The assertion that Bolivians' palettes are somehow more sophisticated than dumb Americans' is silly.  I don't think anybody actually thinks McDonalds makes good food.  It's quick, cheap, and something associated with America, which despite what a lot of people seem to believe, is not a hated evil empire.  Local franchises are also a simple and relatively inexpensive method for entrepreneurs to earn a decent wage and foster economic growth in otherwise under-performing sectors.  McDonalds might have priced themselves out of the market in this case.  Or maybe fast food just isn't part of the local culture.  I've lived places where people thought the concept of going to a take out place and picking up food was just crazy weird.  You either sit down for a big fancy meal at a restaurant or whip something up at home.  What is this go out and pay for something substandard but quick?  That model works well in the US where it seems people are always on the go in different directions and might not have time to cook.  McDonalds seems to be good enough for our culture on the go and for a lot of countries around the world.  Personally, I just don't like it, but I will eat a Wendy's triple with bacon once in a while.


What is a good resource to learn about options trading strategies? Options are a quite advanced investment form, and you'd do well to learn a lot about them before attempting to dive into this fairly illiquid market. Yale's online course in financial markets covers the Options Market and is a good starting point to make sure you've got all the basics. You may be familiar with most of it, but it's a decent refresher on lingo and Black-Scholes. How can I use options to establish some cash flow from long standing investments while minimizing capital gains expenses? This question seems designed to get people to talk about covered calls. Essentially, you sell call contracts: you let people buy things you already have at a price in the future, at their whim. They pay you for this option, though usually not much if the options aren't in the money. You can think of this as trading any return above the call option for a bit of extra cash.  I don't invest with taxable accounts, but there are significant tax consequences for options. Because they expire, there will be turnover in your portfolio, and up front income when you take the sell side. So if you trade in options with close expiration dates, you'll probably end up with a lot of short-term capital gains, which are treated as normal income. One strategy is to trade in broad-based stock index options, which have favorable tax treatments. Some people have abused this though to disguise normal income as capital gains, so it could go away. Obviously the easy approach is to just use a tax advantaged account for options trading. An ETF might also be able to handle the turnover on your behalf, for example VIX is a series of options on S&P500 options. A second strategy I've heard of is buying calls and puts at a given strike price. For example, if you bought Dec '13 calls and puts on SPX @ 115 today, it would cost you about $35 dollars. If the price moves more than 35 dollars away from 115 by DEC '13 (in either direction), you've made a profit. If you reflect on that for a bit, you'll see why VIX is considered a volatility index. I guess I should mention that shorting a stock and buying a put option at the market price are very similar, with the exception that your loss is limited to the price of the option.  Is there ever an instance where options investing is not speculative? The term 'speculative' is not well defined. For many people, the answer is no. It's very easy to just buy put options and wait for prices to fall, or call options and wait for prices to rise. Moreover, the second strategy above essentially gives you similar performance to a stock without paying full price. These all fall under the headline of increasing a risk portfolio rather than decreasing it, which I figure is a decent definition of speculation. On the other hand, there are ways to use options minimize risk rather than increase it. You can buy underwater options as portfolio insurance, if your portfolio drops below a certain amount, you still have the right to sell it at a higher one. And the Case-Schiller index is run in part, on the hopes that one day there might be a thriving market for real estate options (or futures). When you buy a home or lend money to someone to buy one, you could buy regional Case-Schiller options to protect you if the regional market tanks. But in all of these cases, it's required for someone else to take the opposite trade. Risk isn't reduced, it's traded around. So technically, there is a speculative element to these as well. I think the proper question here is whether speculation is present, but whether speculation can be put to good ends. Without speculators, the already very thin market for options would shrivel faster.


yeah, i get that it's not optional. just sucks that nothing has changed substantially since i closed on the loan 11 months ago (same PMI, same HO, essentially the same property taxes) and now i have to pay more. seems like the closing docs could have taken into account timing of those payments so that i primed the pump with enough from the beginning.


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"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-25/investors-say-it-s-time-to-price-climate-into-cities-bond-risks) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Municipal defaults are rare: Moody&#039;s reports fewer than 100 defaults by municipal borrowers it rated between 1970 and 2014.  > Kurt Forsgren, a managing director at S&P, said its municipal ratings remain &quot;Largely driven by financial performance.&quot; He said the company was looking for ways to account for climate change in ratings, including through a city&#039;s ability to access insurance.  > Laskey, of Fitch, was skeptical that rating companies could or should account for climate risk in municipal ratings.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6ejcgp/rising_seas_may_wipe_out_these_jersey_towns_but/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~133538 tl;drs so far."") | [Theory](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31bfht/theory_autotldr_concept/) | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **rated**^#1 **climate**^#2 **risk**^#3 **bond**^#4 **change**^#5"


"No, a jump in market capitalization does not equal the amount that has been invested.  Market cap is simply the stock price times the total number of shares. This represents a theoretical value of the company. I say ""theoretical"" because the company might not be able to be sold for that at all.  The quoted stock price is simply what the last buyer and seller of stock agreed upon for the price of their trade. They really only represent themselves; other investors may decide that the stock is worth more or less than that.  The stock price can move on very little volume. In this case, Amazon had released a very good earnings report after the bell yesterday, and the price jumped in after hours trading. The stock price is up, but that simply means that the few shares traded overnight sold for much higher than the closing price yesterday.  After the market opens today and many more shares are traded, we'll get a better idea what large numbers of investors feel about the price. But no matter what the price does, the change in market cap does not equal the amount of new money being invested in the company. Market cap is the price of the most recent trades extrapolated out across all the shares."


I have read from lot of places that transferring funds from NRO to NRE is possible given correct documents are provided. Yes this is correct. The key document 15CB establishes that you have paid taxes that were due before money is transferred from the NRO account to the NRE account and/or are repatriated. Here is what I am simply doing- Steps 3 & 4 more so the step 4 can be seen as new income. So the source of the funds is originally from NRE account. However, the CA feels that since my withdrawal and deposit mechanism in NRO is cash, I might be subject to questioning.   Is there any issues in doing the above? The CA is right. The Cash Withdrawal and Cash Deposit has broken the link between the money withdrawn and the money deposited. It could easily be the case that the Cash Withdrawals were spent on expenses and the Cash Deposit is new (taxable) income to you. This new income needs to be declared and the taxes paid. If you Uncle is a close relative (the exact relationships that are called close relatives are defined by law), the return of the money can be declared to be a gift from your Uncle to you and no taxes are due from you on the money. If the funds are large, it is advised to have a gift deed. It is not a simple matter of creating a gift deed stating that your Uncle has given you a gift; your Uncle has to show how he acquired so many assets that he gave you some money as a gift and whether appropriate taxes were paid by him.  If your Uncle is not a close relative, he can still gift you up to Rs 50,000 per year without you having to pay any income tax on the money received, but again, a gift deed would be needed to account for the cash deposits. In short, keep speaking to your CA. He will advise you on the best course of action. Related Question Transfering money from NRE account in India to family member


The following have been recommended to me for the UK: When I was doing my investigations, all had good reputations but Interactive Investor looked to have the nicer service and their fees seemed a bit more reasonable.  TD Waterhouse has the advantage of a number of sites serving local markets (TD Ameritrade for the US, for instance).


>I'm saying that fees from Ticketmaster's competitors are usually only a few dollars less.  Well, fuck you for that lie. Look into brown bag tickets. Seriously, how can you say that when you don't know anything about the economics behind it?  >You don't know any of these numbers for any of the acts you go to see.  Well, fuck you and your assumptions on this as well.


I know people who work in the gulf and most contracts are of the 14 days on/ 14 days (or so) off flavor. I've never heard of someone being onboard a ship or platform for a year. I bet this is a scam.


There's definitely been plenty of corruption, such as through gerrymandering, and your reference to plutocracy has merit.  I disagree that we should ever want a democracy though. This country was established as a republic and needs to retain protections for the individual against mob rule.


Compare the different trading accounts available at Money and MoneySuperMarket. All are regulated by FSA and they give protection according to the FSA standards for client deposits i.e. deposits distributed across multiple banks. I personally hold a trading account from Selftrade. You can find statements like below, in their terms and conditions regarding protection of your money deposited with them. If we cannot meet our obligations, your investment may be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Compensation is provided for 100% of £50,000.


I used Redfin to find my house! The listing was there and not other sites like Zillow until much later. By then I had already made an offer. Also their user interface, especially on mobile, is way better.


There are very few banks which offer two-factor authentication.  Part of the reason is cost.  Providing a token to every account-holder is expensive, not just in the device or system, but in providing support and assistance to the millions of people who won't have the faintest idea how it works and complain that they no longer have access to their accounts. That said, it is sometimes available on request for personal accounts and many banks require it for their business clients. My HSBC Business account comes with two-factor as default and it works extremely well. There is also the pseudo-two-factor security offered by Visa and MasterCard (3-D secure) which performs a similar function.


