Capital gains tax is an income tax upon your profit from selling investments. Long-term capital gains (investments you have held for more than a year) are taxed significantly less than short-term gains. It doesn't limit how many shares you can sell; it does discourage selling them too quickly after buying.  You can balance losses against gains to reduce the tax due. You can look for tax-advantaged investments (the obvious one being a 401k plan, IRA, or equivalent, though those generally require leaving the money invested until retirement). But in the US, most investments other than the house you are living in (which some of us argue isn't really an investment) are subject to capital gains tax, period.


As a general rule, you must choose between a mileage deduction or an actual expenses deduction.  The idea is that the mileage deduction is supposed to cover all costs of using the car.  Exceptions include parking fees and tolls, which can be deducted separately under either method.  You explicitly cannot deduct insurance costs if you claim a mileage deduction.   Separately, you probably won't be able to deduct the deductible for your car as a casualty loss.  You first subtract $100 from the deductible and then divide it by your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from your tax return.  If your deductible is over 10% of your AGI, you can deduct it.   Note that even with a $1500 deductible, you won't be able to deduct anything if you made more than $14,000 for the year.  For most people, the insurance deductible just isn't large enough relative to income to be tax deductible.   Source


"The benefit of having gold to trade is that there is almost always someone that will take gold when the fiat currency is in trouble.    The potential downfall of doing this is that when people think the fiat currency is in trouble, they tend to buy up gold, thus driving up the price.  This means that you get less gold for each hour of work you perform (deer-haunch, basket of apples, etc.).    Even more, if the financial crisis is limited to only one fiat currency, you have a situation where that fiat currency devalues but others can gain in value as people try to sell their old currency for the new standard currency.  If people also sell their gold to buy up this currency, that lowers the price of gold in that currency.    For example, let us assume that gold was 1000 dollars an ounce and 1000 euros an ounce.  Suddenly, people start thinking that the euro is in trouble, so they start buying gold.  The law of supply and demand kicks in (more buyers, same supply, so higher prices) and gold is suddenly worth 2000 dollars and 2000 euros an ounce.  If you start buying at this point, you get half as much gold as the person who bought in the beginning.  Suddenly, the euro collapses.  Stores that used to take euros start demanding dollars.  Suddenly, it costs 20,000 euros for an ounce of gold but an ounce of gold will only get you 1,000 dollars since everyone is selling their gold to get dollars.    The people who buy gold in the ""panic"" end up losing half the value of their money if not more.  The ""speculators"" that bought gold at $1,000, sold it at $2,000, and bought it back at $1,000 now have all their gold back plus the $1,000 the other people lost."


When it comes to property investing, there are indeed a couple of important things to consider. Even property professionals must know some significant info in order to ensure that they will get the right property for a certain investor. Thank you for sharing this site. I definitely learned more info regarding property investments.


You don't need credit cards but there are few benefits, if you pay them off right away I assume you do have a debit card, since sometimes (like unattended gas stations or shopping on the web) cash is not accepted.


From the 1099 instructions: File Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income, for each person to whom you have paid during the year Your accounting method doesn't matter. You file 1099 for the year you paid the money.


Assuming US. The only con that I know of is that hassle factor. You have to remember to sell when you get the new shares, and your taxes become a bit more complicated; the discount that you receive is taxed as ordinary income, and then any change in the price of the stock between when you receive it and you sell it will be considered a capital gain or loss. It's not hard to account for properly if you keep good records.


I'm not, I think this is a good thing, I'm long on PG (3+ years so far).   I was on vacation the past few days and just found out.  I was saying the rest of the portfolio was down, but these two balanced things out.


"I don't know if this is ""valid"" from a bookkeeping/accounting standpoint, but I'm just trying to keep records for myself so this works for me unless someone has another suggestion. I created two Expense accounts for the HSA (Roth, etc would work the same way): (""CY"" meaning current year.) When I make a $50 contribution, I enter the following splits: When you look at this in the Accounts tab, it shows the parent account with a zero balance (because the subaccount balance is positive and the parent account is negative). The subaccount has the balance accumulated so far; this lets me see the YTD contributions to my HSAs. At the end of the year I will make a closing transaction in the opposite direction (for whatever the total balance of the CY account is): This will zero-balance these two accounts. The only complication I see remaining is the issue of making contributions for the prior year during the January-April time frame. I don't generally make current-year contributions followed by prior-year contributions, so I can just wait to enter the closing transaction until I know I'm done with prior-year contributions."


One of the triggers for audit is when the IRS can't match 1099 income to the tax return. Whoever got the 1099 in her name should include that income on her return.


"If you want to do #1, then you should form an ""investment club."" This is an entity that is recognized by the SEC and the IRS.  From the SEC: An investment club is a group of people who pool their money to make investments. Usually, investment clubs are organized as partnerships and, after the members study different investments, the group decides to buy or sell based on a majority vote of the members. Club meetings may be educational and each member may actively participate in investment decisions. https://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/invclub.htm You should do your own legal research on how to organize, but I believe that a common way is to form a formal partnership, which then provides the legal structure for distributing gains, tax liability, income, and other costs to the members.  IRS publication 550 has a section on Investment Clubs from a tax perspective, but I'd definitely recommend get professional help on this in addition to whatever you can read yourself. As for #2, I believe that's illegal unless you're licensed."


The reason for the 10% rule of thumb is that this is roughly what you'll need to save for retirement in order to have the same standard of living in retirement as you do during your working years. Since each additional dollar produces less happiness you will maximize your happiness by equalizing your income over your entire life and thus this produces the maximum happiness.


Forgive me as I do not know much about your fine country, but I do know one thing.  You can make 5% risk free guaranteed.  How, from your link: If you make a voluntary repayment of $500 or more, you will receive a bonus of 5 per cent. This means your account will be credited with an additional 5 per cent of the value of your payment. I'd take 20.900 of that amount saved and pay off her loan tomorrow and increase my net worth by 22.000. I'd also do the same thing for your loan.  In fact in someways it is more important to pay off your loan first.   As I understand it, you will eventually have to pay your loan back once your income rises above a threshold.  Psychologically you make attempt to retard your  future income in order to avoid payback.  Those decisions may not be made overtly but it is likely they will be made. So by the end of the day (or as soon as possible), I'd have a bank balance of 113,900 and no student loan debt.  This amounts to a net increase in net worth of 1900. It is a great, safe, first investment.


The duration of a bond tells you the sensitivity of its price to its yield. There are various ways of defining it (see here for example), and it would have been preferable to have a more precise statement of the type of duration we should assume in answering this question. However, my best guess (given that the duration is stated without units) is that this is a modified duration. This is defined as the percentage decrease in the bond price for a 1% increase in the yield. So, change in price = -price x duration (as %) x change in yield (in %) For your duration of 5, this means that the bond price decreases by a relative 5% for every 1% absolute increase in its yield. Using the actual yield change in your question, 0.18%, we find: change in price = -1015 x 5% x (4.87 - 4.69) = -9.135 So the new price will be 1015 - 9.135 = £1005.865


Since you're a US citizen, submitting W8-BEN was wrong. If you read the form carefully, when you signed it you certified that you are not a US citizen, which is a lie and you knew it. W9 and W8 are mutually exclusive. You're either a US person for tax purposes or you're not, you cannot be both. As a US citizen - you are a US person for tax purposes, whether you have any other citizenship or not, and whether you live in (or have ever been to) the US or not. You do need to file tax returns just like any other US citizen. If you have an aggregate of $10K or more on your bank accounts outside of the US at any given day - you need to file FBAR. FATCA forms may also be applicable, depending on your balances. From foreign banks' perspective you're a US person, with regard to their FATCA obligations. Whether or not you'll be punished is hard to tell. Whether or not you could be punished is easy to tell: you could. You knowingly broke the law by certifying that you're not a US citizen when you were. That is in addition to un-filed tax returns, FBAR, etc etc. The fact that you were born outside of the US and have never lived there is technically irrelevant. Not knowing the law is not a reasonable cause for breaking it. Get a US-licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in the US) to help you sort it out.


The problem is exactly as described above, they are paying benefits for employees that aren't even born.  Its ridiculous, name one other business who is saving for employees benefits 60 years in advance.  Basically they put 5 billion in bank and made 3 billion last quarter.  Thats pretty damn good IMO.


"I have a similar situation -- five different accounts between me and my wife. Just as you and @Alex B describe, I maintain my asset allocation across the combination of all accounts. I also maintain a spreadsheet to track the targets, deviations from the targets, amounts required to get back in balance, and overall performance. I (mostly) don't use mutual funds. I have selected, for each category, 1 or 2 ETFs. Choosing index ETFs with low expense ratios and a brokerage with cheap or free trades keeps expenses low. (My broker offers free ETF trades if you buy off their list as long as you aren't short-term trading; this is great for rebalancing for free 2 or 3 times a year.) Using ETFs also solves the minimum balance problem -- but watch out for commissions. If you pay $10 to buy $500 worth of an ETF, that's an immediate 2% loss; trade a couple of times a year and that ETF has to gain 5% just to break even. One issue that comes up is managing cash and avoiding transaction fees. Say your IRA has all the growth stock funds and your Roth has the bonds. Stocks do well and bonds do poorly, so you sell off some stocks, which creates a bunch of cash in your IRA. Now you want to buy some bonds but you don't have enough cash in your Roth, so you buy the bonds in your IRA. Not a problem at first but if you don't manage it you can end up with small amounts of various funds spread across all of your accounts. If you're not careful you can end up paying two commissions (in two different accounts) to sell off / purchase enough of a category to get back to your targets. Another problem I had is that only one account (401k) is receiving deposits on a regular basis, and that's all going into an S&P 500 index fund. This makes it so that my allocation is off by a fair amount every quarter or so -- too much in large cap equities, not enough of everything else. My solution to this going forward is to ""over-rebalance"" a couple of times a year: sell enough SPY from my other accounts so that I'm under-allocated in large caps by the amount I expect to add to my 401k over the next 3 months. (So that in six months at my next rebalancing I'm only 3 months over-allocated to large caps -- plus or minus whatever gains/losses there are.)"


