Short answer: No, it only matters if you want to use covered calls strategies. The price of a share is not important. Some companies make stock splits from time to time so that the price of their shares is more affordable to small investors. It is a decision of the company's board to keep the price high or low. More important is the capitalization for these shares. If you have lots of money to invest, the best is to divide and invest a fixed pourcentage of your portfolio in each company you choose.  The only difference is if you eventually decide to use covered call strategies. To have a buy write on Google will cost you a lot of money and you will only be able to sell 1 option for every 100 shares. Bottom line: the price is not important, capitalization and estimated earnings are. Hope this answers your question.


"$36 dividend/900 DJIA = 4% 5.5% bond yield = ($36 dividend/660 DJIA) Graham wrote this at a very different time in financial markets- interest rates were much higher, and the DJIA much lower. In addition, bonds were yielding more than stocks, unlike today when the DJIA % the 10yr Treasury yield 2.63% and 2.13% respectively. In addition, his ""weigher of the odds"" suggests waiting to invest until equity prices are lower (usually dividends aren't reduced), and therefore the DJIA dividend yield would rise relative to bond yields."


It sounds like you are interested in investing in the stock market but you don't want to take too much risk. Investing in an Index EFT will provide some diversification and can be less risky than investing in individual stocks, however with potentially lower returns. If you want to invest your money, the first thing you should do is learn about managing your risk. You are still young and you should spend your time now to increase your education and knowledge. There are plenty of good books to start with, and you should prepare an investment plan which incorporates a risk management strategy. $1000 is a little low to start investing in the stock market, so whilst you are building your education and preparing your plan, you can continue building up more funds for when you are ready to start investing.  Place your funds in an high interest savings account for now, and whilst you are learning you can practice your strategies using virtual accounts. In fact the ASX has a share market game which is held  2 or 3 times per year. The ASX website also has some good learning materials for novices and they hold regular seminars. It is another good source for improving your education in the subject.  Remember, first get educated, then plan and practice, and then invest.


"What is my best bet with the 401K? I know very little about retirement   plans and don't plan to ever touch this money until I retire but could   this money be of better use somewhere else? If you don't know your options, I would suggest reading some material on it that might be a little more extensive than an answer here (for instance, http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/ has some good and free information about a myriad of financial topics).  With retirement accounts you can roll it over or leave it in the current account.  Things to look at would be costs of the accounts, options you have in each account, and the flexibility of moving it if you need to.  Depending on what type of retirement account it is (Roth 401K, Traditional 401K, etc, you may have some advantages with moving it to another type). The student loans.... pay them off in one shot? I have the extra money   and it would not be a hardship to do so unless that money can be best   used somewhere else? Unless I was making more money in a savings/investing/business opportunity, I would pay off the student loans in a lump sum.  The reason is basic opportunity cost (economics) - if a better opportunity isn't on the horizon with your money, kill the interest you're paying because it's money you're losing every month. With the money just sitting in the bank I get a little sick feeling   thinking that I can be doing something better with that. Outside of general savings you could look at investing in stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, lending club loans (vary by state), or something similar.  Or you could try to start a business or invest in a start up directly (though, depending on the start up, they may not accept small investors).  Otherwise, if you don't have a specific idea at this time, it's best to have money in savings while you ponder where else it would serve you. Keep in mind, having cash on hand, even if it's not earning anything, can bail you out in emergencies or open the door if an opportunity arises.  So, you're really not ""losing"" anything by having it in cash if you're patiently waiting on opportunities."


And just as easily, someone could find a reason for such a derivative to exist.  Let's say I'm a vendor of memorabilia for a given sports team, but unlike most vendors I'm only a vendor for a particular team.  Given that there is a large lead time between orders placed and memorabilia received (perhaps on the order of a month between order and receipt), it is inherently risky to order large orders towards the end of a season.  However, if they're going to be in the playoffs, there's a huge opportunity to sell, but if they don't, you'd be left with tons of surplus inventory.  So, wouldn't it be handy for there to be a way to hedge that risk?    We've actually seen times when such things aren't unreasonable.  Large risks are [hedged away](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303877604577380593015786140.html), even in sports.


"I cannot answer the original question, but since there is a good deal of discussion about whether it's credible at all, here's an answer that I got from Bank of America. Note the fine difference between ""your account"" and ""our account"", which does not seem to be a typo: The payment method is determined automatically by our system.  One of   the main factors is the method by which pay to recipients prefer to   receive payments.  If a payment can be issued electronically, we   attempt to do so because it is the most efficient method.   Payment methods include: *Electronic:  Payment is sent electronically prior to the ""Deliver By"" date.  The funds for the payment are deducted from your account on the   ""Deliver By"" date. *Corporate Check:  This is a check drawn on our account and is mailed to the pay to recipient a few days before the ""Deliver By"" date.  The   funds to cover the payment are deducted from your account on the   ""Deliver By"" date. *Laser Draft Check: This is a check drawn on your account and mailed to the pay to recipient a few days before the ""Deliver By"" date.  The   funds for the payment are deducted from your account when the pay to   recipient cashes the check, just as if you wrote the check yourself. To determine how your payment was sent, click the ""Payments"" button in   your Bill Pay service.  Select the ""view payment"" link next to the   payment.  Payment information is then displayed.  ""Transmitted   electronically"" means the payment was sent electronically.  ""Payment   transaction number"" means the payment was sent via a check drawn from   our account.  ""Check number"" means the payment was sent as a laser   draft check. Each payment request is evaluated individually and may change each   time a payment processes.   A payment may switch from one payment   method to another for a number of reasons.  The merchant may have   temporarily switched the payment method to paper, while they update   processing information.  Recent changes or re-issuance of your payee   account number could alter the payment method. In my case, the web site reads a little different: Payment check # 12345678 (8 digits) was sent to Company on 10/27/2015 and   delivered on 10/30/2015. Funds were withdrawn from your (named)   account on 10/30/2015. for one due on 10/30/2015; this must be the ""corporate check"". And for another, earlier one, due on 10/01/2015, this must be the laser draft check: Check # 1234 (4 digits) from your (named) account was mailed to Company on   09/28/2015. Funds for this payment are withdrawn from your account   when the Pay To account cashes the check. Both payments were made based on the same recurring bill pay payment that I set up manually (knowing little more of the company than its address)."


It depends to some extent on how you interpret the situation, so I think this is the general idea. Say you purchase one share at $50, and soon after, the price moves up, say, to $55. You now have an unrealized profit of $5. Now, you can either sell and realize that profit, or hold on to the position, expecting a further price appreciation. In either case, you will consider the price change from this traded price, which is $55, and not the price you actually bought at. Hence, if the price fell to $52 in the next trade, you have a loss of $3 on your previous profit of $5. This (even though your net P&L is calculated from the initial purchase price of $50), allows you to think in terms of your positions at the latest known prices. This is similar to a Markov process, in the sense that it doesn't matter which route the stock price (and your position's P&L) took to get to the current point; your decision should be based on the current/latest price level.


You also may want to consider how this interacts with the stepped up basis of estates.  If you never sell the stock and it passes to your heirs with your estate, under current tax law the basis will increase from the purchase price to the market price at the time of transfer.   In a comment, you proposed:   Thinking more deeply though, I am a little skeptical that it's a free lunch: Say I buy stock A (a computer manufacturer) at $100 which I intend to hold long term. It ends up falling to $80 and the robo-advisor sells it for tax loss harvesting, buying stock B (a similar computer manufacturer) as a replacement. So I benefit from realizing those losses. HOWEVER, say both stocks then rise by 50% over 3 years. At this point, selling B gives me more capital gains tax than if I had held A through the losses, since A's rise from 80 back to 100 would have been free for me since I purchased at 100. And then later thought  Although thinking even more (sorry, thinking out loud here), I guess I still come out ahead on taxes since I was able to deduct the $20 loss on A against ordinary income, and while I pay extra capital gains on B, that's a lower tax rate. So the free lunch is $20*[number of shares]*([my tax bracket] - [capital gains rates]) That's true.  And in addition to that, if you never sell B, which continues to rise to $200 (was last at $120 after a 50% increase from $80), the basis steps up to $200 on transfer to your heirs.   Of course, your estate may have to pay a 40% tax on the $200 before transferring the shares to your heirs.  So this isn't exactly a free lunch either.  But you have to pay that 40% tax regardless of the form in which the money is held.  Cash, real estate, stocks, whatever.  Whether you have a large or small capital gain on the stock is irrelevant to the estate tax.   This type of planning may not matter to you personally, but it is another aspect of what wealth management can impact.


I think you're missing a couple of things. First - why do you think its a reverse mortgage? More likely than not its a regular mortgage - home equity loan. If so, if they expect the stock market to rise significantly more than the amount of interest they pay on the loan - then its a totally sensible course of action. Second - the purchase in cash only to take out a loan later can definitely be a sensible way to do things. For example, if the seller wants to close fast, or if there are competing offers where not having a contingency is the tipping point. Another reason might be purchasing in an entity name (for example holding the title as an LLC), and in this case it is easier to get a loan if you already have the house, since the banks see the owner's actual commitment and not just promises.


If the customer pays 20% of the payment in advance, then he is he owns 20% of the house and the bank owns 80%. Now they say he pays the rest of the amount and also the rent of the house until he becomes the sole owner of the house.