"Because any nation that allows real estate to become an asset class will eventually, given enough time, destroy the wealth potential and social mobility of the non-owner class. There's a reason that aristocracy used to be referred to as ""landed aristocracy"".   The solution is a progressively higher tax on second, third and fourth properties. And an elimination of tax on first properties.  But such proposals are never allowed air time as they gut the rentier class."


My Google Home does a good job of recognizing my voice and using guest mode for other people using it but you made a fair point about controlling connected home devices - I wouldn't use a voice authenticated door lock.  But I don't see any evidence that my data over at Google or Amazon is vulnerable. Sure, there's some exposure and risk I have to accept but to argue that it's unsecured and that someone could get unauthorized access to it is extremely presumptuous.


>  There's always another fresh-faced new grad with dollar signs in his eyes who doesn't know enough to ask about outstanding shares, dilution, or preferences.  They'll learn soon enough.  > Very few startups are looking for penny-ante 'investor' employees who can only put <$100k.  You'll probably find that the majority of tech startups are looking for under $100k to get going. Check out kickstarter.com sometime.  > Actual employees are lucky if they can properly value their options, let alone control how much it ends up being worth in the end.  If you're asked to put in work without being fully compensated, you are no longer an employee. You're an investor. You need to change your way of thinking.


Yes a minor can have a checking account, or a savings account. They can even get a debit card. The money in that bank account belongs to the minor. The account can be established as soon as the are assigned their social security number. If they are a newborn the account is generally set up as a joint account with a parent to facilitate transferring money into the account. For us the money was birthday gifts from relatives.  The IRS allows minors to receive small amounts of interest, or other unearned income, tax free. In 2015 that is up to $1,050, if they have no earned income. When bank rates were higher some parent's wanted to put all their saving under their child's name, of course in the eyes of the law the money belonged to the child and was only to be spent for items that benefited the child. Credit cards are another matter because the CARD act in 2009 required lenders to only give credit to those under 21 who had proof of sufficient income, unless there was a co-signer. You do have to be careful when talking about owning a house as minor. They generally can't sign a contract. You could gift the house to the minor, but if it was time to sell it the courts would insist on appointing a legal guardian to represent the interest of the child. That could add significant time to the transaction.


I'd say it's because they trade balance for culture.   But I'm on the high end of the millennial age distribution. I don't want to work all the time. I value being at home with my wife and our cats. I don't give two blue fucks about having Google or Facebook on my resume because in the end, this all just facilitates me being able to pay bills, play games, and buy nudy mags.   But for reasons beyond me, younger millennials value having the right corporate overlord over free time.


Somebody will have to file all the required paperwork and fees with the local government, state government and even the federal government. This paperwork is used by these governments to record who owns the property and how it is owned.  Prior to the settlement date they also will need to verify how the property is described and owned so that you are sure that you are being sold the exact property you expect, and that it is delivered to you free and clear of all other debts. If this is done wrong you might discover years later that you paid money for something that you don't really own. In some jurisdictions this has to be done via a law office, in others there is no requirement for a lawyer. Because a mortgage company, bank, or credit union is giving you money for the loan, they may require you to use a settlement attorney. They don't want to discover in 5 years that a simple mistake will cost them hundreds of thousands to fix. The mortgage company is required to give you a more detailed estimate of all the closing costs before you are committed to the loan. The quoted paragraph is not good enough. Even if you can avoid the use of a lawyer these functions still need to be done by somebody, and that will still cost money.


Back of the envelope calculation: 30K limit, 5 year draw, 5 year post draw payback. Int 6% a year, 3% minimum payment. Borrow 5K at the start of the draw period, make the minimum payment for the next 5 years. At the end of 5 years still owe approximately $1123, and have paid ~775 in interest. Borrow 5K at the start of the draw period, make the minimum payment for the next 5 years but borrow the money from the line of credit. At the end of 5 years still  owe approximately $6711, and have paid ~1711 in interest. The bank loves you. The balance grows instead of decreases. That growing balance become pur profit. Of course you are good for it, because you never came anywhere near the maximum limit of 30K.  This is a variation of somebody tapping the line of credit to invest it, then discovering that it is hard to make enough money to make it worthwhile.   Detailed scenario:


When you start to buy stock, don't buy too little of it! Stocks come at a cost (you pay a commission), and you need to maintain a deposit, you have to take these costs into account when buying to calculate your break even point for selling. Don't buy stock for less than 1.500€ Also, diversify. Buy stock from different sectors and from different geographies. Spread your risks. Start buying 'defensive' stocks (food, pharma, energy), then move to more dynamic sectors (telecom, informatics), lastly buy stock from risky sectors that are not mature markets (Internet businesses). Lastly, look for high dividend. That's always nice at the end of the year.


"We have a local bank that changed to a bill pay service.  The money is held as ""processing"" when the check is supposed to be cut and shows as cleared on the date the check is supposed to be received.  Because our business checking is with the same bank, we discovered recently that the although the check shows cleared from our account, the recipient has not received the paper check yet - and may not for 2-3 days.  We discovered this because the payroll checks we write this way (to ourselves) never arrive on the due date but clear the business account.  It appears to be a new way for banks to ride the ""float"" and draw interest on the money.  It happens with every check processed through the bill pay system and not with electronic transfers."


To get a good estimate, go here  or other similar sites and see.  But basically, yes, you can save yourself a whole lot of money just by paying extra every month.  One note though, do make sure you are specifying that you want the money to go towards principal, not escrow or toward prepaying interest.


Your reasoning has completely broken down now.  So if I have this straight, given that shittiness is a constant in people, your solution is to give a few people all the guns and unlimited power over everyone else? Have I got that about right?  Man, never go full retard. That flies in the face of everything this country was built to be. Do us all a favor, catch a flight to Venezuala and stay there.  At the very least, the private sector is policed by the government according to the rule of law. Who polices the government when the people no longer have any authority or power over it?


"The difference between me and Uncle Sam is that Uncle Sam gets the lowest interest rates in the world.  If I could borrow money at 1.7% for 10 years you bet your ass I'd do it!    Also, the notion that ""Uncle Sam is running out of people to borrow from, and is having trouble paying those loans back (and the interest)"" is just false.  US treasuries are the most sought after debt in the world.  If anyone had any doubt uncle sam would pay them back, interest rates would be skyrocketing, not at historic lows.  After that quote I turned it off, about two minutes in.  This is just more FUD designed to get you to buy gold or whatever.  Ignore it."


Yes, I am in the USA and almost 90% of our sales (orders) come via EDI, and thus 90% of outbound invoices.  But to setup EDI for an inbound EDI invoices with one supplier for 2 invoices per month is ridiculous.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-15/china-s-zhou-warns-corporate-debt-too-high-urges-fiscal-reform) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) ***** > People&#039;s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan warned that Chinese companies have taken on too much debt, and argued for less financial leverage as well as fiscal reforms to constrain local government borrowing.  > &quot;The main problem is that the corporate debt is too high,&quot; Zhou said Sunday during a panel discussion at a Group of 30 seminar in Washington held in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings.  > Opening Up. Zhou&#039;s remarks were the latest in a string of public comments by China&#039;s normally low-profile central bank chief.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/76n80v/chinas_central_bank_chief_warns_corporate_debt_is/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~229048 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Zhou**^#1 **financial**^#2 **government**^#3 **debt**^#4 **percent**^#5"


I'm guessing you're in the US? If so, yes, you can be prosecuted, but it's unlikely.  Fraud crimes are up to a prosecutor to pursue, there are a lot of fraud cases and bystanders take low priority, I'm assuming you're passively complicit, not actively.  If this is the case it's best to work with the bank to get your situation cleaned up and move on.  These days, most banks have dealt with wire fraud at least once, and they're familiar with cashiers check fraud.   A fair warning, the bank will report you, if they think you're involved, so if you are not a complete bystander, you may want to lawyer up.  So hopefully you didn't try to spend any of the fraudulent money and hopefully you have proof of a third party, because they will want a connection to that person (name/number/other) to file their report.


If it's easier for you to believe that I'm lying and keep waiting for that *lucky* break, good *luck* with that. A 90 hour a week schedule is hard but not impossible. It was the hardest two years of my life, and that's counting the first two years of parenthood I'm getting though. Had a baby on the way for one of them which may have provided me with more motivation than your average slacker college kid, but I was already a year into my insane schedule before my wife got pregnant.