There is no direct relationship between volume and stock price. High volume indicates how much stock is changing hands. That can be because people are enthusiastically buying OR enthusiastically selling... and their reasons for doing so may not agree with your own sense of the future value of the stock. Higher volume may mean that the price is more likely to change during the day, but it can be in either direction -- or in no direction at all if there isn't a general agreement on how to react to some piece of news. It's a possibly interesting datum, but it means nothing in isolation.


The number you are trying to calculate is called the Internal Rate of Return (IRR).  Google Spreadsheets (and excel) both have an XIRR function that can do this for you fairly simply. Setup a spreadsheet with 1 column for dates, 1 column for investment. Mark your investments as negative numbers (payment to invest).  All investments will be negative. Mark your last row with today's date and today's valuation (positive). All withdrawals will be positive, so you are pretending to withdrawal your entire account for the purpose of calculation. Do not record dividends or other interim returns unless you are actually withdrawing money. The XIRR function will calculate your internal rate of return with irregularly timed investments. Links: Article explaining XIRR function (sample spreadsheet in google docs to modify)


Do some math. Figure out the net (after tax) money you'd have if you left it taxable, then look at the difference. In effect, you'd pay $X (the tax now) for $Y benefit (the tax on the full benefit not paid).  The math works similar to you buying a small policy on your own.


I still use checks to pay rent and occasionally some bills/liabilities. That said, I did notice an (elderly) lady paying by check at the supermarket a while ago. So is it really common to get a paycheck in the sense that you get a piece of paper? Yes and no.  There are some people that opt for the physical paycheck.  Even if they do not, there is a pay stub which serves as a record of it.  My last employer went to online pay stubs and a bunch of us opted out, sticking with the good old paper in an envelope.  We sure were glad of that when there were technical issues and security concerns with the online service.


>I would be really surprised if they didn't have more relatively short term debt as they were in the midst of a global freaking conflict, man.  What its spent on is a political decision and isn't relevant, except that its even less useful than how it might be spent today.  >I just don't want to open the unlimited money taps without carefully considering how long we can leave them open  You are the only one saying that. Its a straw man.  >If you're deciding whether or not to spend a crap ton of money you don't have, it helps if you haven't already spent a crap ton of money you don't have  The government is the issuer of the currency. It doesn't have it or not have it. It creates it. They've issued an ~~crap ton of money~~ amount that hasn't been clawed back through taxation and they can add to it if it suits them.


"Law is a mass of special cases, informed by but not driven by some general principles. Tax law likewise. Don't try to make it make sense; you will only confuse yourself.  Not all ""necessities"" are deductable, only those which someone has explicitly passed a law to make deductable."


The safest place to put money is a mixture of cash, local municipal bond funds with average durations under two years and US Treasury bond funds with short durations.  Examples of good short term US municipal funds: I'm not an active investor in Australian securities, so I won't recommend anything specific. Because rates are so low right now, you want a short duration (ie. funds where the average bond matures in < 2 years) fund to protect against increased rates. The problem with safety is that you won't make any money. If your goal to grow the value of your investment while minimizing risk, you need to look at equities. The portfolios posted by justkt are a great place to start.


The 2012 return was due 4/15/2013 (I'm assuming it didn't fall on a weekend). No late filing penalty if there was no tax due, but he has until 4/15/2016 to file for a refund or to document anything that should have carried forward.


If you do business under your name, you don't need to register your business.  Your business will be treated as a sole proprietorship.  If your revenue exceeds 30,000 (or wish to collect GST for the government) then you will have to register with the CRA for a GST account, but that is free.


This is not right. Inferring the employee stock pool’s takeaway is not as easy as just taking a fraction of the purchase price. As an example, that wouldn’t account for any preferred returns of other ownership classes, among other things.   All considered though, it’s reasonable to assume that the employee stock pool will get some premium. Best of luck.


"Many companies (particularly tech companies like Atlassian) grant their employees ""share options"" as part of their compensation. A share option is the right to buy a share in the company at a ""strike price"" specified when the option is granted. Typically these ""vest"" after 1-4 years so long as the employee stays with the company. Once they do vest, the employee can exercise them by paying the strike price - typically they'd do that if the shares are now more valuable. The amount they pay to exercise the option goes to the company and will show up in the $2.3 million quoted in the question."


Ah, I am coming from the fund side of things.  The PMs do make some serious coin, but below that, once you factor in commissions, it is just silly.  I actually worked on the compensation model for a certain fund company and I couldn't believe the disparity.  I suppose it depends on how the titles are distributed, perhaps it is a Canadian thing.  The traders title at the other two companies where I worked were entry levelish.  Although they did make about the same as the research analysts if they performed as to plan.


I found that the Target Date funds for Vanguard have a lower minimum, only $1,000. They are spaced every 5 years from 2010 to 2060. They are available as: General Account, IRA, UGMA/UTMA and Education Saving Account.


Is Jim right to be worries? Yes, since the statute of limitations for refunds for 2012 is close and he might lose any tax refunds he might be entitled to for that year. Also, the pattern itself may raise some flags of suspicion and trigger audits, both because of such a variance in income and because of the medical expenses (which are generally considered a red flag). So he might get audited. However, if all the income and expenses are properly documented, audit itself should not be a problem.


I'm a finance newb....sorry ahead of time for everyone slamming their heads against the the wall.  I'm going to go ahead and possibly answer my own question. Do I just go back 4 months at a time from their 10K and record the stock price on that date?


I agree that there is no reliable way to buy gold for less than spot, no more than there is for any other commodity. However, you can buy many things below market from motivated sellers. That is why you see so many stores buying gold now.  It  will  be hard to find such sellers now with the saturation of buyers, but if you keep an eye on private sales and auctions you may be able to pick up something others miss.


Are these calculations correct? These are approximate calculations and are with the assumption that entire corpus will be taxed. The assumption was valid as the wording in the budget speech was not very clear. Subsequently the finance ministry has clarified that only interest generated will be taxed and not the contribution. There are no new calculations done with this assumption. Edit: As per communication from finance ministry this proposal is on hold.


1031 is a section of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Code that allows investors to defer capital gains taxes on any exchange of like-kind properties for business or investment purposes. Taxes on capital gains are not charged on the sale of a property if the money is being used to purchase another property - the payment of tax is deferred until property is sold with no re-investment.


You will maximize your expected wealth by investing all the money you intend to invest, as soon as you have it available. Don't let the mythos of dollar cost averaging induce you to allocate more much money to a savings account than is optimal.  If you want the positive expected return of the market, don't put your money in a savings account.  That's especially true now, when you are certainly earning a negative real interest rate on your savings account. Dollar cost averaging and putting all your money in at the beginning would have the same expected return except that if you put all your money in earlier, it spends more time in the market, so your expected return is higher.  Your volatility is also higher (because your savings account would have very low volatility) but your preference for investment tells me that you view the expected return and volatility tradeoff of the stock market as acceptable. If you need something to help you feel less stress about investing right away, think of it as dollar cost averaging on a yearly basis instead of monthly.  Further, you take take comfort in knowing that you have allocated your wealth as you can instead of letting it fizzle away in real terms in a bank account.


The instructions for Form W-7 include a table of exceptions to the requirement to attach a tax return.  It looks like you might fall under Exemption 2a, but I don't think there's quite enough information in your question to be sure. The current instructions are here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw7.pdf The table of exceptions runs from page 7 to page 9, so I won't try to reproduce it here.


Mutual Funds are relatively evaluated and this is likely what you want.  Your answer is likely the information ratio.  If your interested, Active Portfolio Management by Grinold, Kahn is probably a good book to read.  That  being said, hedge funds will generally have absolute mandates and will be more likely to use a sharpe ratio.


Market cap should be share price times number of shares, right? That's several orders of magnitude right there...


"Step one: Contact the collection agency. Tell them that they have the wrong person, and the same name is just a coincidence. I would NOT give them my correct social security number, birth date, or other identifying information. This could be a total scam for the purpose of getting you to give them such personal identifying information so they can perform an identity theft. Even if it is a legitimate debt collection agency, if they are overzealous and/or incompetent, they may enter your identifying information into their records. ""Oh, you say your social security number isn't 123-45-6789, but 234-56-7890. Thank you, let me update our records. Now, sir, I see that the social security number in our records matches your social security number ..."" Step two: If they don't back off, contact a lawyer. Collection agencies work by -- call it ""intimidation"" or ""moral persuasion"", depending on your viewpoint. Years after my wife left me, she went bankrupt. A collection agency called me demanding payment of her debts before the bankruptcy went through. I noticed two things about this: One, We were divorced and I had no responsibility for her debts. Somehow they tracked down my new address and phone number, a place where she had never even lived. Why should I pay her debts? I had no legal obligation, nor did I see any moral obligation. Two, Their pitch was that she/I should pay off this debt before the bankruptcy was final. Why would anyone do that? The whole point of declaring bankruptcy is so you don't have to pay these debts. They were hoping to intimidate her into paying even though she wouldn't be legally obligated to pay. If you don't owe the money, of course there's no reason why you should pay it. If they continue to pursue you for somebody else's debt, in the U.S. you can sue them for harassment. There are all sorts of legal limits on what collection agencies are allowed to do. Actually even if they do back off, it might be worth contacting a lawyer. I suspect that asking your employer to garnish your wages without a court order, without even proof that you are responsible for this debt, is a tort that you could sue them for."