It turns out that in this special case for New York, they have a law that says that if you are changing your filing status from resident to nonresident, you must use the accrual method for calculating capital gains. So in this case, the date on the papers is the important one.


"It's not consistent across the states. Most states have some implementation of these functions but fully regulated states don't have all of them and many are ""functions"" but are owned by the same entity.  Look at the southeast, the rockies, the PNW, AZ there are zero or few opportunities for merchant anything."


Specific stock advice isn't permitted on these boards. I'm discussing the process of a call spread with the Apple Jan 13 calls as an example.  In effect, you have $10 to 'bet.' Each bet you'd construct offers a different return (odds). For example, If you bought the $750 call at $37.25, you'd need to look to find what strike has a bid of $27 or higher. The $790 is bid $27.75. So this particular spread is a 4 to 1 bet the stock will close in January over $790, with a $760 break even.  You can pull the number from Yahoo to a spreadsheet to make your own chart of spread costs, but I'll give one more example.  You think it will go over $850, and that strike is now ask $18.85. The highest strike currently listed is $930, and it's bid $10.35. So this spread cost is $850, and a close over $930 returns $8000 or over 9 to 1.  Again, this is not advice, just an analysis of how spreads work. Note, any anomalies in the pricing above is the effect of a particular strike having no trades today, not every strike is active so 'last trade' can be days old.   Note: My answer adds to AlexR's response in that once you used the word bet and showed a desire to make a risky move, options are the answer. You acknowledged you understand the basic concept, but given the contract size of 100 shares, these suggestions are ways to bet under your $1000 limit and profit from the gain in the underlying stock you hope to see.


People are downvoting you, but the reality is that a cushion isn't a bad idea.  Not a perpetual thing, but until the OP gets set up with a job place to live etc.  They know the job is going to work out etc., they might want to have some cash, as they are likely not going to forgo eating etc... that said I would treat it as money to be used in place of a credit card (with the high rates) etc...   Again I am not saying spend the money, I am being realistic, that it takes money to secure an apt, and unless you can borrow cheaper than 6% elsewhere (I know I could probably get unsecured money cheaper than that where I live, but I don't know the OPs situation).  I wouldn't invest it given the situation personally.  If you have a great job, it won't matter, you will build up past 1200 soon and can then start to invest a portion of that cash.  If you don't, then you shouldn't be risking debt money, especially if your level of sophistication in the market has you here asking the question.  That 6% savings is tax free as well, so you need to gross it up based on your tax situation.  Also make note of any currency conversions that would need to happen, so depending on what you want to invest in, currency risk could be a real concern as well.  One other reason I think getting down at least a portion of the debt could be good is simplification.  Can't spend money you don't view yourself as having.  Some people might be more disciplined to reign in spending when they see a lower number in their account.  I'm personally not one of those people, but again, I would likely kill the debt off now just to have one less thing on my mind... but only as soon as I am stable (know where I am going to live, have enough to eat, and relatively sure that will continue in the future...)


I doubt it has to do with the check though. Old people can be slow sometimes. I bet a younger person could write the check in a Reasonable amount of time. I lost my debt card a while back and needed groceries before I got my replacement it only added about a minute of transaction time for $200 in groceries which already takes a few minutes just to ring up.


The main points shine a very bright light on the need for healthcare policy reform, FIR EVERYONE, not just the poor.   - Using a conservative deﬁnition, 62.1% of all US bankruptcies in 2007 were medical.  - Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations.  - Three-quarters **had health insurance**.  - Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies.


Reinvestment creates a nightmare when it comes time to do taxes, sadly. Tons of annoying little transactions that happened automatically... Here's one article trying to answer your question: http://www.smartmoney.com/personal-finance/taxes/figuring-out-your-cost-basis-when-youve-lost-the-statements-9529/ You could also try this thing: http://www.gainskeeper.com/us/BasisProIndividual.aspx But I couldn't tell you if it would help. If it makes you feel better, brokerages are now required by the IRS to track your basis for you, so for new transactions and assets you shouldn't end up in this situation. Doesn't help with the old stuff ;-)


They're basing it off data from Seattle, [where a minimum wage increase was approved in 2015](http://www.seattle.gov/laborstandards/ordinances/minimum-wage), and has not been fully implemented yet (and won't be until 2021, although large employers will hit $15 before then).    Seems a bit premature to me.


In general I'd advise you to do it the other way around in the future:   Know what your plan is and what you need for it *before* reaching out publicly. That way you can respond more quickly and answer questions more easily.   As for the meeting: you basically need to prepare three things.   1. What do you need to know when the meeting is over? 2. What can you offer the client? 3. What is a fair price for your time?  Under 1: What kind of website do they want? Do you have complete freedom, or do you have to work within their existing branding? Can you deliver what they're asking? For example, if they want a CMS to manage their portfolio, can you build that?  Under 2: What's your own portfolio like? What can you use to convince the client you have the capabilities to deliver what they're asking? (Note the difference with 1: that's if you can actually do it, this is if you can convince them of that fact).   Under 3: Determine what you'd find a fair hourly wage, so that during the meeting you can estimate what the total price should be and when you should consider backing out.   Finally you should consider what you'll do if you run into complications. As it's your first client, it's good to give it some thought ahead of time, but it probably won't come up during the meeting.  As for being convincing: if you get #2 right you should be confident that you can actually do what you promise. If your portfolio is limited, you can look up websites yourself for other interior designers before the meeting so that you can go over them with the client. Ask which elements the client does and doesn't like, summarize it in the end and affirm you can deliver something combining those things.


I was emailing back and forth with a manager in a different department on how real returns are being calculated, and he said that the industry standard is 1 + real returns*(1+inflation) - fees, and to not use my formula because it can double count inflation, making fees lower. However, real returns are not observable in the future, and I do not why he uses that formula. The returns were used in an Excel spreadsheet.   What are your thoughts about this?


"Banks often offer cash to people who open savings accounts in order to drive new business. Their gain is pretty much as you think, to grow their asset base. A survey released in 2008 by UK-based Age Concern declared that only 16% of the British population have ever switched their banks‚ while 45% of marriages now end in divorce.  Yip, till death do most part. In the US, similar analysis is pointing to a decline in people moving banks from the typical rate of 15% annually. If people are unwilling to change banks then how much more difficult for online brokers to get customers to switch? TD Ameritrade is offering you 30 days commission-free and some cash (0.2% - 0.4% depending on the funds you invest).  Most people - especially those who use the opportunity to buy and hold - won't make much money for them, but it only takes a few more aggressive traders for them to gain overall. For financial institutions the question is straightforward: how much must they pay you to overcome your switching cost of changing institutions?  If that number is sufficiently smaller than what they feel they can make in profits on having your business then they will pay. EDIT TO ELABORATE: The mechanism by which any financial institution makes money by offering cash to customers is essentially one of the ""law of large numbers"".  If all you did is transfer in, say, $100,000, buy an ETF within the 30-day window (or any of the ongoing commission-free ones) and hold, then sell after a few years, they will probably lose money on you.  I imagine they expect that on a large number of people taking advantage of this offer.   Credit card companies are no different.  More than half of people pay their monthly credit balance without incurring any interest charges. They get 30 days of credit for free.  Everyone else makes the company a fortune. TD Ameritrade's fees are quite comprehensive outside of this special offer.  Besides transactional commissions, their value-added services include subscription fees, administration fees, transaction fees, a few extra-special value-added services and, then, when you wish to cash out and realise your returns, an outbound transfer fee. However, you're a captured market.  Since most people won't change their online brokers any more often than they'd change their bank, TD Ameritrade will be looking to offer you all sorts of new services and take commission on all of it. At most they spend $500-$600 to get you as a customer, or, to get you to transfer a lot more cash into their funds.  And they get to keep you for how long?  Ten years, maybe more?  You think they might be able to sell you a few big-ticket items in the interim? Maybe interest you in some subscription service? This isn't grocery shopping.  They can afford to think long-term."


You're effectively looking for a mortgage for a new self-build house.  At the beginning, you should be able to get a mortgage based on the value of the land only.  They may be willing to lend more as the build progresses. Try to find a company that specializes in this sort of mortgage.


"You are conflating two different types of risk here.  First, you want to invest money, and presumably you're not looking at the ""lowest risk, lowest returns"" end of the spectrum. This is an inherently risky activity.  Second, you are in a principal-agent relationship with your advisor, and are exposed to the risk of your advisor not maximizing your profits. A lot has been written on principal-agent theory, and while incentive schemes exist, there is no optimal solution.  In your case, you hope that your agent will start maximizing your profits if they are 100% correlated with his profits. While this idea is true (at least according to standard economic theory, you could find exceptions in behavioral economics and in reality), it also forces the agent to participate in the first risk.  From the point of view of the agent, this does not make sense. He is looking to render services and receive income for it. An agent with integrity is certainly prepared to carry the risk of his own incompetence, just like Apple is prepared to replace your iPhone should it not start one day. But the agent is not prepared to carry additional risks such as the market risk, and should not be compelled to do so. It is your risk, a risk you personally take by deciding to play the investment gamble, and you cannot transfer it to somebody else.  Of course, what makes the situation here more difficult than the iPhone example is that market-driven losses cannot be easily distinguished from incompetent-agent losses. So, there is no setup in which you carry the market risk only and your agent carries the incompetence risk only. But as much as you want a solution in which the agent carries all risk, you probably won't find an agent willing to sign such a contract. So you have to simply accept that both the market risk and the incompetence risk are inherent to being an investor.  You can try to mitigate your own incompetence by having an advisor invest for you, but then you have to accept the risk of his incompetence. There is no way to depress the total incompetence risk to zero."


