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Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | What is the opposite of Economic Bubble? | A financial panic is in my mind would be the opposite of a bubble. A bubble is irrational exuberance -- uncontrolled exhilaration. People will ignore anything negative and exclusively focus on the positive. People are focused on investments that offer huge returns in a short timeframe. If you recall 1999, there were bo... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | What is the opposite of Economic Bubble? | The opposite of an economic bubble is a bubble burst :p! Jokes aside though, an economic bubble occurs when the economy is in bull market mode and asset prices are growing very fast. It's usually measured by ratio's like price to earnings and the levels of various market indices. So, the opposite would be when valuatio... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | First, let me fill in the gaps on your situation, based on the numbers you've given so far. I estimate that your student loan balance (principal) is $21,600. With the variable rate loan option that you've presented, the maximum interest rate you could be charged would be 11.5%, which would bring your monthly payment up... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | Fixed You are confirming the amount you are going t pay over the term of the loan. Variable: 3.79% over 82mo. The total difference over the life of the loan comes to around $1200 That is the wrong way to calculate the variable portion. The variable is primarily set with a margin over a certain benchmark i.e. Fed rate.... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | It all has to do with risk and reward. The risk is that interest rates will rise. To entice you to go with the variable, they make it so it is cheaper if interest rates never rise. Your job is to guess whether interest rates are likely to go up or not. In a first approximation, you should go fixed. The bank employs ve... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | It is often the case (more commonly in countries other than the USA) that a fixed-term loan has an early redemption penalty, because the lender themselves will incur a cost for settling the loan early, while a variable-rate loan does not. If this is the situation and you think you might want to pay off the loan early, ... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | I have an example that may be interesting for your question. My grandfather had a tennis club around 35 years ago, and some other businesses. Some investments went bad and he was heading for bankruptcy due to the tennis club's expensive payments. So he asked to renegotiate a variable rate rather than a fixed rate, even... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | The earlier you are in your career, the more willing you should be to take a better opportunity even if it has a short-term financial cost. You go to college even if McDonald's has an opening. After college you may take an entry level job with better long-term prospects even if a higher paying job is available. You ... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | The simple answer is absolutely. With the parameters you quote, if you will pay off the loan in 82 months or less, you will be ahead taking the variable rate. You have put your finger on the important question as well. The higher initial interest is buying insurance against rates rising if you don't pay off the loan w... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | Up to some degree, a higher or lower interest rate means a bit less or a bit more money in your pocket. If the interest rate gets too high, you may be in trouble. So you first look at the situation and ask yourself: At what interest rate would I be in trouble? If this is a $20,000 student loan, then even a very high r... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Are variable rate loans ever a good idea? | What's going on here is that the variable rate loan is transferring some of the risk from the bank to you. In a reasonable deal taking on risk brings with it reward. It's the same thing as deductibles on insurance--they're transferring some risk to you and thus your expected total cost goes down. Thus the proper eval... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Adjusting a value for inflation each month using rolling 12-monthly inflation figures | In the style of the Bank of England's Inflation Calculator, you can do the calculation like so. The third column is an index made from the inflation figures and the forth column shows the inflation-adjusted values. Using the index to calculate the difference in costs, for example: The formulas used to produce the tabl... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Adjusting a value for inflation each month using rolling 12-monthly inflation figures | The actual increase in the cost of living for one month over the previous month cannot be calculated from the annualized increase in cost over the entire previous year. Consider the hypothetical case of a very stable economy, where prices stay constant for decades. Nevertheless, the authorities issue monthly statement... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Given advice “buy term insurance and invest the rest”, how should one “invest the rest”? | Buy term and invest the rest is in fact the easiest plan. Just buy the term insurance based on your current and expected needs. Review those needs every few years, or after a life event (marriage, divorce, kids, buying a house...) For the invest the rest part: invest in your 401K, IRA or the equivalent. There are inde... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Given advice “buy term insurance and invest the rest”, how should one “invest the rest”? | The simplest way is to invest in a few ETFs, depending on your tolerance for risk; assuming you're very short-term risk tolerant you can invest almost all in a stock ETF like VOO or VTI. Stock market ETFs return close to 10% (unadjusted) over long periods of time, which will out-earn almost any other option and are ve... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Investing in USD from the Eurozone (Jan 2015) | No, this is not solid advice. It's a prediction with very little factual basis, since US interest rates are kept just as low and debt levels are just as high as in the Eurozone. The USD may rise or fall against the EUR, stay the same or move back and forth. Nobody can say with any certainty. However, it is not nearly a... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Does the currency exchange rate contain any additional information at all? | No. An exchange rate tells you the exchange rate, that's all. Changes in exchange rates are a little more interesting because they suggest economic changes (or anticipation of such), but since the exchange rate is the composite of many economic forces, determining what changes may be in action from an exchange rate c... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Does the currency exchange rate contain any additional information at all? | Relative changes in rates are significant. Why? Exchange rates encourage cross-border trade. For example, I live in an area that is now popular with Canadian tourists, mostly due to the favorable exchange rates. Changes in exchange rates between trading partners can affect trade balance as well. The US "strong dollar"... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Are there special exceptions to the rule that (US) capital gains taxes are owed only when the gain materializes? | Normally, you don't pay capital gains tax until you actually realize a capital gain. However, there are some exceptions. The exception that affected Eduardo Saverin is the expatriation tax, or exit tax. If you leave a country and are no longer a tax resident, your former country taxes you on your unrealized capital g... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Are there special exceptions to the rule that (US) capital gains taxes are owed only when the gain materializes? | In addition to the expatriation case already mentioned by Ben Miller, traders/investors are required to use mark-to-market accounting on certain investments. These go by Section 1256 contracts due to the part of the law that defines them. Mark-to-market is also required on straddles (combination of a long and and a ... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Are there special exceptions to the rule that (US) capital gains taxes are owed only when the gain materializes? | This is really an extended comment on the last paragraph of @BenMiller's answer. When (the manager of) a mutual fund sells securities that the fund holds for a profit, or receives dividends (stock dividends, bond interest, etc.), the fund has the option of paying taxes on that money (at corporate rates) and distributin... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | What should I reserve “emergency savings” for? | Emergency funds are good to keep yourself out of debt, for whatever reason. Job loss is a big place where an emergency fund can help you out. It buys you time to find another job before hauling out the credit cards for your groceries, falling behind on your mortgage and car payments, etc. But it can just as easily be ... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | What should I reserve “emergency savings” for? | I think it is stated perfectly in the question, "unforeseen critical needs." You know you will need to buy new tires for your car, they are critical but not unforeseen. However, if a tree falls on your car and you need to pay the insurance deductible for the repairs it would be unforeseen. You should budget for the exp... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | What are investment options for young married couple with no debt that have maxed out retirement savings? | 4.7 is a pretty low rate, especially if you are deducting that from your taxes. If you reduce the number by your marginal tax rate to get the real cost of the money you end up with a number that isn't far off from inflation, and also represents a pretty low 'yield' in terms of paying off the loan early. (e.g. if you... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What are investment options for young married couple with no debt that have maxed out retirement savings? | You can't max out your retirement savings. There are vehicles that aren't tax-advantaged that you can fund after you've exhausted the tax-advantaged ones. Consider how much you want to put into these vehicles. There are disadvantages as well as advantages. The rules on these can change at any time and can make it ha... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | What are investment options for young married couple with no debt that have maxed out retirement savings? | Paying the mortgage down is no different than investing in a long term taxable fixed instrument. In this economy, 4.7% isn't bad, but longer term, the stock market should return higher. When you have the kid(s), is your wife planing to work? If not, I'd first suggest going pre-tax on the IRAs, and when she's not worki... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | It's more complicated than that. Governments raise money in a number of ways. First, they tax economic activity within their borders and for connected companies and individuals. Then, some governments have actual revenues from state-owned enterprises (licences, patents, courts, business revenues, and so on). Whatever... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | Typically the debt is held by individuals, corporations and investment funds, not by other countries. In cases where substantial amounts are held by other countries, those countries are typically not in debt themselves (e.g. China has huge holdings of US Treasuries). If the debts were all cancelled, then the holders of... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | The answers provided so far as good and informative, but I just thought I'd add one small point... There are super-national organisations that commonly lend to governments, in particular those in the developing the world. The World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) are the two primary ones. Also quite notably,... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | Sovereign states borrow money explicitly in a two primary ways: A sovereign cannot be compelled to repay debt, and there isn't a judicial process like bankruptcy to erase debt. When sovereigns default, they negotiate new terms with creditors and pay back some fraction of the actual debt owed. They can also print money... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | There no legal framework that allows states like the US or countries in Europe to default on their debt. Should congress pass a law to default the US supreme court is likely to nullify the law. |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Where do countries / national governments borrow money from? | Depends on the country, whether its a currency issuer with floating exchange rate, and what the debt is denominated in. For instance, the US has no real debt, b/c its all in US dollars and can be printed at any time. It has no need to borrow anything, it issues its own currency. It used to be different 4 decades ago, o... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Was this a good deal on a mortgage? | That seems a very bad offer, it borders on fraud. In the current US economy, you should be able to get between 3 and 4 % APR (and that number is what you should look at). That means that for $300,000 over 30 years, you'd pay $1,265 to $1,432 per month. If you are able to pay more than that monthly rate, you should go f... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Was this a good deal on a mortgage? | I'm calculating that to about a 7% apr, which given loan rates available today seems a bit high. I wouldn't get too caught up on what that equates to over the life of the loan. There are a lot of forces in play over a 30 year period, namely the time value of money. 30 years from now a dollar will be less valuable i... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Was this a good deal on a mortgage? | Some part of the payment is probably also going for tax escrow, insurance payments, probably PMI if you aren't putting at least 20% down. Get a complete breakdown of the costs. Remember to budget for upkeep. And please see past discussion of why buying a home at this point in your career/life may be very, very prematu... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Was this a good deal on a mortgage? | The key question is whether this number includes taxes and insurance. When you get a mortgage in the U.S., the bank wants to be sure that you are paying your property taxes and that you have homeowners insurance. The mortgage is guaranteed by a lien on the house -- if you don't pay, the bank can take your house -- and ... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Was this a good deal on a mortgage? | The price of the loan may be justified if you're considered a high-risk applicant for some reason (e.g. you're putting very little money in initial payment), and if it includes all the associated expenses. What is more relevant to your situation is that you're probably better off renting. Think about it: your $300'000 ... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Was this a good deal on a mortgage? | I'm a visual person so the idea of a 30 year mortgage didn't make much sense to me until I could see it This isn't exact but it's pretty close. The green Interest lines represent the money you're giving to the bank as a "thank you" for lending you a large amount of cash up front. As you've already figured out, that's ... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | It's because financing can fall through, and then the time between offer and closing is wasted. Often buyers will include preapprovals and other evidence of financing eligibility with their offer for this reason. |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | One other point to consider is that cash offers often include no contingencies. That is, the offer comes in and if the seller signs then the deal is done, without any chance that the buyer backs out. As you can imagine, this is an attractive option in some situations. |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | Often the counter-party has obligations with respect to timelines as well -- if your buying a house, the seller probably is too, and may have a time-sensitive obligation to close on the deal. I'm that scenario, carrying the second mortgage may be enough to make that deal fall through or result in some other negative im... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | @OP: It's all about risk. With a cash buyer the decision is left up to one person. With a financed buyer it adds another approval process (the lender). It's another opportunity for the deal to fall through. If the bank is the lender then there's even more risk. They've already taken back the property once and inc... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | A bank selling a foreclosed property would negotiate a lower cash deal, I doubt it would be that extreme, 130 vs 100. An individual seller may give up $10K to save time and get his next home closed as well, but again, I suspect it would be rare to find that large a delta. |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending? | Also keep in mind that with an all-cash offer, they get their money now and not spread over X-many years, which means they can reinvest it now rather than piece meal across the term of whatever the loan would be. (Presuming the bank would be financing the house themselves.) Additionally, with an all-cash offer, there e... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Where can I find announcements of official GDP figures for the US and other countries? | For press releases about economic data, the Bureau of Economic Analysis press release page is helpful. Depending on the series, you could also look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release page. For time series of both historical and present data, the St. Louis Federal Reserve maintains a database such data, in... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Where can I find announcements of official GDP figures for the US and other countries? | For immediate availability, by far the fastest (and cheapest) way to get macroeconomic figures as they are released, is by following (verified) Twitter accounts of the respective Central bank and institutions alike. Indeed, Twitter is the new trader tape. |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Where can I find announcements of official GDP figures for the US and other countries? | There are tons of data provided on the CIA - The World Factbook webpage. Among the rest, there are the GDP values as well. The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. Our ... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Upward Spike in US Treasuries despite S&P Downgrade in August 2011 | The only resources or references you need are a chart showing you what happened in those months. The exuberance for US treasuries comes from the fact that there are no better options than them for putting cash. There are better sovereign debt instruments around the world depending on your goals, but they do not offer t... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Upward Spike in US Treasuries despite S&P Downgrade in August 2011 | US government bonds are where money goes when the markets are turbulent and investors are fleeing from risk, and that applies even if the risk is a downgrade of the US credit rating, because there's simply nowhere else to put your money if you're in search of safety. Most AAA-rated governments have good credit ratings ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What are the top “market conditions” to follow? | If you're investing for the long term your best strategy is going to be a buy-and-hold strategy, or even just buying a few index funds in several major asset classes and forgetting about it. Following "market conditions" is about as useful to the long term trader as checking the weather in Anchorage, Alaska every day (... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | What are the top “market conditions” to follow? | The best advice I've heard regarding market conditions is: Buy into fear, and sell into greed. That is, get in when everyone is a bear and predicting economic collapse. Start selling when you hear stock picks at parties and family functions. That said. You are better off in the long term not letting emotion (of you or... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | What are the top “market conditions” to follow? | The very term 'market conditions' is subjective and needs context. There are 'market conditions' that favor buying (such as post crash) or market conditions that favor selling (such as the peak of a bubble). Problem with mutual funds is you can't really pick these points yourself; because you're effectively outsourci... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | What are the top “market conditions” to follow? | Check out http://garynorth.com if you have $15/month. Or at least subscribe to his free newsletters (Tip of the Week, Reality Check). Well worth it. He doesn't pay much attention to the US market indicators, except to note that people are about 20% poorer than they were 10 years ago. He looks at more basic indicator... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Are there any catches with interest from banks? Is this interest “too good to be true”? | The 1.09% is per year, not per month. Not too bad for a regular savings, but it's just interest rates in general that are bad right now. The inflation rate should be 3.8% currently so if you hide your money in a bank you'll end up with a loss of 2% in buying power in a year... If you open an CD (Certificate of Deposit)... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Are there any catches with interest from banks? Is this interest “too good to be true”? | Tax won't be an issue. You have a personal tax free allowance of £7475 this coming year, so your first £7475 will be tax free. 1.09% is pretty abysmal (sorry - but we've wrecked the economy for you young fullas), so you'll only earn about £84 a month. Not as awesome as you were expecting I think. Would recommend gettin... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Are there any catches with interest from banks? Is this interest “too good to be true”? | The 1.09% is per year, not per month, so you will be getting about 1K per year just for sitting around on your backside. Some important things. It is almost certain that you can earn a better interest rate elsewhere, if you are prepared to leave your 100K untouched. For example, even in Natwest you can earn 3.2% over t... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Why does quantitative easing negatively affect stocks? | Can you isolate the market impact to just the Fed's quantitative easing? Can you rule out the future economic predictions of low growth and that there are reasons why the Fed has kept rates low and is trying its best to stimulate the economy? Just something to consider here. The key is to understand what is the great... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Why does quantitative easing negatively affect stocks? | The stock market in general likes monetary easing. With lower interest rates and easy cheap money freely available, companies can borrow at reduced cost thus improving profits. As profits increase share prices generally follow. So as John Benson said Quantitative Easing usually has a positive effect on stocks. The rece... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Why would I buy a bond with a negative yield? | It would be preferable to purchase a bond with a negative yield if the negative yield was the smallest compared to similar financial securities. The purchase or sale of a security is rarely a mutually exclusive event. An individual may have personal reasons or a desire to contribute to the activity the bond is financi... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Why would I buy a bond with a negative yield? | Perhaps something else comes with the bond so it is a convertible security. Buffett's Negative-Interest Issues Sell Well from 2002 would be an example from more than a decade ago: Warren E. Buffett's new negative-interest bonds sold rapidly yesterday, even after the size of the offering was increased to $400 millio... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Why would I buy a bond with a negative yield? | The question in my view is going into Opinion and economics. Why would I buy a bond with a negative yield? I guess you have answered yourself; Although the second point is more relevant for high net worth individual or large financial institutions / Governments where preserving cash is an important consideration. Curre... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | How do currency markets work? What factors are behind why currencies go up or down? | Q: How do currency markets work? A: The FX (foreign exchange) market works very much like the stock market where potential buying parties bid $Y of country 1's currency to buy $1 in country 2's currency. Potential selling parties sell (ask) $1 of country 2's currency for $Y of country 1's currency. Like the stock mar... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | How do currency markets work? What factors are behind why currencies go up or down? | From my limited experience with foreign exchange... Money is a commodity.. people buy it and sell it like other products.. if "money" is in demand the price goes up.. this is the case when a countries stocks are hot, and you need to purchase that countries currency to buy that stock... I've also seen the currency rise ... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | How do currency markets work? What factors are behind why currencies go up or down? | The fiat currency is the basis for currency markets - that is, currency that is not made of precious metals. The factors that influence what the value of a fiat currency are the state of the country's economy, what the gov't says the value should be, their fiscal policies, as well as what the currency is trading at. ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | How do currency markets work? What factors are behind why currencies go up or down? | According to Soros in "The Alchemy of Finance", exchange rates fluctuations are mostly influenced by: (sorry I do not have the quote here, and I am paraphrasing from the top of my head what I read about a week ago). I mention his point of view as he is one of the most successful hedge fund manager ever, proved his skil... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house? | Paying off your student loan before buying a house is certainly a great risk reduction move for you. It will lower your debt to income ratio allowing your mortgage approval to go easier and it will free up more of your dollars to pay for the many miscellaneous projects that come with buying a house. I think that if you... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house? | It depends on the terms. Student loans are often very low interest loans which allow you to spread your costs of education over a long time without incurring too much interest. They are often government subsidized. On the other hand, you often get better mortgage rates if you can bring a down payment for the house. Th... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house? | There may be specific answers that can be determined based on the interest rates, amounts, tax provisions, etc. But I'm here to tell you... It is much easier (i.e., less stressful) to own a home when you have less debt. Pay off any and every debt you can before purchasing a home because there will always be something r... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house? | It might be a good idea, because later in life if a large expense shows up or an income source disappears, you will only have the mortgage payment, rather than a mortgage AND a student loan payment. |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house? | One extremely important aspect that must be taken into consideration is the state of the housing market. If prices are rising it will probably be a false economy to delay your house purchase. Say you pay off a £5,000 student loan, thus delaying your house purchase another year you could well end up forking out an extra... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house? | IMO student loans are junk debt that should be dealt with as soon as possible. Buying a house comes with risks and expenses (repairs, maintenance, etc) and dealing with a student loan at the same time just makes it tougher. Personally, I would try to pay off at least a few of the loans first. |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Advice on preserving wealth in a volatile economic/political country | I suggest that you're really asking questions surrounding three topics: (1) what allocation hedges your risks but also allows for upside? (2) How do you time your purchases so you're not getting hammered by exchange rates? (3) How do you know if you're doing ok? Allocations Your questions concerning allocation are real... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Advice on preserving wealth in a volatile economic/political country | You might find some of the answers here helpful; the question is different, but has some similar concerns, such as a changing economic environment. What approach should I take to best protect my wealth against currency devaluation & poor growth prospects. I want to avoid selling off any more of my local index funds... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Advice on preserving wealth in a volatile economic/political country | US Treasury securities are the safest investment. You can buy short term by buying T-Bills. You buy T-bills at a discount to face. For example, to buy a four week T-bill the treasury will take $99.98 out of your account. In four weeks the treasury will deposit $100 into your account. The $0.02 difference is your Intre... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | The game is not zero sum. When a friend and I chop down a tree, and build a house from it, the house has value, far greater than the value of a standing tree. Our labor has turned into something of value. In theory, a company starts from an idea, and offers either a good or service to create value. There are scams tha... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | For some studies on why investors make the decisions they do, check out For a more readable, though less rigorous, look at it, also consider Kahneman's recent book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow", which includes the two companion papers written with Tversky on prospect theory. In certain segments (mostly trading) of the in... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | It depends on the market that you participate in. Stock markets are not zero sum as JoeTaxpayer explained. On the other hand, any kind of derivative markets (such as options or futures) are indeed zero sum, due to the nature of the financial instruments that are exchanged. Those markets tend to be more unforgiving. I d... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | Fail? What is the standard? If you include the base case of keeping your money under a mattress, then you only have to earn a $1 over your lifetime of investing to not fail. What about making more by investing when compared to keeping money in a checking or savings account? How could 90% of investors fail to achieve th... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | No, 90% of investors do not lose money. 90% or even larger percentage of "traders" lose money. Staying invested in stock market over the long term will almost always be profitable if you spread your investments across different companies or even the index but the key here is long term which is 10+ years in any emerging... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | The article "Best Stock Fund of the Decade: CGM Focus" from the Wall Street Journal in 2009 describe the highest performing mutual fund in the USA between 2000 and 2009. The investor return in the fund (what the shareholders actually earned) was abysmal. Why? Because the fund was so volatile that investors panicked and... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? | Very likely this refers to trading/speculating on leverage, not investing. Of course, as soon as you put leverage into the equation this perfectly makes sense. 2007-2009 for example, if one bought the $SPX at its highs in 2007 at ~$1560.00 - to the lows from 2009 at ~$683.00 - implicating that with only 2:1 leverage a... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | How to invest in the Russian oil market? | The Russian ETFs may be broad, but a quick glance at ERUS and RBL's sector breakdown shows they're 45% and 47% energy sector, and their top holding is Gazprom comprising 9% and 14% of each ETF respectively, with plenty more oil and gas companies in their top 10 too. A harder question would be how to invest in Russia a... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | There are two basic ways you can separate your investments from the dollar (or any other currency). |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | I am not preparing for a sudden, major, catastrophic collapse in the US dollar. I am, however, preparing for a significant but gradual erosion of its value through inflation over the space of several years to a decade. To that end, I've invested most of my assets in the stock market (roughly 80%) through major world in... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | Depends what kind of expenses you intend to use this money for. If you plan to buy housing in the future (eg you're saving a deposit), then you need to ensure that the value doesn't deteriorate relative to the value of the housing you are likely to buy - so you could buy a Residential REIT, or buy some investment prope... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | I've thought of the following ways to hedge against a collapsing dollar: |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | I recently finished reading a book that you may be interested in based on your question, The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide. The author begins with a discussion of why he thinks the US economy and currency could collapse. It gets a little scary. Then he goes into great detail on commodities, specifically gold. The... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | Invest in other currencies and assets that have "real" value. And personally I don't count gold as something of real value. Of course its used in the industry but besides that its a pretty useless metal and only worth something because everybody else thinks that everybody thinks its worth something. So I would buy land... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | I'd like to provide ideas other than gold, stocks, property, bonds on how to prepare for a severe crisis. My suggestions below may even make your life more happy now. |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | Buying gold, silver, palladium, copper and platinum. The first two I am thinking about new currencies. The last three for the perpetual need for the metals in industry. I also have invested in Numismatic coins. They are small portable and easy to hide around the house. I only collect silver coins, so even if the world ... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | The collapse of the US economic system is one of the many things I am preparing for. To answer the how, me personally I am doing some investing in gold and silver. However I am investing more in the tools, goods and gear that will help me be independent of the system around me. In short nothing will change for me if th... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?) | I think it's apt to remind that there's no shortcuts, if someone thinks about doing FX fx: - negative sum game (big spread or commissions) - chaos theory description is apt - hard to understand costs (options are insurance and for every trade there is equivalent option position - so unless you understand how those are... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | What a lovely position to find yourself in! There's a lot of doors open to you now that may not have opened naturally for another decade. If I were in your shoes (benefiting from the hindsight of being 35 now) at 21 I'd look to do the following two things before doing anything else: 1- Put 6 months worth of living expe... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | Myself I am in a similar position. I've had a few good conversations about this with people in the financial services industry. It all depends how much time you want to spend on yielding your profits and how much risk you would like to take. High time and high risk obviously means higher expected gain, but also has a ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | It's important to consider your Investor Profile when deciding the right kind of vehicle for your finances. You are a young guy, with a considerable earned income and no dependents (sorry, this was not clear from the question.) This means that you are able to take a lot of risks that people who also have a family to th... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited. | What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | Depending on where you live in the UK, buying a house sooner might be a better option. I would echo the advice about putting some money away into a "rainy day" fund etc. above but I know that in my area house prices are going up by around 7% per year. I bought a house two years ago and I'm paying 4% interest on my mort... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering | What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | The above answers are great. I would only add to the "rainy day" part, that even though the cash provides a good cushion, "a stormy day" could mean even losing those emergency savings to the unignorable randomness that governs the world economy. Though unlikely, what happened to the russian ruble and the latest decisio... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open. | What should a 21 year old do with £60,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance? | I assume you've no debt - if you do then pay that off. I'd be tempted to put the money into property. If you look at property prices over the past 20 years or so, you can see returns can be very good. I bought a house in 1998 and sold it in 2003 for about 110% of the purchase price. Disclaimer, past performance is n... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Should I get a personal loan to pay on my mortgage to go “above water” to qualify for a refinance? | It depends on how long it will take you to pay off the personal loan, the rate for the personal loan, the refi rate you think you can get, how much principal you will have to add to get the refi (may have gone up since then). Since you did not provide all the necessary details, the general answer is to sketch out your ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Should I get a personal loan to pay on my mortgage to go “above water” to qualify for a refinance? | Let's say you owe $200K (since you didn't mention balance. If you do, I'd edit my response), and can get 4.5%. You'd save 1.5% or about $3K/yr the first few years. If a $12K paydown is all that's between you and and refi I'd figure out a way. There are banks that are offering refi's under the HARP program if your curr... |
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