If you have a 20,000 balance and a 8.75% interest rate, you should be paying between $145 and $150 in interest each month, with the balance going to principal.  (0.0875/12=0.007292, and that times 20,000 is 145.83; as interest is compounded daily, it'll be a little higher than that.)  If the minimum is below $145, then you are not covering the interest; I suspect that is what is happening here, and they're reporting interest paid that wasn't covered in a prior month (assuming you have some months where you only pay the statement minimum, which is less than the total accrued interest). Assuming you're in the US (or most other western countries), your loan servicer should be explaining the exact amount each payment that goes to principal and interest.  I recommend calling them up and finding out exactly why it's not consistent; what should be happening, assuming you pay more than the amount of interest each month, is the interest should go down (very) slowly each month and the amount paying off principal should go up (also slowly).  EG: Etc., until eventually the interest is zero and your loan is paid off.  It probably won't go this quickly for this size of loan - you're only paying off a tiny percentage of principal each month, $50/$20000 or 1/400th - so you won't make too much headway at this rate.   Even adding another $25 would make a huge difference to the length of the loan and the amount of interest paid, but that's another story.   You will eventually at this rate pay off the loan (at $200 a month for all 12 months); this isn't dissimilar to a 30 year mortgage in terms of percent interest to principal (in fact, it's better!).  $50 a month times twelve is $600; 400 payments would take care of it (so a bit over 30 years).  However, as you go you pay more principal and less interest, so you will actually pay it off in 15 years if you continue paying $200 a month exactly. What you may be seeing in your case is a combination of things: In months you pay less (ie, $100, say), the extra $45 in interest needs to go somewhere.  It effectively becomes part of the principal, but from what I've seen that doesn't always happen directly - ie, they account it differently at least for a short time (up to a year, in my experience). This is because of tax laws, if I understand correctly - the amount you pay in interest is tax-deductible, but not the amount of the principal - so it's important for you to have as much called 'interest' as possible.  Thus, if you pay $100 this month and $200 next month, that total of $300 is paying ~$290 of interest and $10 of principal, just as if you'd paid it $150 each month. If you had any penalties, such as for late payments, those come out off the top before interest; they may sometimes take that out as well. All in all, I strongly suggest having an enforced minimum (on your end) of the interest amount at least; that prevents you from being in a situation where your loan grows.  If you can't always hit $200, that's fine; but at least hit $150 every single month.  Otherwise you have a never ending cycle of student loan debt that you really don't want to be in. Separately, on the $1000 payment: As long as you make sure it's not assigned in such a way that the lender only accepts a month's worth at a time (which shouldn't happen, but there are shady lenders), it shouldn't matter what is called 'principal' and what is called 'interest'.  The interest won't go up just because you're making a separate payment (it'll go down!).  The portion that goes to interest will go to paying off the amount of interest you owe from the time of your last payment, plus any accrued but unpaid interest, plus principal.  You won't have the option of not paying that interest, and it doesn't really matter anyway - it's all something you owe and all accruing interest, it only really matters for accounting and taxes.  Double check with your lender (on the phone AND on their website, if possible) that overpayments are not penalized and are applied to principal immediately (or within a few days anyway) and you should be fine.


"Why is that? It doesn't hurt anyone else nor diminish a finite supply for ""real"" patients. I think it's ridiculous that something so innocuous is illegal in so many places.  People getting medical cards without a serious illness are shifting their business to a regulated market where they're paying taxes instead of supporting a black market, where's the harm?  Genuinely curious as I've never met anyone whose held your opinion."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/06/american_bankin.html) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The importance of the unit banking laws is obvious when you consider than Canada had no bank failures during the Great Depression, despite a similar fall in NGDP. Today, that sort of decline in NGDP would wipe out virtually the entire US banking system.  > The pattern is that the governments, on the one hand, protects banks in the forms of deposit insurance or government bailouts when a crisis happens, or give banks certain opportunities.  > The way the governments get the banks to subsidize mortgage risk is by protecting the banks.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6fcfck/american_banking_socialism_or_laissezfaire/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~136658 tl;drs so far."") | [Theory](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31bfht/theory_autotldr_concept/) | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Bank**^#1 **government**^#2 **deposit**^#3 **lend**^#4 **more**^#5"


"I've traveled pretty extensively around the US (probably been to more states than a lot of citizens), love it out west, friends all over the place. Just not really a big city person so that's been holding me back from going to NYC. Friend would love to go there though, and he's really into musicals (and active in them at a professional level here) so of course my first reaction was ""sure, lets go""."


You are diversified within a particular type of security. Notably the stock market. A truly diversified portfolio not only has multiple types of holdings within a single type of security (what your broad market fund does) but between different types. You have partially succeeded in doing this with the international fund - that way your risk is spread between domestic and international stocks. But there are other holdings. Cash, bonds, commodities, real estate, etc. There are broad index funds/ETFs for those as well, which may reduce your risk when the stock market as a whole tanks - which it does on occasion.


"Maybe. I've been applying to jobs that require things like SQL and high level excel. I have some experience with these but I kept getting passed over for ""more qualified candidates"" so I get the sense there is a surplus of overqualified candidates, not recent college graduates. Also Linkedin stats will sometimes show as high as 50% of applicants having graduate degrees. And again this is for entry level business/data analyst positions. IMO the job market feels absolutely saturated with qualified candidates. I am looking around the NYC area however so maybe that just comes with the territory."


> With 400,000 reservations in hand, Tesla says it will be cranking out 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week by the end of this year.  WTF?  at that pace (**IF** they make and sustain it) means **80 weeks** to fill orders.  this is good news?


">its that people with a libertarian mindset tend to have a zealous ideology that makes it impossible to talk to them  It's that people with a statist mindset tend to have a zealous ideology that makes it impossible to talk to them.   >I am aware of your set of beliefs and I don't agree with them  It's amazing that you can claim to be ""aware of [my] set of beliefs"" despite not asking nor being told. Are you a mind reader, or just an assumptive arrogant fool?"


Consider looking into real estate investment trusts (REITs). Assuming that they are available for the area that you are considering they simplify the process of investing in this sector. Your money pooled with other investors and then invested in a broad range of properties. If you go this route make sure to only by REITs that are traded in the open market (liquidity and an honest current valuation). Even better I would consider a index fund of REITs for more diversification. Personally I do use a US based REIT index as a small part of my portfolio so as to get better diversification.


"Back-testing itself is flawed. ""Past performance is no guarantee of future results"" is an important lesson to understand. Market strategies of one kind or another work until they don't.  Edited in -- AssetPlay.net provides a tool that's halfway to what you are looking for. It only goes back to 1972, however. Just to try it, I compared 100% S&P to a 60/40 blend of S&P with 5 yr t-bills (a misnamed asset, 5 yr treasuries are 'notes' not 'bills') I found the mix actually had a better return with lower volatility.  Now, can I count on that to work moving forward? Rates fell during most of this entire period so bonds/notes both looked pretty good. This is my point regarding the backtest concept.  GeniusTrader appears more sophisticated, but command line work on PCs is beyond me. It may be worth a look for you, JP. ETF Replay appears to be another backtest tool. It has its drawbacks, however, (ETFs only)"


Yes definitely  Warren Buffet averaged returns of only around 21% throughout his 40 years in business.  ROE of 23% is probably more than double the ROE of most companies , whats more as the saying goes its easier to grow sales from 1 million to 100 million than to grow sales from 100 million to 10 billion


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


"One other aspect of this is that the bank will plan to eventually approach the merchant that they are sending paper checks to and say ""why don't you sign up with us and give us your ACH info, and we won't send you checks?""  And a lot of merchants will say ""sure"", because someone has to open those checks and take them down to the bank, and that isn't free.  And that time while the money is in the mail, or sitting on someone's desk to be deposited, that is money that isn't working for you.  So everyone wins."


"America just needs to get the cash out. I believe in the power of government to better everyone's lives.  But I'm in NZ.  Low corruption here with a strong safety net.  Universal health care. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow.  They are going to fix my chest deformity for free even though technically it's ""cosmetic"".  I was earning $50 an hour mowing lawns for 6 years.  I did a double degree in the late 90s for about $7k a year.  My Asthma medicine costs $5.00.  My brother had cancer - treated free (he's fine now).  My Mum's heart attack - free (she's all good too).  If you start from such a depressed place (believe me I get why Americans feel the way they do) I think you run the risk of ending up in a rather cynical place - government can't help me.  You got republicans essentially running on a ticket of ""government doesn't work"" and ensuring it doesn't by their actions.   I dunno mate.  Keep your chin up.  I feel like America is getting close to a real jolt to get it back on track.  She's really out of step with other comparable countries.  America is still great despite itself.  But it'll get back on track.  The boomers will die off and progress will become possible again."


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"You may want to hold onto the $5000 and keep it in savings.  Interest rates are for crap, even in ""high yield"" accounts, so you can rightly not consider it investing.  You should be graduating college soon.  It would suck if an emergency crops up to prevent you from graduating.  I assume that you are going into a high paying career given your nice income from internships.   Your best investment is yourself at this point.  Completing your education, and obtaining your degree trumps all.  You could use that extra 5000 as a hedge/insurance policy/emergency fund to help insure you graduate.   Also you are likely to have some moving expenses once you graduate.  That 5K could be used to help cover those costs.   The worst case is you graduate with no emergencies, you get a nice signing bonus and relocation package, and you still have the $5000.  Well you still have until 15 April 2015 to put money in your ROTH for 2014.  This holds true for every tax year.   Given your current financial status, you are likely to find yourself soon contributing the max to your 401K and ROTH.  Once that happens, money beyond that can be invested into mutual funds stocks that are not tax advantaged, real estate, or some other choices.  Well then you have some things to think about."


