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Tips for insurance coverage for one-man-teams | While the OP disses the health insurance coverage offered through his wife's employer as a complete rip-off, one advantage of such coverage is that, if set up right (by the employer), the premiums can be paid for through pre-tax dollars instead of post-tax dollars. On the other hand, Health insurance premiums cannot be deducted on Schedule C by self-employed persons. So the self-employed person has to pay both the employer's share as well as the employee's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes on that money. Health insurance premiums can be deducted on Line 29 of Form 1040 but only for those months during which the Schedule C filer is neither covered nor eligible to be covered by a subsidized health insurance plan maintained by an employer of the self-employed person (whose self-employment might be a sideline) or the self-employed person's spouse. In other words, just having the plan coverage available through the wife's employment, even though one disdains taking it, is sufficient to make a Line 29 deduction impermissible. So, AGI is increased. Health insurance premiums can be deducted on Schedule A but only to the extent that they (together with other medical costs) exceed 10% of AGI. For many people in good health, this means no deduction there either. Thus, when comparing the premiums of health insurance policies, one should pay some attention to the tax issues too. Health insurance through a spouse's employment might not be that bad a deal after all. |
ESPP advantages and disadvantages | Advantage: more money. The financial tradeoff is usually to your benefit: Given these, for having your money locked up for the average length of the vesting periods (some is locked up for 3 months, some is locked up for nearly 0), you get a 10% return. Overall, it's like a 1.5% bonus for the year, assuming you were to sell everything right away. Of course, whether or not you wish to keep the stock depends on how you value MSFT as an investment. The disadvantage lies in a couple parts: |
Why don't SPY, SPX, and the e-mini s&p 500 track perfectly with each other? | As a futures trader, I can tell you that the highs and lows for the ES futures diverge simply because they trade around the clock, from 6PM ET to 5PM ET the next day. The SPX is only open during market hours, as is the SPY, but the SPY also trades in the extended hours sessions for about 3.5 hours before and after the regular hours of 930 AM ET to 4PM ET ET. So bottom line, while they pretty much track each other, the difference in their trading hours results in the highs and lows being different. |
One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this? | You bought the stock at some point in the past. You must have had a reason for this purchase. Has the recent change in price changed the reason you bought the stock? You must assume your losses are sunk costs. No matter what action you take, you can not recover your losses. Do not attempt to hold the stock in the hopes of regaining value, or sell it to stop losses. Instead approach this event as if this very day, you were given shares of the company's stock at their current market value for free as a gift. In this hypothetical situation, would you hold the shares, or sell them? Use that to judge your options. Not everyone, myself included, can handle the mental stress of watching share prices change. You can always consider trading index funds instead, which are much less volatile but will provide consistent, albeit, boring returns. This may or may not be you, but it's an option. Finally, do not keep money in the market you are not prepared to lose. It seems obvious, but if you lost 40% today, you could lose 100% tomorrow. |
Does an Executed Limit Order Imply a Spot Price? | Think of all the limit orders waiting in line, first organized by price, and then by the time the order was placed (earlier orders are closer to the front of the line). In order for your buy order to trade, there must be no other limit orders of 10.01 or higher, or the sellers order would have matched with them instead. So once your order is filled, the price is 10.00, even if just for a millisecond, because there was a trade at 10.00, even though the price might go right back up after the trade. |
Could capital gains from a stock sale impact my IRA eligibility? | Yes. Look at form 1040 AGI is line 37, and it comes well after you report your schedule D cap gains. I read this question as meaning you wish to contribute to a traditional IRA pretax. There is no income limit to contribute to an IRA and not take the deduction. |
In what circumstances will a bank waive the annual credit card fee? | See if the bank has other credit cards they offer. Many banks have multiple ones: some cards have great benefits, others do not; some cards have high rates, some do not; some cards are secured, some do not. If they have a card that you like ask them to switch you to the card you want. They should be able to do so very easily. Your card number will change, but they will treat it is a replacement so that your credit score will not take a hit during the switch. It may be possible to get them to waive the annual fee, but most won't because each card type they offer are separate products so they only allow you to pick one of their options. If they don't have a card to your liking apply for a card from anther bank that has the benefits and annual fees (zero) that you are looking for. It may be that the new card will start with a lower limit, but it will increase over time, especially as you shift more of your business to the new card. When you cancel the old card before the next year rolls around you will take a small short hit to your credit score, but that is ok. |
What is the meaning of “writing put options”? | Writing a put for a stock means you are selling the right to sell you stock. Simply put (er no pun intended), "writing put options" means you are selling somebody else the right (a contract) to sell YOU a specific stock at a specific price before a specific date. I imagine the word "write" to refer to the physical act of creating a contract. The specific price is called the STRIKE and the specific date is the EXPIRATION. By "writing a put", you are agreeing to purchase the stock at a particular price (the STRIKE price) before the expiration. You get paid a fee, the "premium", for agreeing to purchase the stock at the strike price if asked to. If the holder of the contract decides to make you buy the stock at the strike price, you have to do it. If the stock never dips below the strike price, then the holder of the put contract (a contract you wrote), will never exercise their right because they'd lose money. But if the stock drops to zero, you could potentially lose up to your strike price (times the number of shares at stake), if the holder of the contract decides to exercise. Therefore, "writing puts" is a LONG position, meaning you stand to gain if the stock goes up. FYI - "LONG" refers direction (UP!), not duration. |
Will prices really be different for cash and cards? | I would say minimal price differences. Stores will need to remain competative, and the difference (if any) will likely be to cover the cost of the transaction that Visa and other card companies charge them. |
Can a self-employed person have a Health Savings Account? | Whether you can establish an HSA has nothing to do with your employment status or your retirement plan. It has to do with the type of medical insurance you have. The insurance company should be able to tell you if your plan is "HSA compatible". To be HSA compatible, a plan must have a "high deductible" -- in 2014, $1250 for an individual plan or $2500 for a family plan. It must not cover any expenses before the deductible, that is, you cannot have any "first dollar" coverage for doctor's visits, prescription drug coverage, etc. (There are some exceptions for services considered "preventive care".) There are also limits on the out-of-pocket max. I think that's it, but the insurance company should know if their plans qualify or not. If you have a plan that is HSA compatible, but also have another plan that is not HSA compatible, then you don't qualify. And all that said ... If you are covered under your husband's medical insurance, and your husband already has an HSA, why do you want to open a second one? There's no gain. There is a family limit on contributions to an HSA -- $6,550 in 2014. You don't get double the limit by each opening your own HSA. If you have two HSA's, the combined total of your contributions to both accounts must be within the limit. If you have some administrative reason for wanting to keep separate accounts, yes, you can open your own, and in that case, you and your husband are each allowed to contribute half the limit, or you can agree to some other division. I suppose you might want to have an account in your own name so that you control it, especially if you and your husband have different ideas about managing finances. (Though how to resolve such problems would be an entirely different question. Personally, I don't think the solution is to get into power struggles over who controls what, but whatever.) Maybe there's some advantage to having assets in your own name if you and your husband were to divorce. (Probably not, though. I think a divorce court pretty much ignores whose name assets are in when dividing up property.) See IRS publication 969, http://www.irs.gov/publications/p969/index.html for lots and lots of details. |
Should I really pay off my entire credit card balance each month or should I maintain some balance? | Always pay on time, and stop listening to whoever is telling you not to -- they are clueless. Credit cards are revolving accounts with a grace period. The balance owed is due on the statement date, and you have a grace period of 20-40 days to pay. Paying bills on time is the single most important thing that you can do to have a good credit score. Always pay on time. |
How do I explain why debt on debt is bad to my brother? | If you're looking for an analogy or exercise, I saw a personal finance show that had people climb stairs, with the debt as weight. Every flight of stairs more "interest" and loans to cover income gaps have to be added to the total debt they carry up the stairs. Can't find the video online though. But I think you need to ask your brother what he thinks his problem is, that will be solved with more loans. It's likely that your brother's problem can't be solved with advice. Since he's not spending rationally, rational arguments have no sway. I suspect he'll tell you his problem is one or two angry creditors, perhaps even ones you don't know about, rather than a fundamental imbalance between income and expenses. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, or moving weights from one backpack compartment to another, doesn't solve the underlying problems. Whatever you do, another loan from you should be off the table. He's an adult now, with problems the size of which you can't help with. We both know how his story ends: all creditors cut him off, and he's in court over garnished wages and creditors fighting over his assets. Reality is the only argument that will have any sway. He's far too personally invested in his scheme to admit defeat, which is why neither words not images nor moving pictures will help him with this learning disability. |
Risk of buying stock | If you buy stock in established companies, it is vey unlikely that they will lose all their value. Spreading your money across multiple stocks -- diversifying -- reduces that risk because it is extremely unlikely that they all lose all their value at once. Spreading them across multiple industries and adding bonds to the mix increases diversification. Of course the trade-off is that if one of the stocks skyrockets you don't benefit as much as if you had been lucky enough to put all your money in that one stock. You need to decide for yourself how much risk you are willing to tolerate in exchange for the chance of gains. Other answers on this site have dealt with this in more detail. |
Starting an investment portfolio with Rs 5,000/- | I don't think it makes sense to invest in an FD since. 1.) A 30 day FD is not very likely to give you 8-9% 2.) Inflation is so high in India that your losing money even though you think that you are doing well enough. I would suggest you to expect a larger return and try hedging your portfolio correctly. For example you can buy a stock which is likely to go higher, and to limit your risks, you can buy a put option on the same stock, so even if the price falls drastically, you can exercise your option and not lose anything except for the premium you paid. Good luck:) |
investing - where to trade online? (Greek citizen) | The Greek Piraeus Bank offers such services for trading stocks in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) and in addition 26 other markets including NASDAQ, NYSE and largest European ones (full list, in Greek). Same goes for Eurobank with a list of 17 international markets and the ability to trade bonds. BETA Securities has also an online platform, but I think it's only for ASE. Some other banks (like National Bank of Greece) do have similar online services, but are usually restricted to ASE. |
