I've been in the UK for 3.5 years, and I have the same problem: I can't get even a small loan from my bank; no one will give me a phone contract; it's a nightmare. I have 8 direct debits, I pay everything on time and I earn decent money, but still my credit is seen as no good. I have got a few ideas for you though: Good luck!


Yes apply for live and dynamic data (you may have to pay for this depending on your broker and your country) and look at the market depth.


If your house was paid off, would you be comfortable borrowing from the equity to invest? This is essentially the same question.  Also, why not ask the opposite? How much more should you be borrowing (at a similar rate) for investments? Your answer to both questions will be clues to how you view the risk/reward of borrowing against your house in order to invest. My personal preference is not to invest with borrowed money. There may be a few percent of potential returns I am missing out on. That percent return has to be analyzed in the context of a full financial plan and future goals.


"In a word, no. If your income is high enough to have to file a return, you have to file a return. My accountant has a nice mindset for making it more palatable. I'll paraphrase: ""Our tax system is ludicrously complicated. As a result, it is your duty as an American to seek out and take advantage of every deduction and credit available to you. If our politicians and leaders put it into the tax code, use it to your advantage."" A friend of mine got a free golf cart that way. It was a crazy combination of credits and loopholes for electric vehicles. That loophole has been closed, and some would say it's a great example of him exercising his patriotic duty."


(do I need to get a W9 from our suppliers)? Will PayPal or Shopify send me a 1099k or something? Do not assume that you'll get paperwork from anyone.  Do assume that you have to generate your own paperwork.  Ideally you should print out some kind of record of each transaction.  Note that it can be hard to view older transactions in PayPal, so start now.  If you can't document something, write up a piece of paper showing the state of the world to the best of your knowledge.   Do assume that you need separate receipts for each expenditure.  The PayPal receipt might be enough (but print it in case the IRS wants to see it).  A receipt from the vendor would be better (again, print it if it is online now).   A CPA is not strictly necessary.  A CPA is certified (the C in CPA) to formally audit the books of a corporation.  In your case, any accountant would be legally sufficient.  You still may want to use a CPA, as the certification, while technically unnecessary, still demonstrates knowledge.  You may otherwise not be in a position to evaluate an accountant.  A compromise option is to go to a firm that includes a CPA and then let them assign you to someone else to process the actual taxes.   You are going to have to fill out some business tax forms.  In particular, I would expect a schedule C.  That's where you would show revenues and expenses.  You may well have to file other forms as well.


I do know that a blank check has all the information they need for the electronic transfer. They probably add it as a customer service to streamline future payments. Though I don't think automatically adding it makes good business sense. It is possible that the form used to submit the check included a line to added the account to the list of authorized accounts.  He might have been lucky he didn't set up a recurring payment.  I would check the website to see if there is a tool to remove the account info from the list of payment options. There has to be a way to edit the list so that if you change banks you can update the information, yet not keep the old accounts on the list. Talk to customer service if the website doesn't have a way of removing the account. Tell them that you have to edit the account information. And give them your info. If they balk at the change tell them that they could be committing fraud if the money is pulled from an unauthorized account.


Article is typical monetarist bs. Like Trump.  IMO,  money and wealth are not equal, and all debt is not bad. Find out how Hamilton took the Revolutionary War debt,  and used it as  an asset to  issue credit from the  Bank of the US. The real question today is, where is the growth of the real  economy?


"Anyone can walk into a bank, say ""Hi, I'm a messenger, I have an endorsed check and a filled out deposit slip for Joe Blow who has an account here, please deposit this check for him, as he is incapacitated. Straight deposit.""  They'll fiddle on their computer, to see if they can identify the deposit account definitively, and if they can, and the check looks legit, ""thanks for taking care of our customer sir.""  Of course, getting a balance or cashback is out of the question since you are not authenticated as the customer. I have done the same with balance transfer paperwork, in that case the bank knew the customer and the balance transfer was his usual. If the friend does not have an account there, then s/he should maybe open an account at an ""online bank"" that allows deposit by snapping photos on a phone, or phone up a branch, describe her/his situation and see if they have any options.  Alternately, s/he could get a PayPal account.  Or get one of those ""credit card swipe on your phone"" deals like Square or PayPal Here, which have fees very close to nil, normally cards are swiped but you can hand-enter the numbers.   Those are fairly easy to get even if you have troubles with creditworthiness.  S/he would need to return the check to the payer and ask the payer to pay her/him one of those ways.  The payer may not be able to, e.g. if they are a large corporation. A last possibility is if the check is from a large corporation with whom s/he continues to do business with.  For instance, the electric company cashiers out your account after you terminate service at your old location. But then you provision service at a new location and get a new bill, you can send their check right back to them and say ""Please apply this to my new account"". If s/he is unable to get any of those because of more serious problems like being in the country illegally, then, lawful behavior has its privileges, sorry. There are lots of unbanked people, and they pay through the nose for banking services at those ghastly check-cashing places, at least in America.  I don't have a good answer for how to get a check cashed in that situation."


"I've found that once people ""fall in love"" with a home or the idea of a home, there's little chance they will chance course.    I'd implore you to do some reading about individuals and families trapped in an underwater mortgage and having lost a job -- now they can't move for work, and they can't refinance or sell.  In short, they are trapped and will be foreclosed upon (or, at best, will short-sell).  If you want to play knife-catcher (e.g., trying to buy an asset while its value is falling) then at least don't go in blind or kid yourself about the risks.  Of course, many folks believe the housing market has bottomed - if that's true then there's no harm in waiting 6 or 12 months and verifying that premise.  At most, you'll lose a couple of points in equity.    On the other hand, you may well discover that all is not well, and suddenly you can ""afford"" even ""more"" house.  It is not hyperbole to say that the housing market in the USA has financially destroyed millions of people -- be careful out there especially as Europe comes unglued."


The rule that I know is six months of income, stored in readily accessible savings (e.g. a savings or money market account).   Others have argued that it should be six months of expenses, which is of course easier to achieve.  I would recommend against that, partially because it is easier to achieve.  The other issue is that people are more prone to underestimate their expenses than their income.  Finally, if you base it on your current expenses, then budget for savings and have money left over, you often increase your expenses.  Sometimes obviously (e.g. a new car) and sometimes not (e.g. more restaurants or clubs).  Income increases are rarer and easier to see.   Either way, you can make that six months shorter or longer.  Six months is both feasible and capable of handling difficult emergencies.  Six years wouldn't be feasible.  One month wouldn't get you through a major emergency.   Examples of emergencies:   Your savings can be in any of multiple forms.  For example, someone was talking about buying real estate and renting it.  That's a form of savings, but it can be difficult to do withdrawals.  Stocks and bonds are better, but what if your emergency happens when the market is down?  Part of how emergency funds operate is that they are readily accessible.   Another issue is that a main goal of savings is to cover retirement.  So people put them in tax privileged retirement accounts.  The downside of that is that the money is not then available for emergencies without paying penalties.  You get benefits from retirement accounts but that's in exchange for limitations.   It's much easier to spend money than to save it.  There are many options and the world makes it easy to do.  Emergency funds make people really think about that portion of savings.  And thinking about saving before spending helps avoid situations where you shortchange savings.   Let's pretend that retirement accounts don't exist (perhaps they don't in your country).  Your savings is some mix of stocks and bonds.  You have a mortgaged house.  You've budgeted enough into stocks and bonds to cover retirement.  Now you have a major emergency.   As I understand your proposal, you would then take that money out of the stocks and bonds for retirement.  But then you no longer have enough for retirement.  Going forward, you will have to scrimp to get back on track.   An emergency fund says that you should do that scrimping early.  Because if you're used to spending any level of money, cutting that is painful.  But if you've only ever spent a certain level, not increasing it is much easier.  The longer you delay optional expenses, the less important they seem.   Scrimping beforehand also helps avoid the situation where the emergency happens at the end of your career.  It's one thing to scrimp for fifteen years at fifty.  What's your plan if you would have an emergency at sixty-five?  Or later?  Then you're reducing your living standard at retirement.   Now, maybe you save more than necessary.  It's not unknown.  But it's not typical either.  It is far more common to encounter someone who isn't saving enough than too much.


Based on your comment that you do not itemize your deductions, I think that's probably the next step for you to consider. Many of the suggestions that we would give require that you itemize. If you are not familiar with the potential deductions it would probably be worth your while to visit with a local tax professional and discuss your expenses including what changes you could make to minimize your tax bill.  Ultimately becoming eligible for the 401(k) if possible will allow you access to the biggest avenue for reducing tax liability. It sounds like you are already prioritizing and saving for retirement through your IRA, but most earners in the 25% bracket can't put the recommended 15% into savings (with tax advantages) through an IRA.


On a company level ROCE over WACC would be more meaningful in my view but the end result should be be pretty much the same. This concept is closely related to value creation. Value can only be created when a company's ROCE is exceeding its cost of funding - WACC. This is also tightly related with the NPV concept. Value is only created when the NPV on a project is >0.  And to directly answer OP. Study in detail WACC. (weighted average cost of capital). Focus on the Modigliani–Miller theorem with taxes and financial distress costs. Good luck.