"Congratulations on getting married!  As far as the IRS is concerned, you are a married couple for all of this year for tax purposes. The 2014 HSA contribution limit for you and your husband together is $6550.  This limit applies to both of you together, whether you file jointly or separately.  So it looks like you and your husband have excess contributions this year.  You'll need to withdraw some contributions, either in your account or your husband's account, to get under $6550 total for the year. If you choose to take this money out of your account, since you have already spent this money out of your HSA, you won't actually receive a check from the withdrawal.  Instead, the money that you have already spent will be recategorized from a normal HSA medical distribution to an excess contribution withdrawal.  When you get your 1099-SA form from your HSA bank at tax time, the distributions will be coded as excess contributions distributions.  In addition, the form will include the amount of any earnings (interest) that you received on your excess contributions. At tax time, you'll need to examine your W-2 form from your employer closely.  If the form does not include the amount that the employer HSA contribution in your taxable income, you'll need to add this amount as ""Other income"" on your taxes.  You'll also need to include any earnings on the excess contributions reported on the 1099-SA. Since your husband funds his own HSA and doesn't have any employer contributions to it, you might find it easier to withdraw the excess contributions from his HSA instead of yours.  To do this, you need to tell his HSA bank that the withdrawal is an excess contribution withdrawal so that it gets reported correctly on his 1099-SA.  There won't be any changes to his W-2, and the only ""other income"" he'll need to report is any earnings on the excess contributions from his 1099-SA. The instructions for Form 8889, line 13 explain what to do in the event of an excess contribution (note: The text here is from the 2013 version of the instructions): Line 13 If you or someone on your behalf (or your employer) contributed more to your HSA than is allowable, you may have to pay an additional tax on the excess contributions. Figure the excess contributions using the following instructions. See Form 5329, Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts, to figure the additional tax. Excess Contributions You Make To figure your excess contributions (including those made on your behalf), subtract your deductible contributions (line 13) from your actual contributions (line 2). However, you can withdraw some or all of your excess contributions for 2013 and they will be treated as if they had not been contributed if: You make the withdrawal by the due date, including extensions, of your 2013 tax return (but see the Note under Excess Employer Contributions, later), You do not claim a deduction for the amount of the withdrawn contributions, and You also withdraw any income earned on the withdrawn contributions and include the earnings in “Other income” on your tax return for the year you withdraw the contributions and earnings. Excess Employer Contributions Excess employer contributions are the excess, if any, of your employer's contributions over your limitation on line 8. If you made a qualified HSA funding distribution (line 10) during the tax year, reduce your limitation (line 8) by that distribution before you determine whether you have excess employer contributions. If the excess was not included in income on Form W-2, you must report it as “Other income” on your tax return. However, you can withdraw some or all of the excess employer contributions for 2013 and they will be treated as if they had not been contributed if: You make the withdrawal by the due date, including extensions, of your 2013 tax return (but see the following Note), You do not claim an exclusion from income for the amount of the withdrawn contributions, and You also withdraw any income earned on the withdrawn contributions and include the earnings in “Other income” on your tax return for the year you withdraw the contributions and earnings. There are further instructions on what to do if you don't take care of this until a future year, but it is much better and easier if you take care of this before the end of this year, and handle it correctly on your tax return. I believe that this is how it will all work; however, you'll want to confirm all of this with someone who knows what they are talking about and can look at your individual situation.  Hopefully, this answer gives you enough information to be able to ask the right questions."


"Edited: Pub 550 says 30 days before or after so the example is ok - but still a gain by average share basis.  On sale your basis is likely defaulted to ""average price"" (in the example 9.67 so there was a gain selling at 10), but can be named shares at your election to your brokerage,  and supported by record keeping. A Pub 550 wash might be buy 2000 @ 10 with basis 20000, sell 1000 @9 (nominally a loss of 1000 for now and remaining basis 10000), buy 1000 @ 8 within 30 days.   Because of the wash sale rule the basis is 10000+8000 paid + 1000 disallowed loss from wash sale with a final position of 2000 shares at 19000 basis.  I think I have the link at the example:  http://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#en_US_2014_publink100010601"


"The simple answer is, there are many ways for trades to take place.  Some systems use order-matching software that employs proprietary algorithms for deciding the order of processing, others use FIFO structures, and so on.  Some brokerages may fill customer orders out of their own accounts (which happens more frequently than you might imagine), and others put their orders into the system for the market makers to handle.  There's no easy all-encompassing answer to your question, but it's still a good one to ask. By the way, asking if the market is ""fair"" is a bit naive, because fairness depends on what side of the trade you came out on! (grin)  If your limit order didn't get filled and you missed out on an opportunity, that's always going to seem unfair, right?"


Strictly from an ROI perspective, this is likely very dependent on your field.  Some masters degrees (quant finance, business, engineering) will be well worth the debt, since a degree from the right university will yield a respectable ROI, whereas other degrees/fields (philosophy, fine arts, etc) will be basically a waste of money. Regardless of the field you can input your information into an ROI calculator and see what you get.  I typically err on the side of using the lowest average reported salary for the degree programs you're considering (self reported salary data is notoriously inflated).


>  if you buy from an ethnic market  Which don't exist in the food deserts where the rural poor live.  > time spent preparing meals  Which the working poor who work multiple part-time jobs to support their too-large families don't often have.  >  a little education[  Which is getting better, but it still requires a large amount of time and energy to figure out.  Of course, it doesn't help that we don't really teach/require science in schools.


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"Alright, I will go through bullet point by bullet point and try to best figure out what you will be doing in layman's terms. Please bear in mind that I do not work for a hedge fund, but rather a much larger entity, so a lot of the work you will be doing is pre-populated:  >Roles = In this role, the individual will be the main point of contact for the client on all things related to understanding their trading profit & loss and how their valuations have been sourced. In addition, the Product Controller will work with internal partner areas to ensure all required processes have been performed to verify the valuation accuracy of the client’s portfolio.  From my understanding you will act as the middle man between the client and the analyst. As such here is how a real interaction may go: Client X calls, you answer - ""Hello, iDade's office, how can I assist you?"" Client X asks, ""Hey iDadeMarshall I was curious what my capital gains were on my FB purchase?"" iDade: ""Ok, let me pull up your account, just a moment. It seems as though your current capital are $30,000 (*LOL*) on your FB purchase.""  Client X: ""Hmm, well do I have any significant loses that I may be able to sell off to off-set the tax on the capital gains?"" iDade: ""Why yes you do, it seems AAPL has taken a mighty tumble, would you like to sell a position to assist you in offsetting?"" Client X: ""Why that would be great. Thanks for your help."" The conversation could go on, and that is a pretty deep conversation for the level you are going in, but I have had conversations like these before. The second part of the bullet just means that you will be checking and rechecking the grunt work of the analyst, and in some places actually performing the grunt work. The work will most likely be along the lines of finding returns for different time periods. Popular desired time periods are inception, ytd, qtd, 1yr, 2yr, etc. Remember all of these time periods are not good stand alone; they must be compared to a relevant benchmark. For instance, you would not want to compare the Barclays Intermediate Ag to an equity portfolio. The most common benchmark for an equity portfolio is going to be the S&P 500, but you have to look at where the portfolio is focused. If it is a SCV you may want to look more towards something like the IJS (iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Value Index). In the end always remember that any number you come up with is always relative to a benchmark. A plain return number is useless.  >Knowledge/Skills = Knowledge of cash and derivative products across various markets • Knowledge of pricing and valuation • Knowledge of profit and loss reporting and related attribution analysis  Pretty much they just want to make sure that if a client asks about a forward/future contract as well as any swap/option that you understand what they are. This bullet points screams “I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING EVEN THOUGH NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE ECONOMY.” Be up on your current events have a personal conjecture about what you feel is going to happen moving forward, but do not convey it. If you know that the unemployment was the main driver behind today’s poor market then you will be good for the day, because that will suffice for any call in that relates to “why is the market down?” One of my favorite quotes about the current economy is as follows: “Anyone around here, who isn't confused about what’s going on, doesn't understand."" As scary as it is, that is the honest truth. Nobody knows what is about to happen and if anyone tells you they do, they are lying and you need to run away, quickly. I am assuming you know how to calculate profit and loss – I don’t really know of a *special* way to twist the numbers around.  >Major Duties = Managing the daily P&L process for one or more client trading desks o Daily review of Quality Control checks o Working with trading desk(s) on P&L differences/inquiries o Working with offshore Product Control Team (India) on QC process o Delivering a final daily (and month-end) P&L statement to the client • Understanding and explaining the key drivers behind the P&L movements • Preparing/Managing monthly (or more frequently as required) price verification process and associated reporting • Updating and maintaining pricing policy for each financial type that is included in the consultant’s P&L reporting • Ad/hoc projects to meet and enhance client deliverables  All this means is that you will be sending out the due diligence to the client and you will ensure you are using the proper closing price and include any deposits/withdrawals during the month into your calculation. The main point is knowing the reasons the price moved throughout the day/month. KEEP UP on current events and make sure that you understand a vast knowledge of economic data.  For what your day-to-day activity may be, I can walk you through it. Let’s say you get in at 8am. You will get in at 8, read economic data/recent news articles until about 10; from there you will update client A-F P/L worksheet until about noon. You will eat a quick lunch until about 1230 and continue on the grind of E-M until about 4. From 4-5 you will reread what happened at the end of the day and an overall economic activity report for the day. You may stay until 8 or 9 (if you are in a banking hub/NYC), but a lot of the older guys will leave at this time. This is your time to shine. Stay as late as you can and pump out as much work as you can.  As for your interview, they may ask you what will be a good play for the next 6 months to a year – you should respond with common themes in the market. The most common theme is the dividend growth play. A ton of people are not predicting large amount of growth for the next 5-10 years, I believe I read something earlier that JPM lowered their growth forecasts by about 30% recently, so dividends IS the play. Dividend payers are generally well established companies (blue chip) that have a strong foothold in their respective industry/sector. There are a ton of funds sprouting out everywhere to follow this trend (you could throw out a few funds for brownie points, I’ll give you some – MADVX and VDIGX are pretty common). I hope this helps and let me know if anything wasn’t clear (wrote it pretty quickly). I am off to have a drink or two or three, I’ll check this in the morning though."