I have $12k in a Chase checking account, but want to start earning interest/saving/investing/etc to make more money. What should I do? | Aside from employer 401(k) matches (which may double your money immediately), paying off debts is almost always the best place to start. Paying off a debt early is a zero-risk operation and will earn you N% (where N is your interest rate). Is that a good deal for a zero-risk return? The closest equivalent today (Aug 24, 2012) is that you can earn about 2.68% on 10-year Treasury bonds. Unless you have a really, really good interest rate (or the interest is tax-deductible), paying off your loan will offer an excellent risk-adjusted return, so you should do that. The "really good" interest rate is typically a mortgage or student loans. (Mortgage interest is also tax-deductible, at least for now.) In those cases, you're not going to gain nearly as much by paying the loan early, and the loan is large - larger than the amount you want to have in risk-free investments. You want to invest for returns, as well! So you can save for retirement instead (in a 401(k) or similar account) and take on a little risk. |
What should I be aware of as a young investor? | Don't start by investing in a few individual companies. This is risky. Want an example? I'm thinking of a big company, say $120 billion or so, a household name, and good consistent dividends to boot. They were doing fairly well, and were generally busy trying to convince people that they were looking to the future with new environmentally friendly technologies. Then... they went and spilled a bunch of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, it wasn't a pretty picture if BP was one of five companies in your portfolio that day. Things would look a lot better if they were one of 500 or 5000 companies, though. So. First, aim for diversification via mutual funds or ETFs. (I personally think you should probably start with the mutual funds: you avoid trading fees, for one thing. It's also easier to fit medium-sized dollar amounts into funds than into ETFs, even if you do get fee-free ETF trading. ETFs can get you better expense ratios, but the less money you have invested the less important that is.) Once you have a decent-sized portfolio - tens of thousands of dollars or so - then you can begin to consider holding stocks of individual companies. Take note of fees, including trading fees / commissions. If you buy $2000 worth of stock and pay a $20 commission you're already down 1%. If you're holding a mutual fund or ETF, look at the expense ratio. The annualized real return on the stock market is about 4%. (A real return is after adjusting for inflation.) If your fee is 1%, that's about a quarter of your earnings, which is huge. And while it's easy for a mutual fund to outperform the market by 1% from time to time, it's really really hard to do it consistently. Once you're looking at individual companies, you should do a lot of obnoxious boring stupid research and don't just buy the stock on the strength of its brand name. You'll be interested in a couple of metrics. The main one is probably the P/E ratio (price/earnings). If you take the inverse of this, you'll get the rate at which your investment is making you money (e.g. a P/E of 20 is 5%, a P/E of 10 is 10%). All else being equal, a lower P/E is a good thing: it means that you're buying the company's income really cheap. However, all else is seldom equal: if a stock is going for really cheap, it's usually because investors don't think that it's got much of a future. Earnings are not always consistent. There are a lot of other measures, like beta (correlation to the market overall: riskier volatile stocks have higher numbers), gross margins, price to unleveraged free cash flow, and stuff like that. Again, do the boring research, otherwise you're just playing games with your money. |
Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes? | Appears to be a hypothetical question and not really worth answering but... Must it be explained.. no, not until audited. It's saying that for everything reported on a tax return, people have to include an explanation for everything, which you do not, unless you want to make some type of 'disclosure' which is a different matter. Must it be reported.. Yes, based on info presented. All income is taxable unless "specifically exempted" per the US Tax code or court cases. Gift vs Found Income... it's not 'found' income as someone gave (gifted) the money to him. Generally, gifts received are not taxable and don't have to be reported. |
Optimal term/number of months for car finance or lease? | If you have the money to pay cash for the car. Then 0 months will save you the most money. There are of course several caveats. The money for the car has to be in a relatively liquid form. Selling stocks which would trigger taxes may make the pay cash option non-optimal. Paying cash for the car shouldn't leave you car rich but cash poor. Taking all your savings to pay cash would not be a good idea. Note: paying cash doesn't involve taking a wheelbarrow full of bills to the dealer; You can use a a check. If cash is not an option then the longest time period balanced by the rates available is best. If the bank says x percent for 12-23 months, y percent for 24-47 months, Z percent for 48 to... It may be best to take the 47 month loan, because it keeps the middle rate for a long time. You want to lock in the lowest rate you can, for the longest period they allow. The longer period keeps the required minimum monthly payment as low as possible. The lower rate saves you on interest. Remember you generally can pay the loan off sooner by making extra or larger payments. Leasing. Never lease unless you are writing off the monthly lease payment as a business expense. If the choice is monthly lease payments or depreciation for tax purposes the lease can make the most sense. If business taxes aren't involved then leasing only means that you have a complex deal where you finance the most expensive part of the ownership period, you have to watch the mileage for several years, and you may have to pay a large amount at the end of the period for damages and excess miles. Plus many times you don't end up with the car at the end of the lease. In the United States one way to get a good deal if you have to get a loan: take the rebate from the dealer; and the loan from a bank/credit Union. The interest rate at banking institution is a better range of rates and length. Plus you get the dealer cash. Many times the dealer will only give you the 0% interest rate if you pay in 12 months and skip the rebate; where the interest paid to the bank will be less than the rebate. |
Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.) | In the UK, the Osper card would do the trick exactly. The closest thing I can find in the US is the USAA Youth accounts which appear to be what you need but have some restrictions on mobile access until the youth is 13. |
How to approach building credit without a credit card | Keep in mind that credit takes time to build. Your best short-term solution is to save enough cash to put enough of a down-payment that the lower loan-to-value ratio outweighs the lack of credit history. If there's enough equity to ensure that the bank will get their money back if they have to foreclose, you will have a better chance of securing financing. In addition, the stability and consistency of your employment may also be a factor that makes it difficult for you to get a loan without a substantial down-payment. Finally, don't ignore the risk present in resting a property that you have a loan on. Make sure you have a plan in place to pay your payments if the other half goes unrented for several months, or you risk losing the entire property. My advice is to rent somewhere else for enough time that you can save up a lot of cash to purchase a duplex rather than getting in a rush and doing something unwise (like apply for a bunch of credit cards you don't need). |
Where can I find all public companies' information? | Here are some approaches you may value: Wolfram Alpha This is a search engine with a difference. It literally is connected to thousands of searchable databases, including financial databases. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=list+of+public+companies+ Just keep clicking the "more" button until you have them all.You can also get great company specific information there: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=NYSE%3ADIS&lk=1&a=ClashPrefs_*Financial.NYSE%3ADIS- Just keep clicking the "more" button until you have them all.Then the company it'self will have great information for investors too: [http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/investors][3] (Just keep clicking the "more" button until you have them all.) Regards, Stephen |
Why is financial data of some public companies not available on Yahoo Finance? | In general, the short answer is to use SEDAR, the Canadian database that compiles financial statements for Canadian companies. The financial statements for Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp can be found here. The long answer is that the data might be missing because in Canada, each province has their own agency to regulate securities. Yahoo might not compile information from such a wide array of sources. If other countries also have a decentralized system, Yahoo might not take the time to compile financial information from all these sources. There are a myriad of other reasons that could cause this too, however. This is why SEDAR is useful; it 's the Canadian equivalent of the SEC's EDGAR database, and it maintains a sizeable database of financial statements. |
Where to park money low-risk on interactivebrokers account? | The standard low-risk/gain very-short-term parking spot these days tends to be a money market account. However, you have only mentioned stock. For good balance, your portfolio should consider the bond market too. Consider adding a bond index fund to diversify the basic mix, taking up much of that 40%. This will also help stabilize your risk since bonds tend to move opposite stocks (prperhaps just because everyone else is also using them as the main alternative, though there are theoretical arguments why this should be so.) Eventually you may want to add a small amount of REIT fund to be mix, but that's back on the higher risk side. (By the way: Trying to guess when the next correction will occur is usually not a winning strategy; guesses tend to go wrong as often as they go right, even for pros. Rather than attempting to "time the market", pick a strategic mix of investments and rebalance periodically to maintain those ratios. There has been debate here about "dollar-cost averaging" -- see other answers -- but that idea may argue for investing and rebalancing in more small chunks rather than a few large ones. I generally actively rebalance once a year or so, and between those times let maintainng the balance suggest which fund(s) new money should go into -- minimal effort and it has worked quite well enough.,) |
What is the dividend tax rate for UK stock | FYI, I am assuming you are an individual investor.. The rates on the website may change, if the government decides so. Anyway it is a UK government website, so it would reflect the changes immediately. |
In the stock market, why is the “open” price value never the same as previous day's “close”? | The simple answer: The opening price is the price of the first trade of the day and the closing price is the price of the last trade of the day. And since the stock price change from trade to trade they are usually different. |
What option-related strategies are better suited to increasing return potential? | I think you need to be very careful here. Covered calls don't reduce risk or increase performance overall. If they did, every investment manager would be using them. In a typical portfolio, over the long term, the gains you give up when your stock goes beyond the strike of your calls will negate the premiums you receive over time. Psychologically, covered calls are appealing because your gains happen over a long period and this is why many people suggest it. But if you believe the Black-Scholes model (used for pricing options) this is what the model predicts over the long term - that you won't do any better than just holding stock (unless you have some edge other traders don't). Now you say you want to reduce diversification and raise your risk. Keeping in mind that there is no free lunch, there are several ways to reduce your risk but they all come at a price. For simplicity, there are three elements to consider - risk, potential gain and cash. These are tradeoffs and you can't simultaneously make them all favorable. You must trade one or more of them to gain in the others. Let's say you wanted to concentrate into a few stocks... how could you counteract the additional risk? 1) Covered calls: very popular strategy usually intended (erroneously) for increasing returns. You get the bonus of cash along with marginally less risk. But you give up a substantial amount of potential return. You won't have blowout returns if you do this. You still face substantial risk. 2) Collar your stock: You sell a covered call while using the cash from the sale to buy puts for protection. You give up potential gains, you're neutral on cash but gain significantly on reducing risk. 3) Use calls as proxy for stock: You don't hold stock but only calls in equivalent delta to the stock you would have held. Substantially lower risk while still having potential gain. Your tradeoff is the cash you have to pay for the calls. When using this, one must be very, very careful not to overleverage. 4) Puts as protection for stocks: This is basically the same as #3 in tradeoffs. You won't overleverage and you also get dividends. But for the most part it's the same. These are the main ways to reduce the risk you gain by concentrating. Options themselves are far broader. But keep in mind that there is no free money. All these techniques involve tradeoffs that you have to be aware of. |
