stocks or bonds? | You have to understand what risk is and how much risk you want to take on, and weight your portfolio accordingly. I think your 80/20 split based on wrong assumptions is the wrong way to look at it. It sounds like your risk appetite has changed. Risk is deviation from expected, so risk is not bad, and you can have cases where everyone would prefer the riskier asset. If you think the roulette table is too risky, instead of betting $1, stick 50c in your pocket and you changed the payoffs from $2 or 0 to 50c or $1.50 If your risk appetite has changed - change your risk exposure. If not, then all you are saying is I bought the wrong stuff earlier, now I should get out. |
What's a good personal finance management web app that I can use in Canada? | Now, if you're still intrested, Mint.com works also for Canadian banks. Mint Canada |
How can I check my credit score? | http://annualcreditreport.com/ That's the official site for getting your free yearly credit report (one free per year from each of the 3 reporting bureaus). |
Swap hedging a currency hedge | I decided to try this in order to get a feel of it. As far as the interest rates are concerned, it works. You can set it up and forget about holding time as long as the rates and positions stay within a range. The problem is that currency volatility turns the interest paid for shorting USD/JPY into noise at best. And if you look to past performance over a year... Let's just say there is a reason they pay you to hold NZD. So, unless you think buying NZD/USD is a good idea to begin with, you should put your money elsewhere. |
What's are the differences between “defined contribution” and “defined benefit” pension plans? | In short, defined contribution plans yield different amounts of return based on the market whereas defined benefit plans yield predetermined amounts defined based on factors such as salary and years of service. |
$10,000 to invest in the house - Pay down principal or spruce up to increase appraisal? | There is no guarantee improvements will raise the appraised value. You also don't want your property tax appraisal to go up if you can avoid it. Since you are talking on the order of $10k I'll assume you're only a few thousand dollars more from getting to 20%. That said, any schemes you might come up with like refinancing or second line of credit will probably cost more in fees than they are worth, unless you can get a much nicer interest rate. Figure out how long you plan to stay there, Evaluate your options (do nothing, principal reduction, refinance for 30, 15, or even an ARM) and figure out your bottom line by comparing everything in a spreadsheet One more thing: if you do pay a substantial amount of extra principal, you can ask the lender to "rebalance" which will correct the minimum monthly payment to your remaining term. This will likely incur a fee, but could be helpful in an emergency |
Do large market players using HFT make it unsafe for individual investors to be in the stock market? | Obviously there are good answers about the alternatives to the stock market in the referenced question. HFT has been debated heavily over the past couple of years, and the Flash crash of May 6, 2010, has spurred regulators to rein in heavy automated trading. HFT takes advantage of churn and split second reactions to changing market trends, news and rumors. It is not wise for individual investors to fight the big boys in these games and you will likely lose money in day trading as a result. HFT's defender's may be right when they claim that it makes the market more liquid for you to get the listed price for a security, but the article points out that their actions more closely resemble the currently illegal practice of front-running than a negotiated trade where both parties feel that they've received a fair value. There are many factors including supply and demand which affect stock prices more than volume does. While market makers are generating the majority of volume with their HFT practices, volume is merely the number of shares bought and sold in a day. Volume shows how many shares people are interested in trading, not the actual underlying value of the security and its long term prospects. Extra volume doesn't affect most long term investments, so your long term investments aren't in any extra danger due to HFT. That said, the stock market is a risky place whether panicked people or poorly written programs are trading out of control. Most people are better off investing rather than merely trading. Long term investors don't need to get the absolute lowest price or the highest sell. They move into and out of positions based on overall value and long term prospects. They're diversified so bad apples like Enron, etc. won't destroy their portfolio. Investors long term view allows them to ignore the effects of churn, while working like the tortoise to win the race while the hare eventually gets swallowed by a bad bet. There are a lot of worrying and stressful uncertainties in the global economy. If it's a question of wisdom, focus on sound investments and work politically (as a citizen and shareholder) to fix problems you see in the system. |
How to hedge a long stock position that does not have options | If there are no traded options in a company you can get your broker to write OTC options but this may not be possible given some restrictions on accounts. Going short on futures may also be an option. You can also open a downside CFD (contract for difference) on the stock but will have to have margin posted against it so will have to hold cash (or possibly liquid assets if your AUM is large enough) to cover the margin which is unutilized cash in the portfolio that needs to be factored into any portfolio calculations as a cost. Diversifying into uncorrelated stock or shorting correlated (but low div yield) stock would also have the same effect. stop loss orders would probably not be appropriate as it is not the price of the stock that you are concerned with but mitigating all price changes and just receiving the dividend on the stock. warning: in a crash (almost) all stocks become suddenly correlated so be aware that might cause you a short term loss. CFDs are complex and require a degree of sophistication before you can trade them well but as you seem to understand options they should not be too hard to understand. |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | Apparently, if you keep your tires' air filled to the recommended level, your car will burn less gas. I loved this article at WikiHow, which confirmed what I had heard about air in tires, and had others to suggest, such as removing unnecessary items from inside and on your car (such as bike racks, trailer balls) as they can add to your car's overall weight, causing more drag and using more gas. |
Is there any downside to using temporary credit card numbers with subscription services? | If you've agreed to pay the money, then you owe them whether they have a valid credit card number of yours or not. If they want to report your debt to a collections agency and/or credit bureau, they can. Which would suck for you. It may not be that likely over $9.99 or whatever, but my point is that it's still a small risk even with a temporary card number. |
Who gets the periodic payments when an equity is sold on an repurchase agreement? | Repurchase agreements are a way of financing a security position. You have a collateralized loan where you give your security in exchange for cash. Let's say you have a 10 year Treasury note paying 3.5% while the 1-week repurchase rate is 0.5%. You loan the security to someone with a promise to repurchase it from them some time in the future. You collect the 3.5% coupon and you pay the 0.5% interest. Clearly it makes no sense for someone to collect interest on money and also collect coupon payments. And for the counter-party it makes no sense to be not getting coupon payments and also to be paying interest. This how one website explains the process: During the transaction, any coupon payments that come due belong to the legal owner, the "borrower." However, when this happens, a cash amount equal to the coupon is paid to the original owner, this is called "manufactured payment." In order to avoid the tax payment on the coupon, some institutions will repo the security to a tax exempt entity and receive the manufactured payment and avoid the tax ("coupon washing") I find this unequivocal description to be the clearest During the life of the transaction the market risk and the credit risk of the collateral remain with the seller. (Because he has agreed to repurchase the asset for an agreed sum of money at maturity). Provided the trade is correctly documented if the collateral has a coupon payment during the life of the repo the buyer is obliged to pay this to the seller. |
Relative Strength Index: Yahoo vs Google Finance | Look at the 'as of'. Google's as of is 11:27 whil Yahoo's is 11:19. Given the shape of the Google curve, it looks to me that Yahoo's may well drop that much in the next 8 minutes. In fact, looking at it now, Yahoo's algorithm showed it as about 30 at 11:24, before going back up again some. It may not have been identical to Google's, but it was certainly close. |
