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Why call option price increases with higher volatility | The mathematics make it easier to understand why this is the case. Using very bad shorthand, d1 and d2 are inputs into N(), and N() can be expressed as the probability of the expected value or the most probable value which in this case is the discounted expected stock price at expiration. d1 has two σs which is volatility in the numerator and one in the denominator. Cancelling leaves one on top. Calculating when it's infinity gives an N() of 1 for S and 0 for K, so the call is worth S and the put PV(K). At 0 for σ, it's the opposite. More concise is that any mathematical moment be it variance which mostly influences volatility, mean which determines drift, or kurtosis which mostly influences skew are all uncertanties thus costs, so the higher they are, the higher the price of an option. Economically speaking, uncertainties are costs. Since costs raise prices, and volatility is an uncertainty, volatility raises prices. It should be noted that BS assumes that prices are lognormally distributed. They are not. The closest distribution, currently, is the logVariance Gamma distribution. |
How should I begin investing real money as a student? | Without knowing what you are trying to achieve - make a bit of pocket money, become financially independent, invest for retirement, learn trading to become a trader - I'll give you a few thoughts ... The difficulty you will have trading with $400-600 is that brokerage will be a high proportion of your "profits". I'm not sure of the US (assuming US rather than AU, NZ, etc) rates for online brokers, but UK online brokers are the order of £6-10 / trade. Having a quick read suggests that the trading is similar $6-10/trade. With doing day trades you will be killed by the brokerage. I'm not sure what percent of profitable trades you have, but if it is 50% (e.g.), you will need to make twice the brokerage fees value on each profitable trade before you are actually making a profit. There can be an emotional effect that trips you up. You will find that trading with your own real money is very different to trading with fake money. Read up about it, this brief blog shows some personal thoughts from someone I read from time to time. With a $10 brokerage, I would suggest the following Another option, which I wouldn't recommend is to leverage your money, by trading CDFs or other derivatives that allow you to trade on a margin. Further to that, learn about trading/investing Plus other investment types I have written about earlier. |
Invest all at once after maxing out Roth IRA - or each time I contribute? | If you are like most people, your timing is kind of awful. What I mean by most, is all. Psychologically we have strong tendencies to buy when the market is high and avoid buying when it is low. One of the easiest to implement strategies to avoid this is Dollar Cost Averaging. In most cases you are far better off making small investments regularly. Having said that, you may need to "save" a bit in order to make subsequent investments because of minimums. For me there is also a positive psychological effect of putting money to work sooner and more often. I find it enjoyable to purchase shares of a mutual fund or stock and the days that I do so are a bit better than the others. An added benefit to doing regular investing is to have them be automated. Many wealthy people describe this as a key to success as they can focused on the business of earning money in their chosen profession as opposed to investing money they have already earned. Additionally the author of I will Teach You to be Rich cites this as a easy, free, and key step in building wealth. |
What prevents investors from buying high yield stocks and selling them as soon as their dividend is paid out? | The market is not stupid. It realises that a company is worth less after paying out dividends than before paying them. (It's obvious, since that company has just given out part of its earnings.) So after a company pays out dividends, its stock price normally drops approximately by the amount paid. Therefore if you buy, get the dividend, and immediately sell, under normal conditions you won't make any profit. |
How many stocks will I own in n years if I reinvest my dividends? | This answer contains three assumptions: New Share Price: Old Share Price * 1.0125 Quarterly Dividend: (New Share Price*0.01) * # of Shares in Previous Quarter Number of Shares: Shares from Previous Quarter + Quarterly Dividend/New Share Price For example, starting from right after Quarter One: New share price: $20 * 1.0125 = 20.25 1000 shares @ $20.25 a share yields $20.25 * 0.01 * 1000 = $202.5 dividend New shares: $202.5/20.25 = 10 shares Quarter Two: New share price: $20.503 1010 shares @ 20.503 yields $20.503*0.01*1010 = $207.082 dividend New shares: $207.082/20.503 = 10.1 shares Repeat over many cycles: 8 Quarters (2 years): 1061.52 shares @ $21.548 a share 20 Quarters (5 years): 1196.15 shares @ $25.012 a share 40 Quarters (10 years): 1459.53 shares @ $32.066 a share Graphically this looks like this: It's late enough someone may want to check my math ;). But I'd also assert that a 5% growth rate and a 4% dividend rate is pretty optimistic. |
Profiting from the PWC Money Tree | The hardest part seems to be knowing exactly when to sell the stock. Well yes, that's the problem with all stock investing. Reports come out all the time, sometimes even from very smart people with no motivation to lie, about expected earnings for this company, or for that industry. Whether those predictions come true is something you will only find out with time. What you are considering is using financial information available to you (and equally available to the public) to make investment choices. This is called 'fundamental analysis'; that is, the analysis of the fundamentals of a business and what it should be worth. It forms the basis of how many investment firms decide where to put their money. In a perfectly 'efficient' market, all information available to the public is immediately factored into the market price for that company's stock. ie: if a bank report states with absolute certainty (through leaked documents) that Coca-Cola is going to announce 10% revenue growth tomorrow, then everyone will immediately buy Coca-Cola stock today, and then tomorrow there would be no impact. Even if PwC is 100% accurate in its predictions, if the rest of the market agrees with them, then the price at the time of IPO would equal the future value of the cashflows, meaning there would be no gain unless results surpassed expectations. So what you are proposing is to take one sliver of the information available to the public (have you also read all publicly available reports on those businesses and their industries?), and using that to make a high risk investment. Are you going to do better than the investment firms that have teams of researchers and years of experience in the investment world? You can do quite well by picking individual stocks, but you can also lose a lot of money if you do it haphazardly. Be aware that there is risk in doing any type of investing. There is higher than average risk if you invest in equities ('the stock market'). There is higher risk still, if you pick individual stocks. There is yet even higher risk, if you pick small startup companies. There are some specific interesting side-elements with your proposal to purchase stock about to have an IPO - those are better dealt with in a separate question if you want more information; search this site for 'IPO' and you should find a good starting point. In short, the company about to go public will hire a firm of analysts who will try to calculate the best price the public will accept for an offering of shares. Stock often goes up after IPO, but not always. Sometimes the company doesn't even fill its full IPO order, adding a new type of risk to a potential investor, that the stock will drop on day 1. Consider an analogy outside the investing world: Let's say Auto Trader magazine prints an article that says "all 2015 Honda Civics are worth $15,000 if they have less than 50,000 Miles." Assume you have no particular knowledge about cars. If you read this article, and you see an ad in the paper the next day for a Honda Civic with 40k miles, should you buy it for $14k? The answer is not without more research. And even if you determine enough about cars to find one for $14k that you can reasonably sell for $15k, there's a whole world of mechanics out there who buy and sell cars for a living, and they have an edge both because they can repair the cars themselves to sell for more, and also because they have experience to spot low-offers faster than you. And if you pick a clunker (or a stock that doesn't perform even when everyone expected it would), then you could lose some serious money. As with buying and selling individual stocks, there is money to be made from car trading, but that money gets made by people who really know what they're doing. People who go in without full information are the ones who lose money in the long run. |
Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains? | On Black Friday, 1929,the market fell from over 350 to just above 200. If you were following your plan then you would buy in at about 200. But look what the market did for two years after Black Friday. It went down to about 50. You would have lost around 75% of your capital. |
Mortgage or not? | A primary residence can be an admirable investment/retirement vehicle for a number of reasons. The tax savings on the mortgage are negligible compared to these. A $200,000 mortgage might result in a $2000 annual savings on your taxes -- but a $350,000 house might easily appreciate $20,000 (tax free!) in a good year. Some reasons to not buy a larger house. Getting into or out of a house is tremendously expensive and inconvenient. It can make some life-changes (including retirement) more difficult. There is no way to "diversify" a primary residence. You have one investment and you are a hostage to its fortunes. The shopping center down the street goes defunct and its ruins becomes a magnet for criminals and derelicts? Your next-door neighbor is a lunatic or a pyromaniac? A big hurricane hits your county? Ha-ha, now you're screwed. As they say in the Army, BOHICA: bend over, here it comes again. Even if nothing bad happens, you are paying to "enjoy" a bigger house whether you enjoy it or not. Eating spaghetti from paper plates, sitting on the floor of your enormous, empty dining room, may be romantic when you're 27. When you're 57, it may be considerably less fun. Speaking for myself, both my salary and my investment income have varied wildly, and often discouragingly, over my life, but my habit of buying and renovating dilapidated homes in chic neighborhoods has brought me six figures a year, year after year after year. tl;dr the mortgage-interest deduction is the smallest of many reasons to invest in residential real-estate, but there are good reasons not to. |
Started new job. Rollover previous employer 401k to new 401k, IRA or Roth IRA? | Rolling a 401(k) to an IRA should be your default best option. Rolling a 401(k) to another 401(k) is rarely the best option, but that does happen. I've done it once when I started a job at a company that had a great 401(k) with a good selection of low-cost mutual funds. I rolled the 401(k) from one previous job in to this 401(k) to take advantage of it. In all other cases, I rolled 401(k)s from previous jobs to my Rollover IRA, which gave me the most freedom of investment options. Finally, with 401(k)-to-Roth IRA rollovers, it's important to decouple two concepts so you can analyze it as a sum of two transactions: |
What to ask Warren Buffet at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting? | For whatever it's worth, when I went to the meeting a couple of years ago, the question and answer segment is mostly students asking how to pick a stock or what book they should read. I'm sure someone else will ask but it would be interesting to hear their take on the Syrian refugee situation in Europe and how it may impact the EU in general. Or how he/they think the drought in the south western region of the US will impact the national economy, if at all. Like Keshlam says, if YOU don't care about the answer there's really no point to asking the question. The most important thing you can do is listen to what he and Munger have to say. The way they think is interesting and they have great rapport with eachother. It's a great experience and unfortunately I wasn't able to make my schedule work to attend this year. It's almost comical how many cans of Coke Warren will knock out through the day. Another fun thing to do is take the shuttle to the airstrip to check out the NetJets. I wish I had the interest and wherewithal to go when I was 16... |
What's the best way to make money from a market correction? | The best way to make money during a market correction is to be a financial services company handling transactions for people who think they can beat the market, and charging a percentage commission on each transaction, while keeping your own money somewhere nice and safe, stable and low-fee. |
When to convert employee shares in an RRSP into cash, even if there is a penalty? | The cost to you for selling is 3/8% of a years salary, this is what you won't get if you sell. Tough to calculate the what-if scenarios beyond this, since I can't quantify the risk of a price drop. Once the amount in he stock is say,10%, of a years salary, if you know a drop is coming, a sale is probably worth it, for a steep drop. My stronger focus would be on how much of your wealth is concentrated in that one stock, Enron, and all. |
