Question: Confused about employee stock options: How do I afford these?

ISOs (incentive stock options) can be closed out in a cashless transaction. Say the first round vests, 25,000 shares. The stock is worth $7 but your option is to buy at $5 as you say. The broker executes and sells, you get $50,000, with no up front money.  Edit based on comment below - you know they vest over 4 years, but how long before they expire? It stands to reason the longer you are able to hold them, the better a chance the company succeeds, and the price rises.  The article Understanding employer-granted stock options (PDF) offers a nice discussion of different scenarios supporting my answer.

This is a case where you sit down with an advisor or two. There are legal, and tax issues.  When you deposit the cash, or buy a car with it, the large cash transaction will trigger a notice to the US Government. So they will eventually find out.  Before you get to that point you need to know what obligations and consequences you will be facing. Because you don't know if it was a gift, or found money, or if the owner will be back looking for you to return it; therefore you need expert advice.

I'm a CPA and former IRS agent and manager. Whether you are a cash or accrual basis taxpayer, you get to deduct the expense when your card is charged. Think of it this way: You are borrowing from the credit card company or bank that issued the credit card. You take that money to make a purchase of a product or service. You now have an expense and a liability to a third party. When you pay off the liability, you do not get to take a deduction. Your deduction is when you pay for the expense. Depending on what you purchased, you may have to capitalize it.

The correct, legal way to handle this would be to file an amended return for that year (probably best to talk to a CPA).   If you don't have the 1099, the IRS has a process to handle that here.  It sounds like they would just try to contact the employer themselves, but it doesn't say exactly what would happen if the employer is out of business.

For ATMs you should check if the ATM you're going to use accepts the network you're in. If the ATM has the same logo (it should probably have a whole bunch of logos) that is on your card - it should work. I have not encountered an ATM that wouldn't accept a VISA card in Europe, and I travel a lot.

>[**Как заработать деньги без вложений. Пассивный доход! Лучший Интернет заработок 2017 [2:36]**](http://youtu.be/KhoVXuOgCeo)  >>Друзья, в этом видео, вы узнаете, какие проекты в скаме а какие платят. Так же, есть проект, в котором можно заработать без вложений  > [*^Финансовый ^Вектор*](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOABF2yT1SjVqI7RK9aIUg) ^in ^People ^& ^Blogs  >*^5 ^views ^since ^Oct ^2017*  [^bot ^info](/r/youtubefactsbot/wiki/index)

My family business is in Thailand, and I am an Indian citizen, so getting a job in Thailand is not possible. Until I complete Level 1 (if I take the Dec exam), I will have to work in my family business. Then I have will have to shift back to India to find a job while studying for Level 2.   It is highly likely that I will not get a job till I finish Level 2. It is also highly likely I may not complete all 3 Levels in the first attempt.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I read. ""Bloomberg said..."" oh, okay, it must be the EXACT OPPOSITE of what he said. Pretty much.  I can see a need for visas in a few cases. Namely, positions in which the pool is so small that there are not 600 openings in the entire country, LET ALONE 6,000 at one company. I'm talking positions so exclusive that you can list all the candidates in the world in what would pass for an anemic travel brochure at first glance.  Most of these are just companies saying ""We don't want to pay market price for employees, so we'd rather import."" Well, tough shit."


Question: What is the “substantial difference” that might occur in the google shares? [duplicate]

Presumably you're talking about the different share class introduced in the recent stock split, which mean that there are now three Google share classes: Due to the voting rights, Class A shares should be worth more than class C, but how much only time will tell. Actually, one could very well argue that a non-voting share of a company that pays no dividends has no value at all. It's unlikely the markets will see it that way, though.

> because a 5-10% adverse move in an exchange rate is highly consequential to the bottom line.  But... didn't you just describe bitcoin? Rather than a 5-10% in the exchange rate of a stable currency, you're seeing orders of magnitude higher volatility.  It's going up now, but it can flash crash in a second since there is no real backing for the currency.

Most people looking to introduce a water softener to their home and office have opted for salt based water filters. Electronic water softener systems are the best way for water resolution. In this system, water softener unit is periodically recharged with sodium by flushing through with a brine solution. Although these are effective at removing the calcium from your water system they have a number of disadvantages. They are relatively expensive to buy.

Care to support that. I first came to know Buffet in about 1996. No one in history had done what he did for that length of time. He has basically the same track record today, except it's longer.   He may have benefitted from some luck. But I think it's equally likely he did what he did in spite of bad luck. The only thing I'm certain he's been lucky at is being born with a unique memory and brain power.

why can't I just use the same trick with my own shares to make money on the way    down? Because if you sell shares out of your own portfolio, by definition, you are not selling short at all. If you sell something you own (and deliver it) - then there is no short involved. A short is defined as a net negative position - i.e. you sell shares you do not have. Selling shares you own is selling shares you own - no short involved. You must borrow the shares for a short because in the stock market, you must DELIVER. You can not deliver shares you do not own. The stock market does not work on promises - the person who bought the shares expects ownership of them with all rights that gives them. So you borrow them to deliver them, then return them when you buy them back.

Depending on your income, you may owe AMT instead of the taxes from the regular code.  Even if you don't do that, you may hit the place where you have to at least check if you owe AMT. As you probably know, AMT was established early on to catch the wealthiest of tax payers who were able to use various loop holes in the code to pay much less tax than one would expect.  Over time the limits on AMT have not risen with the rising wage gap, and AMT catches an increasing number of tax payers each year.  If the limit is not raised at all for 2010 then it will catch even more people this year.   AMT has worked it's way into the upper-middle class fairly solidly, especially if you exercise stock options whose strike price is significantly different than the current sale price.

Usually I've seen people treat the dividend like a separate cash flow, which is discounted if the company doesn't have a well-established dividend history. I've never really seen dividends rolled into a total return chart (except in the context of an article), probably because dividend reinvestment is a nightmare of record-keeping in a taxable account, and most folks don't do it. One of my brokers (TD Ameritrade) does allow you to plot dividend yield historically on their charts.

I got $26,000/month for Group B.  If they spend $26,000 that gives $390 in fees.  It will take on average 1.5 months for them to pay the credit card company.  With a monthly cost of funds of .04 divide that by 12 and multiply by 1.5, to get a .5% cost for every dollar of customer B spending on cost of funds.  This leads to a $130 cost for a total profit of $260.  I'm sorry for the lost job.  Things like that happen to lots of people.  As long as you're still alive, there's always going to be more opportunities.  Most people only notice a tiny percentage of the opportunities that come their way, and even fewer take advantage of them.


Question: What is best investment which is full recession proof?

Can anyone suggest all type of investments in India which are recession proof? There are no such investments. Quite a few think bullions like Gold tend to go up during recession, which is true to an extent; however there are enough articles that show it is not necessarily true. There are no fool proof investments. The only fool proof way is to mitigate risks. Have a diversified portfolio that has Debt [Fixed Deposits, Bonds] and equity [Stocks], Bullion [Gold], etc. And stay invested for long as the effects tend to cancel out in the long run.

Even if Tesla ends up breaking even or taking a small loss on their cars, they will still end up in the black selling batteries. Tesla wants people to believe they're a car company, and people have fallen for it. They are not though; they're a battery company. They will be making loads selling their batteries, not only to auto makers, but though Solar city as well.

"Even under the executive exemption, see Exemption for Executive Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Section 13(a)(1) as defined by Regulations, 29 CFR Part 541, it seems that a minimum compensation is required. To qualify for the executive employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met: The employee must be compensated on a salary basis (as defined in the regulations) at a rate not less than $455 per week... etc. There is one other possibility under FLSA Section 13(a)(1), as a ""bona fide exempt executive"". Exemption of Business Owners   Under a special rule for business owners, an employee who owns at least a bona fide 20-percent equity   interest in the enterprise in which employed, regardless of the type   of business organization (e.g., corporation, partnership, or other),   and who is actively engaged in its management, is considered a bona   fide exempt executive."

DFP Building Services are providing best decorating and painting services in surrey, UK. Our painters and decorators are fully qualified and time served professionals. We use top quality material to decorate or paint your home and offices. Our refurbishment service includes complete refurbishment, remodeling, plastering, flooring, carpentry whichever is required.

"This is simple tech, but I used Amazon Fresh Pickup a few times. The second time I went I wanted to tell the attendant my order number or my name. He just said, oh we know already, it's coming up. And I just need to tell him whether I want the bags in the back or the trunk.   They collected my license plate info via a reader at the stall and already tied it to my account. There's actually a 4 stage ""loading bar"" indicator that tells you the status right in front of where you park and wait at the stall. I was pretty amazed.  One bar is they read your car plate or got your order number. Two is someone is getting your stuff. Three is the bags are on the way out. Four is time to drive away."

"It's a hard decision to make. Especially without knowing the complete contract details. I would in general stay away from financial ""advisors"" like tecis or other pyramid selling companies (""Strukturvertriebe"" in german). They usually only offer a very limited range of products. In most cases they sell only 1 or 2 products and tell everyone that these offers are the best and fit exactly to the client. I would prefer an insurance broker (requires an education) which could in theory offer any product. Coming to your situation: If you already have a Riester product which is maxed out, I see no point in another private insurance without any aid. The insurance construction allows you to save some taxes but it does cost you a premium. I would buy the funds (preferable ETFs) on my own. This comes down to the question: Does the insurance construction payoff for you for the costs it generates?"