"My late answer is: Be aware of the difference of being a contractor and being an employee.  I am not sure of the laws in Canada, but in the United States lots of small companies like to hire people as ""contractors"" but make them work under rules that fall into employee.   The business is trying to avoid paying payroll taxes, which is fine, but make sure you know your rights and responsibilities as a contractor vs employee. You can check with your state's Bureau of Labor and Industry in the US, but I am sure wherever you are from there is a government agency to do the same thing."


"Littleadv is incorrect because receiving a 1099 means she will be taxed self-employment tax on top of federal income taxes. Your employer will automatically withhold 7.65% of payroll taxes as they pay you each paycheck and then they'll automatically pay the other half of your payroll tax (an additional 7.65%) to bring it to a total of 15.3%. In other words, because your wife is technically self employed, she will owe both sides of payroll tax which is 15.3% of $38k = $5,800 on TOP of your federal income tax (which is the only thing the W-4 is instructing them about what amount to withhold). The huge advantage to a 1099, however, is that she's essentially self-employed which means ALL of the things she needs to run her business are deductible expenses. This includes her car, computer, home office, supplies, sometimes phone, gas, maintenance, travel expenses, sometimes entertainment, etc - which can easily bring her ""income"" down from $38k to lets say $23k, reducing both her federal income tax AND self-employment tax to apply to $15k less (saving lets say 50% of $15k = $7.5k with federal and self employment because your income is so high). She is actually supposed to pay quarterly taxes to make up for all of this. The easy way to do this is each quarter plug YOUR total salary + bonus and the tax YOU have paid so far (check your paystubs) into TurboTax along with her income so far and all of her expenses. This will give you how much tax you can expect to have left to owe so far--this would be your first quarter. When you calculate your other quarters, do it the exact same way and just subtract what you've already paid so far that year from your total tax liability."


I can't agree more. If you have unique IP and know-how you can very well be a single successful proprietorship. That said you can even be more successful, if you can grow beyond that. The reality is that you have to be an exceptional salesperson, if you want to grow a pure commoditized services business. Otherwise you just keep on adding overhead and there is very little left over for you. Unless of course you make your money off the back of your employees.


Exchange-traded funds are bought and sold like stocks so you'd be able to place stop orders on them just like you could for individual stocks. For example, SPY would be the ticker for an S & P 500 ETF known as a SPDR. Open-end mutual funds don't have stop orders because of how the buying and selling is done which is on unknown prices and often in fractional shares. For example, the Vanguard 500 Index Investor shares(VFINX) would be an example of an S & P 500 tracker here.


Getting the line of credit would likely be a bit easier than the loan but realistically the best option is getting a mortgage through an Indian bank.  With a long term mortgage your monthly payments would be a small portion of your income (maybe as low as $500) so currency fluctuations are likely to be minor blips that you can avoid by sending a few thousand to hold as a cushion for when exchange is unfavorable. Edit:  Please be advised that mortgages work differently throughout the world.  While 10% down may be standard in the US, in India 40-50% down seems to be the norm.


"As long as you paid 100% of your last year's tax liability (overall tax liability, the total tax to pay on your 1040) or 90% of the total tax liability this year, or your underpayment is no more than $1000, you won't be penalized as long as you pay the difference by April 15th. That's per the IRS. I don't know where the ""10% of my income"" came from, I'm not aware of any such rule."


I am not a lawyer or a tax accountant, but from the description provided it sounds to me like you have created two partnerships: one in which you share 50% of Bob's revenue, and another in which you share 50% of the revenue from the first partnership. If this is the case, then each partnership would need to file form K-1 and issue a copy to the partners of that partnership. I think, but I'm not sure, that each partnership would need an Employer Identification Number (EIN; you can apply for and receive these online with the IRS). You would only pay tax on the portion of profits that are assigned to you on the K-1. (If you've accidentally created a partnership without thinking through all the ramifications, you probably want to straighten this out. You can be held liable for the actions of your partners.) On the other hand, if your contract with Bob explicitly makes you a contractor and not a partner, then Bob should probably be issuing a 1099 to you. Similarly for you and Joe -- if your contract with Joe makes him a subcontractor, then you may need to get an EIN and issue him a 1099 at the end of the year. The money you pay to Joe is a business expense, and would be deducted from the profits you show on your Schedule C. In my opinion, it would be worth the $200 fee paid to a good CPA to make sure you get this right.


First step, pull a copy of your credit report, and score. You should monitor that score and do what you can to bring it up. Your chances are far better if (a) you first save a sizable downpayment, and (b) go with a local bank that doesn't just write the mortgage and sell it. Better still, go to that local bank and inquire about REO (real estate owned by the bank) property. These are properties they foreclosed on and depending how they are carrying them, you might find decent opportunities. As a matter of logic, a local bank that owns these specific properties (as compared to debt pools where big banks have piles of paper owned fractionally) are more willing to get a new owner in and paying a new loan.  Congrats on the new, higher, income. I'd suggest you first build the emergency fund before the downpayment fund. Let us know how it goes.


Sure you can. Obviously it means your company will make less profit, saving you 20% corporation tax, while your personal income will be higher, meaning you will likely spend more than 20% in income tax and National Insurance contributions.


Returns: Variable, as with all investments. Legitimate: Contact the usual major investment-fund houses.


You have just answered your question in the last sentence of your question:  More volume just means more people are interested in the stock...i.e supply and demand are matched well. If the stock is illiquid there is more chance of the spread and slippage being larger. Even if the spread is small to start with, once a trade has been transacted, if no new buyers and sellers enter the market near the last transacted price, then you could get a large spread occurring between the bid and ask prices. Here is an example, MDG has a 50 day moving average volume of only 1200 share traded per day (obviously it does not trade every day).  As you can see there is already an 86% spread from the bid price. If a new bid price is entered to match and take out the offer price at $0.039, then this spread would instantly increase to 614% from the bid price.


> If the investor is a partner in the company then they're just as responsible for the debts of their business as any other partner.  Umm, one of the benefits of creating a corporation is to keep personal money separate from the business.  http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/corporation-basics-29867.html  There are exceptions to that of course.  > The registered owners of the company can also be held liable for it's debts if it's a corporation.  This is false. Baring in mind that you can prove separation of assets and aren't doing anything illegal.  > Or you can always just have them sign as guarantor for your back pay.  This is of course one of the exceptions.


I would prefer to see you register in your home state, and then focus on making money, rather than spending time looking to game the system to save a few bucks.  People worry way too much about these trivial fees when they should be focused on making their business successful.  Get registered, get insurance, and then pour it on and start making money. Make $650 your target for a week's income - you can do it!  Next year's goal should be spending $50 a month on a payroll service because you're SO BUSY you can't take the extra time to pay your own social security taxes.


"There is no opposite of a hedge, except not having a hedge at all. A ""hedge"" isn't directional. If you are short, you hedge by having something that minimizes your losses if you are wrong. If you are long, you hedge by having something that minimizes your losses if it decreases in value. If you own a house, you hedge by having insurance. There are ""hedged bets"" and ""unhedged bets"""


"Thinking about the business overall, your ""profit"" would be: Since this is a sole proprietorship, the taxes are going to depend on your marginal tax rate. If you file jointly, your income will determine what your marginal tax rate is.  If you file separately, there likely wouldn't be any tax on that income since it's less than the standard deduction, but you lose benefits of filing jointly (combined exemptions, etc.) So think about how much she would charge, what expenses are involved (before taxes), what the taxes would be on that profit, and what the ""opportunity costs"" are - is it worth time away from the kids/hobbies/etc. for that hobby? How much should a hobby business make to make it worth the effort of charging for such services? That would fall in the ""expense"" section.  Are you talking about the actual costs (tax prep, etc.) or just the hassle of collecting, accounting, etc.  Certainly those are a consideration but it's harder to quantify that.  If you can come up with some sort of cost then certainly it would fit in the overall value equation. I'm not sure using additional Social Security benefits as a gauge is helpful, since you wouldn't see those benefits until you're of retirement age (according to SS) and a lot can happen between now and then."


When you start at a new job here in the U.S., the default means of payment is usually a paper check. Most folks will quickly set up direct deposit so that their employer deposits their paycheck directly into their personal bank account - the incentive to do so is that you receive your funds faster than if you deposit a paper check.  Even if you set up direct deposit on your first day on the job, you may still receive your first paycheck as a paper check simply because the wheels of payroll processing turn slowly at some (large) companies. A counter example is a self-employed contractor - perhaps a carpenter or house painter.  These folks are paid by their customers, homeowners and such.  Many larger, well established contracters now accept credit card payments from customers, but smaller independents may be reluctant to set up a credit card merchant account to accept payment by card because of all the fees that are associated with accepting credit card payments.  3% transaction fees and monthly service fees can be scary to any businessman who already has very thin profit margins.  In such cases, these contractors prefer to be paid by check or in cash for the simple reason that there are no fees deducted from cash payments. There are a few folks here who don't trust direct deposit, or more specifically, don't trust their employer to perform the deposit correctly and on time.  Some feel uncomfortable giving their bank info to their employer, fearing someone at the company could steal money from their account. In my experience, the folks who prefer a paper paycheck are often the same folks who rush to the bank on payday to redeem their paychecks for cash.  They may have a bank account (helps with check cashing) but they prefer to carry cash. I operate in a manner similar to you - I use a debit card or credit card (I only have one of each) for nearly all transactions in daily life, I use electronic payments through my bank to pay my regular bills and mortgage, and I receive my paycheck by direct deposit.  There have been periods where I haven't written or received paper checks for so long that I have to hunt for where I put my checkbook! Even though I use a debit card for most store purchases, the bank account behind that debit card is actually a checking account according to the bank.  Again, the system defaults to paper checks and you have the option of going electronic as well. Before we judge anyone who doesn't use direct deposit or who prefers to be paid in cold hard cash, consider that direct deposit is a luxury of stability. Steady job, home, etc.  Direct deposit doesn't make sense for a contractor or day laborer who expect to work for a different person each day or week. I don't think this is all that unique to the US.  There are people in every city and country who don't have long-term employment with a single employer and therefore prefer cash or paper check over electronic payments.   I'd be willing to bet that this applies to the majority of people on the planet, actually.