There are different ways of credit card purchase authorizations. if some choose less secure method it's their problem. Merchants are charged back if a stolen card is used.


You need the services of a hard-nosed financial planner. A good one will defend your interests against the legions of creeps trying to separate you from your money. How can you tell whether such a person is working in your best interest?  Here are some ways. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly whether the planner lets you get through the same story you told us. The ability to listen carefully without interrupting is a good way to tell whether the planner is going to honor your needs. You're looking for a human service professional, not an investment or business guru. There are planners who specialize in helping people navigate big changes in their financial situation. Some of the best of those planners are women. (Many of their customers are people whose spouses recently died. But they also serve people in your situation. Ask if they work with other people like you.) Of course, you need to take the planner's advice, especially about spending and saving levels.


"China: ""We are happy to take up the mantle of free trade in the wake of Trump's election.""  Also China: ""You're not allowed to invest in or compete against state owned companies in our domestic market though, even though we're buying up all of yours.""  *free* trade. 🙄"


what an awfully-written, rambling article. I had to scan it a few times just to see if there's any real information in there. Seems to try to give the message that start-ups are a scam and they'll just work you to death for very little money while some rich VC guy makes a ton of money.  **WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT**  Seems like it was written by someone with very little business sense. If a start-up looks like a good idea with some potential but can't afford to pay you much, the main priority for you is to get a contract stipulating back-end pay and continuing employment. Being as they have very little money to bargain with, you're in an excellent position to negotiate a good deal.  Going into a startup without a contract is the height of stupidity.


A guy I used to work with would buy some shares in certain companies on a regular basis.  The guy in question chose Coke, Pepsi, GE, Disney and some other old stable stocks.  He just kept buying a few shared ($50 or so at a time) year after year after year.  He worked his entire life, but by the time he was ready to retire, he had a pretty sizable investment; he was worth a rather tidy sum. The moral of the story is, it is very much worth it to invest a bit at a time.  Don't bother with the idea of buying low and selling high; not right now.  Just go ahead and buy stable stocks (or shares of index funds) and wait them out.  This strategy (mixed with other retirement tactics like a 401K from work, and IRA of your own, Social Security in the US) is a good way to build wealth. Don't spend money you don't have, be ready for a long term investment and I think it makes great sense, regardless of what country you live in.


"The future of the internet is Ad-free. Ad blockers are increasing in usage every day and there is _nothing_ that anyone can do to stop that. Companies like Facebook and Google who make most of their money selling advertising are shitting themselves over this.  Facebook is _THE ONLY_ profitable ""social media"" company. There's like 5,00000000000 social media companies and NONE of them make money except facebook.  That's not because facebook is great, it's because facebook is diversified.  Don't listen to me, be fools."


The laws of physics are absolute.  The laws of man can be bent and twisted.  Come on, you know that.  Trump is a fraud and a cheat.  Don't let him off the hook because of a false comparison.  Don't be naive about Trump.  He'll fuck you in the ass and leave you for dead in the blink of an eye.  Trump is a con man front to back.


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quid's link should give you a definitive answer, but just to set expectations, here's an article from the UPI: Essex Chemical Corp. has agreed to be acquired by Dow Chemical Co. in a $366 million, $36-a-share deal ... Any shares that remain outstanding after the merger will be converted into the right to receive $36 each in cash, the companies said. There's no mention of exchange for Dow stock, so it's likely that you would get $36 for this share of stock, if anything.


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If I buy VUSA from one exchange, can I sell it in a different exchange, assuming my brokerage account lets me trade in both exchanges? Or is it somehow tied to the exchange I bought it from? This doesn't happen for all securities and between all stock exchanges. So that is dependent on broker and country. I checked for VUSA with Selftrade. They categorically refused allowing me to trade in VUSA in different exchanges. I can only buy and sell in same currency only, albeit sell(buy) in the same exchange where I buy(sell) from. Should be the same behaviour for all brokers for us mere mortals, if you are a bank or a millionaire than that might be a different question.  The VUSA you quote is quoted in GBP in LSE and in EUR in AEX, and the ETF has been created by an Irish entity and has an Irish ISIN.  As Chris mentioned below, happens between US and Canadian exchanges, but not sure it happens across all exchanges. You cannot deal in inter-listed stocks in LSE and NYSE. Since it's the same asset, its value should not vary across exchanges once you compensate for exchange rates, right? Yes, else it opens up itself for arbitrage (profit without any risk) which everybody wants. So even if any such instance occurs, either people will exploit it to make the arbitrage profit zero (security reflects the equilibrium price) or the profit from such transaction is so less, compared with the effort involved, that people will tend to ignore it. Anyways arbitrage profit is very difficult to garner nowadays, considering the super computers at work in the market who exploit these discrepancies, the moment they see them and bring the security right to the zero arbitrage profit point. If there's no currency risk because of #2, what other factors should I consider when choosing an exchange to trade in? Liquidity? Something else? Time difference, by the time you wake up to trade in Japan, the Japanese markets would have closed. Tax implications across multiple continents. Law of the land, providing protection to investors. Finding a broker dealing in markets you want to explore or dealing with multiple brokers. Regulatory headaches.


"They're over-regulated, but no sifi favors 0 regulation - that's fucking stupid and breaks the ""stable"" state of competitive universal banking.   But consumers are suffering because the regulations are so fucking stupid and costly. It's a bunch of academia-branded lawyers imposing regulations on 30-50 year bankers. That wouldn't go well anywhere.   Most bankers have different views - Kashkari is a Goldman guy who wants to break all the big banks up into regional competitors. If that happens, your deposits will have a higher return window, but then you actually have a daily risk to your deposits in the name of competition...I mean, fuck that."


"I'm constantly terrified of the monthly jobs report, and yet what's funny is I work for an office in New York City (which I won't name for anonymity reasons), and we're always hiring people. Every week, it seems, we get a ""Please welcome our newest employee""  email. I should be happy but I see what's really going on in the country and the world and I think ""....this is going to end badly for this company!"" :("


Idk if equating fiscal policy to direct changes in debt is the greatest idea. Yes if you buy one more F-35 your debt will increase by $160 million. However it's more complicated when discussing decreased debt, as for the direct cause.


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"I don't think you've mentioned which State you're in. Here in Ontario, a person who is financially incapable can have their financial responsibility and authority removed, and assigned to a trustee. The trustee might be a responsible next of kin (as her ex, you would appear unsuitable: that being a potential conflict of interest); otherwise, it can be the Public Guardian and Trustee. It that happens, then the trustee handles the money; and handles/makes any contracts on behalf of (in the name of) the incapable person. The incapable person might have income (e.g. spousal support payments) and money (e.g. bank accounts), which the trustee can document in order to demonstrate credit-worthiness (or at least solvency). For the time being, the kids see it as an adventure, but I suspect, it will get old very fast. I hope you have a counsellor to talk with about your personal relationships (I've had or tried several and at least one has been extraordinarily helpful). You're not actually expressing a worry about the children being abused or neglected. :/ Is your motive (for asking) that you want her to have a place, so that the children will like it (being there) better? As long as your kids see it as an adventure, perhaps you can be happy for them. Perhaps (I don't know: depending on the people) too it's a good (or at least a better) thing that they are visiting with friends and relatives; and, a better conversational topic with those people might be how they show your children a good time (instead of your ex's money). One possible way I thought of co-signing is if a portion of child/spousal support goes directly to the landlord. I asked the Child Support Services (who deduct money from my paycheck monthly to pay support to my ex) and they told me that they are not authorized to do this. Perhaps (I don't know) there is some way to do that, if you have your ex's cooperation and a lawyer (and perhaps a judge). You haven't said what portions of your payments are for Child support, versus Spousal support (nor, who has custody, etc). If a large part of the support is for the children, then perhaps the children can rent the place. (/wild idea) Note that, in Ontario, there are two trusteeship decisions to make: 1) financial; and 2) personal care, which includes housing and medical. Someone can retain their own 'self-care' authority even if they're judged financially incapable (or vice versa if there's a personal-care or medical decision which they cannot understand). The technical language is, ""Mentally Incapable of Managing Property"" This term applies to a person who is unable to understand information that is relevant to    making a decision or is unable to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a    decision or lack of decision about his or her property. Processes for certifying an    individual as being mentally incapable of managing property are prescribed in the SDA (Substitute Decisions Act), and in the Mental Health Act."" The Mental Heath Act is for medical emergencies (only); but Ontario has a Substitute Decisions Act as well. An intent of the law is to protect vulnerable people. People may also acquire and/or name their own trustee and/or guardian voluntarily: via a power of attorney, a living will, etc. I don't know: how about offering the landlord a year's rent in advance, or in trust? I guess that 1) a court order can determine/override/guarantee the way in which the child support payments are directed 2) it's easier to get that order/agreement if you and your ex cooperate 3) there are housing specialists in your neighborhood: They can buy housing instead of renting it. Or be given (gifted) housing to live in."