How to invest 100k | The best way to invest in college for your kid is to buy an investment property and rent it out. You might think I am really crazy to ask you to you to buy a real estate property when everyone is running from real estate. Go where others are running away from it. Look where others are not looking. Find out the need for a decent rental property in your city or county and start following the real estate market to understand the real activities including the rental market. I would say follow it for 6 months before jumping in with any investment. And manage your property with good tenants until your kid is ready to go to college. By the time your kid is ready for college, the property would have been paid off by the rents and you can sell the property to send your kid to college. |
Relocating and buying a house simultaneously - How to handle pre-approval on fluctuating yearly income? | Assuming the numbers you gave are forecasted 2013 annual income, you should really use an average and give the lender 1 number, as long as you can provide documentation to back it up. Lenders aren't as sophisticated as considering your monthly income fluctuations into their underwriting algorithm. If you're not tied down to your existing lender, I highly recommend you to shop around. There isn't an "universal lending requirement". You'll be surprised at how flexible they are. Not as a recommendation to get around the rules, but just finding a lender that'll work with your situation. Try personal finance forums such as FatWallet or Slickdeal to find low-cost lenders: http://goo.gl/vIojT |
Should I purchase a whole life insurance policy? (I am close to retirement) | Disclaimer: I work in life insurance, but I am not an agent. First things first, there is not enough information here to give you an answer. When discussing life insurance, the very first things we need to fully consider are the illustration of policy values, and the contract itself. Without these, there is no way to tell if this is a good idea or not. So what are the things to look for? A. Risk appetite. People love to discuss projections of the market, like for example, "7-8% a year compounded annually". Go look at the historical returns of the stock market. It is never close to that projection. Life insurance, however, can give you a GUARANTEED return (this would be show in the 'Guaranteed' section of the life insurance illustration). As long as you pay your premiums, this money is guaranteed to accrue. Now most life insurance companies also show 'Non-Guaranteed' elements in their illustrations - these are non-guaranteed projections based on a scale at this point in time. These columns will show how your cash value may grow when dividends are credited to your policy (and used to buy paid-up additional insurance, which generates more dividends - this can be compared to the compounding nature of interest). B. Tax treatment. I am definitely not an expert in this area, but life insurance does have preferential tax treatment, particularly to your beneficiaries. C. Beneficiaries. Any death benefit (again, listed as guaranteed and maybe non-guaranteed values) is generally completely tax free for the beneficiary. D. Strategy. Tying all of this together, what exactly is the point of this? To transfer wealth, to accrue wealth, or some combination thereof? This is important and unstated in your question. So again, without knowing more, there is no way to answer your question. But I am surprised that in this forum, so many people are quick to jump in and say in general that whole life insurance is a scam. And even more surprising is the fact the accepted answer has already been accepted. My personal take is that if you are just trying to accrue wealth, you should probably stick to the market and maybe buy term if you want a death benefit component. This is mostly due to your age (higher risk of death = higher premiums = lower buildup) and how long of a time period you have to build up money in the policy. But if a 25 year old asked this same question, depending on his purposes, I may suggest that a WL policy is in fact a good idea. |
Does Degiro charge per order or per transaction? | An order is not a transaction. It is a request to make a transaction. If the transaction never occurs (e.g. because you cancel the order), then no fees should be charged. will I get the stamp duty back (the 0.5% tax I paid on the shares purchase) when I sell the shares? I'm not a UK tax expert, but accorging to this page is seems like you only pay stamp tax when you buy shares, and don't get it back when you sell (but may be responsible for capital gains taxes). That makes sense, because there's always a buyer and a seller, so if you got the tax back when you sold, the tax would effectively be transferred from the buyer to the seller, and the government would never collect anything. |
Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments by Selling Originally Bought Shares | The market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent -John Maynard Keynes The stocks could stagnate and trade in a thin range, or decline in value. You assume that your stocks will offer you ANY positive return for every month over 24 months. Just one month of negative returns puts you underwater. Thats whats wrong with it. Even if you identified any stock that has been up every month for a consecutive 24 months in the past, there is nothing that says it will be so in the future, and a broad market selloff will effect both indexes as well as individual stocks. Literally any adverse macroeconomic event in the next two years will put you underwater on your loan, no matter how much research you do on individual stocks. |
At what percentage drop should you buy to average down | Only average down super blue chips with a long history or better still, ETFs or index type funds. I do it with income producing funds as I'm a retiree. Other people may have much shorter horizins. |
Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money? | Day traders see a dip, buy stocks, then sell them 4 mins later when the value climbed to a small peak. What value is created? Is the company better off from that trade? The stocks were already outside of company hands, so the trade doesn't affect them at all. You've just received money from others for no contribution to society. A common scenario is a younger business having a great idea but not enough capital funds to actually get the business going. So, investors buy shares which they can sell later on at a higher value. The investor gets value from the shares increasing over time, but the business also gets value of receiving money to build the business. |
Do Banks Cause Inflation? What are other possible causes? | Some people believe that inflation is caused by an increase in the money supply when the banks engage in fractional reserve lending. Is this correct? You are referring to the Austrian school of thought. The Austrians define inflation in terms of money supply. In other words, inflation is defined as an increase in the aggregate money supply, even if prices stay the same of fall. This is not the only definition of inflation. The mainstream defines inflation as a general increase in the prices of consumer goods. Based on the first definition, then your supposition is correct by definition. Based on the second definition, you can make a case that money supply affects prices. But keep in mind, it's just one factor affecting prices. Furthermore, economics is resistant to experimentation, so it is difficult to establish causality. Austrian economists tend to approach the problem of "proof" using a 2-pronged tactic: establish plausibility by explaining the mechanism, then look for historical evidence to back up that explanation. As I understand it, when there is more available money in the market, the price of goods will increase. But will a normal merchant acknowledge the increase of money supply and raise prices immediately? I posit that, in the short run, merchants won't increase prices in response to increased money supply. So, why does increased money supply lead to price inflation? The simple answer, in the Austrian school of thought, is that you have more money chasing the same amount of goods. In other words, printing money doesn't actually increase the number of widgets made. I believe the Austrian school is consistent with your supposition that prices don't increase in the short run. In other words, producers don't increase prices immediately after observing an increase in the money supply. Specifically, after the banks print more notes, where will the money be distributed first? The Austrian story goes as follows: Imagine that the first borrower is a home constructor, and he is borrowing freshly "printed" money to build new homes. This constructor will need to buy materials and hire labor to build homes, and in doing so he will bid against other home constructors. The increased demand for lumber, nails, tools, carpentry, etc. will ever so slightly increase the market prices for these goods and services. So the money goes first to the borrower, but then flows also to the people selling to the borrower, and the people selling to the sellers, etc. It has a ripple effect. Who will be the first one to have a need to rise their price? These producers won't need to increase their price, but they will choose to do so if the believe that demand outstrips supply. In other words if you have more orders than you can fill, then you may post higher prices because you think consumers will tolerate the higher price. You might object that competition deters any one producer from unilaterally raising prices, but in fact if all producers are failing to keep up with demand, then you can unilaterally raise prices because other producers don't have any excess inventory to undercut you with. |
Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks? | Because they receive compensation (generally interest + dividends) for loaning out the shares. I own an asset X. Somebody else wants to borrow asset X for some time period. I agree to loan them asset X in return for some form of compensation (generally a rate of interest plus, in this specific case, any dividend payments). The reasons why I own asset X, and why they want to borrow asset X are irrelevant to the transaction. The only relevant points are the amount of compensation and the risk that they might default on the loan. This applies equally well to shares as to money or any other kind of loan-able asset. |
Buying from an aggressive salesperson | I have a very simple rule. For anything other than trivial purchases (a small fraction of my monthly income), the only final decision I will make in the presence of a salesperson is "No". After I have the terms nailed down, and still feel that I am likely to buy the item, I leave the store, car dealership etc., and think about it by myself. Often, I go to a mall coffee shop to do the thinking. If it is really big, I sleep on it and make my decision the next day. Once I have made my decision, I inform the salesperson. If the decision is "No" I do not discuss my reasons - that gives them an overcome-the-objection lever. I just tell them I have decided not to buy the item, which is all they need to know. |
How does an enlarged share base affect share price? | Most of the time when a stock splits to create more shares, it is done to bring the price per share down to a level that makes potential investors more comfortable. There are psychological reasons why some companies keep the price in the $30 to $60 range. Others like to have the price keep rising into the hundreds or thousands a share. The split doesn't help current investors, with the possible exception that the news spurs interest in the stock which leads to a short term rise in prices; but it also doesn't hurt current investors. When a reverse stock split is done, the purpose is for one of several reasons: |
Why do cash back credit cards give a higher rate for dining and gasoline purchases? | These two categories ensure you will carry the card in your wallet (since they only work for physical locations), but don't tend to have excessive spending (most people maxing out at $200 or so per month, so $2 for the bonus). You then use the same card for other purchases, because you have it on you, where you only get the 1%. It worked for me, I started carrying the Amazon card when I found out it had a higher percentage for gas purchases. I only use it for gas though. |