Could the loan officer deny me even if I have the money as a first time home buyer? | My credentials: I used to work on mortgages, about 5 years ago. I wasn't a loan officer (the salesman) or mortgage processor (the grunt who does the real work), but I reviewed their work fairly closely. So I'm not an absolute authority, but I have first-hand knowledge. Contrary to the accepted answer, yes the bank is obligated to offer you a loan - if you meet their qualifications. This may sound odd, and as though it's forcing a bank to give money when it doesn't want to, but there is good reason. Back in the 1950's through 1980's, banks tended to deny loans to African Americans who were able to buy nicer homes because the loan officer didn't quite 'feel' like they were capable of paying off an expensive house, even if they had the exact same history and income as a white person who did get approved. After several rounds of trying to fix this problem, the government finally decreed that the bank must have a set, written criteria by which it will approve or decline loans, and the interest rates provided. It can change that criteria, but those changes must apply to all new customers. Banks are allowed a bit of discretion to approve loans that they may normally decline, but must have a written reason (usually it's due to some relationship with the customer's business (this condition adds a lot of extra rules), or that customer has a massive family and all 11 other siblings have gotten loans from the same loan officer - random rare stuff that can be easily documented if/when the government asks). The bank has no discretion to decline a loan at will - I've seen 98-year-olds sign a 30-year mortgage, and the bank was overjoyed because it showed that they didn't discriminate against the elderly. The customer could be a crackhead, and the bank can't turn them down if their paperwork, credit, and income is good. The most the loan officer could do is process the loan slowly and hope the crackhead gets arrested before the bank spends any more money. The regulations for employees new to the workforce are a bit less wonderful, but the bank will want 30+ days of income history (30 days, NOT 4 weeks) if you have it. BUT, if you are a fresh new employee, they can do the loan using your written and signed job offer as proof of income. However, I discourage you from using this method to buy a house. You are much, much better off renting for a while and learning the local area before you shop for a house. It's too easy to buy a house without knowing the city, then discover that you have a hideously slow drive to work and are in the worst part of town. And, you may not like the company as much, or you may not be a good fit. It's not uncommon to leave a company within a year or two. You don't want a house that anchors you to one place while you need the freedom to explore career options. And consider this: banks love selling mortgages, but they hate holding them. They want to collect that $10,000 closing fee, they couldn't care less about the 4% interest trickling in over 30 years. Once they sign the mortgage, they try to sell it to investors who want to buy high-grade debt within a month. That sale gives them all the money back, so they can use it to sell another mortgage and collect another $10,000. If the bank has its way, it has offloaded your mortgage before you send the first payment to them. As a result, it's a horrible idea to buy a house unless you expect to live there at least 5 or 10 years, because the closing costs are so high. |
I just made $50K from selling my house. How should I invest the proceeds? | I know an answer has been accepted, but you need an emergency fund, ideally enough to cover at least 3 months of after-tax basic living expenses. As a free-lancer, 6 months would be even better. This isn't a fun way to tie up your money, but it is a prudent way. What if you lose your job, or decide you want to change your line of work? What if you're told a close family member has only months to live and you want to take significant time off unpaid? What if your car breaks down and you need a new one? What if your freelance business hits a dry patch for a few months? What if you want to move but can't sell your next house quickly? I've known people who had these types of situations come up unexpectedly. Some were financially prepared and had the freedom to make the choices they wanted to make, others didn't and now have regrets. Once you have a basic emergency fund in place, then go for investing with the rest of the money. Best of luck! |
What determines price fluctuation of groceries | No. Some grocery stores may discount specific products based on inventory to drive sales using "loss leaders" where the product is intentionally priced as a loss for the business. While commodity futures may impact some prices, I'm not sure one can easily extract the changes solely due to futures shifts. |
Do I still need to file taxes with the Canadian government if I am working in the U.S. on a TN visa for a few years? | You are considered a Canadian resident if you have "significant residential ties to Canada". Because your wife lives in Canada, you therefore are a resident. Even by working temporarily in the US, you are still considered a "factual resident" of Canada. Due to that, your second question is irrelevant. |
Canadian personal finance software with ability to export historical credit card transactions? | Yodlee is the back-end which communicates with the banks, and Mint just provide a pretty layer on top. You can sign up for an account with Yodlee directly, which may give you the flexibility you need. |
How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want | I use cash exclusively. I go to the cash machine once a week and withdraw the money I want to spend in one week (so I have to plan if I want to buy something expensive). Otherwise I leave the card at home. As bonus you get anonymity, i.e. big brother cannot track you. |
How do leveraged ETFs (index tracking) set intraday pricing? | Does the price only start the day based on the previous day's rebalancing? No, the tracker will open at the price according to the stock it is tracking. So for example, if the ETF closed at $10 but the tracked stock continued trading and was priced $15 when the ETF reopened the ETF will open at $15. (Example is for a non-leveraged ETF.) |
At what percentage drop should you buy to average down | TL;DR; There is no silver bullet. You have to decide how much to invest and when on your own. Averaging down definition: DEFINITION of 'Average Down' The process of buying additional shares in a company at lower prices than you originally purchased. This brings the average price you've paid for all your shares down. BREAKING DOWN 'Average Down' Sometimes this is a good strategy, other times it's better to sell off a beaten down stock rather than buying more shares. So let us tackle your questions: At what percentage drop of the stock price should I buy more shares. (Ex: should I wait for the price to fall by 5% or 10% to buy more.) It depends on the behaviour of the security and the issuer. Is it near its historical minimum? How healthy is the issuer? There is no set percentage. You can maximize your gains or your losses if the security does not rebound. Investopedia: The strategy is often favored by investors who have a long-term investment horizon and a contrarian approach to investing. A contrarian approach refers to a style of investing that is against, or contrary, to the prevailing investment trend. (...) On the other side of the coin are the investors and traders who generally have shorter-term investment horizons and view a stock decline as a portent of things to come. These investors are also likely to espouse trading in the direction of the prevailing trend, rather than against it. They may view buying into a stock decline as akin to trying to "catch a falling knife." Your second question: How many additional shares should I buy. (Ex: Initially I bought 10 shares, should I buy 5,10 or 20.) That depends on your portfolio allocation before and after averaging down and your investor profile (risk apettite). Take care when putting more money on a falling security, if your portfolio allocation shifts too much. That may expose you to risks you shouldn't be taking. You are assuming a risk for example, if the market bears down like 2008: Averaging down or doubling up works well when the stock eventually rebounds because it has the effect of magnifying gains, but if the stock continues to decline, losses are also magnified. In such cases, the investor may rue the decision to average down rather than either exiting the position or failing to add to the initial holding. One of the pitfalls of averaging down is when the security does not rebound, and you become too attached to be able to cut your losses and move on. Also if you are bullish on a position, be careful not to slip the I down and add a T on said position. Invest with your head, not your heart. |
Advantages/Disadvantages to refinancing online? | If you can deal with phone calls instead of a face to face meeting, for the average person with an average refinance online tools just offer another way to shop for deals. For new mortgages, I think having a person you can meet face to face will avoid problems, but for just a simple refi, online is one of the places you should check. Compete your current mortgage company, your bank (hopefully credit union), a local broker or two and the online places. The more competition you have, the more power you have in making a good choice. |
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough? | Firstly, playing the lottery is not investing it is gambling. The odds in gambling are always against you and with the house. Secondly, no one would ever give you a payout of 3 to 1 when the odds are 50:50, unless they were looking to give away money. Even when you place your chips on either red or black on a roulette table your payout if you are correct is 100% (double your money), however the odds of winning are less than 50%, there are 18 reds, 18 blacks and 2 greens (0 and 00). Even if you place your chips on one single number, your payout will be 35:1 but your odds of winning are 1:38. The odds are always with the house. If you want to play the lotto, use some money you don't need and expect to lose, have some fun and enjoy yourself if you get any small winnings. Gambling should be looked at as a source of entertainment not a source of investing. If you take gambling more serious than this then you might have a problem. |
