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Can I transfer money from a personal pension to a SIPP, while leaving the original pension open? | Just to aid your searching, note that what your employer has provided you with access to is a Group Personal Pension . Now, as to the question of whether partial transfers from a GPP to a SIPP are possible - the answer would appear to be Probably Yes; however you should contact the pension administrator at your employer (who will be able to give both the employer's and the scheme's points of view), and also the SIPP provider you are considering, to get a definitive answer. I'm basing this on the results I'm seeing googling for 'partial gpp transfer', eg Partial transfer from group pension possible? and Is it possible to transfer?. Add to that the fact that one of the largest UK SIPP providers explicitly includes a 'Partial Transfer' checkbox on their pension transfer form. |
GBP savings, what to do with them if leaving the U.K. in about 2 years time? | In general, to someone in a similar circumstance I might suggest that the lowest-risk option is to immediately convert your excess currency into the currency you will be spending. Note that 'risk' here refers only to the variance in possible outcomes. By converting to EUR now (assuming you are moving to an EU country using the EUR), you eliminate the chance that the GBP will weaken. But you also eliminate the chance that the GBP will strengthen. Thus, you have reduced the variance in possible outcomes so that you have a 'known' amount of EUR. To put money in a different currency than what you will be using is a form of investing, and it is one that can be considered high risk. Invest in a UK company while you plan on staying in the UK, and you take on the risk of stock ownership only. But invest in a German company while you plan on staying in the UK, you take on the risk of stock ownership + the risk of currency volatility. If you are prepared for this type of risk and understand it, you may want to take on this type of risk - but you really must understand what you're getting into before you do this. For most people, I think it's fair to say that fx investing is more accurately called gambling [See more comments on the risk of fx trading here: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/76482/44232]. However, this risk reduction only truly applies if you are certain that you will be moving to an EUR country. If you invest in EUR but then move to the US, you have not 'solved' your currency volatility problem, you have simply replaced your GBP risk with EUR risk. If you had your plane ticket in hand and nothing could stop you, then you know what your currency needs will be in 2 years. But if you have any doubt, then exchanging currency now may not be reducing your risk at all. What if you exchange for EUR today, and in a year you decide (for all the various reasons that circumstances in life may change) that you will stay in the UK after all. And during that time, what if the GBP strengthened again? You will have taken on risk unnecessarily. So, if you lack full confidence in your move, you may want to avoid fully trading your GBP today. Perhaps you could put away some amount every month into EUR (if you plan on moving to an EUR country), and leave some/most in GBP. This would not fully eliminate your currency risk if you move, but it would also not fully expose yourself to risk if you end up not moving. Just remember that doing this is not a guarantee that the EUR will strengthen and the GBP will weaken. |
How can I live outside of the rat race of American life with 300k? | Consider buying a legal "mother daughter" property, rent out the top part, and live in the "mother" component. |
Why is there so much variability on interest rate accounts | I spent some time comparing banks' interest rates until I realized that it didn't actually matter (to me). The only money I keep in checking and savings accounts is money that I'm going to spend shortly or is part of an emergency fund, and in both those cases convenience of liquidity is far more important than small differences in interest (I want to be able to go to a nearby branch, even if traveling, and pull out large sums of money). The majority of our money goes into investment accounts, where it's earning much more than even the best savings account. Most of your 100k would be much better served in a stock/bonds mix. Are standard taxable investment accounts one of those things you can't open? What about if you opened one in your home country? |
Formula that predicts whether one is better off investing or paying down debt | Although I don't think you need to factor in risk tolerance to get the probabilities, I agree with JoeTaxpayer that you will need to factor in risk tolerance in order to make a practical decision about what to do. In fact, I think that to make a practical decision you will need more than the specific probability you ask for you in the question; rather, you would like to see the complete probability distribution of possible outcomes. In other words, it's not enough to know that there is a 51% chance that investing will outperform paying down debt. You actually need to know much it outperforms when it does outperform, and how much it underperforms when it underperforms. As JoeTaxpayer's comment suggests, you might not choose to make an investment that had a 99% chance of outperforming debt payment by 1%, and a 1% chance of underperforming by 99%. I think it possible to address these questions by doing simulations. This can be done even with a spreadsheet, but more flexibly with simple programming. Essentially you can create some kind of probabilistic model of the various factors (e.g., chance that your investment will go up or down) and see what actually happens: how often you lose a lot of money, lose a little money, gain a little money, or gain a lot of money. Then based on that you can consult your inner spirit animal to decide whether the probability distribution of possible gains outweighs that of possible losses. |
On what quantity the Dividend is given in India? | In India, the amount of dividend you get is based on the face value of the stock. If the stock's face value is Rs. 10 and the company announced a dividend of 20%, you will receive Rs.2 per share.To see whether you qualify to receive a dividend, see the ex-dividend date of the company. If you purchased shares before that date, you will receive the dividend, else you will not |
Are these really bond yields? | that would imply that a 30Y US Treasury bond only yields 2.78%, which is nonsensically low. Those are annualized yields. It would be more precise to say that "a 30Y US Treasury bond yields 2.78% per year (annualized) over 30 years", but that terminology is implied in bond markets. So if you invest $1,000 in a 30-year T-bond, you will earn roughly 2.78% in interest per year. Also note that yield is calculated as if it compounded, meaning that investing in a 30-year T-bind will give you a return that is equivalent to putting it in a savings account that earns 1.39% interest (half of 2.78%) every 6 months and compounds, meaning you earn interest on top of interest. The trade-off for these low yields is you have virtually no default risk. Unlike a company that could go bankrupt and not pay back the bond, the US Government is virtually certain to pay off these bonds because it can print or borrow more money to pay off the debts. In addition, bonds in general (and especially treasuries) have very low market risk, meaning that their value fluctuates much less that equities, even indicies. S&P 500 indices may move anywhere between -40% and 50% in any given year, while T-bonds' range of movement is much lower, between -10% and 30% historically). |
Buying my first car out of college | I realize I'm drudging up a somewhat old post here (apologies), but I've found myself in a similar situation recently and thought I would chime in. I was considering buying a car where the loan amount would be right around 25k. I tried justifying this by saying it's ridiculously fast (I'm young and stupid, this is appealing), has AWD (nice for Colorado), and a hatchback with plenty of room for snowboards and whatnot in back. This is in comparison to my Civic which has high mileage, can hardly make it up hills due to the high altitude, sucks in snow, and has little room for anything. You have your reasons, I have mine. The thing is, our reasons are just us trying to rationalize an unwise purchase - just admit it, you know it's true. Just so you can see I'm in a similar financial situation, I'm 22, just graduated, and started a job making well over 80k with salary and signing bonus, plus 20k in RSUs on the side. After budgeting I can still put away over 2k/month after I've factored in a car payment, insurance, rent, etc etc. Yes, I could "afford" this car... it's just dumb though dude. Don't do it. There are better things we can do with our money. And guess what, I've been drooling over this car since middle school too. |
New car: buy with cash or 0% financing | There is a 3rd option: take the cash back offer, but get the money from a auto loan from your bank or credit union. The loan will only be for. $22,500 which can still be a better deal than option B. Of course the monthly payment can make it harder to qualify for the mortgage. Using the MS Excel goal seek tool and the pmt() function: will make the total payment equal to 24K. Both numbers are well above the rates charged by my credit union so option C would be cheaper than option B. |
What's the point of a chargeback when they just ask the merchant whether they owe money to the buyer? | The point of a chargeback is to force merchants to do the paperwork. Many merchants don't, and are easy targets for chargebacks, even when they have, in fact, provided the good or service. You used a tax prep service. They may have given you poor (technical) advice, but such firms are usually very good about doing the paperwork. That's why you lost. |
What are the tax implications of exercising options early? | Despite a fair number of views, no one besides @mbhunter answered, so I'll gather the findings of my own research here. Hopefully, this will help others in similar situations. If you spot any errors, please let me know! |
I'm 13. Can I buy supplies at a pet store without a parent/adult present? | I had a cat growing up--most of the time I was the one who got her supplies. It was never an issue. |
Does Robinhood calculate fees and taxes over the total gain/loss or per-transaction? | I don't see a tag for United States, so I'm having to assume this is US taxes. It doesn't matter what app you use, IRS trades are all calculated the same. First, you have to report each trade on a 8949 and from that the totals go into a schedule D. Short term trades are stocks that you've kept exactly one year or less, long term trades are for 1 year + 1 day or more. Trades where you sold a stock for a loss, then bought that stock back again under 30 days don't get to count as a loss. This only affects realized capital gains and losses, you don't count fees. First, take all of your short term gains then offset them by all of your short term losses. Do the same for long term gains and losses. Short and long term gains are taxed at different rates. You can deduct losses from short term to your long term and vice versa. Then you can deduct the total losses up to $3000 (household, $1500 married, filing separately) per year on your regular income taxes or other dividend taxes. If you have over $3000 in losses, then you need to carry that over to subsequent years. Edited per Dave's comments: thanks Dave |