What can I expect to pay when meeting my first financial planner? | My suggestion would be to ask the planner as an initial question as there could be a couple possible explanations for a free meeting: Initial consultation - Within some industries there will be that first meeting which is free to see how well do two people work together. In Canada there are some lawyers that will give a half-hour of their time and I'd imagine some financial planners may have a similar practice. This would be where that first meeting is a half-hour or hour to see what is your situation and what expertise do you want that the planner would have. Straight commission - There is also the possibility that the planner is compensated by the products you purchase through him. In this case, the mutual fund companies, insurance companies and other institutions that he recommends will be handling his compensation. While this does present a conflict of interest, you have to decide whether you want a fee-only planner which wouldn't have this issue though you'd have to pay out of pocket. Something to consider is what are you bringing to this meeting and how long is it intended to be. If you are bringing a lot of paperwork then it is definitely worth asking upfront while if it is an informal chat for a half hour then things may be different. |
Are these really bond yields? | But it also can't be 1.46%, because that would imply that a 30Y US Treasury bond only yields 2.78%, which is nonsensically low. The rates are displayed as of Today. As the footnote suggests these are to be read with Maturities. A Treasury with 1 year Maturity is at 1.162% and a Treasury with 30Y Maturity is at 2.78%. Generally Bonds with longer maturity terms give better yields than bonds of shorter duration. This indicates the belief that in long term the outlook is positive. |
Nanny taxes and payroll service | For Federal Return, Schedule H and its Instructions are a great start. You are the nanny's employer, and are responsible for FICA (social security and medicare) withholding, and also paying the employer portion. You will offer her a W4 so she can tell you how much federal and state tax to withhold. You'll use Circular E the employer's tax guide to calculate withholding. In January, you'll give her a W-2, and file the information with your own tax return. For State, some of the above applies, but as I recall, in my state, I had to submit withholding quarterly separate from my return. As compared to Federal, where I adjusted my own withholding so at year end the tax paid was correct. Unemployment insurance also needs to be paid, I believe this is state. This issue is non-political - I told my friends at the IRS that (a) the disparity between state and federal to handle the nanny tax was confusing for those of us trying to comply, and (b) even though we are treated as an employer, a 'guide to the nanny tax' would be helpful, a single IRS doc that doesn't mix non-nanny type issues into the mix. In the end, if a service is cost effective, go for it, your time is valuable, and thi is something that only lasts a few years. |
Should I talk about my stocks? | No, there is no significant harm to discussing this. Outside of possibly getting bad advice, excessive advice, or complaints that others just aren't interested... |
I'm 23, living at home, and still can't afford my own property. What could I do? | You have made the most important first step by starting to think about your money, well done. Firstly pay of all credit cards as quickly as you can and start to live within your means. Until you have paid of your credits cards don’t spend any money of unnecessary items, e.g. Once your credit cards are paid off you can start living a more normal life. Each time you spend money you need to ask yourself: Is this worth more to be then being able to buy a new house in a few years time? You should be able to save at least half the amount you were paying of the credit card each mouth and still leave a reasonable life, so setup a standing order at the start of the month to your saving account. Given your age you are like to get promoted and hence have increased pay or get increments for each year of service. Therefore Every time your pay goes up, set up a standing order to transfer at least half of the pay increases to a saving account. You did not have this money before, so you will not miss it when you save it. In the long term, you should be able to keep your car until it is about 15 years old, so will not have the cost of buying another car. Therefore once the car loan is over, you can save that money as well. |
Setting a trailing stop loss at $39.70 bid price, stock sold at $41 | Is this due to the delay? Yes, but the delay is caused by your broker and its affiliates. Trailing Stop Order is not exchange native, meaning that the broker is responsible for keeping track of whether the stop price has been reached, and the broker is responsible for sending the subsequent Market Order to the exchange. For certain exchange, even Stop Order or Stop Limit Order is not exchange native. Is it common to be so different? No, only in times of extreme volatility. |
Ask for credit decrease | I agree with JoeTaxpayer that you will be better off in the end if you can just not use your card you are better off in the long run. That said if you are determined to get a card you can control go to a credit union or local bank. Most of them will give you the credit limit you want. This may provide you with a card that you can make use of but know that you can not go wild. The down side is most of these will not be reward cards but my local credit union gave me a 7% card where my Chase card is at 18%(was 5% before the changes to credit card regulations). |
High credit utilization, some high interest - but credit score not overly bad. How to attack debt in this situation? | You need to pay off the entire balance of 7450 as soon as possible. This should be your primary financial goal at this point above anything else. A basic structure that you can follow is this: Is the £1500 balance with the 39.9% interest rate the obvious starting point here? Yes, that is fine. But all the cards and overdraft debts need to be treated with the same urgency! What are the prospects for improving my credit score in say the next 6-12 months enough to get a 0% balance transfer or loan for consolidation? This should not be a primary concern of yours if you want to move on with your financial life. Debt consolidation will not help you achieve the goals you have described (home ownership, financial stability). If you follow the advice here, by the time you get to the point of being eligible, you may not see enough savings in interest to make it worth the hassle. Focus on the hard stuff and pay off the balances. Is that realistic, or am I looking at a longer term struggle? You are looking at a significant struggle. If it was easy you would not be asking this question! The length of time will be determined by your choices: how aggressively you will cut your lifestyle, take on extra jobs, and place additional payments on your debt. By being that extreme, you will actually start to see progress, which will be encouraging. If you go in half-committed, your progress will show as much and it will be demotivating. Much of your success will hinge on your mental and emotional toughness to push through the hard work of delaying pleasure and paying off these balances. That is just my personal experience, so you can take it or leave it. :) The credit score will take care of itself if you follow this method, so don't worry about it. Good Luck! |
How do I build wealth? | Another possibility is that a lot of it is bought using borrowed money. Especially if much of your own money is in the stock market, it may be beneficial to take out a loan to buy something compared to selling other assets to raise the same amount of cash. Even going by the likely relatively conservative £200K/year before taxes, you are looking at a very nice house going for perhaps around 3-5 years' worth of pre-tax income. Let's say you have good contacts at the bank and can secure a loan for £500K at 3.5% interest (not at all unreasonable if you make half that before taxes in a single year and purchase something that can be used as collateral for the money borrowed; with a bit of negotiating, I wouldn't be surprised if one could push the interest rate even lower, and stock in a publicly traded company can also trivially be used as collateral). That's less than £1500/month in interest, before any applicable tax effects -- less than 10% of the before-tax income. And like @Victor wrote, I think it's reasonable to say that especially if the company is publicly traded, the CEO makes more than £200K/year. Given an income of £200K/year and assuming 30% taxes on that amount (the marginal tax would likely be higher, and this includes e.g. interest expense deductions), the money left over after taxes and interest payments on a £500K 3.5% debt is still about £10K/month. Even with a pretty rapid amortization schedule and even if the actual tax rate is higher, that leaves quite a bit of money to be socked away in savings and other investments. |
UK sole trader who often buys products/services on behalf of clients – do I deduct from declared income or claim as allowable expenses? | Assuming you buy the services and products beforehand and then provide them to your clients. Should the cost of these products and services be deducted from my declared income or do I include them and then claim them as allowable expenses? You arrive at your final income after accounting for your incomings and outgoings ? regularly buys products and services on behalf of clients These are your expenses. invoice them for these costs after These are your earnings. These are not exactly allowable expenses, but more as the cost of doing your business, so it will be deducted from your earnings. There will be other business expenses which you need to deduct from your earnings and then you arrive at your income/profit. So before you arrive at your income all allowable expenses have been deducted. include on my invoices to clients VAT if you charge VAT. Any charges you require them to pay i.e. credit card charges etc. You don't need to inform clients about any costs you incur for doing your business unless required by law. If you are unsure about something browse the gov.uk website or obtain the services of an accountant. Accounting issues might be costly on your pocket if mistakes are committed. |
Ghana scam and direct deposit scam? | Yes, this is a scam. Tell your dad not to pay any money. There will likely be a large deposit in his account, but if he withdraws the money from his account, the bank will come after him looking for the money when the transfer to his account is reversed. |
Understanding highly compensated employees within 401ks | HCE is defined as being above 120k$ or in the top 20 % of the company. The exact cutoff point might be different for each company. Typically, only the base salary is considered for that, but it's the company's (and 401(k)-plan's) decision. The IRS does not require HCE treatment; the IRS requires that 401(k) plans have a 'fair' distribution of usage between all employees. Very often, employees with lower income save (over-proportionally) less in their 401(k), and there is a line where the 401(k) plan is no longer acceptable to the IRS. HCE is a way for companies to ensure this forced balance; by limiting the amount of 401(k) savings for HCE, the companies ensure that the share of all contributions by below-HCE is appropriate. They will calculate/define the HCE cutoff point so that the required distribution is surely achieved. One of the consequences is that when you move over the HCE cutoff point, you can suddenly save a lot less in your 401(k). Nothing can be done about that. See this IRS page: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/definitions Highly Compensated Employee - An individual who: Owned more than 5% of the interest in the business at any time during the year or the preceding year, regardless of how much compensation that person earned or received, or For the preceding year, received compensation from the business of more than $115,000 (if the preceding year is 2014; $120,000 if the preceding year is 2015 or 2016), and, if the employer so chooses, was in the top 20% of employees when ranked by compensation. |
If there's no volume discount, does buying in bulk still make sense? | There is a trade-off. It can be worthwhile because you save those extra trips. (On the other hand, don't you need to go shopping all the time for perishable items anyway?) On the other hand, having those items on stock implies inventory costs (the space they take up might be limited, the money they represent is sleeping and cannot be put to other usage, some of them might break...). This trade-off gives you the economic order quantity. Your stock levels over time based on that would look like a saw-blade. In addition, you might want to keep a safety stock for emergencies (if you use them faster than expected, if there is a supply shortage...). |
Is there any online personal finance software without online banking? | PocketSmith is another tool you might like to consider. No personal banking details are required, but you can upload your transactions in a variety of formats. Pocketsmith is interesting because it really focus on your future cash flow, and the main feature of the interface is around having a calendar(s) where you easily enter one off or repetitive expenses/income. http://www.pocketsmith.com/ |
How May Cash be Spent Approaching Bankruptcy? | Bankruptcy law is complex. You need a lawyer who can advise you both on the statute and relevant case law for the district where you file. Your lawyer can advise you whether actions you contemplate are allowed. You can obtain advice prior to filing as you seek to determine whether the law and the relief it offers are suitable to your situation. Anyone considering filing BK should know that they will need to provide fairly extensive information. You should learn about BK as you seek to understand whether that path is the best for your situation. You should ask your lawyer specific questions about your situation and try to learn as much as you can. You should read about the problems with taking out debt or making debt repayments to creditors (especially family) prior to filing BK. These actions could impact your case and cause it to be dismissed, and could even be considered criminal (again, you need a lawyer). Some things to learn about as you contemplate Bankruptcy Be aware that BK is federal law, and you will be required to provide extensive information about your financial situation. You will be required to show up for the creditors meeting and testify that you have provided correct information. The trustee may (will) supply objections to which you and your lawyer will need to respond. Among other things, you will supply, You should seek legal advice about things that might become important, Even though you will have guidance from your lawyer, you are the one seeking relief, and you need to understand your own situation and the law. |