?  The guy claimed that BTC had intrinsic value so I asked him what instrinsic value BTC had.  BTC has literally 0 intrinsic value, it doesn't even exist physically.  I'm not saying the technology is worthless or that it doesn't have value, but it certainly doesn't have intrinsic value.  Gold--you can create things with gold, silver--silver is important in medical applications, can be made into things.  These things have value, even in circumstances where the market disappears or the demand ceases.  A company has intrinsic value in that its assets can be sold off and liquidated for cash--even if they don't generate a single penny.  Gold has intrinsic value in that even if there is no one demanding gold, it can still be useful for something.    If no one wants BTC, you literally can't do anything with it except look at the numbers.  It's the equivalent of hoarding a pile of dust that the market valued for some reason and then the market crashes--what are you going to do with a pile of dust?  Literally nothing except watch it fly in the wind.  It was only worth something because other people valued it.    Block chain is revolutionary tech, but there is no IV with BTC.  BTC and block-chain aren't really even interchangeable--it's like the relationship between a square and a rectangle; a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not necessarily a square.  BTC is block chain but block chain isn't BTC.  Even if BTC fails and dies, there will be something else that takes its place but there is no IV with BTC.  Trying to assign BTC some sort of IV is a misleading.  There are many reasons BTC is revolutionary but it's not because there is some sort of huge IV attached to it.    And where did I ever call BTC a ponzi scheme?  You sound like you got a chip on your shoulder.

Safety shoes were once used by mine workers in South Africa and very few staff across the world. These Shoes were bulky, ugly and were used by men only if they really required strong protection. They come with waterproofing, steel toes, solid leather material to avoid any injuries to the feet. But today, ask any leather safety shoes supplier in Qatar, safety shoes are making fashion statements.


Question: Are dividends the only thing linking stocks to corporate performance?

There is certainly an obligation in some cases of a company to distribute profit, either as dividend or a stock buy back. Activist investors frequently push for one or the other when a company is doing well - sometimes to the detriment of future growth, in some eyes - and can even file shareholder lawsuits (saying the company is not doing its duty to its shareholders by simply holding onto cash).  Apple famously held out from doing either for years under Steve Jobs, and only in the last few years started doing both - a large dividend and a share buy-back which increases the value of remaining shares (as EPS then goes up with fewer shares out there).  Carl Icahn for example is one of those investors in Apple's case [and in many cases!] who put significant pressure, particularly when they were sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars. Ultimately, a (for-profit) corporation's board is tasked with maximizing its shareholder's wealth; as such, it can buy back shares, pay dividends, sell the company, liquidate the company, or expand the company, at its discretion, so long as it can justify to its shareholders that it is still attempting to maximize the value of their holdings.  Companies in their growth phase often don't return any money and simply reinvest - but the long-term hope is to either return money in the form of dividends on profits, or the sale of the company.

CAPITAL MARKETS Cochrane Shaw Capital Management Pty Ltd. SnapshotPeople COMPANY OVERVIEW  Cochrane Shaw Capital Management Pty Ltd. provides investment and securities advisory services to individuals, corporations, accounting firms, and legal practices in Australia. The company offers advice on shares, debentures, superannuation, life insurance, unit trusts, and master fund products, as well as ongoing review on their investment portfolio. Its services include financial planning and investment strategies, superannuation planning, retirement and pension planning, risk insurance management, estate planning, and taxation planning. Cochrane Shaw Capital Management Pty Ltd. was incorporated in 1969 and is based in Melbourne, Australia. As of December 24, 2010, Cochrane Shaw Capital Ma... Detailed Description Suite 2 41 Railway Road Blackburn Melbourne, VIC 3130 Australia Founded in 1969 Phone: 61 3 9894 3788 Fax: 61 3 9894 1015 www.cochraneshaw.com.au KEY EXECUTIVES  Cochrane Shaw Capital Management Pty Ltd. does not have any Key Executives recorded.  SIMILAR PRIVATE COMPANIES BY INDUSTRY  Company Name Region Bluefin Pty. Ltd. Asia 333 Capital Pty Ltd. Asia Grove Research and Advisory Asia Vibraye Holdings Pty. Ltd. Asia Teachers Credit Union Limited Asia RECENT PRIVATE COMPANIES TRANSACTIONS  Type Date Target No transactions available in the past 12 months.

Isn't the premise a bit off?  A *single* minimum wage worker can't afford a *two bedroom* apartment?  What about two earners sharing a one bedroom apartment?  That would make much more sense both for the workers and for housing costs in general.  My wife and I both make much more than minimum wage and we simply choose to live in a one bedroom apartment.  We get to save a lot more and plan for our future.  A two bedroom apartment is a luxury for a single person, not a necessity.  That's like saying he can't afford a brand new Ford F150 either.  No shit.  Live below your means and you life will be much better in the long run.

"What you're looking for are either FX Forwards or FX Futures.   These products are traded differently but they are basically the same thing -- agreements to deliver currency at a defined exchange rate at a future time.   Almost every large venue or bank will transact forwards, when the counterparty (you or your broker) has sufficient trust and credit for the settlement risk, but the typical duration is less than a year though some will do a single-digit multi-year forward on a custom basis.  Then again, all forwards are considered custom contracts.  You'll also need to know that forwards are done on currency pairs, so you'll need to pick the currency to pair your NOK against.  Most likely you'll want EUR/NOK simply for the larger liquidity of that pair over other possible pairs. A quote on a forward will usually just be known by the standard currency pair ticker with a settlement date different from spot.  E.g. ""EUR/NOK 12M"" for the 12 month settlement. Futures, on the other hand, are exchange traded and more standardized.  The vast majority through the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange).  Your broker will need access to one of these exchanges and you simply need to ""qualify"" for futures trading (process depends on your broker).  Futures generally have highest liquidity for the next ""IMM"" expiration (quarterly expiration on well known standard dates), but I believe they're defined for more years out than forwards.   At one FX desk I've knowledge of, they had 6 years worth of quarterly expirations in their system at any one time.  Futures are generally known by a ticker composed of a ""globex"" or ""cme"" code for the currency concatenated with another code representing the expiration.  For example, ""NOKH6"" is 'NOK' for Norwegian Krone, 'H' for March, and '6' for the nearest future date's year that ends in '6' (i.e. 2016).   Note that you'll be legally liable to deliver the contracted size of Krone if you hold through expiration!  So the common trade is to hold the future, and net out just before expiration when the price more accurately reflects the current spot market."

Will buying a flat which generates $250 rent per month be a good decision? Whether investing in real estate is a good decision or not depends on many things, including the current and future supply/demand for rental units in your particular area. There are many questions on this site about this topic, and another answer to this question which already addresses many risks associated with owning property (though there are also benefits to consider). I just want to focus on this point you raised: I personally think yes, because rent adjusts with inflation and the rise in the price of the property is another benefit. Could this help me become financially independent in the long run since inflation is getting adjusted in it? In my opinion, the fact that rental income general adjusts with 'inflation' is a hedge against some types of economic risk, not an absolute increase in value. First, consider buying a house to live in, instead of to rent:  If you pay off your mortgage before your retire, then you have reduced your cost of accommodations to only utilities, property taxes, and repairs. This gives you a (relatively) known, fixed requirement of cash outflows. If the value of property goes up by the time you retire - it doesn't cost you anything extra, because you already own your house. If the value of property goes down by the time you retire, then you don't save anything, because you already own your house. If you instead rent your whole life, and save money each month (instead of paying off a mortgage), then when you retire, you will have a larger amount of savings which you can use to pay your monthly rental costs each month. By the time you retire, your cost of accommodations will be the market price for rent at that time. If the value of property goes up by the time you retire - you will have to pay more on rent. If the value of property goes down by the time you retire, you will save money on rent. You will have larger savings, but your cash outflow will be a little bit less certain, because you don't know what the market price for rent will be. You can see that, because you need to put a roof over your own head, just by existing you bear risk of the cost of property rising. So, buying your own home can be a hedge against that risk. This is called a 'natural hedge', where two competing risks can mitigate each-other just by existing. This doesn't mean buying a house is always the right thing to do, it is just one piece of the puzzle to comparing the two alternatives [see many other threads on buying vs renting on this site, or on google]. Now, consider buying a house to rent out to other people:  In the extreme scenario, assume that you do everything you can to buy as much property as possible. Maybe by the time you retire, you own a small apartment building with 11 units, where you live in one of them (as an example), and you have no other savings. Before, owning your own home was, among other pros and cons, a natural hedge against the risk of your own personal cost of accommodations going up. But now, the risk of your many rental units is far greater than the risk of your own personal accommodations. That is, if rent goes up by $100 after you retire, your rental income goes up by $1,000, and your personal cost of accommodations only goes up by $100. If rent goes down by $50 after you retire, your rental income goes down by $500, and your personal cost of accommodations only goes down by $50. You can see that only investing in rental properties puts you at great risk of fluctuations in the rental market. This risk is larger than if you simply bought your own home, because at least in that case, you are guaranteeing your cost of accommodations, which you know you will need to pay one way or another. This is why most investment advice suggests that you diversify your investment portfolio. That means buying some stocks, some bonds, etc.. If you invest to heavily in a single thing, then you bear huge risks for that particular market. In the case of property, each investment is so large that you are often 'undiversified' if you invest heavily in it (you can't just buy a house $100 at a time, like you could a stock or bond). Of course, my above examples are very simplified. I am only trying to suggest the underlying principle, not the full complexities of the real estate market. Note also that there are many types of investments which typically adjust with inflation / cost of living; real estate is only one of them.