Well, the author *could* be right, but not necessarily for the reasons cited.    Several states, including California and Nevada, recently changed their laws to slow down the foreclosure process and protect borrowers.  It took lenders/servicers awhile to figure out how to work within the new legal structure, so foreclosure starts fell during that time.  Now they've got it figured out, so filings went up.  It doesn't mean the sky is falling.  If the economy keeps improving, that will temper potential defaults due to, well, unemployment and HELOC expirations causing higher mortgage payments.    There's not a lot of available inventory right now (investors have been converting short sale and foreclosed properties to rentals) so there is some pent-up demand.  If credit availability is increased by the FICO score reducing the hit for lates and defaults on medical expenses, more people will be eligible to buy a house and that will reduce foreclosure rates.    There's a lot of moving parts here, and this story only focused on a small section so take it with a grain of salt.  And remember:  if the author could really predict the future, he wouldn't be making a living as a writer for the New Republic.  edit: for clarity


The organization gives the best Corporation enlistment administrations.  You can discover numerous associations that assistance in applying any sort of Business Organization or even a Delaware LLC and Same day company formation on the web, and all it demands from the customer is to finish a shape on their web page. The claim on their web page says that you can incorporate online in a few minutes, and you will get the exchange check inside 24 hours.


"This is going to vary from insurer to insurer, and likely year to year.  Typically an insurer will set what it calls the guaranteed rate of return for whole life policies and will allow you to take loans against the cash value of your policy at some adjustment to that rate.  Also typically you pay the interest back to yourself less some small administrative fee. Some insurers have whole life policies called something along the lines of an ""accelerated cash value"" policy or a ""high early cash value"" policy, stick to these ones.  The commission structure is less favorable to the agent/broker but much more of your premium is recognized as cash value earlier. The benefit (for lack of a better word) to taking a loan against your own cash value over taking a loan from a bank is the severely reduced process.  There's no underwriting for your loan like there would be from a bank.  If you're laid off maybe you can't get a loan from a bank but you can scoop some money out of your policy on a loan basis or alternatively you can just surrender the policy and take the accrued cash value. Many people will poo-poo the value of whole life, but fact of the matter is your underwriting status can change in the course of your life and it's possible that in the future you won't be able to buy any life insurance.  There's nothing wrong with having something permanent to supplement your larger term policies. Personally, I view diversification as having money in a lot of different places.  This strategy is probably not as efficient as it could, but I don't like the idea of having all my eggs in one basket.  I have cash in a lock box at home, cash savings, CDs, a personal loan portfolio, bitcoins, index funds, individual stocks, commodity etfs, and bond funds spread in traditional 401(k), ROTH IRA and regular taxable accounts spread out to 6 different institutions.  I don't personally own any whole life, but I'll probably buy a small policy before my next 6-month birthday; I might as well put some money there too.  All of this is to say, do not put all of your money in a whole life policy, and do not buy all of your life insurance needs via whole life."


I'd like to point you to article ten of the bill of rights:  >The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.   It seems to me that the Constitution gives the states the right to do whatever they want so long as the Constitution doesn't specifically forbid it. Either concede the point or show me where the Constitution forbids the states from levying a sales tax.


Well $100k is approximately the 80th percentile. So it's doing pretty well.   But perhaps [this website](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/tax-breaks/?utm_term=.4cd4ec597815) will show how much SALT deductions benefit the rich. Just move the dial over to the $1M mark and suddenly your biggest deduction is state and local taxes.


"When you refinance, there is cost (guess: around $2000-$3000) to cover lawyers, paperwork, surveys, deed insurance, etc. etc. etc. Someone has to pay that cost, and in the end it will be you. Even if you get a ""no points no cost"" loan, the cost is going to be hidden in the interest rate. That's the way transactions with knowledgeable companies works: they do business because they benefit (profit) from it. The expectation is that what they need is different from what you need, so that each of you benefits. But, when it's a primarily cash transaction, you can't both end up with more money. So, unless value will be created somewhere else from the process (and don't include the +cash, because that ends up tacked onto the principle), this seems like paying for financial entertainment, and there are better ways to do that."


Your wife doesn't need to file a 2014 tax return because she's a nonresident and she didn't have any U.S. income. Her visa is irrelevant; it only matters what her status was (if she was in the U.S., but she wasn't) and if she had U.S. income. Your child doesn't need to file a tax return because she didn't have any income. There's a certain income threshold below which she doesn't have to file. Children generally never file their own tax returns. I don't know who told you otherwise. You may have to file if you had income (maybe including fellowship income and stuff like that) in the U.S. during the year? Did you? If you didn't then you probably don't need to file a tax return. Also, you said you're nonresident for the year. Are you sure about that? Students are generally nonresident for the first 5 calendar years, and resident thereafter. So if you came in 2009 or before, you would be resident for all of 2014; but if you came in 2010 or after, you would be nonresident for all of 2014. If you were in the first 5 calendar years of being a student, you also need to file Form 8843 regardless of whether you need to file a tax return. Nonresidents generally can't claim dependents. Residents can, however. A dependent will provide you with an exemption (it reduces your taxable income by a certain amount). You can also get the Child Tax Credit if your income is low enough. There is a U.S.-Sweden tax treaty. It has a section covering students. It may exempt some or all of your income from U.S. tax. Most universities provide free international tax programs for their international students and scholars. You should look to see if your school offers this. Don't go to outside tax filing places because those generally don't know anything about how to file for nonresidents.


Does anyone have any good resources for starting up learning about savings, finances, etc? I'm 20 years old and want to begin really saving consistently and learning about 401Ks, IRAs, savings accounts, how to grow your money safely and slowly, etc.   I'm mainly looking for a website or application that will help me budget and organize things. A phone app would be nice. And any subreddit where I could learn about these things would be extremely helpful too.


"> non-traditional borrowers (read: people who didn't meet the requirements for their traditional loan products)  There's a reason these ""non-traditional borrowers"" don't meet the requirements: They tend to be deadbeats.  The traditional requirements were developed over decades of experience to screen out deadbeats so lenders don't lose money."


I got a credit card as a student with no income, not even a part time job. They called me, I agreed to one thing and they did another and now I have an old credit history. They don't do this anymore. But technically, student loan debt is unsecured?


Nope, take the match.  I cannot see not taking the match unless you don't have enough money to cover the bills. Every situation is different of course, and if the option is to missing minimum payments or other bills in order to get the match, make your payments.  But in all other circumstances, take the match. My reasoning is, it is hard enough to earn money so take every chance you can.  If you save for retirement in the process, all the better.


Doesn't VIX win on volatility, not market direction? I.e. if the market is steady, or trending up or down predictably, vix should be low, but if it's jumping around in all different directions, vix would be high? Or am I not understanding what it's supposed to model?


I just read the article and I'm not sure if the calculation is flawed. When they look at the single stocks. Do they always reinvest the dividends to the same stock? That would be quite unusual behaviour I think.  An investor who uses the buy and hold strategy  might have a bunch of companies which won't exist anymore in 20 or 30 years e.g. coal plants.  While many stocks are a good investment now. Reinvesting all the dividends for decades is obviously a bad decision for a large portion of the stocks.  Maybe I misunderstood the article. But what do you guys think?


"Pay to play? You mean they pay for beefier data feeds that other firms don't need, sure they do. But everyone can trade on the US exchanges now (NYSE, NASDAQ, BATS, etc) which was not true 20 years ago when NYSE had the specialist monopoly, so yes the markets are more democratic than they've ever been.  Side note, the exchanges do directly profit from increased trading volume because they take a small % of every trade, so I'm not sure what you mean they don't directly profit from it.  Also I get the feeling you don't understand the scope of HFT activity, HFT peak profits were on the order of 7 billion during the highest volume time of the last decade (2005-2010). They are now around 1B. Compared to the trillions of dollars that change hands in the exchange per year, this is chump change, hardly a ""free money faucet"".  Also Katsayuma opened yet another dark pool that caters to high volume clients (your goldmans and merrils). The only difference in IEX is it got a free marketing campaign to entice clients. Seriously, IEX is nothing more than the existing fixed cross dark pools, which btw screws over retail investors more than the lit exchanges like NASDAQ.   Katsayuma got steamrolled in his executions because he couldn't keep up with the time and then hit the lottery jackpot by getting Michael Lewis to paint him as a ""hero"", honestly I'm confounded at how lucky that dude got.  BTW broker dealers get preferential treatment in IEX, meaning they get to cut in front of the line in front of retail investors. Why are you so opinionated about this, did you make a few bad trades on eTrade and need a scapegoat?"