Those aren't distributions, they're contributions.  Distribution is when the money comes out of the retirement accounts. Here is the best source (the IRS) for information about tax advantaged retirement plans.


>You have to sell 3-5x more LT than you're buying ST in order to be delta neutral, because the ST is much more volatile.  I assume that you talking about positions by their DV01 and not by the notional exposure?


In personal finance circles this is called an Emergency Fund. There are many opinions about how big it needs to be but most seem to come in around 3-6 months worth of your average expenses. Any more than that and you're going to loose money to inflation, less and you will start having problems if you get laid off or have a medical issue.


You can have multiple W2 forms on the same tax return. If you are using software, it will have the ability for you to enter additional W2 forms. If you are doing it by paper, just follow the instructions and combine the numbers at the correct place and attach both.  Similarly you can also have a 1099 with and without a W2. Just remember that with a 1099 you will have to pay the self employment tax ( FICA taxes, both employee and employer) and that no taxes will be withheld. You will want to either adjust the withholding on your main job or file quartely estimated taxes. Travel reimbursement should be the same tax exempt wise. The difference is that with a 1098, you will need to list your business expenses for deduction on the corresponding tax schedule. The value on the 1099 will include travel reimbursement. But then you can deduct your self employment expenses. I believe schedule C is where this occurs.


Proof of funds for funding firms are used to determine if you have any money before they lend to you. (determine risk of lending to you if you defaulted) If you came in with 10 million dollars, the firms will turn a blind eye to any money laundering regulations and just lend to you.


If there were no contribution limits, you could shelter practically all of your income from income tax. The government would not have sufficient tax revenue. Hence, there are limits which ensure some personal income remains taxable today. Similarly, when you retire, there are rules for minimum required distributions (withdrawals) which ensure the government gets to tax some of your income each year in your retirement, depending on the account type. One other advantage of limits is to encourage people to approach saving for retirement using regular, ongoing contributions made in the context of each year's limit. The limit, in a sense, can be a form of guidance. Some aim to contribute to the limit, and some even save beyond it using plain taxable investments.


No, the 120 days rule only applies in cases of delay or cancellation. If the purchase went through and you got additional money elsewhere - you cannot re-deposit the distribution back. See IRC Sec. 72(t)(8)(E): If any distribution from any individual retirement plan fails to meet   the requirements of subparagraph (A) solely by reason of a delay or   cancellation of the purchase or construction of the residence, the   amount of the distribution may be contributed to an individual   retirement plan as provided in section 408 (d)(3)(A)(i) (determined by   substituting “120th day” for “60th day” in such section)


"Largely, because stock markets are efficient markets, at least mostly if not entirely; while the efficient market hypothesis is not necessarily 100% correct, for the majority of traders it's unlikely that you could (on the long term) find significant market inefficiencies with the tools available to an individual of normal wealth (say, < $500k). That's what frequent trading intends to do: find market inefficiencies.  If the market is efficient, then a stock is priced exactly at what it should be worth, based on risk and future returns.  If it is inefficient, then you can make more money trading on that inefficiency versus simply holding it long.  But in stating that a stock is inefficient, you are stating that you know something the rest of the market doesn't - or some condition is different for you than the other million or so people in the market.  That's including a lot of folks who do this for a living, and have very expensive modelling software (and hardware to run it on).  I like to think that I'm smarter than the far majority of people, but I'm probably not the smartest guy in the room, and I certainly don't have that kind of equipment - especially with high frequency trading nowadays. As such, it's certainly possible to make a bit of money as a trader versus as a long-term investor, but on the whole it's similar to playing poker for a living.  If you're smarter than most of the people in the room, you might be able to make a bit of money, but the overhead - in the case of poker, the money the house charges for the game, in the case of stocks, the exchange fees and broker commissions - means that it's a losing game for the group as a whole, and not very many people can actually make money.  Add to that the computer-based trading - so imagine a poker game where four of the eight players are computer models that are really good (and actively maintained by very smart traders) and you can see where it gets to be very difficult to trade at a profit (versus long term investments, which take advantage of the growth in value in the company). Finally, the risk because of leverage and option trading (which is necessary to really take advantage of inefficiencies) makes it not only hard to make a profit, but easy to lose everything.  Again to the poker analogy, the guys I've known playing poker for a living do it by playing 10-20 games at once - because one game isn't efficient enough, you wouldn't make enough money.  In poker, you can do that fairly safely, especially in limit games; but in the market, if you're leveraging your money you risk losing a lot.  Every action you take to make it ""safer"" removes some of your profit."


Generally speaking the bank accounts and credit card accounts remain open.  Banks and the credit card companies don't monitor public records on a daily basis.  Instead, whoever is handling your estate will need to obtain copies of your death certificate and they will then search your paper records to identify all accounts (reason to get your act together - there are books on the subject).  The executor will work with the banks and card companies to make sure all your charges and payments clear (common to have them open for months or even a year) and to make close or transfer autopays.  They will make sure to notify the credit agencies to flag your accounts so no new accounts can be created.  MANY copies of the death certicates are needed.


Shorting is the term used when someone borrows a stock and sells it at the current price to then buy it back later at hopefully a lower price. There are rules about this as noted in the link that begins this answer as there are risks to selling a stock you don't own of course. If you look up various large companies you may find that there are millions of shares sold short throughout the market as someone does have the shares and they will need to be put back eventually.


"Typically mutual funds will report an annualized return. It's probably an average of 8% per year from the date of inception of the fund. That at least gives some basis of comparison if you're looking at funds of different ages (they will also often report annualized 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10- year returns, which are probably better basis of comparison since they will have experience the same market booms and busts...).  So yes, generally that 8% gets compounded yearly, on average. At that rate, you'd get your investment doubled in roughly 9 years... on average... Of course, ""past performance can't guarantee future results"" and all that, and variation is often significant with returns that high. Might be 15% one year, -2% the next, etc., hence my emphasis on specifying ""on average"". EDIT: Based on the Fund given in the comments: So in your fund, the times less than a year (1 Mo, 3 Mo, 6 Mo, 1 Yr) is the actual relative change that of fund in that time period. Anything greater is averaged using CAGR approach. For example. The most recent 3 year period (probably ending end of last month) had a 6.19% averaged return. 2014, 2015, and 2016 had individual returns of 8.05%, 2.47%, and 9.27%. Thus that total return over that three year period was 1.0805*1.0247*1.0927=1.21 = 21% return over three years. This is the same total growth that would be achieved if each year saw consistent 6.5% growth (1.065^3 = 1.21).  Not exactly the 6.19%, but remember we're looking at a slightly different time window. But it's pretty close and hopefully helps clarify how the calculation is done."


"When you exercise your options, you come up with cash to buy the shares. This makes you an owner of the company for shares at the share price your options let you have. Ideally, your share price is at a significant discount to what the company is worth. Being a shareholder, you gain from any share price appreciation in a sale. The only thing the ""60-day window"" applies to is whether you come up with the cash to buy fast enough, or your shares get permanently deleted from the company finances, where everyone else potentially makes more, you make nothing. The sale of the company is based on whenever the sell finalizes, which is between your company and the acquiring company."


"Why bother with the ETF? Just trade the options -- at least you have the ability to know what you actually are doing. The ""exotic"" ETFs the let you ""double long"" or short indexes aren't options contracts -- they are just collections of unregulated swaps with no transparency. Most of the short/double long ETFs also only attempt to track the security over the course of one day -- you are supposed to trade them daily. Also, you have no guarantee that the ETFs will perform as desired -- even during the course of a single day. IMO, the simplicity of the ETF approach is deceiving."


You do not hold leveraged ETF for longer than a few days.  You have UGAZ and DGAZ, both 3x leveraged, one longs one shorts.  What happens if you buy both? You don't get 0% return. In fact, you get -10% return if you hold both for 3 months.   No matter what happens, they both go down in long term.  Call it Leverage Decay, Beta Slippage, Contango, Rollover, etc.  If you want to gamble that NG goes up within 3 days, go ahead. Just be prepared for the worst cases like losing 15% in 3 days.  If you want to speculate the NG will recover in a year, buy Natural Gas industry ETF http://www.ftportfolios.com/retail/etf/etfsummary.aspx?Ticker=FCG


"Unfortunately for investors, returns for equity-based investments are not linear - you'll see (semi-random) rises and dips as you look at the charted per-share price.  Without knowing what the investments are in the target date retirement fund that you've invested in, you could see a wide range of returns (including losses!) for any given period of time. However, over the long term (usually 10+ years), you'll see the ""average"" return for your fund as your gains and losses accumulate/compound over that period."