>observe their contractual obligations.    If not having to pay you is part of the deal, then it's not a good deal. Clearly companies have no reason to not just keep that money, and they keep it every chance they get. Why wouldn't they?

I think it's wise to account for those inevitable but unpredictable expenses like car/house repairs and abnormal medical bills when deciding on your emergency fund amount.  So if you average $100/month for car repairs, and you have a 6-month emergency fund, then part of that fund is $600 for car repairs. If your total annual out of pocket for health insurance is $5,000/year, then emergency fund gets $2,500 and so on. This way, you add cushion to your emergency fund to handle those unpredictable but inevitable expenses without setting up a bunch of separate accounts. It doesn't have to be inflexible either, I know my furnace and air conditioner are way past their expected life, so I'm keeping a larger than normal emergency fund. Ultimately it's personal preference, to me, cash is all the same no matter what account it's in, but other people do best by keeping some logical/physical separation of funds intended for different purposes.

You can follow the intra-day NAV of an ETF, for instance SPY, by viewing its .IV (intra-day value) ticker which tracks it's value.   http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=spy http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^SPY-IV Otherwise, each ETF provider will update their NAV after business each day on their own website. https://www.spdrs.com/product/fund.seam?ticker=spy


Question: Are 'no interest if paid in in x months' credit cards worth it?

You can't buy it outright. You can't take the time to save up. if the remaining choice is between a card that charges from day one, and a card with this kind of grace period, the grace card is the better choice. Plan wisely, pay it in full before that rate starts to be charged. One additional note - There are two groups of people, the pay-in-fullers and the balance carriers. I believe that one should pay in full, and never pay interest.  A zero rate offer can be used by the balance carrier to feel great for 12 months, but have even more debt after the rate kicks in.  As a pay-in-full user, I've used the zero rate to throw $20K at the 5.25% mortgage, and planned a refinance to 3.5% just as it ended. a $750 savings (after the tax effect) well worth the bit of effort.  The fees should be in the fine print. My zero rate had a transfer fee, $50 max, which was nothing in comparison to the savings.

">The culture does, indeed, glorify all the best parts of startup-dom and creates a toughness challenge that renders ""no, this may not be a good idea"" unfalsifiable because failure are personal while successes are cultural.   At this point, the same can be said for American capitalism as a whole."

Gout medicine (brought to the U.S. by Ben Franklin from France) Colchesin used to be $4 per bottle.. I went to refill my prescription and it was $980.00 for a bottle... They were now $4.00 per PILL. The FDA let one company have the monopoly.

"The issues of trading with unsettled funds are usually restricted to cash accounts.  With margin, I've never personally heard of a rule that will catch you in this scenario.  You won't be able to withdraw funds that are tied up in unsettled positions until the positions settle.  You should be able to trade those funds.  I've never heard of a broker charging margin interest on unsettled funds, but that doesn't mean there isn't a broker somewhere that does. Brokers are allowed to impose their own restrictions, however, since margin is basically offering you a line of credit.  You should check to see if your broker has more restrictive rules. I'd guess that you may have heard about restrictions that apply to cash accounts and think they may also apply to margin accounts.  If that's the case and you want to learn more about the rules generally, try searching for these terms: You should be able to find a lot of clear resources on those terms.  Here's one that's current and provides examples: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/avoiding-cash-trading-violations On a margin account you avoid these issue because the margin (essentially a loan from your broker) provides a cushion / additional funds that avoid the issues.  It is possible that if you over-extend yourself that you'll get a ""margin call,"" but that seems to be different than what you're asking and maybe worth a new question if you want to know about that."

"AFAIK, there are two kinds of taxes your web freelancing income may be subject to in Quebec: On the income taxes:  The net income you realize from your web freelancing activities would be considered taxable income.  Assuming you are not operating as an incorporated business, you would need to declare the freelancing income on both your federal and provincial tax returns.  You should be able to deduct certain costs related to your business – for instance, if you paid for software, hosting, domain name registration, etc.  That is, only the profit from your business would be subject to income tax.  With income and expenses arising from self-employment, you may want to use a professional to file your taxes. On the sales taxes: You may also need to charge federal GST and provincial QST (Quebec Sales Tax) on your services:  You must enroll and charge GST and QST once you exceed the ""small supplier"" revenue threshold of $30,000 measured over four consecutive quarters.  (You can still choose to enroll for GST/QST before you reach that amount, but over that amount enrollment becomes mandatory.  Some businesses enroll before the threshold is reached so they can claim input tax credits for tax paid on expenses, but then there's more paperwork – one reason to perhaps avoid enrolling until necessary.) In Quebec, the Ministère du Revenu du Québec administers both GST (on behalf of the federal government) as well as provincial QST.  Be sure to also check out their informative booklet, Should I Register with Revenu Quebec? (PDF).  See also General Information Concerning the QST and the GST/HST (PDF)."

"I am admittedly not giving a scientific or mathematical analysis here, just giving my anecdotal take on what I've lived through. I don't know if my assessment of 'tripled' is even accurate, just that there's a palpable sense of things being a lot more expensive & it just seems to me that the cost of living has gone up quite a bit for average people from what it once was, especially considering most of us now have cable bills, internet costs and in my case several different cell phone bills for different members of the family. I realize these are not necessities but they are important things that most people are now expected to have. I didn't mean to imply that we've had ""insane"" inflation & I understand that these things are mathematically measured as both Core inflation and CPI and by these measures things have held pretty steady. It just seems to me that these sorts of indexes have not yet taken a lot of things into account regarding the realities of modern day living and their resultant expenses."

My parents owned 5 bowling centers throughout my childhood. Summer is the toughest time for a bowling alley. Open play is down because people want to be outside. Leagues run August-May and the majority of league bowlers want to take the summer off. Leagues are guaranteed revenue week to week. Summer months were usually break-even.   Does this center have a bar? That's a significant portion of revenue, especially in the summer.

If your employer matches a percentage of your contributions, then you should try to max out your plan. Once you have completed maxing out your 401k, you may want to open up an IRA for several reasons: will your 401k be enough to sustain your lifestyle in retirement? Your IRA allows you to save even more for retirement. you can invest in all sorts of stuff through your IRA that might not be available in your plan. you can withdraw the principal from your IRA, usually after five years. This serves as another form of savings. IRAs have some asset protection in the event of bankruptcy. A normal savings or investment account usually does not offer such protection.


Question: To rebalance or not to rebalance

"An asset allocation formula is useful because it provides a way to manage risk. Rebalancing preserves your asset allocation. The investment risk of a well-diversified portfolio (with a few ETFs or mutual funds in there to get a wide range of stocks, bonds, and international exposure) is mostly proportional to the asset class distribution. If you started out with half-stocks and half-bonds, and stocks surged 100% over the past few years while bonds have stayed flat, then you may be left with (say) 66% stocks and 33% bonds. Your portfolio is now more vulnerable to future stock market drops (the risk associated with stocks). (Most asset allocation recommendations are a little more specific than a stock/bond split, but I'm sure you can get the idea.) Rebalancing can be profitable because it's a formulaic way to enforce you to ""buy low, sell high"". Massive recessions notwithstanding, usually not everything in your portfolio will rise and fall at the same time, and some are actually negatively correlated (that's one idea behind diversification, anyway). If your stocks have surged, chances are that bonds are cheaper. This doesn't always work (repeatedly transferring money from bonds into stocks while the market was falling in 2008-2009 could have lost you even more money). Also, if you rebalance frequently, you might incur expenses from the trading (depending on what sort of financial instrument you're holding). It may be more effective to simply channel new money into the sector that you're light on, and limit the major rebalancing of the portfolio so that it's just an occasional thing. Talk to your financial adviser. :)"

Sorry, it appears not, according to http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2008/508/perspectives/p12.htm: ...and the election to make Roth 401(k) contributions (these are after-tax contributions) is irrevocable.  Fairmark says the same thing. PS, don't complain too loudly, given the reason for the problem. :)

They need to go 'software and services' - I had a Nokia in the day with a BB client, not sure if they still integrate with 3rd parties. They could cut their losses and revamp as the secure business solutions for iOS, Android and Windows phone.

In short - if you can't get the job without incorporating, then incorporate! Some clients will require you to be incorporated (which is why I did it 10 years ago).  Essentially, for them, it's a way of distancing themselves from you to ensure they are not responsible for any monies if you don't pay your taxes.  For you, there is also this idea of distancing company assets from your personal assets.  If they are not requiring you to incorporate, you can simply act as a sole proprietorship.  A good place to start reading up could be the sites below (for Canada/Ontario): Canada Business http://sbinfocanada.about.com/ http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/incorporation/Incorporating_A_Business_In_Canada.htm http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/startup/a/incorporatadv.htm When I registered, I simply bought a book at Grand&Toy, with all the required forms for Ontario.  These forms would also be available at a local Government service centre. You walk in, give the government money, and shortly thereafter you are incorporated. There are a number of others things that are required (having a minutes book, writing resolutions, creating shares, setting up a bank account, etc) - all discussed in the guide For Ontario you can start here: http://www.ontario.ca/en/services_for_business/index.htm At a high level, there are some costs for being incorporated, and some tax savings.  At a minimum, costs would include: You may need the help of an account to help set things up, but it's quite easy to maintain all the records, etc that are required.   Some other minor things I enjoy are writing myself expense cheques so that I get money back immediately (and effectively only pay 60% of the cost after writing it off in the company). I can decide how much to pay myself and push income from year to year.