I receive checks from my tenant. Also, from our medical reimbursement account. I'm sure there's an option somewhere to get that direct deposited, just haven't yet. My wife will write checks for school functions. Funny, they haven't cashed one since february, and this is the one item to look for every time I reconcile her account. A few select others don't take credit or debit cards. Our tailor (losing weight, needed pants pulled in), among others. The number of checks is surely down an order of magnitude over the years, but still not zero.


The VAT number should be equivalent from the point of view of your client. The fact that you are a sole trader and not a limited liability doesn't matter when it comes down to pay VAT. They should pay the VAT to you and you will pay it to the government. I'll guess that their issue is with tax breaks, it is a bit more tricky to receive a tax break on paid taxes if you buy something abroad (at least it is here in Finland). If they won't pay you because of that, you could open a LTD or contract the services of a 'management company' which will do the job of invoicing, receiving the money and passing it back to you, for a fee.


"You sound like you know what you're talking about, but you say:  ""foreign buyers will laugh at them""  But the Wall Street Journal, 9/20/12, says that in the last quarter FOREIGN INVESTORS ARE FLOCKING TO BUY JAPANESE BONDS IN RECORD LEVELS even though the yields are very much below other industrialized countries. LOL"


Show your Bank passbook, preferably signed one, to relevant money sender.


"The most common use of non-deductible Traditional IRA contributions these days, as JoeTaxpayer mentioned, is as an intermediate step in a ""backdoor Roth IRA contribution"" -- contribute to a Traditional IRA and then immediately convert it to a Roth IRA, which, if you had no previous pre-tax money in Traditional or other IRAs, is a tax-free process that achieves the same result as a regular Roth IRA contribution except that there are no income limits. (This is something you should consider since you are unable to directly contribute to a Roth IRA due to income limits.) Also, I want to note that your comparison is only true assuming you are holding tax-efficient assets, ones where you get taxed once at the end when you take it out. If you are holding tax-inefficient assets, like an interest-bearing CD or bond or a stock that regularly produces dividends, in a taxable account you would be taxed many times on that earnings, and that would be much worse than with the non-deductible Traditional IRA, where you would only be taxed once at the end when you take it out."


Being a guarantor means you have explicitly agreed that you will make the loan payments if the primary borrower doesn't. That means you have given them permission to demand those payments, which means they can force you to sell things if you can't find the money any other way.  Essentially, you have promised to buy the loan from the bank if they decide it's a bad loan. Where you would find the money to pay for it is your problem. Obviously, this is not a situation you want to get into if you don't trust that the borrower will do everything in their power to protect you or repay you, or if you aren't willing to make them a gift of the money if they can't or don't, or if you can't afford to lend them the money yourself.


Since you were a nonresident alien student on F-1 visa then you will be considered engaged in a trade or business in the USA. You must file Form 1040NR.  Here is the detailed instruction by IRS - http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxation-of-Nonresident-Aliens


"Investing is always a matter of balancing risk vs reward, with the two being fairly strongly linked.  Risk-free assets generally keep up with inflation, if that; these days advice is that even in retirement you're going to want something with better eturns for at least part of your portfolio. A ""whole market"" strategy is a reasonable idea, but not well defined. You need to decide wheher/how to weight stocks vs bonds, for example, and short/long term. And you may want international or REIT in the mix; again the question is how much. Again, the tradeoff is trying to decide how much volatility and risk you are comfortable with and picking a mix which comes in somewhere around that point -- and noting which assets tend to move out of synch with each other (stock/bond is the classic example) to help tune that. The recommendation for higher risk/return when you have a longer horizon before you need the money comes from being able to tolerate more volatility early on when you have less at risk and more time to let the market recover. That lets you take a more aggressive position and, on average, ger higher returns. Over time, you generally want to dial that back (in the direction of lower-risk if not risk free) so a late blip doesn't cause you to lose too much of what you've already gained... but see above re ""risk free"". That's the theoretical answer. The practical answer is that running various strategies against both historical data and statistical simulations of what the market might do in the future suggests some specific distributions among the categories I've mentioned do seem to work better than others. (The mix I use -- which is basically a whole-market with weighting factors for the categories mentioned above -- was the result of starting with a general mix appropriate to my risk tolerance based on historical data, then checking it by running about 100 monte-carlo simulations of the market for the next 50 years.)"


"There's not nearly enough information here for anyone to give you good advice. Additionally, /r/personalfinance will probably be a bit more relevant and helpful for what you're asking.   Aside from that, if you don't know what you're doing, stay out of currency trading and mutual funds. If you don't care about losing your money, go right ahead and play in some markets, but remember there are people paid millions of dollars/year who don't make consistent profit.   What are the chances a novice with no training will perform well?  My $.02, pay your debt, make a general theory about the economy a year from now (e.g. ""Things will be worse in Europe than they are now"") and then invest your money in an index fund that matches that goal (e.g. Some sort of Europe-Short investment vehicle). Reassess a year from now and don't stress about it."


"Short Answer: You're going to end up paying taxes on it. Despite the home being your primary residence, you don't meet the ownership test, and it isn't noted that you have had a change in employment, health, or other unforeseen circumstances that are ""forcing"" you to sell. Otherwise, you could qualify for a reduced maximum exclusion that might allow you to walk away without owing taxes, or with a reduced tax bill. You can't even do a 1031 exchange to re-invest into a new primary residence. You should check with a tax professional to see what adjustments you can make to the cost basis of the property to minimize your reported net profits. During the 5-year period prior to the sale, you must have: These periods do not necessarily have to coincide (You don't to live in it as your main house for 2 consecutive years, just 2 years worth of time of the last 5)."


Yes on the August expenses, No on the April; the expenses must have happened after the HSA was opened.  Also, note that you're limited to (in 2015) $3350 of deposits to the HSA in a single year, so you can only put $2350 more into the HSA. The IRS form for HSAs looks something like this:   1) How much money did you take from your HSA? 2) How much were your qualified medical expenses? 3) If (1) > (2), give us a bunch of money.


This article is so dumb. Passive investors should be concerned about poor corporate governance just as much as anyone else. The whole point is that active investors are more hesitant to put their money into companies like snap. Inclusion into an index could lead to technical buying. By ensuring the bare minimum standard in terms of corporate governance, S&P is actually protecting passive investors.


Can I work on 1099 from my own company instead of on W2? The reason is   on W2 I can't deduct my commute, Health Insurance and some other   expenses while on 1099 I think I can able do that. Since I am going to   client place to work not at my own office, I am not sure whether I   should able to do that or not. If you have LLC, unless you elected to tax it as a corporation, you need neither 1099 nor W2. For tax purposes the LLC is disregarded. So it is, from tax perspective, a sole proprietorship (or partnership, if multiple members). Being a W2 employee of your own LLC is a bad idea. For all these above expenses, which can I use company's debit/credit   card or I need to use only my personal debit/credit card? It would be better to always use a business account for business purposes. Doesn't matter much for tax per se, but will make your life easier in case of an audit or a legal dispute (limited liability protection may depend on it). If I work on 1099, I guess I need to file some reasonable taxes on   quarterly basis instead of filing at year end. If so, how do I pay my   tax on quarterly basis to IRS? I mean which forms should I file and   how to pay tax? Unless you're a W2 employee, you need to do quarterly estimate payments using form 1040-ES. If you are a W2 employee (even for a different job, and even if it is not you, but your spouse with whom you're filing jointly) - you can adjust your/spouse's withholding using form W4 to cover the additional tax liability. This is, IMHO, a better way than paying estimates. There are numerous questions on this, search the site or ask another one for details.


"EDIT: It was System Disruption or Malfunctions August 24, 2015 2:12 PM EDT   Pursuant to Rule 11890(b) NASDAQ, on its own motion, in conjunction   with BATS, and FINRA has determined to cancel all trades in security   Blackrock Capital Investment. (Nasdaq: BKCC) at or below $5.86 that   were executed in NASDAQ between 09:38:00 and 09:46:00 ET. This   decision cannot be appealed. NASDAQ will be canceling trades on the   participants behalf. A person on Reddit claimed that he was the buyer. He used Robinhood, a $0 commission broker and start-up.  The canceled trades are reflected on CTA/UTP and the current charts will differ from the one posted below.  It is an undesired effect of the 5-minute Trading Halt.  It is not ""within 1 hour of opening, BKCC traded between $0.97 and $9.5"".  Those trades only occurred for a few seconds on two occasions.  One possible reason is that when the trading halt ended, there was a lot of Market Order to sell accumulated.  Refer to the following chart, where each candle represents a 10 second period. As you can see, the low prices did not ""sustain"" for hours.   And the published halts."