Do tax-exempt bond fund earnings need to be reported on taxes? | At the end of the year, the mutual fund company sends you a statement like any other investment and it has a bunch of boxes that you copy into your tax return software. Then you just check the box that says 'tax-exempt' and you're done. |
Precedent and models for 100% equity available via initial offering? | Founder makes available 100% equity, but uses a reasonable amount of the proceeds to pay him/herself a salary (or wage) and from that salary invests in the same initial offering to acquire shares for him/herself. I see several problems. What is a reasonable salary? Also, this leaves the door open to the following scam: Founders say that they are going to follow this plan. However, instead of buying shares, they simply quit after being paid the salary. They use knowledge gained from this business to start a competitor. Investors are left holding an empty company. Tax consequences. The founder would pay income tax on the salary. By contrast, if the founder instead sells shares, that would be capital gains tax, which is lower in many countries (e.g. the United States). Why would I want to invest in a business where the founders don't believe in it enough to take a significant equity stake? Consider the Amazon.com example. Jeff Bezos makes a minimal salary, around $80,000 a year, less than many of his employees. But he has a substantial ownership position. If the company doesn't make money, he won't. Would investors really value the stocks with a P/E of 232.10 in 2016 if they didn't trust him to make the right long term decisions? It's also worth noting that most initial public offerings (IPOs) are not made when the founder is the only employee. A single employee company instead looks for private investors, often called angel investors. Companies generally don't go public until they are established in some way, often making money. Negotiating with angel investors is different from negotiating with the public. They can personally review the books and once invested tend to have input on how the money is spent. In other words, this is mostly solving the wrong problem if you talk about IPOs. This might make more sense with a crowdfunded venture, as that replaces a few angel investors with many individuals. But most crowdfunded ventures tend to approach things from the opposite direction. Instead of looking for investors, they look for customers. If they offer a useful product, they will get customers. If not, they never get the money. Beyond all this, if a founder is only going to get a fair salary some of the time, then why put in any sweat equity? This works fine if the company looks valuable after a year. What if it doesn't? The founder is out a year of sweat equity and has nothing in return. That happens now too, but the possibility of the big return offsets it. You're taking out the big return. I don't think that this is good for either founders or investors. The founder trades a potentially good or even great return for a mediocre return. The investors trade a situation where both they and the founder benefit from a successful company to one where they benefit a lot more than the founder. That's not good for either side. |
What will my taxes be as self employed? | The amount of the income taxes you will owe depends upon how much income you have, after valid business expenses, also it will depend upon your filing status as well as the ownership form of your business and what state you live in. That said, you will need to be sure to make the Federal 1040ES quarterly prepayments of your tax on time or there will be penalties. You also must remember that you will be needing to file a schedule SE with your 1040. That is for the social security taxes you owe, which is in addition to your income taxes. With an employer/employee situation, the FICA withhoding you have seen on your paycheck are matched by the same payment by your employer. Now that you are self-employed you are responcible for your share and the employer share as well; in this situation it is known as self-employment tax. the amount of it will be the same as your share of FICA and half of the employer's share of FICA taxes. If you are married and your wife also is working self-employed, then she will have to files herown schedule SE along with yours. meaning that you will pay based on your business income and she will pay baed on hers. your 1040Es quarterly prepayment must cover your income tax and your combined (yours and hers) Self Employment taxes. Many people will debate on the final results of the results of schedule SE vrs an employee's and an employer's payments combined. If one were to provides a ball park percentage that would likely apply to you final total addition to your tax libility as a result of needing schedule SE would tend to fluctuate depending upon your total tax situation; many would debate it. It has been this way since, I first studied and use this schedule decades ago. For this reason it is best for you to review these PDF documents, Form 1040 Schedule SE Instructions and Form 1040 Schedule SE. As for your state income taxes, it will depend on the laws of the state you are based in. |
Is it a good idea to get a mortgage when buying a house, for credit reasons? | I would go with the family route if I was you. And i think many other people would if they were fortunate to have such a great option. This will allow you to move faster when your trying to buy a new house because you can easily get a mortage if you see a stellar deal. Also you can establish credit in much cheaper ways than paying the 4% or so on a mortgage. finance a car that you have the money to buy because the interest rates are much lower .9% and you build the credit while paying less interest. Or even better, try and make most of your purchases on a 0 fee credit card and every 6-8 months get a new credit card to have multiple lines of ongoing credit. to use the mortage to establish credit isnt worth the 4% hit in wealth that it offers. now mind you if your options were to buy the house with your own money outright or get a mortgage i would say get the mortgage because the added leverage would help your investments beat the market most years . figure if you get 6% an average portfolio each year and you can write off the taxes on your mortgage you will be ahead by more than 2% |
More money towards down payment versus long-term investments | Another vote for a bigger downpayment, for the reasons Benjamin mentions. Also, from experience, I would save up at least a small pile as a separate house emergency fund because you will find things that are wrong and/or that got bodged by the previous owner and it's probably not going to last past the first few months of home ownership. In my case, the home inspector missed - amongst other things - that the shower on the 2nd floor was leaking both into the adjoining bedroom and the living room below. That added a little unexpected expenditure as you might guess. |
Is this mortgage advice good, or is it hooey? | Sounds like baloney to me. HELOCs are variable rate, so you are paying down the principal of a fixed rate loan with a variable rate loan. If you want to pay the mortgage down faster, make two half payments per month, and/or add a little extra to each payment (make sure with the bank that any extra will automatically go to principal). |
Should I be more aggressive in a Roth IRA, 401k, or taxable account? | I think you may be drawing the wrong conclusion about why you put what type of investment in a taxable vs. tax-advantaged account. It is not so much about risk, but type of return. If you're investing both tax-advantaged and taxable accounts, you can benefit by putting more tax-inefficient investments inside your tax-advantaged accounts. Some aggressive asset types, like real estate, can throw off a lot of taxable income. If your asset allocation calls for investing in real estate, holding it in a 401k or IRA can allow more of your money to remain invested, rather than having to use it to pay for taxes. And if you're holding in a Roth IRA, you get that tax free. But bonds, a decidedly non-aggressive asset, also throw off a lot of taxable income. You're able to hold them in a tax-advantaged account and not pay taxes on the income until you withdraw it from the account (or tax free in the case of a Roth account.) An aggressive stock fund that is primarily expected to provide returns via price appreciation would do well in a taxable account because there's likely little tax consequence to you until it is sold. |
Are Forex traders forced to use leverage? | It isn't that the companies force traders, it is more the other way around. Traders wouldn't trade without margin. The main reason is liquidity and taking advantage of minor changes in the forex quotes. It goes down to pips and traders make profit(loss) on movement of pips maybe by 1 or 2 and in some cases in 1/1000 or less of a pip. So you need to put in a large amount to make a profit when the quotes move up or down. Supposedly if they have put in all the amount upfront, their trading options are limited. And the liquidity in the market goes out of the window. The banks and traders cannot make a profit with the limited amount of money available at their disposal. So what they would do is borrow from somebody else, so why not the broker itself in this case maybe the forex company, and execute the trades. So it helps everybody. Forex companies make their profit from the fees, more the trades done, more the fees and hence more profit. Traders get to put their fingers in many pies and so their chances of making profits increases. So everybody is happy. |
Can you explain “time value of money” and “compound interest” and provide examples of each? | Here are some really excellent video tutorials on these topics: Introduction to Compound Interest Introduction to Present Value |
I own a mutual fund that owns voting shares, who gets the vote? | You will not get a vote on any issues of the underlying stock. The mutual fund owner/manager will do the voting. In 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required that fund companies disclose proxy votes, voting guidelines and conflicts of interest in the voting process. All funds must make these disclosures to the SEC through an N-PX filing, which must either be available to shareholders on the fund company's websites or upon request by telephone. You can also find your fund's N-PX filing on the SEC website. -- http://www.investopedia.com/articles/mutualfund/08/acting-in-interest.asp |
Where to Park Proceeds from House Sale for 2-5 Years? | There are some high-yield savings accounts out there that might get you close to 1 percent. Shorter term CDs might also serve you well here- rates are above 1 percent, even with 1-2 year terms: http://www.nerdwallet.com/rates/cds/best-cd-rates/ |