Can somebody give a brief comparison of TSP and IRAs? | Ideally, one would contribute the maximum amount you're allowed to both the TSP and an IRA. For the 2015 tax year, that would be $18,000 for the TSP and $5,500 for the IRA (if you're 50 or older, then you can add an additional catch up amount of $6,000 to the TSP and $1,000 to the IRA). If, like most people, you cannot contribute the maximum to both, then I would recommend the TSP over an IRA, until you've maximized your TSP. Unquestionably, you should contribute at least enough to the TSP to get the maximum agency match. Beyond that, there is a case to be made to contribute to an IRA for certain investors. Benefits of TSP, compared to IRA: Benefits of IRA, compared to TSP: So, for an investor who wants simplicity, I would recommend just doing the TSP (unless you can invest more, in which case an IRA is a smart choice). For a knowledgeable and motivated investor, it can make sense to also have an IRA to gain access to asset classes not in the TSP's basic index funds. |
Are bonds really a recession proof investment? | That depends on how you're investing in them. Trading bonds is (arguably) riskier than trading stocks (because it has a lot of the same risks associated with stocks plus interest rate and inflation risk). That's true whether it's a recession or not. Holding bonds to maturity may or may not be recession-proof (or, perhaps more accurately, "low risk" as argued by @DepressedDaniel), depending on what kind of bonds they are. If you own bonds in stable governments (e.g. U.S. or German bonds or bonds in certain states or municipalities) or highly stable corporations, there's a very low risk of default even in a recession. (You didn't see companies like Microsoft, Google, or Apple going under during the 2008 crash). That's absolutely not the case for all kinds of bonds, though, especially if you're concerned about systemic risk. Just because a bond looks risk-free doesn't mean that it actually is - look how many AAA-rated securities went under during the 2008 recession. And many companies (CIT, Lehman Brothers) went bankrupt outright. To assess your exposure to risk, you have to look at a lot of factors, such as the credit-worthiness of the business, how "recession-proof" their product is, what kind of security or insurance you're being offered, etc. You can't even assume that bond insurance is an absolute guarantee against systemic risk - that's what got AIG into trouble, in fact. They were writing Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which are analogous to insurance on loans - basically, the seller of the CDS "insures" the debt (promises some kind of payment if a particular borrower defaults). When the entire credit market seized up, people naturally started asking AIG to make good on their agreement and compensate them for the loans that went bad; unfortunately, AIG didn't have the money and couldn't borrow it themselves (hence the government bailout). To address the whole issue of a company going bankrupt: it's not necessarily the case that your bonds would be completely worthless (so I disagree with the people who implied that this would be the case). They'd probably be worth a lot less than you paid for them originally, though (possibly as bad as pennies on the dollar depending on how much under water the company was). Also, depending on how long it takes to work out a deal that everyone could agree to, my understanding is that it could take a long time before you see any of your money. I think it's also possible that you'll get some of the money as equity (rather than cash) - in fact, that's how the U.S. government ended up owning a lot of Chrysler (they were Chrysler's largest lender when they went bankrupt, so the government ended up getting a lot of equity in the business as part of the settlement). Incidentally, there is a market for securities in bankrupt companies for people that don't have time to wait for the bankruptcy settlement. Naturally, people who buy securities that are in that much trouble generally expect a steep discount. To summarize: |
Should I buy a house with a friend? | Unlike others who have answered the question - I have done this. Here is my experience - your mileage and friendship may vary: I bought a condo years ago with a longtime childhood friend. We did it for all the reasons you mentioned - sick of renting and not building equity, were both young, single professionals who had the money. The market crashed we have both since married and moved on to own other properties with our spouses. Now we rent out the condo as selling in the current market is not doable.. It's not an ideal situation but that is because of the real estate market - not who I bought with. You need to discuss very openly all of the following scenarios, as well as others I can't think of right now I am sure: If you aren't both 100% in sync with these questions then do not do it. I never understand why some people would buy with a girlfriend/boyfriend but not a good personal friend. You're more likely to have a falling out with your significant other then a long time close friend. My advice, have honest, open conversations, about all possible scenarios. If you feel necessary put somethings down into some sort of legal agreement - with us it was not, and still isn't necessary. |
How to model fees from trades on online platforms? | Assuming cell A1 contains the number of trades: will price up to A1=100 at 17 each, and the rest at 14 each. The key is the MAX and MIN. They keep an item from being counted twice. If X would end up negative, MAX(0,x) clamps it to 0. By extension, if X-100 would be negative, MAX(0, X-100) would be 0 -- ie: that number doesn't increase til X>100. When A1=99, MIN(a1,100) == 99, and MAX(0,a1-100) == 0. When A1=100, MIN(a1,100) == 100, and MAX(0,a1-100) == 0. When A1=101, MIN(a1,100) == 100, and MAX(0,a1-100) == 1. Of course, if the 100th item should be $14, then change the 100s to 99s. |
How to start investing/thinking about money as a young person? | nan |
What industries soar when oil prices go up? | Generally speaking, you want to find goods and services that are inelastic and also require oil as a cost. Oil company stocks make record profits when oil is high, because direct demand for oil is relatively inelastic. Profit margins of oil competition should also go up, as this creates inflation in general, as people seek alternatives to the inelastic demand. |
What foreign exchange rate is used for foreign credit card and bank transactions? | A lot of questions, but all it boils down to is: . Banks usually perform T+1 net settlements, also called Global Netting, as opposed to real-time gross settlements. That means they promise the counterparty the money at some point in the future (within the next few business days, see delivery versus payment) and collect all transactions of that kind. For this example say, they will have a net outflow of 10M USD. The next day they will purchase 10M USD on the FX market and hand it over to the global netter. Note that this might be more than one transaction, especially because the sums are usually larger. Another Indian bank might have a 10M USD inflow, they too will use the FX market, selling 10M USD for INR, probably picking a different time to the first bank. So the rates will most likely differ (apart from the obvious bid/ask difference). The dollar rate they charge you is an average of their rate achieved when buying the USD, plus some commission for their forex brokerage, plus probably some fee for the service (accessing the global netting system isn't free). The fees should be clearly (and separately) stated on your bank statement, and so should be the FX rate. Back to the second example: Obviously since it's a different bank handing over INRs or USDs (or if it was your own bank, they would have internally netted the incoming USDs with the outgoing USDs) the rate will be different, but it's still a once a day transaction. From the INRs you get they will subtract the average FX achieved rate, the FX commissions and again the service fee for the global netting. The fees alone mean that the USD/INR sell rate is different from the buy rate. |
Most effective Fundamental Analysis indicators for market entry | Unfortunately, there is very little data supporting fundamental analysis or technical analysis as appropriate tools to "time" the market. I will be so bold to say that technical analysis is meaningless. On the other hand, fundamental analysis has some merits. For example, the realization that CDOs were filled with toxic mortgages can be considered a product of fundamental analysis and hence provided traders with a directional assumption to buy CDSs. However, there is no way to tell when there is a good or bad time to buy or sell. The market behaves like a random 50/50 motion. There are many reasons for this and interestingly, there are many fundamentally sound companies that take large dips for no reason at all. Depending on your goal, you can either believe that this volatility will smooth over long periods and that the market has generally positive drift. On the other hand, I feel that the appropriate approach is to remain active. You will be able to mitigate the large downswings by simply staying small and diversifying - not in the sense of traditional finance but rather looking for uncorrelated products. Remember, volatility brings higher levels of correlation. My second suggestion is to look towards products like options to provide a method of shaping your P/L - giving up upside by selling calls against a long equity position is a great example. Ground your trades with fundamental beliefs if need be, but use your tools and knowledge to combat risks that may create long periods of drawdown. |
What is the US Fair Tax? | Its a new way of computing sales tax. Wikipedia has a nice article on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax |
Medical Bill Consolidation | In short, no, or not retroactively. There really are multiple companies involved, each of which bills you separately for the services they provided. This can be partly avoided by selecting either a high-end health plan with lower out-of-pocket maximum, (costs more up front, of course) or by selecting a genuine Health Management Organization (not a PPO) which gathers more of the services into a single business. Either of these would result in fewer cash payments needing to be sent. But I don't know of any way to simplify things after the fact. Even if there was a consolidation service, you would have to forward the bills to them, which really wouldn't be any easier than just paying the bills. (I'm assuming you are in the US, where we have a health insurance system rather than a health system. Other countries may handle this differently.) |