What do you mean by professional? Seems like you want to hire people to work and you to manage. This is fine but your costs will rise significantly. Seems like first you need more business to hire more people. Be careful that your market can support a larger buisness. Ive heard of many 2 bay car garage types going bankrupt after moving to a 4-6 bay because they couldnt keep the bays full 100% of the time


Two more esoteric differences, related to the same cause... When you have an outstanding debit balance in a margin the broker may lend out your securities to short sellers.  (They may well be able to lend them out even if there's no debit balance -- check your account agreement and relevant regulations).   You'll never know this (there's no indication in your account of it) unless you ask, and maybe not even then. If the securities pay out dividends while lent out, you don't get the dividends (directly).  The dividends go to the person who bought them from the short-seller.  The short-seller has to pay the dividend amount to his broker who pays them to your broker who pays them to you.  If the dividends that were paid out by the security were qualified dividends (15% max rate) the qualified-ness goes to the person who bought the security from the short-seller.  What you received weren't dividends at all, but a payment-in-lieu of dividends and qualified dividend treatment isn't available for them.   Some (many?  all?) brokers will pay you a gross-up payment to compensate you for the extra tax you had to pay due to your qualified dividends on that security not actually being qualified. A similar thing happens if there's a shareholder vote.  If the stock was lent out on the record date to establish voting eligibility, the person eligible to vote is the person who bought them from the short-seller, not you.  So if for some reason you really want/need to vote in a shareholder vote, call your broker and ask them to journal the shares in question over to the cash side of your account before the record date for determining voting eligibility.


One major benefit to being able to buy discounted company stock is that you can sell in-the-money covered calls and potentially make more than you would selling at strike.


Estimated tax payments should be a reasonable estimate of what you owe for that time period. If it seems reasonable to you, it is probably reasonable. Sure, you can adjust for varying-length periods. As long as, in the end, you can and do pay what you owe, and don't underpay the estimated/withholding by enough that you owe a penalty, the IRS isn't all that picky about how the money is actually distributed through the year.


I spent some time comparing banks' interest rates until I realized that it didn't actually matter (to me). The only money I keep in checking and savings accounts is money that I'm going to spend shortly or is part of an emergency fund, and in both those cases convenience of liquidity is far more important than small differences in interest (I want to be able to go to a nearby branch, even if traveling, and pull out large sums of money). The majority of our money goes into investment accounts, where it's earning much more than even the best savings account. Most of your 100k would be much better served in a stock/bonds mix. Are standard taxable investment accounts one of those things you can't open? What about if you opened one in your home country?


My god man, where do you live that is too expensive to live on your own and  7K isn't enough for emergency cash? Anyway, with your age and income I would be more worried about a long-term sustainable lifestyle. In other words, a job that nets you more than $26K/year. Someday you may want to have a wife and kids and that income sure as hell wont pay for their college.   That was life advice, now for financial: I've always been a believer that if someone is not a savvy investor, their priorities before investments should be paying off debt. If you had a lot of capital or knew your way around investment vehicles and applicable returns then I would be telling you something different. But in your case, pay off that car first giving yourself more money to invest in the long-run.


"If you are using software like QuickBooks (or even just using spreadsheets or tracking this without software) use two Equity accounts, something like ""Capital Contributions"" and ""Capital Distributions"" When you write a personal check to the company, the money goes into the company's checking account and also increases the Capital Contribution account in accordance with double-entry accounting practices. When the company has enough retained earnings to pay you back, you use the Capital Distributions equity account and just write yourself a check. You can also make general journal entries every year to zero out or balance your two capital accounts with Retained Earnings, which (I think) is an automatically generated Equity account in QuickBooks. If this sounds too complex, you could also just use a single ""Capital Contributions and Distributions"" equity account for your contributions and distributions."


I really wetand to write down a quick message in order to say thanks to you for these pleasant tips and hints you are placing on this site. My incredibly long internet look up has finally been paid with high-quality information to go over with my company.


The only time I've bothered with stop orders is when I think the position is in a particularly volatile state and there is an earnings report pending.  In this situation it's an easily debatable thing to do.  If I'm so concerned that the earnings report will be enough to cause a wild downswing that I'd place a stop order, maybe I should just drop the position now.   I subscribe to the school of thought that you don't sell your MVPs.  I've bought a few things on a whim that really performed well over the few years to follow.  To me it doesn't make sense to pick a return at which I would turn off the spigot.  So generally it doesn't make sense to hold orders that would force a sale, either after some upside or downside occurs. Additionally, if I've chosen something as a long term hold.  I never spend all my cash opening up a position.  I've frequently opened positions that subsequently experienced a decline, when that happens I buy more. Meaningless side thought: With the election coming I've been seriously considering pulling some of my gains off the table.  My big apprehension with doing that is that I have no near-term alternative use for the money.  So what's the point of selling a position I'm otherwise comfortable with just to pay taxes on the gain then probably buy back in?


"Using the fact that you'd save $160/mo by spending $7000, I'd look at it this way -  If I were to lend you the $7000 at 12%/yr, $160 would pay it off in 58 months. At 18%/yr, 72 months or just 6 years. You can run spreadsheets to get breakeven scenarios, and mhoran is on track with his answer, but breakeven is just one point to consider. Beyond that date, it's free money.  My approach is to look at it with a question - ""How much interest could I afford to pay to make that monthly savings worthwhile?"""


Sell half. If it's as volatile as you say, sell it all and buy on another dip. No one can really offer targeted advice based on the amount of information you have provided.


If you don't mind, sign the form and move on.  If you would rather make a point, go to another lender.  You lender had certain boxes they have to check off as they go through the paperwork process:  the two things your lender cares about are those boxes and getting paid. Take your money elsewhere and they don't get paid.  But seriously, just sign the agreement.  Focus your intelligence and productivity on something more worthwhile than your pride.


Here's an easy 2 question test: (1) Is there anyone who relies on your income for their general welfare? (2) Is it worth the premium amount to you to make sure they aren't left out in the cold? If you can answer yes to both questions, buy (term) life insurance.


They're exchange traded debt, basically, not funds. E.g. from the NYSE: An exchange-traded note (ETN) is a senior unsecured debt obligation designed to track the total return of an underlying market index or other benchmark, minus investor fees. Whereas an ETF, in some way or another, is an equity product - which doesn't mean that they can only expose you to equity, but that they themselves are a company that you buy shares in.  FCOR for example is a bond ETF, basically a company whose sole purpose is to own a basket of bonds.  Contrast that to DTYS, a bear Treasury ETN, which is described as  The ETNs are unsecured debt obligations of the issuer, Barclays Bank PLC, and are not, either directly or indirectly, an obligation of or guaranteed by any third party. Also from Barclays site: Because the iPath ETNs are debt securities, they do not have any voting rights. FCOR on the other hand is some sort of company owned/managed by a Fidelity trust, though my EDGAR skills are rusty. AGREEMENT made this 18th day of   September, 2014, by and between Fidelity Merrimack Street Trust, a Massachusetts business trust which may issue one or more series of shares of beneficial interest (hereinafter called the Trust), on behalf of Fidelity Corporate   Bond ETF (hereinafter called the Fund), and Fidelity Investments Money Management, Inc., a New Hampshire corporation (hereinafter called the Adviser) as set forth in its entirety below.


"I'm not a financial expert... In my opinion it might be best to have as much in savings (aka being liquid and the funds are insured by the FDIC) as possible for a couple of reasons. If you lose your job, your equity line could then get frozen if the bank finds out. What you want to avoid is only owing 20 grand on your home (because you paid a chunk off with your savings) but because you lost your job you can't take any money out of your home and suddenly you are equity rich, cash poor, and jobless, that is a potential for big trouble. I'm curious why you borrowed on the Heloc since you seem to have a significant amount in savings anyways. What you really might want to look into is lowering your mortgage interest rate to around 3.5%   I would use the credit card debt as a reality check. Make sure every month you are making at least a 10% to 15% of the total due payment. This dilutes the interest rate charge and lets you see the true ""drag"" credit card debt payments really have on your life.   I don't know this for sure but the higher amount credit card payments you make probably reflects well on your credit score, and of course, never be late with the credit card payments either."


This is probably too much trouble for the employer. If they violate some rules, they can get fined by the government and lose a lot more money. Not to mention that they'd have to waste a lot of effort researching the question. If you are in a position to negotiate, ask for a higher raise instead.


"This style of budgeting is referred to as the 'Envelope' method. It could be done by withdrawing cash from the checking account and putting into envelopes (which I used to do for my Grocery & Clothing funds). I currently do this in GnuCash by creating sub-accounts of the actual bank accounts. The software rolls up the numbers so when I am looking at the ""real"" account I see the number that matches what the bank says. It is not, however, web-based. You should be able to do the same in other tools if they allow you to create sub-accounts, or have some budgeting feature built in."


Thanks to this youtube video I think I understood the required calculation. Based on following notation: then the formula to find x is: I found afterwards an example on IB site (click on the link 'How to Determine the Last Stock Price Before We Begin to Liquidate the Position') that corroborate the formula above.


