"Imagine that, a car dealership lied to someone trusting.  Who would have thought. A big question is how well do you get along with your ""ex""?  Can you be in the same room without fighting?  Can you agree on things that are mutually beneficial? The car will have to be paid off, and taken out of his name.  The mechanics on how to do this is a bit tricky and you may want to see a lawyer about it.    Having you being the sole owner of the car benefits him because he is no longer a cosigner on a loan.  This will help him get additional loans if he chooses, or cosign on his next gf's car. And of course this benefits you as you ""own"" the car instead of both of you. You will probably have to refinance the car in your name only.  Do you have sufficient credit?  Once this happens can you pay off the car in like a year or so? If you search this site a similar questions is asked about once per month.  Car loans are pretty terrible, in the future you should avoid them.  Cosigning is even worse and you should never again participate in such a thing. Another option is to just sell the car and start over with your own car hopefully paid for in cash."


If you've already used TurboTax on your 2015 taxes, you can use the numbers TurboTax gave you as your reasonable estimate.  Line 4 is your estimate of total tax liability for 2015. This would be line 63 of form 1040. This is Federal income tax only, not Social Security tax.  Line 5 is the total of tax payments you made last year. You should be able to read this off your W-2 forms, Box 2. It corresponds to line 74 on the 1040.  Line 6 is the difference between lines 4 and 5. You can't claim a refund on the extension, so if line 5 is more than line 4, enter 0. Otherwise, subtract line 5 from line 4, and enter it in line 6. This is the amount you should send in with the form to minimize any penalty due with your taxes later.  The TurboTax software can generate this extension form automatically, I believe.  Also, don't forget to give a copy of this extension form to your tax preparer. He will need to know the amount you sent in.


Your link is pointing to managed funds where the fees are higher, you should look at their exchange traded funds; you will note that the management fees are much lower and better reflect the index fund strategy.


It is true that it may be somewhat of a loss. I would not lose any money with the other options as I have already made my money back but I would be at a loss as far as time investment goes. I agree number 1 is most logical but emotionally my heart is just not in it anymore that is why I put 2 and 3 in there too.


Yes, you would have to report the gain. It is not relevant that you traded the stock previously, you still made a profit on the trade-at-hand. Imagine if for some reason this type of trade were exempt. Investors could follow the short term swings of volatile stocks completely tax-free.


"I can guarantee you that no one in IBanking and consulting is pulling in a 110k base. Even 75 is really pushing it in this market. 70k base is standard on the street and some bansk have been dropping it to 65. And you won't be working at a ""legit"" hedge fund or prop shop straight out of undergrad.   Source: I work in the industry."


"You really don't know how credit scoring works. Let's think about the purpose of a credit score: to assess whether you're a high default risk. A lender wants to know, in this order: Utilization factors into the solvency assessment. If you are at 100% utilization of your unsecured credit, you're insolvent -- you can't pay your bills. If you are at 0%, you're as solvent as you can be. Most people who use credit cards are somewhere in the middle. When a bank underwrites a large loan like a mortgage or car loan, they use your credit score an application information like income and employment history to figure out what kind of loan you qualify for. Credit cards are called ""revolving"" accounts for a reason -- you're supposed to use them to buy crap and pay your bill in full at the end of the month.  My advice to you:"


This is very insightful, I think. As an open question, consider what *downside* a nation (or bank) has to acknowledging bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Obviously nations may lose some monetary control by endorsing bitcoin, but I don't know if there's much of a downside for banks considering bitcoin's easy conversion in to USD.   If anything, I feel like most of the problems for banks surrounding cryptos would be regulatory.


Of course you don't need to take a mortgage - if you happen to have enough cash (or other assets) to pay your sister her share, or if she is willing to take it in installments over the next years. Mortgages are not needed to buy houses, but to pay for them - subtle difference. If you can pay - in whichever agreed way - without a mortgage, you won't need one.


"ITR-4 is for incorporated business. For freelancing, You can fill ITR 2 and declare the freelancing income as ""income from other source"". Refer to the Income Tax website for more details"


I suppose it depends on how liquid you need, and if you're willing to put forth any risk whatsoever.  The stock market can be dangerous, but there are strategies out there that will allow you to insure yourself against significant loss, while likely earning you a decent return.  You can buy and sell options along with stocks so that if the stock drops, your loss is limited, and if it goes up or even stays where it's at, you make money (a lot more than 1% annually). Of course there's risk of loss, but if you plan ahead, you can cap that risk wherever you want, maybe 5%, maybe 10%, whatever suits your needs.  And as far as liquidity goes, it should be no more than a week or so to close your positions and get your money if you really need it. But even so, I would only recommend this after putting aside at least a few thousand in a cash account for emergencies.


"You uncle is liable to pay ""Capital-Gains"" tax. Essentially the sale price less of cost would be treated as gains. The gains are taxed at 10% without indexation and 20% with Indexation.  The capital gains tax can be avoided if your uncle invests the gains into specified ""Infrastructure bonds"" or buys another property within a period of 3 years. The funds need to be kept in a separate ""Capital Gains"" account and not a regular savings account till you buy another property within 3 years."


My assumption here is that you paid nearly 32K, but also financed about 2500 in taxes/fees.  At 13.5% the numbers come out pretty close.  Close enough for discussion. On the positive side, you see the foolishness of your decision however you probably signed a paper that stated the true cost of the car loan.  The truth in lending documents clearly state, in bold numbers, that you would pay nearly 15K in interest.  If you pay the loan back early, or make larger principle payments that number can be greatly reduced. On top of the interest charge you will also suffer depreciation of the car.  If someone offered you 31K for the car, you be pretty lucky to get it.  If you keep it for 4 years you will probably lose about 40% of the value, about 13K. This is why it is foolish for most people to purchase a new vehicle.  Not many have enough wealth to absorb a loss of this size.  In the book A Millionaire Next Door the author debunks the assumption that most millionaires drive new cars.  They tend to drive cars that are pretty standard and a couple of years old.  They pay cash for their cars. The bottom line is you singed documents indicating that you knew exactly what you were getting into.  Failing any other circumstances the car is yours.  Talking to a lawyer would probably confirm this. You can attempt to sell it and minimize your losses, or you can pay off the loan early so you are not suffering from finance charges.


you'll need 25k to start or 2k in multiple accounts, that way you have access to margin, and don't have to worry about Pattern day trading limits. Be right more than you are wrong. Go up look for 3x potential up vs down risk. Compound daily.  you can't double a penny every day every day for a month it becomes to difficult. but you can do 1%/day or maybe better. 2k compounded 1% every day becomes 75k at the end of a year (but you'll likely have to take weekends off, or look for other markets)


I know this is heresy but if you have funds for significantly more   than 6 months of expenses (let's say 12 months), how risky would it be   to put it all into stock index funds? Quite risky as if you do need to dip into it, how fast could you get the cash? Also, do you realize the tax implications when you do sell the shares should you have an emergency? In the worst-case scenario, let's say you have a financial emergency   at the same time the stock market crashes and loses half its value.   You could still liquidate the rest and have sufficient funds for 6   months. Am I underestimating the risks of this strategy? That's not worst case scenario though. Worst case scenario would be another 9/11 where the markets are closed for nearly a week and you need the money but can't get the funds converted to cash in the bank that you can use. This is in addition to the potential wait for a settlement in the case of using ETFs if you choose to go that way. In the case of money market funds, CDs and other near cash equivalents these can be accessed relatively easily which is part of the point. A staggered approach where some cash is kept in house, some in accounts that can easily accessed and some in other investments may make sense though the breakdown would differ depending on how much risk people are willing to take. If it truly is an emergency fund then the odds of needing it should be   very slim, so why live with near zero return on that money? Something to consider is what is called an emergency here? For some people a sudden $1,000 bill to fix their car that just broke down is an emergency. For others, there could be emergency trips to visit family that may have gotten into accidents or gotten a diagnosis that they may pass away soon. Consider what do you want to call an emergency here as chances are you may not be considering all that people would think is an emergency. There is the question of what other sources of money do you have to cover should issues arise.


"The difference between dividend and growth in mutual funds has to do with the types of stocks the mutual fund invests in. Typically a company in the early stages are considered growth investments. In this phase the company needs to keep most of its profits to reinvest in the business. Typically once a company gets a significant size the company's growth prospects are not as good so the company pays some of its profits in the form of a dividend to the shareholders.  As far as which is the best buy is totally a personal choice. There will be times when one is better then the other. Most likely you will want to ""diversify"" and invest in both types."


Your freelance income will not qualify you for the work-from-home deductions, for that you would need a T2200 form signed by your employer. But, you are allowed to be self employed as a sole-proprietorship while still being an employee of another company. If you take that route, you'll be able to write-off even more expenses than those you linked to. Things like a portion of your internet bill can be claimed, for example. But note that these deductions would only apply to offset the self-employment income, so if you're not earning very much from the freelance work, it might not be worth all the hassle. Filing taxes when self-employed is definitely more complicated, and many people will get professional tax preparation help - at least for the first time.