How do historically low interest rates affect real estate prices? | Interest rates do generally affect house prices but other factors do too, especially the unemployment rate. However, everything else being equal, when interest rates drop, it makes the borrowing of money cheaper so tends to stimulate the economy and the housing market, increasing the demand for houses and generally causes house prices to increase (especially if the supply of new housing doesn't increase with the demand). When interest rates go up the opposite happens. Usually interest rates go down in order to stimulate a slowing economy and interest rates go up to slow down an overheated economy. Regarding your situation you are able to get a 30 year fixed rate at today’s interest rates (in Australia the longest fixed rate you can get is for 10 years and the rate is usually 1 or 2 percent higher than the standard variable rate. Most people here go for the variable rate or a fixed rate of between 1 to 3 years). This means that even if rates do go up in the future you won't be paying a higher rate, which is a positive for you. You are buying the house to live in so as long as you can keep making the repayments you should not be too worried if the price of the house drops sometime in the future, because if your house has dropped and you want to sell to buy another house to live in, then that house would have also dropped relative to yours (give or take). So your main worry is that rates will go up causing both house prices to fall and unemployment to rise, and you yourself losing your job and eventually your house. It is a risk, but what you need to consider is if you can manage that risk. Firstly, I believe rates won't be going up in the US for a number of years, and if and when they do start going up they will most probably start going up slowly. So you have some time on your side. Secondly, what can you do between now and when interest rates do start going up in a few years: Try to put more saving away to increase your safety net from 6 months to 12 months or more, or make extra repayments into your home loan so that you are ahead if things do go wrong. If you are worried that you could lose your job, what can you do to reduce your chances of losing your job or increasing your chances of getting a new job quickly if you do lose it? Improve your current skills, get new skills, become an invaluable employee, or look at possible opportunities to start your own business. Do your own research on the types of houses you are looking at buying, the more houses you look at the better prepared you will be when the right house at the right price comes along, and the less chance that you will be rushed into buying what might be an overpriced house. So to sum it up; do as much research as you can, have an understanding of what your risks are and how you are going to manage those risks. |
What significant negative factors affect Yahoo's valuation? | There are two very large negative factors that affect Yahoo's valuation. The first is that their search business is in decline and continues to lose ground to Google and even Bing. There's no sign that they have any plan or product in the works to offset this decline, so there's tremendous uncertainty about the company's forward-looking revenues. The second is that the company can't seem to decide what to do with its stake in Alibaba, clearly the company's most valuable asset. It they sell it, the question then becomes what they plan to do with the proceeds. Will they do share buybacks or offer a special dividend to reward investors? Will they use some or all of the money to make strategic acquisitions that are revenue-enhancing? Will they use it to develop new products/services? Keep in mind one other thing here, too. There's a world of difference between what something is valued at and what someone's willing to actually pay for it. A patent portfolio is great and perhaps holds good value, assuming the buyer can find a way to monetize it. How exactly was the valuation of the patents arrived at, and are they worthwhile enough for someone to pay anywhere close to that valuation? There's more to this than meets the eye by using a first-blush look at asset valuation, and that's where the professionals come in. My bet is that they have it right and there's something the rest of the market doesn't see or understand about it, hence questions like yours. I hope this helps. Good luck! |
Are there any rules against penalizing consumers for requesting accurate credit reporting? | I think you're off base here. The bureaus only remove information if the creditor cannot verify any dispute within 30 days, or if the information's super old. If the creditor can provide corrected information, then the credit bureau is required to apply it to its own database. A dispute can be about the entire account, or it can be about payment status within a given span (or spans) of time. Of course, it's the consumer who has to initiate the dispute. |
Where to start with personal finance? | The Money Girl (Quick and Dirty Tips for a richer life) Podcast is a pretty good source for this type of information. Some Recent Topics: |
Table of how many years it takes to make a specified return on the stock market? | The Money Chimp site lets you choose two points in time to see the return. i.e. you give it the time (two dates) and it tells you the return. One can create a spreadsheet to look at multiple time periods and answer your question that way, but I've not seen it laid out that way in advance. For what it's worth, I am halfway to my retirement number. I can tell you, for example that at X%, I hit my number in Y years. 8.73% gets me 8/25/17 (kid off to college) 3.68% gets me 8/25/21 (kid graduates), so in a sense, we're after the same type of info. With the long term return being in the 10% range, you're going to get 3 years or so as average, but with a skewed bellish curve when run over time. |
What are some examples of unsecured loans | Unsecured loans are loans that have not been “secured” with any kind of collateral. For example, the bank does not have the ability to take your property or automobile if you stop making payments on an unsecured loan. These loans are sometimes referred “signature loans” due to the face your signature on the loan agreement is all that you deliver to the table. Unsecured loans are available in a variety of flavors. |
Why haven't there been personal finance apps or softwares that use regression modeling or A.I.? | How would they make money from it? They sell you the software for $100 (US example; could as easily be 100 Euros or 10,000 Japanese Yen). You use it to make recommendations on your blog. Your blog becomes rich from advertising. They sold $100 worth of software. If they spent $1 million in labor developing it, they're way behind. Another problem is that the software would stop working and need adjusted periodically. This is easy to do on a server but annoying on a PC. And who pays for the adjustments? Put both those things together, and it's a lot easier to do on a server. Another advantage is that a server can get a better data feed as well. Pay a premium for the detailed information rather than relying on public sources. And people are used to renting server access where they expect to buy software once. Another issue is that they are unlikely to beat the market this way. Yes, AIs have done so. But that's the latest AI, constantly adjusted. This is going to be a previous generation AI. It's more likely to match the market. And we already have a way to match the market: an index fund. If someone had a brilliant AI, the best use would probably be to sell it to a fund manager. The fund manager could then use the AI to find opportunities for its existing investors. Note that a $10 billion fund with a 10% return that gives a .1% commission would be paying $1 million. And that has no marketing or packaging overhead. Think $10 billion is a lot? Fidelity has $2 trillion. |
Primary Residence to Investment Property - Changing PMI Terms | You could be in a bit of a bind. I wouldn't push it any more until you read your loan papers very carefully. Going back to the lender for a refinance after you converted it to a rental (presumably without their knowledge) is risky. I doubt they'd let you refinance anyway, as the house is underwater. If the loan is performing then I wouldn't think they'd look too hard for reasons to upset the flow of checks by calling the loan due, but if you brazenly advertise the change of property use to them they may reconsider. Read your loan papers carefully to see what they can do before you lean on them too much. As for managing the finances on that property, I'd build up a cushion to deal with the fact that your payment is going to shoot up considerably in year 8. Also consider building up a side business to get another income stream going to compensate as well. You have a little time before it shoots up. |
Does the USA have a Gold reserve? | The United States is no longer on a gold standard, and the value of its currency is solely founded on the productivity of its economy. So I don't think there's any practical reason for the United States government to explicitly sell off a lot of gold to force the price to crash. In fact I would expect that the price of gold has very little interest for the Fed, or anyone else in a position of economic power in the government. I believe that we still have large reserves of it, but I have no idea what they are intended for, aside from being a relic of the gold standard. Best guess is that they'll be held on to just in case of an international trend back towards the gold standard, although that is unlikely on any time frame we would care about. |