“In-the-Money” vs “Out-of-the-Money” Call Options | First, welcome to Money.SE. The selected page is awful. I don't know the value in listing different expirations at the same strike. Usually, all the strikes are grouped by month, so I'd be looking at Jan '15 across all strikes. "In the money" means the price of a stock is trading above the strike price, if a call, or below it, if a put. On 10/20 of some year, Intel was trading at $23.34. The January $25 call strike was just $0.70, and April's was $1.82. These were out of the money. The $25 puts were "in the money" by $1.66 so you could have paid $1.90 for the Jan $25 put, with $.24 of time premium. By November, the price rose and the put fell, to $.85, all time premium. As with stocks, the key thing is to only buy calls of stock that are going to go up. If a stock will fall, buy puts. Curious, what was the class discussion just before the teacher gave you this image? |
Can I get a mortgage from a foreign bank? | Simple answer YES you can, there are loads here are some links : world first , Baydon Hill , IPF Just googling "foreign currency mortgage", "international mortgage", or "overseas mortgage" gets you loads of starting points. I believe its an established and well used process, and they would be "classified" as a "normal" mortgage. The process even has its own wiki page Incidentally I considered doing it myself. I looked into it briefly, but the cost of fee's seemed to outweigh the possible future benefits of lower interest rates and currency fluctuations. |
Can a car company refuse to give me a copy of my contract or balance details? | You won't be able to sell the car with a lien outstanding on it, and whoever the lender is, they're almost certain to have a lien on the car. You would have to pay the car off first and obtain a clear title, then you could sell it. When you took out the loan, did you not receive a copy of the finance contract? I can't imagine you would have taken on a loan without signing paperwork and receiving your own copy at the time. If the company you're dealing with is the lender, they are obligated by law to furnish you with a copy of the finance contract (all part of "truth in lending" laws) upon request. It sounds to me like they know they're charging you an illegally high (called "usury") interest rate, and if you have a copy of the contract then you would have proof of it. They'll do everything they can to prevent you from obtaining it, unless you have some help. I would start by filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, because if they want to keep their reputation intact then they'll have to respond to your complaint. I would also contact the state consumer protection bureau (and/or the attorney general's office) in your state and ask them to look into the matter, and I would see if there are any local consumer watchdogs (local television stations are a good source for this) who can contact the lender on your behalf. Knowing they have so many people looking into this could bring enough pressure for them to give you what you're asking for and be more cooperative with you. As has been pointed out, keep a good, detailed written record of all your contacts with the lender and, as also pointed out, start limiting your contacts to written letters (certified, return receipt requested) so that you have documentation of your efforts. Companies like this succeed only because they prey on the fact many people either don't know their rights or are too intimidated to assert them. Don't let these guys bully you, and don't take "no" for an answer until you get what you're after. Another option might be to talk to a credit union or a bank (if you have decent credit) about taking out a loan with them to pay off the car so you can get this finance company out of your life. |
Search index futures in Yahoo Finance or Google Finance | Neither site offers index futures or options pricing. Your best best is likely to get the quote from a broker who supports trading those vehicles. Free sites usually limit themselves to stocks and sometimes to options chains -- the exception is Reuters where just about any security for which you have the reuters formatted trading symbol can be quoted. |
Should I make partial pre-payments on an actuarial loan? | The contract is not very clear. As much as I can understand it will still help if you make part prepayments. In an Rule 78 or Actuarial method, the schedule is drawn up front and the break-up of interest and principal for each month is calculated ahead. At the beginning both the reducing balance method as well as Actuarial method will give the same schedule. However in Actuarial method, if you make part prepayments, they get applied to the future principals, the interest are ignored. However the future interests are not reduced. Example: Say your schedule looks something like this; Monthly Payments say 100; Month | Principal | Interest 1 | 10 | 90 2 | 20 | 80 3 | 30 | 70 4 | 40 | 60 5 | 50 | 50 6 | 60 | 40 7 | 70 | 30 8 | 80 | 20 9 | 90 | 10 So lets say you have made 3 payments of 100, in the 4th month if you make 150 [in addition to 100], it would get applied to the principal of 4th, 5th and 6th month. So essentially you would save interest of 4th, 5th and 5th month. It would also reduce the total payments to 6. i.e. you will only have 7th, 8th, 9th due. The next payment you make of 100 will get applied to row 7. The disadvantage of this method over reducing balance is that the interest calculated for rows 7,8,9 don't change compared to reducing balance. However if you prepay in full, the unearned interest is calculated and returned as per the Actuarial Tables. |
What's the minimum revenue an LLC must make in Florida or NY states? | Depends on the State. In California, for example, you pay a franchise tax of $800 every year just for having LLC, and in addition to that - income tax on gross revenue. But in other States (like Wyoming, for example) there's no taxes at all, only registration fees (which may still amount to ~$100-300 a year). IRS doesn't care about LLC's at all (unless you chose to treat is as a corporation). You need to understand that in the US we have the "Federal Government" (IRS is part of that) and the "State Government" that deals with business entities, in each of the 50 States. Since you're talking about Italy, and not EU, you should similarly be talking about the relevant State, and not US. |
How should we organize our finances to effectively plan and prepare for an retirement in next 10 years? | Wow! First, congratulations! You are both making great money. You should be able to reach your goals. Are we on the right track ? Are we doing any mistakes which we could have avoided ? Please advice if there is something that we should focus more into ! I would prioritize as follows: Get on the same page. My first red flag is that you are listing your assets separately. You and your wife own property together and are raising your daughter together. The first thing is to both be on the same page with your combined income and assets. This is critical. Set specific goals for the future. Dreaming and big-picture life planning will be the foundation for building a detailed plan for reaching your goals. You will see more progress with more sacrifice. If you both are not equally excited about the goals, you will not both be equally willing to sacrifice lifestyle now. You have the income now to be able to set yourselves up to do whatever you want in 10 years, if you can agree on what you want. Hire a financial planner you trust. Interview people, ask someone who is where you want to be in 10 years. You need someone with experience that can guide you through these questions and understands how to manage your income stream. Start saving for retirement in tax-advantaged accounts. This should be as much as 10%-15% of your income combined, so $30k-$45k per year. You need to start diversifying your investments. Real estate is great, but I would never recommend it as this large a percentage of net worth. Start saving for your child's education. Hard to say what you need here, since I don't know your goals. A financial planner should assist you with this. Get rid of your debt. Out of your $2.1M of rental real estate and land, you have $1.4M of debt. It will be difficult to start a business with that much additional debt. It will also put stress on your retirement that you don't need. You are taking on lots of risk here. I would sell all but maybe one of the properties and let it cash flow. This will free up cash to start investing for retirement or future business too. Buy more rental in the future with cash only. You have plenty of income to do it this way, and you will be setting yourself up for a great future. At this point you can continue to pile funds into any/all your investments, with the goal of using the funds to start a business or to live on. If all your investments are tied up in real estate, you wont have anything to draw on if needed for a business opportunity. You need to weigh this out in your goal and planning. What should we do to prepare for a comfortable retirement and safety You cannot plan for or see all scenarios. However, good planning will give you more options and more choices. Investing driven by fear will set you up for failure. Spend less than you make. Be patient. Be generous. Cheers! |
Should I sell the home in 2014 or continue to rent it out? | You need to get the current tax software, the 2013 filing software is out already, even though it needs to update itself before filing, as the final forms aren't ready yet. Then you will look carefully at Schedule E to understand what gets written off. I see you are looking at the $2200 rent vs your own rent of $2100, but of course, the tax form doesn't care about your rent. You offset the expenses of that house against the income. The expenses are the usual suspects, mortgage interest, property tax, repairs, etc. But there's one big thing new landlords are prone to forgetting. Depreciation. It's not optional. Say the house cost you $400K. This is your basis. You need to separate the value of land which is not depreciated. For a condo with no land it can be as little as 10%, when we bought our house, for insurance purposes, the land was nearly 40% of the full value. Say you do the research and decide 30% (for land), then 70% = $280K. Depreciation is taken each year over a 27.5 year period, or just over $10,000 per year. (Note, the forms will help you get your year 1 number, as you didn't have a full year.) This depreciation helps with your cash flow during the year (as you should do the math, and if you keep the house, adjust your W4 withholdings for 2014, that lump sum you'll get in April won't pay the bills each month) but is 'recaptured' on sale. At some point in the future, you may save enough to buy a house where you wish to live, but need to sell the rental. Consider a 1031 Exchange. It's a way to sell a rental and buy a new one without triggering a taxable event. What I don't know is how long the new house must be a rental before the IRS would then allow you to move in. The same way you turned your home into a rental, a rental can be turned back to a primary residence. I just doubt you can do it right after the purchase. As fellow member @littleadv would advise, "get professional advice." And he's right. I've just offered what you might consider. The first year tax return with that Schedule E is the toughest as it's brand new. The next year is simple in comparison. The question of selling immediately is tough. Only you can decide whether the risk of keeping it is too great. You're saying you don't have the money to cover two month's vacancy. That scares me. I'd focus on beefing up the emergency account. And securing a credit line. You mentioned the tax savings. My opinion is that for any investment,the tax tail should never wag the investing dog. Buy or sell a stock based on the stock, not the potential tax bill for the sale. In your situation, the rent and expenses will cancel each other, and the depreciation is a short term loan, from a tax perspective. If you sold today, what do you net? If you analyzed the numbers now, what is your true income from the property each year? Is that return worth it? A good property will provide cash flow, principal reduction each year, and normal increase in value. This takes a bit of careful looking at the numbers. You might feel you're just breaking even, but if the principal is $12K less after a year, that's something you shouldn't ignore. On the other hand, an exact 'break-even' with little equity at stake offered you a leveraged property where any gains are a magnified percentage of what you have at risk. Last - welcome to Money.SE - consider adding some more details to your profile. |
More money towards down payment versus long-term investments | I'd put the 20% down, close on the house, live in it for a year, and save the difference. If you find your cash flow is fine, run a calculation and start on a program of prepaying a bit of principal each month as an extra payment. If you study how amortization works, you'll understand that an extra payment of about 1/6 the amount due will knock off a full payment at the end. This is how a 30 year mortgage starts out. Meanwhile, you should keep in mind, it's easy to prepay the mortgage, but there's really no getting it back. So, before letting go of your money, I'd do a few things; I may be stating the obvious, but consider - No matter how low the payment on your mortgage, a payment is due each and every month until it's paid off. You put 80% down, take a 10 year mortgage, you still have payments for 10 years. You want to insure yourself against needing to sell in a hurry if you both lose your jobs, so whatever you put down, I'd recommend a healthy emergency account, 9-12 months worth of expenses. |