Do marketmakers always quote a bid and ask simultaneously | Yes, but also note each exchange have rules that states various conditions when the market maker can enlarge the bid-ask (e.g. for situations such as freely falling markets, etc.) and when the market makers need to give a normal bid-ask. In normal markets, the bid-asks are usually within exchange dictated bounds. MM's price spread can be larger than bid-ask spread only when there are multiple market makers and different market makers are providing different bid-asks. As long as the MM under question gives bid and ask within exchange's rules, it can be fine. These are usually rare situations. One advice: please carefully check the time-stamps. I have seen many occasions when tick data time-stamps between different vendors are mismatched in databases whereas in real life it isn't. MM's profits not just from spreads, but also from short term mean-reversion (fading). If a large order comes in suddenly, the MM increases the prices in one direction, takes the opposite side, and once the order is done, the prices comes down and the MM off-loads his imbalance at lower prices, etc. |
Why is it possible to just take out a ton of credit cards, max them out and default in 7 years? | I should apply for everything I can on the same day, get approved for as many as I can First it may not sound as easy. You may hardly get 2-3 cards and not dozens. Even if you submit the applications the same day; If you still plan this and somehow get too many cards, and draw huge debt, then the Banks can take this seriously and file court case. If Banks are able to establish the intent; this can get constituted as fraud and liable for criminal proceedings. So in short if someone has the money and don't want to pay; the court can attach the wage or other assets and make the person pay. If the intent was fraud one can even be sent to jail. |
Why might a share price have not changed for several days? | It is because 17th was Friday, 18th-19th were weekends and 20th was a holiday on the Toronto Stock Exchange (Family Day). Just to confirm you could have picked up another stock trading on TMX and observed the price movements. |
Need a loan to buy property in India. What are my options? | There are P2P lending sites like prosper.com and lendingclub.com (both have 35K limit) where you can take out a personal loan. Don't expect the rate to be nowhere close to a secured loan like a mortgage or a car loan. |
Why are real-term bond yields systematically declining, and what does it mean for investors? | Keep in mind there are a couple of points to ponder here: Rates are really low. With rates being so low, unless there is deflation, it is pretty easy to see even moderate inflation of 1-2% being enough to eat the yield completely which would be why the returns are negative. Inflation is still relatively contained. With inflation low, there is no reason for the central banks to raise rates which would give new bonds a better rate. Thus, this changes in CPI are still in the range where central banks want to be stimulative with their policy which means rates are low which if lower than inflation rates would give a negative real return which would be seen as a way to trigger more spending since putting the money into treasury debt will lose money to inflation in terms of purchasing power. A good question to ponder is has this happened before in the history of the world and what could we learn from that point in time. The idea for investors would be to find alternative holdings for their cash and bonds if they want to beat inflation though there are some inflation-indexed bonds that aren't likely appearing in the chart that could also be something to add to the picture here. |
What's the connection between P/E ratio and growth? | So, the price-earnings ratio is price over earnings, easy enough. But obviously earnings are not static. In the case of a growing company, the earnings will be higher in the future. There will be extra earnings, above and beyond what the stock has right now. You should consider the future earnings in your estimate of what the company is worth now. One snag: Those extra earnings are future money. Future-money is an interesting thing, it's actually worth less than present-money- because of things like inflation, but also opportunity cost. So if you bought $100 in money that you'll have 20 years from now, you'd expect to pay less than $100. (The US government can sell you that money. It's called a Series EE Savings Bond and it would cost you $50. I think. Don't quote me on that, though, ask the Treasury.) So you can't compare future money with present-money directly, and you can't just add those dollars to the earnings . You need to compute a discount. That's what discounted cash-flow analysis is about: figuring out the future cash flow, and then discounting the future figuring out what it's worth now. The actual way you use the discount rate in your formula is a little scarier than simple division, though, because it involves discounting each year's earnings (in this case, someone has asserted a discount of 11% a year, and five years of earnings growth of 10%). Wikipedia gives us the formula for the value of the future cash flow: essentially adding all the future cash flows together, and then discounting them by a (compounded) rate. Please forgive me for not filling this formula out; I'm here for theory, not math. :) |
Might I need a credit score to rent, or for any other non-borrowing finances? | Typically one wants to see a credit score, just because you may have money in the bank and decent income does not mean your going to pay, there are plenty of people who have the money but simply refuse to cough it up. Credit is simply a relative way of seeing where one fits against another in a larger group, it shows that this person not only can pay, but does pay. While not having a credit history should make no difference, I can and hopefully easily posited above why it can be necessary to have one. Not all landlords will require a credit check, I was not required to give one, I did not have much credit to begin with, given that, I was forced to cough up a higher degree of a security deposit. |
What does F[YY]e mean in reporting | It means it's estimate and not final numbers and generally used for future years |
What is the preferred way to set up personal finances? | simplicity and roi are often at odds. the simplest plan that also supports a reasonable investment return would have 3 accounts: if you want to get better returns on your investments, things can get much more complicated. here are some optional accounts to consider: besides the mechanics of money flowing between accounts, a budget helps you understand and control your spending. while there are many methods for this (e.g. envelopes of cash, separate accounts for various types of expenses), the simplest might be using mint.com. just be sure to put all your spending on a credit or debit card, and you can see your spending by category when you log into mint. it can take a bit to get it set up, and your bank needs to be compatible, but it can give you a really good picture of where your money is going. once you know that, you can start making decisions like "i should spend less on coffee", or "i should go to the zoo more", based on how much things cost vs how much you enjoy them. if you feel like your spending is out of control, then you can set yourself hard limits on certain kinds of spending, but usually just watching and influencing your own choices is enough. notes: if you have a spouse or partner, you should each maintain your own separate accounts. there are many reasons for this including simplicity and roi, besides the obvious. if you feel you must have a joint account, be sure to clearly define how it should be used (e.g. only for paying the utilities) and funded (x$ per month each). particularly with your house, do not do joint ownership. one of you should be a renter and the other a landlord. some of these statements assume you are in the usa. on a personal note, i have about 20 credit cards, 2 checking accounts, 2 ira's, 2 brokerage accounts, and 3 401k's. but i consider myself a personal finance hobbyist, and spend an absurd amount of time chasing financial deals and tax breaks. |
How do auto-loan payments factor into taxes for cars that are solely used by dependent(s)? | I don't see how allowing usage of your vehicle is less support than giving money to buy their own vehicle. If that's the only vehicle your mother has - then you're supporting her. Quantifying that support may be difficult though, but if you are providing her all of her needs - it doesn't matter. If she does have income of her own, I do not think that you can put the actual amount you're paying as part of the calculation towards the 50% rule since she would otherwise have bought a much cheaper car. But if you pass the 50% threshold even without the car payments - then you're fine either way. |
Asking price went through the roof | As folks have explained in the comments: |
How much should I be contributing to my 401k given my employer's contribution? | For your first question, the general guidelines I've seen recommended are as follows: As to your second question, portfolio management is something you should familiarize yourself with. If you trust it to other people, don't be surprised when they make "mistakes". Remember, they get paid regardless of whether you make money. Consider how much any degree of risk will affect you. When starting out, your contributions make up most of the growth of your accounts; now is the time when you can most afford to take higher risk for higher payouts (still limiting your risk as much as possible, of course). A 10% loss on a portfolio of $50k can be replaced with a good year's contributions. Once your portfolio has grown to a much larger sum, it will be time to dial back the risk and focus on preserving your capital. When choosing investments, always treat your porfolio as a whole - including non-retirement assets (other investment accounts, savings, even your house). Don't put too many eggs from every account into the same basket, or you'll find that 30% of your porfolio is a single investment. Also consider that some investments have different tax consequences, and you can leverage the properties of each account to offset that. |
Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains? | The problem is that short-term trends are really unpredictable. There is nobody who can accurately predict where a fund (or even moreso, a single stock or bond) is going to move in a few hours, or days or even months. The long-term trends of the entire market, however, are (more or less) predictable. There is a definite upward bias when you look at time-scales of 5, 10, 20 years and more. Individual stocks and bonds may crash, and different sectors perform differently from year to year, but the market as a whole has historically always risen over long time scales. Of course, past performance never guarantees future performance. It is possible that everything could crash and never come back, but history shows that this would be incredibly unlikely. Which is the entire basis for strategies based on buying and holding (and periodically rebalancing) a portfolio containing funds that cover all market sectors. Now, regarding your 401(k), you know your time horizon. The laws won't let you withdraw money without penalty until you reach retirement age - this might be 40 years, depending on your current age. So we're definitely talking long term. You shouldn't care about where the market goes over a few months if you won't be using the money until 20 years from now. The most important thing for a 401(k) is to choose funds from those available to you that will be as diverse as possible. The actual allocation strategy is something you will need to work out with a financial advisor, since it will be different for every person. Once you come up with an appropriate allocation strategy, you will want to buy according to those ratios with every paycheck and rebalance your funds to those ratios whenever they start to drift away. And review the ratios with your advisor every few years, to keep them aligned with large-scale trends and changes in your life. |
Received a call to collect on a 17 year old, charged off debt. What do I do? | There are statutes of limitations on how long they can wait before coming after you. 14 years certainly exceeds it, which I believe means you are not legally required to pay. statutes of limitations by state The most likely scenario is that this is a scam. Second most likely is that this is a collections agency trying to trick you into paying even though they don't have legal authority to force you. In that case if you do pay them anything, then the statute of limitations restarts and they can legally start giving you trouble, so definitely don't do that. If they keep harassing you, you can probably take legal action against them. That's the worst case scenario, though. I'd just ignore them. At this point, if they are legally entitled to any money, which I highly doubt, they will need to take you to court. They are not going to do that over $1000. Blocking their number might be a reasonable idea. I would doubt whether they can even do anything to your credit rating over this issue. If you are worried about your credit, you can check your oustanding debts and negative incidents at www.annualcreditreport.com and see if you see anything. I would be surprised. Edit: You might read up about time-barred debts (assuming it's not a scam. I still think it is). FTC page on time-barred debt |
How does on-demand insurance company Trov prevent insurance fraud or high prices? | For example, it is not allowed to buy flood insurance at peak flood season and then cancel it when it is over. They are not offering this right now. So it would be interesting to see if they offer this and how they offer this. For example, you can insure your camera for a week when you are going on vacation. They call it on-demand insurance. They segment Trov is targeting consumer electronics. More often people don't take insurance in this segment as the insurance cost is high and benefits low. However if going on vacation, most are afraid of loosing / damaging equipments. Generally although we are afraid, most often nothing happens. It is this segment; you make the insurance cheap and easy to buy and create a new segment. Insurance fraud detection is an important part of insurance process such that insurance companies allocate a lot of resources to detect improper insurance claims. The website does not mention how they process claims. Although it looks easy, they may have a more stringent process. For example what is stopping me from buying an insurance after event; i.e. break my phone Monday, buy insurance on Monday and make a claim on Tuesday saying the phone broke on Tuesday. |
How aggressive should my personal portfolio be? | You're completely missing the most important thing you can do: minimize fees. |
Investment strategies for young adults with entrepreneurial leanings? | I talk about this subject on my blog on investing, I share everything that has worked for me personally and that makes sense. I would say the ideal investment would be to continue the entrepreneur route. Just make sure you have a clear plan and exit strategy. For me it's all about passion, I love blogging about personal experiences with life, money, and anything that affects our lives. Find something that you would talk about whether you were paid or not and create a business off of it. You'll never work a day in your life because you love it. |
If the U.S. defaults on its debt, what will happen to my bank money? | In principle, a default will have no effect on your bank account. But if the US's credit rating is downgraded, the knock-on effects might cause some more bank failures, and if the debt ceiling is still in place then the FDIC insurance might not be able to pay out immediately. |
Pay off credit cards in one lump sum, or spread over a few months? | I know you say you are aware of secured and unsecured debt and you've made your decision. Did you do the numbers? You will pay 44k over the life of the mortgage for that 24k (Based on 4.5% APR mortgage). Once you refinance your mortgage, do you plan on using credit for a while? Lots of Americans are hyperfocused on credit scores. The only times it affects your life are when you finance something, when you apply to rent a house or apartment, and sometimes when you apply for a job. Credit score should not be a factor in this decision. You're borrowing the money at a lower rate to pay off the high rate cards because you want to pay less in interest. Considering #1 is there any reason NOT to pay off the cards immediately, if not sooner? |
Where can I see the detailed historical data for a specified stock? | To see a chart with 1-minute data for a stock on a specific date: For example, here is the chart for TWTR on November 7, 2013 - the day of the IPO: Here is the chart for TWTR on November 8, 2013 - its second day of trading: Here is the chart for TWTR on November 11, 2013 - its third day of trading: |
Why is there such disparity of max contribution limits between 401K accounts and regular IRA accounts? | IRAs were invented to help individuals save for retirement. 401(k)s were invented to help corporations provide more compensation to highly valued employees. |
How to resolve imbalances and orphan transactions in Gnucash? | I have been following some of these threads. Some of them are really old. I have read used recording to equity accounts to resolve the imbalance USD issue. The thing I noticed is that all my imbalances occur when paying bills. I took all the bills and set them up as vendor accounts, entered the bills in the new bills, and used the process payment when paying bills. The imbalance issue stopped. It makes sense. The system is a double entry. That's it will credit and debit. Assets accounts are increased with a debit and decreased with a credit. Equity accounts are increased with a credit and decreased with a debit. ie; Say you have an monthly insurance bill for $100. You enter it into the new vendor bill. This credits Accounts Payable. When paying the bill it credits checking, debits account payable, credits vendor account, debits the expense insurance. In short for each credit there has to be a debit for the books to balance. When there is no account for it to record to it will record in Imbalance USD to balance the books. |
What are the alternatives to compound interest for a Muslim? | In the UK at least, we have Credit Unions. Credit Unions are not-for-profit organisations that don't pay interest on your balance, but instead give you a share of their profits at the end of the year (or at least my local branch do). This normally equates to around 1% of my balance. |
A friend wants to use my account for a wire transfer. Is this a scam or is it legitimate? | This is another version of an old scam -- "let me have a check deposited in your account because I can't open one for some reason, and I'll share some of the money with you." Here the scammer is promising to "start a business" with you as a way to gain your confidence and trust. The first danger sign is that you only know this person from online. They are not someone you are friends with in the "real" world. They could be anybody. They used the name of a big company as a way to make what they're doing sound legitimate, but it's all a fraud. They could be depositing a faked Exxon check into your account, which could land YOU in huge trouble. Here's the thing -- The only way Exxon (or any other company) can deposit money in a bank under someone's name is if that person provides the account and routing numbers to an account that already exists. No company can just create an account in another person's name. That's Hollywood movie stuff, but it's not how banking works. To open an account, the bank would need identification on the account holder, so your "friend" already has an account if Exxon has allegedly deposited money. Further, Exxon isn't going to take back money that has already been deposited. In fact, they can't take it back. If the account is in his name, they can't do anything to the account or with the account. This is a situation you should run away from and never look back. Nothing about this story sounds right or legitimate, but this is one of the oldest scams out there since the beginning of the Internet. You would be well advised to stay VERY far away from your supposed friend, because they're anything but your friend. You are being SCAMMED. Don't be a victim. Stop communicating with this person immediately, and DON'T give them any personal information of any kind. They're crooks! I hope this helps. Good luck! |
Clarification on options jargon regarding spreads | Yes. It seems to me you got it right. On my site, Stock Options Cafe, my last post was an illustration of a bullish call spread. In this case, I bought a 50 call, and sold the 60 call. This is a debit order as I was paying money, not collecting a new premium. |
A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea? | The power of compounding interest and returns is an amazing thing. Start educating yourself about investing, and do it -- there are great Q&As on this site, numerous books (I recommend "The Intelligent Investor", tools for small investors (like Sharebuilder.com) and other resources out there to get you started. Your portfolio doesn't need to include every dime you have either. But you do need to develop the discipline to save money -- even if that savings is $20 while you're in school. How you split between cash/deposit account savings and other investment vehicles is a decision that needs to make sense to you. |
Will a credit card company close my account if I stop using it? | The workaround solution is to simply avoid having an exactly zero balance on your account. Thus for inactive credit cards that I want to keep around for emergency use, I always leave a small positive balance on the card. The credit card company reserves the right to cancel my card at any time, but a positive balance would force them to send me a check for the privilege of doing so. A positive balance avoids making the account appear inactive and makes it cheaper for them to simply leave the account open. |