Valuation Spreadsheet | In general spreadsheets can do all of what you ask. Have a try of some online training like these to get started. |
Can one use dollar cost averaging to make money with something highly volatile? | Dollar cost averaging is beneficial if you don't have the money to make large investments but are able to add to your holding over time. If you can buy the same monetary amount at regular intervals over time, your average cost per share will be lower than the stock's average value over that time. This won't necessarily get you the best price, but it will get you, on the whole, a good price and will enable you to increase your holdings over time. If you're doing frequent trading on a highly volatile stock, you don't want to use this method. A better strategy is to buy the dips: Know the range, and place limit orders toward the bottom of the range. Then place limit orders to sell toward the high end of the range. If you do it right, you might be able to build up enough money to buy and sell increasing numbers of shares over time. But like any frequent trader, you'll have to deal with transaction fees; you'll need to be sure the fees don't eat all your profit. |
How can I get a mortgage I can't afford? | You might also want to talk directly to a bank. If your credit report is clean, they may have some discretion in making the loan. Note - the 'normal' fully qualified loan has two thresholds, 28% (of monthly income) for housing costs, 36% for all debt servicing. A personal, disclosed loan from a friend/family which is not secured against the house, would count as part of the other debt, as would a credit card. While I don't recommend using a credit card for this purpose, the debt fits in that 28-36 gap. As Kevin points out below, not all paths are equally advisable. Nor are rules of thumb always true. Not having the OP's full details, income, assets, price of house, etc, this is just a list of things to consider. The use of a 401(k) loan in the US can be a great idea for some, bad mistake for others. This format doesn't make it easy to go into great detail, and I'm sure the 401(k) loan issue has been asked and answered in other questions. With respect to Kevin, if he wrote 'usually', I'd agree, but never say 'never.' |
Covered Call Writing - What affects the price of the options? | Matthew - what was the stock price and strike price of the option when you did this? I've never seen an at-the-money strike with only a month to run have a price 25% of the underlying stock. Jaydles covers the variables really well in his answer. |
In-laws moving in (financial/tax implications)? | GET A LAWYER. Doing business with relatives is business first, and some effort spent in setting things up and nailing down exactly what the financial relationships and obligations are beforehand can save a lot of agony and animosity later. Assuming it's a legal rental, you may be able to deduct business costs spent on maintaining the rental unit, but of course you will have to declare the rent as income. If it's just a bedroom suite, rather than a full legal apartment, I don't think you can claim it as rental. (Note that whether you decide to share cooking and such is a separate question; apartment in most areas requires its own kitchen and bathroom.) As Joe pointed out, the actual purchase also sounds like it's going to involve a large gift, which has its own tax implications. Either that, or they retain ownership of their share and you get to deal with that if you or they decide to sell. Again: GET A LAWYER. And a tax accountant or tax lawyer to advise you on those implications. This is not someplace where the average wisdom of the Internet should be relied upon except for generalities; local laws and contract details matter. |
Should I buy ~$2200 of a hot stock or invest elsewhere? | Can you afford to lose the $2200? If not, the answer is don't buy the stock. No one can tell you if a stock will continue to go up. But the general rule is that the more hype there is on a stock, the more likely it is that it's reached a top and is due for a downward correction soon. Also note that the more expectation there is for a company, the more negatively the market will react if the company's earnings report comes in even slightly below expectation, or if the company hints at a slowdown in the future. If that buyback doesn't happen you mentioned, expect the stock to drop a lot. Only a really positive surprise news announcement will make it continue to rise on earnings day. If you really want to buy this stock, my advice would be to learn about chart patterns and other basic technical analysis to have at least some idea of whether the stock is due for a correction soon. (If you see it grow in a hockey-stick shape upward, it probably is.) |
What are the important differences between mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)? | Behind the scenes, mutual funds and ETFs are very similar. Both can vary widely in purpose and policies, which is why understanding the prospectus before investing is so important. Since both mutual funds and ETFs cover a wide range of choices, any discussion of management, assets, or expenses when discussing the differences between the two is inaccurate. Mutual funds and ETFs can both be either managed or index-based, high expense or low expense, stock or commodity backed. Method of investing When you invest in a mutual fund, you typically set up an account with the mutual fund company and send your money directly to them. There is often a minimum initial investment required to open your mutual fund account. Mutual funds sometimes, but not always, have a load, which is a fee that you pay either when you put money in or take money out. An ETF is a mutual fund that is traded like a stock. To invest, you need a brokerage account that can buy and sell stocks. When you invest, you pay a transaction fee, just as you would if you purchase a stock. There isn't really a minimum investment required as there is with a traditional mutual fund, but you usually need to purchase whole shares of the ETF. There is inherently no load with ETFs. Tax treatment Mutual funds and ETFs are usually taxed the same. However, capital gain distributions, which are taxable events that occur while you are holding the investment, are more common with mutual funds than they are with ETFs, due to the way that ETFs are structured. (See Fidelity: ETF versus mutual funds: Tax efficiency for more details.) That having been said, in an index fund, capital gain distributions are rare anyway, due to the low turnover of the fund. Conclusion When comparing a mutual fund and ETF with similar objectives and expenses and deciding which to choose, it more often comes down to convenience. If you already have a brokerage account and you are planning on making a one-time investment, an ETF could be more convenient. If, on the other hand, you have more than the minimum initial investment required and you also plan on making additional regular monthly investments, a traditional no-load mutual fund account could be more convenient and less expensive. |
Discussing stock and stock index movement: clarifying percentage vs. points? | Points are index based. Simple take the total value of the stocks that compose the index, and set it equal to an arbitrary number. (Say 100 or 1000) This becomes your base. Each day, you recalculate the value of the index basket, and relate it to the base. So if our index on day 0 was 100, and the value of the basket went up 1%, the new index would be 101 points. For the example given, the percentage change would be (133.32 -133.68 ) / 133.68 * 100% = -0.27% Keep in mind that an index basket will change in composition over time. Assets are added and removed as the composition of the market changes. For example, the TSX index no longer includes Nortel, a stock that at one time made up a significant portion of the index. I'm not sure if a percentage drop in an index is really a meaningful statistic because of that. It is however, a good way of looking at an individual instrument. |
My Brokerage statement shows “Adjusted due to previous wash sale disallowed loss” what does this mean? | Well it would appear that you had a wash sale that canceled out a loss position. Without seeing the entire report, I couldn't tell you exactly what was happening or how you triggered § 1091. But just from the excerpted images, it appears as though your purchase of stock was layered into multiple tranches - perhaps you acquired more of the stock in the 61-day period than you sold (possibly because of a prior holding). If in the 61-day period around the sale of stock (30 days before and 30 days after), you also acquire the same stock (including by contract or option), then it washes out your loss. If you held your stock for a while, then in a 61-day period bought more, and sold some, then any loss would be washed out by the acquisition. Of course it is also a wash sale if your purchase of the stock follows your sale, rather than precedes it. Your disallowed loss goes into the basis of your stock holding, so will be meaningful when you do have a true economic sale of that stock. From IRS Pub 550: A wash sale occurs when you sell or trade stock or securities at a loss and within 30 days before or after the sale you: Buy substantially identical stock or securities, Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade, Acquire a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities, or Acquire substantially identical stock for your individual retirement account (IRA) or Roth IRA. If you sell stock and your spouse or a corporation you control buys substantially identical stock, you also have a wash sale. Looking at your excerpted account images, we can see a number of positions sold at a loss (sale proceeds less than basis) but each one is adjusted to a zero loss. I suspect the fuller picture of your account history and portfolio will show a more complicated and longer history with this particular stock. That is likely the source of the wash sale disallowed loss notations. You might be able to confirm that all the added numbers are appearing in your current basis in this stock (or were reflected upon your final exit from the stock). |