"According to what little information is available currently, this fund is most akin to an actively managed exchange traded fund rather than an investment trust. An investment trust is an actively managed, closed-end fund that is tradeable on the stock market.  ""Closed-end"" means that there are a fixed number of shares available for trading, so if you wish to buy or sell shares in a closed-end fund you need to find someone willing to sell or buy shares.  ""Actively managed"" means that the assets are selected by the fund managers in the belief that they will perform well.  This is in contrast to a ""passively managed"" fund which simply tracks an underlying index.   The closed-end nature of investment trusts means that the share price is not well correlated to the value of the underlying assets.  Indeed, almost all UK investment trusts trade at a significant discount to their net asset value.  This reflects their historic poor performance and relatively weak liquidity.  Of course there are some exceptions to this. Examples of open-end funds are unit trust (US = mutual funds) and ETFs (exchange traded funds).  They are ""open-end"" funds in the sense that the number of shares/units available will change according to demand.  Most importantly, the price of a share/unit will be strongly correlated to the net asset value of the underlying portfolio.  In general, for an open-end fund, if the net asset value of the fund is X and there are Y shares/units outstanding, then the price of a share/unit will be X/Y.  Historic data shows that passively managed funds (index trackers) ""always"" outperform actively managed funds in the long term.  One of the big issues with actively managed funds is they have relatively high management fees.  The Peoples Trust will be charging about 1% with a promise that this should come down over time.  Compare this to a fee of 0.05% on a large, major market index tracking ETF.  Further, the 1% headline fee being touted by Peoples Trust is a somewhat misleading, since they are paying their employees bonuses with shares in the fund.  This will cause dilution of the net asset value per share and can be read as addition management fees by proxy.  Since competent fund managers will demand high incomes, bonus shares could easily double the management fees, depending on the size of the fund. In summary, history has shown that the promises of active fund managers rarely (if ever) come to fruition. Personally, I would not consider this to be an attractive investment and would look more towards a passively managed major market index ETF with low management fees."


To supplement existing answers: the appraised value does not necessarily represent the net amount the bank could actually recover with a foreclosure. Let's look at it from the point of view of the bank.  Suppose the property appraises at $200,000 and they do what you want: loan you $200,000 with the property as collateral.  Now suppose a short time later, you quit paying the mortgage and they have to foreclose.  Can the bank get their $200,000 back? An appraisal is only an estimate; nobody can predict perfectly how much a property will sell for.  Maybe the appraiser missed something significant, and the property will only fetch $180,000. Even if the appraisal was accurate when it was made, property values may have dropped in the meantime.  Maybe a sudden economic crisis is driving real estate prices down across the board.  Maybe interest rates have spiked.  Maybe the county has changed the zoning regulations to locate a toxic waste dump next door to the property.  In any of these cases, the property may again fetch well under $200,000. Maybe the condition of the property has changed.  Perhaps you trashed the place and it will take $30,000 to clean it up.  (People have a tendency to do things like that when they get foreclosed.) If the bank wants to get full market value for the property, they will incur the usual costs of selling a property: paying a real estate agent's commission, painting, renting furniture to stage the property, and so on.  This will eat into the net amount they actually get from the sale. It may take some time (perhaps months) for a property to sell at its full market value.  During this time, the bank is out $200,000.  That's money they would rather be loaning out at interest to someone else, so this represents lost income. Foreclosing a mortgage is a fairly complicated procedure.  The bank has to pay its staff, including lawyers, for a significant number of hours to get the foreclosure done.  There will be court filing fees and so on.  If you refuse to leave, they may have to get the sheriff to evict you; that has a fee as well.  If you fight the foreclosure, that racks up even more legal fees.  This too eats into the net proceeds from the sale. So if the bank loans you the full $200,000, they stand a pretty significant risk of not getting all of it back, after expenses.  You can understand that risk may not be worth the interest they would get from you on the extra $40,000. On the other hand, if they loan you only 80% of the property's appraised value ($160,000), they effectively shift that risk onto you.  Should you default on the loan, and they foreclose, all they have to do is sell the property for $160,000 or a little bit more.   That shouldn't be too hard, even if it is not freshly painted or a bit trashed.  They probably don't need to hire a real estate agent: just hold a quick auction, maybe first calling up a few investors who might be interested in flipping it.  If it happens to sell for more than the outstanding principal of the loan, plus the bank's costs, then they will pay you the difference; but they have no incentive to make that happen, and every incentive to just get it sold quick.  So any difference between the property's true value and the actual sale price now represents a loss to you first, not to the bank. So you can see why the bank would rather not loan you the full value of the property.  80% is a somewhat arbitrary figure but it cuts their risk by a lot.


Yes same for me. But the company was complete shit, and offered debit cards for people who didn't have a bank account.   That does not mean they **can't** offer paper cheques, it means they **won't**. A very important distinction.


"Yes. I describe the Roth flavor as ""denser."" For those with more money they wish to save this factor should be added to the mix. Of course you can save $16500 + 5000 (in an IRA) for $21500 total pretax if you wish (and are within the limits.)"


"First, the balance sheet is where assets, liabilities, & equity live. Balance Sheet Identity: Assets = Liabilities (+ Equity) The income statement is where income and expenses live. General Income Statement Identity: Income = Revenue - Expenses If you want to model yourself correctly (like a business), change your ""income"" account to ""revenue"". Recognized & Realized If you haven't yet closed the position, your gain/loss is ""recognized"".  If you have closed the position, it's ""realized"". Recognized Capital Gains(Losses) Assuming no change in margin requirements: Margin interest should increase margin liabilities thus decrease equity and can be booked as an expense on the income statement. Margin requirements for shorts should not be booked under liabilities unless if you also book a contra-asset balancing out the equity.  Ask a new question for details on this. Realized Capital Gains(Losses) Balance Sheet Identity Concepts One of the most fundamental things to remember when it comes to the balance sheet identity is that ""equity"" is derived. If your assets increase/decrease while liabilities remain constant, your equity increases/decreases. Double Entry Accounting The most fundamental concept of double entry accounting is that debits always equal credits. Here's the beauty: if things don't add up, make a new debit/credit account to account for the imbalance.  This way, the imbalance is always accounted for and can help you chase it down later, the more specific the account label the better."


Sorry for your loss. I am not a lawyer and this isn;t legal advice -- which I am not licensed to give. But I've had to deal with some debt situations of my own. I think the worst case scenario is the creditor can get a judgment, but that won't be against you unless you were a co-signor. The collectors are going to prey on your decency to make you feel like you should pay it, but you are under no legal obligation to do so.  If they file in court and then win a judgment, they may be able to collect on the assets of the estate. You mention no money but you mention a house. That is an asset with value, and putting it in your name isn't going to do much. You should see a lawyer on this, because it seems logical that they could collect on the value of the house at the time of the death, and even if it was willed to you it can still be attacked to pay the debt.  Here is a good write-up on NJ death and debt and whether it can be inherited by the adult children: https://www.atrbklaw.com/bankruptcy-resources/83-articles/103-can-you-inherit-your-dead-parent-s-debts


I am a real estate agent. I know you are in Canada, but will let you know that in the US, agents are not to supposed to offer this kind of advice. They can refer you to a bank or mortgage broker, but should not be giving this type of financial advice.  That said, it's a HELOC, it would be rare for your bank to be willing to just add to your mortgage at the current low rate. Still, ask the bank holding your loan.  Is the second home to rent out or a vacation/summer home for you to live in?


I was also going to mention people going through savings during unemployment.  And given the unemployment figures, 28% having no emergency savings even seems low.  Purely anecdotal but I cleared through my savings a few years ago during seven months of unemployment and have several friends who did the same and/or racked up thousands in debt.


I know an answer has been accepted, but you need an emergency fund, ideally enough to cover at least 3 months of after-tax basic living expenses. As a free-lancer, 6 months would be even better. This isn't a fun way to tie up your money, but it is a prudent way. What if you lose your job, or decide you want to change your line of work? What if you're told a close family member has only months to live and you want to take significant time off unpaid? What if your car breaks down and you need a new one? What if your freelance business hits a dry patch for a few months? What if you want to move but can't sell your next house quickly? I've known people who had these types of situations come up unexpectedly. Some were financially prepared and had the freedom to make the choices they wanted to make, others didn't and now have regrets. Once you have a basic emergency fund in place, then go for investing with the rest of the money. Best of luck!


"It is important to remember that the stock price in principle reflects the value of the company, so the market cap should drop upon issuance of the the dividend. However, the above reasoning neglects to consider taxes, which make the question a bit more interesting. The key fact is that different investors are going to get taxed on the dividend to varying degrees, ranging from 20% for qualified dividends in the USA for a high-income individual in a taxable account (and even worse for non-qualified dividends) to 0% for tax-exempt nonprofits, retirement accounts, and low-income individuals. The high-tax investors are going to be a bit averse to paying tax on that dividend, whereas the tax-free investors are not. Hence in a tax-rational market the tax-free investors are going to be the ones buying right before a dividend and the tax-paying investors will be buying right afterwards. Tax-exempt investors could in principle make some amount of money buying dividends to keep them off the tax-paying investors' books.  (Of course, the strategy could backfire if too many people did it all at once.) That said, the tax-payers have the tax disincentive to prevent them from fully exploiting the opposite strategy of selling just before a dividend.  In particular, they are subject to capital gains tax when they sell at a profit (unless they have enough compensating capital losses), and it is to their after-tax profit to defer taxation by not trading. That said, the stock market has well-known irrationality when it comes to considering tax consequences, so logic based on assumed rationality of the market does not always apply to the extent one would expect.   The foremost example of tax-irrationality is the so-called ""dividend paradox"", which basically states that corporations should favor stock buybacks (or perhaps loan repayment) to the complete exclusion of dividends because capital gains are taxed less harshly than dividends in a variety of ways, some of which are subtle: 1) Historically (although not currently in the USA for qualified dividends) the tax rate was higher for dividends.  (In Canada, for example, dividends are taxed at twice the rate of capital gains.) 2) If you die holding appreciated stock then you (meaning your heirs) completely escape US the capital gains tax on the accrual during your lifetime. 3) Capital gains tax can be deferred by simply not selling.  In comparison to dividends, this is roughly equivalent to getting a tax-free loan from the government which is invested for profit and paid at a later date after inflation has eaten away at the real value of the loan.  For example, if all your stock investments increase by 10%/year but you sell every year, in a high-tax bracket situation you're total after-tax return will be only 8% per year.  In contrast, if you hold the same investments for many many years and then sell, your total return will be nearly 10% per year, because you only pay 20% once (at the end). 4) A capital gain can often be neutralized by a capital loss in another stock, so that no tax results.  If you loose money on a stock that is paying dividends, you're still going to have to pay tax on that dividend.  There are companies that borrow money to pay out that taxable-dividend each quarter, which seems like gross tax malpractice on the part of the CFO. (If the dividend paradox doesn't make sense, first consider the case that you owned ALL the shares of a company.  It wouldn't matter to you at all on a pre-tax basis whether you got a $1000 company buyback or a $1000 dividend, because after the buyback/dividend you'd still own the entire company and $1000.  The number of shares would be reduced, but objecting that you owned fewer shares after the buyback would be like saying you have become shorter if your height is measured in inches rather than centimeters.) [Of course, in the case of many shareholders you can get burned by failing to sell into the buyback when the share price is too high, but that is another matter.]"