I do this very thing, but with asset allocation and risk parity in mind. I disagree with the cash or bust answers above, but many of the aforementioned facts are valuable and I don't mean to undermine them in anyway. That said, let's look at two examples: Option 1: All-in For the sake of argument let's say you had $100k invested in the SPY (S&P 500 ETF) in early 2007, and you kept it there until today. Your lowest balance would have been about $51k, and at this point the possibility of you losing your job was probably at a peak. Today you would be left with $170k assuming no withdrawal. Option 2: Risk Parity BUT if you balanced your investments with a risk parity approach, using negatively correlated asset classes you avoid this dilemma. If you had invested 50% in XLP (Consumer Staples Sector ETF) and 50% in TLT ( Long Term Treasury ETF) your investments low point would have been $88k, and your lowest annual return would be +0.69%. Today you would be left with $214k assuming no withdrawals.  I chose option #2 and it hasn't failed me yet, even in 2016 so far the results are steady and reliably given the reward. My general opinion is simple: when you have money always grow it. Just be sure to cover your ass and prepare for rain. Backtesting for this was done at portfoliovisualizer.com, the one caveat to this approach is that inflation and a lack of international exposure are a risk here.


I don't see any reason to worry about a check being deposited via cell phone. There isn't anything you can write on a check to make it physical deposit only or similar.  If you really want to keep your check from being read electronically you could always smudge the numbers but you run the risk of the bank not cashing it and possibly getting a return check fee.


I trust the 401(k) was a traditional, pre tax account. There was no tax paid, and any withdrawals would be taxable. The account could go to zero, and there's no write off, sorry. I have to ask - were there any withdrawals along the way? What was it invested in that lost 90% of its value?  Edit - I'm sorry the OP came and went. It would be great to have closure on some of these issues. Here, I'm thinking as Duff said, malpractice, or perhaps a 401(k) that was 100% in company stock. Seems we'll never know.


"The danger of overdrawing the account via the use of a debit card, and the exorbitant fees that can result make me hesitant to use a debit card. The ability to cover all the transactions with one payment is why I use a credit card for these ""debit"" transactions.  Yes there is a risk of a late payment, but that can be easily avoided within the three week grace period. The ability to electronically transfer the money to pay off the card makes this even easier."


"The best strategy for RSU's, specifically, is to sell them as they vest. Usually, vesting is not all in one day, but rather spread over a period of time, which assures that you won't sell in one extremely unfortunate day when the stock dipped. For regular investments, there are two strategies I personally would follow: Sell when you need. If you need to cash out - cash out. Rebalance - if you need to rebalance your portfolio (i.e.: not cash out, but reallocate investments or move investment from one company to another) - do it periodically on schedule. For example, every 13 months (in the US, where the long term cap. gains tax rates kick in after 1 year of holding) - rebalance. You wouldn't care about specific price drops on that day, because they also affect the new investments. Speculative strategies trying to ""sell high buy low"" usually bring to the opposite results: you end up selling low and buying high. But if you want to try and do that - you'll have to get way more technical than just ""dollar cost averaging"" or similar strategies. Most people don't have neither time nor the knowledge for that, and even those who do rarely can beat the market (and never can, in the long run)."


The business and investment would be shown on separate parts of the tax return. (An exception to this is where an investment is related and part of your business, such as futures trading on business products)  On the business side of it, you would show the transfer to the stocks as a draw from the business, the amount transferred would then be the cost base of the investment.  For taxes, you only have to report gains or losses on investments.


In Houston, Texas USA where I went to a private high school they had a half-semester class in personal finance, but it was optional and didn't give you any credits towards graduation. You are right though, it should be a standard class. After all, who doesn't need that information in their adult lives, and not everyone goes to college.


"Here's a number-crunching example of how the ""Zero interest rate"" offer is misleading. Suppose the offer is that a car ""costs $24,000.00 with zero percent financing over 24 months""  or as an alternative, ""$3,000.00 off for cash"". Ignore the hype:  the quoted prices and the quoted interest rates.  Look at what really happens to two people who take advantage of the two offers, One person hands over $21,000.00 cash, and leaves with the new car. The second promises to make 24 payments of $1000.00, one a month, starting in one month's time, and also leaves with the same make and model new car. The two people have received exactly the same benefit, so the two payment schemes must have the same value. A mortgage program will tell you that paying off a $21,000.00 loan by making 24 monthly payments of $1000.00 requires an interest rate of 1.10% a month, or an effective annual rate of 14.03%."


It depends on why the stocks crashed. If this happened because interest rates shot up, bonds will suffer also. On the other hand, stocks could be crashing because economic growth (and hence earnings) are disappointing. This pulls down interest rates and lifts bonds.


Very true. Just open your eyes. We no longer have soup lines, they just pass out debit cards now. You want to see it first hand try a job as a grocery checker in middle america, that is if you can find one to begin with.


See my comment for some discussion of why one might choose an identical fund over an ETF.  As to why someone would choose the higher cost fund in this instance ... The Admiral Shares version of the fund (VFIAX) has the same expense ratio as the ETF but has a minimum investment of $10K.  Some investors may want to eventually own the Admiral Shares fund but do not yet have $10K.  If they begin with the Investor Shares now and then convert to Admiral later, that conversion will be a non-taxable event.  If, however, they start with ETF shares now and then sell them later to buy the fund, that sale will be a taxable event. Vanguard ETFs are only commission-free to Vanguard clients using Vanguard Brokerage Services.  Some investors using other brokers may face all sorts of penalties for purchasing third-party ETFs.  Some retirement plan participants (either at Vanguard or another broker) may not even be allowed to purchase ETFs.


The answer seems to depend on where you live.  Perhaps you already found this, but the summary from the IRS is: The insurance laws in some states do not allow a corporation to purchase group health insurance when the corporation only has one employee. Therefore, if the shareholder was the sole corporate employee, the shareholder had to purchase his health insurance in his own name. The IRS issued Notice 2008-1, which ruled that under certain situations the shareholder would be allowed an above-the-line deduction even if the health insurance policy was purchased in the name of the shareholder. Notice 2008-1 provided four examples, including three examples in which the shareholder purchased the health insurance and one in which the S corporation purchased the health insurance. Notice 2008-1 states that if the shareholder purchased the health insurance in his own name and paid for it with his own funds, the shareholder would not be allowed an above-the-line deduction. On the other hand, if the shareholder purchased the health insurance in his own name but the S corporation either directly paid for the health insurance or reimbursed the shareholder for the health insurance and also included the premium payment in the shareholder’s W-2, the shareholder would be allowed an above-the-line deduction. The bottom line is that in order for a shareholder to claim an above-the-line deduction, the health insurance premiums must ultimately be paid by the S corporation and must be reported as taxable compensation in the shareholder’s W-2. https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/S-Corporation-Compensation-and-Medical-Insurance-Issues I understand this to mean that you can only get the deduction in your case (having purchased it in your own name) if your state does not allow your S-Corp to purchase a group health plan because you only have one employee. (I don't know specifically if Illinois fits that description or not.)  In addition, there are rules about reporting health insurance premiums for taxes for S-Corp share members that you should also check.  Personally, I think that it's complicated enough that advice from a CPA or other tax advisor specific to your situation would be worth the cost.


Absolutely. The overhead for a product based business like that is particularly high. Service based businesses tend to have much better profit margins. But if she was running a plant nursery she has to pay huge heating costs, renting the area she operates in, not to mention inventory and employees. That $300k vanishes pretty fast. This article talking about disappearing middle class is a bad argument. This sounds much more about how the recession hurts a small business. Assuming of course it is the recession. I know a coffee shop near me that isn't doing that great and says the economy is hurting them bad. They apparently don't realize that being blatantly rude to their customers drives them away. There are often other sides to the story besides the economy, whether the fault of the business owner or some other factor outside their control that may not be covered in these kinds of posts.


It's monopoly money.  Everybody treats it like that.  Of course it doesn't work.    It would be vastly different if you had you budget **plus**    (a) freedom of choice for the supplier, internal or external,    (b) your group could spend any budget surplus on whatever they wanted (well, for the office).    But that will never happen because company policy.


The company struck a truce with Elliott. They elected 3 of Elliott's nominees to the board, agreed to annual board elections, and placed Elliott on the committee for the firm's CEO search (Elliott targeted their previous CEO trying to push change and he had to resign after sending a threatening letter to Elliott).


Yes -- you can refund the sales tax and adjust your return. Make sure you have a copy of your customer's reseller permit on file. If the item sold was for their own use (instead of resale), then sales tax is due, so you might want to check with the customer and ask them what they want to do.


You should apply for 83(b) within 30 days. 10 months is too late, sorry.