Can you explain why it's better to invest now rather than waiting for the market to dip? | Your chance of even correctly recognizing the actual lowest point of a dip are essentially zero, so if you try to time the market, you'll most likely not get the "buy cheap" part perfectly right. And as you write yourself, while you wait for the dip, you have an ongoing opportunity cost. Cost averaging is by far the best strategy for non-professional and risk averse investors to deal with this. And yes, over the long run, it's far more important to invest at all than when you do it. |
Why does historical price data not go back all the way on Google Finance? | Google Finance and Yahoo Finance have been transitioning their API (data interface) over the last 3 months. They are currently unreliable. If you're just interested in historical price data, I would recommend either Quandl or Tiingo (I am not affiliated with either, but I use them as data sources). Both have the same historical data (open, close, high, low, dividends, etc.) on a daily closing for thousands of Ticker symbols. Each service requires you to register and get a unique token. For basic historical data, there is no charge. I've been using both for many months and the data quality has been excellent and API (at least for python) is very easy! If you have an inclination for python software development, you can read about the drama with Google and Yahoo finance at the pandas-datareader group at https://github.com/pydata/pandas-datareader. |
What does ES1 refer to in this picture? | That looks very much like an S&P 500 E-Mini index future. However, ES1 is a strange symbol. Futures have the month of expiry encoded in their symbol as well: http://commodities.about.com/od/understandingthebasics/ss/futurescontract_3.htm For example, the September 2011 future in this series would be ESU1. I'm not very familiar with Bloomberg so perhaps this is the front contract (i.e. the one that's closest to expiry (in the is case the September 2011 one)). Only problem is that prices don't exactly match what CME has (high of 1190 and low of 1186.25, for when this page gets out of date): http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/e-mini-sandp500.html - but they are so close I suspect it must be some sort of S&P 500 index future. |
If I have some old gold jewellery, is it worth it to sell it for its melt value? | I have a buddy that used to run one of those companies that buys gold like the ones you see on TV. Here's the deal... 1) If the jewelry isn't total junk, get it appraised. Making raw materials into jewelry obviously increases the value since you can't buy jewelry for the price of raw gold. In many cases it will be worth more as jewelry, but not always. Depends on the piece. 2) Those companies generally rely on the fact that people selling jewelry to a gold dealer are in a hurry to get cash and are very negotiable on what they will take for it. Depending on how predatory they are, you will probably get between 50 and 75% of the market rate. They make a living on the spread and people's need for quick cash. They usually resell it immediately to a 3rd party that actually melts it down and resells it. So the short answer to your question is no, you won't get close to market value with these companies. You would do better if you didn't have to go through the middle man, but then those final buyers aren't generally the ones who have set up shop to deal with the general public. |
Why do people buy insurance even if they have the means to overcome the loss? | Insurance is a funny product. As you said, it is a little like gambling. When I buy term life insurance, I'm essentially betting that I'm going to die within the next 20 years, and the insurance company is betting that I'm not. I'm hoping to lose that bet! Besides all of the reasons that other answers mentioned, I think part of the reason is psychological. As in my example, I'm setting up a kind of a win-win situation for myself here. Let's go with car insurance, a less-morbid example than my first example. If I don't get into a car accident, great! If I do get into a car accident, then the traumatic event is at least offset by the fact that the financial impact to me is minimal. Win-win. |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | The obvious answer for savings costs with a car is not to have a car. Of course that must be balanced against other expenses (bicycle, taxi, public transport) to do things. Generally speaking, if you need a car, ways to contain expense are to buy the least expensive vehicle with the most economical engine that meets your needs, keep it undercover (reduces damage or wear due to exposure), proactively maintain it (maintenance is cheaper in the long run than the costs of dealing with a breakdown and cost of repairs, and lack of maintenance accelerates depreciation), and shop around for a good mechanic who will maintain it at a fair price. If you do a lot of milage, or do a lot of towing, or drive under load, consider a diesel. A diesel engine often costs more each service, sometimes has a shorter service interval, but it also gets greater milage. There may be a differential cost of fuel (diesel is often a bit more expensive per volume). For towing, a diesel is often more economical, due to low end power (greater torque at lower revs) which does result in better fuel economy. It is no accident that most large transport vehicles consume diesel. Do the sums based on your usage before you buy. Accelerate as gently as possible to get to speed within traffic conditions (less fuel to get to a speed). Change up to higher gears as soon as possible as - at a given speed - economy will be better, as long as the engine has enough oomph to handle it (so don't try to start from stationary in a high gear). Don't drive faster than necessary, as drag increases with speed, and hurts economy. Similarly, reduce speed gradually, to reduce undue wear on breaks and reduce fuel consumption (sharp breaking with power assisted breaks does affect fuel economy). Drive close to legal limits if conditions permit. This reduces chances of annoying other drivers (who if they get impatient may throw rocks at your car, or collide, or subject you to road rage - which contribute to damage and insurance costs). It also reduces chances of being pulled over by police and fined for obstructing other traffic. Don't tailgate. This both consumes fuel in keeping up, and means needing to slow sharply. And increases chance of accident. Don't idle more than necessary. Allow stop/start systems on your car to operate - particularly if you're in stop/start traffic. However, there is a break-even point where stopping and restarting consumes more fuel than idling, so get to know your vehicle. That depends on how much the engine needs cranking to restart - which is affected both by engine design and maintenance. Maintain it yourself if you have the skills, but account for the cost of parts and equipment, to be sure it is cost effective (modern cars are software driven, so equipment to diagnose and maintain can be expensive). Combine trips (don't get into the car for every little thing - wait until you can do a few things during a single drive) and car pool. If fuel prices vary (e.g some places have regular cycles) try to refuel near the bottom of a pricing cycle. Take unnecessary weight out of the vehicle. Don't load it up with tools unless you need them frequently. |
Does money made by a company on selling its shares show up in Balance sheet | Share sales & purchases are accounted only on the balance sheet & cash flow statement although their effects are seen on the income statement. Remember, the balance sheet is like a snapshot in time of all accrued accounts; it's like looking at a glass of water and noting the level. The cash flow and income statements are like looking at the amount of water, "actually" and "imaginary" respectively, pumped in and out of the glass. So, when a corporation starts, it sells shares to whomever. The amount of cash received is accounted for in the investing section of the cash flow statement under the subheading "issuance (retirement) of stock" or the like, so when shares are sold, it is "issuance"; when a company buys back their shares, it's called "retirement", as cash inflows and outflows respectively. If you had a balance sheet before the shares were sold, you'd see under the "equity" heading a subheading common stock with a nominal (irrelevant) par value (this is usually something obnoxiously low like $0.01 per share used for ease of counting the shares from the Dollar amount in the account) under the subaccount almost always called "common stock". If you looked at the balance sheet after the sale, you'd see the number of shares in a note to the side. When shares trade publicly, the corporation usually has very little to do with it unless if they are selling or buying new shares under whatever label such as IPO, secondary offering, share repurchase, etc, but the corporation's volume from such activity would still be far below the activity of the third parties: shares are trading almost exclusively between third parties. These share sales and purchases will only be seen on the income statement under earnings per share (EPS), as EPS will rise and fall with stock repurchases and sales assuming income is held constant. While not technically part of the income statement but printed with it, the "basic weighted average" and "diluted weighted average" number of shares are also printed which are the weighted average over the reporting period of shares actually issued and expected if all promises to issue shares with employee stock options, grants, convertibles were made kept. The income statement is the accrual accounts of the operations of the company. It has little detail on investing (depreciation & appreciation) or financing (interest expenses & preferred dividends). |
How are bonds affected by the Federal Funds Rate? | I'll answer your question, but first a comment about your intended strategy. Buying government bonds in a retirement account is probably not a good idea. Government bonds (generally) are tax advantaged themselves, so they offer a lower interest rate than other types of bonds. At no tax or reduced tax, many people will accept the lower interest rate because their effective return may be similar or better depending, for example, on their own marginal tax rate. In a tax-advantaged retirement account, however, you'll be getting the lower interest without any additional benefit because that account itself is already tax-advantaged. (Buying bonds generally may be a good idea or not - I won't comment on that - but choose a different category of bonds.) For the general question about the relationship between the Fed rate and the bond rate, they are positively correlated. There's not direct causal relationship in the sense that the Fed is not setting the bond rate directly, but other interest bearing investment options are tied to the Fed rate and many of those interest-bearing options compete for the same investor dollars as the bonds that you're reviewing. That's at a whole market level. Individual bonds, however, may not be so tightly coupled since the creditworthiness of the issuing entity matters a lot too, so it could be that "bond rates" generally are going up but some specific bonds are going down based on something happening with the issuer, just like the stock market might be generally going up even as specific stocks are dropping. Also keep in mind that many bonds trade as securities on a secondary market much like stocks. So I've talked about the bond rate. The price of the bonds themselves on the secondary market generally move opposite to the rate. The reason is that, for example, if you buy a bond at less than face value, you're getting an effective interest rate that's higher because you get the same sized incremental payments of interest but put less money into the investment. And vice versa. |
What is the smartest thing to do in case of a stock market crash | I would also be getting out of the stock market if I noticed prices starting to fall and a crash possibly on the way. There are some good and quite simple techniques I would use to time the markets over the medium to long term. I have described some of them in the answer to this question of mine: What are some simple techniques used for Timing the Stock Market over the long term? You could use similar techniques in your investing. And in regards to back-testing DCA to Timing The Markets, I have done that too in my answer to the following question: Investing in low cost index fund — does the timing matter? Timing the Markets wins hand down. In regards to back-testing and the concerns Kent Anderson has brought up, when I back-test a trading strategy, if that strategy is successful, I then forward test it over a year or two to confirm the results. As with back-testing you can sometimes curve fit your criteria too much. By forward testing you are confirming that the strategy is robust over different market conditions. One strategy you can take when the market does start to fall is short selling, as mentioned by some already. I am now short selling using CFDs over the short to medium term as one of my more aggressive strategies. I have a longer term strategy where I do not short, but tighten my stop losses when the market starts to tank. Sometimes my positions will keep going up even though the market as a whole is heading down, and I can make an extra 5% to 10% on these positions before I get taken out. The rare position even continues going up during the whole downturn and when the market starts to recover. So I let the market decide when I get out and when I stay in, I leave my emotions out of it. The best thing you can do is have a written trading plan with all your criteria for getting into the market, your criteria for getting out of the market and your position sizing and risk management incorporated in the plan. |