Why do stock exchanges close at night? | Here are some plausible reasons why markets might continue to close: |
Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund | Naturally the advice from JoeTaxpayer and dsimcha is correct, every situation is different. I will get reckless, go nuts and make a recommendation! You are young, childless for the time being. Do the following with your money: ALTERNATE IDEA for #6 Fix yourself up for the long term first, then have a bit of fun, then get out of the house debt. In that order. |
How to exclude stock from mutual fund | Mutual funds invest according to their prospectus. If they declare that they match the investments to a certain index - then that's what they should do. If you don't want to be invested in a company that is part of that index, then don't invest in that fund. Short-selling doesn't "exclude" your investment. You cannot sell your portion of the position in the fund to cover it. Bottom line is that money has no smell. But if you want to avoid investing in a certain company and it is important to you - you should also avoid the funds that invest in it, and companies that own portions of it, and also probably the companies that buy their products or services. Otherwise, its just "nice talk" bigotry. |
How is money actually made from the buying or selling of options? | Today SPY (The S&P ETF) trades at $128. The option to buy at $140 (this is a Jan '13 call) trades for $5. I buy the call, for $500 as they trade in 100 lots. The S&P skyrockets to 1500 and SPY to $150. The call trades for $11, as it still has a month or two before expiring, so I sell it, and get $1100. The S&P rose 17%, but I doubled my money. If it 'only' rose 9%, to less than $140, I'd lose my investment. No, I don't need to buy the SPY I can sell the call any time before expiration. In fact, most options are not exercised, they are sold between purchase and expiration date. |
Is losing money in my 401K normal? | Depends on how the money is invested within the 401k... but in general, prices move both up and down with a long-tem bias toward up. Think of it this way: with fund shares priced lower now, you are getting shares cheaper than when you entered the plan. So this dip is actually working in your favor, as long as you are comfortable trusting that long-term view (and trusting the funds your 401k money is going into). Believe me, it's even scarier when you're nearer your target retirement date and a 10% dip may be six figures... but it's all theoretical until you actually start drawing the money back out, and you have to learn to accept some volatility as part of the trade-off for getting returns better than bonds. |
Safe and cheap way to send money from Canada to South America | The catch with any exchange service is that you're going to involve some sort of business and they're going to want to get paid for their service. These services all come with their own exchange rates, fees, waiting periods, or requirements to even use said service. Commonly, pros towards one of those comes at the cost of another— e.g. fast transfers have higher fees or worse exchange rates. Over the past few months I needed a service and ended up using USForex. Since you're going from CAD to USD, you'd likely need to use CanadianForex. Pros: Cons: Overall, this option was far better than the $97.00 I was quoted from WesternUnion; or the $25.00-45.00 I was quoted from BMO Harris, which would have required I open a saving account with them. I wasn't provided a clean exchange rate between these two to know how all three compared. The only bit of advice I can say with any service is compare exchange rates. If you're transferring more than a few hundred dollars, the exchange rate can be seen as a "hidden" fee when it's unreasonably low. I'm not affiliated with or accommodated by any of the exchange services mentioned. |
Credit card statement dates follow pattern? | Each bank is different. Usually in my experience for newer credit card accounts, there is a specific number of days in a billing cycle (something like 28) and then a 20-25 day grace period. Older accounts usually have 30+ day billing cycles. Back in the 90's, many cards also had 30-40 day grace periods. The language specific to your card is in the card agreement. |
Can I be building a house with the bank forever? | No, you can't do this indefinitely. For one, you can't just take money out as home equity with no strings attached. The cash out is done as a loan (often a HELOC) or second mortgage and you have to make payments. The lender will always make sure you are able to afford the payments. At some point, you won't qualify for the loan because of insufficient income or too many previous liens on the property. While home values often go up, there's no guarantee. And your examples are more than a bit optimistic. |
$1.44 million in holdings: Help my non-retired, 80-year-old dad invest it | This is not the answer you were hoping for. I recommend that you stay out of it and let your parents do what they want with their money. They are obviously very good savers and very thrifty with their money. At this point, they likely have more money than they need for the rest of their lives, even if it doesn't grow. It sounds like your parents are the kind of people that would worry too much about investing in the stock market. If you invest them heavily in stocks, it will go down at some point, even if only temporarily. There is no need to put your parents through that stress and anxiety. At some point in the (hopefully distant) future, you will likely inherit a sizable sum. At that point, you can invest it in a more intelligent way. |
What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | It's important to consider your Investor Profile when deciding the right kind of vehicle for your finances. You are a young guy, with a considerable earned income and no dependents (sorry, this was not clear from the question.) This means that you are able to take a lot of risks that people who also have a family to think about, might not. == high risk tolerance You should definitely not put your money in a Wealth Management fund or Mutual Fund or any other 'hands-off' vehicle. These typically have worse returns than the FTSE itself. Their popularity is due to an amazing marketing job and the fact that people in general want to believe there is an easy way to grow their money. Probably the best vehicle for your money is property, so the first thing you should do with the money is hire a competent accountant and solicitor. |
How is a relocation fee of more than 40k taxed? | With a $40,000 payment there is a 100% chance that the owner will be claiming this as a business expense on their taxes. The IRS and the state will definitely know about it, and the risk of interest and penalties if it is not claimed as income make the best course of action to see a tax adviser. Because taxes will not be taken out by the property owner, the tax payer should also make sure that the estimated $10,000 in federal taxes, if they are in the 25% tax bracket, doesn't trigger other tax issues that could result in penalties, or the need to file quarterly taxes next year. This kind of extra income could also result in a change or an elimination of a health care subsidy. A unexpected mid-year change could trigger the need to refund the subsidy received this year via the tax form next April. |
How to evaluate stocks? e.g. Whether some stock is cheap or expensive? | duffbeer's answers are reasonable for the specific question asked, but it seems to me the questioner is really wanting to know what stocks should I buy, by asking "do you simply listen to 'experts' and hope they are right?" Basic fundamental analysis techniques like picking stocks with a low PE or high dividend yield are probably unlikely to give returns much above the average market because many other people are applying the same well-known techniques. |
Why don't banks print their own paper money / bank notes? | Who says they don't? In the United Kingdom the Bank of England and the Bank of Scotland print the money. In some other countries (like Hong Kong, Israel, and the US) commercial banks were issuing the currency at some point of time, but now the governments do that. The problem with commercial banks issuing currency is the control. If a bank is allowed to print money - how can the amount of currency be controlled? If it is controlled by the government then the bank will be just a printing press, so what's the point? And since governments now want to control the monetary policy, banks have no reason to just be printing presses for the government, the governments have their own. edit Apparently in Hong Kong it is still the case, as I'm sure it is in some other places in the world as well. |
Is sales tax for online purchases based on billing- or shipping address? | Apparently it's based on either the address of the seller or vendor or your shipping address; from the AccurateTax.com blog post Destination and Origin Based Sales Tax: ... a few states have laws that are origin-based, where products that are shipped to the customer are taxed based on the location of the business itself. As of this writing, these states are Most states use destination-based sales tax, which defines the source of the transaction to be the destination at which the product will eventually be used, or the address to which the product is shipped. ... The following states [and districts] operate on a destination-based model at the time of this writing: The page Do I Charge Sales Tax or Not? from about.com seems to (somewhat) clarify that if the business is located in a state (or other jurisdiction) with an origin-based sales tax, then they will charge you the sales tax for their state and, presumably, not the sales tax for the state of the shipping address. |
Strategies to recover from a bad short-term call options purchase where the underlying dropped instead? | The nature of options requires you to understand that they are essentially a bet. In one sense, so is investing in stocks. We imagine a bell curve (first mistake) with a median return at 10%/yr and a standard deviation of about 14%. Then we say that odds are that over some period of time a monte-carlo simulation can give us the picture of the likely returns. Now, when you buy short term options, say one month or so, you are hoping the outcome is a rise in price that will yield some pretty high return, right? There was a time I noticed a particular stock would move a large percent based on earnings. And earnings were a day before options expiration. So I'd buy the call that was just out of the money and if the surprise was up, I'd make 3-4X my money. But I was always prepared to lose it all and often did. I never called this investing. I know of no recovery strategy. Sorry. |