I'm on an M&A team for IT and you should temper your expectations. The due diligence teams (those guys that get a first look) usually don't know enough shit to understand the ramifications for their initial decisions and it just gets worse. The incentive is to underfund the M&A nearly every single time. Projects run long, some shit in IT never completes and dies on the vine after ten years. Management on the A side stops giving a shit, their good employees with the actual knowledge leave almost immediately... Documentation? None. Process adoption? None. Worthwhile employees? Already gone. M&As should just be renamed Murphys because they are all just real life examples of Murphy's law. How many M&As have I seen? 18. Across multiple  fortune 100s. How many were completed by the time the investors were told they would be done? 18. How many were actually done at that point? 2-3? It is literally herding cats.   M&As are a necessary evil for markets but they are almost always absolute shit.

>>Mark Robinson, a lawyer for plaintiff Eva Echeverria, said outside the courtroom that J&J should start warning women immediately about the risks of its talcum powder.  This isn't how a company loses a lawyer or even a law firm, letting  verdicts averaging $75 million turn into $400 million+ because you won't warn users - that's how you lose a CEO.

If this is OPs outlook on starting something new, I'd say it's failed before it started. You'll never survive the toughness of selling people on new ideas if this is the mindset before the first pilot was tested. You have to lead people through it, you don't just create and walk away with success.   OP - not to be a prick - but you don't have it. You might later at some point or maybe this will motivate you to prove me wrong. But you quit before you even started. This particular idea is DOA

As another answer started, this information comes straight from an exchange and generally costs a fortune . . . However things change: IEX, a new exchange, recently opened and they are offering real time bid/ask data for free. Here's the API description: https://www.iextrading.com/developer/ This data should be good for active securities, but for securities less actively traded the numbers might be stale.


Question: How can I compare the risk of different investing opportunities?

Let us consider the risks in the investment opportunities: Now, what are the returns in each of the investment: What are the alternatives to these investments, then?

"To expand on keshlam's answer: A direct feed does not involve a website of any kind.  Each exchange publishes its order/trade feed(s) onto a packet network where subscribers have machines listening and reacting. Let's call the moment when a trade occurs inside an exchange's matching engine ""T0"".  An exchange then publishes the specifics of that trade as above, and the moment when that information is first available to subscribers is T1.  In some cases, T1 - T0 is a few microseconds; in other (notorious) cases, it can be as much as 100 milliseconds (100,000x longer). Because it's expensive for a subscriber to run a machine on each exchange's network -- and also because it requires a team of engineers devoted to understanding each exchange's individual publication protocols -- it seems unlikely that Google pays for direct access.  Instead Google most likely pays another company who is a subscriber on each exchange around the world (let's say Reuters) to forward their incoming information to Google.  Reuters then charges Google and other customers according to how fast the customer wants the forwarded information.  Reuters has to parse the info it gets at T1, check it for errors, and translate it into a format that Google (and other customers) can understand.  Let's say they finish all that work and put their new packets on the internet at time T2. Then the slow crawl across the internet begins.  Some 5-100 milliseconds later your website of choice gets its pre-processed data at time T3.  Even though it's preprocessed, your favorite website has to unpack the data, store it in some sort of database, and push it onto their website at time T4. A sophisticated website might then force a refresh of your browser at time T4 to show you the new information.  But this forced refresh involves yet another slow crawl across the internet from where your website is based to your home computer, competing with your neighbor's 24/7 Netflix stream, etc.  Then your browser (with its 83 plugins and banner ads everywhere) has to refresh, and you finally see the update at T5. So, a thousand factors come into play, but even assuming that Google is doing the most expensive and labor-intensive thing it can and that all the networks between you and Google and the exchange are as short as they can be, you're not going to hear about a trade -- even a massive, market-moving trade -- for anywhere from 500 milliseconds to 5 seconds after T0.  And in a more realistic world that time will be 10-30 seconds. This is what Google calls ""Realtime"" on that disclaimer page, because they feel they're getting that info to you as fast as they possibly can (for free). Meanwhile, the computers that actually subscribe to an exchange heard about the trade way back at time T1 and acted on that information in a few microseconds.  That's almost certainly before T2 and definitely way way before T3.  The market for a particular instrument could change direction 5 times before Google even shows the first trade. So if you want true realtime access, you must subscribe to the exchange feed or, as keshlam suggests, sign up with a broker that provides its own optimized market feeds to you. (Note: This is not an endorsement of trading through brokers.)"

I like Applebees and IHOP, but I don't go often anymore because I find I can make the same food much cheaper at home. The pressure to cut costs also stem from lack of increase in pay year after year. Even though the news crows about unemployment decreasing, I don't get the sense that pay is necessarily increasing significantly.

So now you don't believe that any bottled spring water actually comes from a spring?  They don't just scoop it out of a pool.  They build a processing tap at a point underground but it has to be tapped from a water source which would naturally flow to the surface  http://www.absopure.com/blog/absopure-unfiltered/difference-between-spring-water-and-purified-water/

If I hire someone in Utah to do sales for me over the phone, and he   works out of his home, am I required to register an LLC or file my   current one as a foreign entity in Utah? Yes, since you've established presence in Utah. You'll register your current LLC in Utah, no point creating another one. If my sales guy, or I, call businesses in, say, Florida, and sell a   few businesses our services for online work like maybe a website   design, etc. Are we required to file our LLC In Florida as either a   new LLC or a foreign one? No, you need to register where you (your company, including your employees or physical offices) are physically present. You don't need to register in any state you ship products or provide services to. If no-one of your company's employees is present in Florida and you don't have an office/rent a storage there - then you have no presence in Florida. If you actually go there to provide the services - then you do.

If IQ correlates directly with intelligence regardless of race or culture then African Americans are on average a full standard deviation stupider than white people.  They specifically say that is not true, there is no genetic explanation. Therefore there's an issue with the test. How exactly is that hard to understand.  One of those two things has to be true. Blacks(and for that matter every other race) are stupider than whites or IQ doesn't measure intelligence.

Great idea! So lets make Trader Joes in locations where people need living wages, like the ghetto, because that has been working. /s  You make a store that makes a premium selling to the upper middle class, and can afford to pay their workers more because of these better margins from their abnormally higher prices. It doesn't work in areas where cheap food is a necessity. These kinds of stores can't sell in all economic classes so these stores giving living wages don't solve any issues we have regarding wage. Gentrification doesn't work so I don't see why I keep seeing articles talk about Trader Joes suddenly solving our minimum wage debate. If I see a company that rivals Walmart in price, yet can give a living wage while still being profitable, then we have something. Costco is what comes to mind, and to be honest it's probably the best example we can take from a good business that is able to give a decent wage for unskilled labor while still being profitable. The issue is, not everyone can afford to spend $100 to buy 20 jars of nutella to save 10 cents a jar to rival Walmart's savings.

"Do I understand correctly, that we still can file as ""Married filing   jointly"", just add Schedule C and Schedule SE for her? Yes. Business registration information letter she got once registered   mentions that her due date for filing tax return is January 31, 2016.   Does this prevent us from filing jointly (as far as I understand, I   can't file my income before that date)? IRS sends no such letters. IRS also doesn't require any registration. Be careful, you might be a victim to a phishing attack here. In any case, sole proprietor files a regular individual tax return with the regular April 15th deadline. Do I understand correctly that we do not qualify as ""Family   partnership"" (I do not participate in her business in any way other   than giving her money for initial tools/materials purchase)? Yes. Do I understand correctly that she did not have to do regular   estimated tax payments as business was not expected to generate income   this year? You're asking or saying? How would we know what she expected? In any case, you can use your withholding (adjust the W4) to compensate."


Question: Why buy a vertical spread if I could instead buy a naked call?

"Figured it out.  Vertical spreads significantly reduce the amount of ""buying power"" on the account needed vs. buying / selling pure calls / puts.  So even though the transaction fees may more double in some instances, it may be worth it in order to operate with pricier underlying instruments. Spreads are also considered ""defined risk"" trades where both the profit and loss are capped per how the spreads are setup.  This is compared to single calls / puts where either the upside or the downside can be unlimited.  So for times when the expected move is not as pronounced, a spread may be a better fit depending on environment and other factors."

I view it as a “zero sum game” from the perspective of the customer. Don’t tell me that my meal is $25 when EVERYONE KNOWS that it’s actually, $25 + $5 tip = $30. Just make the menu price $30 and pay people properly. It’s the exact same cost for a customer. Then, if a tip is left, it is truly a tip for the worker(s) and not the majority of their earnings.   And before anyone chimes in to tell me that servers like to tax-dodge on their unreported earnings... Yeah, so would we all. In the same way that we’d never pay a Doctor, Accountant, Soldier, or Teacher a fraction of their pay and then hope that the people they serve were in a good mood to give them a little something extra, neither should we do this to tipped workers.