IRR vs. Interest Rates | IRR is not subjective, this is a response to @Laythesmack, to his remark that IRR is subjective. Not that I feel a need to defend my position, but rather, I'm going to explain his. My company offered stock at a 15% discount. We would have money withheld from pay, and twice per year buy at that discount. Coworkers said it was a 15% gain. I offered some math. I started by saying that 100/85 was 17.6%, and that was in fact, the gain. But, the funds were held by the company for an average of 3 months, not 6, so that gain occurred in 3 months and I did the math 1.176^4 and resulted in 91.5% annual return. This is IRR. It's not that it's subjective, but it assumes the funds continue to be invested fully during the time. In our case the 91.5% was real in one sense, yet no one doubled their money in just over a year. Was the 91% useless? Not quite. It simply meant to me that coworkers who didn't participate were overlooking the fact that if they borrowed money at a reasonable rate, they'd exceed that rate, especially for the fact that credit lines are charged day to day. Even if they borrowed that money on a credit card, they'd come out ahead. IRR is a metric. It has no emotion, no personality, no goals. It's a number we can calculate. It's up to you to use it correctly. |
Beginner questions about stock market | First, welcome to Money.SE. If you are interested in saving and investing, this is a great site to visit. Please take the tour and just start to read the questions you find interesting. 1 - even though this is hypothetical, it scales down to an average investor. If I own 1000 shares of the 1 billion, am I liable if the company goes under? No. Stocks don't work that way. If all I have is shares, not a short position, not options, I can only see my investment go to zero. 2 - Here, I'd ask that you edit your country in the tags. I can tell you that my newborn (who is soon turning 17) had a stock account in her name when she was a few months old. It's still a custodian account, meaning an adult has to manage it, and depending on the state within the US, the age that it's hers with no adult, is either 18 or 21. Your country may have similar regional rules. Also - each country has accounts specifically geared toward retirement, with different favorable rules regarding taxation. In the US, we have accounts that can be funded at any age, so long as there's earned income. My daughter started one of these accounts when she started baby sitting at age 12. She will have more in her account by the time she graduates college than the average retiree does. It's good for her, and awful for the general population that this is the case. |
Mutual Fund with Dividends | Funds built of dividend-paying stocks are normally called income funds. |
Buying a mortgaged house | If someone owns a house that is not paid off...can someone buy it by taking another mortgage? Yes, but I'm not sure why you think the buyer would need to take another mortgage to buy it. If someone sells their home for X dollars, then the buyer needs X dollars to buy the house. How they get that money (use cash, take out a mortgage) is up to them. During the closing process, a portion of the funds generated from the sale are diverted to pay off the seller's loan and any leftover funds after closing are pocketed by the seller. What kind of offer would be most sensible? I assume that in this case the current owner of the house would want to make a profit. The amount that the house is sold for is determined by the market value of their home, not by the size of the mortgage they have left to pay off. You make the same offer whether they own their home or have a mortgage. |
Is there a limit on the dollar amount of a personal check? | Like the old American Express commercial: "no preset spending limit". It is really up to the bank(s) in question how big a cheque they are willing to honour. A larger amount would likely be held longer by a receiving institution to ensure that it cleared properly, but nothing written in law (in Canada, that I am aware of). |
What are the common income tax deductions used by “rich” salaried households? | As was stated, households earning over $250k/yr don't all get their income one way. Below that threshold, even in the six figure range, most households are in one of two categories; salary/wage/commission workers, and those living off of nest eggs/entitlements (retired, disabled, welfare). Above $250k, though, are a lot of disparate types of incomes: Now, you specifically mentioned wage earners above $250k. Wage earners typically have the same "tax havens" that most of us do; the difference is usually that they are better able to make use of them: In other words, there are many ways for a high-end wage earner to live the good life and write a lot of it off. |
Does my net paycheck decrease as the year goes on due to tax brackets filling up? | In general no, if you just have one employer and work there with the same salary for the whole year. Typically an employer does tax withholding by extrapolating your monthly income to the entire year and withholding the right amount so that at the end, what is withheld is what you owe. It's not a surprise to them when your income crosses a tax bracket threshold, because they knew how much they were paying you and knew when you would cross into another bracket, so they factored that in. If you have multiple jobs or only worked for part of the year, or if your income varied from month to month (e.g., you got a raise) there could be a discrepancy between what is withheld and what you owe, because each employer only knows about what it's paying you, not what money you may have earned from other sources. (Even here, though, the discrepancy wouldn't be due to the tax brackets per se.) You can adjust your withholdings on form W-4 if needed, to tell the employer to withhold more or less than they otherwise would. |
Making higher payments on primary residence mortgage or rental? | One advantage of paying down your primary residence is that you can refinance it later for 10-15 years when the balance is low. Refinancing a rental is much harder and interest rates are often higher for investors. This also assumes that you can refinance for a lower rate in the nearest future. The question is really which would you rather sell if you suddenly need the money? I have rental properties and i'd rather move myself, than sell the investments (because they are income generating unlike my own home). So in your case i'd pay off primary residence especially since the interest is already higher on it (would be a harder decision if it was lower) |
Is it possible to know the probability that a trade is successful? | If you had a trading system, and by trading system I mean the criteria setup that you will take a trade on, then once a setup comes up at what price will you open the trade and at what price you will close the trade. As an example, if you want to buy once price breaks through resistance at $10.00 you might place your buy order at $10.05. So once you have a written trading system you could do backtesting on this system to get a percentage of win trades to loosing trades, your average win size to average lose size, then from this you could work out your expectancy for each trade that you follow your trading system on. |
I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out? | This is very possibly a scam. The way the scam works is that the scammers send you a letter and demand you call the telephone number. But the telephone number belongs to the scammers, not the bank. When you call the number, they will 'authenticate' you by asking you a bunch of questions. They will then have enough information to call the bank and pretend to be you, and transfer out all of your money. What you need to do is to find the telephone number for your bank without making use of this letter. For example, look at a previous bank statement, or find the telephone number on the bank's website. Call that number and discuss this letter. If you have already called the number in the letter and if you have the slightest reason to believe it is not valid, stop reading. This is an emergency. Immediately call a legitimate number at the bank. Explain the situation and note that you believe your information has been compromised. Why are you still reading? Do it now. |
If I buy a share from myself at a higher price, will that drive the price up so I can sell all my shares the higher price? | Yes it is possible but with a caveat. It is a pattern that can be observed in many lightly traded stocks that usually have a small market cap. I am talking about a stock that trades less than 2,000 shares per day on average. |
1.4 million cash. What do I do? | You can get an investment manager through firms like Fidelity or E*Trade to manage your account. It won't be someone dedicated exclusively to you, but you're in the range where they'd take you as a managed account customer. Another option would be to get a financial planner (CFP or something) help you to identify your needs and figure out what your investments portfolio should look like. This is not a whole lot of money, but is definitely enough to have an early retirement if managed and invested properly. |
Is there such a thing as a deposit-only bank account? | I would suggest opening a bank account that you use to accept deposits only, and then get a system set up where it automatically transfers the money over to your main account. If not instantly it could transfer the money hourly or daily. Of course you would have to pay a premium for this "peace of mind" ;) |
Why do more floating shares mean less volatility for the stock? | More shares mean less volatility because it takes a larger number of trades, a larger number of shares per trade, or a combination of both to raise or lower the stock price. Institutional investors (mutual funds, pensions, hedge funds, other investment firms, etc) are the sorts of organizations with the large amounts of money needed to move a stock price one way or the other. But the more floating shares there are in a company, the harder it is for one or two firms to move a stock price. A company with fewer floating shares wouldn't require as many trades (or as many shares per trade) to see wider swings in price. When it comes to stock price, insider trading isn't the same as manipulation. In the (surprisingly few) cases of insider trading that are prosecuted, it tends to be an individual (or small group) with early access to information that the broader market doesn't have being able to buy or sell ahead of the broader market. Their individual sales are seldom if ever enough to noticeably move a stock price. They're locking in profit or limiting a loss. Manipulation might (but doesn't always) precede insider trading, if misinformation (or truth) is released for the purpose of creating a situation that can be profited from via a trade or trades. |
Value of a collateralized asset | You're not missing any concepts! It sounds like you are contributing a piece of collateral to the business, and you want to know a fair way to value how much this contribution of collateral is worth. Technically the economic answer would be the difference in interest between a secured loan and an unsecured loan. So for example suppose that the business could get a loan at 17% without the collateral (maybe just on a credit card) but with the duplex as collateral it is able to get the loan at 10.5%. In principle, the value of this collateral is (17% - 10.5%) or 6.5%, because it has allowed the business to pay 6.5% less interest on its loan. |
What is the difference between “good debt” vs. “bad debt”? | None of the previous answers (which are all good) mention margin accounts (loans from your broker). You may also have heard them described as "leverage". It may seem odd to mention this rather narrow form of debt here, but it's important because overuse of leverage has played a large part in pretty much every financial crisis you can think of (including the most recent one). As the Investopedia definitions indicate, leverage magnifies gains, but also magnifies losses. I consider margin/leverage to be "bad" debt. |