Net loss not distributed by mutual funds to their shareholders? | I'll try to answer using your original example. First, let me restate your assumptions, slightly modified: The mutual fund has: Note that I say the "mutual fund has" those gains and losses. That's because they occur inside the mutual fund and not directly to you as a shareholder. I use "realized" gains and losses because the only gains and losses handled this way are those causes by actual asset (stock) sales within the fund (as directed by fund management). Changes in the value of fund holdings that are not sold are not included in this. As a holder of the fund, you learn the values of X, Y, and Z after the end of the year when the fund management reports the values. For gains, you will also typically see the values reported on your 1099-DIV under "capital gains distributions". For example, your 1099-DIV for year 3 will have the value Z for capital gains (besides reporting any ordinary dividends in another box). Your year 1 1099 will have $0 "capital gains distributions" shown because of the rule you highlighted in bold: net realized losses are not distributed. This capital loss however can later be used to the mutual fund holder's tax advantage. The fund's internal accounting carries forward the loss, and uses it to offset later realized gains. Thus your year 2 1099 will have a capital gain distribution of (Y-X), not Y, thus recognizing the loss which occurred. Thus the loss is taken into account. Note that for capital gains you, the holder, pay no tax in year 1, pay tax in year 2 on Y-X, and pay tax in year 3 on Z. All the above is the way it works whether or not you sell the shares immediately after the end of year 3 or you hold the shares for many more years. Whenever you do sell the shares, you will have a gain or loss, but that is different from the fund's realized losses we have been talking about (X, Y, and Z). |
What is title insurance, and should I get title insurance for my home? | Title insurance protects you from losing rights to your property in case of a court decision. Let's look at an example I recently found in local newspapers. One old woman sold her apartment to person A. The deed was attested by a notary public who verified that indeed in was that old woman putting her signature on the deed. Then person A sold the apartment to person B, etc, then after several deals some unfortunate Buyer bought that apartment. The deal looked allright, so he's got a mortgage to pay for the apartment. Later it turned out that the old lady died three months before she "sold" the apartment and the notary public was corrupt. Old lady's heirs filed a lawsuit and the deal was void. So the ultimate Buyer lost all rights to the apartment although he purchased it legally. This is the case when title insurance kicks in. You need one if there's a chance for a deal to be deemed void. |
What do these numbers mean for the S&P? | USB is the ticker for US Bancorp. The numbers to me look like their prediction of the return for the day, I could be wrong but I think that's what it is. |
How were self employed folk taxed in the U.K. before 1997 | This link: http://www.ifs.org.uk/fs/articles/ewgm_feb93.pdf (from 1996, describing the proposals for the change) seems to answer the question in its description of "the current system" - they had to file business accounts and it was calculated by the Inland Revenue from that. |
When and how should I pay taxes on ForEx trades? | I guess Bitcoin are not that popular yet and hence there are no specific regulations. If currently it gets debated, it would be treated more like a Pre-Paid card or your Paypal account. As you have already paid taxes on the $$ you used to buy the Bitcoins there is no tax obligation as long as you keep using it to buy something else. The other way to look at it is as a commodity. If you have purchased a commodity and it has appreciated in value in future you may be liable to pay tax on the appreciated value. Think of it as a if you bought a house with the $$ and sold it later. Once more serious trade starts happening, the governments around the world would bring in regulations. Till then there is nothing to worry about. |
If a startup can always issue new shares, what value is there to stocks/options? | It's called "dilution". Usually it is done to attract more investors, and yes - the existing share holders will get diluted and their share of ownership shrinks. As a shareholder you can affect the board decisions (depends on your stake of ownership), but usually you'll want to attract more investors to keep the company running, so not much you can do to avoid it. The initial investors/employees in a startup company are almost always diluted out. Look at what happened to Steve Jobs at Apple, as an example. |
How to know if two ETFs are 'substantially identical' according to wash sale rules? | Nobody knows for sure what "substantially identical" means because the IRS hasn't officially defined it. Until they do so, it would come down to the decision of an auditor or a tax court. The rule of thumb that I have always heard is if the funds track the same index, they are probably substantially identical. I think most people wouldn't consider any pair of AGG, CMF, and NYF to be substantially identical, so you should be safe with your tax-loss harvesting strategy. |
Easiest way to diversify savings | Are there banks where you can open a bank account without being a citizen of that country without having to visit the bank in person? I've done it the other way around, opened a bank account in the UK so I have a way to store GBP. Given that Britain is still in the EU you can basically open an account anywhere. German online banks for instance allow you to administrate anything online, should there be cards issued you would need an address in the country. And for opening an account a passport is sufficient, you can identify yourself in a video chat. Now what's the downside? French banks' online services are in French, German banks' services are in German. If that doesn't put you off, I would name such banks in the comments if asked. Are there any online services for investing money that aren't tied to any particular country? Can you clarify that? You should at least be able to buy into any European or American stock through your broker. That should give you an ease of mind being FCA-regulated. However, those are usually GDRs (global depository receipts) and denominated in GBp (pence) so you'd be visually exposed to currency rates, by which I mean that if the stock goes up 1% but the GBP goes up 1% in the same period then your GDR would show a 0% profit on that day; also, and more annoyingly, dividends are distributed in the foreign currency, then exchanged by the issuer of the GDR on that day and booked into your account, so if you want to be in full control of the cashflows you should get a trading account denominated in the currency (and maybe situated in the country) you're planning to invest in. If you're really serious about it, some brokers/banks offer multi-currency trading accounts (again I will name them if asked) where you can trade a wide range of instruments natively (i.e. on the primary exchanges) and you get to manage everything in one interface. Those accounts typically include access to the foreign exchange markets so you can move cash between your accounts freely (well for a surcharge). Also, typically each subaccount is issued its own IBAN. |
Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income? | There is only one way to create "stable" income using options: write COVERED calls. This means you must own some stocks which offer an active and liquid option market (FB would be good; T would be useless.) In other words, you need to own some "unstable" stocks, tickers that have sometimes scary volatility, and of course these are not great stocks for a retiree. But, let's assume you own 500 shares of FB, which you bought in June of 2015 for $75. Today, you could have been paid $2,375 for selling five Mar18'16 $105 Calls. Your reasoning is: So, the rule is: ONLY SELL COVERED CALLS AT A PRICE YOU WOULD BE HAPPY TO ACCEPT. If you follow the rule, you'll generate more-or-less "stable" income. Do not venture off this narrow path into the rest of Option Land. There be dragons. You can select strike prices that are far out of the money to minimize the chance of being exercised (and sweeten the deal by collecting an even higher price if the stock flies that high). If you are thinking about doing this, study the subject thoroughly until you know the terminology backwards and forwards. (Don't worry about "the greeks" since market makers manipulate implied volatility so wildly that it overrides everything else.) |
Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer | This seems very suspicious, as if it were fraud, and not a legitimate collector. Garnishing wages takes a court order. A court would require a bit more proof than a name. Names can easily be common, I know sets of first cousins named after the common grandparent, 4 pairs in my extended family, along with 2 triples. The court would certainly look for a social security number match. Your own credit history will show no activity in that state. A legitimate debt collector would handle this very differently. |
How is a stop order price different from an ask price | Stop order is triggered when the market reaches the price you set. Until then - its not on the books. Your understanding is wrong in that you don't go to read the definition of the term. |
How to account for startup costs for an LLC from personal money? | If you have a single member LLC there is no need to separate expenses in this way since it is simply treated as part of the owner's normal tax returns. This is the way I've been operating. Owner of Single-Member LLC If a single-member LLC does not elect to be treated as a corporation, the LLC is a "disregarded entity," and the LLC's activities should be reflected on its owner's federal tax return. If the owner is an individual, the activities of the LLC will generally be reflected on: Form 1040 Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship) (PDF) Form 1040 Schedule E, Supplemental Income or Loss (PDF) Form 1040 Schedule F, Profit or Loss from Farming (PDF) An individual owner of a single-member LLC that operates a trade or business is subject to the tax on net earnings from self employment in the same manner as a sole proprietorship. If the single-member LLC is owned by a corporation or partnership, the LLC should be reflected on its owner's federal tax return as a division of the corporation or partnership. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/single-member-limited-liability-companies |
Does earning as a non-resident remote worker on an American account make people liable for U.S taxes? | The United States taxes nonresident aliens on two types of income: First, a nonresident alien who is engaged in a trade or business in the United States is taxed on income that is effectively connected with that trade or business. Second, certain types of U.S.-source payments are subject to income tax withholding. The determination of when a nonresident alien is engaged in a U.S. trade or business is highly fact-specific and complex. However, keeping assets in a U.S. bank account should not be treated as a U.S. trade or business. A nonresident alien's interest income is generally subject to U.S. federal income tax withholding at a rate of 30 percent under Section 1441 of the tax code. Interest on bank deposits, however, benefit from an exception under Section 1441(c)(10), so long as that interest is not effectively connected with a U.S. trade or business. Even though no tax needs to be withheld on interest on a bank deposit, the bank should still report that interest each year to the IRS on Form 1042-S. The IRS can then send that information to the tax authority in Brazil. Please keep in mind that state and local tax rules are all different, and whether interest on the bank deposits is subject to state or local tax will depend on which state the bank is in. Also, the United States does tax nonresident aliens on wages paid from a U.S. company, if those wages are treated as U.S.-source income. Generally, wages are U.S.-source income if the employee provides services while physically present in the United States. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they depend on the amount of wages and other factors that are specific to the employee's situation. This is an area where you should really consult with a U.S. tax advisor before the employment starts. Maybe your company will pay for it? |
How should I handle taxes for Minecraft server donations? | Technically, this is considered "income" for you, and is actually not considered a "donation" for your donors, but is instead a "gift" (not tax-deductible for your donors). So, you are technically required to report it, and there is a pretty significant audit trail that can be followed to prove you made that money. I don't know if PayPal is required to file 1099s for payments received, but if you've ever received such a document, so has the IRS, and they'll match it to the income you claimed and see a discrepancy, triggering an audit. Depending on the amount that it affects your taxes (it can be significant; if you have a $50k/yr day job, you'd owe the government 25 cents on every dollar donated), they can let it slide, they may simply dock your next return, or they may come after you for interest and penalties or even charge you with criminal tax fraud if they could prove you maliciously attempted to conceal this revenue. Now, if you already itemize using a Schedule A, then you can erase this income by deducting the costs of the server, not to exceed the amount of the donations. The best you can do is offset it; you cannot use this deduction to reduce taxable income from other sources. Also, you must itemize; you can't take your standard deduction, and with a maximum possible deduction of the actual costs of running the server ($1500, IF you receive enough donations to fully pay for it) compared to one person's standard deduction ($5800), you'll want to take the standard deduction if you don't have other significant deductions (medical expenses, mortgage interest/property taxes, etc). If you were charging users a monthly fee for use of the server, then you've basically created a de facto sole proprietorship, and you would still have to count the fees as income, but could then deduct the full cost of running the server. You'd fill out a Schedule C listing the revenue and expenses, and back them up with statements from your ISP/hosting company and from PayPal. Now, this would apply if you were running the server with the primary goal of making a regular profit; Schedule C cannot be used for income from a "hobby", undertaken primarily for enjoyment and where a few bucks in revenue is gravy. Whether you think you can get away with that in your current situation is your prerogative; I don't think you would, given that the donations are solicited and optional, and thus there is no expectation of ever turning a profit on this game server. |