As the other answers suggest, there are a number of ways of going about it and the correct one will be dependent on your situation (amount of equity in your current house, cashflow primarily, amount of time between purchase and sale). If you have a fair amount of equity (for example, $50K mortgage remaining on a house valued at $300K), I'll propose an option that's similar to bridge financing: Place an offer on your new house. Use some of your equity as part of the down payment (eg, $130K). Use some more of your equity as a cash buffer to allow you pay two mortgages in between the purchase and the sale (eg, $30K). The way this would be executed is that your existing mortgage would be discharged and replaced with larger mortgage. The proceeds of that mortgage would be split between the down payment and cash as you desire. Between the closing of your purchase and the closing of your sale, you'll be paying two mortgages and you'll be responsible for two properties. Not fun, but your cash buffer is there to sustain you through this. When the sale of your new home closes, you'll be breaking the mortgage on that house. When you get the proceeds of the sale, it would be a good time to use any lump sum/prepayment privileges you have on the mortgage of the new house.  You'll be paying legal fees for each transaction and penalties for each mortgage you break. However, the interest rates will be lower than bridge financing. For this reason, this approach will likely be cheaper than bridge financing only if the time between the closing of the two deals is fairly long (eg, at least 6 months), and the penalties for breaking mortgages are reasonable (eg, 3 months interest). You would need the help of a good mortgage broker and a good lawyer, but you would also have to do your own due diligence - remember that brokers receive a commission for each mortgage they sell. If you won't have any problems selling your current house quickly, bridge financing is likely a better deal. If you need to hold on to it for a while because you need to fix things up or it will be harder to sell, you can consider this approach.

No no it's real good man, I mean there's a chance you'll die from heat stroke or get beaten to death for trying to escape since your employer took your passport, but it's great for the consumer who doesn't give a shit and just wants to watch the world cup.  Hope you end up in a service job with a boss that shits down your throat every time you take a piss break you entitled punk.

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I've done my taxes using turbotax for years and they were not simple, Schedule C (self-employed), rental properties, ESPP, stock options, you name it. It's a lot of work and occasionally i did find bugs in TurboTax. ESPP were the biggest pain surprisingly. The hardest part is to get all the paperwork together and you'd have to do it when you hire an accountant anyway. That said this year i am using an accountant as i incorporated and it's a whole new area for me that i don't have time to research. Also in case of an audit i'd rather be represented by a pro. I think the chance of getting audited is smaller when a CPA prepares your return.

The 'same day rule' in the UK is a rule for matching purposes only.  It says that sales on any day are matched firstly with purchases made on the same day for the purposes of ascertaining any gain/loss. Hence the phrase 'bed-and-breakfast' ('b&b') when you wish to crystalise a gain (that is within the exempt amount) and re-establish a purchase price at a higher level.  You do the sale on one day, just before the market closes, which gets matched with your original purchase, and then you buy the shares back the next day, just after the market opens.  This is standard tax-planning.  Whenever you have a paper gain, and you wish to lock that gain out of being taxed, you do a bed-and-breakfast transaction, the idea being to use up your annual exemption each and every year.  Of course, if your dealing costs are high, then they may outweigh any tax saved, and so it would be pointless. For the purpose of an example, let's assume that the UK tax year is the same as the calendar year. Scenario 1. Suppose I bought some shares in 2016, for a total price of Stg.50,000. Suppose by the end of 2016, the holding is worth Stg.54,000, resulting in a paper gain of Stg.4,000. Question.  Should I do a b&b transaction to make use of my Stg.11,100 annual exemption ? Answer.  Well, with transaction costs at 1.5% for a round-trip trade, suppose, and stamp duty on the purchase of 0.5%, your total costs for a b&b will be Stg1,080, and your tax saved (upon some future sale date) assuming you are a 20% tax-payer is 20%x(4,000-1,080) = Stg584 (the transaction costs are deductible, we assume).  This does not make sense. Scenario 2. The same as scenario 1., but the shares are worth Stg60,000 by end-2016. Answer.  The total transaction costs are 2%x60,000 = 1,200 and so the taxable gain of 10,000-1,200 = 8,800 would result in a tax bill of 20%x8,800 = 1,760 and so the transaction costs are lower than the tax to be saved (a strict analysis would take into account only the present value of the tax to be saved), it makes sense to crystalise the gain.  We sell some day before the tax year-end, and re-invest the very next day. Scenario 3. The same as scenario 1., but the shares are worth Stg70,000 by end-2016. Answer.  The gain of 20,000 less costs would result in a tax bill for 1,500 (this is: 20%x(20,000 - 2%x70,000 - 11,100) ).  This tax bill will be on top of the dealing costs of 1,400.  But the gain is in excess of the annual exemption.  The strategy is to sell just enough of the holding to crystallise a taxable gain of just 11,100. The fraction, f%, is given by: f%x(70,000-50,000) - 2%xf%x70,000 = 11,100 ... which simplifies to: f% = 11,100/18,600 = 59.68%. The tax saved is 20%x11,100 = 2,220, versus costs of 2%x59.58%x70,000 = 835.52. This strategy of partial b&b is adopted because it never makes sense to pay tax early ! End.

Oh man. I love a dumb semantic argument with a troll. So troll, what exactly is the difference in this context between 'powers' and 'rights' and why does it matter so much that you need so very badly to point it out to everyone?


Question: Calculate Future Value with Recurring Deposits

Using the following values: The formula for the future value of an annuity due is d*(((1 + i)^t - 1)/i)*(1 + i) See Calculating The Present And Future Value Of Annuities In an annuity due, a deposit is made at the beginning of a period and the interest is received at the end of the period.  This is in contrast to an ordinary  annuity, where a payment is made at the end of a period. The formula is derived, by induction , from the summation of the future values of every deposit.  The initial value, with interest accumulated for all periods, can simply be added. So the overall formula is

"Currently, the quantity theory of money is widely accepted as an accurate model of inflation in the long run. Consequently, there is now broad agreement among economists that in the long run, the inflation rate is essentially dependent on the growth rate of money supply. However, in the short and medium term inflation may be affected by supply and demand pressures in the economy, and influenced by the relative elasticity of wages, prices and interest rates - Wikipedia: Inflation causes You also asked ""can you give any reference that explains that this [encouraging people to work] is one of the reasons government prints money?"" See the list of positive effects of inflation in that article."

Hmmmm, 1 or 2, yeah, maybe they were not a good fit for one reason or another. but 5?? Really, you gotta start thinking that maybe, just maybe, there's a chance that's Trump's the problem. #justsayin'  is all.

Nearly $1.0M sounds like a lot if you're installing furnaces or fixing cars, but how does the salary for the CEO of PBS compare to other broadcasters? [According to Wikipedia, the CEO of CBS made $69.9M in 2011.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Moonves)  I think that a salary of 1.4% of a comparable peer would have made an interesting fact for this article, but nothing of the sort is provided.   The author clearly has a bias - Romney spin-doctoring. Not worth the read.

What Jaydles said. I think of each strategy in terms of Capital at Risk (CaR). It's a good thing to know when considering any position. And then conveniently, the return is always profit / CaR. With covered calls it's pretty easy. Pay $1000 for stock, receive $80 in premium, net CaR is $920.  If you own the stock and write calls many times (that expire worthless, or you that you buy back), there are two measurements to consider. First, treat every covered call as a buy-write. Even if you already own the stock, disregard the real cost basis, and calculate from the moment you write the call, using the stock price at that time. The second measure is more complicated, but involves using something like the XIRR function in a spreadsheet. This tracks the series as a whole, even accounting for times where there is no written call outstanding. For the written put, even though your broker may only require 30% collateral in a margin account, mentally treat them as cash-secured. Strike less premium is your true CaR. If the stock goes to zero by expiration, that's what you're on the hook for. You could just compute based on the 30% collateral required, but in my view that confuses cash/collateral needs with true risk. Note: a written put is exactly identical to a covered call at the same strike. If you tend to favor puts over CCs, ask yourself why. Just like a loaded gun, leverage isn't inherently bad, but you sure want to know when you're using it.

Buy an accounting for MBA's book and go through that.  It's the absolute base of finance.  I can't see how you can even wrap your head around most of the articles in FT or in the Economist if you don't know what a balance sheet, income statement, cashflow statement or statement of shareholders equity is.    This is absolutely a requirement for any understanding of the finance sector, or you'll become just another schmoe on CNBC.

I would say the Japanese economy is a bit different to Greece. It's still quite large. It's been in recession or stagnation for the last 2 decades or so.  One major problem for Japan is its aging population. Japan has the oldest population in the world (average is 42). This is a problem in terms of old age pensions, decreasing workforce, etc. in addition to low birth rates. Many young people have fewer kids, or [just none at all!](http://gaijinchronicles.com/2010/08/31/plight-of-the-grass-eater/)  While that doesn't sound good, the difference with Greece is they're close to bankruptcy, Japan isn't. Also Japan gets to somewhat control their currency, or at least, their economy is the primary thing affecting the currency, unlike Greece which is in a monetary union and so are not able to devalue their currency.

"If you need to transfer a larger amount than the $14K/person/person limit, one accepted workaround is to structure it as a loan, then gift the payments over the duration of the loan. There are ""intra-family mortgage"" companies which specialize in setting up this kind of transaction. Note that this doesn't allow you to give more without penalty, it just lets you transfer the actual cash earlier, in exchange for some bookkeeping overhead and some fees for the legal processing and mortgage registration."