"For one thing fund managers, even fund management companies, own less money than their clients put together. On the whole they simply cannot underwrite 50% of the potential losses of the funds they manage, and an offer to do so would be completely unsecured. Warren Buffet owns about 1/3 of Berkshire Hathaway, so I suppose maybe he could do it if he wanted to, and I won't guess why he prefers his own business model (investing in the fund he manages, or used to manage) over the one you propose for him (keeping his money in something so secure he could use it to cover arbitrary losses on B-H). Buffett and his investors have always felt that he has sufficient incentive to see B-H do well, and it's not clear that your scheme would provide him any useful further incentive. You say that the details are immaterial. Supposing instead of 50% it was 0.0001%, one part in a million. Then it would be completely plausible for a fund manager to offer this: ""invest 50 million, lose it all, and I'll buy dinner to apologise"". But would you be as attracted to it as you would be to 50%? Then the details are material. Actually a fund manager could do it by taking your money, putting 50% into the fund and 50% into a cash account. If you make money on the fund, you only make half as much as if you'd been fully invested, so half your profit has been ""taken"" when you get back the fund value + cash. If you lose money on the fund, pay you back 50% of your losses using the cash. Worst case scenario[*], the fund is completely wiped out but you still get back 50% of your initial investment. The combined fund+cash investment vehicle has covered exactly half your losses and it subtracts exactly half your profit. The manager has offered the terms you asked for (-50% leverage) but still doesn't have skin the game. Your proposed terms do not provide the incentive you expect. Why don't fund managers offer this? Because with a few exceptions 50% is an absurd amount for an investment fund to keep in cash, and nobody would buy it. If you want to use cash for that level of inverse leverage you call the bank, open an account, and keep the interest for yourself. You don't expect your managed fund to do it. Furthermore, supposing the manager did invest 100% of your subscription in the fund and cover the risk with their own capital, that means the only place they actually make any profit is the return on a risk that they take with their capital on the fund's wins/losses. You've given them no incentive to invest your money as well as their own: they might as well just put their capital in the fund and let you keep your money. They're better off without you since there's less paperwork, and they can invest whatever they like instead of carefully matching whatever money you send them. If you think they can make better picks than you, and you want them to do so on your behalf, then you need to pay them for the privilege. Riding their coattails for free is not a service they have any reason to offer you. It turns out that you cannot force someone to expose themselves to a particular risk other than by agreeing that they will expose themselves to that risk and then closely monitoring their investment portfolio. Otherwise they can find ways to insure/hedge the risk they're required to take on. If it's on their books but cancelled by something else then they aren't really exposed. So to provide incentive what we normally want is what Buffett does, which is for the fund manager to be invested in the fund to keep them keen, and to draw a salary in return for letting you in[**]. Their investment cannot precisely match yours because the fund manager's capital doesn't precisely match your capital. It doesn't cover your losses because it's in the same fund, so if your money vanishes the fund manager loses too and has nothing to cover you with. But it does provide the incentive. [*] All right, I admit it, worst case scenario there's a total banking collapse, end of civilization as we know it, and the cash account defaults. But then even in your proposed scheme it's possible that whatever assets the fund manager was using as security could fail to materialise. [**] So why, you might ask, do individual fund managers get bonuses in return for meeting fixed targets instead of only being part-paid in shares in their own fund whose value they can then maximise? I honestly don't know, but I suspect ""lots of reasons"". Probably the psychology of rewarding them for performance in a way that compares with other executive posts or professions they might take up instead of fund management. Probably the benefit to the fund itself, which wants to attract more clients, of beating certain benchmarks. Probably other things including, frankly, human error in setting their compensation packages."


That's not a valid counterpoint.    It doesn't rub you the right way because it would require you to take responsibility for your own future and do the work yourself.  It doesn't rub you the right way because it would mean that you couldn't blame anyone else if you weren't able to retire when you wanted to.


You can deduct retirement contributions (above the line even), but not as a business expense. So you can't avoid the SE taxes, sorry.


Why would you want to withdraw only the company match, and presumably leave your personal contributions sitting in your ex-company's 401k plan? Generally, 401k plans have larger annual expenses and provide for poorer investment choices than are available to you if you roll over your 401k investments into an IRA. So, unless you have specific reasons for wanting to continue to leave your money in the 401k plan (e.g. you have access to investments that are not available to nonparticipants and you think those investments are where you want your money to be), roll over part (or all) of your 401k assets into an IRA, and withdraw the rest for personal expenses.  If your personal contributions are in a Roth 401k, roll them over to a Roth IRA, but, as I remember it, company contributions are not part of the Roth 401k and must be rolled over into a Traditional IRA. Perhaps this is why you want to take those in cash to pay for your personal purchase? Also, what is this 30% hit you are talking about? You will owe income tax on the money withdrawn from the 401k (and custodians traditionally withhold 20% and send it to the IRS on your behalf) plus penalty for early withdrawal (which the custodian may also withhold if you ask them), but the tax that you will pay on the money withdrawn will depend on your tax bracket, which may be lower if you are laid off and do not immediately take on a new job. That is, the 30% hit may be on the cash flow, but you may get some of it back as a refund when you file your income tax return.


I think you are mixing up the likelihood of making a profit with the amount of profit. The likelyhood of profit will be the same, because if you buy $100 worth of shares and the price moves up you will make a profit. If you instead bought $1000 worth of the same shares at the same price and the price moved up you would once again make a profit. In fact if you don't include commissions and other fees, and you buy and sell at the same prices, you percentage profit would be the same.  For example, if you bought at $10 and sold at $12, you percentage gain of 20% would be the same no matter how many shares you bought (not including commissions). So if you bought $100 worth your gain would have been 20% or $20 and if you bought $1000 worth your gain would have been 20% or $200. However, if you include commissions, say $10 in and $10 out, your net profit on $100 would have been $0 (0%) and your net profit on $1000 would have been $180 (18%).


It's so wonderful.  Through the magic of fractional reserve banking, a bank the vast majority of the time is loaning out money they created from thin air.  And if you don't pay the obligation, they get a yacht, personal jet, or racehorse in return!  Now, of course having to repossess something might be undesirable in an accounting context, but it still beggars belief that basically the entire economy and money supply of the developed world is based on obligations backed by nothing, by private parties, created out of thin air.


"You owe $20,000 to a loanshark, 1% per week interest.  I'm happy to get 1% per month, and trust you to pay it back, so I lend you the $20,000.  The first lender got his money, and now you are paying less interest as you pay the loan back. This is how a refi works, only the first bank won't try to break the legs of the second bank for moving into their business.  This line ""reinvested the money into the mortgage to lower his monthly payments"" implies he also paid it down a bit, maybr the new mortgage is less principal than the one before."


There are many basic services that the business should be offering but are not. This can easily increase sales by 100k per year. Due to old age of the owner, he refrains from doing so. I just want to make sure the business is in good standing on the books.


Selftrade does list them. Not sure if you'll be able to sign up from the US though, particularly given the FATCA issues.


It all depends on how much risk you take. The problem is you have no idea what the risks are, and so you will lose all your money. I would say zero. But if you want to have a go, try reading reminiscences of a stock operator, then try reading my own attempt to make sense of the same stuff Hey, as you're a student you could even try making sense of my FX and MM training on the same website. Good luck


12b1 refers to a specific marketing fee on funds in my world. are you referring to the expense ratio?  yes - that is what fund wholesalers will do. another practice that won't affect your cost though.  basically what i want to express is that you shouldn't need a flowchart to understand your fees. it is simply the layers of management that will raise your cost, in addition to any transactional fees.


"There are places that call themselves quant funds that are like what you describe, but most are not. ""Quant fund"" can just about mean anything from ""we use computer screens when we read 10-Ks"" to ""our PhDs write signal processing programs without even knowing what the input data represents, and we run those programs with no manual intervention."""


The question is valid, you just need to work backwards. After how much money-time will the lower expense offset the one time fee?  Lower expenses will win given the right sum of money and right duration for the investment.


> ES_F June today the most recent 5 min bar has 809 volume. while the september has 10616 volume on the same bar.  on my rolled over contract, the ratio based adjustment has happened last week (9 bus days prior to expiration)  > 1. Commision p/l should be subtracted as actual actual.  absolutely BUT, initially, it is interesting to see if there's a good positive bias in the strategy. then we check whether comm/slippage eats it all. if so we try to play it in an index/etf whatever that charges less c&s/.  agree ?


"Just remember that the numbers can be quite remote from the realities . Look at the corporations that are crashing and ask yourself - ""would any of the numbers have told me what was going wrong with the corporations and what needed to be done to fix them ?"" . Look at , for example , Sony , HMV , Best Buy etc. ."


Since you reference SS, I surmise you are in the US.  Stock you inherit gets a stepped up basis when it's inherited. (so long as it was not contained within a tax deffered retirement account.) When you sell, the new basis is taken from that day you inherited it. It should be minimal compared to your desire to diversify.


>I take advantage of this distortion to offer to buy your gold for half its free market value.  This is where I disagree. The price you get *actually is* the market value. If not, you clearly don't have the skills to be trading in gold, and should immediately get out of that business.   But let's continue with your example, where starvation is the *only* alternative. The only thing preventing your death by starvation, is the *ability and willingness* of David Siegel to accept your offer. In your example, he has saved your life.   Ah, but how did he come to be in a position to do so? It took him many years of his life, and he chose to forego many of life's pleasures along the way, to ultimately attain the ability to save *your* life. Suppose he had never done so. Perhaps you would have never ended up with gold, as it would be worthless to you. Or you still would have acquired the gold, and then just died.   As far as the timeshare thing goes, if people are willing to accept a vacation in exchange for allowing someone to attempt to sell them something, I see nothing wrong with them doing so.