Best personal finance strategy to control my balance | I started storing and summing all my receipts, bills, etc. It has the advantage of letting me separate expenses by category, but it's messy and it takes a long time. It sounds from this like you are making your summaries far too detailed. Don't. Instead, start by painting with broad strokes. For example, if you spent $65.17 at the grocery store, don't bother splitting that amount into categories like toiletries, hygiene products, food, and snacks: just categorize it as "grocery spending" and move on to the next line on your account statement. Similarly, unless your finances are heavily reliant on cash, don't worry about categorizing each cash expense; rather, just categorize the withdrawal of cash as miscellaneous and don't spend time trying to figure out exactly where the money went after that. Because honestly, you probably spent it on something other than savings. Because really, when you are just starting out getting a handle on your spending, you don't need all the nitty-gritty details. What you need, rather, is an idea of where your money is going. Figure out half a dozen or so categories which make sense for you to categorize your spending into (you probably have some idea of where your money is going). These could be loans, cost of living (mortgage/rent, utilities, housing, home insurance, ...), groceries, transportation (car payments, fuel, vehicle taxes, ...), savings, and so on -- whatever fits your situation. Add a miscellaneous category for anything that doesn't neatly fit into one of the categories you thought of. Go back something like 3-4 months among your account statements, do a quick categorization for each line on your account statements into one of these categories, and then sum them up per category and per month. Calculate the monthly average for each category. That's your starting point: the budget you've been living by (intentionally or not). After that, you can decide how you want to allocate the money, and perhaps dig a bit more deeply into some specific category. Turns out you are spending a lot of money on transportation which you didn't expect? Look more closely at those line items and see if there's something you can cut. Are you spending more money at the grocery store than you thought? Then look more closely at that. And so on. Once you know where you are and where you want to be (such as for example bumping the savings category by $200 per month), you can adjust your budget to take you closer to your goals. Chances are you won't realistically be able to do an about-face turn on the spot, but you can try to reduce some discretionary category by, say, 10% each month, and transfer that into savings instead. That way, in 6-7 months, you have cut that category in half. |
On what quantity the Dividend is given in India? | So My question is if I purchased the shares on 03-08-15 then will I get the dividend? Yes if you purchase on 3-Aug, the shares will actually get credited to your account on 5-Aug and hence you will hold the shares on 6-Aug, the record date. |
How do I figure out if I will owe taxes | Do you have a regular job, where you work for somebody else and they pay you a salary? If so, they should be deducting estimated taxes from your paychecks and sending them in to the government. How much they deduct depends on your salary and what you put down on your W-4. Assuming you filled that out accurately, they will withhold an amount that should closely match the taxes you would owe if you took the standard deduction, have no income besides this job, and no unusual deductions. If that's the case, come next April 15 you will probably get a small refund. If you own a small business or are an independent contractor, then you have to estimate the taxes you will owe and make quarterly payments. If you're worried that the amount they're withholding doesn't sound right, then as GradeEhBacon says, get a copy of last year's tax forms (or this year's if they're out by now) -- paper or electronic -- fill them out by estimating what your total income will be for the year, etc, and see what the tax comes out to be. |
Can the Philadelphia Center City District Tax be deducted on my Schedule-A? | My basic rule of thumb is that if the the bill come from a government office of taxation, and that if you fail to pay the amount they can put a tax lien on the property it is a tax. for you the complication is in Pub530: Assessments for local benefits. You cannot deduct amounts you pay for local benefits that tend to increase the value of your property. Local benefits include the construction of streets, sidewalks, or water and sewer systems. You must add these amounts to the basis of your property. You can, however, deduct assessments (or taxes) for local benefits if they are for maintenance, repair, or interest charges related to those benefits. An example is a charge to repair an existing sidewalk and any interest included in that charge. If only a part of the assessment is for maintenance, repair, or interest charges, you must be able to show the amount of that part to claim the deduction. If you cannot show what part of the assessment is for maintenance, repair, or interest charges, you cannot deduct any of it. An assessment for a local benefit may be listed as an item in your real estate tax bill. If so, use the rules in this section to find how much of it, if any, you can deduct. I have never seen a tax bill that said this amount is for new streets, and the rest i for things the IRS says you can deduct. The issue is that if the Center City tax bill is a separate line or a separate bill then does it count. I would go back to the first line of the quote from Pub 530: You cannot deduct amounts you pay for local benefits that tend to increase the value of your property. Then I would look at the quote from the CCD web site: The Center City District (CCD) is a business improvement district. Our mission is to keep Philadelphia's downtown, called Center City, clean, safe, beautiful and fun. We provide security, cleaning and promotional services that supplement, but do not replace, basic services provided by the City of Philadelphia and the fundamental responsibilities of property owners. CCD also makes physical improvements to the downtown, installing and maintaining lighting, > signs, banners, trees and landscape elements. and later on the same page: CCD directly bills and collects mandatory payments from properties in the district. CCD also receives voluntary contributions from the owners of tax-exempt properties that benefit from our services. The issues is that it is a business improvement district (BID), and you aren't a business: I did find this document from the city of Philadelphia explain how to establish a BID: If the nature of the BID is such that organizers wish to include residential properties within the district and make these properties subject to the assessment, it may make sense to assess these properties at a lower level than a commercial property, both because BID services and benefits are business-focused, and because owner-occupants often cannot treat NID assessments as tax-deductible business expenses, like commercial owners do. Care must be taken to ensure that the difference in commercial and residential assessment rates is equitable, and complies with the requirements of the CEIA. from the same document: Funds for BID programs and services are generated from a special assessment paid by the benefited property owners directly to the organization that manages the BID’s activities. (Note: many leases have a clause that allows property owners to pass the BID assessment on to their tenants.) Because they are authorized by the City of Philadelphia, the assessment levied by the BID becomes a legal obligation of the property owner and failure to pay can result in the filing of a lien. I have seen discussion that some BIDS can accept tax deductible donations. This means if a person itemizes they can deduct the donation. I would then feel comfortable deducting the tax because: If you can't deduct it that would mean the only people who can't deduct it are home owners. So deduct it. (keep in mind I am not a tax professional) |
company market capitalization to total (annual) stock market capitalization | Market cap is speculative value, M = P * W, where W is stock (or other way of owning) percentage of ownership, P - price of percentage of ownership. This could include "outside of exchange" deals. Some funds could buy ownership percentage directly via partial ownership deal. That ownership is not stock, but fixed-type which has value too. Stock market cap is speculative value, M2 = Q * D, where D is free stocks available freely, Q - price of stock, in other words Quote number (not price of ownership). Many stock types do NOT provide actual percentage of ownership, being just another type of bond with non-fixed coupon and non-fixed price. Though such stocks do not add to company's capitalization after sold to markets, it adds to market capitalization at the moment of selling via initial price. |
Home office deduction using simplified method & expensing of non-permanent office modification? | Yes, you may deduct the cost of building the "noise cancellation system" :) sorry couldn't resist. But seriously, yes you can deduct it ONCE (unless you have more cost maintaining it) and its on line 19 (Repairs and maintenance) of IRS Form 8829. |
Are services provided to Google employees taxed as income or in any way? | Others have pointed out that many benefits offered by employers "for free" are actually taxed; the employee must pay taxes on the value of what they're receiving (usually services of some kind). This is called imputed income. Also pointed out was that healthcare is an exception; a specifically protected class of benefits that aren't taxed. But sometimes they are. Many companies now offer domestic partner health coverage as well, regardless of whether the couple is in any kind of civil union or other arrangement. The costs to the employee vary, but it's often that they simply pay double of what their individual coverage contribution would be. Independent of the employee's direct contribution for their domestic partner, they must also pay taxes on the value of the employer's cost of the coverage. This can be significant, as typically the employer is paying the lion's share of the healthcare cost. |
How can I decide whether do a masters even if I have go into debt after doing it? | What should I do? Weigh your options and decide which education investment lines up better with your goals. Some of the costs from pursuing a degree at the more reputable university may include: However there are probably some benefits to pursuing a degree at this university: You will know best which of these apply to you in addition to any pros or cons not mentioned. You need to evaluate each one in order to make a decision. |
H&R Block says form 1120 not finalized? IRS won't take it yet? | The forms get updated every year, and the software providers need to get approved by the IRS every year. "Form is not yet finalized" means that this year form hasn't been approved yet. IRS starts accepting returns on January 31st anyway, nothing to be worried about. Why are you nearing a deadline? The deadline for 1120 (corporate tax return) is 2 and 1/2 months after your corp year end, which if you're a calendar year corp is March 15th. If your year end is in November/December - you can use the prior year forms, those are finalized. |
Alternatives to Intuit's PayTrust service for online bill viewing and bill payment? | Paytrust seems to be the only game in town. We've changed banks several times over the last 15 years and I can tell you that using a bank's bill pay service locks you in, big time. I loved paytrust because I could make one change if we changed banks. If you're using a bank directly for your bills, the ides of recreating your payee list is daunting. |
Turning 30 and making the right decision with my savings and purchasing home | I love the idea of #1, keep that going. I don't think #2 is very realistic. Given the short time frame putting money at risk for a higher yield may not work in your favor. If it was me, I'd stick to a "high interest" savings account (around 1%). I don't mind #3 either, however, I'd be socking whatever you could to mortgage principle so you can get out of PMI sooner rather than later. That would be my top priority. Given the status of interest rates, you may end up saving money in the long run. I doubt it, but you may. If you choose to go with #3, don't settle for a house that you really don't like. Get something that you want. Who knows it may take you a year or so to find something! |
Does a company's stock price give any indication to or affect their revenue? | Look at the how the income statement is built. The stock price is nowhere on it. The net income is based on the revenue (money coming in) and expenses (money going out). Most companies do not issue stock all that often. The price you see quoted is third parties selling the stock to each other. |
What are the downsides that prevent more people from working in high-income countries, and then retiring in low-income (and cost of living) ones? | One thing not mentioned is that in so called third world countries, a lot of "stuff" isn't actually less expensive. Food is almost always less expensive, housing is often less expensive, but cars, fuel, computers, smartphones, electronics, brand name clothing, shoes, cosmetics, tools, art supplies, internet service, bicycles, sporting goods and many other consumer items are typically more expensive. |