"I'd suggest you start by looking at the mutual fund and/or ETF options available via your bank, and see if they have any low-cost funds that invest in high-risk sectors.  You can increase your risk (and potential returns) by allocating your assets to riskier sectors rather than by picking individual stocks, and you'll be less likely to make an avoidable mistake. It is possible to do as you suggest and pick individual stocks, but by doing so you may be taking on more risk than you suspect, even unnecessary risk.  For instance, if you decide to buy stock in Company A, you know you're taking a risk by investing in just one company.  However, without a lot of work and financial expertise, you may not be able to assess how much risk you're taking by investing in Company A specifically, as opposed to Company B.  Even if you know that investing in individual stocks is risky, it can be very hard to know how risky those particular individual stocks are, compared to other alternatives. This is doubly true if the investment involves actions more exotic than simply buying and holding an asset like a stock.  For instance, you could definitely get plenty of risk by investing in commercial real estate development or complicated options contracts; but a certain amount of work and expertise is required to even understand how to do that, and there is a greater likelihood that you will slip up and make a costly mistake that negates any extra gain, even if the investment itself might have been sound for someone with experience in that area.  In other words, you want your risk to really be the risk of the investment, not the ""personal"" risk that you'll make a mistake in a complicated scheme and lose money because you didn't know what you were doing.  (If you do have some expertise in more exotic investments, then maybe you could go this route, but I think most people -- including me -- don't.) On the other hand, you can find mutual funds or ETFs that invest in large economic sectors that are high-risk, but because the investment is diversified within that sector, you need only compare the risk of the sectors.  For instance, emerging markets are usually considered one of the highest-risk sectors.  But if you restrict your choice to low-cost emerging-market index funds, they are unlikely to differ drastically in risk (at any rate, far less than individual companies).  This eliminates the problem mentioned above: when you choose to invest in Emerging Markets Index Fund A, you don't need to worry as much about whether Emerging Markets Index Fund B might have been less risky; most of the risk is in the choice to invest in the emerging markets sector in the first place, and differences between comparable funds in that sector are small by comparison.  You could do the same with other targeted sectors that can produce high returns; for instance, there are mutual funds and ETFs that invest specifically in technology stocks. So you could begin by exploring the mutual funds and ETFs available via your existing investment bank, or poke around on Morningstar.  Fees will still matter no matter what sector you're in, so pay attention to those.  But you can probably find a way to take an aggressive risk position without getting bogged down in the details of individual companies.  Also, this will be less work than trying something more exotic, so you're less likely to make a costly mistake due to not understanding the complexities of what you're investing in."


Passive implies following an index. Your question seems to ask about a hypothetical fund that starts, say, as an S&P fund, but as the index is adjusted, the old stocks stay in the fund. Sounds simple enough, but over time, the fund's performance will diverge from the index. The slight potential gain from lack of cap gains will be offset by the fund being unable to market itself.  Keep in mind, the gains distributed each year are almost exclusively long term, taxed at a favorable rate.


You are wildly over-estimating your taxes.  First, remember that your business expenses reduce your gross income.  Second, remember that taxes are progressive, so your flat 35% only applies if you're already making a high salary that pushed you into the higher brackets of US and CA. I think the deeper problems are: 1) you are expecting a super early start-up (with no finished product) to pay you the same as a steady job, including health insurance, and 2) you are expecting Kickstarter to independently fund the venture. The best source of funding is yourself.  If you believe in this venture and in your game design abilities, then pay for most of the costs out of your own savings.  Cut your expenses to the extent you can. You may want to wander over to startups.SE to get more perspective and ideas on your business plan.


"I looked into the ""We buy houses"" people when I was trying to sell my house a few years back.  The amount they are normally willing to pay is far below value.  If I was going to take that little, I would just set the price at that amount and sell it to somebody, maybe making a young couple really happy getting into a house they couldn't otherwise afford."


The best thing is to diversify across multiple currencies. USD and EUR seem reliable. But not 100% reliable to keep all your investments in this types of currencies. Invest part of your savings in USD, part - in EUR, and part in your home country's currency. Apart from investing I recommend you to have certain sum in cash and certain on your bank account.


Never co-sign a loan for someone, especially family  Taking out a loan for yourself is bad enough, but co-signing a loan is just plain stupid. Think about it, if the bank is asking for a co-signer its because they are not very confident that the applicant is going to be paying back the loan. So why would you then step up and say I'll pay back the loan if they don't, make me a co-signer please. Here is a list of things that people never think about when they cosign a loan for somebody.  Now if you absolutely must co-sign a loan here is how I would do it. I, the co-signer would be the one who makes the payments to ensure that the loan was paid on time and I would be the one collecting the payment from the person who is getting the loan. Its a very simple way of preventing some of the worst situations that can arise and you should be willing to make the payments anyway after all thats what it means to cosign a loan. Your just turning things around and paying the loan upfront instead of paying after the applicant defaults and ruins every ones credit. (Source: user's own blog post Never co-sign a loan for someone, especially family)


You should pull your credit report from all the credit reporting agencies annually to make sure only the accounts you know of are being reported.


Dollar cost averaging is an great way to diversify your investment risk.  There's mainly 2 things you want to achieve when you're saving for retirement: 1) Keep your principal investment; 2) Grow it.  The best methods recommended by most financial institutions are as follows:  1) Diversification;  2) Re-balance. There are a lot of additional recommendations, but these are my main take away.  When you dollar cost average, you're essentially diversifying your exchange risk between the value of the funds you're investing.   Including the ups and downs of the value of the underlying asset, may actually be re-balancing.  Picking your asset portfolio: 1) You generally want to include within your 401k or any other invest, classes of investments that do not always move in total correlation as this allows you to diversify risk; 2) I'm making a lot of assumptions here - since you may have already picked your asset classes.  Consider utilizing the following to tell you when to buy or sell your underlying investment: 1) Google re-balance excel sheet to find several examples of re-balance tools to help you always buy low and sell high;   2) Enter your portfolio investment; 3) Utilize the movement to invest in the underlying assets based on market movement; and 4) Execute in an emotionless way and stick to your plan.  Example -  Facts 1) I have 1 CAD and 1 USD in my 401k.  Plan I will invest 1 dollar in the ratio of 50/50 - forever.   Let's start in 2011 since we were closer to par: 2010 - 1 CAD (value 1 USD) and 1 USD (value 1 USD) = 50/50 ratio 2011 start  - 1 CAD ( value .8 USD) and 1 USD (value 1 USD) = 40/60 ratio 2011 - rebalance - invest 1 USD as follows purchase .75 CAD (.60 USD) and purchase .40 USD = total of 1 USD reinvested 2011 end - 1.75 CAD (value 1.4USD) and 1.4 USD (value 1.4 USD) - 50/50 ratio As long as the fundamentals of your underlying assets (i.e. you're not expecting hyperinflation or your asset to approach 0), this approach will always build value over time since you're always buying low and selling high while dollar averaging.  Keep in mind it does reduce your potential gains - but if you're looking to max gain, it may mean you're also max potential loss - unless you're able to find A symmetrical investments.  I hope this helps.


Here are the general guidelines on what you should report and pay - but the overall rule is that if it's not a business-related cost then you can't claim it. In your example, a client meeting may warrant a claim for 'entertaining clients' which could be claimed as a business cost - but buying yourself a coffee to get out of the house isn't a business cost.


Subprime Auto Loan Defaults on the Rise  [https://youtu.be/4XrdNmgon2c] Jul 30, 2017  Bill Black the white collar criminologist says It is a very severe problem for consumers who are going to lose not only their cars, but their credit ratings


Despite a fair number of views, no one besides @mbhunter answered, so I'll gather the findings of my own research here. Hopefully, this will help others in similar situations. If you spot any errors, please let me know!


Will 2 millions dollars check to be cash? Will a bank convert a check to cash?  In my experience, no.  Even for small checks.   Unless you happen to have a VERY good relationship with your banker (read as: have an existing large bank balance.)   The exception is if you go to the bank the check is drawn on.   But even then, I doubt they'll cash a $2M dollar check. Can you deposit a $2M dollar check?  Most definitely. How long will 2 millions dollars check to be cash? Depends on your bank's policies, relationship with you, and the origination of the check.  You'll need to talk to the exact bank in question to find out.  Some guidelines from my own experiences: Out of country checks will take quite awhile, say 4 weeks, even for trivial amounts.  I'm not sure what a $2M size would do.   Beyond that situation, it will likely depend on whether you have more money than the check's worth in your bank accounts.  If so, they may be willing to give you cash in a few days.  Or if you only want some of the money as cash in a few days, that might be possible. If the bank couldn't cash for him, will the bank give him some of cash   for example, $500,000 for now, and the rest wait to be cash at later   time like 24 hours or 1 week? Unless you already have a lot of money in your relationship with the bank, I think it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY they will let you have ANY of the money in 24 hours.  You MIGHT get some of it in a week.   The issue will be that such a large check will be viewed as having a high chance of being fraudulent, so they will want to be exceptionally conservative.


"You are confining the way you and the other co-founders are paid for guaranteeing the loan to capital shares. Trying to determine payments by equity distribution is hard. It is a practice that many small companies particularly the ones in their initial stage fall into. I always advise against trying to make payments with equity, weather it is for unpaid salary or for guaranteeing a loan such as your case. Instead of thinking about a super sophisticated algorithm to distribute the new shares between the cofounders and the new investors, given a set of constraints, which will most probably fail to make the satisfactory split, you should simply view the co-founders as debt lenders for the company and the shareholders as a capital contributor.  If the co-founders are treated as debt lenders, it will be much easier to determine the risk compensation for guaranteeing the loan because it is now assessed in monetary units and this compensation is equal to the risk premium you see fit ""taking into consideration the probability of default "". On the other hand, capital contributors will gain capital shares as a percentage of the total value of the company after adding SBA loan."


The CBOE had a great article on this. I will search for it and edit. The normal dividends are not adjusted. Which is why you see early exercise of just out of the money options sometimes. To get that dividend. A special dividend, say a $50 stock with $1/yr dividend but now has a $3 one time dividend would likely result in an option strike adjustment.