On re-reading the question, I see that you're self-employed, decent income, but only have an IRA. Since the crux of the question appears to be related to your wanting to put aside more money, I suggest you open a Solo 401(k) account. The current year limit is $17,000, and you can still have an IRA if you wish.


"Im currently working on the line for a major multinational. They regularly take feedback from us for improvements, and in India, one of those suggestions increased direct sales by (reportedly) over 50%. That suggestion? Put a label on card readers that said ""(company name) Authorized Card Reader"". It cost the company less than $10, and now brings in millions per year."


"From the article: ""Because of complicated legal and financial constraints I (Abigail) am unable to withdraw my investment at this time...""  BECAUSE:  ""*I still gonna make money off this cause it's HARD to separate this asset from my overloaded portfolio...stocks go up in value and then Yaaaa! Bonanza down the road WITH THE HIGHER STOCK VALUE... but hey, I still love those little snot-nosed children and the scrappy puppies they chase around in my park - yeah, my park as their deadbeat parents don't pay any taxes - of course I don't either, but my accountants can explain all my write-offs every year that gives me a ""No tax due"" notice and usually a refund!""*"


I took two of their online classes, attended an on campus case discussion, and attended a discussion between two professors on the future of capitalism.  What's being taught and talked about at HBS in the past year that I've been a student has been focused on using business and the economy to serve humanity. At the end of the disscusion one professor suggested getting rid of income taxes and replacing it with a financial transaction tax. A sales tax on financial instruments not targeted at long term investments but at high frequency trading.


(12 * 100) * 1.01 = 1212 Assuming the $12 ask can absorb your whole 100 share order.


"In general, following the W-4 instructions should result in withholdings that are fairly close to the amount of taxes that you will owe for the year, particularly if your situation is relatively uncomplicated. Claiming less withholdings than the form suggests can help ensure that you end up saving money in your ""interest-free IRS savings account"" and get a refund at the end of the year, which some people prefer so they don't need to budget separately for a tax payment. I'm guessing that the HR employee either prefers doing so himself or has on occasion received complaints from other employees that they ""didn't take enough out"". Personally, I'd prefer to claim as many withholdings as I can, and be sure to have some money aside in case it turns out that I have to owe a little bit, since it means I get more take-home pay throughout the year. It's good to keep in mind that a W-4 isn't written in stone. If it turns out that too much or too little is being taken out, you can always change it. You can also try playing around with the IRS withholding calculator to try some scenarios."


"If it's fully expensed, it has zero basis. Any sale is taxable, 100%. To the ordinary income / cap gain issue raised in comment - It's a cap gain, but I believe, as with real estate, special rates apply. This is where I am out of my area of expertise, and as they say - ""Consult a professional."""


I’m not an expert on the VISA/US tax or insurance, but you're making enough mistakes in terms of all the associated costs involved in owning and renting houses/apartments that this already looks potentially unwise at this stage of your investment career. Renting cheap properties/to students involves the property constantly being trashed, often being empty and requiring extremely close management (which you either have to pay someone a lot to do, or do yourself and lose other potential earning time. If doing yourself you will also make lots of mistakes in the vetting/managing/marketing process etc at first as this is a complex art in itself).  Costs on this type of rental can often get as high as 25% a year depending exactly how lucky you get even if you do it all yourself, and will typically be in the 5-15% range every year once everything you have to constantly maintain, replace and redecorate is totalled up. That's all pre what you could be earning in a job etc, so if you could earn a decent clip elsewhere in the same time also have to deduct that lost potential. Send it all to third parties (so all upkeep by hired contractors, all renting by an agency) you will be lucky to even break even off ~15k a year per property rents to students. You’re not seeming to price in any transaction costs, which usually run at ~5% a time for both entrance and exit. Thats between half and one years rent gone from the ten per property on these numbers. Sell before ten is up its even more. On point three, rounding projections in house price rises to one decimal place is total gibberish – no one who actually has experience investing their own money well ever makes or relies on claims like this. No idea on Pittsburgh market but sound projections of likely asset changes is always a ranged and imprecise figure that cannot (and shouldn’t) be counted on for much. Even if it was, it’s also completely unattainable in property because you have to spend so much money on upkeep: post costs and changes in size/standard, house values generally roughly track inflation. Have a look at this chart and play around with some reasonable yearly upkeep numbers and you will see what I mean. Renting property is an absolute graveyard for inexperienced investors and if you don't know the stuff above already (and it's less than 10% of what you need to know to do this profitably vs other uses of your time), you will nearly always be better off investing the money in more passive investments like diversified bonds, REITs and Stock.


"They borrowed it from the people, and typically to finance wars and military spending. For example, Wikipedia suggests that the Bank of England ""was set up to supply money to the King. £1.2m was raised in 12 days; half of this was used to rebuild the Navy."" It's a game that everyone has to play once started; if Napoleon buys an army on credit, you'll have to raise an equal amount or face quite a problem. As for why they've grown so large, it's because governments are quite skilled at owing large sums of money. Only a small portion of the debt comes due in full at a given moment, and they constantly reissue new debt via auction to keep it rolling. So as long as they can make coupon (interest) and the lump sum at maturity, it's not difficult to keep up. Imagine how much credit card debt you could rack up if you only ever had to pay interest. This game will continue for as long as people lend. And there are plenty of lenders. There's pensions, mutual funds and endowments, which find public debt typically safer than stocks. And money market funds, which target 1 dollar NAV and only invest in the ""safest"" AAA-rated bonds to protect it. There's central banks, which can buy and sell public debt to manipulate inflation and exchange rates.  Absent some kind of UN resolution to ban lending, or perhaps a EU mandated balanced budget, these debts will likely continue to grow. You think they ""collectively owe more money than can exist"", but there's a lot of wealth in the world. Most nations owe less than a year's GDP. For example, the US's total wealth is in the neighborhood of 50 trillion."


"Do you want to split expenses of the new apartment, or split your income/assets equally too (as for instance with a marriage where no sort of ""yours, mine, and ours"" are split out)? I'm going to assume you have beliefs similar to me in my answer, in that you desire to split expenses of the new place but don't suddenly want to split all of your assets and income 50/50 too. So here's how I'd approach this. I am somewhat unsure of what you mean by ""living expenses"" for your flat. Does this mean the cost of ownership per month - what it takes to not get rid of the place - and no portion of this is interest/mortgage? To make the calculations a little simpler, I'll assume that all the money you pay out as expenses is just gone - none of it remains as equity or is dis-proportionally accumulating value in some other such way. So, you move in with your girlfriend. The cost for her place - the place itself, taxes, utilities, whatever - is 7892 per month. So since you are both getting equal use of the place, you would split this into 3946 per month for each of you. That's it. Well, I don't see how that really matters at all, anymore than if you owned a company or stocks and bonds. If you rent it out for less per month than it costs you, I don't see why your girlfriend should take any part of the loss. Conversely if you make more money per month than it costs you, that is your investment profit - the payment you get for owning the apartment and dealing with renting it out. Now if your girlfriend is going to partner with you in handling renting out the apartment you own and you want to look at this as an investment partnership, then you should pay all expenses out of the income first and then you can split the profit if you really want. One question to ask would be, what if you just sold your apartment completely? Would you give your girlfriend have the money from the sale? If not then I don't see why you would split the investment profit from holding on to the place. While this is what I recommend and would feel comfortable with personally and if the situation was reversed (and it was my girlfriend that owned a place and was moving in with me), ultimately this is about your personal values, beliefs, and relationship. You are very wise to seek something that both of you will find fair, and so you should discuss a proposed arrangement with your girlfriend and see if you are on the same page. If you are both fine with the agreement and feel OK with it, then great - none of us have to like or agree with it, because we aren't a part of your relationship. Psychologically and financially this situation seems the most reasonable to me, but YMMV. After some more thought and from comments, I realize that it's probably best to explore a few possibilities numerically. So I'll run a few sets of numbers which may help pick which one is right for your relationship. This is approximately the same as paying her ""rent"" for getting to live with her. You pay her for sharing her place, splitting the expense: 3946 paid to you. She pays the other 3946 for her place. Financially it's like being room-mates. You can do whatever you want with your place - rent or sell, hold on to it for security, etc. This deal makes your girlfriend financially better off by 3946. The financial advantage to you is wholly dependent on what you do with your place.  This option would give you each the most financial independence, which is why I like it - but you might be keen on being more interdependent.  Which leads us to the next option. Here you behave as before in splitting her expenses, but you include renting out your place as part of the deal. Let's say you get 10k a month for it. You pay the expenses on that place from the rent, then you have 2108 left as 'profit'. You split the profits monthly 1054 to each of you.  There's a bit of problem here, though - what happens when the place is vacant? Do you share the full expense of the rent, so she'd actually be paying you each month while it sits open? What about repairs, taxes (costs and credits), etc?  I would recommend instead what you do, if you go this way, to account for the apartment as an investment and don't pay out ANY of the profits right away. All rents stay in their own account, and you pay expenses from that same account. For you both it's like it doesn't exist, accept it is a nice earning asset. When you decide it has accumulated more than enough to pay for itself and has enough money to cover vacancy, repairs, etc, then when you pull out money for the duration you are together you just pay it out to both of you equally. You might also pull this ""equity"" out and spend it on something for both of you, like a nice vacation, etc - something you both enjoy, so you are still sharing the profits. I don't object to this, and it could be a nice arrangement. I would only note that this makes you have a personal relationship, you live together as roommates, and now you are co-landlords/business partners. That's a lot of types of relationships, and I can tell you from personal experience each type has it's own stresses - and this sort of stress can stack (or if you don't handle it well, multiply). So just make sure you are both clear what sort of responsibility you are really both signing up for up front, and what you'd do if you part.  Combine your apartment expenses, which would equal 14753, so that's 7376 cost to each of you a month. If you rent your place then whatever money you get you split, and whatever costs come up (repairs, cleaning, etc) you would also split. So if you get an average of 10000 a month for the apartment you each are paying living expenses of 2376 total.  But notice that this isn't exactly equal, either. You will pay 5516 less per month than you are now, and she will pay 4485 less than she was before.  There's nothing morally wrong with this or anything - it's a 100% partnership across the board. Yet advantage is still not equal - you actually will see a larger benefit to your budget than she will. But if you seek equal benefit, you will have to pay 515 a month more than she does.  This sort of thing is basically the model marriage uses, a pure 50/50 partnership, or ""communal property"". And note that one of you will either be paying more than the other, will be benefiting more than the other - no matter what you do! It's impossible to balance both costs and benefits, because your income and expenses are not the same going in. If you go this way you'll need to choose what is most important - splitting the expenses/income equally, or benefiting financially equally. So I say again, ultimately you have to choose based upon your individual and shared values, and also on just what sort of relationship and layers of commitment you want to have together. You could start slow with option 1, then progress to sharing more - that's what I'd recommend, because I like the idea of developing things one layer at a time rather than jumping in head-first (like I have personally done in the past, haha!). Once bitten twice shy, I might just be more risk-averse or careful than you desire to be, but that's a personal choice.  I personally believe the relationship can be far more valuable than any investment, but at the same time I'll take $1 over a relationship that has turned sour any day of the week. This is why I suggest the more gradual, careful approach - to let your love bloom and grow deeper one layer at a time, without the complexities of fully shared finances or investment partnership. Relationships are hard enough, so this is why I favor trying to protect them aggressively from unnecessary complexity. Some favor the ""sink or swim"" model of seeking out trials and challenges, while I favor the ""relationship as tender, growing sapling"" model. I hope seeing these options laid out more is helpful to you, and good luck to you, your relationship, and - lastly - to your investments!"