60% Downpayment on house? | Voluntarily assuming a loan is a bad idea, especially for a non-investment purpose. It would be one thing to take on a loan to operate a business or buy a piece of capital equipment, like a machine that would make you money. Borrowing money to have a more luxurious house is foolish. The smart move is to buy a good quality home that will meet your needs for as little as possible. Having $800,000 leaves a quit a bit of leeway in that department. You don't say where you live, but if this occurred in my area (eastern Massachusetts) I would buy a house for $500,000 and then invest the remaining $300,000. If I lived in the California bay area, it might be necessary to spend the whole $800,000. Either way there should be no need to borrow money. Also, if you buy a house for cash, often you can get a substantially better deal than if you have to involve a bank. Not owing anyone money is a huge psychological advantage in business and in life in general. View being debt-free as a springboard to success and happiness. |
Comparing option data between yahoo finance and CBOE for SPY options | The CBOE site, as well as some other sites and trading platforms, will show the bid/ask and statistics for that option at each individual options exchange, in addition to statistics and the best bid/offer across all exchanges. cboe.com: Delayed Quote Help lists what the single-letter codes mean. A is for the AMEX options exchange, B is for BOX, X is for PHLX, etc. |
What are my chances at getting a mortgage with Terrible credit but High income | I also am paying roughly twice as much in rent as a mortgage payment would be on the type of house I have been looking at, so I'd really like to purchase a house if possible. Sounds like I need to rain on your parade a bit: there's a lot more to owning a house than the mortgage. Property tax, insurance, PMI, and maintenance are things that throw this off. You'll also be paying more interest than normal given your recent credit history. It's still possible that buying is better than renting, but one really should run the detailed math on this. For example, looking at houses around where I live, insurance, property tax and special assessments over the course of a year roughly equal the mortgage payments annually. You probably won't be able to get a loan just yet. If you've just started your new job it will take a while to build a documentable income history sufficient for lenders. But take heart! As you take the next year to save up a down payment / build up an emergency fund you'll discover that credit score improves with time. However, it's crucial that you don't do anything to mess with the score. Pay all your bills on time. Don't take out a car loan. Don't close your old revolving accounts. But most of all, don't worry. Rent hurts (I rent too) but in many parts of the US owning hurts more, as your property values fall. A house down the street from my dear old mother has been on the market for several months at a price 33 percent lower than her most recent appraisals. I'm comfortable waiting until markets stabilize / start rising before jumping on real estate. |
Evidence for timing market in the short run? | The time horizon for your IRA is years or decades, therefore there is little evidence that there is a benefit to waiting for the "perfect time" to invest. Unless you plan on making only one or 2 years of investments now and then waiting till retirement; the other deposits you will make over the decades will have a greater influence on returns. If you are going to search for the perfect time to invest in your index fund, pick a deadline. "I will take the first sign better than X but will not wait beyond Y". |
Protecting savings from exceptional taxes | Over the last few years I've read quite a bit about monetary history. I've developed two very important rules from this study: If you follow these two rules you will be able to weather almost any governmental or banking crisis. |
Mortgage company withholding insurance proceeds | Fire insurance, as you have discovered, is a complete ripoff. Most people pay fire insurance all their lives with no benefit whatsoever, and those such as yourself who are lucky enough to get a payout find that it is completely insufficient to replace their loss. I once computed the actual beneficial net present financial value of my fire insurance policy and it came out to $40 per month. The cost was $800 per month. That is typical. Homeowners pay $500 to $800 per year for something that is worth $30 to $50 per year. Ironically banks would actually make more money from mortgages if they did not require mortgagees to buy insurance, but nevertheless they insist on it. It is not about logic, but about fear and irrationality. When I paid off my mortgage and gained ownership of my home the first thing I did was cancel my fire insurance. I now invest the money I would have wasted on insurance, making money instead of losing it. Being compelled to throw money down the toilet on fire insurance is one of the hidden costs of a homeowners mortgage in the United States. In your situation, the main option is to borrow the money to rebuild the house using the land as collateral, if the land is valuable enough. Of course, you still owe the money for your original mortgage on your now (non-existent) home. So, to get a home, you will have to have the income to service two mortgages. A loan officer at a reputable bank can tell you whether you have the income necessary to support two mortgages. If you were maxed out on your original mortgage, then you may not have enough income and you are screwed. In that case you will have to go back to renting and gradually paying off your old mortgage. (If it were me, I would sue the insurance company pro se as a way to get the necessary money to rebuild the home, because insurance companies roll over like a $20 hooker when they get sued. Juries hate insurance companies. But I am unusual in that I love courtrooms and suing people. Most people are terrified of courtrooms though, so it may not be an option for you.) |
Avoiding sin stock: does it make a difference? | This question drives at what value a shareholder actually provides to a corporation, and by extent, to the economy. If you subscribe for new shares (like in an Initial Public Offering), it is very straightforward to say "I have provided capital to the corporation, which it is using to advance its business." If you buy shares that already exist (like in a typical share purchase on a public exchange), your money doesn't go to the company. Instead, it goes to someone who paid someone who paid someone who paid someone (etc.) who originally contributed money to the corporation. In theory, the value of a share price does not directly impact the operation of the company itself, apart from what @DanielCarson aptly noted (employee stock options are affected by share price, impacting morale, etc.). This is because in theory, the true value of a company (and thus, the value of a share) is the present value of all future cashflows (dividends + final liquidation). This means that in a technical sense, a company's share price should result from the company's value. The company's true value does not result from the share price. But what you are doing as a shareholder is impacting the liquidity available to other potential investors (also as mentioned by @DanielCarson, in reference to the desirability for future financing). The more people who invest their money in the stock market, the more liquid those stocks become. This is the true value you add to the economy by investing in stocks - you add liquidity to the market, decreasing the risk of capital investment generally. The fewer people there are who are willing to invest in a particular company, the harder it is for an investor to buy or sell shares at will. If it is difficult to sell shares in a company, the risk of holding shares in that company is higher, because you can't "cash out" as easily. This increased risk then does change the value of the shares - because even though the corporation's internal value is the same, the projected cashflows of the shares themselves now has a question mark around the ability to sell when desired. Whether this actually has an impact on anything depends on how many people join you in your declaration of ethical investing. Like many other forms of social activism, success relies on joint effort. This goes beyond the direct and indirect impacts mentioned above; if 'ethical investing' becomes more pronounced, it may begin to stigmatize the target companies (fewer people wanting to work for 'blacklist' corporations, fewer people buying their products, etc.). |
Can you recommend some good websites/brokers for buying/selling stocks in India? | There are quite a few online brokers ... All of these have different pricing structure and the right one would depend on the amount of & type of trading you are doing, for example Reliance Money offer 1 paise brokrage, but with a higer anual fees, so it makes sense if you are doing delivery trades and not IPO or Day trades ... Others changes less of anual fees but more of brokrage. |
Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | Buying gold, silver, palladium, copper and platinum. The first two I am thinking about new currencies. The last three for the perpetual need for the metals in industry. I also have invested in Numismatic coins. They are small portable and easy to hide around the house. I only collect silver coins, so even if the world really blows up and numismatics goes out the window, I can depend on them forming a barter system through the content value of the silver. The problem with collectable items is that they are easy to see. For example, a nice painting just shouts out "steal me!". I don't buy large gold coins. As long as the coin is below 1/4 Oz gold I collect it. If the dollar does finaly collapse, to be honest it will be so bad that I think weapons will be order of the day. Do I think it will collapse...nah never. |
What are my chances at getting a mortgage with Terrible credit but High income | The bottom line, is that you are doing the right thing now: correcting your past indiscretions. Get those collections taken care of, then start saving for a down payment. Of course, during this time, you should pay your bills early or on time. During that time your credit will improve dramatically. I bet that this will not be an issue once you have your down payment saved, so the point is moot. However, with outstanding collections it is very unlikely you will get a loan. In my own case, I had to pay a collection, that I did not owe, in order to obtain a mortgage. It was for a small amount and the loan officer told me that "it is the cost of doing business". Ship $150 and my loan when through free and clear. |
If a country can just print money, is global debt between countries real? | This is a extremely complicated subject, but I assume you want a very simple answer (otherwise I'm not qualified to answer). The value of most currencies is closely tied to the economy of the county, so if China were to print a huge amount of yuan, then since the value of their economy has not really changed, the international currency markets would devalue the yuan to compensate. (This is rather like, if have shares in, say Apple, and they were to issue an extra billion shares, then the value of your shares would fall (by half), rather than for Apple to be suddenly be worth twice as much) Print too many notes and your currency basically becomes almost worthless, which is what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar. I like the idea of China skipping crate loads of actual yuan or dollars notes to America, but in practice, the borrowing is just a paper exercise, rather like an IOU. As to whether America owes Yuan or dollars, the answer is whatever has been agreed. Assuming the currencies are fairly stable, then since each country has more control over their own currency, it is natural for them to prefer their own currency. However, if America believes the value of the dollar will increase, they may prefer to pay back in Yuan (costing them less dollars), and if China believes the value of the dollar will decrease they may agree to that. |
Trouble sticking to a budget when using credit cards for day to day transactions? | First of all, I have to recognize up front that my "spending personality" is frugal. I don't recreational shop, and I save a lot of my total income. Building a budget and sticking to it is difficult, especially for people who are closer to living paycheck to paycheck than I. Theoretically, it should be easy to stick to a budget by overestimating expenses, but for many people planning to spend more than necessary isn't a luxury available. That said, I have a system that works for me, maybe it can work for you. This system lets me see how much I have to spend, and close to optimally arranges assets. As you can see, this system relies on some pretty strong upfront planning and adherence to the plan. And what you might not realize is that you can deviate from the plan in two ways: by spending variations and by timing variations. Credit should really help with a lot of the timing variations; it takes a series of expenses and translates them into one lump payment every month. As for spending variations, like spending 20 dollars for lunch when you only budgeted 5, it turns out this technique helps a lot. Some academic work suggests that spending with plastic is more likely to blow your budget than cash, unless you make detailed plans. But it sounds like your main problem is knowing whether you can afford to splurge. And the future minimum balance of your checking account can be your splurge number. |