At the moment, you are paying about $1,300 interest each month (£431k @ 3.625% / 12) on your mortgage and repaying capital at about $1,500 per month. Paying $11,000 off your mortgage would save you about $9,000 as it is reduces your balance by about seven monthly capital repayments: but you will only see this benefit at the end of the mortgage because you will pay it off seven months earlier. There is only about $1,000 interest remaining on your car loans. Paying the $11,000 off your interest free loan then paying extra agianst the interest bearing loan brings that down to $500 and paying it off your interest bearing loan brings it down to $200. Either way, both car loans would be finished by early 2018. In summary, if you use the $11,000 against your car loans, you will save $8,500-$8,800 less than paying it off the mortage, but you will have no car loans in one year rather than three. Google spreadsheet for calculations here.


I'm a third-year PhD student in Finance at a state university in the Southeast.  Accordingly, I do not have time write a detailed answer for you, because I am studying for a test.  You can PM me sometime after Thursday, and I can give you my perspective.


Here's a good link that can answer your question: How to take delivery of a futures contract The relevant part states: Prior to delivery day, they inform customers who have open long positions that they must either close out the position or prepare to take delivery and pay the full value of the underlying contract. By the same token traders with short positions are informed that they must close out their trades or prepare to deliver the underlying commodity. In this case, they must have the required quantity and quality of the deliverable commodity on hand.   On the few occasions that a buyer accepts delivery against his futures contract, he is usually not given the underlying commodity itself (except in the case of financials), but rather a receipt entitling him to fetch the hogs, wheat, or corn from warehouses or distribution points. I hope this helps. Good luck!


http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=EDV+Historical+Prices shows this which matches Vanguard: Mar 24, 2014  0.769 Dividend Your download link doesn't specify dates which makes me wonder if it is a cumulative distribution or something else as one can wonder how did you ensure that the URL is specifying to list only the most recent distribution and not something else. For example, try this URL which specifies date information in the a,b,c,d,e,f parameters: http://real-chart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=EDV&a=00&b=29&c=2014&d=05&e=16&f=2014&g=v&ignore=.csv


TL;DR: Only term is pure insurance and is the cheapest.  The rest are mixtures of insurance and savings/investment.  Typically the mixtures are not as efficient as doing it yourself, except that there can be tax advantages as well as the ability to borrow from your policy in some cases.


Just saw the update: Here's some ETFs for Canada from Vanguard.


Why do you think they're HOARDING? Cus they can just pay less tax on it in a foreign fucking country you imbecile. I'm done waisting my time trying to explain this to someone that just has everything go right over their head.  Keep drinking the mainstream media's Kool-Aid, I'll keep praying that one day you wake up and see the truth


You can set up a Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) and use it to buy residential investment property, and as Justin has mentioned even borrow to acquire the investment property through the SMSF.  However, you cannot hold your home in the SMSF, as this would be classed as an in-house asset, and you are only allowed to hold a maximum of 5% of the total market value of SMSF as in-house assets. Furthermore, as you already own your house, you are not allowed to transfer residential property into a SMSF from a related party, even if done at current market value (you are allowed to transfer business real property from a related party at current market value). Regarding loans, you are not allowed to lend money from your SMSF to a related party as well.


There are just too many variables here... Will you legally be considered a permanent resident from the moment you move? Will you work from home as a contractor or as an employee? Those are not questions you can answer yourself, they really depend on your circumstances and how the tax authorities will look at them. I strongly encourage you to speak to an advisor. Very generally spoken, at your place of residence you pay taxes for your worldwide income, at the place of your work base (which is not clear if this really would be Turkey) you pay taxes on the income generated there. If it's one and the same country, it's simple. If not, then theoretically you pay twice. However, most countries have double taxation treaties to avoid just that. This usually works so that the taxes paid abroad (in Turkey) would be deducted from your tax debt at your place of residence.  But you might want to read the treaty to be sure how this would be in your specific case (all treaties are publicly available), and you should really consider speaking to a professional.


tl,dr: I-bonds do not fit well into most personal finance plans. First the questions (succinct reference): I like your thought process weighing your liquidity and risk versus your return.  This is very important.  However, I think you might be sidetracked a bit by I-Bonds.  I-Bonds are not generally good for personal investment as they are not marketable when necessary, have redemption penalties and hold lower overall yields in general.  Finally, they are significantly harder to trade as you can buy and hold a TIPS ETF and get exposure to all maturities and get the current competitive rate all in one purchase. Inflation protection is in general an interesting problem.  While inflation-protected bonds sound like they are great for inflation protection (after all it is in the name), they may not be the best instruments for long/medium term protection.  It is really important to remember that inflation protected bonds have significantly lower returns and one form of inflation protection is to just have more money in the future.  TIPS really protect against large inflation changes as normal bonds have the future expected inflation already baked in their higher rates. Also, when you own a stock you own part of a company and inflation will increase the value of the company relative to the inflated currency.  Foreign stocks can give even more protection if you think inflation in your local currency is going to be higher then the foreign currency.  Stocks in the past have had significantly higher return overall than inflation protected bonds but have higher risk as well. As a medium term, low-risk portfolio, it is worth looking into some combination of TIPS, normal bonds and a small to medium allocation of local/foreign stocks all done through low-fee mutual funds or index ETFs.


You will find Joe.E, that rents have increased considerably over the last 4 to 5 years in Australia. You can probably achieve rental yields of above 5% more than 20km from major Cities, however closer to cities you might get closer to 5% or under. In Western Sydney, we have been able to achieve rental yields close to 7%. We bought mainly in 2007 and 2008 when no one was buying and we were getting properties for 15% to 20% below market rates. As we bought cheap and rents were on the increase we were able to achieve higher rental yields. An example of one particular deal where we bought for $225K and rented for $300/wk giving us a yield of 6.9%. The rent is now $350/wk giving us a current yield of 8%, and with our interest rate at 6.3% and possibly heading down further, this property is positively geared and pays for itself plus provides us with some additional income. All our properties are yielding between 7.5% to 8.5% and are all positively geared. The capital gains might not be as high as with properties closer to the city, but even if we stopped working we wouldn't have to sell as they all provide us income after paying all expenses on associated with the properties. So in answer to your question I would be aiming for a property with a yield above 5% and preferably above 6%, as this will enable your property/ies to be positively geared at least after a couple of years if not straight away.


I agree, one should not let the tax tail wag the investing dog.  The only question should be whether he'd buy the stock at today's price. If he wishes to own it long term, he keeps it. To take the loss this year, he'd have to sell soon, and can't buy it back for 30 days. If, for whatever reason, the stock comes back a bit, he's going to buy in higher.  To be clear, the story changes for ETFs or mutual funds. You can buy a fund to replace one you're selling, capture the loss, and easily not run afoul of wash sale rules.


Normally, you don't pay capital gains tax until you actually realize a capital gain.  However, there are some exceptions. The exception that affected Eduardo Saverin is the expatriation tax, or exit tax.  If you leave a country and are no longer a tax resident, your former country taxes you on your unrealized capital gains from the period that you were a tax resident of that country.  There are several countries that have an expatriation tax, including the United States.  Saverin left the U.S. before the Facebook IPO. Saverin was perhaps already planning on leaving the U.S. (he is originally from Brazil and has investments in Asia), so leaving before the IPO limited the amount of capital gains tax he had to pay upon his exit.  (Source: Wall Street Journal: So How Much Did He Really Save?) Another situation that might be considered an exception and affects a lot of us is capital gain distributions inside a mutual fund.  When mutual fund managers sell investments inside the fund and realize gains, they have to distribute those gains among all the mutual fund investors.  This often takes the form of additional shares of the mutual fund that you are given, and you have to pay capital gains tax on these distributions.  As a result, you can invest in a mutual fund, leave your money there and not sell, but have to pay capital gains tax anyway.  In fact, you could owe capital gains tax on the distributions even if the value of your mutual fund investment has gone down.