S&P is consistently beating inflation? | Inflation and stock returns are completely different things The CPI tracks the changes in the prices of a basket of goods a consumer might buy, the S&P 500 tracks the returns earned by investors in the equity of large companies. The two are very different things, and not closely linked. Example: A world without inflation Consider a world in which there was no inflation. Prices are fixed. Should stocks return zero? Certainly not. Companies take raw materials and produce goods and services that have value greater than that of the raw materials. They create new wealth. This wealth becomes profit for the company, which then is passed on to the owners of the company (equityholders) either in the form of dividends or, more commonly, price increases. Example: A world with no inflation and no economic growth Note that I have not implied above that companies have to grow in order for returns to outperform inflation. Total stock returns depend on the current and expected profit of the firm. Firms can remain the same size and continually kick out profits. Total returns will be positive in this environment even if there is no growth and no inflation. If the firms pay the money out as dividends, investors get a cash flow. If they retain these earnings, the value of the firm's equity increases. Total returns take both types of income into account. Technically the S&P 500 is not a total return index, but in our current legal and corporate culture environment, there is a preference for retaining profits rather than paying them out. This causes price increases. Risk bearing In principle, if profit was assured, then investors would bid up stock prices so high that profit would have to compete with the risk-free rate, which often is close to inflation (like, right now). However, profit is not assured. Firm profit swings around over time and constitutes a significant source of risk. We can think of the owners of the firm as being the bondholders and equityholders. These assets are structured such that almost all the profit risk is born by equityholders. We can therefore think of equityholders as being compensated for bearing the risk that would otherwise be born by bondholders. Because equityholders are bearing risk, stock prices must be low enough that stocks have a positive expected return (above the risk-free rate, which is presumably not significantly below inflation). This is true for the same reason that insurance premiums are positive--people have to be compensated for bearing risk. See my answer to this question for a discussion of why risk means we should expect stock prices to increase indefinitely (even if inflation halts). The S&P is not a measure of firm size or value The S&P measures the return earned by investors, not the size of US companies. True, if constituent companies grow and nothing else changes, the index goes up, but if a company shrinks a lot, it gets dropped out, rather than dragging the index down. By the way, please note that dollars "put into" equities are not stuck somewhere. They are passed on to the seller, who then uses it to buy something (even if this is a new equity issuance and the seller is the firm itself). The logic that growth of firms somehow sucks money out of usage is incorrect. |
How can I figure out how a stock's price would change after I buy shares? | It depends on many factors, but generally, the bid/ask spread will give you an idea. There are typically two ways to buy (or sell) a security: With a limit order, you would place a buy for 100 shares at $30-. Then it's easy, in the worst case you will get your 100 shares at $30 each exactly. You may get lucky and have the price fall, then you will pay less than $30. Of course if the price immediately goes up to say $35, nobody will sell at the $30 you want, so your broker will happily sit on his hands and rake in the commission while waiting on what is now a hail Mary ask. With a market order, you have the problem you mention: The ticker says $30, but say after you buy the first 5 shares at $30 the price shoots up and the rest are $32 each - you have now paid on average $31.9 per share. This could happen because there is a limit order for 5 at $30 and 200 at $32 (you would have filled only part of that 200). You would be able to see these in the order book (sometimes shown as bid/ask spread or market depth). However, the order book is not law. Just because there's an ask for 10k shares at $35 each for your $30 X stock, doesn't mean that by the time the price comes up to $35, the offer will still be up. The guy (or algorithm) who put it up may see the price going up and decide he now wants $40 each for his 10k shares. Also, people aren't obligated to put in their order: Maybe there's a trader who intends to trade a large volume when the price hits a certain level, like a limit order, but he elected to not put in a limit order and instead watch the ticker and react in real time. Then you will see a huge order suddenly come in out of nowhere. So while the order book is informative, what you are asking is actually fundamentally impossible to know fully, unless you can read the minds of every interested trader. As others said, in "normal" securities (meaning traded at a major exchange, especially those in the S&P500) you simply can't move the price, the market is too deep. You would need millions of dollars to budge the price, and if you had that much money, you wouldn't be asking here on a QA site, you would have a professional financial advisor (or even a team) that specializes in distributing your large transaction over a longer time to minimize the effect on the market. With crazier stocks, such as OTC and especially worthless penny stocks with market caps of $1 mil or less, what you say is a real problem (you can end up paying multiples of the last ticker if not careful) and you do have to be careful about it. Which is why you shouldn't trade penny stocks unless you know what you're doing (and if you're asking this question here, you don't). |
What is the difference between a bond and a debenture? | Investopedia has definitions for both: Debenture: A type of debt instrument that is not secured by physical asset or collateral. Bond: A debt investment in which an investor loans money to an entity (corporate or governmental) that borrows the funds for a defined period of time at a fixed interest rate. Wikipedia's entry for debenture says: In some countries [debenture] is used interchangeably with bond, loan stock or note. Seems to me that there's not much difference. |
Commencing a Pension from an SMSF | No. Disclaimer - As a US educated fellow, I needed to search a bit. I found an article 7 Common SMSF Pension Errors. It implied that there are minimum payments required each year as with our US retirement accounts. These minimums are unrelated to the assets within the account, just based on the total value. The way I read that, there would be a point where you'd have to sell a property or partial interest to be sure you have the cash to distribute each year. I also learned that unlike US rules, which permit a distribution of stock as part of a required minimum distribution, in Australia, the distribution must be in cash (or a deposited check, of course.) |
When looking at a mutual fund, how can you tell if it is a traditional fund or an ETF? | An Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) is a special type of mutual fund that is traded on the stock exchange like a stock. To invest, you buy it through a stock broker, just as you would if you were buying an individual stock. When looking at a mutual fund based in the U.S., the easiest way to tell whether or not it is an ETF is by looking at the ticker symbol. Traditional mutual funds have ticker symbols that end in "X", and ETFs have ticker symbols that do not end in "X". The JPMorgan Emerging Markets Equity Fund, with ticker symbol JFAMX, is a traditional mutual fund, not an ETF. JPMorgan does have ETFs; the JPMorgan Diversified Return Emerging Markets Equity ETF, with ticker symbol JPEM, is an example. This ETF invests in similar stocks as JFAMX; however, because it is an index-based fund instead of an actively managed fund, it has lower fees. If you aren't sure about the ticker symbol, the advertising/prospectus of any ETF should clearly state that it is an ETF. (In the example of JPEM above, they put "ETF" right in the fund name.) If you don't see ETF mentioned, it is most likely a traditional mutual fund. Another way to tell is by looking at the "investment minimums" of the fund. JFAMX has a minimum initial investment of $1000. ETFs, however, do not have an investment minimum listed; because it is traded like a stock, you simply buy whole shares at whatever the current share price is. So if you look at the "Fees and Investment Minimums" section of the JPEM page, you'll see the fees listed, but not any investment minimums. |
Where are open-end funds traded? | I assume that mutual funds are being discussed here. As Bryce says, open-ended funds are bought from the mutual fund company and redeemed from the fund company. Except in very rare circumstances, they exist only as bits in the fund company's computers and not as share certificates (whether paper or electronic) that can be delivered from the selling broker to the buying broker on a stock exchange. Effectively, the fund company is the sole market maker: if you want to buy, ask the fund company at what price it will sell them to you (and it will tell you the answer only after 4 pm that day when a sale at that price is no longer possible unless you committed to buy, say, 100 shares and authorized the fund company to withdraw the correct amount from your bank account or other liquid asset after the price was known). Ditto if you want to sell: the mutual fund company will tell you what price it will give you only after 4 pm that day and you cannot sell at that price unless you had committed to accept whatever the company was going to give you for your shares (or had said "Send me $1000 and sell as many shares of mine as are needed to give me proceeds of $1000 cash.") |