How do annual risks translate into long-term risks? | The short answer is the annualised volatility over twenty years should be pretty much the same as the annualised volatility over five years. For independent, identically distributed returns the volatility scales proportionally. So for any number of monthly returns T, setting the annualization factor m = 12 annualises the volatility. It should be the same for all time scales. However, note the discussion here: https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/7496/7178 Scaling volatility [like this] only is mathematically correct when the underlying price model is driven by Geometric Brownian motion which implies that prices are log normally distributed and returns are normally distributed. Particularly the comment: "its a well known fact that volatility is overestimated when scaled over long periods of time without a change of model to estimate such "long-term" volatility." Now, a demonstration. I have modelled 12,000 monthly returns with mean = 3% and standard deviation = 2, so the annualised volatility should be Sqrt(12) * 2 = 6.9282. Calculating annualised volatility for return sequences of various lengths (3, 6, 12, 60 months etc.) reveals an inaccuracy for shorter sequences. The five-year sequence average got closest to the theoretically expected figure (6.9282), and, as the commenter noted "volatility is [slightly] overestimated when scaled over long periods of time". Annualised volatility for varying return sequence lengths Edit re. comment Reinvesting returns does not affect the volatility much. For instance, comparing some data I have handy, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Capital Returns (CR) versus Net Returns (NR). The return differences are somewhat smoothed, 0.1% each month, 0.25% every third month. More erratic dividend reinvestment would increase the volatility. |
What is the valuation of a company based on? | The textbook answer would be "assets-liabilities+present discounted value of all future profit". A&L is usually simple (if a company has an extra $1m in cash, it's worth $1m more; if it has an extra $1m in debt, it's worth $1m less). If a company with ~0 assets and $50k in profit has a $1m valuation, then that implies that whoever makes that valuation (wants to buy at that price) really believes one of two things - either the future profit will be significantly larger than $50k (say, it's rapidly growing); or the true worth of assets is much more - say, there's some IP/code/patents/people that have low book value but some other company would pay $1m just to get that. The point is that valuation is subjective since the key numbers in the calculations are not perfectly known by anyone who doesn't have a time machine, you can make estimates but the knowledge to make the estimates varies (some buyers/sellers have extra information), and they can be influenced by those buyers/sellers; e.g. for strategic acquisitions the value of company is significantly changed simply because someone claims they want to acquire it. And, $1m valuation for a company with $500m in profits isn't appropriate - it's appropriate only if the profits are expected to drop to zero within a couple years; a stagnant but stable company with $500m profits would be worth at least $5m and potentially much more. |
Are 'per trade' fees charged on every order or just once per stock? | The answer, like many answers, is "it depends". Specifically, it depends on the broker, and the type of account you have with the broker. Most brokers will charge you once per transaction, so a commission on the buy, and a commission (and SEC fee in the US) on the sale. However, if you place a Good-til-Canceled (GTC) order, and it's partially filled one day, then partially filled another day, you'll be charged two commissions. There are other brokers (FolioFN comes to mind) that either have trading "windows", where you can make any number of trades within that window, or that have a fixed monthly fee, giving you any (probably with some upper limit) number of trades per month. There are other brokers (Interactive Brokers for example), that charge you the standard commission on buy and another commission and fee on sell, but can refund you some of that commission for making a market in the security, and pay you to borrow the securities. So the usual answer is "two commissions", but that's not universal. However, while commissions are important, with discount brokers, you'll find the percent you're paying for commissions is minimal, which losses due to slippage and poor execution can swamp. |
What does “netting” mean in this passage? | netting means to combine cash inflows and outflows (e.g. debits/credits, payments/receipts, income/expense) by subtracting the sum of all outflows from the sum of all inflows, creating one transaction. For example, if you make two trades in one day with your broker - one to buy a security for $100 and one to sell it for $110 - rather then you sending your broker $100 and them sending you $110, the transactions are "netted" - meaning they will send you the "net" amount of $10 ($110 inflow - $100 outflow). In a more general sense ("netting of instructions") it would mean to combine all instructions and only apply the "net" effect - e.g. one step forward, two steps back would combine to a "net" one step back. Most likely it will apply to the exchange of money, but it could be applied more broadly. Note that there doesn't have to be both inflows and outflows. You can also "net" multiple inflows (or outflows) into one transaction by just adding them all up, but typical business usage is to reduce the number of transactions by combining inflows and outflows. |
Debit card funds on preauthorization hold to paypal: can it be used for another transaction? | In short you have to wait till the hold expires. If its one week, its great. Few years back it was one Month. It is advisable you use a Credit Card for these type of transactions. With Credit Cards you are not out of funds like in Debit Cards. Plus the reversals are as much as I know automatic. In case of Debit Cards, the Holds are not automatically released on cancelled transactions but released only after expiry. Where as in Credit Cards, the holds are released immediately on cancelled transactions. "Does the hold reserve it for them or for the original transaction?" Yes hold is for that specific transaction from that specific merchant. i.e. if you try and book the same item from the same merchant, you will not be able to as you have money blocked. Although the merchant sends an unblock message when cancelling, on Debit cards these messages are not supported in India |
Are there any risks from using mint.com? | With Mint you are without a doubt telling a third party your username and password. If mint gets compromised, or hires a bad actor, technically there isn't anything to stop shenanigans. You simply must be vigilant and be aware of your rights and the legal protections you have against fraud. For all the technical expertise and careful security they put in place, we the customers have to know that there is not, nor will there ever be, a perfectly secure system. The trade off is what you can do for the increased risk. And when taken into the picture of all the Other* ways you banking information is exposed, and how little you can do about it, mint.com is only a minor increase in risk in my opinion. *See paypal, a check's routing numbers, any e-commerce site you shop at, every bank that has an online facing system, your HR dept's direct deposit and every time you swipe your debit / credit card somewhere. These are all technically risks, some of which are beyond your control to change. Short of keeping your money in your mattress you can't avoid risk. (And then your mattress catches fire.) |
After Market Price change, how can I get it at that price? | If the price used to be 2.50 but by the time you get in an order it's 2.80, you're going to have to pay 2.80. You can't say, "I want to buy it at the price from an hour ago". If you could, everybody would wait for the price to go up, then buy at the old price and have an instant guaranteed profit. Well, except that when you tried to sell, I suppose the buyer could say, "I want to pay the lower price from last July". So no, you always buy or sell at the current price. If you submit an order after the markets close, your broker should buy the stock for you as soon as possible the next morning. There's no strict queue. There are thousands of brokers out there, they don't take turns. So if your broker has 1000 orders and you are number 1000 on his list, while some other broker has 2 orders and number 1 is someone else wanting to buy the same stock, then even if you got your order in first, the other guy will probably get the first buy. LIFO and FIFO refer to any sort of list or queue, but don't really make sense here. When the market opens a broker has a list of orders he received overnight, which he might think of as a queue. He presumably works his way down the list. But whether he follows a strict and simple first-in-first-out, or does biggest orders first, or does buys for stocks he expects to go up today and sells for stocks he expects to go down today first, or what, I don't know. Does anybody on this forum know, are there rules that say brokers have to go through the overnight orders FIFO, or what is the common practice? |
What's the difference when asked for “debit or credit” by a store when using credit and debit cards? | I'm surprised by all the pro-credit answers here, debit has some definite advantages. Most importantly, when you pay with a credit card, the merchant pays around 3% of the transaction to the credit company. In many states, they are forced to charge you the same amount, and this is frequently toted as ''consumer protection''. But consider what this means for the business: they loose money for every credit transaction, and they're legally forbidden to do anything about it. So you're taking 3% from a business and handing it over to a massive cooperation. To make matters worse, the buisness is inevitably going to have to raise their prices (albiet by a small amount), so in the end the average consumer has gained nothing. On the other hand, the credit card company wins big, and they use their profits to pay lobbyists and lawyers to keep these rules in place. To put in the worst possible light, it's essentially legal extortion, verging on corruption. As for the fraud protection offered, while it may be true that credit cards will offer a more hassle-free reimbursement (i.e. you just don't have to pay the bill) if your card is stolen, consumer protection laws also extend to debit: in many cases your bank is legally required to cut you a check for all the money you lost. |
How can my dad (grandpa) transfer shares to my 2 year old son? | The most common way to handle this in the US is with a UTMA account. UTMA is the Uniform Transfers / Gifts to Minors Act ("UTMA" or "UGMA") which is a standard model law that most states have passed for special kinds of accounts. Once you open an account, anyone can contribute. Usually parents and grandparents will contribute $13,000 or less per year to make it a tax free transfer, but you can transfer more. The account itself would just be a standard brokerage account of any sort, but the title of the account would include your son's name, the applicable law depending on your state, and the name of the custodian who would control the account until your son turned 18. When your son does turn 18, the money is his. Until then, the money is his, but you control how it's invested. I'm a huge fan of Vanguard for UTMA/UGMAs. You may prefer to diversify a bit away from one company by selling the GE shares and buying an index mutual fund so that your child's education is not jeopardized by a rogue trader bringing down General Electric sometime in the next decade... |
Currently a Microsoft Money user on PC, need a replacement suitable for Mac | Long time Quicken user, but I have Bootcamp on my Mac, and one reason is so I can run Quicken Windows. That's one solution. You didn't mention what version of the Mac OS you're running, but Bootcamp is one alternative if you have (or can purchase) a Windows license. Be advised, Bootcamp 4, which is available with OS 10.7 (Lion) and OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion), officially supports Windows 7 only. Quicken running under Bootcamp isn't perfect, but it's better than any Mac version, and Quicken 2013 has a mobile app that allows you to view your data & enter transactions via your mobile. The Mac Version of Quicken has been panned by users. I do use Windows for work-related stuff, so I have a reason for running Windows besides using Quicken. I've read that Intuit has a market share of more than 70% in the personal finance software sector, and at this point it seems pretty clear that they are not interested in pursuing a larger share via Mac users. So if we ever see a highly functional version of Quicken for the Mac OS, it won't be any time soon. I've not used other products, but there are many reviews out there which rank them, and some consistently come to the front. Top 10 Reviews Mac Personal Finance Software 2013; WeRockYourWeb Personal Finance Software Rankings includes many Web-based alternatives; Personally, I'm not real enthusiastic about posting my personal financial data on someone's Web site. I have nothing to hide, but I just can't get comfortable with cloud-based personal finance software providers that are combing through my data, Google-like, to generate revenue. Too, it seems an unnecessary risk giving a third party a list of all my account numbers, user names, and passwords. I know that information is out there, if one has the right sort of access, but to my way of thinking, using a cloud-based personal finance software application makes it more out there. |
total of all dividend payments for a particular company | No - there are additional factors involved. Note that the shares on issue of a company can change for various reasons (such as conversion/redemption of convertible securities, vesting of restricted employee shares, conversion of employee options, employee stock purchase programs, share placements, buybacks, mergers, rights issues etc.) so it is always worthwhile checking SEC announcements for the company if you want an exact figure. There may also be multiple classes of shares and preferred securities that have different levels of dividends present. For PFG, they filed a 10Q on 22 April 2015 and noted they had 294,385,885 shares outstanding of their common stock. They also noted for the three months ended March 31 2014 that dividends were paid to both common stockholders and preferred stockholders and that there were Series A preferred stock (3 million) and Series B preferred stock (10 million), plus a statement: In February 2015, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program of up to $150.0 million of our outstanding common stock. Shares repurchased under these programs are accounted for as treasury stock, carried at cost and reflected as a reduction to stockholders’ equity. Therefore the exact amount of dividend paid out will not be known until the next quarterly report which will state the exact amount of dividend paid out to common and preferred shareholders for the quarter. |