What types of receipts do I need to keep for itemized tax deductions? | Businesses are only required to keep receipts over $751. However for individuals, I would throw them all in a shoebox and not worry about organizing them. There's a small chance you'll need to go through them during an audit, and you can worry about reconciling all of them and putting them in order at that point. Just write 2010 on the box and keep it somewhere easy, and at the end of the year throw it in your basement (or get a scanner, and scan and trash the original). |
Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than “highest interest” first? | It is true that all else being equal, you will pay a lower amount of total interest by paying down your highest interest rate debts first. However, all else is not always equal. I'm going to try to come up with some reasons why it might be better in some circumstances to pay your debts in a different order. And I'll try to use as much math as possible. :) Let's say that your goal is to eliminate all of your debt as fast as possible. The faster you do this, the lower the total interest that you will pay. Now, let's consider the different methods that you could take to get there: You could pay the highest interest first, you could pay the lowest interest first, or you could pay something in the middle first. No matter which path you choose, the quicker you pay everything off, the lower total interest you will pay. In addition to that, the quicker you pay everything off, the difference in total interest paid between the most optimal method and the least optimal method will be less. To put this in mathematical notation: limt→0 Δ Interest(t) = 0 Given that, anything we can do to speed up the time it takes to get to "debt free" is to our advantage. When paying large amounts of debt as fast as possible, sacrifice is needed. And this means that psychology comes into play. I don't know about you, but for me, gamifying the system makes everything easier. (After all, gamification is what gets us to write answers here on SE.) One way to do this is to eliminate individual debts as quickly as possible. For example, let's say that I've got 10 debts. 5 of them are for $1k each. 3 of them are for $5k each, 1 is a $20k car loan, and 1 is a $100k mortgage. Each one has a monthly payment. Let's say that I've got $3k sitting in the bank that I want to use to kickstart my debt reduction. I could pay all $3k toward one of my larger loans, or I could immediately pay off 3 of my 10 loans. Ignore interest for the moment, and let's say that we are going to pay off the smallest loans first. When I eliminate these three loans, three of my monthly payments are also gone. Now let's say that with the money I was paying toward these eliminated debts, and some other money I was able to scrape together $500 a month that I want to use toward debt reduction. In four months, I've eliminated the last two $1k debts, and I'm down to 5 debts instead of 10. Achievement Unlocked! Instead of this strategy, I could have paid toward my largest interest rate. Let's say that was one of the $5k loans. I paid the $3k toward the bank to it, and because I still had all the monthly payments after that, I was only able to scrape together $400 a month extra toward debt reduction. In four months, I still have 10 debts. Now let's say that after these four months, I have a bad month, and some unexpected expenses come up. If I've eliminated 5 of my debts, my monthly payments are less, and I'll have an easier month then I would have had if I still had 10 monthly payments to deal with. Each time I eliminate a debt, the amount extra I have each month to tackle the remaining debts gets bigger. And if your goal is eliminating debt quickly, these early wins can really help motivate you on. It really feels like you are getting somewhere when your monthly bills go down. It also helps you with the debt free mindset. You start to see a future where you aren't sending payments to the banks each month. This method of paying your smaller debts first has been popularized in recent years by Dave Ramsey, and he calls it the debt snowball method. There might be other reasons why you would pick one debt over another to pay first. For example, let's say that one of your loans is with a bank that has terrible customer service. They don't send you bills on time, they process your payment late, their website stinks, they are a constant source of stress, and you are getting sick of them. That would be a great reason to pay that debt first, and never set foot in that bank again. In conclusion: If you have a constant amount of extra cash each month that you are going to use to reduce your debt, and this will never change, then, yes, you will save money over the long run by paying the highest interest debt first. However, if you are trying to eliminate your debt as fast as possible, and you are sacrificing in your budget, sending every extra penny you can scrape together toward debt reduction, the "snowball" method of knocking out the small debts first can help motivate you to continue to sacrifice toward your goal, and can also ease the cash flow situation in difficult months when you find yourself with less extra to send in. |
Advantages/disadvantages of buying stocks on dips vs buying outright? | Dollar-Cost averaging will allow you to reduce your risk while the stock prices falls provided: You must invest a fixed amount $X on a fixed time scale (i.e. every Y days). By doing this you will be able to take advantage of the lowering price by obtaining more shares per period as the price falls. But at the same time, if it starts to rise, you will already have your pig in the race. Example: Suppose you wanted to invest $300 in a company. We will do so over 3 periods. As the price falls, your average dollar cost will as well. But since you don't know where the bottom is, you cannot wait until the bottom. By trying to guess the bottom and dumping all of your investment at once you expose yourself to a higher level of risk. |
How to report a personal expense for an LLC partnership paid in one year and reimbursed in another? | You report it when the expense was incurred/accrued. Which is, in your case, 2014. There's no such thing as "accounts payable" on tax forms, it is an account on balance sheet, but most likely it is irrelevant for you since your LLC is probably cash-based. The reimbursement is a red-herring, what matters is when you paid the money. |
Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to “Buy Low, Sell High”? | As per the chart pattern when ever a stock breaks its 52 week high. This information may differ for penny stocks,small caps and mid cap stocks |
Calculation of Loss for GM Bonds and Cost Basis of New Issues | I will say in advance this is not a great answer, but I had a similar experience when I owned a CIT bond that defaulted. I ended up getting stock plus 5 newly issued bonds as a replacement for my defaulted bond. My broker had no clue on cost basis and didn't even try for the new securities, I called the "hotline" setup about CIT default and they knew nothing, and finally I read all the paperwork around the restructuring but it was less than transparent. So in the end I ended up claiming everything as a wash, no gain/no loss - which probably screwed me in the end as I believe I ended up down. It was a very small position for me and was not worth the headache :( |
Malaysian real estate: How to know if the market is overheated or in a bubble? | The Motley Fool suggested a good rule of thumb in one of their articles that may be able to help you determine if the market is overheating. Determine the entire cost of rent for a piece of property. So if rent is $300/month, total cost over a year is $3600. Compare that to the cost of buying a similar piece of property by dividing the property price by the rent per year. So if a similar property is $90,000, the ratio would be $90,000/$3600 = 25. If the ratio is < 20, you should consider buying a place. If its > 20, there's a good chance that the market is overheated. This method is clearly not foolproof, but it helps quantify the irrationality of some individuals who think that buying a place is always better than renting. P.S. if anyone can find this article for me I'd greatly appreciate it, I've tried to use my google-fu with googling terms with site:fool.com but haven't found the article I remember. |
What is the difference between “good debt” vs. “bad debt”? | The word "good" was used in contrast to "bad" but these words are misused here. There are three kinds of debt: Debt for spending. Never go into debt to buy consumables, go out for a good time, for vacations, or other purchases with no lasting financial value. Debt for depreciating assets, such as cars and sometimes things like furniture. There are those who put this in the same category as the first, but I know many people who can budget a car payment and pay it off during the life of the car. In a sense, they are renting their car and paying interest while doing so. Debt for appreciating, money-making assets. Mortgage and student loans are both often put into the good category. The house is the one purchase that, in theory, provides an immediate return. You know what it saves you on the rent. You know what it costs you, after tax. If someone pays 20% of their income toward their fixed rate mortgage, and they'd otherwise be paying 25% to rent, and long term the house will keep up with inflation, it's not bad in the sense that they need to aggressively get rid of it. Student loans are riskier in that the return is not at all guaranteed. I think that one has to be careful not to graduate with such a loan burden that they start their life under a black cloud. Paying 10% of your income for 10 years is pretty crazy, but some are in that position. Finally, some people consider all debt as bad debt, live beneath their means to be debt free as soon as they can, and avoid borrowing money. |
Where can I trade FX spot options, other than saxobank.com? | To other users save yourselves time, do not test any of the alternatives mentioned in this post. I have, to no avail. At the moment (nov/2013) Saxobank unfortunately seems to be the only broker who offers OTC (over-the counter) FX options trading to Retail Investors. In other words, it is the only alternative for those who are interested in trading non-exchange options (ie, only alternative to those interested in trading FX options with any date or strike, rather than only one date per month and strikes every 50 pips only). I say "unfortunately" because competition is good, Saxo options spreads are a rip off, and their platform extremely clunky. But it is what it is. |
Does the uptick rule apply to all stocks/ETFs and other securities, or only specific ones? | The uptick rule is gone, but it was weakly reintroduced in 2010, applied to all publicly traded equities: Under the terms of the rule, a circuit breaker would be triggered if a stock falls by 10% or more in a single day. At that point, short selling would only be allowed if the price is above the current national best bid, a restriction that would apply for the rest of the day and the whole of the following day. Derivatives are not yet restricted in such ways because of their spontaneous nature, requiring a short to increase supply; however, this latest rule widens options spreads during collapses because the exemption for hedging is now gone, and what's more a tool used by options market makers, shorting the underlying to offset positive delta, now has to go to the back of the selling line during a panic. Bonds are not restricted because for one there isn't much interest in shorting because bonds usually don't have enough variance to exceed the cost of borrowing, and many do not trade frequently enough because even the cost to trade bonds is expensive, so arranging a short in its entirety will be expensive. The preferred method to short a bond is with swaps, swaptions, etc. |