This is called a fraudulent conveyance because its purpose is to prevent a creditor from getting repaid. It is subject to claw back under US law, which is a fancy way of saying that your friend will have to pay the bank back. Most jurisdictions have similar laws. It is probably a crime as well, but that varies by jurisdiction.


On average, you should be saving at least 10-15% of your income in order to be financially secure when you retire.  Different people will tell you different things, but really this can be split between short term savings (cash), long term savings (401ks, IRAs, stocks & bonds), and paying down debt. That $5k is a good start on an emergency fund, but you probably want a little more.  As justkt said, 6 months' worth is what you want to aim for.  Put this in a Money Market account, where you'll earn a little more interest but won't be penalized from withdrawing it when its needed (you may have to live off it, after all). Beyond that, I would split things up; if possible, have payroll deductions going to a broker (sharebuilder is a good one to start with if you can't spare much change), as well as an IRA at a bank. Set up a separate checking account just for rent and utilities, put a month's worth of cash in there, and have another payroll deduction that covers your living expenses + maybe 5% put in there automatically.  Then, set up automatic bill payments, so you don't even have to think about it.  Check it once a month to make sure there aren't any surprises. Pay off your credit cards every month.  These are, by far, the most expensive forms of credit that most people have.  You shouldn't be financing large purchases with them (you'll get better rates by taking a personal loan from a bank). Set specific goals for savings, and set up automatic payroll deductions to work towards them.  Especially for buying a house; most responsible lenders will ask for 20% down.  In today's market, that means you need to write a check for $40k or $50k.  While it's tempting to finance up to 100% of the property value, it's also risky considering how volatile markets can be.  You don't want to end up owing more on the property than it's worth two years down the road. If you find yourself at the end of the month with an extra $50 or so, consider your savings goals or your current debt instead of blowing it on a toy.  Especially if you have long term debt (high balance credit cards, vehicle or property loans), applying that money directly to principal can save you months (or years) paying it back, and hundreds or thousands of dollars of interest (all depending on the details of the loan, of course). Above all, have fun with it :)  Think of your personal net worth as you do your Gamer score on the XBox, and look for ways to maximize it with a minimum of effort or investment on your part!  Investing in yourself and your future can be incredibly rewarding emotionally :)


There is no reason to roll an option if the current market value is lower than the strike sold. Out-of-the-money strikes (as is the $12 strike) are all time value which is decaying constantly and that is to our advantage. If share price remains below the strike, the option will expire worthless, you will still have your shares and free to sell another option the Monday after expiration Friday. If share price is > $12 on expiration Friday and you want to keep those shares, you can roll out or out-and-up depending on your outlook for the stock. Good luck, Alan


In the equity markets, the P/E is usually somewhere around 15.  The P/E can be viewed as the inverse of the rate of a perpetuity. Since the average is 15, and the E/P of that would be 6.7%, r should be 6.7% on average. If your business is growing, the growth rate can be incorporated like so: As you can see, a high g would make the price negative, in essence the seller should actually pay someone to take the business, but in reality, r is determined from the p and an estimated g. For a business of any growth rate, it's best to compare the multiple to the market, so for the average business in the market with your business's growth rate and industry, that P/E would be best applied to your company's income.


The price inflation isn't a percentage, it's a fixed amount. If the dealer adds $R to the price of both the trade-in and the purchased car, then everyone ends up with the right amount of money in their pockets. So your formula should be: D + T + R = 0.1 * (P + R)


"True, absolutely safe are only death and taxes.  Apparently [US treasuries](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield) yield far less than 3,5-4%, but I guess that's as ""100% safe"" as it gets.  However, best I could find while talking to various banks was a reverse convertible bond that yields 3,5% per year, tax excluded. Worst case scenario: 1) I got all my money back and gained 3,5% for one year. 2) after a few years, I find myself with pretty valuable shares and still cashed in the yearly 3,5%.  I was wondering if I got lucky with that, or if there are better things out there and if yes, where I should look. Honestly, in the age of negative interests, I'm more than happy to get enough interest to counter inflation."


"I have never seen anything that suggest it's illegal to charge ""fair"" interests on loans, personally or commercially.  Even CRA has long allowed the use of properly written ""promissory notes"" as the proof for personal loans between individuals, as long as the rates are consistent with their current ""subscribed rate"" (think bank's prime rate, if you don't want to having to look it up on CRA site). Loan Shark is someone or some entity that charges significantly higher interests than the rates posted by FI's.  We are talking about 30+% versus the bank's 10%.   Yes, we can argue the FI's are acting like Loan Shark when it comes to credit card interest rates, but that's another discussion."


If your dad would have won money on the slot machines(And the amount was high), the casino would have given him a W2G to fill out right there and taxes would have been deducted. However, table games including Poker does not have any such rule. You will have to account for your winnings(And losses) at the end of the year. So, it is ok if you sign that paper, as you do not owe the IRS any money yet.  You will still need to file your taxes as a non resident alien at the end of the year and attach the form W2G with it and pay your dues.


Yield is the term used to describe how much income the bond will generate if the bond was purchased at a particular moment in time. If I pay $100 for a one year, $100 par value bond that pays 5% interest then the bond yields 5% since I will receive $5 from a $100 investment if I held the bond to maturity. If I pay $90 for the same one year bond then the bond yields 17% since I will receive $15 from a $90 investment if I held the bond to maturity. There are many factors that affect what yield creditors will accept: It is the last bullet that ultimately determines yield.  The other factors feed into the creditor’s desire to hold money today versus receiving money in the future.  I desire money in my hand more than a promise to receive money in the future.  In order to entice me to lend my money someone must offer me an incentive.  Thus, they must offer me more money in the future in order for me to part with money I have. A yield curve is a snapshot of the yields for different loan durations.  The x-axis is the amount of time left on the bond while the y-axis is the yield.  The most cited yield curve is the US treasury curve which displays the yields for loans to the US government.  The yield curve changes while bonds are being traded thus it is always a snapshot of a particular moment in time. Short term loans typically have less yield than longer term loans since there is less uncertainty about the near future. Yield curves will flatten or slightly invert when creditors desire to keep their money instead of loaning it out.  This can occur because of a sudden disruption in the market that causes uncertainty about the future which leads to an increase in the demand for cash on hand. The US government yield curve should be looked at with some reservation however since there is a very large creditor to the US government that has the ability to loan the government an unlimited amount of funds.