How do I refinance a car loan into someone else's name so it can be their car? | I don't know of any way to "transfer" a debt to another person without their consent or the lender's consent. You are responsible for the loan, and you need to either pay it or give up the asset that it's tied to (the car). At least you weren't just a cosigner with no title to the car - then you'd be in worse shape. If you don't want your credit tarnished, I would start (or keep) making the payments, knowing that you are getting the equity that results from the principal you're paying (you're only out the interest portion). If it were me, here are the things I would do: |
I have a 2008 HHR under finance it needs a new engine | I know, this isn't a direct answer to your question about unloading a used car-- I've always donated it to charity and written off the price it got at auction on my taxes -- but I think the following might be useful to anyone facing a big repair bill: You know your car's condition. (If in doubt, pay your mechanic to evaluate it "as if he was considering buying it for his daughter".) If you were shopping for a used car, and you found one exactly like yours, in exactly the same condition, treated exactly as well as you treat yours (and with all the records to prove that), but with the repairs already done... how much would you be willing to pay for it? If that number is more than the repair cost, repairing is a good deal. If it's less than the repair cost, is it enough less to justify the hassle of car shopping? If so, unload it and use the repair money to buy something better. If it's in the middle... flip a coin, or pick whichever makes you feel better. |
What are the advantages and disadvantages of leasing out a property or part of a property (such as a basement apartment)? | The obvious advantage is turning your biggest liability into an income-generating asset. The downside are: (1), you have to find tenants (postings, time to show the place, credit/background check, and etc) (2), you have to deal with tenants (collection of rent, repairs of things that broke by itself, complaints from neighbors, termination, and etc) (3), you have to deal with the repairs In many ways, it's no different from running another (small) business, so it all boils down to how much time you are willing to invest and how handy you are in doing reno's and/or small repairs around the house. For profitability/ROI analysis, you want to assume collection of 11 months of rent per year (i.e. assume tenant doesn't renew after year, so you have the worst case scenario) and factor in all the associated expense (be honest). Renting out a second property is a bit tricky as you often have to deal with a large operating expense (i.e. mortgage), and renting a basement apartment is not bad financially and you will have to get used to have "strangers" downstairs. |
How do you measure the value of gold? | Gold may have some "intrinsic value" but it cannot be accurately determined by investors by any known valuation techniques. In fact, if you were to apply the dividend discount model of John Burr Williams - a variation of which is the basis of Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis and the basis of most valuation techniques - gold would have zero intrinsic value because it produces no cash flow. Legendary focus investor Warren Buffett argues that investing in gold is pure speculation because of the reason mentioned above. As others have mentioned, gold prices are affected by supply and demand, but the bigger influence on the price of gold is how the economy is. Gold is seen as a store of value because, according to some, it does not "lose value" unlike paper currency during inflation. In inflationary times, demand increases so gold prices do go up, which is why gold behaves similar to a commodity but has far less uses. It is difficult to argue whether or not gold gains or loses value because we can't determine the intrinsic value of gold, and anyone who attempts to justify any given price is pulling blinders over your eyes. It is indisputable that, over history, gold represents wealth and that in the past century and the last decade, gold prices rise in inflationary conditions as people dump dollars for gold, and it has fallen when the purchasing power of currency increases. Many investors have talked about a "gold bubble" by arguing that gold prices are inflated because of inflation and the Fed's money policy and that once interest rates rise, the money supply will contract and gold will fall, but again, nobody can say with any reasonable accuracy what the fair value of gold at any given point is. This article on seeking alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/112794-the-intrinsic-value-of-gold gives a quick overview, but it is also vague because gold can't be accurately priced. I wouldn't say that gold has zero intrinsic value because gold is not a business so traditional models are inappropriate, but I would say that gold *certainly * doesn't have a value of $1,500 and it's propped so high only because of investor expectation. In conclusion, I do not believe you can accurately state whether gold is undervalued or overvalued - you must make judgments based on what you think about the future of the market and of monetary policy, but there are too many variables to be accurate consistently. |
Should I buy or lease a car given that its not a super luxury car and I only drive 15 miles/d on avg? | Alternative: buy a recent-model used car in good condition. Or buy an older car in good condition. Let someone else pay the heavy depreciation that happens the moment you drive a new car off the dealer's lot. |
What should I be doing to protect myself from identity theft? | Here are a handful of measures I take myself: I check my credit reports once in a while and look for anything out of the ordinary. If somebody calls me on the telephone claiming to be from my bank or credit card company, utility, etc. I ask for their number, check it, and call them back. I don't give personal information to people merely claiming to be from a place I do business with. I never fill out ballots for free contests. Most of the time these are scams. When I get a call telling me "you won a free cruise" for a ballot I supposedly filled out at the mall, I say they're lying through their teeth. For excitement, I'll sometimes buy a lotto ticket instead. I'm careful when I surf the web. I don't give my personal information to web sites I can't trust. If they look the least bit shady, I'm out. Also, I use different passwords at different web sites. I avoid using a password from a public terminal, but when I must, I change my password soon after. I'm careful when I download software. I don't install anything I didn't get from a trusted source. I pay for software when necessary, so finding a trusted source is not hard. But, I've heard of people who – to save a buck – would download a pirated application from a shady warez site only to be "gifted" a trojan horse key logging or other spyware along with it. When I no longer need a bill, receipt, statement, etc. or any document containing personal information, I shred it, and I use a shredder that does a micro-cut, not just a strip- or cross-cut. The micro-cut remains go in the green bin with wet and yucky organic waste. When I no longer need a hard drive, I use a secure wiping tool like Darik's Boot & Nuke before reusing. If the drive isn't worth reusing, I'll wipe first then take apart with my Torx screwdriver. Once I have the drive platter, I scratch the heck out of it. Remains go to the community recycling depot. That's all I can think of right now; I probably missed a few :-) So, what do others do? I'm curious, too. |
Book or web site resources for an absolute beginner to learn about stocks and investing? | The Motley Fool's How to Invest How To Invest Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor The Intelligent Investor If you like The Intelligent Investor then try Benjamin's Security Analysis. But that one is not a beginner book. |
Do you know of any online monetary systems? | Congratulations! You see the problem. You can't get away from unstable currencies. The other problem is that the US will shut down anything that appears to be providing a replacement for the US Dollar. Once a token or medallion or gift certificate or whatever starts being used outside the confines of one business or one network of businesses, it will be shut down, quickly. It happened with Las Vegas gambling tokens. Another more recent attempt was with the Liberty Dollar, gold and silver coins and certificates that not only had precious metal backing, but whose proponents encouraged taking them to retailers and paying with them as if they were US Dollars. There were other problems with this idea, but it was the competitive stature of the Liberty dollar that got the headquarters raided and the main site shut down. Basically, all signs point toward dealing with currencies and their state of being systematically eroded over time. If you do find one that appears to exist, be wary, because the rules can change at any time, and the "money" will be nowhere near as liquid as a proper currency. |
Should I pay off my 50K of student loans as quickly as possible, or steadily? Why? | Here's my thoughts on the subject: |
Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY? | The reason diversification in general is a benefit is easily seen in your first graph. While the purple line (Betterment 100% Stock) is always below the blue line (S&P), and the blue line is the superior return over the entire period, it's a bit different if you retired in 2009, isn't it? In that case the orange line is superior: because its risk is much lower, so it didn't drop much during the major crash. Lowering risk (and lowering return) is a benefit the closer you get to retirement as you won't see as big a cumulative return from the large percentage, but you could see a big temporary drop, and need your income to be relatively stable (if you're living off it or soon going to). Now, you can certainly invest on your own in a diverse way, and if you're reasonably smart about it and have enough funds to avoid any fees, you can almost certainly do better than a managed solution - even a relatively lightly managed solution like Betterment. They take .15% off the top, so if you just did exactly the same as them, you would end up .15% (per year) better off. However, not everyone is reasonably smart, and not everyone has much in the way of funds. Betterment's target audience are people who aren't terribly smart about investing and/or have very small amounts of funds to invest. Plenty of people aren't able to work out how to do diversification on their own; while they probably mostly aren't asking questions on this site, they're a large percentage of the population. It's also work to diversify your portfolio: you have to make minor changes every year at a minimum to ensure you have a nicely balanced portfolio. This is why target retirement date portfolios are very popular; a bit higher cost (similar to Betterment, roughly) but no work required to diversify correctly and maintain that diversification. |
Can compensation income from an employee stock purchase plan be negative? | The sentence you quoted does not apply in the case where you sell the stock at a loss. In that case, you recognize zero ordinary income, and a capital loss (opposite of a gain) for the loss. Reference: http://efs.fidelity.com/support/sps/article/article2.html |
What is the difference between a stop order and a stop limit order? | Stop order is shorter term for stop-loss order. The point being that is intended as a protective measure. A buy stop order would be used to limit losses when an investor has sold a stock short. (Meaning that they have borrowed stock and sold it, in hopes that they can take advantage of a decline in the stock's price by replacing the borrowed stock later at a cheaper price. The idea is to limit losses due to a rising stock price.) Meanwhile, a sell stop order would be used to limit losses on a stock that an investor actually owns, by selling it before the price declines further. The important thing to keep in mind about stop orders is that they turn into market orders when the stop price is reached. This means that they will be filled at the best available price when the order is actually executed. In fast moving markets, this can be a price that is quite different from the stop price. A limit order allows an investor to ensure that they do not buy/sell a stock at more/less than the specified amount. The thing to keep in mind is that a limit order is not guaranteed to execute. A stop-limit order is a combination of a stop-loss order and limit order, in that it becomes a limit order (instead of a market order) when the stop price is reached. Links to definitions: Stop order Stop-limit order Limit order Market order |
Is engaging in stocks without researching unwise? | If you don't want to do the deep research on each individual company, you might want to look at index funds and similar "whole market" investments. |
Investing in commodities, pros and cons? | Another disadvantage is the inability to value commodities in an accounting sense. In contrast with stocks, bonds and real estate, commodities don't generate cash flows and so any valuation methodology is by definition speculative. But as rhaskett notes, there are diversification advantages. The returns for gold, for instance, tend to exhibit low/negative correlation with the performance of stocks. The question is whether the diversification advantage, which is the primary reason to hold commodities in a multi-asset class portfolio through time, overcomes the disadvantages? The answer... maybe. |
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