High-risk investing is better for the young? Why? | The reason that you are advised to take more risk while you are young is because the risk is often correlated to a short investment horizon. Young people have 40-50 years to let their savings grow if they get started early enough. If you need the money in 5-15 years (near the end of your earning years), there is much more risk of a dip that will not correct itself before you need the money than if you don't need the money for 25-40 years (someone whose career is on the rise). The main focus for the young should be growth. Hedging your investments with gold might be a good strategy for someone who is worried about the volatility of other investments, but I would imagine that gold will only reduce your returns compared to small-cap stocks, for example. If you are looking for more risk, you can leverage some of your money and buy call options to increase the gains with upward market moves. |
When does Ontario's HST come into effect? | (community wiki) Ontario special HST sales tax transition rebate cheques: When and how much? What will happen to quarterly GST cheques when HST starts in Ontario? Ontario HST rebate: When would I qualify? Ontario gas prices & HST: What will happen to prices at the pump on July 1, 2010? How will Ontario’s HST apply to books / textbooks, which were PST exempt before? How can I minimize the impact of the HST? How does the HST affect a condominium purchase? Will I need to pay HST on condo maintenance fees? My Ontario small business collects only PST (beneath GST threshold). How will HST affect me? |
Teaching school kids about money - what are the real life examples of math, budgeting, finance? | If these are children that may be employed, in a few years, it may well be worth walking them through some basics of the deductions around employment, some basic taxes, uses of banks, and give them enough of a basis in how the economy of the world works. For example, if you get a job and get paid $10/hour, that may sound good but how much do various things eat at that so your take-home pay may be much lower? While this does presume that the kids will get jobs somewhere along the way and have to deal with this, it is worth making this part of the education system on some level rather than shocking them otherwise. Rather than focusing on calculations, I'd be more tempted to consider various scenarios like how do you use a bank, what makes insurance worth having(Life, health, car, and any others may be worth teaching on some level), and how does the government and taxes fit into things. While I may be swinging more for the practical, it is worth considering if these kids will be away in college or university in a few years, how will they handle being away from the parents that may supply the money to meet all the financial needs? |
What's the difference between TaxAct and TurboTax? | I typed my information into both last year, and while they were not exactly the same, they were within $10 of each other. For my simple 2009 taxes they were not different in any meaningful way. |
What is good growth? | There isn't a single hard and fast return to expect. Securities, like all things in a free market, compete for your money. As the Fed sets the tone for the market with their overnight Fed funds rate, you might want to use a multiple of the 'benchmark' 10-year T-note yeald. So let's suppose that a good multiple is four. The current yeald on the 10-year T-note is hovering around two. That would give a target yeald of eight. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24UST10Y&p=W&b=5&g=0&id=p47115669808 |
How to categorize credit card payments? | Using the Transfer category is the best place to put these categories, as that accurately reflects what the transaction is. If you have your credit card and bank account linked in Mint, the debit and credit to both accounts will net to $0 in the category. I would not recommend using "Hide from budget and trends" as sometimes multiple (erroneous) transactions pop up and having a category that should but, in error, does not net to $0 will raise your attention to possibly duplicate transactions. You can ask Mint to always categorize certain transactions in certain ways. On any of your payments, if you click "Edit Details" and then select the Transfer category, you can ask Mint to always make that classification: |
Can you explain the mechanism of money inflation? | I don't think this can be explained in too simple a manner, but I'll try to keep it simple, organized, and concise. We need to start with a basic understanding of inflation. Inflation is the devaluing of currency (in this context) over time. It is used to explain that a $1 today is worth more than a $1 tomorrow. Inflation is explained by straight forward Supply = Demand economics. The value of currency is set at the point where supply (M1 in currency speak) = demand (actual spending). Increasing the supply of currency without increasing the demand will create a surplus of currency and in turn weaken the currency as there is more than is needed (inflation). Now that we understand what inflation is we can understand how it is created. The US Central Bank has set a target of around 2% for inflation annually. Meaning they aim to introduce 2% of M1 into the economy per year. This is where the answer gets complicated. M1 (currency) has a far reaching effect on secondary M2+ (credit) currency that can increase or decrease inflation just as much as M1 can... For example, if you were given $100 (M1) in new money from the Fed you would then deposit that $100 in the bank. The bank would then store 10% (the reserve ratio) in the Fed and lend out $90 (M2) to me on via a personal loan. I would then take that loan and buy a new car. The car dealer will deposit the $90 from my car loan into the bank who would then deposit 10% with The Fed and his bank would lend out $81... And the cycle will repeat... Any change to the amount of liquid currency (be it M1 or M2+) can cause inflation to increase or decrease. So if a nation decides to reduce its US Dollar Reserves that can inject new currency into the market (although the currency has already been printed it wasn't in the market). The currency markets aim to profit on currency imbalances and in reality momentary inflation/deflation between currencies. |
Are underlying assets supposed to be sold/bought immediately after being bought/sold in call/put option? | In the first case, if you wish to own the stock, you just exercise the option, and buy it for the strike price. Else, you can sell the option just before expiration, it will be priced very close to its in-the-money value. |
Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? | Largely, because stock markets are efficient markets, at least mostly if not entirely; while the efficient market hypothesis is not necessarily 100% correct, for the majority of traders it's unlikely that you could (on the long term) find significant market inefficiencies with the tools available to an individual of normal wealth (say, < $500k). That's what frequent trading intends to do: find market inefficiencies. If the market is efficient, then a stock is priced exactly at what it should be worth, based on risk and future returns. If it is inefficient, then you can make more money trading on that inefficiency versus simply holding it long. But in stating that a stock is inefficient, you are stating that you know something the rest of the market doesn't - or some condition is different for you than the other million or so people in the market. That's including a lot of folks who do this for a living, and have very expensive modelling software (and hardware to run it on). I like to think that I'm smarter than the far majority of people, but I'm probably not the smartest guy in the room, and I certainly don't have that kind of equipment - especially with high frequency trading nowadays. As such, it's certainly possible to make a bit of money as a trader versus as a long-term investor, but on the whole it's similar to playing poker for a living. If you're smarter than most of the people in the room, you might be able to make a bit of money, but the overhead - in the case of poker, the money the house charges for the game, in the case of stocks, the exchange fees and broker commissions - means that it's a losing game for the group as a whole, and not very many people can actually make money. Add to that the computer-based trading - so imagine a poker game where four of the eight players are computer models that are really good (and actively maintained by very smart traders) and you can see where it gets to be very difficult to trade at a profit (versus long term investments, which take advantage of the growth in value in the company). Finally, the risk because of leverage and option trading (which is necessary to really take advantage of inefficiencies) makes it not only hard to make a profit, but easy to lose everything. Again to the poker analogy, the guys I've known playing poker for a living do it by playing 10-20 games at once - because one game isn't efficient enough, you wouldn't make enough money. In poker, you can do that fairly safely, especially in limit games; but in the market, if you're leveraging your money you risk losing a lot. Every action you take to make it "safer" removes some of your profit. |
Is it sensible to keep savings in a foreign currency? | Is it sensible to keep savings in a foreign currency? The answer varies from one country to the next, but in the UK (or any other mature economy), I would advise against it. There are better ways to hedge against currency risks with the funds readily available to you through your ISA. You can keep your money relatively safe and liquid without ever paying a currency exchange fee. |
What if I sell an stock that is going to give an stock dividend after the ex-date but before the payable date | I know that in the case of cash dividends I will get the dividend as long as I bought the stock before the ex-date but what happens in the case of an stock dividend? This is same as cash dividends. You would receive the additional stock. |
How to Explain “efficient frontier” to child? | I know you really like bananas, but don't you think you would get tired of them after a while? Better stock up on some kiwi and mango just to mix it up a bit. I wouldn't want to risk eating only banana sandwiches, banana ice cream and banana bread for the rest of my life. I have don't think I could take it. Same goes for mango and kiwi, but I think if I had all three I could probably get along just fine. |