Basic index fund questions | There are no guarantees in the stock market. The index fund can send you a prospectus which shows what their results have been over the past decade or so, or you can find that info on line, but "past results are not a guarantee of future performance". Returns and risk generally trade off against each other; trying for higher than average results requires accepting higher than usual risk, and you need to decide which types of investments, in what mix, balance those in a way you are comfortable with. Reinvested dividends are exactly the same concept as compounded interest in a bank account. That is, you get the chance to earn interest on the interest, and then interest on the interest on the interest; it's a (slow) exponential growth curve, not just linear. Note that this applies to any reinvestment of gains, not just automatic reinvestment back into the same fund -- but automatic reinvestment is very convenient as a default. This is separate from increase in value due to growth in value of the companies. Yes, you will get a yearly report with the results, including the numbers needed for your tax return. You will owe income tax on any dividends or sales of shares. Unless the fund is inside a 401k or IRA, it's just normal property and you can sell or buy shares at any time and in any amount. Of course the advantage of investing through those special retirement accounts is advantageous tax treatment, which is why they have penalties if you use the money before retirement. Re predicting results: Guesswork and rule of thumb and hope that past trends continue a bit longer. Really the right answer is not to try to predict precise numbers, but to make a moderately conservative guess, hope you do at least that well, and be delighted if you do better... And to understand that you can lose value, and that losses often correct themselves if you can avoid having to sell until prices have recovered. You can, of course, compute historical results exactly, since you know how much you put in when, how much you took out when, and how much is in the account now. You can either look at how rate of return varied over time, or just compute an average rate of return; both approaches can be useful when trying to compare one fund against another... I get an approximate version of this reported by my financial management software, but mostly ignore it except for amusement and to reassure myself that things are behaving approximately as expected. (As long as I'm outperforming what I need to hit my retirement goals, I'm happy enough and unwilling to spend much more time on it... and my plans were based on fairly conservative assumptions.) If you invest $3k, it grows at whatever rate it grows, and ten years later you have $3k+X. If you then invest another $10k, you now have $3k+X+10k, all of which grows at whatever rate the fund now grows. When you go to sell shares or fractional shares, your profit has to be calculated based on when those specific shares were purchased and how much you paid for them versus when they were sold and how much you sold them for; this is a more annoying bit of record keeping and accounting than just reporting bank account interest, but many/most brokerages and investment banks will now do that work for you and report it at the end of the year for your taxes, as I mentioned. |
Is there a term for the risk of investing in an asset with a positive but inferior return? | I'd question whether a guaranteed savings instrument underperforming the stock market really is a risk, or not? Rather, you reap what you sow. There's a trade-off, and one makes a choice. If one chooses to invest in a highly conservative, low-risk asset class, then one should expect lower returns from it. That doesn't necessarily mean the return will be lower — stock markets could tank and a CD could look brilliant in hindsight — but one should expect lower returns. This is what we learn from the risk-return spectrum and Modern Portfolio Theory. You've mentioned and discounted inflation risk already, and that would've been one I'd mention with respect to guaranteed savings. Yet, one still accepts inflation risk in choosing the 3% CD, because inflation isn't known in advance. If inflation happened to be 2% after the fact, that just means the risk didn't materialize. But, inflation could have been, say, 4%. Nevertheless, I'll try and describe the phenomenon of significantly underperforming a portfolio with more higher-risk assets. I'd suggest one of: Perhaps we can sum those up as: the risk of "investing illiteracy"? Alternatively, if one were actually fully aware of the risk-reward spectrum and MPT and still chose an excessive amount of low-risk investments (such that one wouldn't be able to attain reasonable investing goals), then I'd probably file the risk under psychological risk, e.g. overly cautious / excessive risk aversion. Yet, the term "psychological risk", with respect to investing, encompasses other situations as well (e.g. chasing high returns.) FWIW, the risk of underperformance also came to mind, but I think that's mostly used to describe the risk of choosing, say, an actively-managed fund (or individual stocks) over a passive benchmark index investment more likely to match market returns. |
Bucketing investments to track individual growths | Some personal finance packages can track basis cost of individual purchase lots or fractions thereof. I believe Quicken does, for example. And the mutual funds I'm invested in tell me this when I redeem shares. I can't vouch for who/what would make this visible at times other than sale; I've never had that need. For that matter I'm not sure what value the info would have unless you're going to try to explicitly sell specific lots rather than doing FIFO or Average accounting. |
1099 for settlement what about lawyer fees? | You report it as an expense against the 1099 income when you do your taxes. You will only be taxed on the amount after the lawyers fees (but if it cost you more in lawyers fees than you recover in damages, the loss is not deductible). Be sure to keep documentation of the lawyers bill and the contract. Compensatory damages are generally not taxable at all. You can see here for more information on that. |
What size “nest egg” should my husband and I have, and by what age? | I would focus first on maxing out your RRSPs (or 401k) each year, and once you've done that, try to put another 10% of your income away into unregistered long term growth savings. Let's say you're 30 and you've been doing that since you graduated 7 years ago, and maybe you averaged 8% p.a. return and an average of $50k per year salary (as a round number). I would say you should have 60k to 120k in straight up investments around age 30. If that's the case, you're probably well on your way to a very comfortable retirement. |
What low-fee & liquid exchange-traded index funds / ETFs should I consider holding in a retirement portfolio? | @bstpierre gave you an example of a portfolio similar to IFA's 70 portfolio. Please, look other variants of example portfolios there and investigate which would suit to you. Although the example portfolios are not ETF-based, required by the op, you can rather easily check corresponding components with this tool here. Before deciding your portfolio, fire up a spreadsheet (samples here) and do calculations and do not underestimate things below: Bogleheads have already answered this type of questions so why not look there? Less reinventing the wheel: google retirement portfolios site:bogleheads.org. I am not making any recommendations like other replies because financial recommendations devalue. I hope I steered you to the right track, use less time to pick individual funds or stocks and use more time to do your research. |
Events that cause major movement in forex? | Anything related to the central bank will have a large impact, as they are the ones who determine interest rates, and interest rates have a big effect on currency flows. GDP is also important, as when there is an economic slowdown it may result in the central bank reducing rates to boost economic activity. The opposite is also true, large increases in GDP may mean that an interest rate hike might be needed. Inflation data is also very important. Again, large changes in inflation either way may push the central bank towards changing rates. This data typically is in the form of CPI Note that each central bank is different. They all have specific mandates and specific pieces of economic data that they place emphasis on. The Federal Reserve as of late has closely been watching inflation data, especially wage inflation data, and employment. Significant deviations in these data points from whats expected by investors can greatly move the market. However, these specific factors are a little less important for, say, Mexico, which is mostly concerned with headline inflation. Read the statements issued by the central banks to find out whats important to them. Central banks also issue expectations for things like growth, CPI, etc. If these expectations are not met, it may result in a policy change, or at least talk of a policy change, at the next meeting of the central bank. Anticipating these policy changes and trading accordingly is one strategy to be a profitable forex trader Also, there are several forex news calendars online that indicate what is likely to be high impact news. These can be helpful starting out. |
Why buy bonds in a no-arbitrage market? | There is no single 'market interest rate'; there are myriad interest rates that vary by risk profile & term. Corporate bonds are (typically) riskier than bank deposits, and therefore pay a higher effective rate when the market for that bond is in equilibrium than a bank account does. If you are willing to accept a higher risk in order gain a higher return, you might choose bonds over bank deposits. If you want an even higher return and can accept even higher risk, you might turn to stocks over bonds. If you want still higher return and can bear the still higher risk, derivatives may be more appealing than stocks. |
What if you get pre-approved for a mortgage but don't find a house in the pre-approval timeframe? | As mentioned before - you're over-thinking the hard-pull issue. But do try to make the preapproval as close to the actual bidding as possible - because it costs money. At least from my experience, you'll get charged the application fee for preapproval, while "pre-qualification" is usually free. If you're seriously shopping, I find it hard to believe that you can't find a house within 3 months. If you're already in the process and your offer has been accepted and you opened the escrow - I believe the preapproval will be extended if it expires before closing. I've just had a similar case from the other side, as a buyer, and the seller had a short-sale approval that expired before closing. It was extended to make the deal happen, and that's when the bank is actually loosing money. So don't worry about that. If you haven't even started the process and the preapproval expired, you might have to start it all over again from scratch, including all the fees. The credit score is a minor issue (unless you do it every 2-3 months). |
Is it a wise decision to sell my ESPP stock based on this situation? | ESPP tax treatment is complicated. If you received a discount on the purchase of your stock, that discount is taxable as ordinary income when you sell the stock. Any profit about the market value when the stock was purchased is taxed based upon the holding period of the stock. If you have held the stock less than a year, the profit is taxed at your marginal tax rate (ie taxed as ordinary income). If the stock is held for more than a year, it is taxed at a special capital gains tax rate, which ranges from 0-20% depending on your marginal tax rate (most people pay 15%). |
What is the purpose of property tax? | Governments only have a few ways to get income: tax income, tax consumption, tax property (cars & boats), tax real estate, or tax services (hotel & meals). The National, state, county, city, and town taxing authorities determine what is taxed and what the rate will be to get enough money to run their share of the government. In general the taxing of real estate is done by the local government, but the ability to tax real estate is granted to them by the state. In the United States the local government decides, generally through a public hearing, what the rate will be. You can usually determine the current rate and tax value of the home prior to purchase. Though some jurisdictions limit the annual growth of value of the property, and then catch it up when the property is sold. That information is also in public records. All taxes are used to build roads, pay for public safety, schools, libraries, parks.. the list is very long. Failure to pay the tax will result in a lien on the property, which can result in your losing the property in a tax sale. Most of the time the bank or mortgage company insists that your monthly payment to them includes the monthly portion of the estimated property tax, and the fire insurance on the property. This is called escrow. This makes sure the money is available when the tax is due. In some places is is paid yearly, on other places every six months. With an escrow account the bank will send the money to the government or insurance company. Here is the big secret: you have been indirectly paying property tax. The owner of the apartment , townhouse, or home you have been renting has been paying the tax from your monthly payment to them. |
Is CLM a stock or an ETF? | Ask your trading site for their definition of "ETF". The term itself is overloaded/ambiguous. Consider: If "ETF" is interpreted liberally, then any fund that trades on a [stock] exchange is an exchange-traded fund. i.e. the most literal meaning implied by the acronym itself. Whereas, if "ETF" is interpreted more narrowly and in the sense that most market participants might use it, then "ETF" refers to those exchange-traded funds that specifically have a mechanism in place to ensure the fund's current price remains close to its net asset value. This is not the case with closed-end funds (CEFs), which often trade at either a premium or a discount to their underlying net asset value. |