Question: Wage earners of age ≥ 60 with dependents: What Life Insurance, if any, should they buy?

"The problem above is actually a pretty good list of the concerns around life insurance.  While there is no correct answer to the question as posed, this will vary among different WSCs, there is a simpler way to think about insurance in general that may make finding what is right answer for you easier. Buying life insurance, like almost all insurance, is on average a money losing purchase.  This is simply because the companies selling wouldn't offer it if they couldn't expect to make money on it.  Think about buying insurance (a warranty) on a new cell phone, maybe if you are particularly prone to damaging cell phones it can be in your favor, but for most of the people that buy it will lose money on average. People, of course, still buy insurance anyway to protect themselves from unlikely but very bad consequences.  The big reason to make this trade off is if the loss will have big lasting consequences.  To stay with our cell phone example having to replace a cell phone, at least for me, would be annoying but not a catastrophic event.  For myself, the protection is not worth the warranty cost, but that is not true for everyone. Life insurance is a pretty extreme case of this, but I find the best question to ask is ""if you (you and your spouse) were to die will your dependents lives become so much worse that you really dislike the idea of not being insured?"" For some working seniors, they already have enough saved to bridge their kids/spouse to adulthood/old-age that insurance makes no sense.  For some, their children/husband/wife would be destitute and insurance is an obvious choice and an easy price to pay even if it is very high.  The example you suggest seems on the border and good questions to ask are: Thinking about those questions may help you understand if the protection offers is worth the cost."

The US prefers an endless conflict.  It is an excuse to keep large military forces in the heart of Asia, and endless war helps line pockets of well connected folks in DC.    The point of US wars tends to be justifying huge Pentagon budgets and enriching the owners of the Military Industrial complex.  At its heart, the purpose is to extract wealth from US Tax Payers in a way they are unlikely to oppose because of propaganda related to security and patriotism.

There are a lot of people speculating that Facebook will use the money they got from this to buy companies that could be used to turn their user base into more income.  With the stocks dropping in value, it might even be a good time to invest in them.

You sell when you think the stock is over valued, or you need the money, or you are going to need the money in the next 5 years. I buy and hold a lot.  I bought IBM in 8th grade 1980.  I still own it.  I bought 3 share it from $190 and its now worth $5,000 do to dividend reinvestment and splits.  That stock did nothing for a thirteen years except pay a dividend but then it went up by 1800% the next 20 and paid dividends.  So I agree with other posters the whole pigs get slaughtered thing is silly and just makes fund managers more money. Think if you bought aapl at $8 and sold at $12.  The thing went to 600 and split 7-1 and is back to $120.   My parents made a ton holding Grainger for years and I have had good success with MMM and MSFT owning those for decades.

"Lotteries are like the inverse of insurance policies. Instead of paying money to mitigate the impact of an unlikely event which is extremely negative, you are paying money to obtain a chance of experiencing an unlikely event which is extremely positive. One thing to keep in mind regarding lotteries is the diminishing marginal utility of money. If you know you'll never use more than say $100 million in your entire life, no matter how much money you might acquire, then buying tickets for lotteries where the grand prize is over $100 million stops being increasingly ""worth the price of entry"". Personally, I'd rather play a lottery where the grand prize is sub-100 million, and where there are no prizes which are sub-1 million, because I do not believe that any other amounts of winnings are going to be life-changing for me in a way that I am likely to fully appreciate."

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A very logical step for Starbucks and a smart business decision. This is especially true for the crowd that comes to hang out at their stores for the free wifi and can be there for over an hour. Having good food options will keep them there instead of making them leave to spend their money elsewhere.

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Question: What is the meaning of realization in finance?

Realization is, literally, when something is made real. For example, let's say that you own some stock.  You bought the stock for $1000, and after many years the stock is worth $10,000.  Your investment has gained $9,000.  However, you don't actually have this $10,000; you just own stock that is supposedly worth $10,000 on paper.  Tomorrow, the value of the stock could plummet and only be worth $8,000.  But if you sell your stock today and obtain this $10,000, the gain has now become real.  You have realized a $9,000 gain. In investing, realization of a gain or loss occurs when an asset that you own has been sold for more or less than what you purchased it for.  Before the asset is sold, you only have a theoretical gain or loss based on what you might receive if you sold the asset today.  And tomorrow, that theoretical gain or loss could change.

"The way to invest money in a company is to buy its shares, or derivatives of its shares. However, it seems you're way in over your head. Don't buy what you don't understand.  There is plenty of material to teach you about stock investing on the internet. However, a book may be the fastest way to learn what you need to know. And yes, there is a ""for dummies"" book about that: Stock Investing ForDummies. I just found it by Googling, I'm sure you can find even more interesting books out there. (Note, the link is to the ""cheat sheet"" in the back of the book. The full book is worth reading.)"

This could backfire.  I was a field service engineer for Ford Motor Company in the early 1990s, and they offered an extended unlimited mileage warranty to customers (at an additional cost of just under $1000 per vehicle.)  Several fleet customers bought hundreds of vehicles and began driving them 24/7 - we had several trucks that we chose to buy back from customers that had exceeded 500,000 miles in just a couple of years.  People will take advantage if you give them an opening.

"Yes they were quite shady and terrible on many fronts. They hired 40-50 yr old business solution guys and 1/3rd of new hires quit within 6 months. Wowza.  Didn't know about hackathons and ""startup weekends"" having prowling companies, makes sense though... Was never interested in such things. Also I am female so I kind of fear being  physically in places with disproportionate gender ratios/where I stand out... But that's probably stupid in a professional setting?"

"I worked for a major retailer that offered such extended warranties.  Our profit margin on these ""product protection plans"" was ~80%.  That should tell you something about how much they are ""worth"" to the consumer."

"Consider the futures market. Traders buy and sell gold futures, but very few contracts, relatively speaking, result in delivery. The contracts are sold, and ""Open interest"" dwindles to near zero most months as the final date approaches. The seller buys back his short position, the buyer sells off his longs.  When I own a call, and am 'winning,' say the option that cost me $1 is now worth $2, I'd rather sell that option for even $1.95 than to buy 100 shares of a $148 stock. The punchline is that very few option buyers actually hope to own the stock in the end. Just like the futures, open interest falls as expiration approaches."

Yea read a few books or watch some videos on YouTube on fundamental analysis and try it using excel. It's probably not what you'll be doing if you get a degree in finance, and you might even end up in accounting like I did, but its a good place to start to see if you like it or not.  It also exposes you to accounting, business, the politics of business, taxation, financial statements, EDGAR and all the other interesting and important stuff.  You might want to pick up a study guide for the CPA exam BEC. Lots of very interesting stuff in there about business in general including how the board of directors works, and taxation. It's an awesome read.

">""We expect to have a small U.S. income tax liability for 2010,"" GE chief spokesman Gary Sheffer told us. How big is small? GE declined to say. The number is unlikely to ever be disclosed unless GE goes public with it, or is forced to do so.  Again, not a billion dollars. Unfortunately I am not skilled enough in accounting to be able to decipher that spreadsheet but I do appreciate your providing so many links, I didn't notice them earlier. Still, I find no evidence that GE is any more likely to have paid a billion dollars in taxes than a nickel."


Question: Which Roth IRA is the best for a 21 year old who has about $1500?

Your question seems like you don't understand what a Roth IRA is. A Roth IRA isn't an investment, per se. It is just a type of account that receives special tax treatment.  Just like a checking and savings account are different at a bank, a ROTH IRA account is just flagged as such by a brokerage. It isn't an investment type, and there aren't really different ROTH IRA accounts.  You can invest in just about anything inside that account so that is what you need to evaluate. One Roth IRA account is as good as any other.As to what to invest your money in inside a ROTH, that is a huge question and off-topic per the rules against specific investing advice.

My wife tells me that Etsy used to be all nice hand made stuff and now it is getting over run with cheap crap.  She says they don't have good quality standards to hold the merchants to.  Sounds like an opportunity to me!

It's not just about price. Uber and other rideshare companies provide several other things better than cabs:  * However they do it, whether monitoring GPS or sensor data from the phone, rideshares incentivize drivers to accelerate and brake gently, as well as go the speed limit. Cab drivers, in my experience, drive like assholes. * By using the star rating system, rideshares incentivize drivers and riders to act like civilized people. Cab drivers, in my experience, don't give a shit. * By charging for time as well as mileage, rideshares incentivize drivers to take their time and get people where they want to be. Cab drivers, in my experience, want people out of the car as quickly as possible so they can get to their next fare. * Rideshares made it an effective part time job as well as a full time job. A driver can pick their own schedule and drive when they're available. One can make a living or just make some extra money.  And my description of their business model is correct. Again, it's not just pricing. The medallion system ensures that a driver starts out in debt. It is a barrier to entry. It also ties a driver's retirement to a supply/demand market of a commodity. It's an artificial barrier that blocks supply/demand of people willing to fill the role in a market. All of this allows cab companies to charge whatever they bloody well please and pay their drivers shit wages, which is probably the reason they drive and act like assholes.