This is either laundering money or laundering non-money.  All the other answers point out how a cheque or bank transfer will take days to actually clear.  That is a red herring! There are lots of ways to illegally transfer real money out of existing accounts.  Stolen cheque books, stolen banking details (partly in connection with stolen smartphones and credit cards) and cards, money transfers from other people duped in a similar manner as you are: it is much easier to steal money than invent it, and it takes quite longer until stolen rather than invented money will blow up at the banks. All of those payments will likely properly clear but not leave you in actual legal possession of money.  People will notice the missing money and notify police and banks and you will be on the hook for paying back all of it. Cheques and transfers from non-existing accounts, in contrast, tend to blow up very fast and thus are less viable for this kind of scam as the time window for operating the scam is rather small. Whether or not the cheque actually clears is about as relevant of whether or not the Rolls Royce you are buying for $500 because the owner has an ingrown toe nail and cannot press down the accelerator any more has four wheels. Better hope for the Rolls to be imaginary because then you'll only be out of $500 and that's the end of it.  If it is real, your trouble is only starting.


The IRS Guidance pertaining to the subject.  In general the best I can say is your business expense may be deductible.  But it depends on the circumstances and what it is you want to deduct. Travel Taxpayers who travel away from home on business may deduct related   expenses, including the cost of reaching their destination, the cost   of lodging and meals and other ordinary and necessary expenses.   Taxpayers are considered “traveling away from home” if their duties   require them to be away from home substantially longer than an   ordinary day’s work and they need to sleep or rest to meet the demands   of their work. The actual cost of meals and incidental expenses may be   deducted or the taxpayer may use a standard meal allowance and reduced   record keeping requirements. Regardless of the method used, meal   deductions are generally limited to 50 percent as stated earlier.    Only actual costs for lodging may be claimed as an expense and   receipts must be kept for documentation. Expenses must be reasonable   and appropriate; deductions for extravagant expenses are not   allowable. More information is available in Publication 463, Travel,   Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses. Entertainment Expenses for entertaining clients, customers or employees may be   deducted if they are both ordinary and necessary and meet one of the   following tests: Directly-related test: The main purpose of the entertainment activity is the conduct of business, business was actually conducted   during the activity and the taxpayer had more than a general   expectation of getting income or some other specific business benefit   at some future time.   Associated test: The entertainment was associated with the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business and occurred directly   before or after a substantial business discussion. Publication 463 provides more extensive explanation of these tests as   well as other limitations and requirements for deducting entertainment   expenses. Gifts Taxpayers may deduct some or all of the cost of gifts given in the   course of their trade or business. In general, the deduction is   limited to $25 for gifts given directly or indirectly to any one   person during the tax year. More discussion of the rules and   limitations can be found in Publication 463. If your LLC reimburses you for expenses outside of this guidance it should be treated as Income for tax purposes. Edit for Meal Expenses: Amount of standard meal allowance.   The standard meal allowance is   the federal M&IE rate. For travel in 2010, the rate for most small   localities in the United States is $46 a day. Source IRS P463 Alternately you could reimburse at a per diem rate


The only consequence I could see is that they have your money until they pay you back. I'd just do what JoeTaxpayer says and get it back.


Average rates of return usually assume compounding, so your formula would be for annual compounding ,or for continuous compounding.


I don't know the term sole trader but usually the trade off is a corporation allows for shield from liability (i.e. creditors) more flexibility with respect to personal tax management, but higher operating costs (incorporation, financial statements, etc).  I always incorporate.


"Envelope budgeting is pretty simple. It's easy enough that you can teach it to children, and flexible enough you can use it as an adult.   The general idea is that you take your cash money (no bank accounts involved in the simple version), and stick it in envelopes marked for what it's supposed to be for. So for example, you get paid, you cash your paycheck and you put $100 in an envelope marked food.  Now when you go out to eat, you go get the money out of your food envelope, and spend it on food.  When your food envelope is empty you go hungry.   In the simple version you have envelopes for things like ""food"", ""candy"", ""toys"", ""games"". etc. (simple version is usually taught to kids.)  So you want a $60 game, and your game envelope only has $5. Well you can't get the game. You need to add more money to the game envelope. You need to eat so you have to put money there, but maybe you don't need toys. So you can divert some incoming money from toys to games. Sure it's still going to take a while to get to $60, but now with some simple kid friendly math you can see how long, and more importantly, you can make decisions on what is more important. Candy or Toys? In the adult version things are much the same. We just have more envelopes. We have Rent, Car Payment, Gas, Food, Electric. Then we need some envelopes for ""savings"" and ""retirement"". etc. Now when you get your Paycheck you prioritize your money and you stuff it in the envelopes. How much you put in each envelope is easy. Enough to pay for that thing. Savings and Retirement meet different goals. You want $6,000 savings. Well just like that game in the kid version, you're not going to get there all at once.  But you can see and make decisions on what is most important. You want $1,000,000 to retire on. Sure, but that envelope is going to take a while to fill up.  At it's core, the important parts are that: Let me explain the rent example, as it's the oddest.  You get $500 a week, and you need $1000 for rent.  This means you're spending from your envelopes. During week 1 and 2 you're spending last months week 3 and 4.  You DO NOT do: This is important because if you lose your paycheck in week 3 or 4 you are homeless.  Finally, in general, you stick stuff in savings envelope. And you want to reach a savings envelope goal of 6 months of your average pay checks. Once you reach this goal, then you're in good shape, and a job loss doesn't mean you're homeless. You can always just pull from savings.  It's important when using these envelopes to understand that you only make the decision of what is more important when you're sticking money in, not when you're taking money out, and that you only work with the money you have right now today (in your hand). Now what you think you're going to get tomorrow.  Money in the bank can be split into virtual envelopes. Money in savings can be in any vehicle, but generally you want a short term emergency envelope (savings account) and a long term envelope (CDs for example). Take a look at YNAB.com they used to provide free lessons in using their software to manage an envelope system.  And the I know it's going to get comments section.  The rent v.s. homeless is a real example. You should not take money from, say, the food envelope, to cover the rent. This may seem silly, but if you're doing that then you made poor decisions when deciding where the money goes. Use the emergency fund envelope to cover the rent, and next time put less money into food. It's this ""rule"" that makes envelope budgeting work well. You may be homeless, but you can eat, drive to work, put gas in your car, and pay your bills. Taking money from different envelopes usually results in a spiral, where you attempt to do the sensible thing, but in the end, you're worse off.  Migrating to envelope budgeting (in the strict sense) is hard. The best way I have taught people to do it is to only envelope budget an increasing part of their income until their envelopes are full enough for one month. That means that you might only envelope budget 10% of your income at first. But unless your situation is such that you can cover all your bills with one paycheck, it's not going to be possible to transition without breaking the ""don't take money from other envelope"" rules."


I agree with this. I like to buy stocks that are priced low according to value investing principles but set limits to sell if the stock happens to get priced at a point that exceeds X% annualized return, for instance 15% or 30% depending on preference. If the price goes up, I cash out and find the next best value stock and repeat. If the price does not go up, then I hold it which is fine because I only buy what I'm comfortable with holding for the long term. I tend to prefer stocks that have a dividend yield in the 2-6% range so I can keep earning a return.  Also I too like the look of MCD.  GE looks good as well, from this perspective.


You're not subject to the US tax laws, and since the income is not US-sourced, it is not subject to withholding. Your employer doesn't need any form, but if they insist - you can provide them a W8-BEN to certify your non-resident status. Keep in mind that if you do come to the US, the money you earn while in the US is US-sourced and subject to the US taxes and withholding, even if you're non-resident.


Systems to research that may help you out: Less Accounting and Wave are great because they can import data from banks / credit cards. I know you said your bank doesn't export it but it seems like something as a small business you would want.


You need the Present Value, not Future Value formula for this. The loan amount or 1000 is paid/received now (not in the future). The formula is $ PMT = PV (r/n)(1+r/n)^{nt} / [(1+r/n)^{nt} - 1] $  See for example http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/financial/loan-calculator.php With PV = 1000, r=0.07, n=12, t=3 we get PMT = 30.877 per month


That's really not something that can be answered based on the information provided. There are a lot of factors involved: type of income, your wife's tax bracket, the split between Federal and State (if you're in a high bracket in a high income-tax rate State - it may even be more than 50%), etc etc. The fact that your wife didn't withdraw the money is irrelevant. S-Corp is a pass-through entity, i.e.: owners are taxed on the profits based on their personal marginal tax rates, and it doesn't matter what they did with the money. In this case, your wife re-invested it into the corp (used it to pay off corp debts), which adds back to her basis. You really should talk to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) to learn how S-Corps work and how to use them properly. Your wife, actually, as she's the owner.


See the Mortgage Professor's calculators (#3). Go to bankrate and look up rates so you know what to punch in to those calculators.


The shareholders have a claim on the profits, but they may prefer that claim to be exercised in ways other than dividend payments. For example, they may want the company to invest all of its profits in growth, or they may want it to buy back shares to increase the value of the remaining shares, especially since dividends are generally taxed as income while an increase in the share price is generally taxed as a capital gain, and capital gains are often taxed at a lower rate than income.


"Not sure what your needs are or what NIS is:  However here in the US a good choice for a single fund are ""Life Cycle Funds"". Here is a description from MS Money: http://www.msmoney.com/mm/investing/articles/life_cyclefunds.htm"


"A ""balance transfer"" is paying one credit card with another.  You probably get offers in the mail to do this all of the time.  As other posters have noted, however, this usually comes with finance fees rather than the rewards that you get for normal purchases because it's written into your credit card agreement as a different class of transaction with different rules. I'm not sure if it's urban legend or true, but I have heard stories that suggest there were some ""loop holes"" in the earliest credit card reward plans that allowed for something like what you want.  I doubt that any plan ever allowed exactly what you've written, but I've heard stories about people buying gift cards from merchants and then using the gift cards to pay their bill.  This loop hole (if it ever existed) is closed now, but it would have allowed for essentially infinite generation of rewards at no cost to the cardholder.  The banks and credit card companies have a lot of years of experience at this sort of thing now, so the threshold for you finding something that works and conforms with the cardholder agreement is pretty small."