The original post's $16 has two errors: Here is the first scenario: .                                                 Tax Liability($) on   Net .                        Cash    # of     Price    Paper     Realized   Value Time:                     ($)    Shares   ($/sh)   Profits    Profits    ($) 1. Start with:            100        -      n/a         -          -      100 2. After buy  10@10$/sh:    -       10       10         -          -      100 3. Before selling:          -       10       12        (5)         -      115 4. After sell 10@12$/sh:  120        -      n/a         -         (5)     115 5. After buy  12@10$/sh:    -       12       10         -         (5)     115 6. Before selling:          -       12       12        (6)        (5)     133 7. After sell 12@12$/sh:  144        -      n/a         -        (11)     133 8. After buy  14@10$/sh:    4       14       10         -        (11)     133 9. Before selling:          4       14       12        (7)       (11)     154 10.After sell 14@12$/sh:  172        -      n/a         -        (18)     154  At this point, assuming that all of the transactions occurred in the same fiscal year, and the realized profits were subject to a 25% short-term capital gains tax, you would owe $18 in taxes.  Yes, this is 25% of $172 - $100.


some of that article is misleading, some of it is just plain wrong. Very wrong... like you end up drawing an incorrect conclusion type wrong.  Corporate transaction accounts, whose balances are up recently due to TAG (expires 12/31), are subject to reserve requirements.  When you purchase something with a credit card, the bank's asset of your credit increases and the bank's asset of cash decreases (it goes wherever you purchased).  There is no change to your deposit account and no change to reserves.  The incoming bank's cash account and liability account associated with that business transaction account increase, and it is trivial to transfer the % of cash necessary to reach minimum reserve requirements to the Fed.  Secondly, anyone with a smidgen of accounting can tell that his balance sheet won't balance.


Based on what you've said I think buying a rental is risky for you. It looks like you heard that renting a house is profitable and Zillow supported that idea. Vague advice + a website designed for selling + large amounts of money = risky at the very least. That doesn't mean that rental property is super risky it just means that you haven't invested any time into learning the risks and how you can manage them. Once you learn that your risk reduces dramatically. In general though I feel that rental property has a good risk/reward ratio. If you're willing to put in the time and energy to learn the business then I'd encourage you to buy property. If you're not willing to do that then rentals will always be a crap shoot. One thing about investing in rental property is you have the ability to have more impact on your investment than you do dropping money in the stock market which is good and bad.


To me it looks pretty good (10% per year is a pretty good return). Lagging behind the indexes is normal, it is hard to beat the indexes over a long period of time, the longer the period - the lesser the chances to succeed. However, half a year is a relatively short period of time, and you should check your investments a little bit deeper. I'm assuming you're not invested in one thing, so you should check per investment, how it is performing. If you have funds - check each fund against the relevant index for that fund, if you have stocks - check against the relevant industry indexes, etc. Also, check the fees you pay to each fund and the plan, they come out of your pocket, lowering the return.


Your reasoning is backwards. As others have pointed out, you cannot just decide how much you charge irrespective of the market. Let me paraphrase a little economics 101 to underline why you also should not think like this: You can see a rental property like your house (the same reasoning is usually explained with the example of hotel rooms) as a series of perishable goods. Your house represents the potential sale of the January rent (which perishes once January is over), plus the February rent etc. Your approach was to compute the total costs (all fixed and variable costs of owning that house as well as costs associated to renting specifically) and average them over the time period so that you know how much to ask at least. Assuming that you are only looking to rent it out, not sell it or let a family member live there, you can't think like this. Most of those costs that you averaged are what economists call sunk costs. You have already incurred the mortgage costs and they are not affected by your decision to rent or not to rent. These costs are irrelevant to your decision making process. You only need to think about marginal costs: those additional costs that you have when you rent but not when you don't. Look at the market prices for renting similar properties in that region and compare them with your marginal costs. As long as they are higher than your marginal costs, rent it out. This does not mean that you are sure to make profits, but it means that you are sure to make less losses than in your only alternative of not renting.


I agree with you but I will say that $25,000 would be an adequate down payment on a new home in many parts of the country so while it's not the equivalent of a mortgage it still delays home buying for graduates which is evident in the housing market weakness.


The volume required to significantly move the price of a security depends completely on the orderbook for that particular security. There are a variety of different reasons and time periods that a security can be halted, this will depend a bit on which exchange you're dealing with. This link might help with the halt aspect of your question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_halt


There are banks that will do 5-year fixed. Alternatively, if you pay off a 15-year mortgage as if it were a five-year fixed, with the extra money going to pay down principal, the cost isn't very different and you have more safety buffer. Talk to banks about options, or find a mortgage broker who'd be willing to research this for you. Just to point out an alternative: refinancing at lower rate but without shortening the duration would lower your payments; investing the difference, even quite conservatively, is likely to produce more income than the loan would be costing you at today's rates. This is arguably the safest leveraged investment you'll ever have the opportunity to make. (I compromised: I cut my term from 20 years to 15ish, lowered the interest rate to 3.5ish, and am continuing to let the loaned money sit in my investments and grow.)


SPY does not reinvest dividends.  From the SPY prospectus: No Dividend Reinvestment Service  No dividend reinvestment service is   provided by the Trust. Broker-dealers, at their own discretion, may   offer a dividend reinvestment service under which additional Units are   purchased in the secondary market at current market prices. SPY pays out quarterly the dividends it receives (after deducting fees and expenses).  This is typical of ETFs. The SPY prospectus goes on to say: Distributions in cash that are reinvested in additional Units through   a dividend reinvestment service, if offered by an investor’s   broker-dealer, will be taxable dividends to the same extent as if such   dividends had been received in cash.


The loan is very likely to be syndicated, yes. I only state 7-10 because all of our loans to this point have been 7 year terms. And in many ways, this loan is just one of those loans, multiplied out in a modular sense.


"It would take an unusual situation.   They exercise certain types of option, which come in as regular income rather than capital gains, and are holding the stock ""long"" (perhaps they are not allowed to sell because of an insider-trading freeze window; like right before earnings announcements).  And then the stock tanks.  Their company is acquired.   They get stock options in their unicorn at $1/share, which blows up to $1000/share right as HugeFirm buys it. Options are swapped dollar-for-dollar for HugeFirm stock (at $250/share) so 4 shares for 1.   I heard this happened a lot in the 1999-2000 boom/bust.   And the problem was, this type of stock-option had historically only been offered to $20-million salary CEOs and CFO's, who retained professional legal and financial counsel and knew how to deal with the pitfalls and traps of this type of option.  During the dot-com boom, it was also offered to rank-and-file $50k salary tech employees who didn't even know the difference between a 401K and a Roth.   And it exploded in their faces, making a big mess for everyone including the IRS -- now struggling to justify to Congressmen why they were collecting $400,000 in taxes on entirely phantom, never-realized income from a 24 year old tech guy earning $29k at a startup and eating ramen.  When that poor guy never had a chance of understanding the financial rocks and shoals, and even if he did, couldn't have done anything about it (since he wasn't a high executive involved in the decisions).  And even the company who gave him the package didn't intend to inflict this on him.  It was a mistake.  Even the IRS dislikes no-win situations.   Some laws got changed, some practices got changed, etc. etc., and the problem isn't what it used to be."


"My Broker and probably many Brokers provide this information in a table format under ""Course of Sale"". It provides the time, price and volume of each trade on that day. You could also view this data on a chart in some charting programs. Just set the interval to ""Tick by Tick"" and look at the volume. ""Tick by Tick"" will basically place a mark for every trade that is taken and then the volume will tell you the size of that trade."


Yes and i told you that bitcoin could also be perceived as valuable too, like seashells did in the past.   Personally, i think bitcoin has value because it is a giant money laundering scheme. All the big players are investing into it because they need to funnel their drug money.


"A good answer to the question really depends on where you want to live, ultimately. Where you want to live pretty much dictates your investment priorities. If you want to invest in ""terrain"" so you can build a house next to all the ""cool,"" people in Guayaquil that should be your first priority. Your new wife may have an opinion on that matter, you should consult her. In real life, most people are less concerned about their absolute level of wealth than with ""keeping up"" with their friends, or other reference group. If you don't buy the ""terrain,"" the danger is that in five years, it may go up three, four, five times and be out of your reach, even if your other investments do well on the absolute standard.  While it's fairly easy to invest the equivalent of $250K in Ecuadorian land, it's hard to invest that much in Ecuadorian stocks. If you want to buy stocks with that kind of money, it will be U.S., European, or maybe other Latin American, e.g., Brazilian stocks. That kind of asset allocation would tell me that you are thinking of leaving your country at some point. If you're ""undecided,"" a sensible allocation might be 50-50. But in any event, first decide how you want to live your life, then adopt the investment strategy that best supports that life."


"I primarily intend to add on to WBT's answer, which is good. It has been shown that ""momentum"" is a very real, tangible factor in stock returns. Stocks that have done well tend to keep doing well; stocks that are doing poorly tend to keep doing poorly. For a long-term value investor, of course fundamental valuation should be your first thing to look at - but as long as you're comfortable with the company's price as compared to its value, you should absolutely hang onto it if it's been going up. The old saying on Wall Street is ""Cut your losses, and let your winners ride."" As WBT said, there may be some tangible emotional benefit to marking your win while you're ahead and not risking that it tanks, but I'd say the odds are in your favor. If an undervalued company starts rising in stock price, maybe that means the market is starting to recognize it for the deal it is. Hang onto it and enjoy the fruits of your research."