A CPA or Enrolled Agent can be helpful, especially if you have a complicated situation such as owning your own business. The people at a lot of tax-prep places don't have many qualifications (they are not accountants or enrolled agents or certified financial planners or anything else). They are just trained to enter stuff into the computer. In that case, you can measure their value according to how much you prefer talking to typing. But don't expect them to get it right if your taxes involve any judgment calls or tricky stuff. I think a good strategy is to try TurboTax (or whatever program) and if you get stuck on any of the questions, find a pro to help.

when you have a problem, the first person you call is usually incompetent. They can't solve your problem, and you can tell they are trying to get off the phone just so you are not their problem any more.    obviously not everyone can be an omniscient senior engineer, but please ensure you have an effective escalation process.

"The article misses one thing.  The aftermarket automotive parts makers.  Small scale car makers indeed did fall to the big players, but customization has existed nearly as long as cars themselves.  From sponsored performance specialists like Carroll Shelby to the backyard mechanic making lifters for his Jeep, the ""long tail"" is exactly the same as that of the Lego.  Companies like Lego encourage it and digital distribution of specs, standards, and physical merchandise make it much more prevalent, but it's nothing new, and certainly not recent.  Making a quality product and insuring that smaller producers down the line *want* to drive sales of your product is just smart."

Housing plus transportation should be about 40%, according to your given rule of thumb, and that's where yours are, so I think you're okay. Guidelines are not rules, and must be related to one's individual circumstances. That said, double-check that your transportation expenses are really zero.

The most likely answer to your question regarding what the 'market expects' is perhaps that the market expects that currently Linked-In like a lot of other startups has been plunging almost eveything it makes into building the business and brand.  So right now the net profits are pretty low percentage of income (roughly 1.5% of revenue)  Given the size of the other numbers, it doesn't take a lot of movement in the right direction to get a big change in that tiny final number.  The other factor is the gap between their Net and the Income Available..  I think (but I'm making a logical guess here) a large part of that gap was paying off the losses of the prior two years.  If that's the case, and everything else is static, then next year's 'available' number ought to at least triple.  In order to grow the net, all LI needs is to either continue current trends of growth in expenses relative to costs,  keep expenses steady and experience a slight growth in income, or find a way to reduce expenses without having it impact income. Or something in between those three.   If we take the first case as an example, income has been roughly doubling every year, but expenses growing less than that.  if they were to continue that, but manage to get some economy of scale and have expenses grow at a slower rate, then the jump in net income ought to be substantial. most of the trends you could project end up with a big growth in the bottom line.. but yeah I gotta admit, none of that gets you 117X growth in a single year.  So the conclusion I would draw is that the market is trending a few years out and being pretty optimistic given the current PE ratio.  Of course you could also conclude that the market is 'social network happy' and LNKD represents one of the few opportunities for the average investor to get in on that given that facebook and myspace are not trading on the open market


Question: Should the price of fuel in Australia at this point be so high?

First price isn't artificially maintained at a level. When a refining company signs a contract to buy crude from a supplier, it promises to buy at a certain price with options for increase and decrease due to the fluctuating prices in the market. And it buys crude to build up a certain buffer to supply itself for a certain duration, in case of supply problems. As it had bought oil at a higher price, it would be reluctant to lower the prices even if the current crude it buys is at a lower cost. If it buys oil from the open market, it has no other option than to pass on the hike on to the consumers, so a more intense fluctuation in the prices of oil at the point, where you buy it. Some airlines used hedging to take care of the spurts in the price of oil, to mantian their operating margins.  And moreover refining and distribution is a very low margin business, so the company has an incentive to sell at a higher cost if required.

"Mortgage agreements usually have a clause in which the mortgagor warrants that all the statements and information which they have provided to the mortgagee are correct. In your case, this probably included your credit score. Since your ""statement"" concerning your credit score is no longer accurate, they want you to update the agreement with the new information before the final version is prepared. Credit scores change for many random reasons. The agencies re-calibrate formulas constantly. It is unlikely that your mortgage negotiations affected your credit score. The bank will only start reporting the facts of mortgage to a credit agency when you start paying (or not paying) the loan. Credit agencies don't care whether you have a loan or not. They only care whether you have paid your debts, or not paid them."

>I don’t really like when apps show me ads pasted all over their interface, so this option was instantly crossed out.  I did a double-take when the author said the above. It's an article about using empirical evidence to set price and he discards an option based on personal preference.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/style/what-is-cryptocurrency.html?referer=) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Most readers have probably heard of Bitcoin, the digital coin that dominates the cryptocurrency market.  > As traditional paths to upper-middle-class stability are being blocked by debt, exorbitant housing costs and a shaky job market, these investors view cryptocurrency not only as a hedge against another Dow Jones crash, but also as the most rational - and even utopian - means of investing their money.  > Assuming one&#039;s money is protected, there are, of course, the standard risks of investing, amplified by the volatility of cryptocurrency.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6sdv1b/ethereum_in_nytimes/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~186120 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*: **cryptocurrency**^#1 **market**^#2 **money**^#3 **coin**^#4 **invest**^#5"

"It can be a great addition to another degree.  STEM are a good choice.  I paired mine with German, then went back years later for my MBA in Finance.  As for whether it would go with information science, it all depends what you want to do.  Those combine very well for some very specific roles these days.  Though I would think as ""big data"" evolves, econ and IS could pair very well.  My main concern is... Have a desired outcome.  It may never end up just like that, but you want to know what you're getting has a purpose in your endeavors.  Do not get a STEM kicker just to have a STEM kicker."

You've never saved money?  Have you ever bought anything?  There probably was a small window of time that you had to pool some cash to buy something.    In my experience, if you make it more interesting by 'allocating money for specific purposes' you'll have better results than just arbitrarily saving for a rainy day.    Allocate your money for different things (ie- new car, emergency, travel, or starting a new business) by isolating your money into different places.  Ex- your new car allocation could be in a savings account at your bank.   Your emergency allocation can be in cash under your bed.   Your new business allocation could be in an investment vehicle like a stocks where it could potentially see significant gains by the time you are ready to use it.    The traditional concept of savings is gone.  There is very little money to be earned in a savings account and any gains will be most certainly wiped out by inflation anyway.  Allocate your money, allocate more with new income, and then use it to buy real things and fund new adventures when the time is right.

My answer would be yes. In addition, I'm not sure that anything requires you to roll your current 401(k) into a new one if you don't like the investment options.  Keeping existing funds in your current 401(k) if you like their investment options might make sense for you (though they obviously wouldn't be adding funds once you're no longer an employee). As for the terms of the potential new 401(k), the matching percentage and vesting schedule match what I've seen at past employers.  My current employer offers the same terms, but there's no vesting schedule.

I am in the same boat as you right now, I have about a year experience working for a financial advisor but even then it is not relevant enough for being an analyst.  I have put in over 120 apps over the past month and a half to any position that I meet 90% of requirements. The only thing I don't have is years of experience. I know how to code VBA, and how to build financial models but alas, I am looked over.  I have also been trying to network like crazy and just accepted to do a temp job working for a bank as a loan analyst and hopefully that will pan out into something better.  Many jobs want experiences with SAP and SQL, and I don't have either of those either, and there is no where to get experience because no junior analyst positions will take me without enough experience.  I turned down a banking internship because I did not want to take out loans for college, and now I am thinking I made the wrong choice. Hopefully some one will pick us up and catch us up to speed soon!  What area are you living in? I am in the Chicago area and I see new postings every day.  Also are you going to every job board? Career-builder, Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn, Craigslist? I have also hooked up with a few recruiting firms, they are the ones who got me the temp job. If you are in the Chicago area I will recommend a few for you to look into and a couple to stay away from.  Good luck on your search! I know you need it, because I need it too...


Question: Explanation on Warren Buffett's famous quote

In the short term the market is a popularity contest In the short run which in value investing time can extend even to many years, an equity is subject to the vicissitudes of the whims by every scale of panic and elation. This can be seen by examining the daily chart of any large cap equity in the US.  Even such large holdings can be affected by any set of fear and greed in the market and in the subset of traders trading the equity. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience high variance in the short rurn. in the long term [the stock market] is a weighing machine In the long run which in value investing time can extend to even multiple decades, an equity is more or less subject only to the variance of the underlying value. This can be seen by examining the annual chart of even the smallest cap equities over decades.  An equity over such time periods is almost exclusively affected by its changes in value. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience low variance in the long run.

If the 6 credits per semester working part time schedule includes no loans, consider this.  Yes, it may take you twice as long to finish, BUT, you'll have a lot of working experience, AND zero student loans when you're done. Compare this to someone who graduates in four years and has 20k in student loans.  If they set up a 20 year repayment for the loans, they'll still have 16-18k left to pay and 4 years of job experience.   You'll have 8 years of half time job experience and zero debt.  The key would be to find a job in your area of interest.  More ideal would be one that pays for classes as a benefit.  Then you might increase your class load and decrease the total time to graduate, AND have relevant job experience when you graduate.

Your colleague made a simple and incorrect assumption, that as our society's technology improves, we will use that technology to replace labor with capital, keeping output constant.  Clearly this is a contrived example, but it illustrates the point effectively:  Suppose we have a factory that produces some level of output and employs 1000 workers.  Say a technological breakthrough is developed that allows that factory to produce the same level of output using only 500 workers.  Your colleague is assuming those 500 people will lose their jobs.  But who is to say the factory won't just double its output?  In fact, since the 'Industrial Revolution' that is precisely what we've seen.  Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution workers have shunned more productive capital in fear they will be replaced.  Historically, that has not been the case.  Society instead has used the more productive capital to produce more output.