"The textbook answer would be ""assets-liabilities+present discounted value of all future profit"".  A&L is usually simple (if a company has an extra $1m in cash, it's worth $1m more; if it has an extra $1m in debt, it's worth $1m less). If a company with ~0 assets and $50k in profit has a $1m valuation, then that implies that whoever makes that valuation (wants to buy at that price) really believes one of two things - either the future profit will be significantly larger than $50k (say, it's rapidly growing);  or the true worth of assets is much more - say, there's some IP/code/patents/people that have low book value but some other company would pay $1m just to get that. The point is that valuation is subjective since the key numbers in the calculations are not perfectly known by anyone who doesn't have a time machine, you can make estimates but the knowledge to make the estimates varies (some buyers/sellers have extra information), and they can be influenced by those buyers/sellers; e.g. for strategic acquisitions the value of company is significantly changed simply because someone claims they want to acquire it. And, $1m valuation for a company with $500m in profits isn't appropriate - it's appropriate only if the profits are expected to drop to zero within a couple years; a stagnant but stable company with $500m profits would be worth at least $5m and potentially much more."


that's just it, though - they are splitting up the 1%! and in most cases, especially vanguard, they are splitting up far less.  ETFs don't have 12b-1 fees. explaining why you're experiencing different returns for ETFs will almost certainly involve something other than their expense. again, this is especially true for vanguard. they have the cheapest ETFs around (though i think schwab beats them on a few now).  i can only guess at the full compensation structure. betterment likely earns money on cash reserves and  securities hypothecation (i guess?). they also charge a small fee from what i understand. finance is very slim these days.  i guess i'm wondering what your ultimate question is. if it's the inter corporate compensation structure, above is my best guess. if it's about performance, then we need to compare the ETFs you are looking at. if it's about the fees on funds, i think we covered that!  as an advisor, it's my experience that very specific inquiries about fees have a deeper concern. people hear a lot about being overcharged so cost is a very standard place for clients to initially look when trying to compare performance of portfolios or securities.


I meant bitcoin. The issuer is the designer of the currency, which I have stated multiple times, has structural issues. The exchanges are the banks, which have been shown to be susceptible to hacking. Bitcoin is also a fiat currency, just like every other currency, just one with no faith or guarantees behind it and no one to hold accountable when things go sideways. No thanks.


"Note that it isn't always clear that ""turning it all into an annuity"" is the right answer. Annuities are essentially insurance policies -- you're paying them a share of your income to guarantee a specific payout. If you outlive the actuarial tables, that may be a win. If the market crashes, that may be a win. But I'm increasingly hearing the advice that staying in investments (albeit in a very conservative position) may pay better longer. There are tools which will do monte-carlo modelling based on what the market has done in the past. You give them  your estimate of how much in today's dollars would be needed to ""maintain your lifestyle"", and they'll tell you how much savings you need -- and what form you might want to keep those savings in -- to have good odds of being able to live entirely off the earnings and never touch the capital My employer makes such a tool available to us, and in fact Quicken has a simpler version built into it; it's nice that the two agree."


In all honesty, the best solution I've come across is Microsoft's now defunct Money.


>Falls Church VA   Falls Church is an independent city. It has no county to levy taxes.  The FY2017 budget shows a 1% city and 4% restaurant tax. Then you've got 4.3% VA state tax, and 0.7% Northern Virginia regional tax.  Totaling 10%.


I'll point out that you don't actually have to pay your income taxes on time, just make sure to file on time.  You will be charged interest (currently 5% ann., compounded daily).  This is no big deal, I know plenty of people who do this. Note that if they pay you interest you have to report it on your taxes, but if you pay them it's not deductible.


"This functionality is widely available, not only on brokerage sites, but also financial management and even financial information sites.  For instance, two of the latter are Google Finance and Yahoo Finance.  If you are logged in, they let you create ""portfolios"" listing your stocks and, optionally, the size of your holdings in that stock (which you don't need if you are just ""watching"" a stock).  Then you can visit the site at any time and see the current valuations."


An oxymoron is something that contradicts itself. Inside trading is sharing information that isn't public. How the fuck do you think these hedge funds and investment banks can offer almost 50% returns during these times in our economy??? Oh yea it's called inside trading. Reason why it's an oxymoron is because trading information is considered ilegal yet that what everyone does on the market, rules are made to give off fear but past that it's all open roads and deep pockets.    And if you really don't believe that stock market isn't rigged then there is no reason for me to explain myself on that because it would be like taking to a wall. And I thank you for being one of those people that thinks it's not rigged because you help my portfolio look good from your dumb investments.


"If you've already got emergency savings sufficient for your needs, I agree that you'd be better served by sending that $500 to your student loan(s). I, personally, house the bulk of my emergency savings in CDs because I'm not planning to touch it and it yields a little better than a vanilla savings account. To address the comment about liquidity.  In addition to my emergency savings I keep plain vanilla savings accounts for miscellaenous sudden expenses.  To me ""emergency"" means lost job, not new water pump for my car; I have other budgeted savings for that but would spend it on a credit card and reimburse myself anyway so liquidity there isn't even that important.   The 18 month CDs I use are barely less liquid than vanilla savings and the penalty is just a couple months of the accrued interest.  When you compare a possible early distribution penalty against the years of increased yield you're likely to come out ahead after years of never touching your emergency savings, unless you're budgeted such that a car insurance deductible is an emergency expense. Emergency funds should be guaranteed and non-volatile.  If I lose my job, 90 days of accrued interest isn't a hindrance to breaking open some of my CDs, and the process isn't so daunting that I'd meaningfully harm my finances. Liquidity in 2017 and liquidity in whatever year a text book was initially written are two totally different animals.  My ""very illiquid"" brokerage account funds are only one transaction and 3 settlement days less liquid than my ""very liquid"" savings account.  There's no call the bank, sell the security, wait for it to clear, my brokerage cuts a check, mail the check, cash the check, etc.  I can go from Apple stock on Monday to cash in my hand on like Thursday.  On the web portal for the bank that holds my CDs I can instantly transfer the funds from a CD to my checking account there net of a negligible penalty for early distribution.  To call CDs illiquid in 2017 is silly."


> If you're saddled with a ton of debt and also don't have a degree to show for it, I'd say it's much more likely you're going to have trouble paying it off.  This is how generational poverty continues.


"I believe money market ""funds"" (ie a mutual fund) would pay dividends, and you would get a 1099-DIV. A money market ""account"" however is probably actually a bank account, and you would get a 1099-INT for that. It depends how the broker has set it up. I have one of each with different brokers.  If your ""money market"" statements mention anything about FDIC coverage, it is likely an ""account"" (ie a bank account) and will pay interest, not dividends."


You're right. That's pretty much it. You get a deduction for any medical expenses above 10% of your Adjusted Gross Income. You also have to itemize your deductions; claiming the standard deduction won't do.


"Insufficient funds will cause a check to bounce. If there is evidence that you ""kited"" the check deliberately, that's a potential fraud charge. If the vendor accepts that you were just stupid/careless, you'll probably just have to pay a penalty processing fee in addition to making good the payment.  It is your responsibility to track your account balance and not write bad checks. If the timing could be bad, don't write the check yet. If you insist on paying with money you may not have, talk to your bank about setting up overdrafts to draw from another account, or automatic overdraft loans... or use a credit card rather than paying by check."


"I don't understand the OP's desire "" I'd love to have a few hundred dollars coming in each month until I really get the hang of things. ""  When growing your wealth so that it will be large enough in retirement to throw off enough profits to live on ... you must not touch the profits generated along the way.  You must reinvest them to earn even more profits.  The profits you earn need not show up as 'cash'.  Most investments also grow in re-sale value. This growth is called capital gains, and is just-as/more important than cash flows like interest income or dividends.    When evaluating investing choices, you think of your returns as a percent of your total savings at any time.  So expecting $100/month equals $1,200/year would require a $12,000 investment to earn 10%/yr. From the sounds of it the OP's principal is not near that amount, and an average 10% should not be expected by an investment with reasonable risk. I would conclude that 'There is no free lunch'.  You need to continually save and add to your principal.  You must invest to expect a reasonable return (less than 10%) and you must reinvest all profits (whether cash or capital gains). Or else start a business - which cannot be compared to passive investing."


You keep a copy of the dashed check, and tell him to pound sand. If he contacts you again, you tell him that you will charge him with fraud. By accepting the check and cashing it, he acknowledged the debt is paid.


"From IRS Publication 970 Tax Benefits for Education Note: Qualified tuition programs (QTPs) are also called ""529 plans.""  Changing the Designated Beneficiary There are no income tax consequences if the designated beneficiary of   an account is changed to a member of the beneficiary's family. See   Members of the beneficiary's family , earlier.  Members of the beneficiary's family. For these purposes, the beneficiary's family includes the   beneficiary's spouse and the following other relatives of the   beneficiary. regarding ownership changes: Rollovers Any amount distributed from a QTP isn't taxable if it is rolled over   to another QTP for the benefit of the same beneficiary or for the   benefit of a member of the beneficiary's family (including the   beneficiary's spouse). An amount is rolled over if it is paid to   another QTP within 60 days after the date of the distribution. Don't report qualifying rollovers (those that meet the above criteria)   anywhere on Form 1040 or 1040NR. These aren't taxable distributions. Example. When Aaron graduated from college last year, he had $5,000 left in his   QTP. He wanted to give this money to his younger brother, who was in   junior high school. In order to avoid paying tax on the distribution   of the amount remaining in his account, Aaron contributed the same   amount to his brother's QTP within 60 days of the distribution. So it appears that as far as the IRS in concerned the rollover could be done to change ownership as long as the beneficiary was in the same family. It is possible that there could be a state tax issue with the change of ownership, if it changed from a plan in state A to one in state B; and state A treated the original contributions as a tax deduction. So check the guidelines for the specific 529 plan."