The biggest benefit to having a larger portfolio is relatively reduced transaction costs. If you buy a $830 share of Google at a broker with a $10 commission, the commission is 1.2% of your buy price.  If you then sell it for $860, that's another 1.1% gone to commission.  Another way to look at it is, of your $30 ($860 - $830) gain you've given up $20 to transaction costs, or 66.67% of the proceeds of your trade went to transaction costs. Now assume you traded 10 shares of Google. Your buy was $8,300 and you sold for $8,600.  Your gain is $300 and you spent the same $20 to transact the buy and sell.  Now you've only given up 6% of your proceeds ($20 divided by your $300 gain). You could also scale this up to 100 shares or even 1,000 shares. Generally, dividend reinvestment are done with no transaction cost.  So you periodically get to bolster your position without losing more to transaction costs.  For retail investors transaction costs can be meaningful.  When you're wielding a $5,000,000 pot of money you can make your trades on a larger scale giving up relatively less to transaction costs.


What you are looking for is a 1031 exchange. https://www.irs.gov/uac/like-kind-exchanges-under-irc-code-section-1031 Whenever you sell business or investment property and you have a gain, you generally have to pay tax on the gain at the time of sale. IRC Section 1031 provides an exception and allows you to postpone paying tax on the gain if you reinvest the proceeds in similar property as part of a qualifying like-kind exchange. Gain deferred in a like-kind exchange under IRC Section 1031 is tax-deferred, but it is not tax-free. You may also sell your house for bitcoin and record the sales price on the deed with an equal or lesser amount that you bought it for.


Building your credit takes time.  The basic idea is pay bills on time, and keep the available credit high.    So you spend between 10-30% on the card and pay off in full each month.  If you have student loans, once you start paying on those, that will help too, after you get some payment history, but again, it will take time.


If the $882 is reported on W2 as your income then it is added to your taxable income on W2 and is taxed as salary. Your basis then becomes $5882. If it is not reported on your W2 - you need to add it yourself. Its salary income. If its not properly reported on W2 it may have some issues with FICA, so I suggest talking to your salary department to verify it is. In any case, this is not short term capital gain. Your broker may or may not be aware of the reporting on W2, and if they report the basis as $5000 on your 1099, when you fill your tax form you can add a statement that it is ESPP reported on W2 and change the basis to correct one. H&R Block and TurboTax both support that (you need to chose the correct type of investment there).


"While the question is very localized, I'll answer about the general principle. My main question is with how far away it is (over 1000 miles), how do   I quantify the travel expenses? Generally, ""necessary and ordinary"" expenses are deductible. This is true for business and also true for rentals. But what is necessary and what is ordinary? Is it ordinary that a landlord will manage the property 1000 miles away by himself on a daily basis? Is it ordinary for people to drive 1000 miles every week? I'd say ""no"" to both. I'd say it would be cheaper for you to hire a local property manager, thus the travel expense would not be necessary. I would say it would be cheaper to fly (although I don't know if its true to the specific situation of the OP, but as I said - its too localized to deal with) rather than drive from Texas to Colorado. If the OP thinks that driving a thousand miles is indeed ordinary and necessary he'll have to justify it to the IRS examiner, as I'm sure it will be examined. 2 trips to the property a year will be a nearly 100% write-off (2000   miles, hotels, etc). From what I understood (and that is what I've been told by my CPA), IRS generally allows 1 (one) trip per year per property. If there's an exceptional situation - be prepared to justify it. Also, keep all the receipts (like gas, hotel, etc.... If you claim mileage but in reality you took a flight - you'll get hit hard by the IRS when audited). Also while I'm up there am I allowed to mix business with pleasure? You cannot deduct personal (""pleasure"") expenses, at all. If the trip is mainly business, but you go out at the evening instead of staying at the hotel - that's fine. But if the trip is ""business"" trip where you spend a couple of hours at your property and then go around having fun for two days - the whole trip may be disallowed. If there's a reasonable portion dedicated to your business/rental, and the rest is pleasure - you'll have to split some of the costs and only deduct the portion attributed to the business activities. You'll have to analyze your specific situation, and see where it falls. Don't stretch the limits too much, it will cost you more on the long run after all the audits and penalties. Can I also write off all travel involved in the purchase of the   property? Although, again, the ""necessary and ordinary"" justification of such a trip is arguable, lets assume it is necessary and ordinary and generally justified. It is reasonable to expect you to go and see the property with your own eyes before the closing (IMHO, of course, I'm not an authority). Such an expense can be either business or investment expense. If its a business expense - its deductible on schedule C. If its an investment expense (if you do buy the property), its added to the cost of the property (capitalized). I'm not a tax adviser or a tax professional, and this is not a tax advice. This answer was not written or intended to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding any tax related penalties that may be imposed on you or any other person under the Internal Revenue Code. You should seek a professional consultation with a CPA/Attorney(tax) licensed in your State(s) or a Federally licensed Enrolled Agent (EA)."


The value of debt is that it allows you to profit from the return of equity beyond the amount of actual net equity you own.  Of course, this only works if the cost of borrowing is less than your return on equity.  Market timing matters a great deal but isn't accounted for in this view.  For my answer I would like to hand-wave away market timing considerations.  One plausible justification is that you could default on your current home and then immediately go buy one of equal value.  If you buy a new home of a lesser value (due to lack of funds) and then prices appreciate, then you missed some opportunity cost but probably not $100k worth of it. Moving on, here are some helpful assumptions I'll make. I'll ignore performance of your portfolio after retirement and only seek to optimize F, which will be your net worth upon retirement.  In either case, your current net worth is earning the R2 rate.  We can convert this for both your current net worth and future savings using conversion formulas. Present to future value F = P (1+R2)^x Annual to future value F = S ( (1+R2)^x - 1 ) / R2 Adding these together is sufficient to obtain F in the case that you have no borrowing power.  The case where you do not default and maintain your credit score is different due to an initial $100k penalty and the amortized value of borrowing power.  In a completely theoretical sense, you get an effective (R2-R1) yield on all borrowed money.  The future value will be the following: F = A1 (1+R2-R1)^x One step is missing, however, which is to convert this value (the value of having a good credit score) into present value to compare to value of your defaulting. P of borrowing power = F / (1+R2)^x = A1 { (1+R2-R1)/(1+R2) }^x Now, let's put some specific values in.  Say that you can borrow $300k with your good credit history and this applies for the next 25 years, after which you retire.  The borrowing rate is 7% and the time-value of money to you is 10%.  I would then calculate: P of borrowing power = $58 k < $100 k This indicates that it would be more economical to default.  Of course, some people might point out that it will be removed from your record after 7 years.  If you plug 7 years instead of 25 years into the equation, almost no assumptions about rates will lead to the option of keeping your house being preferable. So in a nutshell, the value of your credit is probably less than $100k in a purely mathematical sense.  But there are other factors too.  If you don't have that borrowing ability maybe you wouldn't be able to borrow money to start the business of your dreams.  If you are a rock star entrepreneur, then time-value of money to you could be 1,000% yield, sure, then maybe you could make the above numbers work (to favor keeping the house).  I've also neglected ethics.  As other people point out, it would be like stealing from the bank.


r/personalfinance  r/investing   Make a budget, set goals, and make a plan on how to achieve them.   99% of people will say index funds and dollar cost average. Make sure to set up a retirement account and see if your company has a matching program   Edit- hire an accounting/tax specialist.


If a stock that makes up a big part of the Dow Jones Industrial   Average decided to issue a huge number of additional shares, that will   make the index go up. At least this is what should happen, since an   index is basically a sum of the market cap of the contributing   companies. No, indices can have various weightings. The DJIA is a price-weighted index not market-cap weighted. An alternative weighting besides market-cap and price is equal weighting. From Dow Jones: Dow Jones Industrial Average™. Introduced in May 1896, the index, also   referred to as The Dow®, is a price-weighted measure of 30 U.S.   blue-chip companies. Thus, I can wonder what in the new shares makes the index go up? If a stock is split, the Dow divisor is adjusted as one could easily see how the current Dow value isn't equal to the sum or the share prices of the members of the index. In other cases, there may be a dilution of earnings but that doesn't necessarily affect the stock price directly as there may be options exercised or secondary offerings made. SO if the index, goes up, will the ETF DIA also go up automatically   although no additional buying has happened in the ETF itself? If the index rises and the ETF doesn't proportionally, then there is an arbitrage opportunity for someone to buy the DIA shares that can be redeemed for the underlying stocks that are worth more in this case. Look at the Creation and Redemption Unit process that exists for ETFs.