"Hearing somewhere is a level or two worse than ""my friend told me.""  You need to do some planning to forecast your full year income and tax bill. In general, you should be filing a quarterly form and tax payment. You'll still reconcile the year with an April filing, but if you are looking to save up to pay a huge bill next year, you are looking at the potential of a penalty for under-withholding.  The instructions and payment coupons are available at the IRS site.  At this point I'm required to offer the following advice - If you are making enough money that this even concerns you, you should consider starting to save for the future. A Solo-401(k) or IRA, or both. Read more on these two accounts and ask separate questions, if you'd like."


You are undeniably wrong. You repeat over and over about taking gen Ed classes for the first two years. That advice, relevant and specific to This thread, greatly diminishes his ability to finish a CS degree on time. Yea he might be able to explore and do classes other than finance ones since he won't be getting into it. But the purpose of this thread is to make a decision between three specific majors. One of those majors requires you to be in classes early to graduate on time. Note: http://www.cs.uic.edu/Main/Courses


"Pretty much every american ""borrows"". Credit cards are essential in building credit history and story. Debit cards got popular in the past few years, but most still borrow at least a little bit on credit and pay it off right away."


"When I was in high school, my mom got me a joint credit account with both of our names on it for exactly this reason. Well, that, and to have in case I found myself in some sort emergency, but it was mostly to build credit history. That account is still on my credit report (it's my oldest by a few years), and looking at the age of it, I was 17 at the time we opened it (and I think my younger sister got one around the same time).  In my case, I now have an ""excellent"" credit score and my weakest area is the age of my accounts, so having that old account definitely helps me. I don't think I've really taken advantage of it, and I'm not sure if I'd really be worse off if my mom hadn't done that, but it certainly hasn't hurt. And I plan on buying a house in the next year or so, so having anything to bump up the credit score seems like a good thing."


5% cashback? Wow. No, this would not generally affect your credit rating. You aren't altering anything that is generally tracked by the credit rating agencies. You put a purchase on your credit card which temporarily increases your utilisation, but then immediately pay it off, leaving your utilisation practically unchanged.


Unless stated otherwise, these terms apply to all bonds. The par value or face value of a bond refers to the value of the bond when it's redeemed at maturity. A bond with a par value of $10,000 simply means that if you purchase the bond and hold it until the maturity date specified in the contract, you receive $10,000.  The purchase price, however, is exactly that: it's what you paid for the bond. Bonds may sell below, at, or above par. Continuing the example from above, if you paid $9,800 for a bought a bond with a $10,000 par value, you bought the bond below par. A bond selling below par is said to be selling at a discount. For bonds selling above bar, they're selling at a premium. If the purchase price and the par value are the same, the bond is selling at par. These terms apply to callable bonds only, which are bond contracts that allow the issuer of the bond (in the case of municipal bonds, the institution or agency who created the contract) to buy back from bond holders at a given date (the call date) and at a given price (the call price) before the bond reaches maturity and pays the holder the full par value.  Yes, the coupon rate is essentially the interest paid. It's usually represented as a percent of the par value, so if the $10,000 in the example above had a 5% coupon rate, this means that it paid out 0.05 * 10,000 = $500 each year. Usually, this payment is made as two semi-annual payments of $250. Some bonds are zero-coupon bonds, which means exactly what you would think; they don't make any coupon payments. U.S. Treasury Bills are one example of a zero-coupon bond. All of these factors are linked, because the coupon rate, callable provisions, and par value, along with the overall economic environment, can affect the purchase price of a bond.


"It's not possible to determine whether you can ""expect a refund"" or whether you are claiming the right number of exemptions from the information given.   If your wife were not working and you did not do independent contracting, then the answer would be much simpler.  However, in this case, we must also factor in how much your contracting brings in (since you must pay income tax on that, as well as Medicare and, probably, Social Security), whether you are filing jointly or separately, and your wife's income from her business.   There are also other factors such as whether you'll be claiming certain child care expenses, and certain tax credits which may phase out depending on your income.   If you can accurately estimate your total household income for the year, and separate that into income from wages, contracting, and your wife's business, as well as your expenses for things like state and local income and property taxes, then you can make a very reasonable estimate about your total tax burden (including the self-employment taxes on your non-wage income) and then determine whether you are having enough tax withheld from your paycheck.  Some people may find that they should have additional tax withheld to compensate for these expenses (see IRS W-4 Line #6)."


It's technically correct to say BK will still pay taxes on all profits made here in the US, the problem here is that it's very easy to structure this whole thing so that there are no US profits.   Company A sells itself to Company B, which it also owns. Company A transfers all its' intellectual property to Company B which then charges Company A a fee to use it. The fee is structured so that Company A makes zero profit and Company B makes all the money.


Over a period of time greater than 10 years (keep in mind, 2000-2009 ten year period fails, so I am talking longer) the market, as measured by the S&P 500, was positive. Long term, averaging more than 10%/yr.  At a 1 year horizon, the success is 67 or so percent. It's mostly for this reason that those asking about investing are told that if they need money in a year or two, to buy a house for instance, they are told to stay out of the market.  As the time approaches one day or less, the success rate drops to 50/50. The next trade being higher or lower is a random event.  Say you have a $5 commission. A $10,000 trade buy/sell is $10 for the day. 250 trading days costs you $2500 if you get in and out once per day. You need to be ahead 25% for the year to break even.  You can spin the numbers any way you wish, but in the end, time (long time spans) is on your side.


Being the geek that I am, I actually developed a financial model of a few different career/salary scenarios when I graduated in 2000. While it may not matter from a financial POV, it's a nice thing to reference later on to help you stick with your financial goals. My recommendation would be to not factor in inflation upfront... build a model based on the current value of money. You course-correct things in the future when inflation starts kicking in. Also, your retirement income requirements will vary dramatically depending on other decisions that you make. (ie. kids, mortgage, college, etc) If achieving the lifestyle that you desire 10, 20, or 30 years down the road looks difficult because your salary isn't keeping up with your earnings/savings goals, you need to either re-evaluate your priorities or look for better compensation.


The answer is that the trader is hoping to profit from a potential rise in Implied volatility. He is isolating his exposure to IV only and mitigating his risk to the directional move of the underlying by hedging with the underlying. Basically, his delta is neutral. His gamma is positive and a potential source of profit, and his theta is negative which is a potential source of loss. He hopes that the profits from long gamma will overcome the loss from the short theta. he achieves this by actively gamma scalping to remain delta neutral over the life of the option.


Ten year auto loans. Think about that for a moment. I paid off my house in 13 years and people are having problems paying off a car in 6, 8 or 10 years.   I never buy new and then drive them until they fall apart. My sister buys new every four years. In the past twenty years, she has paid at least $100,000 in autos. I know it is actually a lot more since one of her SUVs cost $35k, but I was going for the easy math for illustrative purposes. I bought two used vehicles for a total of $14,000.   People ask how I was able to pay off my house and buy rental properties.


Well, you can just say that 1 dollar contributed = one share and pay out dividends based on number of shares. That makes it pretty easy to make things fair based. There are pros and cons with this pooling approach.


It is comparing apples to oranges. From govt or institution point of view defined contribution is better than defined benefits as they don't have to carry obligations. Although defined benefit sounds good, one can't guarantee it will be enough when you retire compared to inflation. It often becomes political issue. Defined contribution puts you in charge.


This was answered wonderfully in a recent Planet Money podcast:  Why Gold?.  Here are some higlights of gold: If listening to podcasts isn't your thing, read this summary.


Consolidation makes sense, if your friend has his act together and isn't going to run up more debt. Finding a lender will be tough. I'd suggest trying local credit unions, making sure first that there has been NO late or missed payments for 6-9 months. You need to talk to a human at a local lender who will give you informal guidance about what you need to approve, so you don't end up getting lots of declinations. If its more than $10k, it will be hard to get a loan like this from anyone. In that case, you need to focus on the smallest debts first, because your friend's cash flow is going to be pinched by making payments to multiple creditors. It's critical to pay all creditors on time for at least the minimum amount due.  The problem is, once you start paying things down, the creditors will start ratcheting down credit limits. When that happens, you're at greater risk for getting nabbed with fees and higher minimum payments, which may be considered a universal default by other lenders.  There isn't alot of detail here, but depending on income and the amount of debt, your friend should be prepared to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.


"If you find a credit card with 0% interest, let us know!  I guess I'll just be the one to tell you that this belongs in /r/personalfinance  No, a new credit card balance won't affect your existing mortgage. However opening that mortgage so recently definitely dinged your credit substantially and it almost definitely hasn't recovered yet so your credit score isn't as good as you think it is from the home purchase.  If you can magically finance $4k for 0% APR then obviously you should do that since you're house poor but be absolutely sure you're right about the terms of financing. I normally make purchases like that on a rewards credit card (airline miles) then pay it off immediately but that's just me.  Using the word ""adulting"" answers that question immediately."


They believe that it reduces the risk that Revenue Canada will deem you to be an employee and make them pay a whole pile of tax, EI, CPP and so on that should have been paid if you had been hired as an employee. It's my recollection that the employer gets dinged for both the employee and employer share of those withholdings (and generally the employer's share is larger than yours) so they really want to prevent it. There's a Revenue Canada publication about whether you're an employee or not. There's nothing on it about being incorporated, but still employers feel more protected when their contracts are incorporated.  We did work as a sole proprietorship at the very beginning, so that we could deduct our losses against employment income earned earlier in the year, before we started the business. You can find clients who will take you on. We incorporated once the losses were over with (basically we had bought the equipment and office supplies we needed to get started.) It's a simple and relatively inexpensive thing to do, and gives clients a sense of protection. It won't protect you from your own poor decisions since you'll be a director of the firm.