Analyst estimates for an insurance company | Something to consider is how broad is Yahoo! Finance taking in their data for making some comparisons. For example, did you look at the other companies in the same industry? On the Industry page, the Top Life Insurance Companies by Market Cap are mostly British companies which could make things a bit different than you'd think. Another point is how this is just for one quarter which may be an anomaly as the data could get a bit awkward if some companies are just coming back to being profitable and could have what appears to be great growth but this is because their earnings grow from $.01/share to $1/share which is a growth of $10,000 percent as this is an increase of 100 times but really this may just be from various accounting charges the company had that hit its reserves and caused its earnings to dip temporarily. |
What does it mean that stocks are “memoryless”? | I think that "memoryless" in this context of a given stock's performance is not a term of art. IMO, it's an anecdotal concept or cliche used to make a point about holding a stock. Sometimes people get stuck... they buy a stock or fund at 50, it goes down to 30, then hold onto it so they can "get back to even". By holding the loser stock for emotional reasons, the person potentially misses out on gains elsewhere. |
Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest | Think carefully about the added expenses. It may still make sense, but it probably won't be as cheap as you are thinking. In addition to the mortgage and property taxes, there is also insurance and building maintenance and repairs. Appliances, carpets, and roofs need to be replaced periodically. Depending on the area of the country there is lawn maintenance and now removal. You need to make sure you can cover the expenses if you are without a tenant for 6 months or longer. When tenants change, there is usually some cleaning and painting that needs to be done. You can deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes on your part of the building. You need to claim any rent as income, but can deduct the other part of the mortgage interest and taxes as an expense. You can also deduct building maintenance and repairs on the rental portion of the building. Some improvements need to be depreciated over time (5-27 years). You also need to depreciate the cost of the rental portion of the building. This basically means that you get a deduction each year, but lower the cost basis of the building so you owe more capital gains taxes when you sell. If you do this, I would get a professional to do your taxes at least the first year. Its not hard once you see it done, but there are a lot of details and complications that you want to get right. |
Are RSUs ever taxed as long term capital gains? | I don't know the legal framework for RSUs, so I'm not sure what is mandatory and what is chosen by the company issuing them. I recently reviewed one companies offering and it basically looked like a flat purchase of stock on the VEST date. So even if I got a zillion shares for $1 GRANTED to me, if it was 100 shares that vested at $100 on the 1st, then I would owe tax on the market value on the day of vest. Further, the company would withhold 25% of the VEST for federal taxes and 10% for state taxes, if I lived in a state with income tax. The withholding rate was flat, regardless of what my actual tax rate was. Capital gains on the change from the market value on the VEST date was calculated as short-term or long-term based on the time since the VEST date. So if my 100 shares went up to $120, I would pay the $20 difference as short term or long term based on how long I had owned them since the VEST. That said, I don't know if this is universal. Your HR folks should be able to help answer at least some of these questions, though I know their favorite response when they don't know is that you should consult a tax professional. Good luck. |
Tax implications of restricted stock units | My friend Harry Sit wrote an excellent article No Tax Advantage In RSU. The punchline is this. The day the RSUs vested, it's pretty much you got $XXX in taxable income and then bought the stock at the price at that moment. The clock for long term gain starts the same as if I bought the stock that day. Historical side note - In the insane days of the Dotcom bubble, people found they got RSUs vested and worth, say, $1M. Crash. The shares are worth $100K. The $1M was ordinary income, the basis was $1M and the $900K loss could offset cap gains, not ordinary income above $3000/yr. Let me be clear - the tax bill was $250K+ but the poor taxpayer had $100K in stock to sell to pay that bill. Ooops. This is the origin of the 'sell the day it vests' advice. The shares you own will be long term for capital gain a year after vesting. After the year, be sure to sell those particular shares and you're all set. No different than anyone selling the LT shares of stock when owning multiple lots. But. Don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog. If you feel it's time to sell, you can easily lose the tax savings while watching the stock fall waiting for the clock to tick to one year. |
What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate? | It can be a good thing for the bank to refinance your loan for you - since you will be keeping the loan at that particular institution. This gives them more time to enjoy the free money you pay them in interest for the remaining life of the loan. Banks that offer "No closing costs" are betting that mortgage payers will move their mortgage to get the lower interest rates - and whomever holds the loan, gets the interest payments. |
Are the AARP benefits and discounts worth the yearly membership cost? | It depends on you. If you're not an aggressive shopper and travel , you'll recoup your membership fee in hotel savings with one or two stays. Hilton brands, for example, give you a 10% discount. AARP discounts can sometimes be combined with other offers as well. From an insurance point of view, you should always shop around, but sometimes group plans like AARP's have underwriting standards that work to your advantage. |
Need help with the psychology of investing: past failures and future fears | You're being too hard on yourself. You've managed to save quite a bit, which is more than most people ever do. You're in a wonderful position, actually -- you have savings and time! You don't mention how long you want/need to continue working, but I'll assume 20 years or so? You don't have to invest it all at once. Like Pete B says, index funds (just read what Mr. Buffett said in recent news: he'd tell his widow to invest in the S&P 500 Index and not Berkshire Hathaway!) should be a decent percentage. You can also pick a target fund from any of the major investment firms (fees are higher than an Index, but it will take care of any asset allocation decisions). Put some in each. Also look at retirement accounts to take advantage of tax-deferred or tax-free growth, but that's another question and country-specific. In any case, don't even blink when the market goes down. And it will go down. If you're still working, earning, and saving, it'll just be another opportunity to buy more at lower prices. As for the house, no reason you can't invest and save for a house. Invest some for the long term and set aside the rest for the house in 1-5 years. If you don't think you'll ever really buy the house, though, invest the majority of it for the long-term: I have a feeling from the tone of your question that you tend to put off the big financial decisions. So if you won't really buy the house, just admit it to yourself now! |
How can risk-reward relationship exist, since the losses due to the risk should offset the reward? | Risk in finance is defined as standard deviation of returns. This is a measure of size of your returns, both negative and positive. Since the mean return is positive (at least for the stock market and fixed income), if you double the standard deviation your mean return also doubles along with it. In this way you are compensated by the market for taking on more risk. |
How is Butterfly Trade Strategy good if the mid Strike price is already past? | One way to look at a butterfly is to break it into two trades. A butterfly is actually made up of two verticals... One is a debit vertical: buy 490 put and sell the 460 put. The other is a credit vertical: sell a 460 put and buy a 430 put. If someone believes Apple will fall to 460, that person could do a few things. There are other strategies but this just compares the three common ones: 1) Buy a put. This is expensive and if the stock only goes to 460 you overpay for it. 2) Buy a put vertical. This is less expensive because you offset the price of your put. 3) Buy a butterfly. This is cheapest of the three because you have the vertical in #2 as well as a credit vertical on top of that to offset your cost. The reason why someone would use the butterfly is to pay less upfront while capitalizing on a fall to 460. Of the three, this would be the better strategy to use if that happens. But REMEMBER that this only applies if the trader is right and it goes to 460. There is always a trade off for every strategy that the trader must be aware of. If the trader is wrong, and Apple goes to say 400, the put (#1) would make the most money and the butterfly(#3) would lose money while the vertical (#2) would still gain. So that is what you're sacrificing to get the benefits of the butterfly. Also helps to draw a diagram to compare the strategies. |
How can I transfer and consolidate my 401k's and other options? | Every plan administrator has their own procedures for rollovers. In any case, you would start by browsing their website or calling them seeking information on rollover. You will need to arrange it with both your current and prior administrators. Usually the administrator will send the money directly to your current plan provider, keeping you out of the chain and minimizing any risks of tax complications. It may happen, though, that they have to send the check to you. In that case you will have a limited amount of time to provide it to your current plan. |