The purpose is to be a racket. Assuming you're in the same tax bracket, you pay exactly as much tax later as you would now. If you're in a higher bracket, you pay more! And even if you pay less (assuming they don't change tax law before you retire) you give up direct control of your assets in exchange for a promise which may not be honored.


Let me restate question for clarity. Facts: Question: Are there any taxes for this transaction? Answer: (Added improvements provided by Eric) Generally No. Generally, it is not considered income until you sell and the sale price is greater than the purchase price. But with currency differences, there is an additional complication, section 988 rules apply. It could result in ordinary income or loss.


For some ideas on investing priority guidelines, see Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing. Congratulations on being debt free!  My advice to you is to do what you can to remain debt free. You could certainly invest the money; it will earn much more over the long-term in a stock mutual fund than it would left in a savings account.  However, if you need any of this money in the next few years, it would be a shame if it lost money in the short-term. How much do you need to finish grad school?  Don't invest that money in the stock market, because you will need it over the next few years. Likewise, think about other expenses that are coming up.  Will your car need to be replaced in the next couple of years?  Will you have enough income to meet your living expenses while you are in grad school, or will you need some of this to money to help with that?   Finally, it would be good to keep some extra as an emergency fund, so you can easily pay for any unexpected expenses that come up. If you can make it through grad school debt free, you will be much better off than if you invest all the money but take out student loans in the process. After you've accounted for all of that, whatever is left of the money could definitely be invested.  If your goal is to start a retirement fund, an index mutual fund invested inside a Roth IRA is a great place to start.


It's clearly a risk, but is it any different than investing in your own business? Yes, it is different.  If you own a business, you determine the path of the business.  You determine how much risk the business takes.  You can put in extra effort to try to make the business work.  You can choose to liquidate to preserve your capital.   If you invest without ownership, perhaps the founder retains a 50% plus one share stake, then whomever controls the business controls all those things.  So you have all the risks of owning the business (in terms of things going wrong) without the control to make things go right.  This makes investing in someone else's business inherently riskier.   Another problem that can occur is that you could find out that the business is fraudulent.  Or the business can become fraudulent.  Neither of those are risks if you are the business owner.  You won't defraud yourself.   Angel investing, that is to say investing in someone else's startup, is inherently risky.  This is why it is difficult to find investors, even though some startups go on to become fabulously wealthy (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).  Most startups fail.  They offer the possibility of great returns because it's really hard to determine which ones will fail and which will succeed.  Otherwise the business would just take out the same loan that Jane's getting, and leave Jane out of it.


I have only been comfortable using my credit unions online bill payment system where the service they use already has the target in the database. When I enter the name of the company and the zip code from the bill, the system responds with the address that matches what is on the bill. In most cases the money is not sent via mail, but it is sent electronically. This eliminates the case of somebody finding the check. Though electronic delivery doesn't guarantee that I didn't type the wrong account number. When adding a new target, I like to pick those that also have an online system that I can check in a few days to make sure the money was received and properly credited. Recently a company failed to credit my account in a timely manner, my credit union actually noticed that the payment hadn't been cashed, and alerted me. I asked the credit union about mistakes, either by me or by them. They claimed that the payment is treated like any other check, and that if there was a problem the money could be pulled back, and my account credited with the funds. Your bank should have a disclosure document stating the risks and protections with the service.


"Have you ever tried adding up all your mortgage payments over the years? That sum, plus all the money that you put as a down payment (including various fees paid at closing) plus all the repair and maintenance work etc) is the amount that you have ""invested"" in your house. (Yes, you can account for mortgage interest deductions if you like to lower the total a bit).  Do you still feel that  you made a good ""investment""?"


That's why I said you can do a weighted average and take into account other factors. The initial average calculation is just a simple, high level average to compare betas across different listings. For a more precise calculation you would have to weigh different factors.


In general no, if you just have one employer and work there with the same salary for the whole year.  Typically an employer does tax withholding by extrapolating your monthly income to the entire year and withholding the right amount so that at the end, what is withheld is what you owe.  It's not a surprise to them when your income crosses a tax bracket threshold, because they knew how much they were paying you and knew when you would cross into another bracket, so they factored that in. If you have multiple jobs or only worked for part of the year, or if your income varied from month to month (e.g., you got a raise) there could be a discrepancy between what is withheld and what you owe, because each employer only knows about what it's paying you, not what money you may have earned from other sources.  (Even here, though, the discrepancy wouldn't be due to the tax brackets per se.)  You can adjust your withholdings on form W-4 if needed, to tell the employer to withhold more or less than they otherwise would.


This would otherwise be a comment, but I wish to share an image. A stock I happened to own, gapped up on the open to $9.20 and slowly worked its way down to $8.19 where it closed up 6% but near its low for the day.  This is an addendum to my comment above, warning about buying a stock on the open when news is coming out. Or more important, to be mindful of that news and the impact it might have on the stock. In this case, when the news came out and the stock had closed at $7.73, one would need to decide if he wished to buy it at any cost, or place a limit order.  I've redacted the name of the company, as this discussion has nothing to do with any particular stock, I'm just offering an example of the effect I warned about, three weeks ago. (Full disclosure, I got out at $8.70 in the first minutes of trading.)


Here in Germany there is a special case. I am studying (and working a little on the side) and still receiving child benefits from the state which is like 190€/m. Because I am getting this I don't have to pay tuition which is 1k/y. If my side income would get over the boundary (which is like 9k/y) I would lose those benefits (~3.3k) and would have to pay insurance myself (I dont know how much that would be. 50-100/m I guess.) So getting a raise from 8k to 10k sounds nice as it is a 25% raise, but it actually means getting less.


This is a state by state thing, and I'm cheating because I know you are in New York State:


The main reason for paying your mortgage off quickly is to reduce risk should a crisis happen.  If you don't have a house payment, you have much higher cash flow every month, and your day-to-day living expenses are much lower, so if an illness or job loss happens, you'll be in a much better position to handle it. You should have a good emergency fund in place before throwing extra money at the mortgage so that you can cover the bigger surprises that come along. There is the argument that paying off your mortgage ties up cash that could be used for other things, but you need to be honest with yourself: would you really invest that money at a high enough rate of return to make up your mortgage interest rate after taxes?  Or would you spend it on other things?  If you do invest it, how certain are you of that rate of return?  Paying off the mortgage saves you your mortgage interest rate guaranteed. Finally, there is the more intangible aspect of what it feels like to be completely debt free with no payments whatsoever.  That feeling can be a game-changer for people, and it can free you up to do things that you could never do when you're saddled with a mortgage payment every month.


"New York will want to you to pay taxes on income from ""New York sources"". I'm not sure what this means to a freelance web developer.  If your wife is doing freelance web development under the same business entity as she did in New York (ie. a New York sole proprietor, corporation, etc), you probably do need to file. From nonresident tax form manual: http://tax.ny.gov/pdf/2011/inc/it203i_2011.pdf If you were a nonresident of New York State, you are subject to New   York State tax on income you received from New York State sources in   2011. If you were a resident of New York State for only part of 2011, you are subject to New York State tax on all income you received while   you were a resident of the state and on income you received from New   York State sources while  you were a nonresident.  To compute the amount of tax due, use Form IT-203, Nonresident and   Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return. You will compute a base tax as   if you were a full-year  resident, then determine the percentage of   your income that is subject to New York State tax and the amount of   tax apportioned to New York State."


While the other answers are good, I wanted to expand a little on why I feel a ROTH is a bad way to go unless you are young. First, let's pretend you have a 25% tax rate. And your investments will go up 5% per year for 10 years. You contribute 6% of income for one year. You can do a traditional or a roth 401k/IRA. Here's the math: Traditional: 6% of income invested. Grows at 5% for 10 years. Taxed at 25% on withdrawl. = (Income * 6%) * (1.05 ^ 10) * (100% - 25%) = (Income * 6%) * 1.63 * .75 = 7.33% of your original income - but this is after taxes ROTH: Taxes taken out of income. Then 6% of that goes into the fund(s). Still grows at 5% for 10 years. Not taxed at withdrawl. = (Income * (100% - 25%) * 6%) * (1.05 ^ 10) = (Income * 75% * 6%) * 1.63 = 7.33% of your original income - again this is after taxes. Look familiar? They are the same. It's the simple transitive property of mathematics. So why do a traditional vs. a ROTH? The reason is that your tax bracket changes. This changes because your income changes. Say when you retire you plan to have your home or vehicle paid for. You expect to be able to live on $50,000 per year. This means when you make MORE than $50,000 you should do a traditional plan and when you make less than this you should do a ROTH plan. Example: You make $100,000 and your upper bracket is now 30%. You save 30% by doing a traditional and then pay back 10, 20, and 30% as you withdraw a salary of $50,000. Traditional = better. Example: You make $30,000 annually. Your upper bracket is 20%. You pay 20% on a roth. Then you withdraw funds to get to $50,000 anually and never pay the higher bracket. Roth = better. ROTH advocates typically bring up tax rates. Of course they will go up they insist. So you always should do a ROTH. Not so fast. Taxes have gone down in recent years (No one please start a political debate with me. Some went up, some went down, but overall, federal income rates dropped). Even if taxes rose 5%, a traditional will still be better than a ROTH in many cases.