It is very likely that the fund paid out a dividend in the form of reinvested shares.  This happens with many funds, especially as we come to the end of the year. Here's a simplified example of how it works.  Assume you invested $1000 and bought 100 units at $10/unit.  Ignoring the daily price fluctuations, if the fund paid out a 20% dividend, you would get $200 and the unit price would drop to $8/unit.  Assuming you chose to reinvest your dividends, you would automatically purchase another $200 worth of units at the new price (so 25 more units).  You would now have 125 units @ $8/unit = $1000 invested. In your example, notice that you now have more shares than you originally purchased, but that the price dropped significantly.  Your market value is above what you originally invested, so there was probably also a bit of a price increase for the day.  You should see the dividend transaction listed somewhere in your account. Just to confirm, I did a quick search on ICENX and found that they did indeed pay a dividend yesterday.


You can put it in a CD, or use a CD investment service like http://www.jumbocdinvestments.com/ (no affiliation).


"It's correct.   Be sure of your personal opportunity cost and not that you're letting the tax tail wag the dog just to score ""tax free"".  Your upside is $3,700 (single) or $7,000 (married) in taxes saved until you're out of the 0% zone.  Is that worth not receiving an income? Even if your savings are such that you don't need to work for income for a fiscal year, how would this affect the rest of your career and lifetime total earning prospects?  Now, maybe: Otherwise, I'd hope you have solid contacts in your network who won't be fazed by a resume gap and be delighted to have a position open for you in 2019 (and won't give you the ""mother returning to the workforce"" treatment in salary negotiations)."


"In Canada, for example, they are expected or required to find out. They call it, The “Know Your Client” rule, part of which is knowing your ""Investment knowledge and experience"". They say it is, ""to ensure their advice is suitable for you"". I have always been given that kind of form to fill in, when opening an account."


"What he said was:  >Short term returns show ""fat tails"" in their distribution.  This means that in the short run, rare events in the stock market, like huge up and downswings, happen much more often than you would expect given the circumstances.  >Long term returns converge towards a gaussian distribution.   This means that long term changes in stock prices show about the level of swings you would expect to see.  >The authors think there's a connection between this and the ""long memory"" of >volatility (i.e. that the autocorrelation of absolute volatilities also has a fat tail).  Auto-correlation is the idea that an event is closely related, or depends upon, a previous event.  It shouldn't be a surprise that prices can depend on previous prices.  (Contrast this with a coin toss.  Each time you toss the coin, the result is independent of any previous result.)  Normally, you would use an estimate of auto-correlation to test the randomness of your time series.  Unless you have good reason to do otherwise, you use the standard normal (or Gaussian) distribution to do so.  Some previous study, or perhaps this one, may have found that the distribution of their auto-correlation estimates for volatility (change in prices)  is not normally distributed, but rather that extreme values happen more often than would be expected (fat tail).  These guys find a correlation between the short term return fat tails, the normally  distributed long term returns, and a previous finding that the auto-correlation of volatility may have fat tails, and they think that these things could be more than simply coincidence."


It was not 100% clear if you have held all of these stocks for over a year.  Therefore, depending on your income tax bracket, it might make sense to hold on to the stock until you have held the individual stock for a year to only be taxed at long-term capital gains rates.  Also, you need to take into account the Net Investment Income Tax(NIIT), if your current modified adjusted income is above the current threshold.  Beyond these, I would think that you would want to apply the same methodology that caused you to buy these in the first place, as it seems to be working well for you. 2 & 3. No.  You trigger a taxable event and therefore have to pay capital gains tax on any gains.  If you have a loss in the stock and repurchase the stock within 30 days, you don't get to recognize the loss and have to add the loss to your basis in the stock (Wash Sales Rules).


Ex-Dividend Price Behavior of Common Stocks would be a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and University of Minnesota if you want a source for some data. Abstract This study examines common stock prices around ex-dividend dates. Such   price data usually contain a mixture of observations - some with and   some without arbitrageurs and/or dividend capturers active. Our theory   predicts such mixing will result in a nonlinear relation between   percentage price drop and dividend yield - not the commonly assumed   linear relation. This prediction and another important prediction of   theory are supported empirically. In a variety of tests, marginal   price drop is not significantly different from the dividend amount.   Thus, over the last several decades, one-for-one marginal price drop   have been an excellent (average) rule of thumb.


"Margin trades let you post a margin of a certain proportion of the value of the trade as collateral against the price of a trade and pay off the difference between the current price and the price that you bought at. Any losses incurred are taken from the margin so the margin has to be maintained as prices change. In practice this means that when the price moves significantly from the buying price a ""margin call"" is triggered and the buyer has to increase their posted margin. The vast majority of the foreign exchange trades done every day are margin trades as (effectively) are all spread bets. Margins get reset overnight whether or not a call has occurred."


"IRS Pub 554 states (click to read full IRS doc):  ""Do not file a federal income tax return if you do not meet the filing requirements and are not due a refund. ... If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, you must file a return if your gross income for the year was at least the amount shown on the appropriate line in Table 1-1 below. "" You may not have wage income, but you will probably have interest, dividend, capital gains, or proceeds from sale of a house (and there is a special note that you must file in this case, even if you enjoy the exclusion for primary residence)"


"The OP does not explain ""what we pay for processing the transaction (cost of debiting the customer)"".  Who exactly do you pay?  Someone else, or your own employees/contractors?  I will assume that $0.10 is paid to your own employees. Dr $10cash from money people give you Cr $10 liability to them because it is their money in your accounts. Dr $0.10 cash payment of paycheques or supplier invoices Cr $0.10 income statement Operating Eexpense  Dr 0.20 liability to depositors for fees they pay, resulting in $9.80 remaining liability for their money you still have. Cr 0.20 income statement Fee Revenues"


You're going to have a huge problem getting approved for anything as long as you have an unpaid bill on your report. Pay it and make sure its reported as paid in full - ASAP. Once that settled, your credit will start to improve slowly. Can't do anything about that, it will take time. You can make the situation improve a bit faster by lending money to yourself and having it reported regularly on your report. How? Easy. Get a secured credit card. What does it mean? You put X amount of money in a CD and the bank will issue you a credit card secured by that CD. Your credit line will be based on the amount in that CD, and you'll probably pay some fees to the bank for the service (~$20-50/year, shop around). You might get lucky and find a secured card without fees, if you look hard enough. Secured cards are reported as revolving credit (just as any other credit card) and are easy to get because the bank doesn't take the risk - you do.  If you default on your payments - your CD goes to cover the debt, and the card gets cancelled. But make absolutely sure that you do not default. Charge between 10% and 30% of the credit limit each month, not more. Pay the balance shown on your credit card statement in full every month and by the due date shown on your monthly statement.  It will take a while, but you would typically start noticing the improvement within ~6-12 months. Stop applying for stuff. Not store cards, not car loans, you're not going to get anything, and will just keep dragging your scores down. Each time you have a pull on your report, the score goes down. A lot of pulls, frequent pulls - the score goes down a lot. Lenders can see when one is desperate, and no-one wants to lend money to desperate people.  Optimally lenders want to lend money to people who doesn't need loans, but in order to keep the business running they'll settle for slightly less - people who don't usually need loans, and pay the loans they do have on time. You fail on both, as you're desperate for a loan and you have unpaid bills on your report.


How do ETF makers like Direxion make money? Since the contents of the ETF are known, why would anyone pay a premium to buy the basket of securities that it is composed of? Couldn't I just assemble the ETF myself for free?


"You'd have to check the rules for your broker to make sure that the term is being used in its usual sense, but the typical answer to your question is ""no.""  A GTC will execute during market hours.  You would need to explicitly specify extended hours if you want to execute outside of market hours (which your broker may or may not support)."


Purchasing an option to sell the stock is probably the safest bet. This gives you reasonable leverage, and your risk is limited to the cost of the option. Say the stock currently sells for $100 per share. You think it will drop to $80 per share in the next two weeks and the market thinks the price will be stable. Now, consider an option to sell one share of that stock for $95 any time within the next two weeks. The market would consider that option nearly worthless, since in all likelihood, you would lose out by exercising it (since you could just sell the share on the market for a price expected to be higher than that). You might be able to acquire that option for $5. Now, say you're right and within two weeks, the price drops to $80. Now you can purchase a share for $80, exercise the option to sell it for $95, and pocket $15. That would make you a $10 profit on a $5 investment. If you're wrong, you just let the option lapse and are out $5. No problem. In reality, you would buy a number of such options. And you wouldn't actually buy a share and exercise the option, you would just sell the option back to its issuer for $15.


"Well it depends. I doubt the professor is looking for the ""basic"" answer as you described it. He's mostly likely looking for the above answers (i.e. the Rf is used to value a call in the B-S model).   Like in all classes, you need to know what the prof is really looking for, because many questions can be interpreted many different ways and unfortunately most teachers aren't clear in asking what they want."