Investing in third world countries | Basically, unless you are an investment professional, you should not be investing in a venture in a developing country shown to you by someone else. The only time you should be investing in a developing country is if a "lightbulb" goes off in your head and you say to yourself, "With my engineering background, I can develop this machine/process/concept that will work better in this country than anywhere else in the world." And then run it yourself. (That's what Michael Dell, a computer repairman, did for "made to order" computers in the United States, and "the rest is history.") E.g. if you want to invest in "real estate" in a developing country, you might design a "modular home" out of local materials, tailored to local tastes, and selling for less than local equivalents, based on a formula that you know better than anyone else in the world. And then team up with a local who can sell it for you. Whatever you do, don't "invest" and revisit it in 10-15 years. It will be gone. |
Should I collect receipts after paying with a card? | It is probably safe to throw away the receipt. Without a system to process and store receipts, they are of little use. With regards to personal finances I'm guilty of preaching without practicing 100% of the time, but here are some arguments for keeping receipts. To reconcile your statement to receipts before paying the credit card bill - people make mistakes all the time. I bet if you have an average volume of transactions, you will find at least one mistake in 12 months. To establish baseline spending and calculate a realistic budget. So many people will draft a budget by 'estimating' where their money goes. When it comes to this chore, I think people are about as honest with themselves as exercise and counting calories. Receipts are facts. To abide by record keeping requirements for warranty, business, IRS, etc... Personally, the only thing I've caught so far is Bank of America charging me interest when I pay my bill in full every month! |
GNUCash: How to count up equity? | I would take each of these items and any others and consider how you would count it as an expense in the other direction. If you have an account for parking expenses or general transportation funds, credit that account for a refund on your parking. If you have an account for expenses on technology purchases, you would credit that account if you sell a piece of equipment as you replace it with an upgrade. If you lost money (perhaps in a jacket) how would you account for the cash that is lost? Whatever account would would subtract from put a credit for cash found. |
How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup? | And you have hit the nail on the head of holding gold as an alternative to liquid currency. There is simply no way to reliably buy and sell physical gold at the spot price unless you have millions of dollars. Exhibit A) The stock symbol GLD is an ETF backed by gold. Its shares are redeemable for gold if you have more than 100,000 shares then you can be assisted by an "Authorized Participant". Read the fund's details. Less than 100,000 shares? no physical gold for you. With GLD's share price being $155.55 this would mean you need to have over 15 million dollars, and be financially solvent enough to be willing to exchange the liquidity of shares and dollars for illiquid gold, that you wouldn't be able to sell at a fair price in smaller denominations. The ETF trades at a different price than the gold spot market, so you technically are dealing with a spread here too. Exhibit B) The futures market. Accepting delivery of a gold futures contract also requires that you get 1000 units of the underlying asset. This means 1000 gold bars which are currently $1,610.70 each. This means you would need $1,610,700 that you would be comfortable with exchanging for gold bars, which: In contrast, securitized gold (gold in an ETF, for instance) can be hedged very easily, and one can sell covered calls to negate transaction fees, hedge, and collect dividends from the fund. quickly recuperating any "spread tax" that you encounter from opening the position. Also, leverage: no bank would grant you a loan to buy 4 to 20 times more gold than you can actually afford, but in the stock market 4 - 20 times your account value on margin is possible and in the futures market 20 times is pretty normal ("initial margin and maintenance margin"), effectively bringing your access to the spot market for physical gold more so within reach. caveat emptor. |
Deposit a cheque in an alternative name into a personal bank account (Australia) | You actually don't have to open a business account with your bank, you can have a personal account with the bank and have your business funds go into it, whether it be from cheques or from Eftpos\Credit Card Facilities. You just have to get your customers to make the cheque out under your name (the same name used for your bank account). If you are trading as a sole trader and you trade under a name other than your own name, then officially you are supposed to register that name with Fair Trading in your state. However, if you are trading using another name and it is not registered, Fair Trading will only become aware of it if someone (usually one of your customers) makes a compliant about you, and they will then ask you to either stop using that name as your trading name or have it registered (if not already registered by someone else). |
Is income from crypto-currencies taxed? | Mining is income at the value at time of earning, I would use an index like XBX to determine price. Asset appreciation is capital gains. These aspects of crypto-assets are not a gray area in the US financial sector, and have been addressed for almost half a decade now. |
Is it worth it to reconcile my checking/savings accounts every month? | While it's wise, easier and safer to check your transactions online a few times a month, I opt to receive and file paper statements as a hard copy back up of account history. Any reconciliation I perform is a quick glance to make sure the numbers sound right. It's probably a small waste of time and space, but it settles some of my paranoia (due to my training as a computer engineer) about failure of electronic banking systems. If someone tampers with bank records or a SAN explodes and wipes out a bunch of account data, then I will have years worth of paper statements to back up my numbers. Having years worth of statements printed on the banks stationary will have better credibility in court than a .pdf or printout thereof that could have been doctored, in case I ever needed to take my bank to court. A little piece of mind for the price of a letter opener, a square foot file box and a couple of minutes a month. |
Is it a gift or not? | The IRS definition of gift you quoted has "full consideration ... received in return". If your friend's help is not contingent upon your monetary offer (as is the case in all your scenarios I believe?), then it shouldn't be viewed as consideration in return of your money, right? |
Are junk bonds advisable to be inside a bond portfolio that has the objective of generating stable income for a retiree? | Corporate bonds have gotten very complicated in the last 20 years to the point where individual investors are at significant disadvantages when lending money. Subordinated debentures, covenants, long maturities with short call features, opaque credit analysis, etc. Interest rates are so low now that investors (individual & professionals) are forced further out the risk & maturity spectrum for yield. It's a very crowded and busy street.....stay out of the traffic. Really you are better off owning a low cost bond fund that emulates the Barclays Corp/Gov index, or similar. That said, junk bonds may be useful to you if you can tolerate losing money when companies default....you've got to look in the mirror. Choose a fund that is diverse, Treasuries, agencies, corps both high and low.....and don't go for the highest yield. |
First Job, should I save or invest? | There is no absolute answer to this as it depends on your particular situation, but some tips: As to investing versus saving, you need to do some of both: Be careful about stockpiling too much in bank accounts. Inflation will eat that money up over time to the tune of 3-4%/year. You are young and have a longer investment horizon for retirement, take advantage of that and accept a little more risk while you can. |
Is keeping track of your money and having a budget the same thing? | A budget is a plan for spending money in the future. Tracking spending is only looking at what happened in the past. Many people only track their spending, a proper budget can be key to achieving financial goals. You might earn enough and not spend frivolously enough that you aren't hamstrung by lack of a budget, but if you have specific financial goals, odds are you'll be more successful at achieving them by budgeting rather than only tracking spending. I'm a fan of zero-sum budgets, where every dollar is allocated to a specific bucket ahead of time. Here's a good write-up on zero-sum budgets: How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget |
Is it necessary to pay tax if someone lends me money to put into my mortgage? | This answer is specifically for the UK, but one building society has an account set up specifically for this. You actually refer your friend/family member to set up an account and then it can be linked to your mortgage. They don't get any interest for their account as it's all offset against your mortgage. If you then happen to give them a cash gift (up to £250 or possibly £3000 per year, I can't work out which is the reliable number, as of 2015) then it's all completely above board. |
What's the fuss about identity theft? | Everything lies in In the end. How many days/weeks/months/years can you wait for your money back? |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.