Will unpaid taxes prevent me from getting a business license? | Generally these things are unrelated. Your tax debt is to agency X, your license is (mostly) from agency Y. If your business involves agency X, then it may be a problem. For example, you cannot get a EA license (IRS Enrolled Agent) if you have unsettled tax debt or other tax compliance issues. You should check Michigan state licensing organizations if there are similar dependencies. Also, some background checks may fail, and some state licenses require them to pass. For example, you can probably not get an active bar registration or a CPA license with an unsettled tax debt. You might have a problem with registering as a Notary Public, or other similar position. You can probably not work in law enforcement as a contractor. If you're on an approved payment plan - then your tax debt is settled unless you stop paying as agreed, and shouldn't be a problem. |
Costs around a modern crowd-sourced hedge fund | Your inference in #1 is incorrect. The million dollars he has contributed is going to be part of the assets of the fund. This is common practice and is a way for the founder to express confidence that the fund will make money. He wants you to come up with a model that he can then use to trade those assets. Presumably he will give you some money if he uses your model and it works. Regarding #2, there are lots of ways of getting data. Sometimes you can buy it directly from the exchange. You can also buy from vendors like tickdata.com. There are lots of such vendors. Since he makes a big deal about saying it's expensive, I'm assuming he is talking about data at relatively high frequency (not daily, which would be cheap). Stock data is still not bad. Complete US data would be a few thousand dollars (maybe 20K at the most). For someone sitting at home with no capital, that's a lot of money, but for a hedge fund it's nothing. As an institutional investor, your broker will give you a data feed that will provide all prices in real time (but not historically). If he's been in operation a while, he could have just saved the prices as they came out of the pipe. I don't think that's the case here, though, based on how young he is and how little money is involved. In short, he paid for some data and has "encrypted" it in such a way that he can legally share it for free. Supposedly his method preserves the structure so that you could write a trading model based on the encrypted data and it would work on real data. Once you have a good trading model, you sell it to him and he will use it to trade his million dollars and whatever other money he is able to gather. |
Live in Oregon and work in Washington: Do I need to file Oregon state taxes? | Yes. Here's the answer to this question from oregon.gov: 3. I am moving into Oregon. What income will be taxed by Oregon? As an Oregon resident, you are taxed on ALL income regardless of the source of the income. This includes, but is not limited to: You may need to pay estimated taxes if you don't have Oregon withholding on your income. |
Where can I find historic ratios by industry? | If you would like to find data on a specific industry/market sector, a good option is IBISworld reports. You can find their site here. You can find reports on almost any major US sector. The reports include historical data as well as financial ratios. In college projects, they were very useful for getting benchmark data to compare an individual business against an industry as a whole. |
What should I invest in to hedge against a serious crash or calamity? | If you're referring to investment hedging, then you should diversify into things that would profit if expected event hit. For example alternative energy sources would benefit greatly from increased evidence of global warming, or the onset of peak oil. Preparing for calamities that would render the stock market inaccessible, the answer is quite different. Simply own more of things that people would want than you need. A list of possibilities would include: Precious metals are also a way to secure value outside the financial markets, but would not be readily sellable until the immediate calamity had passed. All this should be balanced on an honest evaluation of the risks, including the risk of nothing happening. I've heard of people not saving for retirement because they don't expect the financial markets to be available then, but that's not a risk I'm willing to take. |
Transfer money from a real estate sale in India to the US | How would I go about doing this? Are there any tax laws I should be worried about? Just report it as a regular sale of asset on your form 8949 (or form 4797 if used for trade/business/rental). It will flow to your Schedule D for capital gains tax. Use form 1116 to calculate the foreign tax credit for the taxes on the gains you'd pay in India (if any). |
Is there a “standard deduction” for Line 5 on Schedule A of Federal taxes? | The $10,400 is in the question, in two pieces. His employer withheld $8000, and her employer withheld $2400. Thus they paid together $10,400 in income taxes, which are deductible if you itemize deductions and choose income taxes over sales taxes (you can deduct one or the other). There's nothing "standard" about the amount, though it is standard to take the income tax deduction (almost always higher than sales tax). |
Should I set a stop loss for long term investments? | Do not use a stop loss order as a long-term investor. The arguments in favor of stop losses being presented by a few users here rely on a faulty premise, namely, that there is some kind of formula that will let you set your stop such that it won't trigger on day-to-day fluctuations but will trigger in time to protect you from a significant loss in a serious market downturn. No such formula exists. No matter where you set your stop, it is as likely to dump you from your investment just before it begins climbing again as it is to shield you from continued losses. Each time that happens, you will have sold low and bought high, incurring trading fees into the bargain. It is very unlikely that the losses you avoid in a bear market (remember, you still incur the loss up until your stop is hit; it's only the losses after that that you avoid) will make up the costs of false alarms. On top of that, once you have stopped out of your first investment choice, then what? Will you reinvest in some other stock or fund? If those investments didn't look good to you when you first set up your asset allocation, then why should they look any better now, just because your primary investment has dropped by some arbitrary[*] amount? Will you park the money in cash while you wait for prices to bottom out? The market bottom is only apparent in retrospect. There is no formula for calling it in real time. Perhaps stop loss orders have their uses in active trading strategies, or maybe they're just chrome that trading platforms use to attract customers. Either way, using them on long-term investments will just cost you money in the long run. Forget the fancy order types, and manage your risk through your asset allocation. The overwhelming likelihood is that you will get better performance, and you will spend less time worrying about your investments to boot. [*] Why are the stop levels recommended by the formulae invariably multiples of 5%? Do the market gods have a thing for round numbers? |
How can all these countries owe so much money? Why & where did they borrow it from? | By the phrasing of your question it seems that you are under the mistaken impression that countries are borrowing money from other countries, in which case it would make sense to question how everyone can be a borrower with no one on the other side of the equation. The short answer is that the debt is owed mostly to individuals and institutions that buy debt instruments. For example, you know those US savings bonds that parents are buying to save for their children's education? Well a bond is just a way to loan money to the Government in exchange for the original money plus some interest back later. It is as simple as that. I think because the debt and the deficit are usually discussed in the context of more complex macroeconomic concerns people often mistakenly assume that national debts are denominated in some shadow banking system that is hidden from the common person behind some red-tape covered bureaucracy. This is not the case here. Why did they get themselves into this much debt? The same reason the average person does, they are spending more than they bring in and are enabled by access to easy credit. Like many people they are also paying off one credit card using another one. |
Why so much noise about USA's credit rating being lowered? | Because the USA is the world's biggest economy - everybody in the world works with the USA (even if the american companies are not direct suppliers, they are surely somewhere in the supply chain). If USA credit rating is lower, that means american companies will find it harder to get loans to finance their business (i.e. the price of capital will be higher), and this will consequently lead to higher prices for partners of american companies, etc. This will certainly lead to slowdown of global economy. Plus, the lower credit rating also means that the USA govt. is less likely to pay off the debts (Chinese already stated they will diversify their bonds portfolio -i.e. they will start selling out american govt. bonds). This will lead to cuts in public sector in USA, less spending by the consumers, also probably less import from abroad and less travel which will affect - you get it - the "RoW". It's not by chance we have a saying in Europe, when USA sneezes, the rest of the world catches a flu! |
Ways to establish credit history for international student | I think you should try to talk with the credit union at your campus first, they may have offer you a credit card even you don't have any credit history. |
What is the difference between a stock and a bond? | A stock is an ownership interest in a company. There can be multiple classes of shares, but to simplify, assuming only one class of shares, a company issues some number of shares, let's say 1,000,000 shares and you can buy shares of the company. If you own 1,000 shares in this example, you would own one one-thousandth of the company. Public companies have their shares traded on the open market and the price varies as demand for the stock comes and goes relative to people willing to sell their shares. You typically buy stock in a company because you believe the company is going to prosper into the future and thus the value of its stock should rise in the open market. A bond is an indebted interest in a company. A company issues bonds to borrow money at an interest rate specified in the bond issuance and makes periodic payments of principal and interest. You buy bonds in a company to lend the company money at an interest rate specified in the bond because you believe the company will be able to repay the debt per the terms of the bond. The value of a bond as traded on the open exchange varies as the prevailing interest rates vary. If you buy a bond for $1,000 yielding 5% interest and interest rates go up to 10%, the value of your bond in the open market goes down so that the payment terms of 5% on $1,000 matches hypothetical terms of 10% on a lesser principal amount. Whatever lesser principal amount at the new rate would lead to the same payment terms determines the new market value. Alternatively, if interest rates go down, the current value of your bond increases on the open market to make it appear as if it is yielding a lower rate. Regardless of the market value, the company continues to pay interest on the original debt per its terms, so you can always hold onto a bond and get the original promised interest as long as the company does not go bankrupt. So in summary, bonds tend to be a safer investment that offers less potential return. However, this is not always the case, since if interest rates skyrocket, your bond's value will plummet, although you could just hold onto them and get the low rate originally promised. |
How are long-term/short-term capital gains tax calculated on restricted stock? | Fidelity has a good explanation of Restricted Stock Awards: For grants that pay in actual shares, the employee’s tax holding period begins at the time of vesting, and the employee’s tax basis is equal to the amount paid for the stock plus the amount included as ordinary compensation income. Upon a later sale of the shares, assuming the employee holds the shares as a capital asset, the employee would recognize capital gain income or loss; whether such capital gain would be a short- or long-term gain would depend on the time between the beginning of the holding period at vesting and the date of the subsequent sale. Consult your tax adviser regarding the income tax consequences to you. So, you would count from vesting for long-term capital gains purposes. Also note the point to include the amount of income you were considered to have earned as a result of the original vesting [market value then - amount you paid]. (And of course, you reported that as income in 2015/2016, right?) So if you had 300 shares of Stock ABC granted you in 2014 for a price of $5/share, and in 2015 100 of those shares vested at FMV $8/share, and in 2016 100 of those shares vested, current FMV $10/share, you had $300 in income in 2015 and $500 of income in 2016 from this. Then in 2017 you sold 200 shares for $15/share: |