Your gain is $1408. The difference between 32% of your gain and 15% of your gain is $236.36 or $1.60 per share. If you sell now, you have $3957.44 after taxes.  Forget about the ESPP for a moment. Are you be willing to wager $4000 on the proposition that your company's stock price won't go down more than $1.60 or so over the next 18 months? I've never felt it was worth it. Also, I never thought it made much sense to own any of my employer's stock. If their business does poorly, I'd prefer not to have both my job and my money at risk. If you sell now: Now assuming you hold for 18 months, pay 15% capital gains tax, and the stock price drops by $1.60 to $23.40:


Only one plan is reliable - be offspring of boss.  It's your failure if you didn't plan sufficiently.  Failure is guaranteed, otherwise.    (understand, I'm assuming you want to be paid a living wage.  the other options already being proposed don't provide that function)


Look into commodities futures & options. Unfortunately, they are not trivial instruments.


With a Roth IRA, you can withdraw the contributions at any time without penalty as long as you don't withdraw the earnings/interest. There are some circumstances where you can withdraw the earnings such as disability (and maybe first home). Also, the Roth IRA doesn't need to go through your employer and I wouldn't do it through your employer. I have mine setup through Fidelity though I'm not sure if they have any guaranteed 3% return unless it was a CD. All of mine is in stocks. Your wife could also setup a Roth IRA so over 2 years, you could contribute $20,000. If I was you, I would just max out any 403-b matches (which you surely are at 25% of gross income) and then save my down payment money in a normal money market/savings account. You are doing good contributing almost 25% to the 403-b. There are also some income limitations on Roth IRAs. I believe for a married couple, it is $160k.


Many of the Financial intermediaries in the business, have extraordinary high requirements for opening an account. For example to open an account in Credit Suisse  one will need 1 million US dollars.


Buying is not always better than renting, even if you aren't mobile! That depends on local market conditions.  If you're investing the money reasonably you may do as well as or better than the house-buyer, and your funds will be tremendously more liquid.


You have stumbled upon a classic trading strategy known as the carry trade. Theoretically you'd expect the exchange rate to move against you enough to make this a bad investment. In reality this doesn't happen (on average). There are even ETFs that automate the process for you (and get better transaction costs and lending/borrowing rates than you ever could): DBV and ICI.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/dc-economics-experts-too-much-dc--not-enough-economics?E) reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot) ***** > California has spent the last several decades taxing just about every business in their state - out of their state.  > Rather than lobby those awful states for better tax policy - The Retailers lobbied DC for worse.  > &quot;Republicans should abandon the so-called border-adjustable tax. A border tax is a poison pill for the tax plan: It divides the very business groups that the party needs to rally behind tax reform. Retailers like Walmart will never go along.""   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6goal1/dc_economics_experts_too_much_dc_not_enough/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~141896 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **tax**^#1 **state**^#2 **business**^#3 **Rather**^#4 **reform**^#5"


"Yes I thought his flow charts did a nice job with a complex system.  Some thoughts:  * he makes the ""if your house ran a blah blah blah"".  That is a horrible analogy to make for an economy.  * He quotes the revenue to debt ratio as if it is static.  We are spending much more now then we traditionally do at the same times as revenues are lower than historic levels.  Ratios change over time.  * Either he chooses to ignore, or doesn't know, that a lot of the issues with the PIIGS comes from the aggressive use of derivative products to clean their books for the joining of the EU.  Like his ARM example, now the rates have changed and those trades have moved against the sovereigns.   * His lists the outcome of current monetary policy as binary.  Either we inflate to infinity, and the world explodes, or we default and the world explodes.  One outcome that comes to my mind is that we ease out of aggressive capital injection and move through this liquidity issue.  We then pay back our debt and live on.  I am sure there are many other outcomes  * Almost all the problems seemed to be supply side ideas.  ""banks just won't lend"".  I would argue banks and even corporations have cash, but lack demand for NPV positive projects and thus are sitting on it.  And or they are waiting for things to play out so they can invest with better certainty.  * I thought his discussion on Current accounts was very good.  We also need to remember in many of these countries you have weak and corrupt tax systems which make it hard to fund your way out of these issues.   I only point these things out for others who may watch the video and want some counter points to what the speaker says."


"Generally if you're a sole S-Corp employee - it is hard to explain how the S-Corp earned more money than your work is worth. So it is reasonable that all the S-Corp profits would be pouring into your salary. Especially when the amounts are below the FICA SS limits when separating salary and distributions are a clear sign of FICA tax evasion. So while it is hard to say if you're going to be subject to audit, my bet is that if you are - the IRS will claim that you underpaid yourself. One of the more recent cases dealing with this issue is Watson v Commissioner. In this case, Watson (through his S-Corp which he solely owned) received distributions from a company in the amounts of ~400K. He drew 24K as salary, and the rest as distributions. The IRS forced re-characterizing distributions into salary up to 93K (the then-SS portion of the FICA limit), and the courts affirmed. Worth noting, that Watson didn't do all the work himself, and that was the reason that some of the income was allowed to be considered distribution. That wouldn't hold in a case where the sole shareholder was the only revenue producer, and that is exactly my point. I feel that it is important to add another paragraph about Nolo, newspaper articles, and charlatans on the Internet. YOU CANNOT RELY ON THEM. You cannot defend your position against IRS by saying ""But the article on Nolo said I can not pay SE taxes on my earnings!"", you cannot say ""Some guy called littleadv lost an argument with some other guy called Ben Miller because Ben Miller was saying what everyone wants to hear"", and you can definitely not say ""But I don't want to pay taxes!"". There's law, there are legal precedents. When some guy on the Internet tells you exactly what you want to hear - beware. Many times when it is too good to be true - it is in fact not true. Many these articles are written by people who are interested in clients/business. By the time you get to them - you're already in deep trouble and will pay them to fix it. They don't care that their own ""advice"" got you into that trouble, because it is always written in generic enough terms that they can say ""Oh, but it doesn't apply to your specific situation"". That's the main problem with these free advice - they are worth exactly what you paid for them. When you actually pay your CPA/Attorney - they'll have to take responsibility over their advice. Then suddenly they become cautious. Suddenly they start mentioning precedents and rulings telling you to not do things. Or not, and try and play the audit roulette, but these types are long gone when you get caught."


As a new (very!) small business, the IRS has lots of advice and information for you. Start at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed and be sure you have several pots of coffee or other appropriate aid against somnolence.  By default a single-member LLC is 'disregarded' for tax purposes (at least for Federal, and generally states follow Federal although I don't know Mass. specifically), although it does have other effects. If you go this route you simply include the business income and expenses on Schedule C as part of your individual return on 1040, and the net SE income is included along with your other income (if any) in computing your tax. TurboTax or similar software should handle this for you, although you may need a premium version that costs a little more.  You can 'elect' to have the LLC taxed as a corporation by filing form 8832, see https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/limited-liability-company-llc . In principle you are supposed to do this when the entity is 'formed', but in practice AIUI if you do it by the end of the year they won't care at all, and if you do it after the end of the year but before or with your first affected return you qualify for automatic 'relief'. However, deciding how to divide the business income/profits into 'reasonable pay' to yourself versus 'dividends' is more complicated, and filling out corporation tax returns in addition to your individual return (which is still required) is more work, in addition to the work and cost of filing and reporting the LLC itself to your state of choice. Unless/until you make something like $50k-100k a year this probably isn't worth it. 1099 Reporting. Stripe qualifies as a 'payment network' and under a recent law payment networks must annually report to IRS (and copy to you) on form 1099-K if your account exceeds certain thresholds; see https://support.stripe.com/questions/will-i-receive-a-1099-k-and-what-do-i-do-with-it  . Note you are still legally required to report and pay tax on your SE income even if you aren't covered by 1099-K (or other) reporting. Self-employment tax. As a self-employed person (if the LLC is disregarded) you have to pay 'SE' tax that is effectively equivalent to the 'FICA' taxes that would be paid by your employer and you as an employee combined. This is 12.4% for Social Security unless/until your total earned income exceeds a cap (for 2017 $127,200, adjusted yearly for inflation), and 2.9% for Medicare with no limit (plus 'Additional Medicare' tax if you exceed a higher threshold and it isn't 'repealed and replaced'). If the LLC elects corporation status it has to pay you reasonable wages for your services, and withhold+pay FICA on those wages like any other employer. Estimated payments. You are required to pay most of your individual income tax, and SE tax if applicable, during the year (generally 90% of your tax or your tax minus $1,000 whichever is less). Most wage-earners don't notice this because it happens automatically through payroll withholding, but as self-employed you are responsible for making sufficient and timely estimated payments, and will owe a penalty if you don't. However, since this is your first year you may have a 'safe harbor'; if you also have income from an employer (reported on W-2, with withholding) and that withholding is sufficent to pay last year's tax, then you are exempt from the 'underpayment' penalty for this year.  If you elect corporation status then the corporation (which is really just you) must always make timely payments of withheld amounts, according to one of several different schedules that may apply depending on the amounts; I believe it also must make estimated payments for its own liability, if any, but I'm not familiar with that part.