In response to one of the comments you might be interested in owning the new home as a rental property for a year.  You could flip this thinking and make the current home into a rental property for a period of time (1 year seems to be the consensus, consult an accountant familiar with real estate). This will potentially allow for a 1031 exchange into another property -- although I  believe that property can't then be a primary residence. All potentially not worth the complication for the tax savings, but figured I'd throw it out there. Also, the 1031 exchange defers taxes until some point in the future in which you finally sell the asset(s) for cash.


"The problem I have with this argument is exemplified by the following statement:  *""Focusing on share-restricted hedge funds between 1999 and 2008, Sadka and Ozik found that funds with recent inflows on average earned an additional 5.6 percent annually compared to funds that experienced outflows.*""  Funds that are doing well tend - on average - to see customer inflows.  Funds that are doing poorly tend - on average - to see customer outflows.  It's the concept of ""hot money.""  The authors here imply that it's the fund inflows that prompt the outperformance, when - in reality - outperformance prompts fund inflows."


The context actually was higher education and student debt load (which extends to cost). You can try to broaden it but the title of the thread, the linked article, the comment I replied to and my comments all reference higher education and costs. Once again, your comment is correct in a broader context, just not in the one we were in, at least not to all readers clearly.   You want to be right but what you need to accept is that you just flubbed your post (tbh I agree with you on most points here) and should likely add some more detail to your statements.


"I think you're on the right track with that strategy. If you want to learn more about this strategy, I'd recommend ""The Intelligent Asset Allocator"" by William Bernstein. As for the Über–Tuber portfolio you linked to, my only concern would be that it is diversified in everything except for the short-term bond component, which is 40%. It might be worth looking at some portfolios that have more than one bond allocation -- possibly diversifying more across corporate vs government, and intermediate vs short term. Even the Cheapskate's portfolio located immediately above the Über–Tuber has 20% Corporate and 20% Government. Also note that they mention: Because it includes so many funds, it would be expensive and unwieldy for an account less than $100,000. Regarding your question about the disadvantages of an index-fund-based asset allocation strategy:"


More infomation is needed for any meaningful discussion about this.  I just assume you want to buy in China mainland, not Hongkong or other places. That depends on where you want to buy the flat.  Which city, which district of the city, which community, which school district, how old is the building?  Furthermore, always bearing in mind that you don't own the land when you buy a flat in China mainland.  The land is always state-owned, you are renting the land. Someone will say that the real property market in China is always in a bubble, but because the ownership of the land is different from countries like US and other things like one-child policy, things are not that easy to tell.   But if you don't live in China now and you don't have clients ready to rent from you, I don't think it is a good choice right now to buy one just for investment.


That is such a vague statement, I highly recommend disregarding it entirely, as it is impossible to know what they meant. Their goal is to convince you that index funds are the way to go, but depending on what they consider an 'active trader', they may be supporting their claim with irrelevant data Their definition of 'active trader' could mean any one or more of the following: 1) retail investor 2) day trader 3) mutual fund 4) professional investor 5) fund continuously changing its position 6) hedge fund. I will go through all of these. 1) Most retail traders lose money. There are many reasons for this. Some rely on technical strategies that are largely unproven. Some buy rumors on penny stocks in hopes of making a quick buck. Some follow scammers on twitter who sell newsletters full of bogus stock tips. Some cant get around the psychology of trading, and thus close out losing positions late and winning positions early (or never at all) [I myself use to do this!!]. I am certain 99% of retail traders cant beat the market, because most of them, to be frank, put less effort into deciding what to trade than in deciding what to have for lunch. Even though your pension funds presentation is correct with respect to retail traders, it is largely irrelevant as professionals managing your money should not fall into any of these traps. 2) I call day traders active traders, but its likely not what your pension fund was referring to. Day trading is an entirely different animal to long or medium term investing, and thus I also think the typical performance is irrelevant, as they are not going to manage your money like a day trader anyway. 3,4,5) So the important question becomes, do active funds lose 99% of the time compared to index funds. NO! No no no. According to the WSJ, actively managed funds outperformed passive funds in 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015. 2010 was basically a tie. So 5 out of 9 years. I dont have a calculator on me but I believe that is less than 99%!   Whats interesting is that this false belief that index funds are always better has become so pervasive that you can see active funds have huge outflows and passive have huge inflows. It is becoming a crowded trade. I will spare you the proverb about large crowds and small doors. Also, index funds are so heavily weighted towards a handful of stocks, that you end up becoming a stockpicker anyway. The S&P is almost indistinguishable from AAPL. Earlier this year, only 6 stocks were responsible for over 100% of gains in the NASDAQ index. Dont think FB has a good long term business model, or that Gilead and AMZN are a cheap buy? Well too bad if you bought QQQ, because those 3 stocks are your workhorses now. See here 6) That graphic is for mutual funds but your pension fund may have also been including hedge funds in their 99% figure. While many dont beat their own benchmark, its less than 99%. And there are reasons for it. Many have investors that are impatient. Fortress just had to close one of its funds, whose bets may actually pay off years from now, but too many people wanted their money out. Some hedge funds also have rules, eg long only, which can really limit your performance. While important to be aware of this, that placing your money with a hedge fund may not beat a benchmark, that does not automatically mean you should go with an index fund. So when are index funds useful? When you dont want to do any thinking. When you dont want to follow market news, at all. Then they are appropriate.


No, you will not have to pay taxes on the corpus (principal) of the trust distribution.  If the trust tax forms were filed correctly, you might have as much as a $9000 loss that will flow to you on the trust's termination.  Previously, the trust was supposed to file a return each year, and either claim the dividends or realized cap gains each year, and pay taxes at trust's rate, or distribute them to the beneficiaries via K-1 form. This is the best way to handle this as the trust has a steep tax table (relative high rates) vs the kiddie tax which would let you get nearly $1K/yr tax free each year as a minor.  During that time, losses net again gains, but can't be 'distributed' to the beneficiary. They are carried forward year to year. In the year the trust is terminated, that loss is not lost, but it's then passed on to the beneficiary, still via K-1. See Schedule K-1 instructions and Schedule K-1 itself.  On a lighter note, the trustee failed you. In the 16 years (Jan 2000-Dec 2015), the market (S&P) grew by 88%, with a compound 4.02%/yr return. Instead of any gain, you got a loss with a -2.75%/yr return. If this were a paid professional, you'd have a potential claim for a lawsuit. This is a reason why amateurs should not be assigned the role of trustee.  To clearly answer the mix of questions you asked - Note - it's always a good idea to seek professional advice. But, the nature of this board is that if any of my answer isn't accurate, a high ranked member (top 20 or so on this list) will likely set me straight within 24 hours.


> This is directly the result of about 50 years of carefully applying the value investing philosophy.  I'm on my cell on vacation so don't have time to provide a full response here, but I disagree. The BNSF purchase alone represents a giant speculative bet, partly on oil by rail. It wasn't a value play, it was a growth play. Lots of the rest of the BRK portfolio is the same.


TD Bank (Northeast US) has free change counting machines at its branches.  You don't have to have an account to use them.


"First of all, ""going risky"" doesn't mean driving to Las Vegas and playing roulette. The real meaning is that you can afford higher risk/return ratio compared to a person who will retire in the following ten years. Higher return is very important since time works for you and even several extra percent annually will make a big difference in the long run because of compound interest effect. The key is that this requires the investment to not be too risky - if you invest in a single venture and it fails you lose all the money and that's worse that some conservative investment that could yield minimum income. So you still need the investment to be relatively safe. Next, as user Chris W. Rea mentions in the comment funds and ETFs can be very risky - depending on the investment policy they can invest into some very risky ventures or into some specific industry and that poses more risk that investing into ""blue chips"" for example. So a fund or an ETF can be a good fit for you if you choose a right one."


a bank doesn't lend you money if it hasn't made sure that you can repay your debt in full (plus interests). That's not entirely correct. The bank issues a lot of loans and expects almost all people will pay their debts. The few people who go bankrupt and cannot pay are (more than) compensated for by the people who do pay their debts. The same holds for brokers, e.g. here is an example of the rates they calculate when you trade on margin, effectively borrowing money from them.


In addition to the expatriation case already mentioned by Ben Miller, traders/investors are required to use mark-to-market accounting on certain investments.  These go by Section 1256 contracts due to the part of the law  that defines them.  Mark-to-market is also required on straddles (combination of a long and and a short position in equities that are expected to vary inversely to each other). Mark-to-market means that you have to treat the positions as if you closed them at their end-of-year market value (even if you still have the position across the new year).


"Being self-employed, your ""profit"" is calculated as all the bills you send out, minus all business-related cost that you have (you will need a receipt for everything, and there are different rules for things that last for long time, long tools, machinery).  You can file your taxes yourself - the HRS website will tell you how to, and you can do it online. It's close to the same as your normal online tax return. Only thing is that you must keep receipts for all the cost that you claim.  Your tax: Assuming your gross salary is £25,000 and your profits are about £10,000, you will be paying 8% for national insurance, and 20% income tax. If you go above £43,000 or thereabouts, you pay 40% income tax on any income above that threshold, instead of 20%, but your national insurance payments stop."