Multi-user, non-US personal finance and budget software | My wife and I have been ridiculously happy with YNAB. It's not "online," but syncs across our phones & computers using Dropbox. It supposedly supports different locales and currencies, but I have never needed to try that out. |
Got a “personal” bonus from my boss. Do I have to pay taxes and if so, how do I go about that? | I actually think your boss is creating a problem for you. Of course it's taxable. The things IRS will look at (and they very well might, as it does stand out) what kind of payment is that. Why did it not go through payroll? The company may be at risk here for avoiding FICA/FUTA/workers' compensation insurance/State payroll taxes. Some are mandatory, and cannot be left to the employee to pay. On your side it raises your taxable income without the appropriate withholding, you may end up paying underpayment penalties for that (that is why you've been suggested to keep proofs of when you were paid). Also, it's employment income. If it is not wages - you're liable for self-employment taxes (basically the portion of FICA that the employer didn't pay, and your own FICA withholding). When you deposit the check is of no matter to the IRS, its when you got it that determines when you should declare the income. You don't have a choice there. I suggest asking the company payroll why it didn't go through them, as it may be a problem for you later on. |
How can I find data on delisted stocks? | In general you cannot. Once the security is no longer listed on the exchange - it doesn't have to provide information to the exchange and regulators (unless it wants to be re-listed). That's one of the reasons companies go private - to keep their (financial and other) information private. If it was listed in 1999, and is no longer listed now - you can dig through SEC archives for the information. You can try and reach out to the company's investors' relations contact and see if they can help you with the specific information you're looking for. |
Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough? | The other answers here do an excellent job of laying out the mathematics of the expected value. Here is a different take on the question of whether lottery tickets are a sensible investment. I used to have the snobbish attitude that many mathematically literate people have towards lotteries: that they are "a tax on the mathematically illiterate", and so on. As I've gotten older I've realized that though, yes, it is certainly true that humans are staggeringly bad at estimating risks, that people actually are surprisingly rational when they spend their money. What then is the rational basis for buying lottery tickets, beyond the standard explanation of "it's cheap entertainment"? Suppose you are a deeply poor person in America. Your substandard education prepared you for a job in manufacturing which no longer exists, you're working several minimum wage jobs just to keep food on the table, and you're one fall off a ladder from medical-expense-induced total financial disaster. Now suppose you have things that you would like to spend truly enormous amounts of money on, like, say, sending your children to schools with ever-increasing tuitions, or a home in a safe neighbourhood. Buying lottery tickets is a bad investment, sure. Name another legal investment strategy that has a million-dollar payout that is accessible to the poor in America. Even if you could invest 10% of your minimum-wage salary without missing the electricity bill, that's still not going to add up to a million bucks in your lifetime. Probably not even $100K. When given a choice between no chance whatsoever at achieving your goals and a cheap chance that is literally a one-in-a-million chance at achieving your goals the rational choice is to take the bad investment option over no investment at all. |
Why are some long term investors so concerned about their entry price? | If you think of it in terms of trying to get an annual return on your investment over the long haul, you can do a simple net present value analysis to decide your buy price. If you're playing conservative with the investments and taking safety over returns, you will still have some kind of expectation of that return will be. Paying slightly more will drag down your returns, perhaps less than what you want to get. If you really want to get your desired X%, then stick to your guns and don't go down the slippery slope of reaching. If 1% off isn't bad, then 2% off isn't all that bad, and maybe 3% is OK too for the right situation, etc. Gotta have rules and stick to them. You never know what opportunities will be around tomorrow. The possible drops in value should be built into your return expectations. |
Is it worth having a pension? | On the face of it, it doesn't look like a very good deal - neither pension not annuity company are in it for the fun of it, so they'll take their cut from your money, and then invest it anyway. The rest depends on what they promise you - if they just promise you market returns then I don't see much sense to do it, you can do it yourself. If they promise you some pre-defined average return not depending on market conditions (and hope to get ahead by actually getting better return and pocket the difference) then it might make sense, if you are not a very proficient investor. This will get you a known benefit you can count on (at least if you get a company with good rating/insurance/etc.) without worrying about markets volatility and having to keep the discipline and calm when markets jump around. It may be hard, especially for somebody of advanced age. Also, there's the part of government adding money - it depends on how much of it is added, is it enough to cover the extra fees? |
What is the difference between “good debt” vs. “bad debt”? | First of all debt is a technology that allows borrower to bring forward their spending; it's a financial time machine. From borrowers point of view debt is good when it increases overall economic utility. A young person wants to bring up a family but cannot afford the house. Had they waited for 30 years they would have reached the level of income and savings to buy the house for cash. By the time it might be too late to raise a family, sure they'd enjoy the house for the last 20 years of their life. But they would loose 30 years of utility - they could have enjoyed the house for 50 years! So, for a reasonable fee, they can bring the spending forward. Another young person might want to enjoy a life of luxury, using the magical debt time machine and bringing forward their future earnings. They might spend 10 years worth of future earnings on entertainment within a year and have a blast. Due to the law of diminishing marginal utility - all that utility is pretty much wasted, but they'll still will need to make sacrifices in the future. The trick is to roughly match the period of debt repayment to the economic life of the purchase. Buying a house means paying over 30 years for an asset that has an economic life of 80 years+, given that the interest fee is reasonable and the house won't loose it's value overnight that's a good debt. Buying a used car with a remaining life of 5 years and financing its with a seven years loan - is not a good idea. Buying a luxurious holiday that lasts a fortnight with 2 years of repayments, i.e. financing non-essential short term need with medium term debt is insane. The other question is could the required utility be achieved through a substitute at a lower cost without having to bring the spending forward or paying the associated fee. |
Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity? | Well, I know why the Rabobank in the Netherlands does it. I can go back around one year and a half with my internet banking. But I can only go further back (upto 7 years) after contacting the bank and paying €5,- per transcript (one transcript holds around a month of activities). I needed a year worth of transcripts for my taxes and had to cough up more than €50. EDIT It seems they recently changed their policy in a way that you can request as many transcripts as you like for a maximum cost of €25,- so the trend to easier access is visible. |
Why is a stock dividend considered a dividend? What makes it different from a stock split? | The key difference I've found between a stock split and a stock dividend – of the exact same stock and class, as opposed to a spin-off – seems to be from the company's own accounting perspective. There doesn't appear to be any actual transfer of value to the shareholder with either kind of transaction; i.e. in theory, each transaction would be immaterial to the value of your holdings. With respect to the company's accounting, a stock split affects the par value of the shares, whereas a stock dividend reduces the retained earnings account in order to increase paid-in or contributed capital. I found a good online source which explains the history behind this accounting difference: McGraw-Hill - Intermediate Accounting eBook, 6/e - Chapter 18 - Stock Dividends and Splits. Small quote: [...] Besides being based on fallacious reasoning, accounting for stock dividends by artificially reclassifying “earned” capital as “invested” capital conflicts with the reporting objective of reporting shareholders' equity by source. Despite these limitations, this outdated accounting standard still applies. Since neither the corporation nor its shareholders apparently benefits from stock dividends, why do companies declare them?23 Occasionally, a company tries to give shareholders the illusion that they are receiving a real dividend. Another reason is merely to enable the corporation to take advantage of the accepted accounting practice of capitalizing retained earnings. Specifically, a company might wish to reduce an existing balance in retained earnings—otherwise available for cash dividends—so it can reinvest the earned assets represented by that balance without carrying a large balance in retained earnings. [...] There's a lot more on that page, before and after, worth reading. From another book: Google Books - Comparative Income Taxation, a Structural Analysis - page 314 - Stock Dividends. Small quote: The distribution of dividends in the form of stock or "bonus" shares to existing shareholders typically involves a transfer for corporate law purposes of retained earnings into stated capital. It can been [sic] viewed as a deemed distribution of a cash dividend to the shareholders followed by a corresponding contribution to capital or as solely as an event at the corporate level which has no effect on the shareholders whose economic interest in the corporation is unchanged by the receipt of additional shares. The systems have taken varied approaches to the stock dividend problem. The treatment is in part a function of the rules dealing with distributions of stated capital. [emphases above are mine] [... continues w/descriptions of different countries' tax treatments of the kinds of stock dividends. Includes U.S., Sweden, Japan, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, U.K., France, Germany. ...] As far as why a corporation might want to capitalize earnings and reduce the equity otherwise available for dividends, I can only imagine that, ignoring taxes for a moment, that it may have something to do with capital ratios that need to be maintained for financing or regulatory purposes? Yet, I remain curious. If I discover more on this then I'll update my answer. Additional resources: |
If you buy something and sell it later on the same day, how do you calculate 'investment'? | Another way to look at this is if we separate the owner's account from the business's account. At the start of the year, the owner puts $9 into the business account to get the business started. At the end of the first day, the business account has $10, and at the end of the second day, the business account has $11. The owner doesn't need to add any more of his own money into the business account. At the end of the 365th day, the business will have $374, which is $365 profit + $9 investment. Assuming the business has no other expenses, the business will calculate profit for the year like this: The author is making a strange point. The two numbers he is talking about are two different quantities. The business owner's return on investment is $365 / $9 = 4056%. But the business's profit margin is $365 / $3650 = 10%. Both are useful numbers when running the business. I disagree with the author's insinuation that a business is doing something tricky when calculating profit margin. Remember that, in addition to the business owner's monetary investment, he worked every day for a year to earn that $365. |
Is real (physical) money traded during online trading? | When you buy a currency via FX market, really you are just exchanging one country's currency for another. So if it is permitted to hold one currency electronically, surely it must be permitted to hold a different country's currency electronically. |
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