"I'm not sure what you expect in terms of answers, but it depends on personal factors. It pretty well has to depend on personal factors, since otherwise everyone would want to do the same thing (either everyone thinks the current price is one to sell at, or everyone thinks it's one to buy at), and there would be no trades. You wouldn't be able to do what you want, except on the liquidity provided by market makers. Once that's hit, the price is shifting quickly, so your calculation will change quickly too. Purely in terms of maximising expected value taking into account the time value of money, it's all about the same. The market ""should"" already know everything you know, which means that one time to sell is as good as any other. The current price is generally below the expected acquisition price because there's a chance the deal will fall through and the stock price will plummet. That's not to say there aren't clever ""sure-fire"" trading strategies around acquisitions, but they're certain to be based on more than just timing when to sell an existing holding of stock. If you have information that the market doesn't (and assuming it is legal to do so) then you trade based on that information. If you know something the market doesn't that's going to be good for price, hold. If you know something that will reduce the price, sell now. And ""know"" can be used in a loose sense, if you have a strong opinion against the market then you might like to invest based on that. Nothing beats being paid for being right. Finally, bear in mind that expected return is not the same as utility. You have your own investment goals and your own view of risk. If you're more risk-averse than the market then you might prefer to sell now rather than wait for the acquisition. If you're more risk-prone than the market then you might prefer a 90% chance of $1 to 90c. That's fine, hold the stock. The extreme case of this is that you might have a fixed sum at which you will definitely sell up, put everything into the most secure investments you can find, and retire to the Caribbean. If that's the case then you become totally risk-averse the instant your holding crosses that line. Sell and order cocktails."


Why did she say that? If you followed the worksheet and that's the number you calculated - go with it. I'm guessing you're getting the child credit for both kids, right? If so - 8 makes sense. Make sure you have withholding of at least the amount of tax you owed last year to avoid penalties (if this year you end up owing more, that is).


"The question you are asking concerns the exercise of a short option position.  The other replies do not appear to address this situation. Suppose that Apple is trading at $96 and you sell a put option with a strike price of $95 for some future delivery date - say August 2016.  The option contract is for 100 shares and you sell the contract for a premium of $3.20. When you sell the option your account will be credited with the premium and debited with the broker commission.  The premium you receive will be $320 = 100 x $3.20.  The commission you pay will depend on you broker. Now suppose that the price of Apple drops to $90 and your option is exercised, either on expiry or prior to expiry.  Then you would be obliged to take delivery of 100 Apple shares at the contracted option strike price of $95 costing you $9,500 plus broker commission.  If you immediately sell the Apple shares you have purchased under your contract obligations, then assuming you sell the shares at the current market price of $90 you would realise a loss of $500 ( = 100x($95-$90) )plus commission.  Since you received a premium of $320 when you sold the put option, your net loss would be $500-$320 = $180 plus any commissions paid to your broker. Now let's look at the case of selling a call option.  Again assume that the price of Apple is $96 and you sell a call option for 100 shares with a strike price of $97 for a premium of $3.60.  The premium you receive would be $360 = 100 x $3.60.  You would also be debited for commission by your broker. Now suppose that the price of Apple shares rises to $101 and your option is exercised.  Then you would be obliged to deliver 100 Apple shares to the party exercising the option at the contracted strike price of $97.  If you did not own the shares to effect delivery, then you would need to purchase those shares in the market at the current market price of $101, and then sell them to the party exercising the option at the strike price of $97.  This would realise an immediate loss of $400 = 100 x ($101-$97) plus any  commission payable.  If you did own the shares, then you would simply deliver them and possibly pay some commission or a delivery fee to your broker.  Since you received $360 when you sold the option, your net loss would be $40 = $400-$360 plus any commission and fees payable to the broker. It is important to understand that in addition to these accounting items, short option positions carry with them a ""margin"" requirement.  You will need to maintain a margin deposit to show ""good faith"" so long as the short option position is open.  If the option you have sold moves against you, then you will be called upon to put up extra margin to cover any potential losses."


Pool their money into my own brokerage account and simply split the gains/losses proportional to the amount of money that we've each   contributed to the account. I'm wary of this approach due to the tax   implications and perhaps other legal issues so I'd appreciate   community insight here. You're right to be wary. You might run into gift tax issues, as well as income tax liability and appropriation of earnings. Not a good idea at all. Don't do this. Have them set up their own brokerage account and have them give me the   login credentials and I manage the investments for them. This is   obviously the best approach from a tracking and tax perspective, but   harder for me to manage; to be honest I'm already spending more time   than I want to managing my own investments, so option 1 really appeals   to me if the drawbacks aren't prohibitive. That would also require you to be a licensed financial adviser, at least to the best of my understanding. Otherwise there's a lot of issues with potential liability (if you make investments that lose money - you might be required to repay the losses). You should do this only with a proper legal and tax advice - from an attorney and/or CPA/EA licensed in your state. There are proper ways to do this (limited partnership or LLC, for example), but you have to cover your ass-ets with proper operating agreements in place that have to be reviewed by legal counsel of each of the members/partners,


The value of a business without proven profits is really just a guess.  But to determine what % ownership the VC takes some measure must be used.  He is asking the OP to start the negotiations.  So you start high - higher than you will settle for. The value of the business should always be WAY more the $$ you have put into it ... because you have also invested your time (which has an opportunity cost) and assumed huge risk that you will never get those $$ back.   When you need the cash and only one person will give it to you, you are over a barrel.  You either take the terms they offer, or you let the business collapse.  So keep a show of strength and invent other funders. Or create a business plan showing that you can continue without their $$ (just at a smaller volume).


I've got a card that I've had for about 25 years now.  The only time they charged me interest I showed it was their goof (the automatic payment failed because of their mistake) and they haven't cancelled it.  No annual fee, a bit of cash back. The only cards I've ever had an issuer close are ones I didn't use.


As you are 14, you cannot legally buy premium bonds yourself. Your parents could buy them and hold them for you, mind you. That said, I'm not a fan of premium bonds. They are a rather weird combination of a savings account and a lottery. Most likely, you'll receive far less than the standard interest rate you'd get from a savings account. Sure, they may pay off, but they probably won't. What I would suggest, given that you expect to need the money in five years, is simply place it in a savings account. Shop around for the best interest rate you can find. This article lists interest rates, though you'll want to confirm that it is up to date. There are other investment options. You could invest in a mutual fund which tracks the stock market or the bond market, for example. On average, that'll give you a higher rate of return. But there's more risk, and as you want the money in five years, I'd be uncomfortable recommending that at this time. If you were looking at investing for 25 years, that'd be a no-brainer. But it's a bit risky for 5 years. Your investment may go down, and that's not something I'd have been happy with when I was 14. There may be some other options specific to the UK which I don't know about. If so, hopefully someone else will chime in.


As other people have said, a few thousand dollars isn't going to make any significant difference in what you pay - if you put an extra 1% down, and redraw all the documents accordingly, your payments are going to be roughly 1% less per month.  So, for example, $1800 per month would become $1780 or so per month.   You're much better off keeping the money as an emergency fund: When you buy a house, there are a lot of things that can go wrong (as is the case with your car, if you have one, and with medical expenses, and helping out a relative, not to mention losing your job, and so on).  It doesn't sound like you have all that much money, because if you did, you would have put 20% down and avoided Private Mortgage Insurance, saving yourself a lot more money than 1%. So having a few more thousand in the bank sounds like a good thing.


Before starting to do this, make sure that you are squeaky clean in all aspects of your tax preparation and are prepared to back up any claims that you make with documentation. Home office deductions are a huge red flag that often trigger audits. Follow mbhunter's advice and be incredibly meticulous about following the rules and keeping records.


If the period is consistent for company X, but occurs in a different month as Company Y, it might be linked to the release of their annual report, or the payment of their annual dividend. Companies don't have to end their fiscal year near the end of the Calendar year, therefore these end of year events could occur in any month. The annual report could cause investors to react to the hard numbers of the report compared to what wall street experts have been predicting. The payment of an annual dividend will also cause a direct drop in the price of the stock when the payment is made. There will also be some movement in prices as the payment date approaches.


I have seen this happen with IRS checks, the bank told me that the IRS imposes the requirement.  Otherwise, though, I have frequently deposited checks made out to my wife into a joint checking account without her signature, they have never cared one bit.


As a sole proprietor, the tax liability of your business is calculated based on combining your business income with your personal income together.  It is good advice to keep all personal and business financial matters separate. This makes it easier to prove to the IRS that all your business expenses are actually business related. In this case however, the two items [tax payment for personal income vs tax payment for business income] are inseparable. What you can do, however, for your own personal records, is calculate how much of your tax payment relates to your business. I wouldn't get complicated about this; I would simply take the net income of your business as a % of your taxable income, and multiply that against your tax payment. ie: if your business net income is $10,000, and your total taxable income is $50,000, and you paid $6,000 in taxes, I would record that 20% of the $6k was related to business income. If you have a separate bank account for your sole proprietorship, you could make a transfer to your personal account of $1,200, and then make the $6k payment from your personal account. Remember that tax payments for either your sole proprietorship and your personal income will be treated the same: federal tax payments are not tax deductible, and state tax payments are tax deductible, whether they were paid for your sole proprietorship or the rest of your personal income. So even though this method is simplistic [for example, it doesn't factor in that different investment income types earned personally will have a lower rate than your sole proprietorship income], any difference wouldn't have an impact on any future tax liability. This would only be for your own personal record keeping.