The company had been through many rounds of private financing prior to that.  There was a particular round where Mercedes Benz invested a lot of money which Elon credits with saving the company.  Elon says that the company would probably have survived but just taken longer to get to market, or done so at a slower ramp, without the government money.  Of course, he may be saying that for whatever PR reasons, but he's been pretty open about when the company was on the brink of death before, so I tend to believe it.  Keep in mind, they had already made money on the Roadster prior to the government loan (not a lot, but had they not been spending on Model S R&D it would have produced a profit - but the whole intent to begin with was to fund Model S R&D with the Roadster).  Also, the government loan was a loan, and that loan was paid back.  I don't see people criticizing Nissan, for example, for taking government loans, even though theirs was 10x the size of Tesla's and has not yet been paid back (by the way, I also am not criticizing Nissan for that, I'm just saying neither should be criticized).  Tesla, in fact, got the least money of any company out of that particular loan program.  Including Fisker, who got more money despite having a worse business plan.

If you take less than you think you are worth, you will hate that job with a purple passion in short order. Either make peace with the amount you settle on or move on.

Previously, advertisement volumes were not allowed to be louder than the peak volume (as opposed to the average volume) of the corresponding show. Obviously, the loudest point of a show isn't immediately before the commercial break, so the difference in sounds was very large.   This new regulation should change things for the better. However, I can see TV content producers putting very quiet parts right before breaks to maintain the difference in volume that advertisers rely on to draw attention.

I have done this last year. Just open an account with an online brocker and buy a couple of Apple shares (6 I think, for 190$ each or something like that :) ). If this is just to test how stock exchange works, I think this is a good idea. I am also in Europe (France), and you'r right the charge to buy on NasDaq are quite expensive but still reasonnable. Hope this helps.

It comes down to the practical value of paying dividends. The investor can continually receive a stream of income without selling shares of the stock. If the stock did not pay a dividend and wanted continual income, the investor would have to continually sell shares to gain this stream of income, incurring transaction costs and increased time and effort involved with making these transactions.


Question: Can signing up at optoutprescreen.com improve my credit score?

If I had a business and was able to claim a feature, I would. It's simple marketing. If in fact, opting out helped your score, the site would promote that feature.  Soft pulls for prescreened offers are not counted. No more than my constant peek at my score through Credit Karma. Opt out, if you wish.  The benefit of course is less mail, which saves trees. Less risk of identity theft, someone can take the application and try to forge from there. Less risk of an infected paper cut opening this mail (don't ask.) I am a compulsive mail shredder, so I peek and these and shred. A year ago I received an offer of $30,000 zero interest, max transfer fee $50. I sent the entire sum to my 5% mortgage. Now I refinanced and paying that back. It saved me $1500 over the year. Too much trouble for some, but how long does it take to make $1500? For 40% of this country's families, that's a week's pay. The monthly extra bill didn't bother me. This last paragraph is an anecdote, not so much addressing question. I did that first.

From Schwab With a Roth, withdrawals of contributions are always tax-free because   you've already paid income taxes on that money. So are withdrawals of   earnings of up to $10,000 under the homebuyer exemption, assuming   you've had the Roth for five-plus years. But if you withdraw more than   $10,000 in earnings, that money will be subject to both ordinary   income taxes and the 10 percent penalty.

I am sure the foot soldiers are hardworking honest people the problem is as you go up the ranks, it gets dirtier.  Check into how Greece got into the position it is in today. Also look into CDOs and the sub prime collapse and who profited from it. Check out how incestuous the relationship is between top staff at Goldman and financial regulation bodies.

Basically, no. You have retirement plan options and can either go with a Roth option, which won't change your current tax burden, or go with a traditional plan, which is tax deductible  but won't change your business deductions or self-employment taxes. This article has an explanation of options for setting up SEP or Solo 401k plans. Key quote for all the pre-tax retirement plans: Because pre-tax employer and employee contributions are deducted in   the same way, neither one is more tax-efficient than the other. The article goes on to say that if you were an S Corp or LLC that elected to be taxed as an S Corp, a Solo 401(k) plan would allow the business to make an employer contribution to your 401(k) and even then there's no tax advantage to the employer contribution. Conclusion for S-corps: [Employer contributions] would reduce the amount of income from the S-corporation that   would be passed through to you as the owner, thereby reducing your   income tax. But, because this income is not subject to payroll taxes   in the first place, these contributions will not reduce your payroll   taxes.

What really matters is of course how it compares to future prices. Are we making the assumption that the future prices will be more like the average over the last 100 years (which, by looking at your diagram, we seem to be one standard deviation or so above)?

I would never use a market order.  Some brokerages have an approval process your short-sale goes through before going to market.  This can take some time.  So the market prices may well be quite different later. Some brokerages use a separate account for short sales, so you must get their approval for the account before you can do the trade.   I like the listing of shares available for shorting the Interactive Brokers has but I have experienced orders simply going into dead-air and sitting there on the screen, not being rejected, not going to market, not doing anything --- even though the shares are on the list.

"Has the article changed in the past 9 hours since you posted? The link at the bottom is in the VERY FIRST SENTENCE.  I know stealing goes on, but is there any reason to think that the ""author"" on medium is not the original author at reddit?"

For bonds bought at par (the face value of the bond, like buying a CD for $1000) the payment it makes is the same as yield. You pay $1000 and get say, $40 per year or 4%. If you buy it for more or less than that $1000, say $900, there's some math (not for me, I use a finance calculator) to tell you your return taking the growth to maturity into account, i.e. the extra $100 you get when you get the full $1000 back. Obviously, for bonds, you care about whether the comp[any or municipality will pay you back at all, and then you care about how much you'll make when then do. In that order. For stocks, the picture is abit different as some companies give no dividend but reinvest all profits, think Berkshire Hathaway. On the other hand, many people believe that the dividend is important, and choose to buy stocks that start with a nice yield, a $30 stock with a $1/yr dividend is 3.3% yield. Sounds like not much, but over time you expect the company to grow, increase in value and increase its dividend. 10 years hence you may have a $40 stock and the dividend has risen to $1.33. Now it's 4.4% of the original investment, and you sit on that gain as well.


Question: Obtaining Pound Sterling Cheque in US to pay for family history records from England?

Most US banks don't allow you the ability to draft a foreign currency check from USD. Though, I know Canadian banks are more workable. For instance, TD allows you to do this from CAD to many other currencies for a small fee. I believe even as a US Citizen you can quite easily open a TD Trust account and you'd be good to go. Also, at one time Zions bank was one of the few which lets US customers do this add-hoc. And there is a fee associated. Even as a business, you can't usually do this without jumping thru hoops and proving your business dealings in foreign countries. Most businesses who do this often will opt to using a payment processor service from a 3rd party which cuts checks in foreign currencies at a monthly and per check base. Your other option, which may be more feasible if you're planning on doing this often, would be to open a British bank account. But this can be difficult if not impossible due to the strict money laundering anti-fraud regulations. Many banks simply won't do it. But, you might try a few of the newer British banks like Tesco, Virgin and Metro.

This may be a good or a bad deal, depending on the fair market value (FMV) of the stock at the time of exercise. Let's assume the FMV is $6, which is the break even point. In general this would probably be treated as two transactions. So overall you would be cash neutral, but your regular tax income would be increased by $30,000 and your AMT income by $60,000.

No, as in just coming up start up. I'm sure that's the case but then again there must be some basic software that can make my life easier right? Like accounting softwares, etc that do not depend on the industry the startup is working in. Any?

"Don't ignore it. If this is a non-trivial amount of money you need a lawyer. You've acknowledged that a loan exists and have personally guaranteed it, so a court can and will ultimately order you to pay. In doing so, they can put liens on your assests. Depending on the state, how the property is titled and other factors, that can include your home. If you don't have the money and are pretty much broke, try to negotiate a settlement. If they balk, you'll eventually need to start talking about bankruptcy -- that's the ""nuclear option"" and a motivator to settle. Otherwise, you need to either seriously explore bankruptcy or be prepared to lose your stuff to a judgement and having your dirty laundry aired in court. If you're not broke, but don't have liquid capital, you need to figure out a way to raise the money somehow. Again, you need to consult an attorney."

The GOP is in power and have an opportunity to build policy around taking care of the poor. Which is demanded by scripture in every corner that you look. So I have no trouble calling a Christian republican a hypocrite if they choose to use their power to build and propose legislative action which will do nothing to help the poor and will very likely make them more vulnerable. They have agency and they're using it to selfish ends contrary to the tenants of the faith. No where does the Bible equate taxation with theft or force, in fact paying taxes is expressly condoned and expected. Matthew 22:15-22

I wrote one to check against the N3 to N6 bonds: http://capitalmind.in/2011/03/sbi-bond-yield-calculator/ Things to note:

MICR fields are defined by their distance to the right edge of the check. The routing number is always the same distance from the right edge. Business checks are longer and have more room for auxiliary information on the left if the bank chooses to use it.

It is only wise to invest in what you understand (ala Warren Buffet style). Depending on how much money you have, you might see fit to consult a good independent financial advisor instead of seeking advice from this website. A famous quote goes: “Those who say, do not know. Those who know, do not say”