"I just wanted to give you a different perspective, as I own a house (purchased with a mortgage), with my girlfriend. I think it can be done safely and fairly, but you do need to involve legal help to do it right. There really is nothing to be terrified about, the extra cost to set this up was almost irrelevant in the bigger picture of legal costs around purchasing and the documents describing the ownership scheme are quite straightforward. Maybe it's a UK thing, but it seems rather commonplace here.  We've chosen to hold this as ""tenants in common"" and use a trust deed for this when we purchased. We had a solicitor write the trust deed and it clearly states what percentage of the house is owned by either party and exactly what the steps would be taken, should we decide to end the trust (e.g. in case of a split-up). This includes things like the right to buy out the other person before selling on the market etc.  We also had to make wills separately to indicate what should happen with our percentage of the property in case one of us died as with this type of ownership it doesn't automatically go to the other person.  Finally we're both on the mortgage, which I guess is the main difference versus your situation. But again, you could get legal advice as to how this should best be handled."


The transaction will be taxable in India. You will have to pay Capital Gains tax. I am assuming that you purchased the house while you were Indian Resident for tax purposes. As such its needs more paper work to get the money back to US. Consult a CA in India who will help with the paperwork. You haven't mentioned your tax status in US, one you update it, someone will post a US tax aspects of the transaction.


Many states require that USE tax be paid on items purchased out of state and the subsequently brought to your home state. The vendor has the responsibility to collect based upon the shipping destination. It is the buyers responsibility to declare and pay taxes on purchases where the vendor is not required to collect them for your state(like when you purchase it out of state). So if you have an item shipped out of state to avoid sales tax and then bring it to your home state then you are required to pay sales tax in your home state as well.  Some states (Florida for 1) allow for the reduction in sales tax owed by the amount paid in out of state sales taxes.  Some states (Like CT) exempt purchases under a certain amount. Federation of Tax Administrators website has links to state revenue services where you can check the tax requirements for your (and other) states.    Other State Links


In the United States, post-dating a check, on its own, has no valid use. It can be cashed at any time at the discretion of the bank. You would need to send a notice of postdating to your bank describing the check. This doesn't prevent the recipient of cashing the check, but it does prevent your bank from charging your account until the date you specify NOTE: This may be considered a form of stop payment, and you may be subject to the fees noted by your institution.  Source: [Uniform Commercial Code - Article 4A § 4-401] (c) A bank may charge against the account of a customer a check that is otherwise properly payable from the account, even though payment was made before the date of the check, unless the customer has given notice to the bank of the postdating describing the check with reasonable certainty. [...] If a bank charges against the account of a customer a check before the date stated in the notice of postdating, the bank is liable for damages for the loss resulting from its act. The loss may include damages for dishonor of subsequent items under Section 4-402.


* Absolutely agree with /u/IsAnAlpaca  * You /must/ not agree to this without seeing his balance sheet. * That means assets and liabilities, but also ask for the last 12 months' cash flow * Inability or unwillingness to provide any of those things is a HUGE no-go red flag.


I had $70K in credit card at one point.  Limited income, starting a business - it's the only credit available. (yes, all paid off now).


You are not required to file a tax return in Canada if you have no taxable income. If you do not file a return you may be requested to by Canada Revenue Agency, and then you'll need to file one. There are hundreds of thousands of Canadian residents who do not file tax returns. The Minister who overlooks the CRA may assess any amount of taxes on any resident whether they file a return or not. There are penalties for failing to file a return or filing late. The penalties are based on a percentage of the taxes owed. If you owe no taxes, then the penalties are meaningless.


Our mortgage provider actually took the initiative to send us a refinance package with no closing costs to us and nothing added to the note; took us from a 30-year-fixed ~6.5% note to a 15-year-fixed ~5% note, and dropped the monthly payment in the process.  You might talk to your existing lender to see if they would do something like that for you; it gives them a chance to keep your business, and it cuts your costs.


The basic problem here is that you need to have money to invest before you can make a profit from it.  Now if you have say $500K or more, you can put that in mutual funds and live modestly off the profits.  If you don't have that $500K to start out with, you're either looking at a long time frame to accumulate it - say by working a job for 30+ years, and contributing the max to your 401k - or are playing the market trying to get it.  The last is essentially gambling (though with somewhat better odds than casinos or horse racing), and puts you up against the Gambler's Ruin problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler's_ruin You also, I think, have a very mistaken idea about the a typical investor's lifestyle.  Take for instance the best known one, Warren Buffet.  No offence to him, but from everything I've read he lives a pretty boring life.  Spends all day reading financial reports, and what sort of life is that? As for flying places being exciting, ever tried it?  I have (with scientific conferences, but I expect boardrooms are much the same), and it is boring.  Flying at 30,000 ft is boring, and if it's a commercial flight, unpleasant as well.  A conference room in London, Paris, or Milan is EXACTLY the same as a conference room in Podunk, Iowa.  Even the cities outside the conference rooms are much of a muchness these days: you can eat at McDonalds in Paris or Shanghai.  Only way to find interest is to take time from your work to get outside the conference rooms & commercial districts, and then you're losing money.


Get in touch with a reliable company if you are looking for a range of small business financing solutions. Such companies offer consolidation loans to help smaller businesses take care of their previous obligations and this way manage their finances better


In my opinion, the average investor should not be buying individual stocks. One reason why is that the average investor is not capable of reading financial statements and evaluating whether a stock is overpriced or underpriced. As such, they're often tempted to make buy/sell decisions based solely on the current value of a stock as compared to the price at which they bought it. The real reasons to buy (or sell) a stock is the expectation of future growth of the company (or continued profit and expected dividends). If you aren't able to analyze a company's financial statements and business plan, then you really aren't in a position to evaluate that company's stock price. So instead of asking whether to sell based on a recent drop in stock price, you should be investigating why the stock price is falling, and deciding whether those reasons indicate a trend that you expect to continue.  If you buy and sell stocks based solely on recent trends in the stock price, you probably will end up buying stocks that have recently risen and selling stocks that have recently fallen. In that case, you are buying high and selling low, which is a recipe for poor financial outcomes.


"Modern portfolio theory dramatically underestimates the risk of the recommended assets.  This is because so few underlying assets are in the recommended part of the curve.  As investors identify such assets, large amounts of money are invested in them.  This temporarily reduces measured risk, and temporarily increases measured return.  Sooner or later, ""the trade"" becomes ""crowded"".  Eventually, large amounts of money try to ""exit the trade"" (into cash or the next discovered asset).  And so the measurable risk suddenly rises, and the measured return drops. In other words, modern portfolio theory causes bubbles, and causes those bubbles to pop. Some other strategies to consider:"


"even though they're only asking for 1/2 the money and have excellent credit that the mortgage company may not lend it to them if I'm over priced Yes. If the house's value, as determined by the appraisal, is less than the sale price, the bank will not finance the loan. Appraisals and the appraisal process have become much tighter since the Frannie and Freddie debacle. This fact is true regardless of amounts or credit history. Though this is happens somewhat rarely; typically if a seller and buyer agree to a price, this price is a reasonable value -- after all, that is nearly the definition of ""market value"". So, yes, it is true (and always true, for any financed purchase), but that shouldn't really affect your decision. If you try to sell for more than the appraisal, you will just lower the price to the appraised amount."


If I sell it for $50 can I write off the $50 loss. Only if you can establish that it is a normal part of your business and that you did not get $50 worth of use out of it.  That's the technical, legal argument.  As a practical matter, it's unlikely that they'll ding you for selling something after using it, as they won't know.  If they did catch you, you would be in trouble.  You can't deduct loss due to personal use.   The larger problem is that if you sell one TV for a $50 loss, they aren't going to believe that you are in the business of selling TVs.  If you sell a larger amount for a loss, then they still are unlikely to believe that you are in business.  If you sell a large amount for an overall gain, they are unlikely to notice that you took a loss on one TV.  They could only notice that if they were already auditing you, as that wouldn't be visible in your tax forms.


The dividend is what represents your ownership in the CU.  The APY is a calculated figure that will help you compare apples to apples the return of the investment from many vendors and many types. (I think you CU might have had two different people writing that portion of the website, because the comparisons pages don't make that clear, and the pages don't layout the same way.)


They're probably talking about flipping houses. The conventional wisdom when flipping is to purchase the property with a mortgage or other loan on day-0. Do the work to rehabilitate it. Get it listed for re-sale promptly (this step has varying strategies) with a profitable price but one that will make it move. Have the house sold on or before the first payment would be due. This is anywhere from 30 to 60 days. The flipper then never has to make a payment on the mortgage or loan, the costs of rehabilitating the home are recovered promptly (potentially before any loan, credit card payments, or invoices are due), and there is a profit. This also assumes that either a 100% loan or some other mechanism is used to address closing costs and fees. This model fits the premise of the infomercial in that you make money investing in real estate but never have to tie up any of your own money in the process.


Series I Savings Bonds would be another option that have part of their return indexed to inflation though currently they are yielding 1.64% through April 30, 2016 though some may question how well is that 3% you quote as an inflation rate. From the first link: Series I savings bonds are a low-risk savings product. While you own   them they earn interest and protect you from inflation. You may   purchase electronic I bonds via TreasuryDirect or paper I bonds with   your IRS tax refund. As a TreasuryDirect account holder, you can   purchase, manage, and redeem I bonds directly from your web browser. TIPS vs I Bonds if you want to compare these products that are rather safe in terms of avoiding a nominal loss. This would be where a portion of the funds could go, not all of them at once.