If you itemize your deductions then the interest that you pay on your primary residence is tax deductible. Also realestate tax is also deductible. Both go on Schedule A. The car payment is not tax deductible.  You will want to be careful about claiming business deduction for home  or car. The IRS has very strict rules and if you have any personal use you can disqualify the deduction. For the car you often need to use the mileage reimbursement rates. If you use the car exclusively for work, then a lease may make more sense as you can expense the lease payment whereas with the car you need to follow the depreciation schedule.  If you are looking to claim business expense of car or home, it would be a very good idea to get professional tax advice to ensure that you do not run afoul of the IRS.


Since recent changes to credit scoring (July 2017) it may not be necassary to do this, as more emphasis is placed on having a timely payment history and less emphasis is placed on having a low credit utilization ratio. Using what’s known as trended data is the biggest change. The phrase   means credit scores will take into account the trajectory of a   borrower’s debts on a month-to-month basis. In fact, having a low credit utilization ratio may even negatively effect you (if your available credit line value is high): ... VantageScore will now mark a borrower negatively for having   excessively large credit card limits, on the theory that the person   could run up a high credit card debt quickly. Those who have prime   credit scores may be hurt the most, since they are most likely to have   multiple cards open. But those who like to play the credit card   rewards program points game could be affected as well. source


If they charge a fee to accept an item, it's reasonable to assume the item has insignificant value, so the only tax-deductible bit would be the money you donated to their charity. What you describe sounds like a fee for service, not a charitable donation. The organization should provide a fee breakdown to show what percentage (if any) of the fee is a deductible contribution. There could be some additional PA-only tax benefit, but I didn't come across anything in my brief search.


Pay the debt down. Any kind of debt equals risk. No debt equals no risk and a better chance to have that money earn you income down the road once it's invested. That and you will sleep so much better knowing you have ZERO debt. You 6 month emergency fund is probably good. Remember to keep it at 6 months living expenses (restaurants don't count as living expenses).


That's the way society works. I pay for my local schools (both in CA and OK). I'm okay with that because it is the kind of society I want to live in. I also pay a fuckload for the military. I'm not sure I'm getting good value for those payments.


I sold it at 609.25 and buy again at 608.75 in the same day If you Sold and bought the same day, it would be considered as intra-day trade. Profit will be due and would be taxed at normal tax brackets. Edits Best Consult a CA. This is covered under Indian Accounting Standard AG51 The following examples illustrate the application of the derecognition principles of this Standard.   (e)  Wash sale transaction. The repurchase of a financial asset shortly after it has been sold is sometimes referred to as a wash sale. Such a repurchase does not preclude derecognition provided that the original transaction met the derecognition requirements. However, if an agreement to sell a financial asset is entered into concurrently with an agreement to repurchase the same asset at a fixed price or the sale price plus a lender's return, then the asset is not derecognised. This is more relevant now for shares/stocks as Long Term Capital Gains are tax free, Long Term Capital Loss cannot be adjusted against anything. Short Term Gains are taxed differentially. Hence the transaction can be interpreted as tax evasion, professional advise is recommended. A simple way to avoid this situation; sell on a given day and buy it next or few days later.


"Almost everyone needs an insurance, you should also probably buy it. If you are good at planning [which it seems from your question], you should stick to Pure ""Term"" insurance and avoid any other types / variants of CVLI.  CVLI is only advisable if one cannot commit to investing or is not good at saving money, or one feels that one loses money in Term Insurance. Otherwise term insurance is best."


Short Answer: Go to the bank and ask them about your options for opening a business account. Talk to an attorney about the paperwork and company structure and taxes. Long Answer: You and your buddies jointly own an unincorporated business. This is called a partnership. Yes, there is paperwork involved in doing it properly and the fact that you guys are minors might complicate that paperwork a little bit. In terms of what type of account to open: A business account! Running a business through a personal account (joint or otherwise) is a sure way to get that account shut down. Your bank will want to know the structure of the business, and will require documentation to support that. For a partnership, they will probably want a copy of the partnership agreement. For an LLC, they'll probably want a copy of the filing with Ohio Secretary of State as well as the operating agreement etc. That said, pop into a local bank and ask a business banker directly what you should do. They deal with new businesses all the time, and would probably be best qualified to help you figure out the bank account aspect of it. Regarding business structure... this really impacts a lot more than just the type of bank account to open and how you file your taxes. It is something you guys should really discuss with an attorney. What happens if down the road one of you quits? What happens if you want to bring in a new partner later?  What if there is a disagreement about something?  These are all things that the attorney can help you address ahead of time - which is a heck of a lot easier (and cheaper) than trying to figure it out later. You're brining in enough that you should certainly be able to buy a couple hours of a lawyer's time. Getting the formation stuff right could save all of you a lot of money and heartache later.


"Note that the series you are showing is the historical spot index (what you would pay to be long the index today), not the history of the futures quotes. It's like looking at the current price of a stock or commodity (like oil) versus the futures price.  The prompt futures quote will be different that the spot quote. If you graphed the history of the prompt future you might notice the discontinuity more. How do you determine when to roll from one contract to the other? Many data providers will give you a time series for the ""prompt"" contract history, which will automatically roll to the next expiring contract for you.  Some even provide 2nd prompt, etc. time series.  If that is not available, you'd have to query multiple futures contracts and interleave them based on the expiry rules, which should be publicly available. Also is there not a price difference from the contract which is expiring and the one that is being rolled forward to? Yes, since the time to delivery is extended by ~30 days when you roll to the next contract. but yet there are no sudden price discontinuities in the charts. Well, there are, but it could be indistinguishable from the normal volatility of the time series."


"I am assuming that there is some arbitrary law preventing ordinary people from investing... because I have never seen a guaranteed 6% ROI YOY in my entire life.  Talk about the 1% of the 1%... lucky bastards!  Banks are puplicly traded corporations... what's stopping an investment company from creating a ""fake"" bank that takes investments from regular people and invests those into the federal reserve?  Returning 5.99% per year to their shareholders?"


"Should I invest the money I don't need immediately and only withdraw it next year when I need it for living expenses or should I simply leave it in my current account? This might come as a bit of a surprise, but your money is already invested. We talk of investment vehicles. An investment vehicle is basically a place where you can put money and have it either earn a return, or be able to get it back later, or both. (The neither case is generally called ""spending"".) There are also investment classes which are things like cash, stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc.: different things that you can buy within an investment vehicle. You currently have the money in a bank account. Bank accounts currently earn very low interest rates, but they are also very liquid and very secure (in the sense of being certain that you will get the principal back). Now, when you talk about ""investing the money"", you are probably thinking of moving it from where it is currently sitting earning next to no return, to somewhere it can earn a somewhat higher return. And that's fine, but you should keep in mind that you aren't really investing it in that case, only moving it. The key to deciding about an asset allocation (how much of your money to put into what investment classes) is your investment horizon. The investment horizon is simply for how long you plan on letting the money remain where you put it. For money that you do not expect to touch for more than five years, common advice is to put it in the stock market. This is simply because in the long term, historically, the stock market has outperformed most other investment classes when looking at return versus risk (volatility). However, money that you expect to need sooner than that is often recommended against putting it in the stock market. The reason for this is that the stock market is volatile -- the value of your investment can fluctuate, and there's always the risk that it will be down when you need the money. If you don't need the money within several years, you can ride that out; but if you need the money within the next year, you might not have time to ride out the dip in the stock market! So, for money that you are going to need soon, you should be looking for less volatile investment classes. Bonds are generally less volatile than stocks, with government bonds generally being less volatile than corporate bonds. Bank accounts are even less volatile, coming in at practically zero volatility, but also have much lower expected rates of return. For the money that you need within a year, I would recommend against any volatile investment class. In other words, you might take whichever part you don't need within a year and put in bonds (except for what you don't foresee needing within the next half decade or more, which you can put in stocks), then put the remainder in a simple high-yield deposit-insured savings account. It won't earn much, but you will be basically guaranteed that the money will still be there when you want it in a year. For the money you put into bonds and stocks, find low-cost index mutual funds or exchange-traded funds to do so. You cannot predict the future rate of return of any investment, but you can predict the cost of the investment with a high degree of accuracy. Hence, for any given investment class, strive to minimize cost, as doing so is likely to lead to better return on investment over time. It's extremely rare to find higher-cost alternatives that are actually worth it in the long term."


It would be unusual but it is possible that the expenses could be very high compared to your income. The IRS in pub 529 explains the deduction. You can deduct only unreimbursed employee expenses that are: Paid or incurred during your tax year, For carrying on your trade or business of being an employee, and Ordinary and necessary. An expense is ordinary if it is common and accepted in your trade,   business, or profession. An expense is necessary if it is appropriate   and helpful to your business. An expense doesn't have to be required   to be considered necessary. The next part lists examples. I have cut the list down to highlight ones that could be large. You may be able to deduct the following items as unreimbursed employee   expenses. Damages paid to a former employer for breach of an employment contract. Job search expenses in your present occupation. Legal fees related to your job. Licenses and regulatory fees. Malpractice insurance premiums. Research expenses of a college professor. Rural mail carriers' vehicle expenses. Tools and supplies used in your work. Work clothes and uniforms if required and not suitable for everyday use. Work-related education. If the term of employment was only part of the year, one or more of the these could dwarf your income for the year. Before deducting something that large be sure you can document it. I believe the IRS computers would flag the return and I wouldn't be surprised if they ask for additional proof.