You can open Savings Bank Account with some Banks that offer better interest rate. Note there would be restriction on number of withdrawals in quarter. There are better interest rates if you lock in for 90+ days. The other option to explore is to open a Demat / Brokrage account and invest in liquid funds. Note depending on various factors it may or may not suite your requirements.


"Just a word of warning: Most of the companies that promise to repair your credit are scams or close to them.  You could just as easily do yourself what they are going to charge you for. Essentially they write a letter to the credit agencies disputing most or all of the bad stuff on your credit report. When you do that, the credit agency sends an inquiry to the company that reported the negative information requiring them to justify it. If that company doesn't respond within x days, they remove the item from your credit report. These companies depend on the fact that some companies aren't going to hit that deadline or even respond. Perhaps they are just too busy to hassle with providing backup documentation for a $20 late payment. They are banking on getting a few of these cheap ""outs"" to your benefit and charging you for what amounts to sending out a bunch of form letters. If you don't mind writing a bunch of letters, then you can save a lot of money and get the exact same results. These companies want to pretend they have some insider knowledge or fancy lawyers that know special credit-magic, but they generally don't. The only option I'd consider legitimate and not a waste of your time is a referral from the non-profit National Federation for Credit Counseling. They aren't going to ""fix your credit"", but will give you advice on budgeting and repairing your credit on your own."


Yes to all three. However,


There are some student loan repayment programs and the like where, if a raise would bump you past a certain threshold, you become ineligible and are suddenly left holding the whole bag, or alternately the payoff for having your loans forgiven/repaid drops considerably. It can make financial sense to avoid crossing those thresholds.


"VaR does not do what it is supposed to do which is give you a ""floor"" with confidence on your potential losses.  Even for portfolios with millions of instruments, it will not give you a metric that means anything.  The point im trying to convey is that VaR does not give any meaningful information as its horribly inaccurate and that we would be better off WITHOUT VaR."


when weed growing is decriminalized, i will not pay eighty dollars for a small sack of it, because now i will be able to go over to my friend billys house and he will give me a large sack of it for five bucks, which he now does anyways, but he only does this for his very good friends, cuz he doesnt want to go to prison and lose him home and his family and he tells me that he would rather live in his house rather than living in prison, lol..  the value of weed will drop thru the floor when i can grow it and not risk losing my freedom and my family and all of my assets, not to mention the criminal record that would prevent me from ever living a productive life ever again.  if i said that no person would pay for weed, that is not really what i meant to say....  i meant to say that there will be a lot of weed floating around and you wont need to pay $250.00 per ounce for it, but instead you will probably get an ounce of decent weed for $30.00  funny story, when i was in california there was a weed club that i used to go to, and they were at risk to lose their license to sell weed, and the country bumpkins that worked there put a sign up that basically said this:  DONT MAKE US QUIT SELLING WEED, LOL..  CUZ WE DONT REALLY LIKE SELLING CRACK,  BUT IF WE CANT SELL WEED, WE WOULD HAVE TO GO BACK TO SELLING CRACK.  i am not kidding, they put this sign up where all of the customers could see it.  i almost peed on myself when i read it.


Thanks for the nice words. I do work in research actually, but I think there are a lots of people who would be a better AMA.  As far an intelligent policy, it really is simple. The people that have been in power have decided that not enforcing the law is better off for their prized constituents than enforcing it. The Democrats liked the illegals that became their voter base, the Republicans liked the cheap labor they provided to their corporate doners.   They have now wrapped all this in social justice nonsense so being practical is now akin to being racist. The solution is simply to enforce the existing laws.


While on a completely different scale to what you boys are talking about couple of years ago I was a relationship manager in retail banking and would on the reg have to sign away ~400k out of the tellers boxes and into the safe. After a few months of that you kind of view it as lego to fuck around with... [Australian money](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=australian+money&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=OquAUO2SD82ciAfSnoDgCA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1006&bih=502)


From an article I wrote a while back: “Dalbar Inc., a Boston-based financial services research firm, has been measuring the effects of investors’ decisions to buy, sell, and switch into and out of mutual funds since 1984. The key finding always has been that the average investor earns significantly less than the return reported by their funds. (For the 20 years ended Dec. 31, 2006, the average stock fund investor earned a paltry 4.3 average annual compounded return compared to 11.8 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.)” It's one thing to look at the indexes. But quite another to understand what other investors are actually getting. The propensity to sell low and buy high is proven by the data Dalbar publishes. And really makes the case to go after the magic S&P - 0.09% gotten from an ETF.


This very much depends how you use that second line of credit and what your current credit is. There are of course many more combinations buy you can probably infer the impact based on these cases.   Your credit score is based on your likely hood of being profitable to a creditor should they issue you credit. This is based on your history of your ability to manage your credit.  Having more credit and managing it well shows that you have a history of being responsible with greater sums of money available.  If you use the card responsibly now then you are more likely to continue that trend than someone with a history of irresponsibility.  Having a line but not using it is not a good thing.  It costs the creditor money for you to have an account.  If you never use that account then you are not showing that you can use the account responsibly so if you are just going to throw the card in a safe and never access it then you are better off not getting the card in the first place.


"For an RRSP, you do not have to pay taxes on money or investments until you withdraw the money. If you do not reinvest the dividends but instead, take them out as cash, that would be withdrawing the money. For mutual funds, you would normally reinvest the dividends if holding the investment inside an RRSP. For stocks, I believe the dividends would end up sitting in the cash part of your RRSP account (and you'd probably use the money to buy more stocks, though would not be required to do so). Either way, you do not pay tax on this investment income unless you withdraw it from your RRSP. For example, you invest $10,000 inside your RRSP. You get the tax benefit from doing so. You get dividends of $1,000 (hey, it was a good year), and use these to buy more stock. As the money never left your RRSP account, you are considered to have invested only your initial $10,000. If instead, you withdraw the $1,000 in dividends, you are taxed on $1000 income. TFSA are slightly more complicated. You don't get a tax benefit from your initial contribution, but then do not pay tax when you withdraw from the TFSA. Your investment income is still tax-free, and you are (generally) much more limited in how much you can contribute. For example, you invest $10,000 inside your TFSA. You get dividends of $1,000, and use these to buy more stock. Your total contributions to your TFSA remains at $10,000 as the money never left your account. You could instead withdraw the $1000 from your TFSA and would not pay tax on it. In the next calendar year (or later) after the withdrawal, you could ""repay"" the $1000 you took out without suffering an overcontribution penalty. This makes TFSA an excellent place to park emergency funds, as you can withdraw and subsequently replace the investment while continuing to get the tax benefits on your investment income. RRSPs are better for retirement or for the home buyers plan. In general, you should not be withdrawing money from either your TFSA or RRSP, except in emergencies, when retiring, or when purchasing a home. I prefer indexed mutual funds or money market accounts for both my RRSP and TFSA rather than individual stocks, but that's up to you."