"Aggressiveness in a retirement portfolio is usually a function of your age and your risk tolerance. Your portfolio is usually a mix of the following asset classes: You can break down these asset classes further, but each one is a topic unto itself. If you are young, you want to invest in things that have a higher return, but are more volatile, because market fluctuations (like the current financial meltdown) will be long gone before you reach retirement age.  This means that at a younger age, you should be investing more in stocks and foreign/developing countries. If you are older, you need to be into more conservative investments (bonds, money market, etc).  If you were in your 50s-60s and still heavily invested in stock, something like the current financial crisis could have ruined your retirement plans.  (A lot of baby boomers learned this the hard way.) For most of your life, you will probably be somewhere in between these two.  Start aggressive, and gradually get more conservative as you get older.  You will probably need to re-check your asset allocation once every 5 years or so. As for how much of each investment class, there are no hard and fast rules.  The idea is to maximize return while accepting a certain amount of risk.  There are two big unknowns in there: (1) how much return do you expect from the various investments, and (2) how much risk are you willing to accept.  #1 is a big guess, and #2 is personal opinion. A general portfolio guideline is ""100 minus your age"".  This means if you are 20, you should have 80% of your retirement portfolio in stocks.  If you are 60, your retirement portfolio should be 40% stock.  Over the years, the ""100"" number has varied.  Some financial advisor types have suggested ""150"" or ""200"".  Unfortunately, that's why a lot of baby boomers can't retire now. Above all, re-balance your portfolio regularly.  At least once a year, perhaps quarterly if the market is going wild.  Make sure you are still in-line with your desired asset allocation.  If the stock market tanks and you are under-invested in stocks, buy more stock, selling off other funds if necessary.  (I've read interviews with fund managers who say failure to rebalance in a down stock market is one of the big mistakes people make when managing a retirement portfolio.) As for specific mutual fund suggestions, I'm not going to do that, because it depends on what your 401k or IRA has available as investment options.  I do suggest that your focus on selecting a ""passive"" index fund, not an actively managed fund with a high expense ratio. Personally, I like ""total market"" funds to give you the broadest allocation of small and big companies.  (This makes your question about large/small cap stocks moot.)  The next best choice would be an S&P 500 index fund. You should also be able to find a low-cost Bond Index Fund that will give you a healthy mix of different bond types. However, you need to look at expense ratios to make an informed decision.  A better-performing fund is pointless if you lose it all to fees! Also, watch out for overlap between your fund choices.  Investing in both a Total Market fund, and an S&P 500 fund undermines the idea of a diversified portfolio. An aggressive portfolio usually includes some Foreign/Developing Nation investments.  There aren't many index fund options here, so you may have to go with an actively-managed fund (with a much higher expense ratio).  However, this kind of investment can be worth it to take advantage of the economic growth in places like China. http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/04/27/how-to-create-your-own-target-date-mutual-fund/"


You're missing the cost-of-carry aspect: The cost of carry or carrying charge is the cost of storing a physical commodity, such as grain or metals, over a period of time. The carrying charge includes insurance, storage and interest on the invested funds as well as other incidental costs. In interest rate futures markets, it refers to the differential between the yield on a cash instrument and the cost of the funds necessary to buy the instrument. So in a nutshell, you'd have to store the gold (safely), invest your money now, i.e. you're missing out on interests the money could have earned until the futures delivery date.  Well and on top of that you need to get the gold shipped to London or wherever the agreed delivery place is. Edit: Forgot to mention that of course there are arbitrageurs that make sure the futures and spot market prices don't diverge. So the idea isn't that bad as I might have made it sound but being in the arbitrage business myself I should disclaim that profits are small and arbitraging is highly automated, so before you spot a $1 profit somewhere between any two contracts, you can be quite sure it's been taken by an arbitrageur already.


"Most states that have income tax base their taxes on the income reported on your federal return, with some state-specific adjustments.  So answering your last question first:  Yes, if it matters for federal, it will matter for state (in most cases). For estimating the tax liability, I would not use the effective rate but rather use the rate for your highest tax bracket and apply that to your estimated hobby income, assuming that you primary job income won't be wildly higher or lower than last year. As @keshlam noted in a comment, this income is coming on top of whatever else you earn, so it will be taxed at your top rate. Finally, I'd check again whether this is really ""hobby"" income or if it is ""self-employment"" income.  Self-employment income will be subject to self-employment tax, which comes on top of the regular income tax."


Do you need to incorporate? This depends on whether the company prefers you to be incorporated.  If you are going through a recruiting company, some of them are willing to deal with non-incorporated people (Sole Proprietor) and withhold taxes from your cheques for you. If you do want to incorporate, you can do it yourself, go through a paralegal, or you can even do it online.  I did mine in Ontario for about $300 (no name search - i just have a numbered corporation like 123456 Ontario Inc.) through www.oncorp.com - there are other sites that do it as well. Things to consider - if you're contracting through a corporation you most likely need to: Talk to an accountant about these for clarification - most of them will give you an initial consultation for free. Generally speaking, accountant fees for corporate filing taxes averages about $1000-2000 a year.


"No shit. That crazy, ruthless republican notion that your credit rating shouldn't take a hit because you defaulted on the restructured home loan that you got when you defaulted on the *last* deal. Few people shed a tear for the borrowers who defaulted on jumbo ARM loans, but when a government does it we're all supposed to sit here and say ""that's ok. Take a mulligan""."


Not sure about the UK, but if it were in the US you need to realize the expenses can be claimed as much as the income. After having a mild heart attack when I did my business taxes the first time many years ago, a Small Business Administration adviser pointed it out. You are running the site from a computer?  Deductible on an amortization schedule.  Do you work from home?  Electricity can be deducted.  Do you drive at all?  Did you pay yourself a wage?  Any paperwork, fax communications, bank fees that you had to endure as work expenses? I am not an accountant, but chances are you legally lost quite a bit more than you made in a new web venture.  Discuss it with an accountant for the details and more importantly the laws in your country.  I could be off my rocker.


Leverage is when you borrow in order to invest. Mind you, most people aren't going to just give you money to gamble on the stock market completely unsecured; rather, you deposit (say) $10,000 and buy a stock... and then you have $10k in assets which you can borrow against, so you can buy another $10,000 of that stock. Now if the stock goes up you'll make twice the gain (2x leverage). However, if it goes down, you'll lose twice as much as well. If the value of your stock falls, your line of credit will be reduced as well; in this case, since you used all your credit and are now over your limit, your broker will issue a margin call (they will demand a deposit of additional funds, or they will sell some of your stock at their discretion). This protects you from owing more than you invested, but it's still sometimes possible (for instance, if a company spontaneously goes bankrupt and becomes worthless, and your stock becomes worthless). There are also things like leveraged index funds and commodity funds which aim to return some multiple of the market's earnings. These are designed for intraday trading, though, and usually end up underperforming significantly over the long term. [edit] Mose people who accept borrowed funds should generally accept real cash as well. However, if you're trying to short sell, i.e. borrow shares and sell them (in the hopes you can get them back cheaper later after the stock falls) you will need a margin line of credit to do so as well. [edit 2] clarified margin calls


Thanks. I'm going to have them take 40% on Monday when I go to the lottery office.  I have a car payment that's been killing me, so that's the first move.  Student loans have a fairly low APR, Sotho king about keeping those to build credit.


This is not hypothetical, this is an accurate story. I am a long-term investor. I have a bunch of money that I'd like to invest and I plan on spreading it out over five or six mutual funds and ETFs, roughly according to the Canadian Couch Potato model portfolio (that is, passive mutual funds and ETFs rather than specific stocks). I am concerned that if I invest the full amount and the stock market crashes 30% next month, I will have paid more than I had to. As I am investing for the long term, I expect to more than regain my investment, but I still wouldn't be thrilled with paying 30% more than I had to. Instead, I am investing my money in three stages. I invested the first third earlier this month. I'll invest the next third in a few months, and the final third a few months after that. If the stock market climbs, as I expect is more likely the case, I will have lost out on some potential upside. However, if the stock market crashes next month, I will end up paying a lower average cost as two of my three purchases will occur after the crash. On average, as a long-term investor, I expect the stock market to go up. In the short term, I expect much more fluctuation. Statistically speaking, I'd do better to invest all the money at once as most of the time, the trend is upward. However, I am willing to trade some potential upside for a somewhat reduced risk of downside over the course of the next few months. If we were talking a price difference of 1% as mentioned in the question, I wouldn't care. I expect to see average annual returns far above this. But stock market crashes can cause the loss of 20 to 30% or more, and those are numbers I care about. I'd much rather buy in at 30% less than the current price, after all.


"Ya, when my buddy who is by no means a financial wizard, and paid to have his TV installed (not even wall mounted...), told me he was looking to invest in a condo, cause apparently it was ""easy"".  I think the quote from the friend who told him got broken down to, ""The market only goes up, so as long as your rent handles the interest on your mortgage you just make up the difference and gain when your value doubles!""  That is one reason I am worried for the eventual decline if all of those types of people rush for the door at the same time.  I really hope it is a case of broken telephone."


Indeed, a well respected study found that American children are still not dumb enough that they don't understand that they are paying off 20 Trillion of debt borrowed from a bank that prints its own money, but expects to be repaid in real money.  It also recommended that lead be added to the diet and where children seemed resilient and stubborn and asked to many questions, it be administered with a .38  Shalom bitches it concluded


"As an owner of a share of a business you also ""own"" profits made by the business. But you delegate company management to reinvest those profits, on your behalf, to make even more profits. So your share of the business is a little money-making machine that should grow, without you having to pay taxes on the dividends and without you having to decide where to reinvest your share of the profit."


Banks make money by charging fees on products and charging interest on loans. If you keep close to a $0 average balance in your account, and they aren't charging you any fees, then yes, your account is not profitable for them. That's ok. It's not costing them much to keep you as a customer, and some day you may start keeping a balance with them or apply for a loan. The bank is taking a chance that you will continue to be a loyal customer and will one day become profitable for them. Just be on the lookout for a change in their fee structure. Sometimes banks drop customers or start charging fees in cases like yours.


I've wondered the same thing.  And, after reading the above replies, I think there is a simpler explanation. It goes like this. When the bank goes to make a loan they need capital to do it. So, they can get it from the federal reserve, another bank, or us. Well, if the federal reserve will loan it to them for lets say 0.05%, what do you think they are going to be willing to pay us?  Id say maybe 0.04%. Anyway, I could be wrong, but this makes sense to me.