A Mortgage Backed Security or MBS is the security.  It's not an entity, it's essentially a contract.  As an investment they function more or less the same way a bond does. There is nothing wrong with the concept behind a Mortgage Backed Security.  Functionally securities like these allows banks and other institutions to lend to high-risk borrowers.  You package small slices of a wide range of risk from a large number of mortgages and the investor sill receive something similar to the average of the rates being charged.  Essentially from a big pool of mortgages of varying risk you will create a different big pool of bonds that can be sold to investors based on some sort of expected return.  For a frame of reference on a much smaller scale look at peer to peer lending sites like LendingClub and Prosper.  The idea is lots of people of varying risk profiles make requests for loans of varying amounts.  You bring your $2,500 and invest $25 in to 100 different loans.  This way even if a few default you will still eek out a profit.  It also allows you to include riskier borrowers without materially impacting your expected return.


There are a couple reasons for having a Traditional or Roth IRA in addition to a 401(k) program in general, starting with the Traditional IRA: With regards to the Roth IRA: Also, both the Traditional and Roth IRA allow you to make a $10,000 withdraw as a first time home buyer for the purposes of buying a home. This is much more difficult with the 401(k) and generally you end up having to take a loan against the 401(k) instead. So even if you can't take advantage of the tax deductions from contributions to a Traditional IRA, there are still good reasons to have one around. Unless you plan on staying with the same company for your entire career (and even if you do, they may have other plans) the Traditional IRA tends to be a much better place to park the funds from the 401(k) than just rolling them over to a new employer.  Also, don't forget that just because you can't take deductions for the income doesn't mean that you might not need the income that savings now will bring you in retirement. If you use a retirement savings calculator is it saying that you need to be saving more than your current monthly 401(k) contributions? Then odds are pretty good that you also need to be adding additional savings and an IRA is a good location to put those assets because of the other benefits that they confer. Also, some people don't have the fiscal discipline to not use the money when it isn't hard to get to (i.e. regular savings or investment account) and as such it also helps to ensure you aren't going to go and spend the money unless you really need it.


Foreclosure is at a high level the bank declaring that the debtor cannot pay their promissory note (their debt).  This is shortly followed by default, which is the removal of debtors rights to the property.  After the debtor has defaulted, he either chooses to voluntarily remove himself and his belongings from the property, or is forcibly evicted.  In the US eviction is carried out by local law enforcement, such as the sheriff's office.   The bank is now the sole owner of the property, and proceeds to sell it, in an attempt to recoup their investment.  If the bank cannot recoup their investment by selling the house, the rest may be converted to unsecured debt against the debtor.  If the bank chooses to forgive the remaining debt, the debtor may have a tax liability for cancellation of debt.  Also the debtor may also be liable for any appreciation the house did before it was sold, but this likely to be nontaxable if the house in question is the debtor's primary residence.  They also send the credit bureaus the notice of foreclosure, which is how your credit score is hurt. Private Mortgage Insurance or Lenders Mortgage Insurance will pay the lender some amount back to cover their losses. See Also:


Depending on jurisdiction, the fact that you made some payments might give you an ownership share in the house in your own right. What share would be a complex question because you might need to consider both the mortgage payments made and maintenance. Your sister might also be able to argue that she was entitled to some recompense for the risk she describes of co-signing, and that's something that would be very hard to quantify, but clearly you would also be entitled to similar recompense in respect of that, as you also co-signed. For the share your mother owned, the normal rules of inheritance apply and by default that would be a 50-50 split as JoeTaxpayer said. You imply that the loan is still outstanding, so all of this only applies to the equity previously built up in the house prior to your mother's death. If you are the only one making the ongoing payments, I would expect any further equity built up to belong solely to you, but again the jurisdiction and the fact that your sister's name is on the deeds could affect this. If you can't resolve this amicably, you might need to get a court involved and it's possible that the cost of doing so would outweigh the eventual benefit to you.


VaR and Stressed VaR are kind of mandatory market risk measurement techniques for anyone with a banking licence in Europe. This doesn't stop you from doing other stuff as well, but you need to have the basics (Basel 2 accord) and you must backtest to check your model. The big problem is that doesn't really account for what happens during a liquidity squeeze.  Other measures may be used at portfolio level, but it is the basic VaR stuff that is churning away after hours.


Find a good financial advisor that is willing to teach you and not just interested in making a commission on your net worth. Talk to them and talk some more. Go slow and don't make impulsive buying decisions. If you don't understand it then don't buy it. Think long term - how do I turn this 250K into 2.5M? Congrats on the savings!


You have made a good start because you are looking at your options. Because you know that if you do nothing you will have a big tax bill in April 2017, you want to make sure that you avoid the underpayment penalty. One way to avoid it is to make estimated payments. But even if you do that you could still make a mistake and overpay or underpay. I think the easiest way to handle it is to reach the safe harbor. If your withholding from your regular jobs and any estimated taxes you pay in 2016 equal or exceed your total taxes for 2015, then even if you owe a lot in April 2017 you can avoid the underpayment penalty. If you AGI is over 150K you have to make sure your withholding is 110% of your 2015 taxes. Then set aside what you think you will owe in your bank account until you have to pay your taxes in April 2017. You only have to adjust your withholding to make the safe harbor. You can make sure easily enough once your file this years taxes. You only have to make sure that you reach the 100% or 110% threshold. From IRS PUB 17 Who Must Pay Estimated Tax If you owe additional tax for 2015, you may have to pay estimated tax   for 2016. You can use the following general rule as a guide during the year to   see if you will have enough withholding, or if you should increase   your withholding or make estimated tax payments.  General rule.    In   most cases, you must pay estimated tax for 2016 if both of the   following apply. You expect to owe at least $1,000 in tax for 2016, after subtracting your withholding and refundable credits. You expect your withholding plus your refundable credits to be less than the smaller of: a. 90% of the tax to be shown on your 2016 tax return, or b. 100% of the tax shown on your 2015 tax return (but see Special rules for farmers, fishermen, and higher income taxpayers , later).   Your 2015 tax return must cover all 12 months. Reminders Estimated tax safe harbor for higher income taxpayers. If your 2015   adjusted gross income was more than $150,000 ($75,000 if you are   married filing a separate return), you must pay the smaller of 90% of   your expected tax for 2016 or 110% of the tax shown on your 2015   return to avoid an estimated tax penalty.


"Without knowing what the balances are, I associate ""uncomfortable"" with high, as in tens of thousands.   What I would do: is 1) cut up the cards and stop using them, and 2) have some balance transfer offers in hand the next time you call to negotiate with the companies.  Essentially, you will have to convince them that they will have to explain one of two things to their boss: why they lowered your rate or why you left. They can collect less interest from you or no interest from you.  It's up to them.  If they don't offer you something that's in the ballpark of your balance transfer offer, then bid them goodbye and complete the balance transfer. As far as paying them off, the top two modes of repayment are lowest balance first (aka snowball) or high interest rate first.  Both methods are similar in that you pay minimums on all but the method's focus point.  Whether it is lowest balance or highest interest rate, you pay ALL of your extra money on the lowest balance or the highest interest debt until it is gone and then you move onto the next one in the list. For what it's worth, I prefer the lowest balance method, you see progress faster."


"If you want a ~12% rate of return on your investments.... too bad. For returns which even begin to approach that, you need to be looking at some of the riskiest stuff. Think ""emerging markets"". Even funds like Vanguard Emerging Markets (ETF: VWO, mutual fund, VEIEX) or Fidelity Advisor Emerging Markets Income Trust (FAEMX) seem to have yields which only push 11% or so.  (But inflation is about nil, so if you're used to normal 2% inflation or so, these yields are like 13% or so. And there's no tax on that last 2%! Yay.) Remember that these investments are very risky. They go up lots because they can go down lots too. Don't put any money in there unless you can afford to have it go missing, because sooner or later you're likely to lose something half your money, and it might not come back for a decade (or ever). Investments like these should only be a small part of your overall portfolio. So, that said... Sites which make investing in these risky markets easy? There are a good number, but you should probably just go with vanguard.com. Their funds have low fees which won't erode your returns. (You can actually get lower expense ratios by using their brokerage account to trade the ETF versions of their funds commission-free, though you'll have to worry more about the actual number of shares you want to buy, instead of just plopping in and out dollar amounts). You can also trade Vanguard ETFs and other ETFs at almost any brokerage, just like stocks, and most brokerages will also offer you access to a variety of mutual funds as well (though often for a hefty fee of $20-$50, which you should avoid). Or you can sign up for another fund providers' account, but remember that the fund fees add up quickly.  And the better plan? Just stuff most of your money in something like VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index) instead."


It's important to understand that, in general, security transactions involve you and a relatively unknown entity with your broker standing in the middle.  When you sell through Schwab, Schwab needs to receive the funds from the other side of the transaction.  If Schwab gave you access to the funds immediately, it would essentially be a loan until the transaction settles after funds and securities change hands.   If Schwab made funds available to you as soon as they were received, it might still be two days until the money is received; because the other side also has three days. Guaranteed one day settlement would have to include receipt of funds from the buyer in one day and Schwab can't control that. You need to remember this transaction likely includes at least one party in addition to you and Schwab.  Here's the SEC page related to the three day settlement period,  About Settling Trades in Three Days:  T+3