"Doing what you suggest may actually be helpful. Today, you have wealth of 145k and debt of 140k, for net wealth of 5k. Your interest incurred is $671/month and your interest earned is $211, for a total loss of $460/month, just below the 491 $/month you are saving, so your total saving is $31/month currently. However, even though in total, you have more money each month than the month before, you are getting more debt and thus more interest to pay each month. Your interest earned is increasing much slower. That $31/month you are currently able to save? By the time you hit 51, that has become $0/month and is still dropping. By 60? Your debt has overtaken your retirement savings - that $5 net worth you have now is gone. If you were to withdraw money from your retirement to pay off your debt (with the $32k penalties) you would have wealth of 70k and debt of 97k, for a net wealth of -27k (i.e. net debt). Obviously, the above is not good. However, you reduce your monthly interest paid to $465, while also reducing your interest earned to $102. This is a total loss of $365/month, so you are saving $126/month.  Note that in this case, your $491 monthly repayment is higher than the interest you have to pay on the account, this means that each month, your interest payment becomes lower, thus you pay off more and more each month. Your balance would be getting better each month (and at a faster rate each month. Your net wealth would be back in positives and above your wealth on your current trajectory before you hit 62. By 65, you will have $9000 of net wealth if you use your retirement savings now, as opposed to $9000 net debt if you don't. And just adding a few things on to the end 1) This is just the maths of it, and does not take into account your behaviour. If having that debt accruing is helping to motivate you to give up on luxuries, then this analysis does not apply. I am assuming that the $491/month is literally all you can save, and that no matter what changes, you will always deposit that $491. If you do not think you can continue to deposit that $491 if you stop seeing such high interest accruing, then do not do this. 2) I am assuming your interest earned on your IRA is 1.75%. If this is not the case, then please let me know, and I can adjust my numbers accordingly. From http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/01/28/obama-state-of-the-union-myra-savings-plan/4992743/ 3) I'm assuming all numbers you mentioned are accurate, and will stay constant (interest rates may not) 4) This is not professional, financial advice. I am just a person on the internet.  5) This goes without saying (and will probably go down as well as ""let them eat cake"" did), but saving more money each month will be a more powerful, risk free way to get out of this problem. Work a 2nd job, cut costs however you can. 6) Sorry if you were looking for something more motivational or sugar coated.  7) Best of luck, feel free to ask any questions. Graph below in red is your current trajectory, and blue is if you withdraw from your retirement to pay off your debt."


"The carry forward refers to the ""annual allowance"", which is a limit on the total pension contributions you can make and still get any tax relief at all.  However, the tax relief itself only applies to the year you make the contribution, and you can't carry the contribution itself back or forward to get relief at a higher marginal rate. So, in scenario (1) you get £2K relief and your provider gets £2K relief. But the actual contribution you should make to your provider is £8K. They'll add in the £2K to make a £10K gross contribution, and then you'll claim back the £2K leaving you having contributed £6K net for the £10K gross contribution. The mechanism whereby the pension provider claims back the £2K is called ""relief at source"". For scenario (2) you'll only get basic rate tax relief on the second £10K, because you'll have already reduced your gross income for the year below the higher-rate threshold with the first £10K. If you managed to make pension contributions in excess of the annual allowance even considering carry-forward, then you'd get no tax relief at all on those contributions. Given that the pension would also get taxed when paid, this is not a good deal and people generally avoid exceeding that limit. For (3) I'm not entirely certain, but I think you can carry forward in the circumstances you describe. I think the principle is simply that you could have paid into a pension scheme. In practice I also don't think HMRC will be worrying too much about this precise detail even if they have the opposite interpretation - it'd be a lot of work to check for not much gain."


Buffett has the edge here. Berkshire is proposing to keep Oncor's board and CEO, which NextEra didn't offer and was a sticking point for the PUC.  However Elliot owns something like 70%+ of EFH's debt, so maybe the PUCT will be more accommodating to that.


This time it's different  It's not.  The market is overvalued but not by ahistoric levels, repatriation of US Corporate funds thanks to the Trump tax plan could easily drive markets higher 20-30%.  Correction is a probable occurance in the next few years, probably driven by Central banks getting too overzealous with returning to normal interest rate levels.


Your insight front the meeting is interesting. It's a single data point but likely representative.  The hive clearly find your post self engrandizing and down votes ensue.   While I enjoy stories of companies self emulating, the successful pivots are my favorite


Well, I'm sorry that you're so thin-skinned. Here's a simple logical relation that I think absolutely holds true: hard work is neither necessary nor sufficient for success. It's certainly to be valued, but not as a form of cult worship.  There are so many people who are smarter, more tenacious and work harder than anyone you've ever known -- and they were cut down by malaria, murder, or a god damned piano falling on their heads. Them are the breaks. For every billionaire/famous person out there, there're at least 100 also-rans with analogous talent and prospects (at one point).  Chance rules us all, and it takes NOTHING away from the hard-working to admit that.


The banks and the Fed inflated the housing bubble. There was too much money floating around and it went into housing and loans for housing. The banks are highly responsible for this crisis because the failed to investigation into who was receiving the loans (due diligence). In turn, many of these same banks sold these crap and uninvestigated loans as CDOs and the like (made triple A by the ratings agencies, paid by the banks) to other investors, bringing in more cash that was quickly loaned out to keep the whole process going. All the while they were filing and registering these mortgage records with MERS to avoid paying various jurisdictions the fees and taxes owed (this is many 10s of billions of dollars). The easy money created artificial and inflated demand and completely distorted the housing market.   Other than those large points, the banks are utterly blameless.


It is the people who you bought the ticket from. Blocking is frequently done by hotels, gas stations, or rental car companies. Also, for anything where the credit card might be used to cover any damages or charges you might incur later as part of the transaction. In essence, they are reserving part of your credit limit, ostensibly to cover charges they reasonably expect you might incur. For example, when you start pumping gas using a credit card they may block out $100 to make sure you don't pump a full tank and your credit card is declined because you ran over your limit at $3.  In general, the blocks clear fairly quickly after you settle up with the company on your final bill. You can also ask the company to clear the block, but I don't think they are required to by law in any specific time period. It may be up to their (and your) agreement with the credit card company. Normally it isn't an issue and you don't even notice this going on behind the scenes, but if you keep your credit card near its limit, or use a debit card it can lead to nasty surprises (e.g. they can make you overdraw your account). One more reason not to use debit cards. More information is available here on the Federal Trade Commission's website.


outstanding shares are the shares(regular shares) that are still tradable in the market, where the firm in question is listed. The term is primarily used to distinguish from shares held in treasury(treasury stock), which have been bought back(buybacks) from the market and aren't currently tradable in the market. Wikipedia is a bit more clearer and mentions the diluted outstanding shares(used for convertible bonds, warrants, etc) which is used to calculated diluted EPS.


Costco is one of my favorite places to shop.  I hardly ever find better prices elsewhere and their return policy is pretty amazing.  That being said, biggest complaint I have are the long ass lines and parking is a nightmare.


You don't say your level of consumer debt.  You don't say how much of an emergency fund you have. If you have debt, pay it off before you invest.  If you don't have an emergency fund (X months' expenses, pick your own X) get that before investing. If you have neither, get a small emergency fund, and then throw as much as you can to getting rid of debt. Beyond that, look for prudent investments.  They're not the same as conservative investments. To know what's prudent, learn about the ones you listed and what determines their prices.  Learn how or why they go up or down in value.


This would literally have changed nothing about the shikreli situation. That was a manufacturer, Amazon has obtained licences to be a middle man (buy from mfgr at mfgrs price and sell to pharmacies and potentially direct to consumer though they need additional licences for that.)


This is great! I'm not a CPA, but work in finance. As such, my course/professional work is focused more on the economic and profitability aspects of transfer pricing. As you might imagine, it tended to analyze corporate strategy decisions under various cost allocation models, which you thoroughly discuss.  I would agree with the statement that it is based on the matching principle but would like to add that transfer pricing is interesting as it falls under several fields: accounting, finance, and economics. Fundamentally it is based on the matching principal, but it's real world applications are based on all three (it's often used to determine divisional and even individual sales peoples profitability; as is the case with bank related funds transfer pricing on stuff like time deposits). In this case, the correct accounting principal allows you to, when done properly, better understand the economics, strategy, and operations of an organization.   In effect, when done correctly, it provides transparency for strategic decision making to executives. As I said, since my coursework tended to focus more on that aspect, I definitely have a natural tendency towards it.  This is an amazing explanation (esp. about interest on M&A bridge loans, I get that) of the more detailed stuff! Truthfully, I'm not as familiar with it and was just trying to show more of the conceptual than nitty-gritty.   Thanks for the reply!


Weird situation. It sounds like there were options for a non implantable, wearable option. The microchip basically serves as an advanced employee badge. I don't understand the outrage at all. My guess is that the people complaining are reacting to the soundbyte instead of the reality of the situation.


I work in a firm that performs this kind of execution for a number of instutional traders. We sell a number of algorithms, and a lot of research goes into building good market signals and forecasts, but the basic idea is that we make a trade-off between time to execute and market impact. This generally means that we're doing a mix of everything you said; we will join the bid for some fraction of our size, and also hit the offer when it looks like the price might be moving away from us. In some certain situations we will even sweep the book several levels deep to avoid tipping off market makers and having them adjust in anticipation of the rest of our order.


Even post meltdown, there are banks that will lend money based on a low loan to value, so 50% might not be a problem. But such loans come at a price. The current 30 year fixed rated is 4.5% or so, but you might see quite a bit higher than this on the loan.


You can use www.mint.com for most of your requirements. It works great for me, it's free and I'd say is secure. Hosting that kind of service just for your will be time-consuming and not necessarily more secure than most of the stuff that is readily available out there. Good luck.


In some country's even retail competitors set up a cartel like scheme and they pressure the fuck out of farmer and producers to drop prices, and obey to their promotion's.  It's like they give them the volume to expand, and now that you are in a whole other level of production cut down prices or you'll be left with perishable goods with a limited shelf life, and no one to buy them.