Foreign company incorporated in US and W9 | According to the W9 instructions you are considered a U.S. person if: According to the following section, it looks like a C corporation may be easier then an LLC: All of this information can be found here: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf Hope this helps! |
How to find a reputable company to help sell a timeshare? | You own something with very little market value - even if you paid a large price for it initially. Your cost to sell may be more than the price you get. Like any other item that has limited resale value, your best option may be to donate it. A quick Google search will turn up some options. This will likely be less hassle than selling. Also, you have a potential tax write-off. |
Are Forex traders forced to use leverage? | Actually, most of the forex traders do not prefer the practice of leveraging. In forex trading, a contract signed by a common trader is way more than any common man can afford to risk. It is not a compulsion for the traders to use leveraging yet most of the traders practice it. The other side of it is completely different. Trading companies or brokers specifically like it because you turn into a kind of cash cow when your account gets exhausted. As for trader, most of them don’t practice leveraging. |
IRA contributions in a bear (bad) market: Should I build up cash savings instead? | You have heard the old adage "Buy low, sell high", right? That sounds so obvious that you'd have to wonder why they would ever bother coining such an expression. It should rank up there with "Don't walk in front of a moving car" on the Duh scale of advice. Well, your question demonstrates exactly why it isn't quite so obvious in the real world and that people need to be reminded of it. So, in your example, the stock prices are currently low (relative to what they have been). So per that adage, do you sell or buy when prices are low? Hint: It isn't sell. Yes. Your gut is going to tell you the exact opposite thanks to the fact that our brains are unfortunately wired to make us susceptible to the loss aversion fallacy. When the market has undergone a big drop is the WORST time to stop contributing (buying stocks). This example might help get your brain and gut to agree a little more easily: If you were talking about any other non-investment commodity, cars for instance. Your question equates to.. I really need a car, but the prices have been dropping like crazy lately. Maybe I should wait until the car dealers start raising their prices again before I buy one. Dollar Cost Averaging As littleadv suggested, if you have an automatic payroll deduction for your retirement account, you are getting the benefit of Dollar Cost Averaging. Because you are investing the same amount on a scheduled interval, you are buying more shares when they are cheap and fewer when they are expensive. It is like an automatic buy low strategy is built into the account. The alternative, which you are implying, is a market timing strategy. Under this strategy, instead of investing regularly you try to get in and out of investments right before they go up/drop. There are two MAJOR flaws with this approach: 1) Your brain will work against you (see above) and encourage you to do the exact opposite of what you should be doing. 2) Unless you are clairvoyant, this strategy isn't much better than gambling. If you are lucky it can work, but because of #1, the odds are stacked against you. |
Can a company donate to a non-profit to pay for services arranged for before hand? | Can a company say "StackExchange" donate to a non-profit company say $5,000 in agreement that they will spend that on paying a designer for a new website? And most importantly is this donation still tax deductible? A non-profit would have to typically create a bucket for IT Services or Website design. As long as "StackExchange" specify they employ a profession service to get it done, there would be no issue. If "StackExchange" were to specify an individula/company it would be an issue. |
How prudent would it be to invest (stocks/equity) in businesses that are based on Cash transactions? | If they're hiding their profits from the government, what makes you think they wouldn't hide their profits from their shareholders? |
Is it possible to influence a company's actions by buying stock? | Energy Transfer Partners, LP (stock symbol ETP) is the parent company of Dakota Access LLC, the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Since ETP is a publicly traded company, it is certainly possible to purchase the stock. To answer your questions: Would it not be possible to buy their stocks, bring down the price of the stocks and keep it there until investors pull out because it is financially unwise to these investors? You cannot artificially bring the price of a stock down by buying the stock. Purchasing large enough amounts would theoretically cause the price to go up, not down. You could theoretically cause the stock to go down by shorting the stock (borrowing shares and then selling them), but it would take a lot of shares to do this, and may not be successful. If not successful, your losses are potentially unlimited. Would it alternatively be possible to buy enough stock to have a voice in the operations of the company? Yes, you could theoretically purchase enough of the stock to control the company. The market capitalization of ETP is currently $17.9 Billion; if you owned half of the stock, you would have complete control of the company. But buying that much stock would certainly influence the price of the stock, so it would cost you more than half of that amount to buy that much stock. You could get yourself a voice at the table for less without owning a full half of the stock, but you would not have full control, and would need support from others to get the outcome you want. Alternatively, someone determined to exert their influence could theoretically make an offer to purchase the Dakota Access subsidiary from ETP, which might be less costly than purchasing half of the entire corporation. Even if an extremely wealthy person were to try one of these options and destroy this company, it wouldn't necessarily stop another company from building something similar. The investors you purchased the company from would have billions of dollars to do so with. |
Is losing money in my 401K normal? | It is absolutely normal for your investments to go down at times. If you pull money out whenever your investments decrease in value, you lock in the losses. It is better to do a bit of research and come up with some sort of strategy about how you will manage your investments. One such strategy is to choose a target asset allocation (or let the "target date" fund choose it for you) and never sell until you need the money for retirement. Some would advocate various other strategies that involve timing the market. The important thing is that you find a strategy that you can live with and that provides you with enough confidence that you won't buy and sell at random. Acting on gut feelings and selling whenever you feel queasy will likely lead to worse outcomes in the long run. |
Tax question about selling a car | I don't think there's much you can do. Losses from the sale of personal-use automobiles (used for pleasure, commuting, etc) are not deductible as capital losses. See IRS Tax Topic 409, end of the first paragraph. The expenses you incurred in owning and operating the car (insurance, fuel, maintenance, service plans, etc) are not deductible either. If you used it partly for business, then some of your expenses might be deductible; see IRS Tax Topic 510. This includes depreciation (decline in value), but only according to a standard schedule; you don't generally just get to deduct the difference between your buying and selling price. Also, you'd need to have records to verify your business use. But anyway, these deductions would apply (or not) regardless of whether you sell the car. You don't get your sales tax refunded when you resell the vehicle. That's why it's a sales tax, not a value-added tax. Note, however, that if you do sell it, the sales tax on this new transaction will be the buyer's responsibility, not yours. You do have the option on your federal income tax return to deduct the state sales tax you paid when you bought the car; in fact, you can deduct all the sales taxes you paid in that year. (If you have already filed your taxes for that year, you can go back and amend them.) However, this takes the place of your state income tax deduction for the year; you can't deduct both. See Tax Topic 503. So this is only useful if your sales taxes for that year exceeded the state income tax you paid in that year. Also, note that state taxes are not deductible on your state income tax return. Again, this deduction applies whether you sell the car or not. |
Buy securities at another stock exchange | In a simple statement, no doesn't matter. Checked on my trade portal, everything lines up. Same ISIN, same price(after factoring in FX conversions, if you were thinking about arbitrage those days are long gone). But a unusual phenomenon I have observed is, if you aren't allowed to buy/sell a stock in one market and try to do that in a different market for the same stock you will still not be allowed to do it. Tried it on French stocks as my current provider doesn't allow me to deal in French stocks. |
Stock Trade Transaction Fee - at what point is it worth it | I'm going to assume that you want to be invested all the time and each trade consists in selling a security and buying another one (similar to your example). How much commissions you are willing to pay depends on several factors, but one way to think about it is as follows. You have a position in stock A and you want to switch to stock B because you think it will perform better. If you think there's a good chance (>50%) that B will outperform A by more than x% then you can happily pay up to x/2% commissions and still make money over a long time horizon. If you like formulae, one way to express it is: Where: Example: if you tend to be right 51% of the time (hit rate), and gain 110% more than you lose on average (win loss ratio), you can see that your expected profit is: 5.1% - commissions, so you could pay 2.5% commissions on entering and closing the position and still make money*. Unfortunately, common sense, statistics and numerous studies tell us a sad truth: on average, people have a hit rate of 50% and a win/loss ratio of 100%. Which means that their expected profit per trade is 0% - commission. Based on that crude observation - unless you can prove to yourself that you are better than average - you should aim at reducing commissions paid to your broker as much as possible through: * 51% and 110% are not random numbers, they correspond to the results of the top 15% (professional) managers in a research paper using a sample of 215 funds managing $150bn. |
Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? | Yes, you are getting shafted. In the end, you will have paid the full price of the condo, but still own only 25% of it. Your parents' stake in the home should decrease as you repay the loan. The way it is now, they're getting 75% of your condo for free! |
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