If you personally make any money from it then you need a Series 65, or a Series 63 license. It is a private industry/SEC regulation. The license itself basically spells out your duties and ethical standards for you.


you don't need to turn your head. almost all the controls you would want to use while driving, including navigation, volume, phone dialing, are accessible from the wheel and visible in the central instrument dashboard.   have you actually driven one? its really not any more distracting that any other car.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-19/oil-s-slide-stalls-as-investors-weigh-stockpiles-against-libya) reduced by 70%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The amount of oil stored in tankers reached a 2017 high of 111.9 million barrels earlier this month, according to Paris-based tracking company Kpler SAS. Oil has slipped below $45 a barrel as supplies in the U.S. remain plentiful and drillers continue to add rigs, raising concerns output cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia won&#039;t succeed in draining bloated stockpiles.  > Crude stockpiles remain more than 100 million barrels above the five-year average, according to data from the EIA. American production has climbed to 9.33 million barrels a day through June 9, near the highest since August 2015.  > Libya is pumping about 900,000 barrels a day, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified for lack of authority to speak to the media.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6ietvj/oil_prices_are_tumbling_more_than_2_toward_43/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~148648 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **barrel**^#1 **percent**^#2 **August**^#3 **U.S.**^#4 **Oil**^#5"


> Only way to stay ahead is get as educated as possible.   ya... only problem... Americans are basically retarded in almost every measure by international standards.  Not all Americans... but the smart ones are not staying here for much longer.


Insurance in India is offered by Private companies as well [ICICI, Maxbupa, SBI, Max and tons of other companies].   These are priavte companies, as Insurance sectors one has to look for long term stability, not everyone can just open an Insurance company, there are certain capital requirements. Initially the shareholding pattern was that Indian company should have a majority shareholding, any foreign company can have only 26% share's. This limit has now been extended to 49%, so while the control of the private insurance company will still be with Indian's the foreign companies can invest upto 49%. It's a economic policy decission and the outcome whether positive or negative will be known after 10 years of implemenation :) Pro's: - Brings more funds into the Insurance segment, there by bringing strength to the company - Better global practise on risk & data modelling may reduce premium for most - Innovation in product offering - More Foreign Exchange for country that is badly needed.   Con's: - The Global companies may hike premium to make more profits. - They may come up with complex products that common man will not understand and will lead to loss - They may take back money anytime as they are here for profit and not for cause.   Pension today is offered only by Government Companies. There is a move to allow private companies to offer pension. Today life insurance companies can launch Pension schemes, however on maturity the annuity amount needs to be invested into LIC to get an annuity [monthly pension].


The technical answer is defined by the laws of state you live in but most (all?) states with a sales tax have some form of use tax. Where if you buy something in another state for use in your home state you are technically liable for sales tax on it regardless of whether the merchant charged you tax on it or not. I don't think many people actually pay the use taxes, and enforcement generally seems rare.


If you want to buy once the price goes up to $101 or above you can place a conditional order to be triggered at $101 or above and for a limit order to entered to buy at $102. This will mean that as soon as the price reaches $101 or above, your limit order will enter the market and you will buy at any price from $102 or below. So if the price just trickles over $101 you will end up buying at around $101 or just over $101. However, if the price gaps above $101, say it gaps up to $101.50, then you will end up buying at around $101.50. If the price gaps up above $102, say $102.50, then your limit order at $102 will hit the market but it will not trade until the price drops back to $102 or below.


For cash, SIPC insurance is similar to FDIC insurance. Your losses are not covered, but you're covered in case of fraud. Since your cash is supposed to be in a trust account and not commingled with brokerage's funds, in case of bankruptcy you would still have your cash unless there was fraud.


Agree with the above poster regarding causation vs. correlation. Unless you can separate out the variables questions like this are somewhat impossible to answer.  Additionally, one of the fundamental issues is the Agency Problem. Depending on the fee structure the advisor might be more interested in their own self benefit then yours.


Having worked at a financial institution, this is a somewhat simple, two-part solution. 1) The lendor/vendor/financial institution simply turns off the overdraft protection in all its forms. If no funds are available at a pin-presented transaction, the payment is simply declined. No fee, no overdraft, no mess. 2) This sticking point for a recurring transaction, is that merchants such as Netflix, Gold's Gym etc, CHOOSE to allow payments like this, BECAUSE they are assured they are going to get paid by the financial institution. It prevents them from having issues. Only a gift card will not cost you more money than you put in, BUT I know of several institutions, that too many non-payment periods can cause them to cease doing business with you in the future. TL:DR/IMO If you don't want to pay more than you have, gift cards are the way to go. You can re-charge them whenever you choose, and should you run into a problem, simply buy a new card and start over.


"For me, it would be hard to leave all forms of money at home (cash, credit card, debit card.)  There are times when you simply need to have money on hand.  But, here's a simple idea I have that lets you bring your cards with you, yet still puts up a hurdle to curb impulse buying. When you're in a situation where you want to buy something, the card that's in your wallet/purse will be wrapped in your crafted ""reminder envelope.""  You'll see the reminder, which is hopefully enough.  Then, in order to make a purchase you'll need to tear it open.  That should get you to think twice. The one problem with the above is online purchases: If you have memorized your card information, add this rule for yourself:  No online purchases without the payment card present and visible.  (i.e. you also must tear open the envelope for online purchases.)"


"This is not intended as legal advice, and only covers general knowledge I have on the subject of wills as a result of handling my own finances.   Each state of the USA has its own laws on wills and trusts.  You can find these online.  For example, in Kentucky I found state laws here:  http://www.lrc.ky.gov/krs/titles.htm and Title XXXIV is about wills and trusts.  I would recommend reading this, and then talking to a lawyer if it is not crystal clear.   Generally, if a lawyer does not draft your will, then either (1) you have no will, or (2) you use a form or computer program to make a will, that must then be properly witnessed before it is valid.  If you don't have it witnessed properly, then you have no will.  In some states you can have a holographic will, which means a will in your own handwriting.  That's when you have that 3am heart attack, and you get out a pad of paper and write ""I rescind all former wills hereby bequeathing everything to my mistress Samantha, and as to the rest of you go rot in hell. "" One issue with these is that they have to get to court somehow, and someone has to verify the handwriting, and there are often state laws about excluding a current spouse, so you can guess for yourself whether that one might disappear in the fireplace when another family member finds it next to the body or if a court would give it validity. And there can be logic or grammar problems with do it yourself wills, made in your own handwriting, without experience or good references on how to write things out.  Lawyers who have done a bunch of these know what is clear and makes sense.  (1) In Tennessee, where I live, an intestate's property, someone who died with no will, is divided according to the law.  The law looks to find a spouse or relatives to divide the property, before considering giving it to the state.  That might be fine for some people.  It happened once in my family, and was resolved in court with minimal red tape.  But it really depends on the person.  Someone in the middle of an unfinalized divorce, for instance, probably needs a will help to sort out who gets what.   (2) A form will is valid in Tennessee if it is witnessed properly.  That means two witnesses, who sign in yours' and each others' presence.  In theory they can be called to testify that the signature is valid.  In practice, I don't know if this happens as I am not a lawyer. I have found it difficult to find witnesses who will sign a form will, and it is disconcerting to have to ask friends or coworkers for this sort of favor as most people learn never to sign anything without reading it.  But a lawyer often has secretaries that do it...  There is a procedure and a treaty for international wills, which I know about from living overseas. To streamline things, you can get the witnesses to each sign an affidavit after they signed the will.  The affidavit is sworn written testimony of what happened, that they saw the person sign their will and sign in each others' presence, when, where, no duress, etc.  If done correctly, this can be sufficient to prove the will without calling on witnesses.  There is another option (3) you arrange your affairs so that most of your funds are disbursed by banks or brokers holding your accounts.  Option (3) is really cheap, most stock brokers and banks will create a Transfer-On-Death notice on your account for free.  The problem with this is that you also need to write out a letter that explains to your heirs how to get this money, and you need to make sure that they will get the letter if you are dead.  Also, you can't deal with physical goods or appoint a guardian for children this way.  The advantage of a lawyer is that you know the document is correct and according to local law and custom, and also the lawyer might provide additional services like storing the will in his safe.  You can get personalized help that you can not get with a form or computer program."


"The overall standard of living in the USSR actually *increased* when compared to the previous Czarist regime.   Going from a pseudo feudal society to a full blown communist experiment, however, seems to be a rather unsustainable approach to social evolution.   In any case, all ""isms"" tried at large scale -feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism- have been proven to be systemically flawed: they all revolve around arbitrary pyramidal power structures, ignore physical reality, and utilize an abstract metric as their basis, i.e. capital/money."


I'm 23 and working in finance after graduating with a degree in finance from University of Wisconsin. I can tell you that you that if you work hard to get relevant internships during the summer months between semesters, you won't have any issues getting a job in finance. However, if you decide to go the computer science route (like my two roommates did), you won't have any troubles finding a job. However, you will have way more opportunities to choose from if you have relevant internship experience.    Long story short, work hard to get a good GPA and line up internships for the summer, but you should also make sure that you're having fun during the school year.